Trudy Gold
“Red Vienna”
Trudy Gold - Red Vienna
- Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome. And I’m really following on from William’s brilliant lecture yesterday, a superb analysis of turn of the century. And then, of course, the implications of the First World War. And what I’m doing now, obviously, is filling in the Jewish story, which is an exhilarating and in the end of tragic story. So Vienna, at the end of World War I, it’s no longer the centre of a great and glorious empire. It’s now the centre of a truncated country of six and a half million people. The Treaty of Saint-Germain, the Habsburgs had abdicated new countries carved out of the ruins. But nevertheless, there’s a legacy in Vienna of Germans, Czechs, Polish, Ruthenians, Slovaks, Slovenians, Italians, Romanians, now Jews. After the First World War, Vienna was the third largest Jewish city in the world, in Europe, by the way, after Warsaw and Budapest. America, New York had just overtaken Europe to give the biggest Jewish city in the world. So at the end of the First World War, it’s New York, followed by Warsaw, followed by Budapest, which is also out of the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. and then Vienna. And it’s a huge population. Out of the country of 6.5 million, the capital had 2 million, and 10% were Jewish. So there were 200,000 Jews living in Vienna. And the point was that Jews really, It’s important to remember that Jews are trying so hard in the main to be Viennese, whatever that means now. And not only that, there were many conversions.
We are trying to be part of Vienna. And not only conversions, there were many Jews who had broken away from their Jewishness altogether, but they are so disproportionately represented in the commerce, banking, entrepreneurial, pursuits. You know, it’s fascinating. I was re-looking at the figures for Jewish employment patterns, advertising, very much a product of modernity. 90% of those in the advertising business were Jewish, self-service restaurants, beauty parlours, department stores. It’s really, again, Jews at the forefront of modernity, pushing modernity, and also private banks. But the press, the liberal press, as we’ve already discussed, were still dominated by Jews. But also, 50% of the lawyers in Vienna are Jewish, 50% of the doctors. And the other point is that Vienna, which on one level, I’m quoting from Wistrich now, Vienna post-war is still the cradle of modernism, liberalism, Nazism, and Zionism. And don’t forget what happened to Austria when it was refused Anschluss. The Austrian Germans, that is the rump, they wanted Anschluss. And William brilliantly pointed out one of the biggest problems with the new Austria. There was a huge division between what it became known as Red Vienna and the rest of the countryside. The countryside around Vienna. if you think of the city of Linz, those of you who heard me lecture on Eichmann and Karlson Brunner, et al, they didn’t come from Vienna, they came from Linz.
If you like that arc, I call it from Bramhall through Munich, Vienna. It’s the Catholic conservative arc. And these are people who are conservative, they are Catholic. They don’t like what’s going on in the city. And the other point, at the University of Vienna, there was a huge disproportionate number of Jewish students and professors in the liberal arts professions, a disproportionate number. Now, you also see the growth of right wing nationalism. So at the university, it’s a bastion on one level of liberalism and on the other level, of nationalism. So if you like what Wistrich called the Janus face of modernity, it is totally there. And why was it called Red Vienna? The new Vienna Council is the most radical in Europe. It’s a social democratic council. And the majority of Jews who were enfranchised were now going to support Red Vienna. From 4th of May, 1919, adult citizens, over 24, of both sexes had voting rights. The party had a huge preponderance of Jews in the party. The first mayor, social democratic mayor of Vienna was succeeded by another Jew. So you have one Jew after another Jew. And also, at the end of the war, refugees from Eastern Europe flooded in. Tomorrow, as one of our joint events with lockdown, with Jewish Book Week, I’m interviewing an extraordinary man called Jeffrey Veidlinger, who’s written a book called “In the Midst of Civilised Europe”, which is about the terrible pogroms in the Ukraine at the end of the First World War. And also, he’s going to be talking about the current situation just as we have an event with the ADL, which is wonderful.
So there’s going to be a lot on the modern situation. But going back, at the end of the First World War, what happened to Galicia that had been the province of the Habsburg Empire that had the largest number of Jews. Now, it’s West Vienna, it’s now West Ukraine, settled by the Soviets. Many Jews escaping the programmes, a hundred thousand Jews were murdered in the Ukraine between 1918 and 1921. Vienna’s always been the crossroads between the east and the west. Those of you who travel in Eastern Europe will know that if you want to go on to Odessa or to Kiev in the main, you fly first to Vienna. It’s the crossroads. So what happens the end of the First World War, you have Jews moving in. And of course, you have this situation where the Jewish presence in Vienna is absolutely huge. And it’s every kind of Jew. It’s not just the liberal, socialist, intellectuals, it’s also the religious Jews who tragically Hitler talks about a lot in his terrible book, “Mein Kampf”. Now, the other point is the discontents of Vienna. I’m going to give you a picture of an extraordinary attempt by the mayoralty of Vienna to create a modern city that would help the working classes. But what about the other classes, particularly the lower middle classes? They’re all plunged into poverty by hyperinflation. The new borders between Austria and the other regions, that’s once fed the population made food supplies difficult. There was terrible overcrowding in the city. There was terrible crime.
And don’t forget also, not only was there that pandemic at the end of the First World War, syphilis, terrible, terrible disease, and were a little bit before Paul Ehrlich’s magic bullet when he created Salvarsan. Vienna was called , big head, too big to be the capital of a small country. Having said all that, on one level, it’s an absolute pioneer city in terms of incredible change in the arts, in the sciences. Please don’t forget, it’s still the city of Freud. He’s still beavering way in the Leopoldstadt. It’s still the city of Adler. It’s still the city of Schnitzler, of Kraus, of Loos, of Schaumberg, the Vienna circle of philosophers. I’ll be talking about them later. Scientists, artists, architects, not all of them are going to become socialists. But on the whole, they believe in modernity, and they also believed in social justice. This is a quote from Victor Adler, “Vienna achieved one of the most spectacular cultural trance of Western history, an exampled moral intellectual rise in the condition of a highly industrialised working class. It withstood the degrading efforts of grave economic dislocation and achieved a level never before reached by the masses of the people in any industrial society.” What we’re going to see, as we go through this, is you are going to see the most incredible architecture. You’re going to see parks created to make the lot of the working classes much better. Let me now give you another couple of quotes. Can we see the next quote on the screen from, of course, the brilliant Stefan Zweig.
