The Social Climber’s Guide to Vienna

An account of the violence and corruption practiced by friends of Austria’s left-wing political elite has recently taken its place near the top of the Austrian best-seller list. Packing 672 pages of political dynamite, The Lucona Case, by Austrian journalist Hans Pretterebner, has already sold 75,000 copies. (Austria’s population is less than eight million. A proportionately successful American release would have to sell more than two million copies!)

Even before the book came out, every Austrian knew its villain, the Socialist socialite Udo Proksch. His intrigues and adventures, along with multiple marriages, divorces, and affairs involving some top-drawer ladies, have long been common gossip. Son of an ardent SS man who served a two-year prison sentence after the war, Proksch is a twentieth-century combination of Cagliostro and Casanova rolled into one. Anything but handsome, neither a dazzling bon vivant nor even an elegant dresser, this short, muscular fellow has nevertheless maintained intimate friendships with members of both sexes. Perhaps because he did not have a winning personality, good looks, or a “background,” he came to lust after power, money, and influence. After dropping out of school, he tramped all over Europe, involved himself in some shady businesses, served as an advisor to various Soviet intelligence services, and finally ended up the owner of Vienna’s most renowned and historic café and pastry shop, Demel.

EK

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Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

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An account of the violence and corruption practiced by friends of Austria’s left-wing political elite has recently taken its place near the top of the Austrian best-seller list. Packing 672 pages of political dynamite, The Lucona Case, by Austrian journalist Hans Pretterebner, has already sold 75,000 copies. (Austria’s population is less than eight million. A proportionately successful American release would have to sell more than two million copies!)

Even before the book came out, every Austrian knew its villain, the Socialist socialite Udo Proksch. His intrigues and adventures, along with multiple marriages, divorces, and affairs involving some top-drawer ladies, have long been common gossip. Son of an ardent SS man who served a two-year prison sentence after the war, Proksch is a twentieth-century combination of Cagliostro and Casanova rolled into one. Anything but handsome, neither a dazzling bon vivant nor even an elegant dresser, this short, muscular fellow has nevertheless maintained intimate friendships with members of both sexes. Perhaps because he did not have a winning personality, good looks, or a “background,” he came to lust after power, money, and influence. After dropping out of school, he tramped all over Europe, involved himself in some shady businesses, served as an advisor to various Soviet intelligence services, and finally ended up the owner of Vienna’s most renowned and historic café and pastry shop, Demel.