Name: The Last Days | Reading & Panel with Author Martin Prinz
Start: 2026-03-26T19:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-03-26T21:00:00-04:00
Location: Embassy of Austria

The Last Days | Reading & Panel with Author Martin Prinz

Join us for a reading and panel discussion with author Martin Prinz, historian James Loeffler and filmmaker Bernadette Wegenstein.
About this Event

In collaboration with the Stulman Program in Jewish Studies and the Center for Advanced Media Studies at Johns Hopkins University, the ACF DC welcomes Austrian author Martin Prinz for a reading in English of The Last Days (Original: ), followed by a panel discussion with historian James Loeffler and filmmaker Bernadette Wegenstein. During the event, an exclusive clip from the upcoming documentary The Archives, directed by Bernadette Wegenstein, will be shown.

The war was almost over, but the killings continued. Set in April 1945 near Vienna, The Last Days (2025) reconstructs a Nazi society that enables these crimes in Austria, where a summary court sentenced people to death for alleged defeatism and desertion. Written in the restrained language of court records, Martin Prinz’s book examines individual responsibility, arbitrary power, and the long silence that followed these crimes.

In The Last Days, shortlisted for the Austrian Book Prize 2025, Martin Prinz reenacts the events of April 1945 in a valley of the Austrian Eastern Alps, where innocent people were arbitrarily tried and executed by Nazi summary courts, among them the granddaughters of Arthur Schnitzler’s muse Olga Waissnix. In these final 41 days of the war, more people were murdered in Austria than in the previous seven years. Two years later, the main perpetrators appeared before a people’s court, insisting on the legality of their actions and invoking obedience to a state that had already ceased to exist. Drawing on trial records and contemporary documents, the book presents these events with sober precision and reflects on individual responsibility under extreme conditions and on literature as a form of remembrance.

PROGRAM

WELCOME by David Živković (Interim Director ACFDC)
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS by Bernadette Wegenstein (Filmmaker, Professor of Media Studies and Director of the Center for Advanced Media Studies at Johns Hopkins University)
BOOK READING by Martin Prinz (Author of The Last Days)
PANEL DISCUSSION with Martin Prinz, Bernadette Wegenstein, and James Loeffler (Felix Posen Professor in Modern Jewish History and Director of the Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Jewish Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University)
Q&A with the audience

The evening will conclude with an Austrian wine reception.

Please find more information on our website.

Doors open at 6:15 PM. The event starts at 7 PM.

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Please bring a photo I.D.

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Latecomer Policy: Please be advised that there can be no further admittance once the event has started.

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Seating is not guaranteed.

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Please note that photographs and footage will be taken throughout the event. These might be used by ACF DC and JHU for marketing and promotional purposes in our publications, on our websites and in social media, or in any third-party publication.

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Parking on International Court is available after 6:00 pm (for the duration of the event), or on 36th Street (access to the Embassy through the park behind the building). Van Ness Metro (Red Line) is a short distance away.