ABSTRACT
The Austrian composer, Ernst Krenek (1900-1991), in his recently published memoirs tells the story of a successful conspiracy in 1934 to prevent his work, "Karl V," from being performed at the famous Viennese opera house. Most of the original pictures are in possession of Russia's Central War Archives in Moscow and were selected for reproduction by a team of Austrian scholars associated with Salzburg's Wilfried Haslauer Library, of which Kriechbaumer is the director. In an introductory essay of sixty-odd pages, Kriechbaumer takes some pains to define the essence of Austria's regime in the years between 1933 and 1938. How it entered the historical stage is well known. The concluding paragraph of Professor Kriechbaumer's introduction contains what this reviewer considers the most controversial statement of the whole book. The author maintains that the second Austrian Republic's peaceful social-political climate warrants speaking of a resurrection of the Fatherland Front idea "under modified circumstances," with a patriotic and conciliatory workers' movement supporting it.
