Gross Gott All You Wien Bloggers:
Enough of this boring global warming and Paris Hilton and the Opera Ball, let's get to the good stuff.
Can anyone on our blog tell me the location of Col. Redl's Hotel on the Herrengasse where he committed suicide after he was discovered?
Also, who known the locaiton of the Meisl & Stubl Restaurant on the Neur Markt where the PM was shot during the Great War?
I would like to visit both places when I am in Wien in May.
Whoever can tell me first, gets a Sacher torte at the Cafe!
Put your thinking caps on and that means you, Duncan, our Wien expert.
Svon
ps dont make me have to get the answers at the Tourist Office!!!
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5 comments:
Dear Susan
I am impressed by your desire to track down some of Vienna's less well known historical locations. Your latest two enquiries took a little bit of research but I think I can help you:
1) Regarding poor old Colonel Alfred Redl, who committed suicide on 25th May 1913 after being revealed as a Russian secret agent (blackmailed into it because of his homosexuality), I can advise you that this scene of his self-inflicted "honourable way out" was the former Hotel Klomser in the Palais Battyany at Bankgasse 2.
2) Meissl und Schadn, the legendary hotel restaurant in which the Kaiser's courtiers imitated their monarch's eating habits by dining daily on Tafelspitz, was indeed on Neuer Markt but was completely destroyed in the air raids of the Second World War. I cannot find an actual street number but presume it stood where there is now a 1950s block decorated with murals. The Prime Minister Count Karl von Stürgkh was shot dead here, while enjoying an after dinner cigar, by Viktor Adler, the son of the leader of the Social Democrats. He was incensed at the slaughter of the First World War and the prime minister's refusal to reconvene parliament. Sentenced to life imprisonment he was later released in an at of clemency by Emperor Karl I (the last Kaiser) and outlived Meissl und Schadn itself!
Gross Gott Duncan,
Well someone is up late in Wien on his computer!
I'll tell you what though, you do know you Wien "stuff". Thanks for the update, I promise you and Rosi a great big Sacher torte at the Sacher cafe, where you can meet my friend Sally Forster, lovely English lady who also knows lots of history about Wien. Richard has met her a couple of times also.
In any case, you are the best, Duncan, now if you can just figure out about those "heads" over the doorway at the Heldenplatz.
Svon
ps. I am well aware of who the last Austrian Kasier was, since I knew his grandson, also Karl, when Karl was working here in DC.
If Karl is in Wien when I am there in May, I will introduce you to him. He is really a great person, very friendly with a great sense of humor and wonderful stories to tell.
Have a wonderful day in wonderful Wien!
svk
Ok Duncan,
Where did Victor Adler live in Wien, i.e, his address and what other famous Viennese person also had the same address?
Second Sacher torte if you guess this correctly!
This is better than US Jeopardy!
svon
Dear Susan
Perhaps we will check out the former Hotel Klomser together?
Regarding Viktor Adler I had to cheat and look it up: the apartment of our old friend Freud!
What sort of a fellow is Karl Habsburg? Does he live in Vienna? It would be most interesting to meet him one day.
This blogging is both fun and stimulating but might our themes be a little too eclectic for most?
Duncan
Hey Duncan,
well for someone who says he is not high-tech, you are sure on your 'mputer a lot, Mr. Gates would love it!!
In any case, yes, I would love to go to the Former Hotel Klomser to see where Col. Redl was. Did you ever see the movie with Klaus Maria Brandier, who lives in Wien, by the way.
Karl von Habsburg is just like a regular guy - if you did not know his background, you would think that he was an all around successful American attorney. He is a lawyer, studied at the University of Michigan, flys an airplane, speaks better English than any American and is just a great person. Wish he would come over here and run for President, he would give the US some class.
He has a schloss in Anif, near Salzburg; one of his sisters lives in Naples, Florida and his father and mother live in Pocking, close to Munich, in Germany. At one time,they were both delegates to the EP in Strasborug, one for Germany,one for Austria. Also, did you know that during the Second World War, Archduke Otto and his mother, Empress Zita, and the other children, lived close to DC in Bethesda, MD.
My it boggles the mind.
I dont think that our blog site is too esoteric, after all, it is for Wien lovers.
Hope to read you and everyone else soon.
I sent you and Rosi and invitation to a Ulysses Gallery opeing on Saturday, March 11th. Lots of champagne and nibbles!
svon
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