Trudy Gold
Young Vienna: Arthur Schnitzler and His Writings
Trudy Gold - Young Vienna: Arthur Schnitzler and His Writings
- And Judi, thank you for putting all the slides together. Now Young Vienna, Arthur Schnitzler, et al. If Vienna and the Jewish situation had not ended so tragically, we would look at these characters with the kind of awe we looked at the greatest of the American writers, the greatest of the British writers, and one of the sad stories is that many of these writers who did survive the Nazis or survived the ‘30s, some of them of course went to the States or Britain, is that because they didn’t have the language, very few of them were translated. But I want you to try and go back to that period in history when Vienna was such a vibrant, on the edge society, and Young Vienna was absolutely at the centre of it. We’ve looked a lot, have we not at, if you like, the Janus face of Vienna. We’ve looked at the incredible artistic achievement and at the same time, Catholicism, strong monarchy, and all the forces of reaction. As it were, you almost have a schizoid attitude in Vienna, which I think is coming up through the politics, through the history, through the literature, through every aspect of Viennese society. And Young Vienna, as I said before, was at the heart of it. And can see the first slide, Judi. There you have the Cafe Griensteidl. I hope I pronounced it properly, because this was the cafe that was the centre of the movement. Cafes are very different in Vienna. This is where a group of brilliant avant-garde artists, writers met to take on the world. And this is what the brilliant Karl Shkowski wrote of the movement. “Challenge is the moralistic stance "of the 19th century literature "in favour of sociological truth, psychological, "especially sexual openness.”
Karl Kraus was part of the group. He of course was the very acid satirist. He actually later distanced himself from the group and he said the problem was they demolished literature. After, in fact, the Cafe Griensteidl still was itself demolished in 1897. He said the group would expire because of the lack of a foyer. In fact, it didn’t. And after that, they met in the Cafe Central. They didn’t have a manifesto, but Barch who was the spokesperson of the group, he said they wanted in all things and at all costs to be modern. And Schnitzler, who are one of the most important members of the group, on the last day before the demolition of the cafe, Felix Salten, who I’m going to be talking about, he was the man who created “Bambi,” but I’ll talk about that later on. He was angry with a terrible review that Kraus had given him in his magazine, “Die Fackel,” and he attacked him. So it was a very passionate group, a very sort of very, very strong group. And as I said, I think the tragedy of the group was that you won’t know all the names and you should. It’s like not knowing about Philip Roth. It’s about not knowing about Saul Bellow. They were at the forefront. And what is also, of course interesting about the group, the majority of them were of Jewish birth, but they didn’t see themselves as Jews. In the main, they were second, third generation from religious homes, because every Jew go back to the grandparents, would’ve been religious. But these are the people at the cutting edge of Vienna.
Now, their spokesperson wasn’t Jewish, and I’m afraid I haven’t got his photo for you. His name was Hermann Barr and his dates are 1863 to 1934. He had an incredibly wide ranging career, which, it really spanned the whole of fin-de-siecle Vienna. And he was one of the most important figures in Viennese modernism. He also collaborated, he wasn’t just a writer, he was a theatre director. He, of course, his great collaborator was the wonderful Max Reinhardt. So I shall devote at least one session to Max Reinhardt. And if you are interested in where he lived, he had a castle in Salzburg and watched “The Sound of Music” and it’s actually much of the scene is there in the castle that was once owned by Max Reinhardt. So he also was the lead writer for the Berg Theatre in Berlin, which of course was one of Reinhardt’s theatres. He wrote dramas. He wrote novellas. He wrote his own autobiography. He founded his own newspaper “Das Zeit,” and he was very much a crusader for the modernism, for a world that was free from all the ridiculous, what he thought were the morays of the 20th century. They hoped to create a brave new world that was free of all the bourgeois conventions. So you can imagine how they scandalised so many people within Vienna. And can we turn to the next slide please? Now here you see a very interesting character called Peter Altenberg.
I expect that those of you who haven’t made a study of this period wouldn’t know that much about him. And yet, as I said, if he’d been writing in English or if Viennese Jewery hadn’t ended so tragically, he would be world famous. He was born Richard Englander. He grew up in a very middle class Jewish family and he separated himself from them. He broke up. He went first to study medicine at the University of Vienna. Then he went to study law. He then broke away from everything. Can you imagine? He comes from a religious family. The parents become middle class, you know, the usual pattern. The parents come to the city. They make enough money for their son to go to the university. And again, just imagine what the University of Vienna was like. In my next session, I’m going to look at the growth of Zionism at the university. So, so many of the characters who have such a formative influence in Austrian and Viennese society and actually in world ideas are formulated in Vienna. And don’t forget, it’s very important to remember that Vienna was the cradle of Zionism. And by the way, Herzl was also a member of Young Vienna, but of course he will get a whole session to himself. He breaks away. He embraces a completely bohemian lifestyle. He created a sort of Oscar Wilde-type appearance, a sort of feminine if you like. He paid careful attention to his clothes. He was a close friend of Schnitzler who I’ll be talking about in a lot of depth. And he was very much one of the main proponents of expressionism. He was a master of the short story based on a very close observation of life. He published his first collection in 1889. And this is what Hofmannsthal, another member of Young Vienna had to say. “The book has such a good conscience "that one can immediately see "that it cannot possibly be a German book. "It is truly Viennese.”
