Word: austrian
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Phony Payoff. To pass the British counterfeits, the Nazis installed a confederate in an Austrian castle, had him pass the bills in neutral countries in return for a one-third share of the profits. Gestapo informers, who insisted on hard currency for their work outside Germany, also got paid off in the phony pounds. Among those doublecrossed: the Italians who found out where Mussolini was held before his rescue by Paratrooper Otto Skorzeny; the famous valet "Cicero" (real name: Eliaza Bazna), who stole secrets from the safe of the British Ambassador to Turkey. Ultimately, some of the counterfeit notes turned...
...movies, twinkle-toed Hoofer Fred Astaire published his highly informal, do-it-yourself autobiography titled (on Noel Coward's suggestion) Steps in Time (Harper; $4.95). More a theatrical log than a self-portrait, the book brings Astaire from his Omaha boyhood (papa was a brewer of Austrian descent) to the pinnacle of popular dancing, a position he has enjoyed for half his life. Astaire fans will be elated to hear that the end of his career is nowhere in sight. Writes the mellowing top-hatter: "What is this age bit that goes on about actors and athletes, anyway...
...bruised and put-upon Alihodja sounds the elegiac theme of Andrić's book. He watches gloomily as the bustling Austrians destroy the "sweet tranquillity" of Visegrad. They busily replace the outmoded fountains with new " 'unclean' water which passed through iron pipes so that it was not fit to drink"; they industriously built a railroad to the border that finally puts an end to the centuries-old traffic over the Drina Bridge. The book's last chapters take place in the first months of World War I, with Visegrad being shelled impartially by Austrian and Serbian...
Neapolitan legend has it that Austrian Emperor Franz Josef's chief regret over World War I was that it cut off his supply of Naples' famed potatoes. For more than 400 years, peasants have been growing the small, delicious variety in the rich volcanic soil of Naples province, and as harvesting began three weeks ago, it was evident that this year's crop was the best ever. But the price was wrong-a less-than-break-even 1? a pound to growers, although the Naples retail price was 7?. In the town of Marigliano last week...
...silently shook their heads when Shopkeeper Armand Bertele offered to help them. The figures in nun's garb had reason for silence: they were in reality male counter-intelligence agents of France's formidable Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire, and they were more interested in baldish, Austrian-born Armand Bertele's comings and goings than in commentaries and chaplets...