Austria 1946, St Stephens Cathedral Restoration Fund

Austria’s second republic was formed in 1945 but the country remained under allied control for ten years after that. There were disputes between them as to whether Austria had been an ally of Nazi Germany or its first conquest. And it was not until the Kruschev Thaw of the 1950s that its future status as a neutral country was finally confirmed.

Meanwhile, Vienna was in ruins; 87,000 homes had been destroyed, tens of thousands were homeless, the streets were full of rubble, food was scarce and the Soviets carried out looting on an industrial scale, literally so, much functioning machinery was dismantled and sent East.

The process of reconstruction (Wiederaufbau) began immediately after the war but it