Sensation

In the 1990s I've been to Innsbruck and we traveled there by train. In and around the main station I had the strangest sensation of a hostile coldness, something that made me want to get away from there as fast as possible. There was also a Trachtengruppe, a local costume group, running around and this added to my feeling of unease.
Some years ago I delved into the biography of Anton Walbrook and I also came across Carl Zuckmayer. In his memoirs 'Als wär's ein Stück von mir. Horen der Freundschaft' (there is an English translation entitled 'A Part of Myself. Portrait of an Epoch') he describes how he flees Austria shortly after the Anschluss by train. Innsbruck was the last stop before Switzerland and the atmosphere of despair surrounding this last stop before the safe haven was very much what I had sensed when I was there.
A Part of Myself. Portrait of an Epoch is highly recommended btw. It's a well written account of a very adventurous life, from the roaring 1920s, where Zuckmayer engaged in some pretty desperate businesses and ended up in a situation, from which a good-hearted prostitute saves him, to his time as a renowned playwright, first in Germany, then in Austria. How his flight took him to America - even a short stint as screenwriter in Hollywood is included -, where he finally settled down as farmer in Vermont. 'Horen der Freundschaft' would rather translate into 'The Horae - a monthly literary journal edited by Friedrich Schiller - of Friendship' and Zuckmayer gives a lot of attention to his friends or friendship as well. And since his lifetime was a time of great commotion, there are some really true friends and others he was deeply disappointed by. There are wonderful and most horrible stories in there. There is one friend for example who has survived a concentration camp and who refuses to have anything published about this experience. For as he states it would attract the wrong people, for in such horrible stories there lies also a fascination he would not like to evoke.