 First edition | |
| Author | Bruce Marshall |
|---|---|
| Country | Scotland |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Published | 1947 |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 280 |
| Preceded by | George Brown's Schooldays (1946) |
| Followed by | To Every Man a Penny (1949) |
Vespers in Vienna is a 1947 novel by Scottish writer Bruce Marshall.
Shortly after the end of World War II, British Army Colonel Michael 'Hooky' Nicobar is assigned to the Displaced Persons Division in the British Zone of Vienna, Allied occupied Austria. Like the author himself, Nicobar has had a limb amputated. Marshall also served in the Displaced Persons Division in Austria. [1]
Nicobar's orders are to aid the Soviet Red Army and the NKVD in the forcible repatriation of alleged citizens of the Soviet Union as part of Operation Keelhaul. Billeted in the convent run by Mother Auxilia, Nicobar, and his military aides Major John 'Twingo' McPhimister and Audrey Quail, become involved in the plight of Maria, a young Volga German ballerina, who is trying to avoid being returned to Moscow, as she, like many others refugees, fears torture, execution, or the Gulag immediately upon returning to her home country. Colonel Nicobar's sense of duty is tested as he sees first hand the plight of the people he is forcibly repatriating to the Soviet Union; his lack of religious faith is also shaken by his contact with the Mother Superior. [2]
The novel was the basis of the 1949 film The Red Danube starring Walter Pidgeon, Ethel Barrymore, Peter Lawford, Angela Lansbury and Janet Leigh. George Sidney directed.
After the movie was released the novel was re-issued as The Red Danube.
Operation Keelhaul was a forced repatriation of Soviet citizens and members of the Soviet Army in the West to the Soviet Union after World War II. While forced repatriation focused on Soviet Armed Forces POWs of Germany and Russian Liberation Army members, it included many other people under Allied control. Refoulement, the forced repatriation of people in danger of persecution, is a human rights violation and breach of international law. Thus, Operation Keelhaul has been called a war crime, especially in regards to the many civilians forced into Soviet work camps, many of whom had never been Soviet citizens, having fled Russia before the end of the Russian Civil War.
Following the termination of hostilities in World War II, the Allies were in control of the defeated Axis countries. Anticipating the defeat of Germany and Japan, they had already set up the European Advisory Commission and a proposed Far Eastern Advisory Commission to make recommendations for the post-war period. Accordingly, they managed their control of the defeated countries through Allied Commissions, often referred to as Allied Control Commissions (ACC), consisting of representatives of the major Allies.
Displaced persons camps in post–World War II Europe were established in Germany, Austria, and Italy, primarily for refugees from Eastern Europe and for the former inmates of the Nazi German concentration camps. A "displaced persons camp" is a temporary facility for displaced persons, whether refugees or internally displaced persons. Two years after the end of World War II in Europe, some 850,000 people lived in displaced persons camps across Europe, among them Armenians, Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Yugoslavs, Jews, Greeks, Russians, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Czechoslovaks and Belarusians.
Sh'erit ha-Pletah is a Hebrew term for Jewish Holocaust survivors living in Displaced Persons (DP) camps, and the organisations they created to act on their behalf with the Allied authorities. These were active between 27 May 1945 and 1950–51, when the last DP camps closed.
The repatriation of the Cossacks occurred when Cossacks, ethnic Russians and Ukrainians who were opposed to the Soviet Union and fought for Nazi Germany were handed over by British and American forces to the Soviet Union after the conclusion of World War II. Towards the end of the European theatre of World War II, many Cossacks forces with civilians in tow, retreated to Western Europe. Their goal was to avoid capture and imprisonment by the Red Army for treason, and hoped for a better outcome by surrendering to the Western Allies such as to the British and Americans. However, after being taken prisoner by the latter and packed into small trains. Unbeknownst to them, they were sent east to Soviet territories. Many men, women and children were subsequently sent to the Gulag prison camps, where some were brutally worked to death. The repatriations were agreed upon at the Yalta Conference; Soviet leader Joseph Stalin asserted that the prisoners were Soviet citizens as of 1939, although there were some of them that had left the country before or soon after the end of the Russian Civil War or had been born abroad, hence never holding Soviet citizenship.
Stefan Terlezki, was a British Conservative politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Cardiff West from 1983 to 1987. Terlezki was born in Oleshiw, a village near the town of Tlumach in what is now western Ukraine but was then part of Poland. Terlezki experienced life in both Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union, which made him a powerful voice against totalitarian governments.
Lieutenant-Colonel Claude Cunningham Bruce Marshall was a prolific Scottish writer who wrote fiction and non-fiction books on a wide range of topics and genres. His first book, A Thief in the Night came out in 1918, possibly self-published. His last, An Account of Capers was published posthumously in 1988, a span of 70 years.
The Ukrainian National Army was a World War II Ukrainian military group, created on March 17, 1945, in the town of Weimar, Nazi Germany, and subordinate to Ukrainian National Committee.
The Southern Group of Forces (YUGV) was a Soviet Armed Forces formation formed twice following the Second World War, most notably around the time of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
Archduke Wilhelm Franz of Austria, later Wilhelm Franz von Habsburg-Lothringen, also known as Vasyl Vyshyvanyi, was an Austrian archduke, a colonel of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, a poet, and a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine.
The Vienna offensive was an offensive launched by the Soviet 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts in order to capture Vienna, Austria, during World War II. The offensive lasted from 16 March to 15 April 1945. After several days of street-to-street fighting, the Soviet troops captured the city.
The Central Group of Forces was a formation of the Soviet Armed Forces used to incorporate Soviet troops in Central Europe on two occasions: in Austria and Hungary from 1945 to 1955 and troops stationed in Czechoslovakia after the Prague Spring of 1968.
Austria was occupied by the Allies and declared independence from Nazi Germany on 27 April 1945, as a result of the Vienna offensive and ended with the Austrian State Treaty on 27 July 1955.
The 6th Guards Order of Red Banner Tank Army was a tank army of the Soviet Union's Red Army, first formed in January 1944 as the 6th Tank Army, and disbanded in Ukraine in the 1990s after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. During its service in World War II, the army was commanded by Lieutenant General of Tank Troops Andrei Kravchenko.
The 1st Russian National Army was a Russian pro-Axis army under Boris Smyslovsky, a Russian nobleman and former Tsarist guard officer, during World War II.
Edward Crankshaw was a British writer, author, translator and commentator; best known for his work on Soviet affairs and the Gestapo of Nazi Germany.
The Red Danube is a 1949 American drama film directed by George Sidney and starring Walter Pidgeon. The film is set during Operation Keelhaul and was based on the 1947 novel Vespers in Vienna by Bruce Marshall.
Victims of Yalta or The Secret Betrayal is a 1977 book by Nikolai Tolstoy that chronicles the fate of Soviet citizens who had been under German control during World War II and at its end fallen into the hands of the Western Allies. According to the secret Moscow agreement from 1944 that was confirmed at the 1945 Yalta conference, all citizens of the Soviet Union were to be repatriated without choice—a death sentence for many by execution or extermination through labour.
The 4th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division was an anti-aircraft artillery division of the Soviet Union's Red Army during World War II and the Soviet Army in the early postwar years.
Vyacheslav Grigoryevich Naumenko was a Kuban Cossack leader and historian.
 | This article about a 1940s novel is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page. |
| This article about a European novel is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page. |