Download pdf - McGrath Stud Radic[1]

Transcript
Page 1: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

http://www.jstor.org

Student Radicalism in ViennaAuthor(s): William J. McGrathSource: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 2, No. 3, Education and Social Structure, (Jul.,1967), pp. 183-201Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/259814Accessed: 01/06/2008 15:02

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sageltd.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We enable the

scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that

promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Page 2: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

Student Radicalism

in Vienna

William J. McGrath

An obscure Austrian historian has recorded in his memoirs a description of what must have been one of the most remarkable scenes in the cultural life of nineteenth-century Vienna. He recalled a student political meeting in which Victor Adler and Heinrich Friedjung joined other young politicians in singing Deutschland, Deutschland iiber Alles while Gustav Mahler assisted with a pas- sionate piano accompaniment to the tune of 0 du Deutschland, ich muss marschieren.1 These three young men - the doctor who was to found both the Austrian Socialist party and the first Austrian republic, the journalist who would emerge as one of Austria's most famous historians, and the music student who was to become one of Austria's great composers - were brought together by a fervent dedication to one of those pan-German movements whose noisy and sometimes violent student demonstrations during the I87os and 8os repeatedly shattered the calm of Vienna. These disturbances, which reflected the nationalist tensions of the Austro- Hungarian empire, also gave evidence of a major change in outlook among the empire's intellectual elite; the membership lists of the pan-German organizations responsible for such demonstrations include many of the most distinguished figures in the political and cultural history of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Austria. In addition to political leaders such as Adler and Fried- jung, there were men who were to establish international repu- tations in a wide variety of fields, among them Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, Alexius Meinong, one of Austria's few famous philosophers,Arthur Schnitzler, and Sigmund Freud.2

1 Richard von Kralik, 'Geschichte und Gestalten - Victor Adler und Perner- storfer', Handschriftensammlung, Wiener Stadtbibliothek, Ms.I. N. o06.071, f.2r.

2 For Adler, Friedjung, Meinong, and Freud, see ahresbericht des Lesevereins der deutschen Studenten Wiens iber das Vereinsjahr 1873-1874 (Vienna, I874),

I83

Page 3: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

It is difficult to determine the extent to which the mature accom- plishments of these men were influenced by their youthful adher- ence to nationalist organizations because of the subsequent history of the pan-German movement in Austria. Since it played a crucial role in the spread of political anti-semitism, won Hitler's admira- tion, and laid the basis for the Austrian Nazi party, biographers and scholars have been understandably reluctant to emphasize the involvement of their subjects with this movement - particularly if they were Jewish, as they all were with the exception of Meinong. In his three-volume biography, Ernest Jones neglects to mention that as a student in Vienna, Freud was a member of a pan-German society, even though this membership lasted for some five years during what was obviously a crucial period in Freud's intellectual development. While Theodor Herzl's connection with German nationalism has not been ignored, it has been the subject of lively dispute. In his study of Herzl's university period, Leon Kellner writes: 'For a period, he belonged to the akademische Lesehalle and was a zealous member. At that time the waves of the German nationalist movement were engulfing this student organization. Herzl was one of its most passionate representatives.' However, in their works on Herzl, both Alex Bein and Tulo Nussenblatt categorically deny that this was the case, asserting that new evidence disproves Kellner's claim. In the case of Victor Adler, the embarrassment over his early pan-German sympathies is shown in the attempt to draw a sharp line before the year 1885, when he formally joined the Socialist party, and to ascribe his political activities before that time to youthful folly. The fact that Adler regarded himself as a socialist as early as 1870, and that he believed this socialism to be completely compatible with radical German nationalism, has been completely ignored. Although the historical significance of their connection with student nationalist societies may vary greatly among these three thinkers, the failure to explore this involvement thoroughly has not only distorted an important dimension of their personal lives but has also tended to obscure the strength of a movement which profoundly affected an entire

generation of Austrian intellectuals.

pp. 19-20 (henceforth cited as Jahresbericht). For Schnitzler and Herzl see

Jahresbericht der akademischen Lesehalle in Wien iiber das zehnte Vereinsjahr, I879-1880 (Vienna, i880), pp. 29-3I, and Leon Kellner, Theodor Herzls Lehr-

jahre I860-1895 (Vienna, I920).

I84

Page 4: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

STUDENT RADICALISM IN VIENNA

The impact of this movement is perhaps best seen in the careers of the young men who were its guiding intellectual spirits, the members of the Pernerstorfer circle. This circle was made up of a group of students who became friends while attending the Schottengymnasium, which in the I86os ranked as Vienna's best and most scholarly grammar school. The circle's nominal leader was an impoverished student named Engelbert Pernerstorfer (1850- I9I8), who was later to serve for many years as the vice-president of the lower house of the Austrian parliament, and to play a leading part in the development of both the socialist and the German nationalist movements. In addition to Pernerstorfer, the group's outstanding members included Victor Adler, his brother Sigmund, Heinrich Friedjung, and Max Gruber, later a prominent medical scientist.