And I’m very pleased to tell you that the brilliant David Herman will be lecturing on Stefan Zweig later on in the course. So let’s read this, “Our generation has gradually learnt the great art of living without security. We are prepared for everything. There is a mysterious pleasure in retaining one’s reason and spiritual independence, particularly in a period where confusion and madness are rampant. I would like to live forgotten in a forgotten place, somewhere, and to never again open the newspaper.” So what I’m trying to give you is a completely mixed picture, very high profile Jewish presence, the benefits of modernity, also carrying on from Schnitzler post-war. If you think of the art, the music, for many, it was decadence. Not only was there rampant syphilis, there was also rampant sexuality. But at the end of the First World War, it was almost what on earth have we got to lose? What kind of world are we going to create? And of course, the dark side, shattering suicide figures. And ironically, there’s a disproportionate suicide figures amongst Jewish women. 1926 alone, there were 80 suicides amongst Jewish women. It’s almost like, what on earth is there to live for? Is there pleasure to live for? And it’s this extraordinary kind of ambivalence in this very, very strange society. Now, let me also give you another quote of Stefan Zweig.
This is his whole analysis: Life in old Austria has always been mistaken as the expression of a vivacious, fun-loving people, tut it was a mask behind which people were hiding their hopelessness, despair, and a feeling of insecurity and abandonment, the true Austrian philosophy of fatalism because it is a weak country, or rather an artificial construction of an empire, unsound perhaps in its setup and doomed to fail after the fierce onslaught. And he said, “I am now part of a beaten generation. I’m fed up with hatred,” he said this in 1925, wrote it in 25, “purged again with terror, attacked by stupidity, our spirit distracted by the senseless fireworks of money games. How can we create something complete based on peace when we are obsessed with externals? So what I’ve tried to give you so far is if you like this kind of city where you’re going to see there’s going to be incredible attempts at improving the lot of the working classes, there’s a lot of unrest under the surface. There’s a malaise, there’s the horror of the First World War. And also, please don’t forget the right wing in the countryside, more and more becoming involved in a movement that in the end is going to revolutionise, and to a large extent, destroy the dream of progress of the 20th century. And of course, that is Nazism. And William very carefully pointed out to you yesterday that there was Austrofascism that wanted a reactionary right wing clericalist government in Vienna, and of course, Nazism.
People like Eichmann and Karlson Brunner, Austrians who wanted union with Germany. And all was over the shoulder, they’re watching as the events unfold in Germany, and in many ways, read Vienna. It’s the hopelessness and yet also the glory is summed up by an incredibly interesting man called Maximilian Hugo Bettauer. May we please see his picture? Thank you, Judi. His dates are 1872 to 1925. He sums up a lot of what I’ve been talking about. He was the son of a wealthy stockbroker, a man called Samuel Aron. He came from Lemberg, which of course is Lviv. The family come to Vienna as so many Jews of their generation. He attended a gymnasium in Vienna. Fellow pupil was Karl Kraus, the satirist who had this incredible magazine called Die Fackel, always making fun of everyone. In 1890, like so many Jews, he converted to Christianity. He converted to Lutheranism. It wasn’t to do with religious conversion at all. It was wanting to be part of it. In his early days, he loved the mountains, he loved the German language. He wanted to join the Imperial Mountain Infantry as a one-year volunteer. Jewish soldiers found it very, very difficult to make any career in the military and that is why he converted. He left the army because he wasn’t a man who took orders. He then moved to Zurich. And as a young man, he inherits a lot of money from his father.
So another pattern. If you go back to his grandfather, his grandfather would’ve been a religious Jew. His father had come to Vienna, made an absolute fortune. His son doesn’t really have to work. He married a woman he was madly in love with, a girl called Olga Steiner, who was also of Jewish birth. They moved to America. And on the boat, he lost his entire fortune, but he’s going to remain in America till 1899. He couldn’t find work there. So he went to Berlin where their son Heinrich was born tragically. If you think about what’s going to happen to these people, Heinrich is going to have a terribly miserable life. And he’s going to die in Auschwitz in 1942. He discovers his talent, he’s a journalist, and he turns to journalism, and he’s really an investigative journalist. And he spends a lot of time exposing corruption in Berlin. And he also analysed and ferreted out the life of the director of the Berlin Hoff Theatre, which led to his suicide. So he was expelled from Prussia. He moves onto Munich. He’s one of these restless characters. He set up cabaret in Munich, a cabaret called Eleven Executioners. And in 1901, we find him again in Hamburg. He’s a director of a specialist publication called The Kitchen And the Seller. He divorces the love of his wife. He marries a young girl of 16. They have another son. He goes to New York, he works as a journalist and begins to write serious novels. In 1910, he moves to Vienna.
Like so many of these bright young men, he joins the staff of the Neue Freie Presse. 1914, he enlists, but he’s turned down because he is American. 1918, he’s fired from the Neue Freie Presse. He works as a correspondent for various American newspapers. And he starts an aid… Remember he is wealthy. He starts an aid programme for the people of Vienna. He becomes a prolific writer. He writes four or five novels a year. He specialises in crime, but stories with a social message. He lives on the edge. He drinks, he’s a womaniser, he likes young women. We would call him, I don’t what the term is today, he was a bit of a rake. He was a great experimentalist. But his novels, crime novels set in Vienna, they become very popular. Sometimes he sets them in Berlin, sometimes in New York. His most famous novel is a novel called "City Without Jews”, which he wrote in 1922. And it’s a satire on anti-Semitism. It’s terrifying, actually, because the story is a fictitious politician. It orders the expulsion of all the Jews from Vienna. Remember he writes this in 1922, Austria borrows 30 stock car trains from neighbouring countries to help with the expulsion of the Jews to the east, there to take all their belongings with them.
