Typewriter used to translate the Marshall Plan, 1948

This typewriter, a Continental model made by the firm Wanderer-Werke AG, was used by Herta Pöcksteiner in July 1948 to translate the European Recovery Program (ERP), also known as the Marshall Plan. Under the ERP agreement, Austria, along with 16 other European countries, received reconstruction aid from the USA after the Second World War. The document was signed on 2 July 1948 by the Austrian vice chancellor Adolf Schärf, the Austrian foreign minister Karl Gruber and the US ambassador John George Erhardt.

Herta Pöcksteiner, who was born in 1920, was a translator at the Federal Chancellery and also worked as an interpreter. She put in a lot of overtime to translate the 23-page agreement. In 1950 she received a personal letter of thanks from the Federal Chancellery in recognition of her efforts.

Date: 1948

Accession: Donation, 2024

Location: Vienna