With the exception of Pernerstorfer, all these young men came from prosperous middle-class families, and the atmosphere in which they held their weekly meetings at the house of Victor Adler's parents was one of affluence and comfort. Victor's father Salomon, a well-to-do Jewish merchant recently arrived from Prague, looked with favour on the meetings of the group, and not only prevented them from being disturbed, but also regularly providedJause and dinner for them all.3

Whether Salomon Adler would have been so generous had he known what the young men were discussing is doubtful, for in fact the chief topic of their meetings was how the stable bourgeois world of their liberal fathers could best be overturned. By I870, the club members who had set out 'to clarify and formulate our position on the social question' had come to the conclusion that socialism and vigorous state intervention offered the only possible remedy for the miserable condition of the working classes. At the same time, they felt a deep sympathy for the German Empire then coming into being, and nothing but contempt for the lukewarm German- consciousness of the liberal governments of Austria-Hungary.

While much of their criticism of liberal culture was justified, it is clear that its depth and vigour reflected a generational tension which its members shared with many other Austrians of their age. One of the group, Max Gruber, has given a revealing account of the complex psychological factors at work in this rejection of their

3 Engelbert Pernerstorfer, 'Aus jungen Tagen', Der Strom, July I912, vol. 2, p. 98.

185

Page 5: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

fathers' ideals. He described how his elder brother, 'under the seal of strict silence with respect to the highly conservative father', taught him that religion was nothing but deception and illusion. In addition, 'he inflamed my national feeling; I was infected by glowing hatred of the Habsburg-Lothringens, hatred of this dynasty which was Germany's misfortune, hatred of their state which had to be shattered if the nation was to be united, if a new strong German empire under Prussia's leadership was to come into being'. He went on to relate that by the time he was sixteen, his reading of Saint-Simon, Proudhon, Marx, Engels, and other socialists had led him to the conclusion 'that the existing economic order, burdened with incurable faults, was worthy of being com- pletely destroyed'. Even late in life, Gruber recalled vividly the

psychological effects of this youthful rebellion: 'separated from my beloved father in all these things, robbed of any support, I stood on ground shaken by volcanic eruptions .... So what I and the circle of my like-minded childhood friends experienced, is actually a piece of the cultural history of our time'.4

One of Victor Adler's letters offers an even deeper insight into the process by which generational tensions drove these young men into radical politics. In April 1871, he described a family dinner in a letter to Pernerstorfer. 'The Commune was the topic of conversation. Now I am in no case in agreement with the move- ment, but I must naturally defend it against the objections and characterizations which my father used, such as murderers, thieves, tramps'. Noting that it was a matter of course that in such debates

'paternal authority must win', he related how he was forced into silence in the face of a rising tide of insults. 'Finally they regret that I have lost all feeling for morality and justice and that the difference between mine and thine is unclear to me, and all of a sudden just such a tramp and thief sits there at the table.'5 He writes that even his mother failed to understand his position, and that the dispute was ended only when his father retired to bed

deeply troubled over his wayward children. The pan-German sympathies which Gruber developed as an

4 Max von Gruber, 'Kleine Mitteilungen', Miinchener Medizenische Wochen- schrift, 3 August I923, p. I038.

5 Adler to Pererstorfer, 4 April, I871, Victor Adler Archiv. Previous exami- nations of Victor Adler's youth have been hampered by the inaccessibility of his correspondence for the period before the early i88os. These letters are now available in the Victor Adler Archiv in the Arbeiterkammer, Vienna.

I86

Page 6: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

STUDENT RADICALISM IN VIENNA

integral part of his rebellion against paternal ideals were at least as strongly expressed in Adler's outlook at this time. Like Gruber, Adler assumed that socialism and German nationalism were a logical and natural combination. This conviction is strikingly illustrated in a letter which he wrote to Pernerstorfer in August I870, during the opening days of the Franco-Prussian war, when many influential liberals were urging the Austrian Government to intervene on behalf of France. 'Forgive me, but I can endure it no longer! All around me there are friends of France - out of opportunism, out of loyalty to Austria, or much more, to imperial banknotes. I must be black-red-gold. Surely the red, the one red - with the blood of my heart I would like to colour all flags red.' For Adler, red, the colour of international socialism, was also the one colour needed to transform the black and gold of imperial Austria into the black-red-gold which had traditionally symbolized German unity.

When, a year later, he enrolled at the University of Vienna, Adler found the ideal environment for furthering his generational reaction to the liberal ideals of his father's world. As events were to show, the discontent with nineteenth-century liberalism was not confined merely to members of the Pernerstorfer circle, but was shared by many Austrian intellectuals of university age. Bismarck's creation of a united German empire stimulated the nationalist feelings of the German-speaking students at the University of Vienna so greatly that in December I870, the government was forced to dissolve a student reading society after it had sponsored a noisy demonstration in which loyalty to the Habsburgs was ridi- culed and loyalty to the new Germany exalted. However, the government's attempt to suppress nationalist activity, as well as its negative attitude to the process of German unification, only served to deepen the alienation of university students; within a year, the dissolved society had been replaced by a new and even more radical organization, the Leseverein der deutschen Studenten Wiens, which was soon to dominate the political and intellectual life of the university.

