Emperor Franz Joseph I, in Vienna, Austria. People stand beside a carriage on the road. The Emperor steps out of the carriage. Austrian soldiers salute him.
View from inside moving luxury railroad train, looking out through train passenger window, as it arrives in Vienna, Austria. As the train is slowing down and nearing the station, the Colonnade Gloriette at Schoenbrunn Palace is seen in the far distance. People board the Orient Express passenger train in Vienna, Austria. Steam locomotive starts up with a roar in smoke and steam, at railroad station, and then proceeds to depart, gradually gaining speed.
Austria is liberated to independent self rule by the occupying nations, post World War 2. Exterior of Upper Belvedere Palace building in Vienna, Austria. Troops of the occupying nations parade. A large crowd gathers for celebrating the independence after Austrian State Treaty agrement. The flags of the big four occupying powers, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union, being lowered from the flag poles and the flag of Austria is raised. Officials stand amidst the crowd, including brief close up views of Theodor Körner, the President of Austria, and Julius Raab, the Chancellor of Austria. People cheering and celebrating.
Film begins with views from low flying airplane showing a domed building and government buildings in Vienna, Austria. Next, a city street with apartment buildings is seen. A slate is inserted reading: Isolated from the outside world by the blockade and financially ruined by the depreciation of the krone, one half of the population has been housed at the rate of four person per room." People are seen in a rural land settlement project. Slate explains: " The mission is aiding 22 land-settlements-cooperative building projects which are enabling groups of all classes to escape from the stricken city. 50% of the work is done by the settlers themselves. The average cost of one in the settlement shown is $170," Next, land settlers are seen at work constructing dwellings. Another slate reads: "With food prices beyond of even those who were formerly well-to-do, the land settlers raise the food which they cannot afford to buy." Men and women settlers are seen preparing plots of land to grow food. A settlement street is shown with people busy tending to the fronts of apartments.
Communal kitchen in Vienna, Austria, in the years just after the end of World War 1, during mass food shortages and high inflation. People seated at table eating food. Women taking needlework to institute. It is their means of supplementing income after selling all their possessions. Often a year's pension is insufficient for a week's food for the 600 war victims; many of them gentlefolk of the old aristocracy receive weekly allotments of food. People queue at table to receive food from soup kitchen operated by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). On screen slate appeals for help.
Shows a 16-year-old boy in hospital in Vienna, Austria. He suffers from bone tuberculosis, due to starvation. 16-year-old patient massages his thin chest and stomach in hospital bed. A 10-year-old boy suffers from the same disease sits on bed with his back on the camera.