Goosebumps at Heldenplatz

Yesterday, on May 8th, Austria celebrated it’s liberation from the Nazi regime. At the same location where Hitler announced the Anschluss in 1938, the Wiener Symphoniker gave a concert under a bright, starry sky.

Although it is the fourth year that the Fest der Freude (‘Festival of Joy’) is celebrated with the famous Viennese orchestra, for me, it was actually the first time that I heard the Wiener Symphoniker playing live.

I don’t know what gave me more goosebumps, though: Beethoven’s Eroica, the majestic Heldenplatz and Hofburg, or the fact that it was here, that hundreds of thousands Viennese inhabitants welcomed Hitler with open arms more than seventy years ago.