August 10

Into Augarten

Today, I went to Augarten. Augarten has quite a long history, and is quite beautiful. It is a massive public park, with a really old wine garden that has some of the best alcoholic beverages. It's also just a lovely place to chillax.

The Augarten hosts a variety of facilities such as the Wiener Sängerknaben (the Vienna Boys' Choir) in the Palais Augarten, the Augarten Porzellanmanufaktur (Augarten porcelainfactory), the Augarten Contemporary (part of the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, the Austrian Gallery housed in the Belvedere), the Filmarchiv Austria, a retirement home, a Jewish academic campus (called Lauder Chabad Campus), a paddling pool for children and sports fields.

However, it is not all fun and games, as there's also remanents of a dark era that most Austrians would rather forget. Significant testimonials to the Third Reich are two high anti-aircraft bunkers (flak towers), one of which is here in the background image.

Palais Augarten, which I sadly did not see when I went there. This comes from Wikipedia because I didn't get any myself. It's really beautiful, though.

Ghosts of Nazism

A common myth of Austria's role in the Nazi war machine is the myth that the Austrians were the first victims of Nazism. This is because Austria was the first country the Nazis ever annexed. Most people think of the Anschluss as an invasion, however, that's a probablematic term. The Austrians didn't really put up much of a fight, and many of them actually welcomed the Nazis in with open arms and celebrated the Nazis as they marched in. The only challenges the Nazis faced were logistical ones, such as tanks running out of fuel due to being hastily organized. However, eager Austrians filled these tanks with more fuel as an act of patriotism.

One of the Nazi Flak Towers

Despite being a lovely and massive park/garden, there's 2 ominous structures you'll find if you visit Augarten. These ominous structures are the flak towers of Augarten. These structures were built as anti-aircraft artillery that could be used to defend Vienna from Allied bombings. While the rest of Vienna was turned into what was essentially a post-apocalyptic wasteland from WWII, the flak towers withstood all of those attacks.

Another Nazi Flak Tower

The flak towers were highly fortified and quite durable. There were numerous attempts to destroy these abominations made by the Austrian government after the war, but the costs for doing so were insanely high, and so the government decided to let them be.

Both of these flak towers are close to each other, so close that you don't even need to walk very far (I believe they're a ~15 minute walk away from each other)

I was a bit lazy lol, and so I put days 8-9 together.

On day 8, I went to the Imperial Treasury of the Hofburg and took a lot of photos of the treasures in there. Very cool.

On day 9, I went to Augarten and saw the flak towers. I also did what the History Channel does: ghost hunting. But don’t be scared, they ain’t real……..

As long as you subscribe to me…..

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse