Final curtain and encore
'After the war I will be needed in Austria' (35)
Many of the Communist activists had been preparing to help rebuild a democratic Austria and were keen to go back home. The final performance of the last Laterndl play took place in August 1945. In the same month the Laterndl collective wrote a letter to the new Minister of Education Ernst Fischer, who had himself only just returned from Moscow, to express their hope for a speedy return and working together in Vienna.
'There was an enormous family of cousins and aunts, but noboby, nobody was there' (36)
The letter to Ernst Fischer was signed by Fritz Schrecker, Marianne Walla, Paul Knepler, Arnold Marle, Jaro Klüger and others. In actual fact, none of the signatories returned to Austria. Political refugees realised the old guard was still in charge and for Jewish refugees there was nothing to go back to and any surviving family members were scattered across the globe. Many who had come on temporary visas now started applying applying for UK citizenship, others went on to the USA, Israel, Australia, or East Germany. In September 1945 the Laterndl put on one last evening of entertainment, probably due to popular demand. In January 1947 the Austrian Centre was closed down.
'Did you think of yourself as British? No and yes, or yes and no' (37)
Most refugees continued to build their life in the UK. Of the actors and writers who had worked for the Laterndl many had found work at the BBC during the war. The BBC Austrian department continued to broadcast until 1956, the German department until 1999. The department was a professional enclave for German-speaking refugees including Hannah Norbert-Miller. Hannah had always felt welcome in the UK but, like many refugees, she did not think of herself as British. A few actors were able to establish themselves on the English stage or in films and later on TV, notably Martin Miller and Lilli Kann.
'Do you remember the nook above, when you come out of the gorge and see the Danube flowing below?' (38)
In 1973 a few of the former actors including Fritz Schrecker and Hannah Norbert Miller put on a commemorative show at Kensington Library. It was an evening well remembered by those who attended. One of the pieces they selected, first performed in 1939, imagined a future after the Nazis. At the time Memories was criticised as ‘kitsch of the worst kind’(39) but it actually came closest to depicting the lives of refugees after the war: friendships built on common experiences and memories of a lost home and grandchildren who were thoroughly assimilated English citizens.
'At the Laterndl we laughed together and we cried together' (40)
In the 1970s interest in exile and exile arts began to grow in Austria and Germany. Franz Hartl, one of the founding members of the theatre, spoke movingly at a symposium in Vienna in 1975, reminiscing about his time with the Laterndl, concluding: ‘On the whole, the little Laterndl was a great stage that bravely faced its time. Sometimes it lived beyond its artistic means, many things were probably a little too much, some even more so. A few things may have gone wrong - but it remained unforgettable!’ (41)