Café Central is a traditional

Viennese café The Viennese coffee house (german: das Wiener Kaffeehaus, bar, as Weana Kafeehaus) is a typical institution of Vienna that played an important part in shaping Viennese culture. Since October 2011 the "Viennese Coffee House Culture" is listed as ...

located at

Herrengasse The Herrengasse (meaning in German language: "Street of the Lords" or "Lords Lane") is a street in Vienna, located in the first district Innere Stadt. History The street existed during Roman times as part of the limes highway system. The first w ...

14 in the

Innere Stadt The Innere Stadt (; Central Bavarian: ''Innare Stod'') is the 1st municipal district of Vienna () located in the center of the Austrian capital. The Innere Stadt is the old town of Vienna. Until the city boundaries were expanded in 1850, the I ...

first district of

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, Austria. The café occupies the ground floor of the former Bank and Stockmarket Building, today called the Palais Ferstel after its architect

Heinrich von Ferstel Freiherr Heinrich von Ferstel (7 July 1828 14 July 1883) was an Austrian architect and professor, who played a vital role in building late 19th-century Vienna. Life The son of Ignaz Ferstel (17961866), a bank clerk and later director of the ...

History

The café was opened in 1876, and in the late 19th century it became a key meeting place of the Viennese intellectual scene. Key regulars included: Peter Altenberg,

Theodor Herzl Theodor Herzl; hu, Herzl Tivadar; Hebrew name given at his brit milah: Binyamin Ze'ev (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish lawyer, journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer who was the father of modern po ...

Alfred Adler Alfred Adler ( , ; 7 February 1870 – 28 May 1937) was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. His emphasis on the importance of feelings of belonging, family constellation and birth orde ...

Egon Friedell Egon Friedell (born ''Egon Friedmann''; 21 January 1878, in Vienna – 16 March 1938, in Vienna) was a prominent Austrian cultural historian, playwright, actor and Kabarett performer, journalist and theatre critic. Friedell has been described a ...

Hugo von Hofmannsthal Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal (; 1 February 1874 – 15 July 1929) was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist. Early life Hofmannsthal was born in Landstraße, Vienna, the son of an upper-cl ...

Anton Kuh Anton Kuh (12 July 1890 in Vienna – 18 January 1941 in New York City) was an Austrian-Jewish journalist and essayist. Works * ''Juden und Deutsche'', Erich Reiss, Berlin 1921 Selected filmography * '' Never Trust a Woman'' (1930) * ''The ...

Adolf Loos Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos (; 10 December 1870 – 23 August 1933) was an Austrian and Czechoslovak architect, influential European theorist, and a polemicist of modern architecture. He was an inspiration to modernism and a widely- ...

, Leo Perutz,

Robert Musil Robert Musil (; 6 November 1880 – 15 April 1942) was an Austrian philosophical writer. His unfinished novel, '' The Man Without Qualities'' (german: link=no, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften), is generally considered to be one of the most importan ...

Stefan Zweig Stefan Zweig (; ; 28 November 1881 – 22 February 1942) was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist, and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most widely translated and popular write ...

Alfred Polgar Alfred Polgar (originally: Alfred Polak) 17 October 1873, Vienna – 24 April 1955, Zurich) was an Austrian-born columnist, theater critic, writer and occasionally translator. All in all, he was one of the most important protagonists of the Wien ...

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...

, and

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...

. In January 1913 alone,

Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (; sh-Cyrl, Тито, links=no, ), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various positions from 1943 until his death ...

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...

, and

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

were patrons of the establishment. Tarot games of the

Tarock Tarot games are card games played with tarot decks, that is, decks with numbered permanent trumps parallel to the suit cards. The games and decks which English-speakers call by the French name Tarot are called Tarocchi in the original Italian, ...

family were played regularly here and

Tapp Tarock Tapp Tarock (german: Tapp-Tarock), also called Viennese Tappen (german: Wiener Tappen), Tappen or Tapper, is a three-player tarot card game which traditionally uses the 54-card Industrie und Glück deck. Before the ''Anschluss'' (1938), it was th ...

was especially popular between the wars.''Café Central Vienna''
- website. Retrieved 1 Oct 2020. The café was often referred to as the "Chess school" (''Die Schachhochschule'') because of the presence of many chess players who used the first floor for their games. Members of the

Vienna Circle The Vienna Circle (german: Wiener Kreis) of Logical Empiricism was a group of elite philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna, ch ...

logical positivists Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement in Western philosophy whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion of ...

held many meetings at the café before and after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. A well known story is that when

Victor Adler __NOTOC__ Victor Adler (24 June 1852 – 11 November 1918) was an Austrian politician, a leader of the labour movement and founder of the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP). Life Adler was born in Prague, the son of a Jewish merchant, who ...

objected to Count Berchtold, foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, that war would provoke revolution in Russia, even if not in the

Habsburg monarchy The Habsburg monarchy (german: Habsburgermonarchie, ), also known as the Danubian monarchy (german: Donaumonarchie, ), or Habsburg Empire (german: Habsburgerreich, ), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities ...

, he replied: "And who will lead this revolution? Perhaps Mr. Bronstein (Leon Trotsky) sitting over there at the Cafe Central?" A. J. P. Taylor, in The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918 (1980) The café closed at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. In 1975, the Palais Ferstel was renovated and the Central was newly opened, although in a different part of the building. In 1986, it was fully renovated once again. Today it is both a tourist spot and a popular café marked by its place in literary history.

Gallery

File:Cafe Central in Vienna interior near entrance.JPG, Cafe Central in Vienna interior near entrance with statue of Peter Altenberg File:Cafe Central in Vienna interior near portraits.JPG, Cafe Central in Vienna interior near portraits of Empress Elisabeth of Austria and

Franz Joseph I of Austria Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I (german: Franz Joseph Karl, hu, Ferenc József Károly, 18 August 1830 – 21 November 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the other states of the Habsburg monarchy from 2 December 1848 until ...

References in literature and popular culture

* The cafe appears in a pivotal scene in the 1998 novel ''The Magic Circle'' by Katherine Neville. * An analogue for the cafe called Cafe Ferstel appears in Vienna in the video game ''

Sunless Sea ''Sunless Sea'' is a survival/exploration role-playing video game with roguelike elements developed by Failbetter Games. The game was released on 6 February 2015 for Windows and OS X following a successful Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund the ...

.''

References

External links

Café Central website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cafe Central Coffeehouses and cafés in Vienna Buildings and structures in Innere Stadt Vienna Circle Jews and Judaism in Vienna 1876 establishments in Austria

History

Gallery

References in literature and popular culture

See also

References

External links