The citizens initially celebrate the expulsion, but sentiments change as theatres go bankrupt, as department stores go bankrupt, hotels and resorts suffer. The economy declines to such an extent that a popular movement caused for the return of the Jews. Without the Jews to blame, the ruling class collapsed and the expulsion edict is rescinded. And at the end of the book, the Jews returned to Vienna. They’re welcomed back. It’s sold a quarter of a million copies in its first year, was very controversial. It gained him an awful lot of admirers, but also enemies. He’s denounced as a red poet. They’re all very left wing. He’s also denounced as a corruptor of youth. And he also set up a weekly paper with very provocative and progressive content. He launched a magazine called He and She, a lifestyle magazine, which dealt with eroticism, sadomasochism. Even for Red Vienna, it was so near the edge that it was actually closed after five editions. Now, his books were made into plays and films. His book, “The Joyless Street” in 1925, was made into a film in Weimar by Ophüls, by Pabst, and starred Greta Garbo. And what I have for you now is a trailer of his silent film “City Without Jews”. We see Jew being blamed for all the ills of society. Thank you, Judi. That is very, very scary. Anyway, I’m going to just continue. Let’s keep Victor Adler on the screen, but I’m going to continue a little more with Betta. Obviously, he’s an incredibly controversial figure that is about… Obviously, it’s about anti-Semitism. Thank you, Judi. What would I do without you?
His magazine circulation, the one on sexuality being banned, but he has another newspaper, he’s accused of immorality, he’s accused of all sorts of things. And at this stage, a member of the illegal Austrian Nazi party publishes a series of articles, lynch justice against all polluters of our people. Bettauer is considered a polluter of the people. And on the 10th of March, 1925, a dental technician, a man called Otto Rothstock shot Betta, seriously injured. He died in hospital on the 26th of March, 1925. And what was the motive of the attacker? There was a debate in the city hall. Now, Rothstock maintained it was because of the immorality of the author who was responsible for his explicitly sexual magazines, et cetera. But what was established, that Rostock had once been a member of the National Socialist Party. He’d left it in 1925, but he was supported. His lawyer was a member of the illegal Nazi party, and all his friends had very close ties. And it was generally accepted that this film, this book had its film because of its stand against anti-Semitism that lay behind the murder. Now, what happened to Rostock is indicative of what’s going to happen. He was sent to a psychiatric clinic for which he was released after 18 months. And at his trial, by the way, he finally said, “I’ve done it as a necessity,” and I’m quoting, “to save European culture from the menace of degeneration.” His lawyer, Dr. Walter Riehl, was an early in Austrian Nazi and was very influential after the Anschluss. And Rothstock was always unrepentant. He was actually interviewed in 1977, and he actually boasted of Bettaeur’s extinction. So that extraordinary film.
But please don’t forget, Bettauer also had his admirers, so it’s not a dark picture. The trouble is we know which way it’s going to go. Now, let’s move on to Victor Adler, who of course was the most important figure in the social democratic movement, the left. So I’m going to give a bit of background on him because he’s going to be a very important politician. The majority of the leadership of the Vienna Council of people of Jewish birth. Now, let me say very clearly, many of them converted or had no religion at all, but they are seen as Jews. Now, he was born in Prague, the same story. He’s the son of a Jewish merchant from Moravia. The family moved to the Leopoldstadt when he’s three years old. He goes to a Catholic gymnasium, and he was one of the few Jewish students there. He studied chemistry and medicine at the University of Vienna, 1881. He graduated. He worked as an assistant to Theodor Meynert at the psychiatric department of the General Hospital. Other students there were Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud. I’ve said this to you before. Can you just imagine if you want to go back into a time capsule just for a short period before the horror, can you imagine what it must have been like to be at the University of Vienna? any time between 1880 and 1914?
It must have been absolutely extraordinary. He married in 1878. He’s going to be part of that intellectual circle of about a thousand people who changed the world. He married a woman called Emma Brown, who was a journalist Jewish. She was a novelist. She wrote historical fiction. She was a socialist. She was a really committed socialist. And she also was a very close friend of Bertha Pappenheim, who was, of course, the Austrian Jewish feminist and the founder of Jewish Women’s Associations. Her story is told under the name… Those of you who are either psychologist, psychiatrist, or interested, her pseudonym was, of course, Anna O. She was one of Josef Breuer’s best documented patients because of Freud’s writing up of the case notes in 1895, the studies in hysteria. So he’s part of that circle. The couple had three children, and they lived at 19 Berggasse, which later until 1890, which later, of course, became the home of Sigmund Freud. Now, in his early days, he supported the Pan-German movement led by Schönerer. You remember we talked about this. Schönerer, he really wanted to take the German side of the Austria and link it with Germany. But at that stage, it was a socialist programme and there were Jews on the committee. However, he was part of the Linz Programme. However, of course, Schönerer became violently anti-Semitic. All Jews are capitalist, just as all Jews are communists. He added a clause to the Linz Programme that nobody could be part of Pan-German movement unless they could prove they were Aryan.