Members of the Pererstorfer circle - now in their first years at the university - were among the charter members of the new Leseverein, and there is reason to believe that they were close to its original leaders. The president, Franz Eduard von Liszt, the vice- president Josef Hattingberg, the business manager Julius Delena,

I87

Page 7: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

and the librarian Anton Haider, were all graduates of the Schotten- gymnasium; and all except one were classmates of members of the circle. In any case, during the society's second year both Adler and Pernerstorfer became officers, and both men held influential positions for the remaining six years of the Leseverein's existence. In their activities within the society, the members of the circle seem to have been less interested in obtaining high office within it than in setting the society's intellectual tone. During the Lesever- ein's second year, Pernerstorfer, Adler, and Meinong were given the task of organizing the society's annual series of public lectures; these lectures, given for the most part by faculty members sympa- thetic to the society, provided the organization with both intel- lectual and financial sustenance. The following year, both Pernerstorfer and Adler held the office of librarian, a position which gave them the major voice in determining the books and newspapers to be made available in the society's reading and study rooms. Later Pernerstorfer, Adler, and Max Gruber were in- fluential in organizing within the Leseverein a Redeclub in which students read and discussed papers on various subjects of current interest. Primarily through their domination of these discussion evenings, the members of the circle were able to ensure a wide hearing for their ideas in the university community.6

Although the Leseverein was specifically restricted by its charter to non-political activities, politics was from the start one of its chief preoccupations, and initially this political interest was centred almost exclusively on German nationalism. The society's first yearly report declared that its purpose was 'to uphold the German spirit and German learning in a determined manner'.7 Even though the members of the Pernerstorfer circle had already committed themselves to socialism by the time the Leseverein was established, there is no indication that their views were initially shared by many other members of the society. The political connections of the organization point to an attitude close to that of those progressive liberals who favoured steps towards a demo- cratization of political life as well as an increased attention to German interests within the empire. With respect to questions of

6Jahresbericht, 1871-1872, p. 7; Albert Hiibl, Geschichte des Unterrichtes im Stifte Schotten in Wien (Vienna, I907), pp. 296-8; Albert Hiller, 'Der Leseverein der deutschen Studenten', in Die Lesevereine der deutschen Hochschiler an der Wiener Universitdt (Vienna, I9I2), p. I5.

7Jahresbericht, 1871-1872, p. 3.

I88

Page 8: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

STUDENT RADICALISM IN VIENNA

social and economic policy, there are indications that an attitude of unfocused discontent with the laissez-faire approach of the old liberal establishment may well have been typical of many members. This seems to have been the outlook of two of the society's more famous members, Sigmund Freud and the future sociologist Heinrich Braun, both of whom enrolled at the University and joined the Leseverein in I873. Freud and Braun had been the closest of friends for many years at the Sperlgymnasium, and later Freud recalled that Braun had been very interested in politics at that time and that 'he awakened in me a host of revolutionary feelings'.8 In Braun's case, this revolutionary fervour was to lead him to socialism, but only after he joined the society; Freud's discontent led him to affirm the Leseverein's radical German nationalism, but there is no evidence that he toyed with socialism during his years at the University.

The predominant political outlook of the Leseverein's members during the first years of its existence, then, was one of extreme German nationalism combined with a nebulous discontent with respect to most other political questions, but in the years that followed, external political developments were to interact with pressures within the society in such a way as to focus and drasti- cally radicalize this discontent until, in December 1878, the govern- ment felt it necessary to dissolve the society on the grounds that it represented a danger to the state. One element in this decision was the fact that the members of the Pernerstorfer circle who held influential positions in the society were firmly committed to social- ism, but the event which encouraged a more radical viewpoint within the society was the Ofenheim scandal.

By the late i86os, Austrian industrialization had gathered enough momentum to convince any prospective entrepreneur that the path to fame and fortune led through the offices of a stock company, and between 1867 and 1874 over ,oo000 licences were issued for the formation of joint stock companies. Most of these enterprises were built on the most slender foundations, but for a time all went well and profits reached astronomical pro- portions. In May I873 the inevitable crash occurred; on the 8th of May alone, one hundred firms declared themselves insolvent,

8 Sigmund Freud, Briefe, I873-x939 (Frankfurt, I960), p. 375; for Braun, see Julie Braun-Vogelstein, Ein Menschenleben (Tiubingen, 1932).

