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It's not that easy with Vienna's much-celebrated blue Danube. When Johann Strauß Sohn first performed his opus 314 On the Beautiful Blue Danube in the spring of 1867, the Danube was wild and unregulated. The river curved in swampy lowlands far outside the then k. k. Imperial capital and residential city. The recurring floods were feared and unpredictable. In a word: regulation was needed. In 1875 the time had come. The water danger was averted with the so-called Danube breakthrough, an artificially created river bed, and the flood area (inundation area) on the left bank, including the Hubertus Dam. The new, dead-straight riverbed became the Danube. From then on, the crooked course of the former river bed was called the Old Danube. A stagnant body of water, a newly created part of Vienna with development potential, to use a modern word.
If one were to adapt Strauss's "Danube Waltz" to today's circumstances, his opus would have to be called "On the Beautiful Old Danube". Admittedly, this name also has a certain charm. Matthias Marschik and Gabriele Dorffner provide evidence of the rapidly emerging Transdanubian diversity on the left bank of the Danube in their small-format illustrated book The Sea of Vienna - On the Beautiful Old Danube. Anyone who falls for the charms and stories of stagnant Danube waters will find Robert Eichert's Lobau book a collection of images and illustrious stories of a largely natural landscape.
Lake Neusiedl is often referred to as the Sea of the Viennese. Here Matthias Marschik and Gabriele Dorffner ennoble the Old Donau in Vienna with the coveted title. Thanks to the U1, it can be reached from Stephansplatz in just nine minutes (Alte Donau station). The small-format "picture album", as it is subtitled, begins with a historical outline of the six-kilometer-long section of the river that was created 150 years ago by the regulation of the Danube and offered space for numerous leisure facilities, especially swimming pools. This is where the “Little Man’s Lido” was created, a “land of dreams and longing,” as the magazine Die Bühne wrote in 1929. This new world that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, for which the name "New Brazil" could hardly be more appropriate as a settlement name, is the focus of the series of images.
For historical reasons, beautiful black and white photos dominate, mixed with selected color images. Naturally, landscape images are also shown here that are no longer seen in this form today, such as the Black Lacke in Jedlesee (page 11), which was filled in after 1945, including with the rubble of the bombed-out Heinrichshof (opposite the opera). The dance continues with the Upper Old Danube, the water park opened in 1928, which was initially designed as a garden landscape but increasingly took on the character of a floodplain, and then the Lower Old Danube.
Bridges, pools, bars, sports, but also unbuilt plans of urban visions lead to the book's finale ("Moods and Impressions") with kitschy, beautiful postcard motifs. Whether swimming, rowing, sailing, ice skating, mini golf or simply sitting and gossiping, the happy faces in the photos, many of which come from private collections, show that people feel comfortable here. Anyone who thinks that only the working class frequents this place is wrong; the "Red Archduchess", Elisabeth Marie Windisch-Graetz, daughter of Crown Prince Rudolf, was also here (page 61). The occasion was the ASKÖ sports festival in the workers' lido, where people competed in swimming and paddling.
To stay with celebrities, a look at “Die Lobau”, which is similar to the “Sea of Vienna” with the same layout and features. The most prominent of all celebrities, Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen, can be seen in a photo from 2003 as a demonstrator against the Lobau motorway (page 102), at that time he was federal spokesman for the Greens. 80 years earlier, His Majesty, Emperor Franz Joseph, was photographed with King Edward VII of England as they both inspected the route of the deer shot here.
Of course, the Lobau is less a stage for celebrities, but rather a meeting place, retreat and refuge for those who often oppose the mainstream and seek their own way of life here.
Robert Eichert, an intimate expert on the Lobau, has put together a series of pictures of the Lobau, which has been part of the Donauauen National Park since 1996, dedicated to these people. Pars pro toto is the legendary Ludwig “Wickerl” Weinberger (1914 to 1996), better known as WALULISO, a pioneer of nudist culture. Of course, WALULISO was not the first, as can be seen in the chapter "'Naked Lobau Indians' along with 'forest and meadow eroticism'" starting on page 68; the beginnings lie in the 1930s.
Whether Lobaufischer, Panozzalacke, legendary inns like the Rote Hiasl or Napoleon, who also crossed the Lobau during the Battle of Aspern in 1809, no aspect remains untouched here. Some things may seem familiar, but thanks to the expertise of local historian Eichert, the book about the largely wild floodplain landscape of the left bank of the Danube is rich in lesser-known images and topics.
If you want to get to know the regulated Danube away from the Old Danube and the Lobau, follow the Vienna author Beppo Beyerl from Kahlenbergerdorf to Alberner Hafen. He personally hikes the shores of all variations of the Danube in Vienna. In the introduction we find “The Danube in Vienna”. This is a sample from the time before regulation: "The city had more ambition to move away from the Danube than to approach it." In four hikes he describes the Danube Canal and the Danube in the first person, visits the Danube Island and explores the Old Danube. The epilogue leads to the Cemetery of the Nameless near Silly Harbor. "Where the Danube leaves the city is the place where I find those who left their lives with the help of the Danube: the Cemetery of the Nameless." At the sausage stand there he buys the now well-deserved liver loaf roll: "But there are names for them: 'Normal or from a horse?' – 'From the horse!' – 'You're going to neigh!'" These words conclude the easy-to-read book. Now it's just a matter of following Beyerl's path, i.e. pursuing him.
Conclusion: The small-format time travel guides impress with their variety of images, where well-known places appear in a new light through numerous, previously unpublished photos. The informative captions prove to be a real treasure trove of knowledge and a double enrichment. Beppo Beyerl's Danube hiking options are a refreshing approach to all of Vienna's Danube. (Thomas Hofmann, November 1, 2024).