This is the taking over of the notion of the bloodline. So what happens to Adler, he becomes more and more involved in international socialist politics. He published a Marxist journal equality. He’s very interested in the working conditions in Vienna, particularly in the conditions that a terrible brick factory where the trucking system, wages were paid partly in commodities or credit with retailers or tokens. It’s a very archaic English word, meaning exchange or barter. And he thought it was absolutely retrograde, it’s corrupt, and people should be paid proper wages for a decent day’s work. Of course, under the regime, the Habsburg regime, his paper was banned. He travels to Switzerland, to Germany. He has relations with Bebel, with Engels, with Liebknecht, with Rosa Luxemburg. He was constantly watched by the police. But he was a brilliant speaker. He was a passionate socialist. And it’s Adler, the Jew, who unites the Austrian labour movement. On one level, this is happening all over Europe. In Germany, it’s Ferdinand Lassalle. Later on in Hungary, it’s going to be Béla Kun. You have Jews absolutely at the forefront of these working class movements. Now, it’s obvious why these are the double outsiders, but it leads to this… If you don’t believe that Victor Adler is a citizen of Vienna, what is he? He’s a Jew and this is what’s going to cause the problems.
Anyway, he founded the Social Democratic Workers Party and becomes its first chairman. He had a place in the parliament, which of course Hitler called the bubble of races. Do you remember we looked at the description of the Austrian parliament under Hitler? He played a leading part in the fight for universal suffrage. He wanted to break down all the ethnic divisions. He said, “Look, we’re one people, we all suffer the same way. Get rid of all your particularism.” And of course, he was against the war as a socialist. But at the end of the war, he advocates Anschluss because you have this truncated Austria. He is elected to the new Austrian government, but he dies of heart failure on the eve of the war. And it’s important to state that the bulk of enfranchised jury was attracted to the social democratic movement. Again, this whole issue of Red Vienna, because also there was no political party, more in favour of event of enfranchisement of underprivileged groups. And I’ve often believed, you might think this is a little controversial, but within Judaism, there is such a strong tradition of social justice. All you have to do is read the Prophets, Amos written 3000 years ago. I mean, I love that. I love that book. I mean, you can either read it as a religious text, but you could read it as a man who’s grasping for social justice. He complains that Israel will be destroyed because you sell the needy for a pair of shoes and the fat kind of , the fat women who loam silk and cushions and build two-story houses. Why people have no food?
Even if they leave their Judaism behind, I really think there is this strain of social justice within the Jewish tradition. He also believed passionately in the advocation of education for the masses. If you educate the masses, we can create a great society. And the problem was, in the social democratic movement, which is going to take over Vienna, and as William brilliantly described yesterday, in the end, it’s the fight between the extreme right and the extreme left. So many of the activists were people of Jewish birth, lawyers, doctors, editors of the socialist press, instructors at the workers educational centres. These people, they really wanted to create a new world. You educate the masses, you set up education classes, you write for the trade union presses. And it’s finally, of course, the party is going to be completely defeated in 1934. Now, let’s talk about another fascinating man, Julius Tandler. Can we see him, please? Yeah. He’s born in Moravia. Again, the same sort of background, gymnasium in Vienna. He becomes the professor of anatomy at the University of Vienna. World War I, he is the dean of the faculty. Post-war, he’s very political, he’s very left wing. He works at the Office of Public Health. He’s on the council, one of the Jews on the council, the majority of the leadership are. He is the healthcare counsellor for the city of Vienna. He’s elected to the Academy of Sciences in 1925. He’s a consultant on healthcare for the League of Nations. And what are the sort of things they are going to get up to? He and Breitner, who I’m going to look at in a minute, what they’re going to be trying to do is to change Vienna.
Let me give you an overview picture. And it’s going to be mainly the work of Tandler and Breitner. What the council did, despite the high inflation, rents were frozen at 1914 level. So private house projects become unprofitable. They wanted to create affordable housing. Between 1925 and 1933, you are going to see that 60,000 new flats were built. New flats with large blocks around green spaces designed by wonderful architects like Loos, Mendelsohn, the Bell House Art Deco. Tenants were chosen on a ranking system. If you had any kind of disability, you had extra points. Public money was to cover the building costs. In the workers’ flats, this is extraordinary, the household rent should be no more than 4% of your income. In private buildings, it’s 30%. If the tenants were ill or unemployed, they could defer their rent. Parents received the clothing package for each baby. This is a quote. Actually, this is a quote of Tandler, remember he’s very into health, “No child in Vienna should be wrapped in newspaper.” Kindergartens were opened so that women could work. Medical services were free of charge. Vacation grounds were set up all over Vienna, public bars, sports facilities to give better fitness, better, better life to the working classes.
And this is what he said in the council, “What we spend on youth, we will save on prisons. What we spend on the care of pregnant women and babies, we will save in the hospital for mental illness.” Remember, he is a doctor, he’s also a psychiatrist. He studied. And he believed that much of the melees of the of Vienna was because of deep unhappiness. The municipal expenditure for social service tripled, tripled. And I’m going to talk about where the money comes from in a minute. TB dropped by 50% onto his watch. There were affordable tariffs for gas and electricity and for refuse collection, all run by the municipality. They all help improve health services. Now, of course, increasingly, he becomes a subject of anti-Semitism. Why? Because where are they going to get the money from? They’re going to get the money from the rich. There is a theatre tax, there is a servant tax. You pay a lot of money if you have servants in your house. All luxury goods are taxed. It’s squeezed the rich to help the poor. Ironically, many of the rich were in fact Jewish. And one of the greatest philanthropists in Austria giving more and more help to the non-Jewish community was the Rothschild family. They built the most extraordinary hospitals. Now, of course, what happens to him after his more and more target of anti-Semites and after the rise of Austrofascism, he was forced to quit his job where he immigrates to China.