189

Page 9: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

thus initiating a major financial crisis. A parliamentary investi- gation of the crash revealed the insubstantial basis of the previous boom, and led eventually to legal action against one of the most successful entrepreneurs, the Ritter von Ofenheim. Ofenheim had made his fortune as the chairman of the shoddily built Lemberg- Czernowitz railroad, and his trial in January 1875 assumed pro- found symbolic significance as a trial of the social, economic, and moral system which had produced him. Both the public prosecutor, Count Lamezan, and the newspapers discussed the case in these terms. Ofenheim's reply to their arguments was the contemptuous remark, 'you cannot build railroads with moral aphorisms'; in February 1875 the jury found him innocent.9 The reaction of the Neue Freie Presse, the voice of the liberal establishment, was one of triumph. After noting that Ofenheim's conviction would have implicated every government from that of Schmerling to the current one - the entire governmental history of Austrian liberal- ism - the Presse (28 February 1875) commended the jury for its 'rare political tact'. Returning to the issue two days later, the paper observed, 'As far as we know, there is no earthly tribunal for crimes against the moral law'.

If Vienna's liberal newspaper greeted Ofenheim's acquittal with jubilation, the members of the Leseverein were outraged, not only by the acquittal, but also by the moral callousness of the liberal establishment. The society decided to contribute to the cost of printing the speeches which the state prosecutor had delivered in the course of the trial, and to publish the talk which Dr Johannes Volkelt had delivered to the society two weeks after Ofenheim's acquittal. Volkelt, who at the time was either a member of the Pernerstorfer circle or at least very closely associated with it, delivered a talk which moved from a scholarly discussion of Kant to a scathing denunciation of the liberal culture typified by Ofen- heim, a denunciation which systematically examined and rejected the ethical, philosophical, aesthetic, religious, political, techno- logical, economic, and social outlook of liberalism.10 Referring to the 'heroes of the stock exchange' whose highest aim in life was the enjoyment of the greatest possible sensual pleasure, he

9 Richard Charmatz, Osterreichs innere Geschichte von I848 bis I907 (Leipzig, 1909), p. II8.

10 Johannes Volkelt, Kants kategorischer Imperativ und die Gegenwart (Vienna, I875).

I90

Page 10: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

STUDENT RADICALISM IN VIENNA

declared, 'In the eyes of these men of paper and gold, who have lost their souls in the rising and falling tides of the money market, idealism had long since been deleted from the order of the day'. Turning specifically to the Ofenheim scandal, Volkelt said: 'In the Ofenheim trial two moral worlds have collided. The one is the moral viewpoint of the money crowd; the other is the newly developing morality of a future social order'. While the exact nature of the new social order which Volkelt envisaged was left purposely vague, his speech made it clear that it was to be gen- erally socialistic in nature, and indeed, he later described his political position at this time as one of 'radical socialism'.11

The decision to publish Volkelt's talk was exceptional not only in that it was the first time this had ever been done, but also in that the Leseverein committee unanimously endorsed his views. On the first page of the published lecture they declared, 'Since the execu- tive committee can only record its complete agreement with the views expressed therein and feel that a dissemination of the lecture is desirable, it unanimously decided at its meeting on 24 March to publish this address'.

The Ofenheim scandal thus played a crucial role in intensifying and focusing the alienation of the Leseverein students from the political ideals of liberalism; the socialist approach which Volkelt had adopted from the members of the Pernerstorfer circle became the official position of the society's leadership. Its exact nature remained undefined both for Volkelt and the society as a whole. Marx's ideas had as yet made little impression in Austria, and although the works of Ferdinand Lassalle were widely read, there was as yet no orthodox socialist position. However, even though its socialism may have been vague, the society seems to have retained this political outlook for the remaining four years of its existence. As was the case with the members of the Pernerstorfer circle, this commitment to socialism was felt to be completely compatible with the extreme German nationalism which remained the central political tenet of the society.12

The impact of the Ofenheim scandal on the outlook of the 11 Johannes Volkelt, 'Mein philosophischer Entwicklungsgang', in Die

deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellung, ed. Raymund Schmidt (Leipzig, 1921), p. 205.

12 This is clear from the activities of the Deutsche Klub, the political organi- zation formed to carry on the work of the Leseverein after its dissolution; the Deutsche Klub are discussed below.

I9I

Page 11: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

Leseverein was only one aspect of its effect on the society's attitude to liberal culture in general. Volkelt had seen the Ofenheim case as one of the many symptoms of the complete bankruptcy of liberal culture, and had urged the young intellectuals of the society to search for new values as the basis of a new social order. The members of the Pernerstorfer circle had been engaged in this task since their days in the Gymnasium, and the Ofenheim affair now gave them a receptive audience to which they could present some of their ideas.

