Danube Canal; not far from Gestapo HQ until the peple of Wien sorted them.

[arith]

I think this is definitely a good snapshot, meaning I have to go again and take time to look, hopefully a little cooler.

But anyway, the Gestapo HQ was opposite, most of them didn't make it to the Haig, this city has suffered enough and remains beautiful I think.

[Shadowman]

There's a Gestapo museum in Budapest that the locals don't advocate tourists visiting either, at least the few locals that I spoke to. It's interesting how travel magazines, websites will advertise certain attractions that some would rather see go away.

Nicely captured image, interesting mix of lighting makes for a nice composition.

[arith]

When I arrive in Wien at around 19:30 I had a ticket for the CAT, but it wasn't running. The Captain said it is 37C but it didn't feel hot until I ventured outside, then it was a wall of heat. I was put on a bus which dumped me in the City centre, I did not know where I was and the bus driver wasn't any help because he didn't appear to speak English. So I had to choose left or right and I went left, overheard a few people speaking American and asked them.

I later learned from the Ringtram I had walked straight past Gestapo HQ, chilling even though it was hot.

It was Tom Cruise that caused all the problems, a film premiere at Rathauseplatz.

[James G]

Hi Steve,
Nice capture. The graffiti on the wall of the canal makes it for me...

Further to John's comment, my wife and I were in Brindisi a few years back, (1 penny flight each way via Ryanair ... remember them?), and in the heat of the day went for a walk in the back streets. Finally exhausted, we looked for a café to get a coffee... everything closed... siesta time... finally found a little place under the railway arches. Walked in really dark and as we got accustomed to the murk I see a life size bust of Mussolini, and around it, bronze fasces, and other memorabilia of Italy's fascist past.

The café was well populated with clients... all of whom were locals, and as I later found out... ardent admirers of Mussolini who hailed from the region. .... and for a while I thought I'd slipped into an alternate universe!

I didn't have the nerve to try a photograph but it was one hell of an image that I never got!

[arith]

I would have been very nervous James.

[DanK]

maybe in early morning or late afternoon light?

Someone who knows more history than I do can correct me if I am wrong, but AFAIK, it was actually not the people of Wien who sorted it, but rather the Soviet army, when they invaded the city. The annexation of Austria by Germany was not entirely a hostile takeover. The Austrian Nazi party was in existence for decades before the Anchsluss, and while many Austrians wanted no part of the Nazis and some resisted, many others were supporters (witness the huge enthusiastic crowds that greeted Hitler, himself an Austrian, at the time of the Anschluss), and a substantial part of the persecution of Jews, Roma, and others that followed the Anschluss was perpetrated by Austrians. The Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance reports that while the directors of the Vienna office of the Gestapo were Germans, 80% of the people who worked there were Austrians. There were war crimes trials in Austria, notably the Mauthausen concentration camp trials at Dachau, and while the few things I have read don't for the most part identify the people who were convicted and executed as Austrian or German, the most high-ranking of them, August Eigruber, who was the Gauleiter of the region, was Austrian.

[IzzieK]

Steve...good history lesson here...so I will not comment on that. I like your shot but it looks bland apart from the tree at the right side. Maybe it is possible for you to fix the White/Black/Grey points of this image so it will stand out better...just a thought...

[arith]

Cheers Dan, I only know what I heard on the Ringtram and I might have even got that wrong, thanks for the correction.

[arith]

Cheers Izzie.