Hostess To Royalty Butcher’s Daughter Of Vienna

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 22, 5 November 1938, Page 7

Hostess To Royalty Butcher’s Daughter Of Vienna

PACKER'S HOTEL, most famous hostelry of pre-war and post-war Vienna, may suffer from the regimented ideas of the Nazis. It is strange to think of General Goering sitting at the table where formerly sat the kings of a relatively untroubled Europe. Frau Anna Sacher was a woman who stuck to her illusions. Born the daughter of a butcher, she rose to fame as hostess of Vienna’s Super-select Hotel Sacher, known for smoking the biggest cigar*, breeding the most ferocious bulldogs, and speaking her mind most frankly to crowned heads and important personages, and giving them the best service to be found in Europe. When war, inflation and slump had destroyed the Hotel Sacher’s illustrious clientele, when archdukes, princes, emperors and kings had become memories of the past, when those that remained of them were only too pleased to dine on sauerkraut and spritzer instead of homard a I’Americaine and burgundy, when the glamour and luxury of imperial Vienna had long since crumbled into dust, everybody except Frau Sacher realised that the Hotel Sacher had had its day. She just could not understand it. When she died, and her will was opened, it was found that she had provided lavishly for all the old employees of the hotel, for friends and relatives, for charities, for her bulldogs. Only there was no, money to meet these generous obligations. Recently the Vienna Commercial Court ceased proceedings concerning the last will and testament of Frau Anna Sacher, owing to lack of assets. That is the end of the story of a fascinating personality, the embodiment of a glorious but bygone age. # # * « The hotel was founded by Eduard Sacher in 1867. Eduard was relying on his aristocratic connections —his father had for many years been chef to the famous Austrian Crancellor, Napoleon’s bitterest enemy, Prince Metternich—and on the celebrated chocolate cake, Sachertorte, invented for Metternich by his father. Princes, dukes and counts came to Sacher's to consume Sachertorte, and the place was always full of snobbish hangers-on of the nobility, but the hotel did not prosper. Cooks and waiters became unruly, the customers became unruly, too. . ' Patronised by the highest in the. land, Eduard Sacher could do nothing. He was neither a good manager nor a good salesman. Then he fell in love with pretty, pert, apple-cheeked butcher’s daughter, Anna Burger, arid married her. He had some doubts about it, but he was very much in love.

He would, he thought, make the best of Anna’s rustic manners, teach her that a select hotel should be run differently from a suburban tavern. Actually it was the best day’s business he ever did in his life. Child of Vienna’s laughter-loving and drastically outspoken suburbs, Anna held her own among the galaxy of archdukes, princes, grand-dukes, and counts who flocked to the hotel. From the moment she set her foot inside the august halis of the aristocratic hotel, she ran it for him. At the desk in her office, blowing rings from her fat black cigar, tightlaced in her whaleboned, high -necked black dress, Frau Sacher marshalled her forces from morning till night and far into the night, until dawn if necessary.

