The Disneyland of Europe

Thousands of solemn Austrians lined the streets of Vienna to pay their last respects to former Chancellor and Foreign Minister Leopold Figl. It was partly because Austrians love nothing better than a schoene Leich' (beautiful funeral), and this was the most elaborate since the Emperor Franz Josefs in 1916. But it was also because last week marked the tenth anniversary of the Austrian State Treaty, under which the Red Army left the country, and Figl was best remembered as the Foreign Minister who stood on the balcony of Belvedere Palace ten years ago, waving the morocco-bound treaty, and told his countrymen, "Austria is free."

Sprat & Schilling. For the Soviets, who insisted on Austria's military neutrality in the treaty, it was a gamble, or, as one observer put it, "the Danubian sprat to catch a fatter German mackerel." But Germany has not reunited on the Austrian model, and Austria has become a thriving monument to capitalism. More than 80% of its soaring foreign trade is with the West, and the schilling is one of the free world's soundest currencies, backed 125% by gold and foreign-exchange reserves.

Prosperity and its ties with the West have changed some of Alt Wien's customs. There are only half as many coffeehouses now (660) as there were in prewar Vienna. Many of the most famous along the Ringstrasse have been replaced by auto showrooms, from which a steady stream of new Volkswagens and Mercedes has helped boost passenger-car registrations 75% in the past five years. TV sets in use have tripled since 1960, and while bandy legged Willy Elmayer, the 80-year-old ex-cavalry officer who runs Vienna's most famous dancing school, still teaches the Viennese waltz to 2,000 gawky, white-gloved teen-agers a week ("the harmony of the waltz brings harmony into our lives"), his curriculum also includes the twist, slop, frug and Watusi.

Socialists & Schlag. Vienna's working classes used to be among the Continent's most militant (both Trotsky and Stalin studied there), but with full employment and extensive welfare benefits. Dr. Gunther Nenning, editor of Austria's intellectual weekly Forum, reports that today the proletariat "is taking on characteristics of the bourgeoisie." It is common to hear such refined expressions as "kuess' die Hand," (I kiss your hand), or "hab' die Ehre" (I have the honor) for salutations in butcher shops. The Communist vote has dropped to virtually nothing, while the Socialist Party, which claims 76 seats in the National Assembly, has helped govern the country for 20 years in a remarkably stable coalition with the 81-seat conservative People's Party.

Yet all is not just Schlag in Vienna. The coalition was more or less forced into being to provide an alternative to the Allied occupation, and both parties chafe at it. It survives thanks to an irksome but inevitable invention called Proporz (balance of powers), under which the People's Party gets the chancellorship, but the Socialists the presidency, and every "sensitive" ministry has not only a minister, but also a state secretary from the other party to keep an eye on him.

Moreover, since the state owns or controls all utilities, the two largest banks and two-thirds of all joint-stock companies. Proporz extends into corporate affairs and justifies featherbedding right on down to washroom attendants. A standard joke has it that "there are three people for every job in Austria, one conservative, one Socialist, and one to do the work."

Who Likes Sacherforte? Many Austrians are also all too bitterly aware of the decline in their country's grandeur. The only time that the coalition has been seriously divided was in a dispute over a memory: two years ago, the Socialists voted to keep Otto Habsburg, Franz Josef's heir, out of the country, though he has renounced his claim to the throne.

Vienna's population has slipped from 2,000,000 in 1910 to 1,600,000 today. Where once it was the center of a rich culture that produced, among dozens of other brilliant men. Dr. Sigmund Freud, Philosopher Martin Buber and Composer Arnold Schoenberg, today, mourns Werner Hoffman, director of Vienna's only gallery of modern art, "Austria simply is not avantgarde. People are brought up cherishing concepts of the 19th century, and the stimulating effect of the Jewish element is missing." Attracted by better pay and opportunity, thousands of young Austrian intellectuals have deserted the Danube for West Germany and Switzerland. Sniffs the brilliant young actor-satirist Helmut Qualtinger, who stayed behind: "Austria is the Disneyland of Europe. Nothing but Lippizaners, Strauss, Schlag, schmalz and zithers. And who really likes Sachertorte?"

One answer is, of course, lots of tourists: Austria drew 6,000,000 last year, almost outnumbering the 7,000,000 inhabitants and bringing in $523 million in foreign exchange. The visitors come for the Vienna Staatsoper and the Salzburg Festival, and to ski at resorts like Obergurg, Kitzbuehel, and St. Anton, but above all for the easy informality of Austrian life and the mellow sentimentality of the neighborhood Heurigen (wine festivals). After all, says one Viennese student, "We like eating, drinking, dancing and loving. If that's not the good life, it'll do until something better comes along."

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