Chapter 7 Return from the U.S. (1931/32) and in Vienna again (1931–1934)

Abstract

§ 1. The first piece of news about Vienna that reached me in September 1931, after arriving in Genoa, was quite charming; I mention it and since many later recollections about Vienna that I shall have to record are quite the opposite of charming, Austrians have always been fond of swallows. There was a superstition, especially among peasants, that a house was safe from fire if they had built a nest under its roof. Every year, the Viennese smiled when the first swallows returned from the South – an event always recorded in the newspaper because it heralded the advent of summer, and when the swallows were leaving, everyone was a bit sad, because another summer was gone. In September 1931, however, something unprecedented happened. A sudden, premature frost caught the poor birds on their flight to the South. By the hundreds they fell exhausted to the ground, unable to continue their journey. But, as the newspapers reported, the Austrians chartered airplanes to take their little friends to Italy.

Citation

Becchio, G. (2009), "Chapter 7 Return from the U.S. (1931/32) and in Vienna again (1931–1934)", Becchio, G. (Ed.) Unexplored Dimensions: Karl Mengeron Economics and Philosophy (1923–1938) (Advances in Austrian Economics, Vol. 12), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 103-111. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1529-2134(2009)0000012015