Nothing escaped her vigilant eyes, but neither did her fresh comeliness escape their Highnesses and Excellencies. She never forgot the temperature at which Count Auersperg liked his chablis, or the exact proportions of truffles and mushrooms with which Archduke Johann Salvator liked his pate de foi gras garnished. At the Hotel Sacher you gave your breakfast order just once. You then relied on Frau Sacher to see that the same impeccable meal was always served in the future, for fifty years if necessary. Every weakness, every whim of the guests was catered for—excepi one. No one was ever allowed to take any liberties with Frau Sacher. Always she was the unapproachable lady—“Gnadige Frau” (gracious lady)— for commercial travellers and princes. From archdukes downwards, everybody kissed her hand as ceremoniously as that of a hostess at a diplomatic reception. She was a woman of the people with the-personality of a queen. If anyone dared treat her without due deference they got a piece of her mind, in her inimitable Viennese dialect, inspired by a temperament which effectively squashed all future attempts. She was an autocrat who ruled her guests with the same mixture of kindness and dominance as she used towards her staff. She gave her curt orders in a deep masculine voice, and expected and obtained implicit obedience. If any guest misbehaved, he also felt the edge of Anna’s tongue, no matter what his station. And they liked it’ and came back again, attracted as much by Frau Sacher’s marvellous personality as by her exquisitely perfect cuisine. Imperial Vienna was a gourmet’s paradise, but Emperor Franz Joseph was a Puritan. He ate sparingly and quickly. At big court dinners Spanish etiquette decreed that the plates should be removed after each course as soon as his Majesty stopped eating. Since the Emperor was, of course, the first to be served, the hungry guests at the Imperial dinner table had their plates whipped away by an army of gold-laced lackeys before they had more than tasted a mouthful o'f the choice courses served. It was proverbial that the Emperor’s guests rose from his convivial board more hungry than they had sat down. So it soon became a habit with the diplomats and politicians who were invited to dine with the Emperor to assemble previously at Sacher’s, resplendent in their uniforms and national gala dresses, their orders and medals, to eat a hearty meal before driving in state to the Holburg to “banquet” with his' Majesty.

The Emperor did not resent Frau Sacher’s competition. On the contrary, he always remained one of her faithful customers for Sachertorte. Nor was Archduke Franz Ferdinand offended when Nicholas de Szemere, a Hungarian nobleman and one of the hotel’s staunchest clients, refused the Archduke’s invitation to dinner, because, with all due respect to her Highnesses’s housekeeping abilities, she was not as good a cook as Frau Sacher, and he preferred to eat at the hotel Nicholas de Szemere was almost as famous a character as Frau Sacher, and the two were firm friends. M. de Szemere could trace his ancestors for a thousand years, and considered nil ranks, titles, and positions beneath him. He had a finger in every political and

diplomatic pie, but would never accept office.

He gambled in great style, winning and losing millions without turning a hair.

After one great battle at the Hotel Sacher he rose from the able richer by two and a half million florins. He spent money as if he minted it himself. Frau Sacher had an inordinate respect for the grand seigneur manner in which Mr. de Szemere spent his money, and he admired the way in which she picked it up. They both smoked the same brand of cigar. This cemented their firm friendship.

Frau Sacher was always ready to fulfil the guests’ most fantastic desires in the way of food and drink, and check them in other directions when possible. Even dynamic Frau Sacher was powerless, though, when Archduke Otto, called

the "handsomest Huzzar in the Monarchy,” who was murdered at Sarajevo, gave a party to a number of young bloods in the White Salon, one of the Sacher’s private rooms. Suddenly he darted forth into the passage clad only in his replendent tchako and his sabre. This in itself would not have mattered, for the Hotel Sacher was the soul of discretion, but, as luck would have it, the Archduke ran straight into the arms of the wife of an Ambassador in whose country the cult of nudism had made negligible progress. A diplomatic conflict was avoided, but Emperor Franz Joseph made the Archduke apologise, and banished him to a dull-as-dishwater Galician garrison for a few months to cool off. Crown Prince Rudolph was one of Sacher’s most frequent visitors, and one of the treasures of the “Sacher Museum”

is he menu card of a supper he gave a few nights before his death, on which he had personally jotted down the wines to be served. Crown Prince Rudolph was a close friend of the Prince of Wales—afterwards King Edward Vll.—and they spent many gay nights together. At one party, held in the famous “hunting room” at Sacher’s, at which the Crown Prince's favourite entertainers, the Vienna’s cabby choir, led by a man called Bratfisch, were induced to sing songs so indecent that a blush was brought even to the Prince of Wales’s hardened cheeks On another occasion a policeman fished four undressed gentlemen out of an idyllic pond in one of the public parks in the small hours of the morning. He was just about to take them to the nearest police station when one of them explained that he was Crown Prince

Rudolph, and his companions were the Prince of Wales, King Milan of Serbia, and Mr. Eduard Sacher.