Now the problem is what’s on earth does Viennese mean? And I think that when we talk about the issue of Jewish identity, which is just as complex today as it was then actually, in the end, And Schorske and Robert Wistrich both made the case, in the end, it really was only the Jews who were really Viennese, which is a rather bizarre thing to say, but I want you to think that through. Now, he was very much a central figure in Young Vienna. He was particularly close to the architect Loos who also came to the group. He, after the closing of the Griensteidl, he spent so much time in the Cafe Central, that he had his post delivered there. He lived an incredibly on-the-edge lifestyle, far too much drink, far too many women, and unfortunately quite often younger women. So he crossed a taboo that I think many today would find completely unacceptable. But he was seen by many of the conservative elements in Vienna as absolutely at the centre of decadence. And this was the problem. On one level, they’re trying to crush all the barriers. On the other level, the people who don’t like them, who want to preserve, whatever that means in the Habsburg Empire, they find these people very, very, very frightening. He was also very close to Gustav Klimt.
They called him the cafe or coffee house poet, because he would go from cafe to cafe. He was brilliant in his observation of life. He was in fact nominated for a Nobel Prize. And he wrote much of his poetry on the back of postcards. Some of his work, which was very risque, was set to music by Alban Berg. It was premiered in Vienna in 1913. There was such an uproar of the content, that also of Alban Berg’s music, that the concert had to be stopped and it wasn’t performed again until 1952. So again, one of the risque characters. Can we go on please? Now you see Raoul Auernheimer. Now he is particularly interesting from my point of view because also he brings in an incredible man called Emil Ludwig. Now Raoul Auernheimer, he was the son of a German Jew and his Hungarian Jewish wife, and he married another Hungarian Jewish woman. So basically he comes from a Jewish background. Again, he studied law at the University of Vienna and worked in the Austrian courts before he switched to his main passion, writing. A lot of these characters when they were short of money, they wrote for the newspapers, including the “Neue Freie Press.” We’ve already looked at the character of Benedict. And through the influence, he was the nephew of Theodore Herzl. So through him, he became the theatre critic of the “Neue Freie Press,” which as I said before, is one of the most influential papers in Europe. And that was the paper that Herzl wrote for. It was the paper he was the correspondent in Paris for at the time of the Dreyfus Affair. He managed the Austrian PEN Association. PEN is a very important international writing confederation, which believes passionately in freedom of speech. You know, this is an area that is still under threat, is again under threat, and we all have to work out what is acceptable.
And in fact, next Tuesday, William is going to be talking about this when he talks about woke-ism. So in 1923, he works for PEN. By 1920, and then he becomes the president. And he is the vice president until 1938. He writes a lot of novellas. His dramas are performed on the Austrian stage. He is a serious celebrity. But March, 1938, the Anschluss, and of course 90% of Vienna are on the streets screaming for Adolf Hitler when he came home. What happened to this international man, the journalist, the dramatist, the writer, he was sent to Dachau. He was on the Wanted List, and he was one of the first to be sent to Dachau. Those of you who have ever visited the camp, what is extraordinary about Dachau, and what is so extraordinary about all the camps actually, they are situated usually next to places of great beauty. Dachau is a very, very beautiful suburb just outside of Munich. And he was sent there, he was tortured, he was there, but then an extraordinary individual called Emil Ludwig. He managed to, and I’ll talk about him in a minute, he managed to influence Prentice Gilbert, who was the American Charge d'Affaires in Berlin, to get him out. And if he could get him out, he could get him to America. And they were prepared to let him out of Dachau provided he went to America.
And please don’t forget, those of you who’ve studied this in depth will know the Nazis were allowing Jews out of Europe right up until 1941. Even after the invasion of Russia, some German and Austrian Jews managed to get out. And it’s a terrible indictment. Look, we know the Nazis did it, but it’s a terrible indictment also of the rest of the world that didn’t open the doors. So I want to talk about Ludwig because we need heroes. Now, he was born Emil Kahn in Breslau. Now Breslau is that absolutely fascinating town on the German Polish border. It’s now, of course in Poland, and many, many very illustrious Jewish families came from there. He was born Jewish, but he was not raised as a Jew. And he said this though, “Many persons have become Jews since Hitler, "but I have been a Jew since the murder "of Emil Rathenau,” and of course Rathenau was the German Jewish Foreign Minister who was murdered in Weimar in 1922 by a strange group from the Thule Society. Those of you who heard me lecture on Guido List in Vienna, don’t forget that he and Liebensfelds, they, the Thule Society was an offshoot of one of their mad, pagan sort of cults. And he’s murdered. And Emil Ludwig said, “That is when I became a Jew.” Like many other of these brilliant characters, he studied law at the University of Vienna, also became a writer, plays, novellas, journalist.
He becomes the foreign correspondent of a Viennese paper in Switzerland and in World War I, he is a correspondent in Vienna, Istanbul. And he emigrates to America in 1940. You see, he was world famous. And I’m going to explain why. He’s a very special man. After the 1921 trial of a man called Tehlirian, who was the man responsible for the assassination of Talaat Pasha who was the architect of the Armenian genocide. He said, “Only when a society "of nations have organised itself as the protector "of an international order, "will no Armenian killer remain unpunished.” He is a great fighter for human rights. And the reason he was able to influence the American Charge d'Affaires, he was already known in America. He wrote and was translated into English. So many of these characters, I mean Auernheimer is going to make it to America, but he doesn’t work again. This is the problem. They didn’t have the language. They weren’t famous. I mean, evidently the writer man would wander around Hollywood. Who knew who he was? Now, so Ludwig, some of his international, his biographies, what was fascinating about them, he was one of the first biographers to look at the psychology of the characters. So he wrote a huge biography of Goethe, Bismarck, Jesus, and his books were translated into English. And he became incredibly popular in the English speaking world. He was on Goebbels’ hit list, but he was an American citizen. In 1929, he’d managed a real coup. He interviewed Mussolini. He also interviewed Kemal Ataturk. He interviewed Stalin. He interviewed the wonderful Jan Mazurak. And after World War II, he actually went back to Germany again as a journalist. And what he was responsible for was the retrieving of Goethe and Schiller’s coffins. They disappeared from Weimar.