The most important thinkers to whom the members of the circle turned in their search for an alternative to liberal ideals were Schopenhauer, Wagner, and Nietzsche. Schopenhauer, the philosopher who had left a bequest to the families of Prussian soldiers killed while suppressing the liberal rebellions of 1848, elaborated a system of thought which both Wagner and Nietzsche used in the development of an ideology aimed at the destruction of liberal culture and at the creation of a new, artistically vital, culture. Wagner, in his essay on Beethoven, and Nietzsche, in his Birth of Tragedy and Untimely Observations, attacked the prevailing liberal culture of their own time on the grounds that it was frag- mented and excessively rationalist. They believed that pedantry and a misplaced faith in the power and value of abstract thought had destroyed the creative force of their 'Alexandrian' culture, and that only a reawakening of the slumbering dionysian spirit would allow a new and vital German culture to arise. The force which was to bring this reawakening was German music - more specifically, the operas of Richard Wagner; operatic performances should be a community celebration uniting all classes and all mental faculties in an almost religious ceremony. Wagner believed that his operas, in contrast with those of his predecessors and contemporaries, could perform this function because they organi- cally reunited the disintegrated elements of opera in such a way as to appeal to the whole man. The close interaction between word, the intellectual element, and tone, the emotional element, recreated the essential psychological unity of man, and so this art form would be a vehicle by which men living in an atomized and excessively rational culture could regain the wholeness essential to creative thought.

For Wagner, and to a certain extent for Nietzsche as well, these aesthetic-psychological theories were linked to a political doctrine

192

Page 12: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

STUDENT RADICALISM IN VIENNA

which also expressed a profoundly anti-liberal outlook. The politi- cal aspect of the community ideal in Wagner's operatic theory appeared in the call for an end to rigid class distinctions and the re- establishment of the primal unity of the Volk. In practical terms, this involved a loud, if somewhat vague, commitment to social reform. In his youth, Wagner had participated in the rebellions of I848, and had even gone so far as to describe himself as a commu- nist.13 Whatever he may have meant by that term, his democratic radicalism at that time was quite genuine. After I848, Wagner's political ideas underwent a marked change, but even in his last years, some of the substance and much of the terminology of his earlier socialist views remained. Combined with this desire for social unity, the idealization of the Volk obviously implied a strong commitment to German nationalism, and this element of Wagner's political outlook grew ever stronger as he grew older.

The attractiveness of Wagnerian-Nietzschean ideas to members of the Pernerstorfer circle was thus clearly based on their coin- cidence with their own political outlook. No doubt the members of the circle read into Wagner's ideas more socialism than was actually there, but the combination of nationalism with socialism in an anti-liberal framework provided the ideology exactly appropriate to their needs. The date at which they first became acquainted with these ideas is not clear, but by I875 at the latest they were thoroughly familiar with them. Adler's letters reveal that he was deeply absorbed in Schopenhauer by I87I.14 By I874, he was a member of the Vienna Wagner Society, and by I875 he was dis- cussing Nietzsche's works in the Leseverein. Eventually, the mem- bers of the circle even wrote to Nietzsche to tell him of their devotion to his outlook; in a joint letter, they declared that his work had moved them deeply, and that 'this emotion has streng- thened in each of us the serious determination to follow you as our brilliant and thrilling example and - so far as our ability allows - to strive like you with the strongest will, selflessly and truthfully, for the realization of those ideals which you have presented in your writings - specifically, in your Schopenhauer as Educator'.15

13 Richard Wagner, Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen in zehn Bdnden, ed. Wolfgang Golther (Berlin, n.d.), vol. 9, esp. pp. II2-26; vol. 3, pp. 50-67.

14 Adler to Pernerstorfer, 9 June I871, Victor Adler Archiv. 15 Letter of I8 October 1877, Lipiner-Nietzsche correspondence, Nietzsche

Handschriftensammlung, Goethe-Schiller Archiv, Weimar.

I93 I3

Page 13: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

This work on Schopenhauer, the third of the Untimely Observations, contained the usual Nietzschean criticism of contemporary liberal society as fragmented, pedantic, abstract, and sterile, as well as a call for the regeneration of culture through art. The letter, dated I8 October I877, was signed by the Adler brothers, Pernerstorfer, Heinrich Braun, and Siegfried Lipiner, a new member of the circle.

Within the Leseverein these disciples of Nietzsche and Wagner set about spreading their ideas with considerable success. In the discussion section, talks on Schopenhauer, Wagner, and Nietzsche were delivered by various members of the circle, and one of these, entitled On the Elements for a Renewal of Religious Ideas in the Present, by Lipiner, was so popular that it received the Leseverein's ultimate honour - publication at the society's expense. This talk, centring on the usual Wagnerian-Nietzschean themes, stressed the need for psychic wholeness, the decadence of con- temporary culture, and the need for its regeneration by means of Wagner's art.16 So successful was the propagation of Wagnerian thought at the University that Hermann Bahr, a student there a few years later, could assert, 'Every young person was a Wagnerian then. He was one before he had even heard a single bar of his music'.17 From the late I87os onward, Wagner became the sym- bolic leader of Vienna's radical intelligentsia and the master's whims were rigidly adhered to by the faithful. When Wagner died in I883, a memorial procession sponsored by university students was so well attended that when it turned into a German nationalist demonstration the police had considerable difficulty breaking it up, and Vienna's liberal newspapers expressed dismay at the row- diness of the university students.