And he’s in China, of course, working, trying to improve. Just think of the problems of China. I mean, even today, even though there are five cities with populations with more than 20 million, one has 40 million, only 30% of the population live in the cities. They wanted him to advise them on improving healthcare, et cetera, et cetera. 1936, he’s asked by the Soviets to go to Moscow to advise them, but, unfortunately, he died. He was really the one of the main architects of the Austrian welfare state. He also promoted family planning, marital therapy. He also did advocate sterilisation, which is another story. Well, so this extraordinary man, Julius Tandler, and then there’s another character who I haven’t unfortunately found a picture of, but Hans Kelsen. He was one of the greatest jurists in Vienna. And he’s author of the Austrian Constitution, which was a very important liberal left constitution. Of course, because of the rise of anti-Semitism, the top lawyer in Austria, he has to get out. He goes to Germany in 1930, posed as a professor at the University of Berlin. What happens to him, of course, Hitler comes to power. He’s forced out. He’s not a practising Jew. He’s a convert. He’s forced out because he has Jewish blood. He leaves for Geneva, finally to America.
Roscoe Pound, who was the dean of the College of Law and dean of Harvard Law School, he said, “Kelsen was undoubtedly the leading jurist of our age.” In his youth, he was part of Freud’s Circle. He wrote on sociology, on psychology. He died in California in Barclay aged 91. Now, let’s turn to the next great figure. Hugo Breitner. Could you go back just for a minute, Judi? Now, this is just to give you an idea. And these are the wonderful buildings. The one above the writing is Vienna. But also, this is very much happening in Stockholm, in Frankfurt. This is the notion of bringing all the aspects of modernity to help the working classes. It’s an absolutely wonderful, it’s a wonderful dream, is it not? But you’ve got to remember, it’s very divorced from the Catholic rural areas where there’s terrible poverty, very conservative, very clerical. And also, the elites, the wealthy elites in Vienna are becoming more and more alienated because they are being squeezed. Now, let’s look at Hugo Breitner because he was in fact the economic genius behind it all. His father Moriz had been a grain trader. The usual story, I keep on saying this, immigrate from Budapest. He was very, very successful on the Vienna stock exchange. He goes to the commercial academy in Vienna, and then he became an employee of a leading bank. He built up the union at the bank. He leaves Judaism in 1901. Whereas his grandfather was a pious Jew, to these characters, it’s irrelevant to their lives.
By 1914, this socialist is director of the bank. He’s also the vice president of the association of saving banks officials in Austria, the Bank Trade Union. 1917, he resigns from the union because he thought his managerial function was no longer compatible with membership of the union and of helping the workers. And he joins the Socialist Workers Party and Social Democratic Party in 1918. And because of his specialist knowledge of money, he becomes the member of the Vienna City Council from 1918 to 1933. And he, along with Tandler, they play an absolute decisive role in shaping Red Vienna. He is the leading financial politician of the city. He brilliantly restores the city’s credit worthiness. He regulates foreign debt. And you got to remember, and William talked about this, the city of Vienna had financial sovereignty over its own affairs. And he introduces a state tax system, which of course was very uncomfortable in the countryside. And of course, it was he who passed the housing tax, which led to the extensive social housing, which he, and Tandler, and other members of the committee believed could save the Viennese people. He also created the Vienna Electric Light Rail, which opened in 1925 under municipal management. The household was taxed, which I’ve already mentioned to you, was one of his inventions. And you can just imagine, if you have servants, you’re going to have to pay triple. He also introduced taxes on champagne, taxes on balls, he called them the amusement taxes.
With these taxes and the federal taxes from the landowners in the countryside, he succeeded in just a few years in finding huge sums for investment in creating the workers’ paradise that they even believed in. They all believed in it. They wanted to change and help the world. And even during the global crisis, the city was debt-free. But of course, it makes him the target of the Christian Social Party. They described him as a tax addict and a Jew. And of course, the Christian socialists were really angry about the federal tax. And they targeted him. He’s attacked by his opponents. And this is one of the comments, “I will give the Viennese a good recipe for the election campaign. We should fight the election battle under the sign of Breitner. Only when these Asians, these Asians’ head rolls in the sand where victory be ours. The Jew is the Asian.” And of course, unfortunately, in 1932, he was ill and he resigned. He was arrested during that period of fighting that that William talked about. He went temporarily to Florence. And in the end, he goes to America. And in 1939, his villa was Aryanized and his apartment was taken over. And he was brought back from America after the war. And his ashes are in Vienna. And there are memorials to him in the city. So what a terrible, terribly sad story. And in fact, as the story… I’m going to just go on quickly to the case of Moritz Schlick.
Can we see his… Yeah. Now, Moritz Schlick was not a Jew. His dates are 1882 to 1936. Those of you who study philosophy, of course, he was absolutely at the centre of logical positivism. Many would say he was the man who really created it. He was also at the centre of the Vienna Circle, which is a group of young philosophers, most of whom were Jewish, or let me put it this way, of Jewish birth. He was born in Berlin to a wealthy Prussian family. He studied physics at Heidelberg. Brilliant man. And he loved philosophy, but he decided to study maths and physics because he said, “That is real knowledge. That’s actual knowledge that I can prove.” And he takes his PhD at the University of Berlin. And it’s only in Switzerland at the University of Zurich that he turns to philosophy. He has the chair of philosophy from 1922 at the University of Vienna. He was brilliant collecting around him talented people, groups of scientists, philosophers. They met every Thursday in the chemistry building of the Vienna University. Now, I wouldn’t have had a clue what they were talking about, but can you imagine being a fly on the wall? I mean, Wittgenstein was on the periphery of that group, so was Karl Popper, Albert Bloomberg later, who was an incredibly interesting historian. He said, “No other thinker was so well prepared to give new impetus to the philosophical questions of the younger generation. Schlick had an unsurpassed sense of what is essential in philosophical issues.” Now, so this man, he’s at the centre of what was called Young Vienna.