They had been supping, at Sacher’s, and had indulged in a dip in the pond because they felt hot. The policeman then thought of an asylum, and he was on the point of taking them there when they passed a street light, and he recognised the unmistakable features of the heir-presumptive, and was petrified into inaction.

The four gentlemen then donned their discarded dress suits and returned to the hotel for a pick-me-up. Had not the double tragic suicide of Mayerling put an end to such lighthearted play, the many parties at Sacher’s might have led to a different course in the history of Europe. As it was, after the catastrophe at Mayerling, Frau Sacher honoured the memory of the Crown Prince, her favourite client, by acquiring, nobody knows how, the furnishings of the death chamber.

Tlie bed in which Rudolph and Mary Vetsera died is in one of the guest rooms of the Hotel Sacher to this day, and many an unsuspecting traveller has slept in it during the last 45 years. Frau Sacher’s special favours were always reserved for the younger generations of the monarchy’s ancient aris-tocracy—fresh-faced eighteen-year-olds who came to the buffet opposite Frau Sacher’s office, trying to look blase, to learn how to drink their aperitifs like gentlemen—and learning many other things besides. Frau Sacher was their guide, philosopher, and friend. She knew exactly how much pocket-money they had, and those who had not enough could always find a glass of Chablis and a portion of caviare on credit at Sacher’s. She advised them in love affairs; she, a butcher’s daughter, advised them in affairs of honour, proud to be able to teach them to carry on the tradition of “Sacher Clients,” to her mind the proudest title a gentleman of the monarchy could bear.

Literature has done its best to immortalise Frau Sacher. Besides innumerable allusions in plays, pictures, and novels, there is an Austrian comedy, entitled, “Saehertorte,” and Robert E. Sherwood's play, “Reunion in Vienna,” brings Frau Anna on the stage in person, cigars, stentorian commands, domineering personality, and all. But Frau Sacher has no need of literature. Her words themselves endure. There is her hotel, resurrected from bankruptcy, carrying on the tradition which she created, as far as it can be reconciled to the trend of modern times. Then, there is the “guest book” and Ihe “autograph book”—unique features inimitable anywhere else. The “guest hook” is what was once Anna Sacher's office. Its walls are covered with autographed photographs of famous visitors to the Hotel Sacher. There is Franz Ferdinand, tragic victim of Sarajevo; there are Archdukes Otto, Ferdinand Karl, Franz Salvator,

Karl Abrecht, and a score of others. There is King Milan of Serbia, the late King Fuad o* Egypt, the Duchess of Hohenberg (Franz Ferdinand’s wife, who shared his fate) Windischgraetz, Rudolph’s only daughter.

There is Princess Metternieh, Vienna’s acknowledged social leader for decades. There are three generations of Starhembergs. There are counts, politicians, and diplomats, leaders of men and leaders of nations. There are artists and musicians, a whole wall of Viennese intellectuals, from Franz Lehar to Felix Woingarten. v

The “autograph book” is stih more remarkable. It hangs in a gilt frame on the wall of one of the drawing rooms. It is not a book. It is a white damask tablecloth, on which Frau Sacher’s most

illustrious guests have pencilled then signatures. Frau Anna herself then Embroidered them in glossy coloured silks, The centrepiece is the characteristic signature of Emperor Franz Joseph I. Katharina Shcratt, his friend and confidante, inducted him to put his august name on the tablecloth, and Frau Sacher’s loyal anc. nimble fingers embroidered the Imperial crown of Austria above it.

Then there are the smaller fry, archdukes and duchesses, reigning princes and princesses, and a few counts and barons thrown in, for Frau Sacher was ever a democrat —within reason. A hundred and forty names, in varied and sometimes wobbly handwriting, embroidered on snowy damask, a study for the graphologist and the historian, representing all that was best in the past which tumbled around Frau Anna’s ears after the debacle of 1918.