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Mass Emigration and Intellectual Exile from National Socialism: The Austrian Case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2009

Egon Schwarz
Affiliation:
Rosa May Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in the Humanities at Washington Universityin Saint Louis, Saint Louis, MO 63130.

Extract

History is made up of continuities and discontinuities. To do it justice it is necessary to take both of these ordering principles into account. Exile and banishment have always existed—mass expulsions and mass deportations have been recorded since Nebuchadnezzar's rule in the sixth century B.C. But, because of their power of expression and criticism, writers, intellectuals, and artists have been favorite targets for tyrants' wrath, and for those same reasons writers and intellectuals are the prime witnesses of the exile experience. Ovid's elegiac lament, Dante's bitter pride, Heine's poisoned homesickness, and Unamuno's scornful hatred are famous manifestations of the exile's state of mind.

Type
Robert A. Kann Memorial Lecture (1994)
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1996

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References

See Tagil, Sven, “From Nebuchadnezzar to Hitler: The Question of Mass Expulsion in History up to World War II,” in The Uprooted: Forced Migration as an International Problem in the Post-War Era, ed. Rystad, Göran (Lund, Sweden, 1990), 5985Google Scholar.

2 Michael A. Marrus, “The Uprooted: An Historical Perspective,” in The Uprooted, ed. Rystad, 54.

3 Schmid, Georg, “Kinogeschichte der Zwischenkriegszeit,” in Österreich 1918–1938. Geschichte der Ersten Republik, ed. Weinzierl, Erika and Skalnik, Kurt, 2 vols. (Graz, 1983), 2:709–10Google Scholar.

4 Schmidl, Erwin A., März 38. Der deutsche Einmarsch in Österreich (Vienna, 1987), 233Google Scholar.

5 Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, “Different Types of Forced Migration Movements as an International and National Problem,” in The Uprooted, ed. Rystad, 19.

6 Remarque, Erich Maria, Liebe deinen Nächsten (Stockholm, 1941)Google Scholar; Seghers, Anna [N. Radvanyi], Transit (Boston, 1944)Google Scholar; Feuchtwanger, Lion, Unholdes Frankreich (Mexico City, 1942)Google Scholar; Döblin, Alfred, Schicksalsreise. Bericht und Bekenntnis (Frankfurt am Main, 1949)Google Scholar; Werfel, Franz, Jakubowski und der Oberst. Komödie einer Tragödie in drei Akten (Stockholm, 1945)Google Scholar. The three films in Georg Stefan Troller's trilogy Wohin und zurück, which are directed by Corti, Axel, are God Does Not Believe in Us Anymore (1981)Google Scholar, Santa Fé (1985), and Welcome in Vienna (1985).

7 George F. Kennan, “Despatch on the Jewish Problem in the New Czechoslovakia,” in idem, From Prague after Munich: Diplomatic Papers, 1938–1940 (Princeton, N.J., 1968), 53–54.

8 For a detailed account of these two episodes, see Schwarz, Egon, Kerne Zeit für Eichendorff. Chronik unfreiwilliger Wanderjahre (Frankfurt am Main, 1992), 73105Google Scholar.

9 Coser, Lewis, “Die österreichische Emigration als Kulturtransfer Europa-Amerika,” in Vertriebene Vernunft II. Emigration und Exil österreichischer Wissenschaft. Internationales Symposion 19. bis 23. Oktober 1987 in Wien, ed. Stadler, Friedrich (Vienna, 1988), 94Google Scholar. Translations of all sources into English are mine.

10 Ibid., 95. Coser makes the point that an unusual number of Austrian economists had the aristocratic “von” in their names: Gottfried von Haberler, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek, and so on.

11 Ibid., 97–98.

12 Friedrich Stadler, “‘Vertriebene Vernunft’—Rückblick und Zusammenschau,” in Vertriebene Vemunft II, ed. Stadler, 31.

13 These figures are largely gleaned from Stadler, ed., Vertriebene Vernunft II.

14 Peter Eppel, “Österreicher in der Emigration und im Exil 1938 bis 1945,” in Vertriebene Vernunft II, ed. Stadler, 69. Adolf Eichmann headed the Center for Jewish Emigration in Vienna. On November 2, 1941, “the last group of emigrants left Vienna for Portugal.” Eppel quotes this from Dokumentationsarchiv des Widerstands, Österreichischen, ed., Widerstand und Verfolgung in Wien 1934–1945. Eine Dokumentation (Vienna, 1984), 3:200Google Scholar.

15 Eppel, “Österreicher,” 69, quoting Knoll, Reinhold, “Die Emigration aus Österreich im 20. Jahrhundert,” Austriaca, 02 1979, special issue, 267Google Scholar.