These young, brilliant scientists, philosophers who were, just as the city itself, is pioneering new ideas and new ideas in the arts, the sciences, but also to help the working classes, the green spaces, the incredible health programmes. So you have characters like Moritz Schlick and his circle, beavering away to really push the frontiers of knowledge to the basic questions of philosophy, what makes the human being tick? And then, tragically, he was assassinated. By the way, before I come onto that, one of his students, of course, was the great Karl Popper. And let me quickly mention Karl Popper because he has had such an influence in Britain. He was also born into a wealthy family in Vienna. The family had baptised before he was born, not for religious reasons. The father was a brilliant lawyer. They lived a very good upper middle class life. Again, he’s at the University of Vienna, attracted to Marxism. He joined the SDWP. He’s disillusioned. I’m talking about Karl Popper. He had manual jobs. He volunteered at one of Alfred Adlas clinics for children. You think about psychology that’s going on at the great universities. Later on, Professor Pima is going to talk about Melanie Klein. It’s so important. In many ways, Vienna and Berlin are the birthplace of all these modern movements that have changed the 20th and 21st century. He took his PhD with Schlick in 1928. He actually got out in 1937. After the assassination of Schlick, the majority of them got out. He could only get to New Zealand where he wrote… Finished up at LSC, where his book, “The Open Society and Its Enemies” had an unbelievable impact on a whole generation, including a student of his, the young George Soros.
But going back to Moritz Schlick, remember he’s not a Jew. He’s murdered by a former student, a man called Johann Nelböck. And even though Schlick wasn’t Jewish, the point is, it became the debate on the Jews taking over Vienna. Let me show you the last quote. Can we see the last quote, please, Jude? This is from the Catholic newspaper, May 1936, after his assassination, “The disastrous influence of Judaism can be seen. Now, the Jewish circles were not tired of praising him as the greatest of thinkers. We understand that very well. The Jew is born a metaphysician. In philosophy, he loves logicism, formalism, and positivism. We will, however, like to remind everyone, we are Christians living in a Christian German state. It is we who decide whether philosophy is good and suitable. The Jews should be allowed their own Jewish philosophy in their own Jewish cultural institute,” hope you’re listening to this, Wendy, “But in the chairs of philosophy in the Viennese University in Christian German Austria, there only belongs Christian philosophers. Recently, it has been repeatedly explained that a peaceful solution to the Jewish question in Austria is also in the interest of the Jews, otherwise a violent solution is unavoidable.” And of course, what happens is the Anschluss. And on March the 15th, 1938, Hitler goes home. And 90% of the citizens of Vienna were on the streets to greet him.
The other 10% were the Jews. And of course, the appalling humiliation. Eichmann turned up in Vienna to set up an immigration bureau, robbed them blind and kicked them out. At this stage, the final solution was immigration. And that’s a savage indictment of the west of the world when our eyes are on refugee issues. But importance to remember, let’s just think of that terrible world that is now destroyed. Out of the 50 members of the psychoanalytic movement, all the three had to leave the country because they were born Jewish. Alfred Adler’s School of Individual Psychology, 2/3 of the 29 members fled. In the field of economics, law politics, science, journalism, you have the most incredible cultural exodus. In literature, characters like Robert Musil, who wasn’t Jewish, by the way, but nevertheless was a fellow traveller. What happened to Stefan Zweig? what tragic story that was. And of course, David will be talking about that. Schaumberg, Korngold, . Think of the Vienna School of Art, it was exiled. There would not have been art history as a discipline at British universities if it hadn’t been for characters like Gombrich. They changed. On one level, you have the terrible tragedy of middle Europe. But for those of us who live in Britain, or America, or in Israel, these individuals from Berlin and Vienna, they transported all those incredible ideas. You can also think of the architecture. When I go travelling on the south coast of England, think of all those art deco and art nouveau houses and blocks of flats. 3,000 of the top doctors and professors of medicine had to go into exile. Between ‘38 and '41, there were 30,000 Austrians to America.
And let me finish on a quote of Max Reinhardt. This is the March the 4th, 1938. This is before the Anschluss. He writes, “Toscanini from Hollywood. Based on my initiative, a group of influential people intend to found another Salzburg in California so that productions can be staged under a more favourable climate and political condition, and perhaps with more financial means.” And of course, after the Nazis took control in Austria, it took them five years to Nazify Germany. It took them five months to Nazify Austria. And when they had the terrible book burnings, when they had the book burnings in Salzburg, a Gentile friend of Reinhardt because remember Reinhardt created the Salzburg Festival, which Patrick’s going to be lecturing on soon. And basically, he writes a letter to him, “Today, we burnt European culture.” So let me finish there. And what can we say? They tried to create a wonderful new world based on social justice. That was the story. These are people saying they like us. Thank you.
Q&A and Comments:
Q: What is the Jewish community in Vienna today? What is the level of anti-Semitism currently?
A: It’s a very, very interesting question, Elliot. They have a lot of Jews who came in from Iran and Russia. What I’m hoping to do in the next few months, I used to sit on IHRA, the idea. And the woman who represented Austria is in fact Jewish. I want to persuade her to come and talk to us about what it’s like being a Jew in Austria today. It’s complicated. I mean, it’s better than it was because don’t forget, and this is something else we’ll be talking about over the next few weeks, Austria managed to put itself out as the first victim of Nazism. Don’t forget that, the first victims of Nazism. And the allies let it happen because of the fear of communism.
Now, Jerry, sessions on 19th century pogroms in Ukraine. Now, let me tell you two things, but half past two on Thursday, I’m interviewing Jeffrey Veidlinger. This is a joint event between Lockdown University and Jewish Book Week. And he has just written a brilliant book, “In the Midst of Civilised Europe”, which is about the Ukrainian pogroms 1918 to '21. And what we plan to do our next, Wendy and I have been planning the syllabus with our colleagues. And once we’ve left the Habsburg Empire, because of course we’ll be looking at interwar Slovakia, Prague, et cetera. We are going to have a few light because we’re becoming up to , we’ll be having a kind of festival of freedom. And then after that, we’re going to turn to Eastern Europe. And I think we’ll probably being Eastern Europe for at least three months. And we’ll be looking, in a lot of depths, at a lot of areas. So that’s going to be the core team, but also many other wonderful individuals who can enrich our subject. So I hope that answers your question. Yes. It sounds like now, I’d rather not open a newspaper or listen to the radio. Yeah. Or watch TV.
