When I was a child, I saw this film so often I sometimes joke that I was raised by Julie Andrews. (Mary Poppins, Fantasia, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Sinbad, are a few others that I saw the most.) And yet, when posed the question is the Baroness a Nazi sympathiser, I couldn’t decide.
My daughter has recently been asking to watch it, so we did on New Year’s Day. It seems quite obvious that the Baroness is a sympathiser, if only a passive one. She makes a gentle defence of Rolf (O Rolf!). She returns to Vienna knowing Anschluss is coming. She never says anything approving of the Captain’s views, even though she is supposed to be otherwise submitting herself to his approval for marriage. At the ball, others talk about the Austrian flag. She does not.