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Mass Emigration and Intellectual Exile from National Socialism: The Austrian Case
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2009
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)
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1996
References
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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.
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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.
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18 Ibid.
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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.
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“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).
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