Has the Third World War already begun? A film essay inspired by Karl Kraus’s prophetic anti-war work, tracing the parallels between the years before the First World War and the global tensions of our own time. Wolfgang Ritzberger examines how little the language and the mechanics of war and propaganda have changed — from 1914 to the algorithmic conflicts of the digital age.
Content
To truly understand the First World War, says Karl Kraus scholar Katharina Prager, one should have seen or read the play “The Last Days of Mankind”. To grasp how Europe, and ultimately the world, slid into that war, one has to listen to the historians. And yet here we are, barely a hundred years later, facing another war on European soil.
The film examines the unsettling parallels between the years before the outbreak of the First World War and the geopolitical crises of the present. Building on Kraus’s visionary language, it shows how nationalism, propaganda and media manipulation shape the thinking of a society — then through printed newspapers, today through algorithms and social media.
Historians and military experts agree: history does not repeat itself, but its mechanisms return. Just as almost nobody in 1914 suspected that the Habsburg Empire and the German Empire were about to fall apart, the question arises again today of whether we are standing at the edge of a new global conflict.
Scenes from the play, filmed during performances in the historic Serbenhalle in Wiener Neustadt, form the backbone of the film. Combined with expert interviews, archive material and AI-generated image sequences, the result is a layered work that binds past and present together — and shows how current Kraus’s warning against propaganda and moral blindness still is.
On camera
- Markus Reisner — Colonel of the General Staff of the Austrian Armed Forces and military historian, widely known for his analyses of the war in Ukraine. Nominated for a Romy award in 2025.
- Christian Ortner — Historian, former director of the Museum of Military History in Vienna.
- Manfried Rauchensteiner — Historian, likewise former director of the Museum of Military History. Author of the standard work on Austria-Hungary in the First World War.
- Gregor Gatscher-Riedl — Historian and author.
- Emil Brix — Diplomat, former director of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, previously Austrian ambassador in London and in Moscow.
- Werner Wintersteiner — Peace researcher, University of Klagenfurt.
- Heribert Prantl — German journalist and author, for many years a member of the editorial board of the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
- Katharina Prager — Head of the Karl Kraus Archive.
- Maria Piok — Literary scholar.
- Gerald Krieghofer — Karl Kraus researcher, working on the origin and the misattribution of quotations.
- Alix d’Harambour-Freye — Castle owner, great-great-granddaughter of Franz Ferdinand.
- Gregor Razumovski — Entrepreneur, descendant of the ambassador of Tsarist Russia to the Congress of Vienna.
The play in the film
The scenes from Karl Kraus’s play “The Last Days of Mankind” were filmed and used in this film by kind permission of the theatre production of the association “Die letzten Tage der Menschheit”, staged in 2019 at the Serbenhalle in Wiener Neustadt under the direction of Paulus Manker.
Artificial intelligence in the film
The scenes, illustrations and animations around the figure of the influencer — and in part the figure herself — were created and processed using the AI tools Sora by OpenAI and Deevid AI, and by AIstronauts and Jakob Schweighardt. The film discloses this openly in its end credits.
Ensemble
- Anushka Grigalashwilli, Susanne Greiner, Elisabeth Halikiopoulos, Elisabeth Kofler, Claudia Kohlmann, Iris Schmid, Anu Sifkovits, Juditha Suchy
- Henry Arnold, Bernhard Bauer, Benedikt Haefner, Gregor Hellinger, David Ignatovic, Jakob Leonhard, Gunther Matzka, Gottfried Neuner, Thomas Pohn, Rene Rebeiz, Ralf Saml, Adrian Stowasser and Gerhard Swoboda
- As the influencer — Elisabeth Halikiopoulos
- As the AI — ChatGPT itself
- Young performers — Elias Gruber, Fabio Pammer, Pamina Pammer, Alma Pirolt, Natalie Platzer, Magdalena Reitstätter, Teresa Reitstätter, Helena Roth, Marlene Roth, Eliza Weghofer
Credits
- Written and directed by — Wolfgang Ritzberger
- Produced by — RitzlFilm, Vienna
- Producers — Elisabeth Uhl, Wolfgang Ritzberger
- Director of photography — Walter Kindler, aac
- Camera — Peter Roehsler, Peter Hackl, Wolf Günter, Marco Zimprich (aac), Walter Kindler (aac)
- Editing — Ingrid Koller, Marco Carso
- Production sound — Artur Tsal-Tsalko, Amatus Schneider
- Sound mix and sound design — Artur Tsal-Tsalko
- Head of production — Elisabeth Uhl
- Production management — Claudia Cornez, Benjamin Lehner
- Assistant director — Reinhard Schreiber
- Make-up — Liane Baal, Victoria Kirchner
- AI animation and graphics — AIstronauts, Jakob Schweighardt
- Colour grading and post-production — Christof Halasz
Music
- Draußen ist Krieg — Vincent Waizenegger, Felix von Heymann, Tim Tautorat, Farsad Zoroofchi and Pierre Vogt
- Dies irae and Tuba mirum from Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem — Choir and Orchestra of the mdw, conducted by Guido Mancusi
- Jockey Polka by Josef Strauss — Vienna Volksoper Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Guido Mancusi
- Scherzo for Orchestra, Festliche Fantasie and Kyrie from the Missa ad Tempum Festivuum by Guido Mancusi
Key facts
- Form — Film essay, documentary
- Language — German
- Country — Austria
- Locations — Serbenhalle in Wiener Neustadt and various locations in Vienna and Lower Austria, among them Artstetten Castle
- Completed — 2026
Supported by
Produced with the support of:
- Austrian Film Institute
- FISA — Film Location Austria
- ORF — under the Film/Television Agreement
- Province of Lower Austria — Culture Department
Archives and thanks
Archive material: Austrian Film Archive, Press Office of the White House in Washington, Press Office of the President of the Russian Federation in Moscow, Vatican Radio, Artstetten Castle.
With thanks to the Museum of Military History Vienna, the Vienna City Library at City Hall, the Karl Kraus Archive, the Concordia Press Club, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Defence, the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna and Artstetten Castle.
