The volume is based on papers given at the London Symposium ¿Vienna Meets Berlin: Culture in the Metropolis Between the Wars¿ which took place at the Institute of Germanic Studies in December 2001.
The book surveys the cultural links between Vienna and Berlin with a focus on the inter-war years and some post-1945 continuities. It includes a centenary tribute to Ödön von Horváth and contributions on theatre, film, journalism (the feuilleton in particular), literature, music and socio-political issues. Together, the studies can be read as a narrative of interaction between the two capital cities. The industrial and modern Berlin of the 1920s proves an irresistible magnet for many Viennese, whose letters and journalism time and again reflect on the differences between the cities. The year 1933 marks the political cut-off point, when in many cases exile becomes the predominant theme.

Contents: John Warren: Introduction - Alan Bance: Ödön von Horváth between Vienna and Berlin: A Centenary Tribute - Edward Timms: Karl Kraus, Berthold Viertel and Die Unüberwindlichen in Berlin - Alexander Weigel: Das Berliner Theater und seine Wiener Einflüsse - John Warren: Berlin Comes to Vienna: Theatrical Interaction 1918-1933 - Helen Chambers: 'Eine ganze Welt baut sich im Gerichtssaal auf': Law and Order in the Reportage of Joseph Roth and Gabriele Tergit - Bernhard Fetz: Zur Produktionsweise von Wien-Berlin-Stereotypen: Der Publizist und Tage-Buch-Herausgeber Stefan Großmann - Christian Jäger: Wien als Versprechen, Berlin als Hoffnung - Ulrike Zitzlsperger: Kurt Tucholsky: Die entzauberte Stadt - Andrew Barker: Tales from Two Cities: Berlin and Vienna in Joseph Roth's Novel Zipper und sein Vater - David Midgley: City Mythologies: Berlin and Vienna - Frank Trommler: Das rote Wien und das sachliche Berlin - Matthias Uecker: Angestellte und Arbeitslose: Soziologische Expeditionen in die deutsche und österreichische Gesellschaft - Thomas Elsaesser: Make-Believe Vienna and Matter-of-Fact Berlin: Walter Reisch and Das Lied ist aus - Christian Glanz: Wien und Berlin als «wechselseitige Exilorte» der Musik - Hans Hahn: Über das Ablegen des Gewands der Sittlichkeit: Freud und Einstein zum Thema Krieg - Friedbert Aspetsberger: Wien - Berlin. Ein literarisch-politischer Querschnitt personaler Beziehungen 1910-1955 - Gert Mattenklott: Brecht und Eisler in Wien und Berlin: Die Arbeit am Faustus.

The Editors: John Warren studied German and French at the University of Bristol (B.A. 1962, M.Litt.). He was Head of German and Austrian Studies at Oxford Brookes University and has published on aspects of Weimar culture between the wars and contributed to and edited symposium papers on Max Reinhardt, the Biedermeier, and culture and politics in Austria in the 1930s.
Ulrike Zitzlsperger studied German and Comparative Religion at the Maximilian University, Regensburg and at the Free University, Berlin (M.A. 1989, Ph.D. 2001). She is Senior Lecturer in German at Exeter University. Her main research publications are on Berlin between the wars and after 1989 and pamphlets of the early modern period.