1934: The ‘Austria in London’ Exhibition

In the spring of 1934, the Austrian minister in London, (Baron) Georg Franckenstein, organised a largescale exhibition of Austrian culture to improve the Austrian state’s image abroad and to persuade prominent members of British society to stand in defence of Austria’s heritage of producing artists, musicians, writers, craftsmen and inventors perceived as threatened by Nazi and Socialist forces.

The “Austria in London” exhibition was situated in a grand townhouse in Regent Street, where the British public were welcomed by Austrians clad in Lederhosen and Dirndl.  Once inside, visitors were treated to an immersive experience of Austria’s cultural offerings, with seemingly endless rooms on single themes including paintings, musical manuscripts, porcelain, arts and crafts, photographs of the Austrian countryside and city centres, an ensemble playing Haydn, Mozart and Schubert, a puppet theatre by the renowned Richard Teschner, as well as famous dishes and pastries.  There was even a Biergarten with live folk music and dancing, which attracted visits from the Royal Family.  The remarkable series of cultural items was one of the first attempts to canonise what was to be considered “Austrian culture” and to establish a notion of Austria as “cultured”, constituting Austrian “soft power” which predated any formal programme of Anglo-Austrian cultural diplomacy. 

The exhibition was a tremendous success and was part of Franckenstein’s innovative strategy to use cultural diplomacy to reinforce among the British elite that notion that ‘Austria’ was synonymous with ‘culture’, and therefore worth saving from the Nazi clutches.