Austrian National Day

Today (October 26, 2025) is Austrian National Day, which is a federal holiday in Austria.

After World War II ended in 1945, Austria, which had been occupied by Germany, was then occupied by the United States, Russia, France, and Great Britain. Each country occupied a different section of Austria and of the Vienna, its capital city. I remember visiting the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum – Militärhistorisches Institut (the Museum of Military History) in Vienna and seeing on display a jeep with four seats, one for each soldier from the four occupying countries. That was done in an effort to better mediate disputes among citizens within the capital city of Vienna. Ten years later on October 26, 1955, Austria established its independence.

Part of my heritage is Austrian, so I celebrate every year.

I have visited my many Austrian cousins across Austria seven times since the early 1980s, and I have also been skiing with several of them in the Austrian Alps several times. I love Austrian food, especially Käsknöpfle and Tafelspitz. I also like the chocolate dessert called Mohr im Hemd; translated from German, it means "black man wearing a shirt" because that's what it looks like on the plate.

Also, since the early 1980s, I have been a huge fan of Austropop (Austrian popular music), including Rainhard Fendrich, Wolfgang Ambros, Georg Danzer, STS, Hubert von Goisern und die Alpinkatzen, Boris Bukowski, and more.

Rainhard Fendrich is my all-time favorite pop singer. I have 49 (yes, forty-nine) of Fendrich's CDs (48 music CDs and one interview CD). This includes duplicates of two of those CDs.

Fendrich writes all of his songs and sings all of his songs in the German language, with his earliest albums from the early to mid-1980s sung in the Viennese dialect of German. As he became popular, he wrote his songs using "high" German, which is the "textbook" version of the language, so more people could understand his lyrics.

I also have many of his vinyl record albums from the 1980s, which I purchased on multiple trips to Austria; several of his DVDs and videotapes; and two of his autographs, even though I have never met him. I also have a hardcover biography written in German.

I attended a Fendrich concert at the Stadthalle (arena) in Vienna, Austria, on October 30, 1997, with one of my many Austrian cousins, her husband, and more than 16,000 other fans. Here is a link to a video of a live performance of my second-most favorite Fendrich song ("Über Meinen Horizont") from the concert tour I attended. (The man in the photo below is keyboardist Gary Lux.)

https://youtu.be/zNOLTImfadc?si=tzIg4rg3bLZJtwZU

Also, at one time, I was the only non-European member of his official fan club. I lost that title when a man from Japan joined the club.