So this is Karen. There’s a high suicide amongst Jewish men, women. Of course, the men were out frolicking. Hmm-mm-mm. And Jackie, depicting in Schnitzler’s “La Ronde”. Yes. It’s a very, very interesting film. It was made by Max Ophüls. You can get it. Oh, I’ve lost… Oh goodness, dude, I’m so bad at technology.
Q: Was Austrofascism good for Austria? Was hatred of Jews a key component? Was Austrofascism good for Austria?
A: No.
Q: Was hatred of Jews a key component of an anti-fascist policy, anti-fascist philosophy?
A: It was certainly a key. It was a key component of Austrofascist philosophy. Yeah, of course, it was. You see, this is the problem. If you do not believe Jews are part of you, you see them as communists, as capitalists, as newspaper editors, as religious Jews, as vagabonds, whatever you want, and that’s how you get to that revolting idea of Jewish plots. I think the amazing film.
Q: Are you referring to “La Ronde”? Oh, you’re talking about “City Without Jews”?
A: Yes, it’s extraordinary. Some of those old silent films are absolutely extraordinary. And Weimar, if you look at the cinema of Weimar, if only I was a little better at technology… Well, Judi’s wonderful at technology. We can show more films.
Oh, Ellie Strauss, Bertha Pappenheim was the second cousin of my mother. Oh God, I love our programme. This is wonderful. Absolute horrific, the Russian bombing of baby. Oh my God. No other words. You can’t describe it, can you?
Q: Harry, any relation to Chief Rabbi Adler?
A: I don’t think so, but I couldn’t swear to it, Harry. Tick an alarm. Yes, Julius Tandler now is a hero. I bet he’s been Judaized.
Q: Tandler’s activity sounds like Build Back Better. When Tandler increased Texas on the wealthy to finance social services, why did that illicit anti-Semitic attacks? Weren’t the wealthy classes mostly Jewish? And wouldn’t they have supported those tax?
A: Not all the rich were Jewish. Some of the rich were Jewish.
Q: Would they have supported those taxes?
A: Some did, some don’t. A lot of Jews were just bourgeois, remember, people of people. You probably had a thousand activists.
Q: How did Tandler have such a massive impact on tuberculosis?
A: No, I don’t know the answer to that. I’m not a medical person. It’s a very good question. I thought it was because he improved living conditions, open spaces, airy spaces, flats that weren’t damp. But it’s interesting. I don’t know about drugs, but certainly this is the beginning of all sorts of cures for things. Yes.
This is Della. Della, how are you?
Q: If the rich were heavily taxed to create the workers’ paradise, why didn’t they leave for other countries, the way they’d not be so heavily taxed?
A: This is the fear of most governments. That’s very, very interesting. It’s very interesting part, Della.
Q: Do we know why Moritz Schlick was assassinated?
A: Basically, the man was deranged. And there were two reasons given, one was to do with a woman, but that was totally in his fantasy. It’s because he thought that Schlick was corrupting Austria, logical positivism. Look, he wasn’t a Jew. But the point is, he’s part of the Vienna Circle, he’s the leader of the Vienna Circle. These people with their ideas, they’re corrupting Christian Austria. Don’t forget Catholic Austria.
This is from Hella. Psychoanalysis itself is a Holocaust survivor. Had the cuts been any lower on the tree, the roots would’ve died completely. It subsidised in Israel while the rest of us practised in the analytic diaspora. Melanie Klein was one of the first analysts to explore early development processes. And are the infants begun to come to mind? By the way, I’m a woman. My dad was Mr. Hella. I am Dr. Morilyn Hella. I wish you’d put that before, Morilyn. What a lovely question. A lovely explanation. I love it. Absolutely beautiful. Thank you.
A more beautiful future. No comment. Yes, it’s tragic. Comment, it’s ironic that so many Jews who converted didn’t do so as you say for religious reasons, but who, in reality, lost their true and wonderful Jewish religion. Yes, Rod, it’s so complex, Jewish identity, isn’t it? It’s that phrase committee. There are no people more difficult to understand than the Jews. London would open air summer concerts were started by Jewish refugees so they could recreate what they had enjoyed pre-war. Yes, of course. And if you wander around Hampstead, I mean, if you think, why did they come to those big houses? Because they were converted in flats. I mean, I had German Jewish friends who recreated their parents’ apartments in Berlin and Vienna. It’s extraordinary. Thank you.
This is Paula. She’s drawing attention to today’s situation for much the same reason. That’s because society’s under threat. Whenever society’s under threat, tragically, we do seem in the western world to be the main whipping boy. And unfortunately, one of the things that I really object to is the other victim groups now seen as a perpetrator. Thank you, Amy. Thank you.
This is from Barry. My wife and I lived on a kibbutz in Israel in 1973. The kibbutz was non-religious and very socialist. The lifestyle must have been based on many of the ideas from Vienna. Barry, you’ve got to remember, that is actually comes out of socialist Zionism, which I’ll be doing much more on when we turn to Eastern Europe. That came purely out of Eastern Europe, but it was associated with Vienna as well. You’ve got to remember these international Jews, the story again.
Q: Was the world then just anti-refugee at Vienna or anti-Jewish refugee?
A: That’s a very interesting question and deserves a much bigger answer. Evian was certainly anti-Jewish. Golda was an observer. She said the day will come when no one will pity the Jews. America was certainly beginning to tighten up against all Jews, against everyone. You see, America, the country of the open door policy, by the turn of the century, it’s changing. But I think that’s for a whole separate lecture, not given by me. There are people much more expert on it than I am.