To anyone who had any pretensions to dreams or artistry, they are the great symbols. And he managed to find their hiding place and as it were, to return them. So, can we move on please, Judi? What I’m doing is I’m giving you a glimpse of some of the greats. Now, Richard Beer Hofmann is another one of my favourites because he was a character who was incredibly aware of the situation of the Jew and his sense of identity. And this is what he wrote. Many of these characters wonderfully kept diaries. “One day when I was discussing the problem of antisemitism "with the eminent Austro-Jewish poet, he said to me, "I’m not at all as astonished by the fact "that they hate us and persecute us, "but what I cannot understand is "why do they not marvel at us anymore?” Now, the point about Hofmann, many of the Jews in Vienna, particularly those who were part of the establishment, and I’ll be talking a lot more about them on Thursday and their stand against Zionism, they really believed that if they were incredibly loyal citizens of Vienna, even after Karl Lueger came to power. But in the end, everything would, all the antisemitism would disappear and all would be well. And this was not a man, this was not him. He came from a Bohemian family, moved of course from Bohemia to Vienna. Father was a lawyer, religious family, father was a lawyer. So again, that usual progression. He was adopted. A few weeks after his birth, his mother died. So he was adopted by an uncle, a rich industrialist. If you’re interested in family makeup of these kind of things, Schnitzler is the man to read. He writes a lot. I’m coming on to him later. He writes a lot about the structure of Jewish families. And in fact, there’s a wonderful novel by Leon Furtwangler called the He’s the person who wrote which we’ve talked about.
The is about a Jewish family. One is a doctor, one is an important industrialist, the other is a writer. And it’s how they all accommodate to their Jewishness under the shadow of the Nazis. Now, he also studied law at the University of Vienna. It seems to have been the place to be. Can you just imagine 45% of the faculty were Jewish? He graduates in 1890, by which time, of course, there is open hostility between the German associations and the Jewish students who by this time have created something called Kadimah. He got himself a doctorate, and now he is the sole heir of a wealthy family. So he can follow his own pursuits. He doesn’t have to be a lawyer. So in Vienna, where does he go? He wants to be a writer. So he becomes part of Young Vienna. He developed very strong friendships with Barr, with Schnitzler, with Hugo Von Hofmannstile, Alton Berg, Felix Sultan, and of course Theodore Herzl. So in this group, he becomes very important. He was a dandy. He was very elegant. He was a very witty conversationalist. He published a very good collection of short stories in 1893. They’re all psychological portraits. And he was very much against all the classical motifs of Viennese literature. He wanted, if you like, he hated the frivolity of Vienna, with the, or the problem seeding under the surface. He has moved a long way away from Judaism. He married a Catholic, Paula Lici. But interesting, she converts to Judaism later on because he’s going to come back. In his first novel, he does have a Jewish character. It’s completed in 1900. Now I’m going to tell you a little bit about it ‘cause it’s important.
The hero is a man called Paul, who’s led a futile decade into existence until a close friend dies and it shakes him out of his empty life. And I’m quoting now from the novel. “Out of confusion and darkness "emerged before him a new life. "His destiny was real, "his destiny that he discovered was shared "in common with all those whose blood flowed in him. "His Jewish ancestors appointed themselves as the witnesses "to his power. "And a people of saviours.” Let me repeat this. This is terribly important because out of this rather on the edge, modernistic, some would say decadent group, here is a man who is looking back to his roots. So let me repeat this. “His destiny was real. "His destiny that he discovered was shared "in common with all those whose blood flowed in him. "His Jewish ancestors appointed themselves "as the witnesses to his power. "A people of saviours.” But he goes on, “Ancestors who wander in disgrace from country to country, "every man’s hand against them, despised by the lowest, "but never despising themselves, honouring their God, "but not as a beggar "or as the giver of arms, calling out in their suffering. "Not to the Lord of Mercy, "but to a god of justice "and beyond these ancestors are people wandering "through seas, unimpeded by deserts, "ever aware of a God of justice "as of the blood in its veins.” And he actually said to Schnitzler, without this feeling of chosen-ness, of a divine mission within the Jewish people, he couldn’t live. And this gave him inspiration for many of his works, “Jacob’s Dream.”
And in “Jacob’s Dream,” he introduces a Jewish character called Ipsi It’s a plot based on Elizabethan tragedy. And the character Ipsi is accused by the hero of being an evil man. Ipsy, the Jew, and this is how the Jew responds. “And why should I be kind to you? "Give me one reason, a single one, "or do you think I should be kind "because all human beings should be kind to each other. "First my Lord, "tear out this heart contracted and convulsed "by the affliction of 1,000 wrongs. "Put out these eyes and give me other eyes "that are not wounded by too much of weeping, "smooth out my back "that bends to crookedness with bowing down "in enforced humbleness, "and give me other feet unwearied "by the eternal wandering of exile.” He’s acutely aware of the duality of the Jew, the blessing of, if you like, being the spiritual people and the people of destiny. And also the pain that Israel has taken onto itself. The glory that Israel has, the pain that Israel has. What is the role of the Jew in history? Now I find this absolutely fascinating because it has not yet been resolved. Thus he said in his last great work, which is built around the life of King David, it’s not completed till 1915 and not published 'til the end of World War I, “Israel would become God’s sacrifice, "by all the world more hated than plague "or poisonous weed and roving brute.” You see Israel, he’s saying this before the first World War. Israel is actually the sacrifice. You know, in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 53, which Christianity believes, the suffering servant passages, which Christianity believes is talking about Jesus. Jews believe it’s talking about them, that they do come to this world to suffer for the sins of mankind. And of course, he believes he wants a Jewish cultural renaissance. And it’s an act. He’s not a Zionist. He wants us, he wants the Jews to become strong again as an act of historic restitution. And what happens to him in the 1920s, he works with Max Reinhardt, a role he held until 1932. Max Reinhardt, of course, is in Berlin. What happens? He manages to get a visa to America because he’s one of Reinhardt’s people.