Even before this, the government had acted to contain the growing danger represented by the radical student societies. In December I878, the Leseverein had been dissolved as a danger to the state, but, as in the case of the attempted suppression some eight years before, the government only increased its difficulty by this action. The society was by far the largest and most influential student organization at the university; at the time of its dissolution, it had 135 faculty members as well as 500 student members; its

16 Siegfried Lipiner, Uber die Elemente einer Erneuerung religioser Ideen in der Gegenwart (Vienna, I878).

17 Herman Bahr, Selbstbildnis (Berlin, I923), p. 139.

I94

Page 14: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

STUDENT RADICALISM IN VIENNA

rallies and social events were often attended by three or four times that number. The society was able, without exaggeration, to refer to itself as the 'social and intellectual centre of Vienna's German- speaking students', and to note that a description of the society's activities would in itself be a sketch of the life and aspirations of Vienna's students.18 When the government dissolved the society, its members not only protested vigorously, but by joining en masse the rival Akademische Lesehalle, were able to take over that organ- ization. The members of the Leseverein failed in their first attempt to gain control of the Lesehalle, but by the fall of I880 the radical faction had been completely successful, according to the dismayed reports of the student newspaper.19 By March I88I, the leader- ship of the Lesehalle could declare 'that in the Akademische Lesehalle at the present time, the traditions of the former (dissolved) Leseverein der deutschen Studenten Wiens live on'.20

One of the students taking part in these political struggles was Theodor Herzl, and his position in these disputes has been the subject of considerable controversy. Leon Kellner's claim that Herzl was passionately in favour of the deutschnational movement has been rejected by Alex Bein on the basis of evidence discovered by Tulo Nussenblatt.21 This is a speech delivered by Herzl in one of the election campaigns within the Lesehalle, in which Herzl vigorously opposed the nationalist faction which was attempting to take control of the society. This, however, leaves unresolved a number of difficult problems, for Bein readily admits that Herzl served as an officer of the society in the winter of I88o-8I, that is, immediately after the radical faction gained complete control of the Lesehalle. Moreover, it was during the I88o-8I winter semester that Herzl joined the Burschenschaft Albia, and this too poses serious problems. Bein claims that at this time, the fraternity was undecided in its political character, but this is difficult to accept. Albia was firmly committed to the deutschnational cause by I874, and although some internal differences remained, by I878 the German nationalists were completely victorious, and their

18 Jahresbericht, 1876-I877, p. 3. 19 Alma Mater, Organ fir Hochschulen, 25 November I880, p. 343. 20 Wiener Tagblatt, 4 March I88I. 21 Kellner, op. cit., p. 26; A. Bein, Theodor Herzl, Biographie (Vienna, I934),

pp. 45-7; T. Nussenblatt, 'Aus Theodor Herzls Schul- und Universitatszeit', Die Neue Welt, I9, 26 February I932.

I95

Page 15: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

opponents left the fraternity.22 During the very semester in which Herzl joined the fraternity, Georg von Sch6nerer, the leader of the deutschnational movement in Austria, delivered an address to the fraternity and was given a wildly enthusiastic welcome.23 Another point which Nussenblatt brings forward to support his case is Herzl's close friendship with Oswald Boxer. Boxer was a member of the liberal Deutsch-osterreichische Leseverein, and was therefore 'of patriotic conviction'. Herzl's close friendship with Boxer is thus taken as an indication that his views were similar. A closer examination of Boxer's political outlook, however, reveals that this argument is misleading. A membership list of the Deutsche Klub dating from I880 or I88I reveals that Boxer was also a member of that organization,24 and whatever doubt may exist about the politics of other societies, there is none about the Deutsche Klub. It was, in fact, the parent organization of the deutschnational movement, and it was within this club that Sch6nerer and his close associates planned and debated their strategy for launching the movement. Boxer's membership in the club would thus seem to indicate that he was close to the centre of the German nationalist movement in Austria.

The solution to these apparent paradoxes is relevant not only in regard to Herzl's attitude, but also to that of Vienna's student body as a whole. An article in the student newspaper on 1 Novem- ber I880 indicates the probable nature of the solution. The writer is discussing the radical victory in the Lesehalle elections. How had this happened ? 'Let us not ask just the new members, the Bur- schenschafter, but the old ones who have taken up the new pro- gramme. The answer will be, because we first want to protect our identity. There we have it. At the moment when what is German is most threatened in Austria, the Germans unite, but only to turn their backs on the fatherland.'25 The threat to the German-speaking peoples of Austria came from Count Eduard Taaffe's government, then almost two years old. Taaffe's 'Iron Ring' government united the clerical conservatives in parliament with the representatives

22 Spulak von Bahnwehr, Geschichte der aus den Jahren I859-I884 stam- menden Wiener Couleurs (Vienna, I914), pp. I96-7.

23 Herwig (Eduard Pichl), Georg Sch6nerer und die Entwicklung des All- deutschtumes in der Ostmark (Vienna, I913), vol. 2, p. 324.