Q: Are the Jewish book events available on Zoom?
A: I would imagine the Zoom ones are, yes.
Q: This is from Michael. When will Judeans in the diaspora learn the lesson of history? Two weeks ago, did the Judeans of Ukraine expect a Russian invasion?
A: Judeans never seem to know. Invest in an apartment or in unit trust in Israel, only country in the world that actually wants you. Michael. I believe that the Israelis have got representatives at all the border crossings. Oh, thank you, Barbara. Oh, Ellie, thank you. No, I don’t have German. That would be very useful.
Thank you. Susan. How are you? I love it when friends get in touch. And Della, haven’t heard from you for ages. Wonderful. What was the name of the film about… It’s Schnitzler and it’s “La Ronde”. He wrote “La Ronde”, okay? A wonderful book. Yes, of course. It was a book.
Yeah. Deborah. And when I listen to you and William, I can’t help but see you’re both saying is relevant now. It’s very scary. If Vienna was red, how was it in 90%? Welcomed? Anthony, I don’t know if you heard William’s lecture, but it all fell apart after 1934. And of course, it doesn’t take much to grab nationalism. Watch Hitler’s parades, watch the magnetism of it. Along comes the leader, the charismatic leader. Times are hard and they say, “Follow me and you won’t have to think anymore and you won’t have any problems anymore.” That’s something that keeps repeating itself.
This is Peter Braun. My grandfather and father studied medicine at the University of Vienna. My father revered Tandler and talked to me about all the time. There were no anti-TB drugs in Tandler’s time, but living standards were important part in reducing transmission of the tuberculosis and enabling recovery by infected individuals. Thank you very much, Peter. That gives us the answer. That’s from Dr. Braun. You see, that’s what I love about this group.
Q: Do the universities in Vienna today recognise the contributions of these Jewish intellectuals?
A: I don’t know the answer to that. I wonder. There’s certainly a bit of soul searching. When I was involved with IHRA, IHRA, a lot of countries wanted to join IHRA. It started with seven countries. West Germany had done a lot of soul searching. Austria hadn’t at the beginning, but it’s beginning, it is beginning. But certainly, when we first started travelling in Austria and running groups there, there was a great wall. They didn’t want to go there.
This is from Shula. My mother was raised in Vienna, went to summer camps. I now understand how she was able to come from the war home. Thank you. She went to Israel in 1932. Yes. Isn’t it extraordinary what they tried to do? Now, whether it’s too paternalistic is another story. Yes, of course. I didn’t even mention Bettelheim. I mean, yes, children’s philosophy. I don’t know how many of you heard law talk last night about child psychology, which of course becomes so important in Israel. So many of those characters went to Israel as well. Look, Britain, America, and Israel really benefited from… Look, I’m not saying in any way it makes up for it, but also it’s despite the terrible tragedy, it also tells you the story of the survival of the Jews. On one level, it’s a tragic story, but it also has this thread of glory in it. And the glory is that we go on and on and on. And I think to the end of time, I think that’s our destiny, but that’s another story.
Oh, this is from Marian. She found “La Ronde” on Canopy in the US. Oh my goodness, this is Wimshim Zhou. What is your name, please? There was TB treatment developed by my grandfather and used in a small way in Austria. Goodness. Extraordinary. I love it.
This is from Jean. This is from Jackie. So many of you are saying thank you to lockdown. And thank you all for being here. You do realise it’s a two-way thing. It’s been great for us. It’s really been great for us. I’m not sure how great it’s been for Judi because we all drive are absolutely posse. But it’s been certainly great for us. And I’ve just lost my place. Sorry, let me get there.
[Judi] I think you about three down from the last question, Trudy.
Thank you. See, what would I do without you, kid? Bruno Bettelheim was traumatised by his time in a concentration gap and left felt guilty. He survived. The only way he could survive was his philosophy to live a life of which they would’ve been proud or that’s extraordinary. Thank you, Marcel.
This is from Ron. Regarding the questions someone posed on whether Austrian institutions recognised the value of contributions made by Jews.
Q: Have there not been pronouncements made in several countries that they realised that they impoverished their societies by expulsion, murder, or departure of their Jewish populations? How deep that goes?
A: I don’t know. Wistrich said something I found very hard to take at the time. Maybe you should consider it. And I know many philosophers have said this, that in a way, can anything really great come out of Europe posture? Think about it. I don’t know the answer to that. That is a philosophical question for you all to answer in your own way.
Oh, Michael, I love it. Dear Trudy, you misunderstand my part. When we have to run, it would help them to have funds in Israel as they have to leave everything when they run off. You are so practical, Michael. I love it.
Oh, I’m Judi Wilaminsky. Hello. I’m currently trying to resurrect the treatment. Oh, thank you. Yes, put your names on so we can talk properly. Janet, my grandfather in Denmark did a great deal to improve working and living conditions for the workers, very similar to what you’re describing in Vienna. Absolutely extraordinary. It was that period, wasn’t it? Post-war, post-World War, that terrible period. Trudy, we’re reaching to tell the story of Richard Fischer, born in Vienna in 1919, died, London, 2021, months before his 102nd birthday.
Sandra, my darling, and one of my best friends, probably my best friend, when you are ready, it’ll be great to do it online. Yeah, we should definitely do that, Sandra, two months before. Yeah. Okay. That’s it. So Judi, thank you. I will never know how you managed to get that film working, but-
[Judi] I have my ways.
I know you have your ways. Take care. And we will see you. When are we next on, dude? When’s the next?
[Judi] The next talk, we have Rabbi Rosen tomorrow and we have Patrick. So Trudy, you are back with us on Thursday?
Yes. Lovely. Okay, darling. Thanks a lot and God bless, everyone. Keep safe.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Bye.