He is an important writer. He gets a visa via Zurich where his wife unfortunately dies. Of course, all his works are banned by the Nazis. In 1945, he becomes an American citizen, but he died that year. But he was awarded the prize of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in America. And a society was founded about him a year after his death. So a fascinating individual, and I’m just, why am I pinpointing these characters? Because as I said, if they’d been writing in English in America or in England, they would be world famous. And it’s because of the tragedy that befel them. And also they’re all playing around with really Jewish identity and how they be part of society. With Altenberg, he becomes really, I suppose, can I use the word rake these days with Hofmann? He goes back to his origins. Now can we go on please? The next picture, if you don’t mind, Judi. Yeah, that’s Jakob Julius David. I’m afraid, he’s an interesting man. They’re all interesting, but in order to deal with the most important ones, I think we better move on. And I will go back at another time. Can we go on again, Jude? Yes. That’s Frida Uhl Strindberg, the one of the most important women in the group. She married Strinberg and I want to deal with her. She wasn’t Jewish, she was part of the group.
And I want to deal with her later on when I talk about the role of women in Young Vienna. So can we move on please? There you have Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who of course is going to be very important as the librettist. With Richard Strauss, he wrote “Electra,” “Der Rosenkavalier,” “Ariadne auf Naxos.” But again, I want to jump on because he will have a session. Karl Kraus, I just want you to see his face. I will do a separate session on Karl Kraus, the satirist, the editor. And that’s where I want to stop for a minute, Felix Salten, because it’s about time that he was rehabilitated. He is a very important writer. He was born Siegmund Salzmann in Pest. His father was the telegraph officers clerk. His mother Marie Singer, was the granddaughter of a rabbi, sorry, the daughter of rabbi, so he was the grandson of a rabbi. When he was only four years old, the family relocate to Vienna. Don’t forget, Jews are given full citizenship rights in 1867. Unfortunately, the father went bankrupt when he was 16, so he had to quit school and he began to work for an insurance agency. But obviously there was a lot more to him than the grind, the sort of Kafakaesque grind of working in an office. But insurance agency, it’s the modern world, remember. He also began submitting poems and book reviews to journals. He’s very witty, he’s very clever. He’s also very argumentative. And he gravitates to Young Vienna. And he becomes the full-time arts and theatre critic for a left wing newspaper. In 90% of the left wing newspapers and liberal newspapers in Vienna were owned by Jews. Now didn’t really mean much because the editor of “Die Welt,” Max Benedict was trying so hard to be an Austrian, whatever that meant, that he wouldn’t have anything to do with Zionism, or very little to do with being Jewish in the columns. But the point is to the antisemites in Vienna, he’s seen as a Jew. He’s the man who actually initiated Vienna’s first short-lived literary cabaret.
Can you imagine the Young Vienna, they set up a cabaret where they would read their poetry set to music. It was fascinating. He was quite prolific. He published a book each year, plays, short stories, travel books, essays. He wrote for all the main Vienna papers. He becomes a very important journalist and literary figure. He also writes libretti for operas and he writes film scripts. Film scripts, mainly for UFA, which of course was the post-war German, the first World War German film company that had so many of the luminaries in it. that were going to take Hollywood by storm. It’s interesting, a lot of the directors of UFA did make it to Hollywood. And if you think of some of the boys of Max Reinhardt, like Fred Zimmerman, Billy Wilder, Otto Creminger, the directors, a lot of Hungarian directors, people like Michael Curtis. But for many of the writers apart from Billy Wilder, Billy Wilder’s, extraordinary. I mean, if you think of some of the films he wrote, you know, he wrote the script from one of my favourite films, “Some Like it Hot.” But the point is, very few of them translated to America. Anyway, he, in 1927, he becomes president of the Austrian PEN Society. His most famous work is “Bambi.” He wrote it in 1923. Of course, what is it a parable of? It’s a parable of the dangers facing the Jews in Europe. The English translation of “Bambi” was published in 1928. It was a book of the month. Success. And in 1933, he actually sold the film rights to an American director, a man called Felix Sydney Franklin, for $1,000. And of course, he then transferred it to Disney and “Bambi.”
You know, “Bambi,” with the absolutely horrific scene of the death of the mother, and tragically, it’s about the Nazis. Look, it’s only '23, but anyone with a grain in their heads who understood history, who understood the world, knew that nobody could have predicted the show up, but they knew something terrible must’ve happened. His books, of course, were banned in Germany. After the Anschluss, he managed to get to Switzerland. He died in 1945 at the end of of the war. They knew what happened. That is the tragedy, buried in the Jewish cemetery. Other of his books actually inspired Hollywood films. “Perry,” in 1957, “Shaggy Dog,” 1959. Also, he is probably the author of a very risque and very erotic novel, the life story of a Viennese whore as told by herself. So you’ve got to remember, they’re also very much in favour of sexual freedom. Now we come on to Arthur Schnitzler. Arthur Schnitzler, who I have to admit is one of my favourite writers. And I suppose by far the most famous of the group, but obviously you’ve seen from the names I’ve given you that they all deserve important recognition. Again, a Jewish background. His father was the son of a Hungarian village carpenter. So that’s his grandfather. His father became a famous, oh, I can’t pronounce it. Throats doctor. His mother was a doctor’s daughter and from a very wealthy Jewish family. And he said that Judaism as a religion has little inward relation to me as to any other.
