Programming note: Tomorrow, Sunday, I'll be here with Part Twenty-Two of the twentieth-anniversary audio serialisation of my highly prescient demographic bestseller, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It.
~Welcome to Part Nine of a satire by Hugo Bettauer that cost him his life - The City without Jews, first published in 1922. In tonight's episode, in an increasingly miserable Vienna some people are pining for the old days:
Odd, mysterious things were happening. One morning hundreds of men and women stood before advertising kiosks at the Schottentor, before the Opera, in the Stubenring, and in other localities, where someone had attached, by means of a tack, small octavo leaflets bearing the following legend:
"Citizens of Vienna and Austria! Arise before you are destroyed altogether! With the Jews you drove out prosperity, hope and the possibility of future development! Accursed be the demagogues who misled you!
The League of True Christians."
People read the impudent words aloud; many were indignant, and declared it was the work of Freemasons; others went away silently, and still others had the courage to voice their approval and to look defiantly at those who differed.
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can listen to Part Nine of our adventure simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
By the way, if you like the music from Tales for Our Time, you can enjoy a wide selection of it - by Brahms, Glinka, Mahler, Mussorgsky and more - here.
If you've yet to hear any of our Tales for Our Time, you can do so by joining The Mark Steyn Club, now in its ninth year. Membership is available now - and, if you sign up, you'll be all set for Part Ten of The City without Jews this time tomorrow (and all the earlier episodes, of course). And, if you've a friend who likes classic fiction, don't forget our special Gift Membership. Oh, and aside from audio fiction, we also do video poetry.
