Hitler's Vienna: Empire, War & the Holocaust
- 2–3 hours
- Free cancellation up to 24h before
- 2 languages
- Private tour
Highlights
Step into Vienna's final decades as an imperial capital on this walking tour along the Ringstrasse Boulevard and through the Hofburg Palace. Discover the empire's mounting crises, and how this city shaped the mind of a young Adolf Hitler. Presented in a balanced way, this tour suits newcomers and history buffs alike. We'll examine the geopolitical, social, and racial tensions of Vienna's final imperial decades — from Mayor Karl Lueger's populist politics to the rise and persecution of Vienna's Jewish community — and trace how these forces shaped young Hitler's worldview. We'll also follow Vienna through both World Wars: the empire's collapse in 1918, wartime bombing damage still visible on grand buildings, and the Nazi era's impact on the city's Jews. At Judenplatz, we pause at the Holocaust Memorial, a quiet tribute to Austria's Jewish victims of the Shoah. Throughout, we uncover forgotten stories behind history's most consequential events.
Inclusions
What's included
- Written recommendations for restaurants, bars, cafés, shops, districts, and more
- Access to a digital library of information and pictures to enhance your experience of Vienna.
What's not
- You will get the possibilty to purchase a typical Viennese coffee, you can bring with you on our tour.
Itinerary
The UNESCO historical city center of Vienna is where all adventures in Vienna begins. Over the next 2 hours we explore and uncover the biggest highlights Vienna's old town has to offer.
This monument is the city's first memorial to the darkest moment in Vienna's recent history, fascism and war. It is made out of 4 parts, each with its own special reference to this terrible period. For the "Hitler's Vienna tour by Jan", this monument makes an insightful introduction to the tour by reminding us of the ultimate result and consequences of the story this tour studies.
The Hofburg was the principal residence of the Habsburg monarchy in Vienna. The tour will explore a part of this massive imperial complex. Its newest additions, like the Burggarten, Neue Burg, Heldenplatz, were constructed not long before Adolf Hitler arrived in Vienna. Our tour through The Hofburg is an immersive experience that sets the stage for learning about the imperial world that Hitler first met at age 18 in 1907.
The Academy of Arts is where Adolf Hitler applied to become a student. He failed the entrance exam. Twice. He spent the next 4 years living on the streets, in shelters and men's hostels, painting watercolour postcards for tourists. Hitler's early life is full of adversities and provides insight to the ways he dealt with them and how they shaped him.
The Ringstrasse boulevard, and what it represents, is the most significant transformation of Vienna in recent times. The old medieval walls, bastions and glacis were replaced with a 4,5 km long boulevard. The space along the Ringstrasse was populated by dozens of Vienna's most important public institutions, all represented by monumental palaces in all historical styles. Hundreds of smaller, but equally magnificent, palaces, private residences, offices, hotels, banks and covered the space between the giants. Hitler loved it.
Heroes' square is the grandest space in the Hofburg palace. A gathering spot, parade ground, and forum. It was here, on the terrace of the Neue Burg, overlooking a fully packed square, that Adolf Hitler, on the 13th of March, declared the "Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. Our tour and story end on this square but not before exploring the visible traces and relics of fascistic influence on the square and cityscape of Vienna.
At Judenplatz, we step into the heart of Vienna's medieval Jewish community — and into one of the city's most powerful sites of memory. You'll see the excavated remains of the 13th-century synagogue, destroyed in the Vienna Gesera, the anti-Jewish pogrom of 1420–21, now preserved beneath the square as part of the Museum Judenplatz. Standing above them is the Holocaust Memorial by artist Rachel Whiteread: a windowless concrete cube shaped like an inverted library, its base inscribed with the names of the camps where Austrian Jews were murdered.
Cancellation
Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the experience starts, for a full refund.
Know before you go
- Meeting point
- The starting point of the Vienna highlights tour is on the square next to the Opera. More precisely next to the stairs to the underground passage to the subway station Karlsplatz.
- Pickup
- Pickup is offered, or you can meet at the starting point.
- Ticket type
- Mobile or paper ticket accepted
- Operated by
- Jan Kepinski
- Wheelchair accessible
- Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
- Service animals allowed
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Transportation options are wheelchair accessible
- All areas and surfaces are wheelchair accessible
- Not recommended for travelers with spinal injuries
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
How it compares in Vienna
- Its from-price is 80% above the median of the 1219 experiences we list in Vienna.
- It is shorter than most of them.
- The operator lists free cancellation on it.
About Vienna
Vienna is Austria's elegant capital on the Danube, a city of imperial palaces, grand coffeehouses and a musical heritage known the world over.
The Ringstrasse circles the old centre with monumental buildings: the State Opera, the Parliament, the City Hall and the Burgtheater. Inside the ring, St Stephen's Cathedral, with its patterned tile roof, rises above lanes of shops and cafés, and the Hofburg palace complex holds the imperial apartments, the Spanish Riding School and a museum devoted to Empress Elisabeth.
Top-ranked sights in Vienna: Hofburg Imperial Palace (Hofburg Wien) , Schönbrunn Palace (Schloss Schönbrunn), Rathaus.
Special offers in Vienna
Was/now prices come from the operator, never from us.