But he goes to the University of Vienna in the early 1880s. He becomes a friend of Herzl later on, but he’s very well aware of Herzl, who by that time is quite a figure at the university. He said antisemitism was infiltrating the student fraternities. And what’s happening at this time, of course, is that the German Confederation of Students Associations was expelling Jews and refusing to engage them in duelling societies. But I’m going to talk about that on Thursday. He, in his early writings, he never really thought that his birthright in Vienna or as an Austrian would be contested. He grows up in a typical Jewish upper middle class home. His father was very much, because he was a very famous doctor of the throat, you can imagine many singers, many actors, many of Vienna’s leading stage performers, not only consulted him, they had a wonderful home. His mother presided over a very glittering salon. Everybody wanted to come there. His maternal grandfather, that’s the wealthy side of the family. Philip Mark Reiter, had been the son of the court jeweller. And had taken also a degree in philosophy. So he comes to a very, very clever family. But by the time he’s grown up, his grandmother, Amelie, was the only person who kept anything. This is how in his wonderful book, “The Way to the Open,” he describes the members of his family. Well, he’s talking, there’s a lot of autobiographical detail in his work. “Some members moved to big cities. "The family branched out and intermarried, "often advantageously, bankers, offices, "scholars and farmers maybe counted amongst them. "And the family tree shows no lack of eccentrics "in whom the Jewish patriarch and aristocrat, "the entrepreneur and the cavalier "are curiously intermingled. "Some of the younger members differ "from the older aristocracy, "only by a little more wit and the racial idiosyncrasy "of an irony directed against oneself.”
Do you see as he becomes a writer, how acute he is an observer. He’s looking that there were 200,000 Jews in Vienna. He, and this is the upper middle classes, he never writes about the poor Jews who have come in from Eastern Europe, particularly after the pogroms of 1881, 1882. He’s really talking about the milieu that most of Young Vienna come from. “Amongst the women and girls, "besides those who because of their appearance "and mannerism can’t deny their origins or don’t want to, "we find some who indulge in sport and fashion, "and it is self-explanatory that snobbery, "the worst ailment of our times, "found exceptionally favourable conditions for developing.” He records a family gathering in his grandmother’s home on the Day of Atonement. “We could look longingly for the glitter of evening star "on the horizon, which would herald the end of fasting.” His grandmother was the only member of the family and she’d had a lot of children, a lot of grandchildren who would go to the synagogue on Yom Kippur and fast. And I think it’s, really more than any of the others, even more than Beer-Hofmann, he really does capture Jewish life in Vienna, both in his dramas, his novels, his short, short stories. He also is a brilliant portrayal of the light hedonism and gaiety, the superficiality gaiety of Vienna. And he, this is what he says, “Their joys, sorrows were frequently overshadowed "by a morbid preoccupation "with sexual guilt and death, "or else the loneliness accompanying the search "for individual freedom and truth in a corrupt society.”
He was a radical innovator in his attitude to sex. He kept a diary. He kept a diary from age 17, and he only, it was two days before he died in 1931, 8,000 pages of diary. And he listed all his love affairs. He even listed his orgasms. So for many people, for many bourgeois people, he is shocking. He and Freud developed a very interesting correspondence. Freud wrote to him, this is on May 8, 1906. “There’s a far-reaching conformity existing "between your opinions and mine "on many psychological and erotic problems. "I have often asked myself in astonishment, "how you come by this or that piece of secret knowledge, "which I have acquired by a painstaking investigation "of the subject. "And I finally came to the point "of envying the author who hitherto I have always admired.” So that’s from the great Freud. And it’s fascinating, you know, to think about these circles, these overlapping circles in Vienna. We’re talking probably about 1,000 people who in many ways changed the world. The fact that Schnitzler is going to become later on close to Herzl. They’re both going to write plays. They’re going to send each other’s plays to each other. They discuss Zionism. Schnitzler and Freud exchange a lot of letters. So do Herzl and Freud actually, which is also fascinating. He scandalised Viennese society in 1897, A very important year, 1897. The first Congress, but I’m now talking about his play, which translated into French is “La Ronde,” which led him to be branded as a total pornographer. It was made into a film by Max Ophuls in 1950. It’s certainly worth a look. I believe you. I have a copy. So that means you can easily get hold of it.
And of course, the criticism, remember he’s of Jewish origin and at this stage, he’s interested in the Jew, but he sees himself as an international man. But all the criticism against him is the Jew, the evil Jew and his pornography. In his novella “Frauline Else,” which is in 1924, he rebuts the contentious critique of the Jewish character by Otto Weininger. In “La Ronde,” he said, “I write of love and death. "Are there any other subjects?” So Otto Weininger, who is somebody very important that Ken Gemes, Professor Ken Gemes is going to talk about next week. He deserves a session. He suffered from that terrible disease, Jewish self-hatred. Anyway, Schnitzler does marry. He marries a 21 year old aspiring actress and singer, and also from a middle class Jewish family. It’s fascinating how so many of these, what I call non-Jewish Jews, marry each other. He had a son and he had a daughter. And tragically the daughter was going to commit suicide. This is one of the other issues of Vienna. There are a disproportionate number of suicides. I’m not talking about what happened at the time of the Anschluss or the time of the war. I’m talking about in this period, there’s a disproportionate number of suicides. And it’s something that I will be discussing, I think with Frank Tallis, who of course wrote “Vienna Blood,” because this is something.
