POSTWAR REBUILDING

In the summer of 1944, the President of the Reichskulturkammer issued an order to the effect that as part of the total national commitment to the war effort all theatres were to close: when the new season should have opened at the beginning of September, they all remained dark. By the time of the reopening eight months later, a great deal of damage had been inflicted in the final stages of the war.

The Opera House was bombed on 12 March 1945: the front of the building with the great stairway was not hit, but the auditorium, stage, and workshops were destroyed. The Burgtheater too suffered bomb damage, but was still usable until, unconnected with military action, fire broke out in the stage area on 12 April 1945, and the stage and auditorium were burnt out. The Deutsches Volkstheater was also damaged, but in this case the stage and auditorium escaped (what suffered most was the facade, the foyer, and the cupola), and it could reopen in June.

No sooner had Vienna fallen to the advancing Russian army and a new provisional government been set up at the end of April than the reshaping of theatrical life began. As after the First World War, there were many practical problems to be overcome: public transport services and street lighting were only partly working, and there was a night-time curfew, so that performances had to begin in the late afternoon.