The following musicians and composers spent at least a major portion of their professional lives in Vienna.

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) - Born in Salzburg, Austria, first performed in Vienna at age 6
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) - Born in Bonn, but moved to Vienna in his early 20's where he first worked under the direction of Haydn.  Spent the remainder of his career in Vienna.
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) - Professor at the University of Vienna.  One of his students was Gustav Mahler.
Johann Strauss II (1825-1899) - Known as "The Waltz King," composed "The Blue Danube"
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) - Born in Bohemia, admitted to the Vienna Conservatory at age 15
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) - A protégé of Mahler. Developed the twelve-tone technique
Bruno Walter (1876-1962) - Assistant to Mahler at the Court Opera in Vienna
Schoenberg and Walter were Jewish and left Europe as the Nazis rose to power.

Notes on Illustrations:
Two of Gustav Klimt's most popular paintings:
Der Kuss (The Kiss, 1907-08)
Liebe (Love 1895)
Three paintings by Wilhelm Gause:
Court Ball at the Hofburg (1900, with Franz Josef at center)
The Annual Dance of Vienna (about 1900)
At the Vienna International Art Exhibition of 1882 (1882)
A sketch of St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna
The Hofburg Palace, Vienna
The Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna

One of the University of Vienna's best-known graduates was Sigmund Freud.  Freud would have been practicing psychiatry and teaching at the University of Vienna during the time during which The Last Waltz is set.

Other illustrious alumni include geneticist Gregor Mendel and Bruno Bettelheim, who was a world-recognized expert on autism.  While Amalia lived in Vienna, researchers at the University of Vienna were winning numerous Nobel prizes in medicine, physics and chemistry.  During the 1920's, the University of Vienna was the birthplace of the Austrian School of Economics that included include scholars such as Joseph Schumpeter, Henry Hazlitt, Murray Rothbard, and Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek.

Notes on Illustrations:
Photograph of University of Vienna medical classroom used as field hospital during World War I (1914)
Painting - Theodor Billroth in the Lecture Theatre - University of Vienna Medical School (1867)
Photograph of Sigmund Freud as he would have looked at the time of The Last Waltz

copyright 2009 G.G. Vandagriff No copyright claimed to original art or photos.

The House of Hapsburg ruled over the Austrian, then the Austro-Hungarian Empire for over six centuries.  The Hapsburgs supplied all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1452 and 1740, as well as rulers of Spain.  At various times, Hapsburgs were the kings of Bohemia, Castile, Aragon, Portugal and Hungary.

The Austrian Hapsburgs were traditionally headquartered in Vienna.  The Hapsburgs fought a 300-year war against the Ottoman Turks from the 15th to the 18th centuries.  In two pivotal battles, The Siege of Vienna in 1529, and The Battle of Vienna in 1683, the Hapsburgs defeated the Turks and successfully protected Catholic Western Europe against large armies of Muslim invaders.

The modern Austrian Empire was begun by a Hapsburg, Francis II, born in 1768 and the last Holy Roman Emperor, ruling from 1792 until 1806.  Shortly before that ancient empire was formally dissolved, he founded the Austrian Empire from remnants of the Holy Roman Empire and became Francis I of Austria, ruling from 1804 to 1835.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was created from the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in 1867 and continued until the end of World War I in 1918.  This was the largest empire in Europe during this time, comprised of many different nationalities, and was a great international power.  The official languages of the Austro-Hungarian Empire paint a picture of the many different peoples that lived under its rule: Croatian, Czech, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Rusyn (sometimes regarded as a dialect of Ukranian), Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Ukrainian.

The Emperor Franz Josef, born in Vienna in 1830, was the single most dominating figure in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  He became Emperor of Austria in 1848 and King of Hungary in 1867.  His 68-year rule is one of the longest of any major European monarch and his empire was destroyed two years after his death in 1916.

The event that sparked World War I was the assassination of Franz Josef's successor, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in June, 1914.

Austria-Hungary allied itself with Germany in World War I and fought major campaigns against Russian, Italian and Balkan troops.  Casualty figures for World War I are not well documented, but Austria-Hungary is estimated to have lost between 5.5 million and 7 million soldiers (killed, wounded, missing in action).  The percentage of Austro-Hungarian casualties compared to the total number of soldiers mobilized is estimated at between 65%-90%, higher than any other major combatant.  By way of more modern comparison, Nazi Germany's casualty rate during World War II is estimated at 53%.

The Treaty of Versailles between the Western allies and Germany severely punished the Germans, but Germany at least maintained much of its pre-war territory.  The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Austria) and Treaty of Trianon (Hungary) completely dissolved the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Under these treaties, the Empire lost land to the either newly-created or greatly-expanded countries of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and Italy.  The Kingdom of Hungary lost 72% of its territory and 64% of its inhabitants. 

The victorious Western allies were supposed to occupy the former Empire, but did not, so civil unrest was wide-spread.  What was once a unified imperial economic and transportation system broke into a thousand warring factions.  While the new nations were independent, they were still reliant on Vienna's financial and commercial institutions for their economic health.

Post-war Vienna and Austria were impoverished.  The vast reduction of population, territory and resources of the new Austria relative to the old empire wreaked havoc on the economy of the new nation, most notably in Vienna, an imperial capital without an empire to support it.

The Federal State of Austria (also known as the First Republic) was created under the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and in 1920, a constitution was adopted.  Initially, the democratic government was dominated by the centrist Christian Social Party, which was closely allied with the Roman Catholic Church, but both left-wing and right-wing factions were battling each other for power.  In July, 1927, a massive protest took place when right-wing militia members were acquitted of charges of killing a man and child.  The July Revolt was forcibly put down by the police who killed 84 protesters and injured 600 more.

In 1932, Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss of the Christian Social Party was elected.  In the face of increasing civil unrest, Dollfuss moved his party and the nation towards dictatorship, centralization and fascism. In 1933, Dollfuss directed his cabinet to vote to dissolve the National Council and declared that parliament had ceased to function.  The Austrian Nazi party grew in power and violence between the Nazis, the socialists and followers of Dollfuss increased.

In 1934, Dollfuss created a one-party state, took complete control and began to suppress the Nazis who were agitating for unification with Germany.  The Nazis responded by assassinating Dollfuss on July, 1934.

After four years of increasing uncertainty and unrest, during which Benito Mussolini, the dictator of fascist Italy, and Adolph Hitler, leader of Nazi Germany, were each vying for control of Austria, Mussolini conceded.  The German Army marched into Austria on March 12, 1938, virtually unopposed by any Austrians, the First Republic was dissolved and Hitler declared an Anschluss (unification) between Germany and Austria. 

Hitler entered Vienna in a grand procession and several hundred thousand Austrians gathered to hear him speak from a balcony of the Hofburg palace, the traditional home of the Hapsburg monarchs.  The next month the Nazis held a plebiscite, asking the Austrian people to ratify the Anschluss.  The proposal was approved by 99.73% of those who voted.