He’s also a psychiatrist, not just a writer, and it’s something his interest is in very much. Now I’m going to turn to his work. But just to say, he had a son who survived him, and he died in 1930. He died, Schnitzler died in '31 of a brain haemorrhage and following the Anschluss, his son went to America and returned after the Anschluss and was the first concert master of the Viennese Symphony Orchestra. And his son became a professor of violin at the university. So the family do come back, and here you see some of Schnitzler’s work, “Games with Love and Death, "La Ronde,” “La Reigen” And now let me now turn to, as the century progresses, the 20th century, he becomes more and more obsessed with his Jewishness. And this is what he wrote in his diary. “It was not possible, "especially not for a Jew in public life to ignore the fact "that he was a Jew. "Nobody else was doing so, "not the Gentiles, or even less so the Jews. "You have the choice of being counted as an insensitive, "shy, and suffering from feelings of persecution. "And even if you manage somehow to conduct yourself "so that nothing showed, "it was impossible to remain completely untouched. "As for instance, "a person may not remain unconcerned "whose skin has been anaesthetised, "but has to watch with his eyes open, "how it is scratched by an unclean life, "cut until the blood flows.” And as he becomes more and more famous, he becomes even more, because the more famous he becomes in avant-garde circles, the more he is loathed by the right and of course by the antisemites. And he becomes one of the major buffers of antisemitism. And he’s also aware that the Jew seems powerless in how to change it. If you think about it, they’re trying so hard to be loyal citizens of Vienna. They’re giving everything to modernity. They’re all working on their own.
There’s no Jewish conspiracy, and yet it’s all coming back, particularly in Vienna, at the heart of that polyglot empire. That’s where antisemitism is most acute. He was so much attacked on racial grounds. He was close to Mahler. And of course, Mahler who did convert for the opera, you know, to be able to conduct the Vienna Opera. They were both, Mahler was attacked as a Jew for his music. Schnitzler was attacked as a Jew for his writing. He felt, at first, very, very bitter because as he said, “I have no connection "to Jewish religious beliefs on nationalist traditions.” And what it did was it really reinforces his bitterness. He was not an assimilationist. He had no time for apostates or no time for anyone who tried to be a German nationalist. He did regard, as he goes through, and it becomes, and as the antisemitism becomes worse, he does, if you like, affirm Jewish ethnic identity as the only reasonable response to antisemitism. And as I said to you right at the beginning, I think one of the reasons I find this period so interesting, I really don’t think we’ve solved the issue of Jewish identity. He wasn’t in favour of Zionism though, even though he becomes closer and closer to Theodore Herzl, who, as I’ve mentioned, made a great impression on him in his university days. In fact, he sent Schnitzler a copy of his book, “The New Ghetto,” but Schnitzler didn’t like Herzl’s assumption.
I’ll be talking about Herzl’s plays as well as his Zionism next week. But he didn’t like Herzl’s assumption that all Viennese Jews were cringing ghetto Jews. This is what Robert Wistrich said about Schnitzler, “In his own eyes, "Schnitzler was a German writer who resented any effort "either by Austro-Germans or Jewish nationalists, "to "Only authors, he said, "who used Hebrew could be called Jewish writers.” Now that’s an interesting debate for you. Let me repeat it. “Only authors who use Hebrew "can be counted as Jewish writers.” And his reservation about Zionism, actually he still had a strong attachment to Vienna and to the Austrian soil. It’s had nothing to do with conventional patriotism. He just had a deep feeling for the German language and also for the Austrian landscape. And if you think of writers like George Steiner, he said, “How can we use German after Auschwitz?” But the point is, this is way before and German before the terrible tinge of it being used by the Nazis. This was a very rich language. It’s the language of , it’s the language of Schiller. And they loved these writers. Schnitzler was in love with German literature. Okay. This is what he wrote in again about his Jewishness. This is in his diary. “I don’t know why my ancestors settled in Hungary, "where they had wandered before, "or they settled down after having left their original home "in Palestine 2000 years before. "However, I am tempted to come to grips "at this point with a curious view "that a person born in a certain country, "raised and active there, is supposed to recognise it "as his homeland another country.” That’s why he can’t cope with Zionism.
Not the one in which his parents and grandparents lived decades before, but the one his ancestors called their native land, 1000s of years before. And this not solely for political, sociological, or economic based reasons, which would bear discussion, but also emotionally. Now I want to turn to his book, “The Way to the Open.” It was written finally in 1908. It’s first translated into English in 1930. And this is about Jewish identity. The principle character is an Austrian young composer and an aristocrat, a gentile. He’s got little drive, but he spends much of his time socialising in the artistic assimilating salons, Jewish salons. He mixes with the sensitive bourgeoisie and there’s a subplot about his unhappy love affair. But the joy of the book really is how Schnitzler deals with the various psychology of the Jews through the eyes of this gentile aristocrat. Much of it is set in the cafes, the concert halls. And it’s an absolute brilliant analysis of the story of Austrian Jews at the turn of the century. Each character has a position on Jewish identity. And it’s much better because the gentile hero or anti-hero can hear all of this without making any, he’s not taking any stands. So you have various characters. And this is, these are the words of his gentile anti-hero. “Speaking broadly, he found their tone "to each other much too familiar, now too formal, "now too facetious, now too sentimental. "Not one of them really seemed free "and unembarrassed like the others, "scarcely even with himself. "He is asked, "Do you think that there is a single Christian in the world, "even taking the noblest, straightest or truist, "can one single Christian "who is not in some moment or other "of spite, temper, or rage, "made some contemptible illusion "to the Jewishness of even his best friend, his wife, "or if they were Jews or not of Jewish descent?”