16 Helmut Zilk, prefatory comments in Vertriebene Vernunft II, ed. Stadler, 23.

17 Stadler, “‘Vertriebene Vernunft,’“ 36.

19 Ibid., 35.

20 Ibid., 36. Stadler, credits the author of this essay, together with others, who worked abroad with breaking the monopoly of a nationalistic German literary scholarship: “It was only thanks to the impulses of emigrated literary historians like Heinz Politzer, Joseph Strelka, Egon Schwarz, and Franz Mautner that this domestic domination could be somewhat mitigated.” In Vertriebene Vernunft 1. Emigration und Exil österreichischer Wissenschaft 1930–1940 (Vienna, 1987), 19Google Scholar, Stadler writes, “To be able to assess the sad extent of this cultural loss and scientific transfer more precisely we must also consider the younger generation of emigrants who did not achieve a university degree until 1938, who had to continue their study in the country of exile because of the rising fascism and had to engage there in science or journalism, for example Kurt Rothschild, Egon Schwarz, or Fritz Kreissler.”

21 Hughes, quoted in Coser, “Die österreichische Emigration,” 100.

22 Wodak, Ruth et al. , “Wir sind alle unschuldige Täter”. Diskurshistorische Studien zum Nachkriegsantisemitismus (Frankfurt am Main, 1990)Google Scholar. See also Mitten, Richard, The Politics of Antisemitic Prejudice: The Waldheim Phenomenon in Austria (Boulder, Colo., 1992)Google Scholar.

23 Knight, Robert, ed., “Ikh bin daftür, die Sache in die Länge zu ziehen”. Wortprotokolle der österreichischen Bundesregierung von 1945–52 über die Entschädigung der Juden (Frankfurt am Main, 1988)Google Scholar.

24 Svoboda, Wilhelm, “Politiker, Antisemit, Populist. Oskar Helmer und die Zweite Republik,” in Das jüdische Echo. Zeitschrift für Kultur und Politik, 10 1990, 4251Google Scholar. From those who actually did return we possess contradictory reports. Hilde Zaloscer, an art historian, paints a dismal picture: “Now I live in Vienna, in a spiritual and human desert, I get anti-Semitic threat letters, I do not know a single person with whom I might talk, in a country stigmatized by the departure of its Jewish intellectual elite, a country that is petty, provincial, and above all so malicious. I was not welcome in Austria. There was no work for me here! ‘Restitution’ such as in Germany was out of the question here. What was supposed to be restituted? Did they take away our apartment, did they ruin my career?! No, none of this happened, they themselves had been ‘victims,’ after all. Did people really believe this? Did they lie to themselves? Everything was so horrible, so deceitful, so inhuman! But the worst was the wall of silence. No one asked me how I had survived the years of emigration, nobody mentioned the atrocities that occurred here! The friends that suddenly disappeared, the old men whom they had seen—must have seen—wash the ground! All this did not exist, everything was as if wiped away. I lived in a paradise for fools or criminals!” (Hilde Zaloscer, “Das dreimalige Exil,” in Vertriebene Vernunft I, ed. Stadler, 571). Paul Neurath, a professor of sociology and statistics, describes a totally different experience: “Here I'd like to add a few general remarks about the personal aspect of my remigration—if it is possible to call it that in view of the fact that my proper residence continued to be in New York. The first refers to the extraordinarily friendly reception I enjoyed from all sides from the first day on; not only from Professor Rosenmayr and his close colleagues, who were now also mine, and from the students, but also from all colleagues beyond my immediate institute with whom I had dealings, professional or otherwise. Add to this the repeated recommendations of my Visiting Professorships to the Ministry on the part of the faculty and each time the Ministry's unhesitating approval of these requests.

“Of course I am aware that not all remigrations can go so smoothly, with such a completely cordial and friendly reception not only from the individuals and groups in question, but also from the various concerned authorities in the Ministry. What may have facilitated things, technically speaking, is the fact that it was not a question of a complete remigration in which case a whole tenured professorship would have had to be set aside” (Paul Neurath, “Scientific Emigration and Remigration,” in Vertriebene Vernunft I, ed. Stadler, 535–36).

25 Keller, Heinrich, “Österreich 1990. Notizen zum Zustand der Republik,” Das jüdische Echo. Zeitschrift für Kultur und Politik, 10 1990, 95Google Scholar.

26 Fabry, Joseph, “Ein Emigrant wird Immigrant,” Das jüdische Echo. Zeitschrift für Kultur und Politik, 10 1990, 153Google Scholar.

27 Pelinka, Anton, “Adolf Schärf. Vom Austromarxismus zum Regierungssozialismus. Aus Anlaβ seines 100. Geburtstages am 20. April 1990,” Das jüdische Echo. Zeitschrift für Kultur und Politik, 10 1990, 39Google Scholar.

28 Franz Vranitzky, prefatory comments in Verlriebene Vernunft II, ed. Stadler, 22.

29 Quoted by Dusek, Peter, “Verdrängung in C-Dur. Das Operndirektoren-Karussell 1953–1956,” Das jüdische Echo. Zeitschrift für Kultur und Politik, 10 1990, 147Google Scholar.

30 Keller, “Österreich 1990,” 98.