24 The list is in the Pichl Nachlass, Karton 31, Osterreichisches Staatsarchiv, Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv, Vienna.

25 Alma Mater, II November I880, p. 326.

I96

Page 16: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

STUDENT RADICALISM IN VIENNA

of the Slavic peoples of the empire, a combination which drove the German liberal parties into opposition and initiated a pro- gramme of concessions to the Slavs, particularly the Czechs. At the university, the programme had the immediate effect of driving most of the remaining moderates into the deutschnational camp. The elections within the Lesehalle were one indication of this, but the action taken by the liberal and moderate Deutsch- isterreichische Leseverein in February 1881, is even more significant. At that time, this traditional rival of the various deutschnational Lesevereine announced its agreement with the extreme nationalism of the Lesehalle and suggested an end to their rivalry.26 The policies of the Taaffe government thus had the effect of completing the radicalization of the German students at the university, and by mid-I88I the radicals were completely triumphant. If the facts about Herzl's position are viewed in this context, they strongly suggest that he and Boxer were among the many students who abandoned their earlier opposition and took up the deutschnational cause in 1880-81. That it was during the I880-8I semester that Herzl joined the Burschenschaft Albia, definitely a radical fra- ternity at the time, argues powerfully for this interpretation. Herzl's case, then, would seem to be typical of many during the final triumph of the radical nationalists at the university.

It is clear that the extent to which the professional accomplish- ments of men such as Adler, Friedjung, Freud, and Herzl were significantly influenced by their youthful involvement in radical movements varies greatly from one case to another. Among mem- bers of the Pernerstorfer circle, the influence was enormously important. By the time the Leseverein der deutschen Studenten was dissolved in December I878, most of them were already entering upon their professional careers, and they set about trying to realize their aims directly. Members of the circle - specifically Adler, Pernerstorfer, and Friedjung - were the moving spirits, together with Georg von Sch6nerer, in founding the Deutsche Klub (the organization to which Herzl's friend Boxer also belonged), and were the major contributors to the writing of the Linz Pro- gramme, the charter of the deutschnational movement.27 This

26 Vaterland, 23 February I88i. 27 A highly partisan account of this process is given in Herwig (Pichl), op. cit.,

vol. I, pp. 99-Ii8. A detailed examination of the authorship of the Linz

197

Page 17: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

charter, which influenced all the mass political movements of modem Austria, centred on demands for radical social and political reform as well as forthe satisfaction of extreme German nationalist ambitions. The faith of the young disciples of Nietzsche in art as a major regenerative force also influenced their work significantly, primarily in shaping their political style. In 1878, Friedjung had broached the idea of an aesthetic political style in his Ausgleich mit Ungarn, and this idea was further developed by Pernerstorfer in his Deutsche Worte, the organ of the deutschnational movement. Essentially, what was meant by aesthetic politics was one in which the abstract rationalism which Nietzsche regarded as the bane of contemporary society would be avoided by appealing to the whole man, the man of emotion and reason. The Nietzschean pre- occupation with psychology thus manifested itself in the work of the members of the Pernerstorfer circle as a conscious attempt to employ more emotion in politics - an attempt which the widening of the franchise rendered topical.

The essentially idealistic members of the Pernerstorfer circle seem to have been unaware of the dangers implicit in toying with irrationalist politics until their ally Georg von Sch6nerer began to utilize the emotional possibilities of anti-semitism. After a con- siderable struggle within the movement, Sch6nerer was able to make anti-semitism an article of faith of the deutschnational move- ment. The rise of anti-semitism drove Jews such as Adler and Friedjung, as well as their gentile friend Pererstorfer, from the movement, and thereafter Adler and Pernerstorfer established themselves as the leaders of the Socialist party, while Friedjung returned to the liberal fold. Even in this later phase of their careers, however, the influence of their earlier beliefs remained strong; Pernerstorfer found the concept of aesthetic politics as relevant to socialism as to the deutschnational movement. Naturally, it was the socialist element of their youthful training which found the fullest expression during this period, but their nationalist sym- pathies remained with them for the rest of their lives. Friedjung's political activities after his return to liberalism were not significant; his primary importance was as an historian, and in this respect the

politics of his youth were crucial. Many of his most important

programme will be found in my unpublished doctoral dissertation, Wagnerianism in Austria: The Regeneration of Culture through the Spirit of Music (University of California/Berkeley, I965), pp. 122-37.

198

Page 18: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

STUDENT RADICALISM IN VIENNA

works, such as The Struggle for Mastery in Central Europe and Der Ausgleich mit Ungarn, were direct outgrowths of his involvement with the deutschnational movement.

Freud's membership of the Leseverein, with its general interest in psychologicalproblemskindledbyWagnerian-Nietzschean theories, may have contributed indirectly to his own interests, but on the present evidence this cannot be substantiated. There is, however, one connection between the activities of the Leseverein and Freud's interest in psychiatry which was almost certainly significant; this came from Theodor Meynert, to whom Freud refers as 'the great Meynert, in whose footsteps I followed with such veneration'.28 Meynert was one of the professors who warmly supported the Leseverein, to which he frequently delivered lectures on psychiatry. Freud later took courses from Meynert, but it seems highly prob- able that his first contact with his ideas came through the Leseve- rein.