And this is another quote from the book, “I’m particularly sensitive to the faults of the Jews. "Probably the only reason is, as I like all the others, "we Jews have been systematically educated "to the sensitiveness. "We have been egged on from our youth to look "on Jewish peculiarities as particularly grotesque "and repulsive, though we have not been so "with regard to the equally grotesque "and repulsive peculiarities of other people. "I will not disguise it. "If a Jew shows bad form in my presence "or behaves in a ridiculous manner, "I often have so painful a sensation "that I should like to sink to the earth.” Now this is something of course, that many Jews feel if a Jew steps out of line. Even today we agonise, I agonise far more about a Jew than I would have another English person. Where does it come from? Now this is one of the Jewish protagonists in the book, Henirch Bermann, to the Catholic antihero. “The only Jews I really hate are the renegades "who try to offer themselves to their enemies "and despisers in the most cowardly and cringing fashion "and think that this way they can escape "from the eternal curse whose burden is upon them.” And of course, all the characters in “The Way to the Open” are influenced by the rise of populist antisemitism. Karl Lueger is the mayor, the antisemitism of the Catholic church, and then of course you have to have a Zionist character, Galowski. He and Galowski is in the student fraternity, and his life has been made miserable by an antisemite, and he actually during his national service, and he challenges him to a duel and he kills him. So this is the Jew, the fighting Jew, fighting back.
I’m going to quote again from Robert Wistrich. “For all his indifference to Judaism as a religion "and any form of group identification, "Schnitzler remained like Freud, a defiant Jew, "profoundly conscious of what he owed "to his background and heritage. "Though antisemitism embittered his life, "he sought to analyse its manifestations "with the same impartiality and objectiveness, "which he brought to all his literary creations. "Growing up as he did in fin-de-siecle Vienna, "this was often a task beyond the self-critical. "Diagnostic talents of such a born sceptic "and disgusted by Austrian politics "and generally indifferent to social problems, "Schnitzler’s supreme gift as an artist lay "in his key psychological observations. "No other Austrian writer so analyses "the Viennese Jewish bourgeoisie from which he came "and whose crisis of identity, "his work so faithfully described.” Now he wrote one other book on the Jewish issue, “Professor Bernhardi.” This was a play. It was first performed in Berlin, but it was actually banned in Austria. Why? Because it’s the story of a Jewish physician who directs a clinic, the Elizabethan, which is a clinic named in honour of the Empress Sisi. A young woman in the care of the Jewish. Dr. Bernhardi is dying of sepsis from a botched abortion. And the Catholic nurse calls in a priest to give her the last rights. Now, Bernhardi doesn’t want the man to go in because the girl is in a state of euphoria. She thinks she’s going to get better and he wants to spare the girl the anguish. And the priest says the girl must be absorbed from sin because she has had an abortion. And whilst they’re arguing, the girl dies, having been told by the Catholic nurse that the priest has arrived. So she has this terribly tragic death knowing that she is now damned. Now that is the story. There was a terrible press campaign.
In the story, because what happens in the book, there’s a fabrication, in the play, there’s a fabrication that Bernhardi strikes the priest. He is brought before the courts and he is sentenced. The priest comes to see him and said, “You didn’t strike me, "but I’m not going to say anything about it, "because God stayed my hand. "He didn’t give evidence.” And after the trial, he’s imprisoned and Bernhardi loses his post clinic, which he had found, and he spent two months in prison and he loses his licence to practise medicine. So it’s a very tragic tale. And of course it was banned in Catholic Austria and wasn’t performed 'til after the first World War in Berlin. So here you have an extraordinary individual, friend of Theodore Herzl, a writing acquaintance of Freud, at the heart of Viennese literary life, very on the edge, acutely aware of Jewish identity, and he doesn’t take the Zionist option. Really read him. Those of you who haven’t read him have a go. He’s absolutely extraordinary because I think, he’s one of the reasons I wanted to bring him to your attention is that I think that he is very much a man of today. So should we have a look at the questions, Judi.
Q&A and Comments:
In “The Guardian,” there is an article about German Jewish philosopher, Theodore Lessing would make an interesting lecture. Yes. I don’t know the answer whether he’s related. Arlene. Were these people comparable to the beatniks of a later generation? Can I be rude? I think they’re a lot more talented.
This is Yvonne. My father was murdered at Dachau.
Q: Hello , do you overstate the role of Herzl and Vienna in the Zionist movement? The cradle of Zionism, and many of its key personalities in fact came from Eastern Europe.
A: Now, Anne, please wait to my next lecture because the first association is Kadimah at the University of Vienna. But the people, and it’s way before Herzl, but the people, who are their spiritual guides are and of course Pinsker, Leon Pinsker. So they come from Eastern Europe. But the point is the movement is in Vienna. And so that’s why I’m doing it. And we will of course be looking at Zionism in its widest context. I should mention then, you see, the problem is I’ve been teaching for two years and we’ve covered many of these subjects, so that I’m bringing, and we’ve spent a lot of time on Eastern Europe. But after we’ve finished Vienna, Wendy and I have been discussing, we are probably going to turn to Eastern Europe, particularly to the Czarist empire. My parents had all these books.
This is Marcia. That’s from Valerie. The Austrian Jews felt as the Germans did, who arrived at the camps with their medals from World War I as if that would protect them. And as so many of us do now. Ah, Marcia, on yeah.
This is from Emil Heller. Thinking about the oscillating tension that has always existed between the fixed particular and the universal amongst Jews where assimilation or identification with the aggressor pulled like an undertow. I think of these individuals and groups as post assimilationist. They bypass assimilation for something more elegant and expansive. And that is Jewery to the core.
Lovely analysis, Sir. Rathenau was assassinated in Berlin. I know, but it sent shockwaves throughout the world, the assassination of Walther Rathenau. He was one of the greatest figures in the industrial world, and he was the German Foreign Minister. So of course, he was assassinated in Berlin. But it doesn’t matter. The point was the writer in Vienna, because Rathenau now is a Jew, Ludwig says, “That’s when I become a Jew again.” Don’t forget that Rathenau was assassinated by the Thule Society, this bunch of nutcases who sacrificed him to the Nordic Sun god. This all came out. He was at the trial of the assassins.
