Vienna Past and Present

The Florentine Diamond is one of Europe's most famous missing jewels—or at least, it was. In this episode, we trace the extraordinary journey of a 137-carat diamond from Renaissance Florence and the Medici dynasty to the Habsburgs, the collapse of empire, and a century-long disappearance that turns out not to have been a disappearance at all. Along the way, we meet Empress Zita, who doesn't just have one of the best Habsburg names, but also ran one of the tightest ships in imperial history—successfully keeping a world-class secret for over 100 years. Carmen and Stephen also question the wisdom of transporting priceless crown jewels across the Atlantic in a cardboard suitcase, and are scandalized at the purported price of the diamond. For more, check us out on social media at viennapastandpresent or at viennapastandpresent.com. Reach out to us at [email protected]. We love hearing feedback and ideas. Danke!  

If you saw some nuns escaping a retirement home to return to their former castle, what would you do? If you're at all unsure, you should hear the story of the nuns of Castle Goldenstein, the recent *darlings* of Austrian and international news. With low-speed car chases, hugging police officers, Stephen's stuffy sick voice, and social media stardom -- this episode really has it all. And the youngest nun is 81! Feel lazy yet? Yes... we do, too.  Follow their instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nonnen_goldenstein/ For more, check us out on social media at viennapastandpresent or at viennapastandpresent.com. Reach out to us at [email protected]. We love hearing feedback and ideas. Danke!

In our first Halloween episode, we sink our teeth into the true story of the vampire panic that swept through the Habsburg borderlands during the Age of Enlightenment—because nothing says "reason and progress" like mass fear of the undead. It all begins in 18th-century Serbia, where a shoeless peasant was said to have crawled out of his grave to reclaim his footwear… and maybe a little blood. From there, the hysteria spread across the empire, reaching even the court of Empress Maria Theresia herself. Her response? A vampire decree based on reports by her Dutch physician, Gerard van Swieten—the very man who would later inspire Bram Stoker's legendary vampire hunter, Professor Van Helsing. Join us as we trace how the Enlightenment tried (and mostly succeeded) to drive a stake through superstition—and how bats somehow ended up taking the blame. For more, check us out on social media at viennapastandpresent or at viennapastandpresent.com. Reach out to us at [email protected]. We love hearing feedback and ideas. Danke! LINKS Klenk+Reiter podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/74Ib9NB1WM4KdImJBWaiHD?si=14d7e9ebf36f4258 Arnold Paole - Wikipedia Petar Blagojević - Wikipedia The Theological and Esoteric Debate on the Existence of Vampires (17th–19th centuries). 2. An Epidemic of Vampirism in the Austro-Hungarian Empire  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_van_Swieten https://www.onb.ac.at/mehr/blogs/untot-seit-dem-18-jahrhundert-der-erste-vampirhype https://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=wrz&datum=17250721&seite=11&zoom=33 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1369848612000313 https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250630-serbian-village-stakes-claim-to-the-first-vampire https://www.br.de/radio/bayern2/sendungen/kalenderblatt/maria-theresia-verkuendet-den-vampir-erlass-100.html https://www.thegreatprojects.com/blog/bats-associated-with-vampires

This week, we're freefalling into the story of Felix Baumgartner, Austria's very own daredevil skydiver who leapt from the stratosphere (literally). Along the way, Stephen valiantly attempts some German words with mixed results, Carmen learns a few things she probably should have already known, and together they try—and mostly fail—to understand what drives someone to jump out of perfectly good aircraft for fun. Is it bravery, madness, or just another day in the life of a man who redefined "living on the edge"? Join us as we parachute straight into the world of Felix Baumgartner. For more, check us out on social media at viennapastandpresent or at viennapastandpresent.com. Reach out to us at [email protected]. We love hearing feedback and ideas. Danke!   LINKS Felix Baumgartner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000280012/felix-baumgartner-obduktion-soll-todesursache-klaeren https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000279972/felix-baumgartner-ein-teufelskerl-mit-eigenem-kopf https://www.redbull.com/int-en/felix-baumgartner-in-numbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASE_jumping https://felixbaumgartner.com/base-jumper/ https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2012/oct/16/felix-baumgartner-from-the-vault https://www.redbull.com/int-en/red-bull-stratos-contribution-to-science https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records/hall-of-fame/felix-baumgartner-first-person-to-break-sound-barrier-in-freefall  

In this episode, we uncover the strange and fascinating life of Wilhelm Reich, a once-promising Vienna-trained psychoanalyst whose career took a sharp turn into uncharted territory. From a scandalous youth and mentorship under Freud to his unorthodox theories on "orgastic potency," Reich's ideas often teetered between groundbreaking and eyebrow-raising. We follow him across the Atlantic, where he invented the Orgone Accumulator (a.k.a. the cosmic orgasm box), clashed with the FDA, tried to win over Einstein, and even claimed to battle UFOs in the Arizona desert. Visionary, eccentric, or both? Either way, his story is a wild ride through sex, pseudoscience, and space energy. For more, check us out on social media at viennapastandpresent or at viennapastandpresent.com. Reach out to us at [email protected]. We love hearing feedback and ideas. Danke! LINKS https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/04/archives/back-into-the-old-orgone-box.html https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_10,_2016/Mailer%E2%80%99s_Use_of_Wilhelm_Reich https://www.meduniwien.ac.at/web/en/about-us/history/ https://www.wilhelmreich.at/wp-content/uploads/Hebenstreit_Diplomarbeitsauszug-2.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich https://www.scribd.com/document/409496302/brady-the-strange-case-of-wilhelm-reich-pdf https://oe1.orf.at/artikel/328444/Film-Der-Fall-Wilhelm-Reich https://www.lennygibson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Reich-review.pdf Movie about Reich (Apple+): https://tv.apple.com/at/movie/the-strange-case-of-wilhelm-reich/umc.cmc.4d5kpivmlampf1bsyguxnu6my?l=en NYTimes article : https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1957/12/07/87342935.html?pageNumber=20