The probability that Herzl's mature work was significantly in- fluenced by his association with the German nationalist student movement is great indeed. Herzl's diaries and letters reveal that during the period when he was planning and organizing the Zionist movement he had the examples of triumphant German nationalism constantly before him. In his efforts to obtain financial support for his movement, he remarked, 'I was with Hirsch; I am going to Rothschild, like Moltke from Denmark to Prussia'. With respect to the political style of the movement, he observed, 'Believe me, the politics of an entire people - particularly if it is scattered over the whole world - can only be made with imponderables which shim- mer high in the air. Do you know how the German empire was made ? Out of dreams, songs, fantasies, and black-red-gold ribbons - and in a short time. Bismarck only shook down the fruit of the tree which the masters of fantasy had planted'.29 His association of the symbolism of nationalist emotions with the radical student movement in Vienna is seen in the outline for a novel which he recorded in his diary on I7 March I898. The tragic hero was to be modelled on Heinrich Friedjung. The setting of the novel was in the newspaper world of Vienna. 'Hero: a Jewish journalist (shall we say Dr Friedjung) of rabbinical descent who is becoming Germanic. At

28 Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 405. 29 Theodor Herzls Tagebacher (Berlin, I922), vol. I, pp. 32, 42.

199

Page 19: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

the University a Burschenschafter, German songs, ribbons, black- red-gold setting'.30 In this passage the same symbols to which Herzl attributed the creation of the German empire are associated with the man who had sought to create an aesthetic politics in Austria. In his Ausgleich mit Ungarn (I878) Friedjung had written, 'If it is now the highest duty of the political writer to work on that obscure first principle of all national history, on the national character... then we must introduce into public life a powerful new motive force: national feeling.' It was the power of art which was to make this task possible. 'It must express itself in the entire people, in every manifestation of their life, above all in their political activity.' In good Wagnerian style it was the god of music whom Friedjung invoked to aid his political movement. 'Orpheus dared to walk with his lyre among the powers of the underworld only because he knew there lives in the obscure masses a feeling, a dark presentiment that will be awakened to thundering emotion by a full tone.' The similarity of these ideas to those expressed by Herzl in pointing out the relevance of the German nationalist example to the Zionist movement is great indeed. Referring to the initial formulation of the idea of German unification by the pro- fessors of the 1848 Frankfurt Assembly, Herzl wrote: 'In the Paulskirche it still seemed a dream. And yet these thoughts were answered from the enigmatic depths of the folk soul by an im- pulse as mysterious and undeniable as life itself. And out of what was unity made ? Out of ribbons, flags, songs, speeches, and finally out of individual struggles.' Thus, even though the content of Herzl's movement embodied the longings of the Jewish people, it seems highly probable that much of the form and political style of his Zionism was derived from his direct experience with the German nationalist student movement in Vienna. The ideal of aesthetic, symbolic politics appealing both to the head and heart, the ideal which the members of the Pernerstorfer circle had propa- gated, was realized even more fully in Herzl's Zionism than in the anti-semitic deutschnational movement of Georg von Schonerer, the Austrian politician who so favourably impressed the young Adolf Hitler.31

While the particular examples of Adler, Friedjung, Freud, and

30 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 64. 31 I am indebted to Professor Carl Schorske for my understanding of Herzl's

aesthetic politics.

200

Page 20: McGrath Stud Radic[1]

STUDENT RADICALISM IN VIENNA

Herzl certainly point to the great importance which the nationalist reading societies had for Austrian political and intellectual history, what argues even more powerfully for their historical significance is the host of minor figures who seem to have been influenced. One finds, for example, that the noted medical scientist Max Gruber, a member of both the Pernerstorfer circle and the Leseverein, later spent much of his time examining the significance of hygiene for psychological problems as well as searching for some racial basis for German nationalist feeling, and in this latter capacity he joined such proto-Nazis as Houston Stewart Chamberlain in editing a monthly magazine, Deutschlands Erneuerung, devoted largely to German nationalist and racist themes. Their influence can also be traced in the later work of Franz Eduard von Liszt, the first president of the Leseverein, on the psychology of crime, and of another member of the society, Joseph Seemiiller, in his Psycho- logical Studies in the History of Language. Alexius Meinong went on to do extensive work in philosophical psychology, and another member who participated in the discussions of Nietzsche's works in the Leseverein, Josef Paneth, wrote a History of the Subconscious which he sent to Nietzsche in I884. In one example after another it becomes clear that members of the Leseverein maintained a deep interest in psychological problems, and the sheer weight of numbers suggests that the Wagnerian-Nietzschean psychological theories expounded in the society must have played an important part in stimulating the general preoccupation with psychological questions characteristic offin de siecle Vienna.

20I