Oh, this is from Jennifer. The New Yorker’s most recent issue featured a lengthy article on Felix Salten. Oh, how interesting. Stanley Kubrick’s last movie “Eyes Wide Shut” was based on a play by Schnitzler. Yes.
Oh, this was from Herberts. I grew in the up in apartment building across the street from the Kubrick’s. I was forbidden to play with Stanley as he was extremely weird when he was a youth. I never really got to know him.
Q: Will I be talking about Stefan Zweig?
A: There will be a lecture on Stefan Zweig, but I’m actually hoping a colleague will speak on him who is an absolute expert. Stefan Zweig of course is wonderful. And if you haven’t read Stefan Zweig or Joseph Roth, you are in for an incredible treat.
Helen, I never knew that “Bambi,” which I saw as a child, was based on the story or an allegory for the fate of the Jews. Thank you for that. The film was based on child’s story by Felix Salten. Yes, yes, of course. But it was about the Nazis, like it’s like “The Tiger Who Came for Tea.” Many of these stories, the famous children’s book in England. Many of these stories are about the Nazis.
Cynthia, there’s a new illustrated translation of the original “Bambi” available on February 22nd. It was just reviewed in the “New York Times.” The piece about Salten was very interesting and said it was imagined by a man who was successful, was still a Jew in a part of a global forest, which made survival a challenge.
Q: Was it easy for these writers to publish this?
A: Oh yes. Yeah. They were famous. Susan. There was a panel discussion I’m reading of some of Schtitten’s writings presented by his grandson, performed at the Getty and available on YouTube. Thank you for that, Susan.
Yes. “Eyes Wide Shut.” Yes. I think David will be doing something on Kubrick. People saying nice things.
Monty. Jews moved from one pace to another out of hope, curiosity, or fear.
Q: Ah. Is it because the German speaking intellectual Jews were the European Jews who were the most educated, assimilated, and productive arts and business in proportionately large numbers, bearing in mind the size of the population, that they were so vociferously objected to by their non-Jewish peers?
A: Ugh, Stephen, it’s a huge question that we are trying to attack from all sorts of angles. The majority of them saw themselves of citizens of the countries in which they lived and they were the most loyal citizens.
Please comment on the parallel of the Jews of Vienna in that period to the Leftist Jews of today. Thanks. Oh, that’s a very, very big jump. Look, I’m going to be talking about Victor Adler, who really based, he was a Jew and he was, he created social democracy in Austria. Leftist Jews of today.
What exactly are you talking about, Marty? I have a hunch you’re probably talking about them denying their Jewishness or sort of almost Jewish self-hatred. I don’t like using parallels too much unless I have all the facts in front of me.
Q: Martin. What do you think about the fundamental concept about Jews is and whether Hasidic or atheistic is the sanctity of life, like but especially human life. Yeah. What is the name of the Schnitzler book?
A: “The Road to the Open,” Dina.
Rodney asked about the current situation of his grandson trying to get Schnitzler’s writing back. I don’t know the answer to that. Hanz Falarder. Rudolph Dixon is a good example of a young man who wants to commit suicide in Vienna. There’s been a lot of clicking in the background. Is this technical. Oh, it’s probably me playing with the pen. I’m very sorry.
“The Road to the Open,” Jennifer. Michael’s saying Shalom. “The Road to the Open.” About a week ago, you mentioned there’s a 12 hour series available and I think Amazon. Someone said you could see it on YouTube. I missed the name. There are two series. “Vienna Blood.” “Vienna Blood” is a detective series set in Vienna. And it’s a policeman with the aid of a young Jewish follower of Freud called Lieberman. It’s fiction, but the writer who’s coming in on Thursday is a very, very good writer and he soaked himself in the background. And the other series I mentioned is “Fall of Eagles.” It was made, it’s a British thing made in the '70s. He’s got all the great British actors in it. And it’s the end of the Romanov dynasty, the German dynasty, and the Habsburg dynasty. So it’s really worth a good wallow, Michael.
Recommend reading. So, and Schnitzler are very good. And . Judith Hayman. Judith Kerr said the Tiger was not linked to the Nazis. It was inspired by a tiger she saw when visiting the zoo. I have a wonderful picture of Judith in conversation with Anita Lasker-Wallfisch at the German embassy and we tried to get her to talk about it. You see, I know what she said, but I don’t believe it. I don’t mean, I don’t mean she lied. I just have another angle on that. His grandson of secured his writings.
Q: Marcia’s book, “Vienna.” Did it reflect what happened in World War I?
A: No, it was more about the insecurity of the Jews and also you’ve got to remember there was terrible pogroms at the end of the first World War. And in fact, I can’t remember the date, but we are doing some events in partnership with Jewish Book Week. And on the Thursday at 2:30, I’m interviewing Jeffrey Weininger who’s written a brilliant new book about this. So there were 100,000 Jews were murdered between 1918 and 1921 in Eastern Europe. Was “Bambi,” “Curious George.” One can only imagine how many children’s books are written by Jewish authors. Yeah. Anyway, thank you all. I think that’s the end of the questions, Judi. And we need to be back online, do we not at 7:00. Am I correct?
[Judi] That’s correct.
Alright, take care everybody.
[Wendy] No, no, no. Thank you very much. Sorry.
Thanks, sorry, Wendy. Are you there Wendy?
[Wendy] Yeah. Yeah. Had my mask on. Thank you. Thanks, Judi. Just to say I’ll listen to you later in about 40 minutes. Thanks Jude.
[Judi] Thank you. Bye.
[Speaker] Bye.
Thanks all, thanks bye.