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The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War

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Alexander Waugh (grandson of Evelyn and son of Auberon) tells the story of another distinguished family, the Wittgensteins of Vienna, circa 1875-1950. The paterfamilias was Karl Wittgenstein, a cold-blooded industrialist who made himself one of the richest men in the Hapsburg Empire and put his family and home near the epicenter of Viennese culture at its height near the turn of the Century. For the most part THE HOUSE OF WITTGENSTEIN is a family biography of Karl, his wife Poldy, and their nine children, two of whom -- Ludwig, the greatest philosopher of the 20th Century, and Paul, a one-armed concert pianist -- achieved individual fame.

In addition to their phenomenal wealth, two other things marked the Wittgenstein clan: their shared passion and gift for music (there were seven grand pianos in their home, the "Palais") and their shared antagonisms, feuds, and overall dysfunctionality. The latter surely had something to do with the fact that all five sons seriously entertained the notion of suicide, and three actually did themselves in (although one was a case of suicide on the battlefield and probably was triggered by the prospect of capture). In addition, there are numerous other suicides by relatives and acquaintances. Yet again I am struck by the high incidence of suicide among middle-Europeans in the half century between 1875 and 1925. (And yet again I am prompted to think that surely it is no coincidence that the same milieu gave rise to Sigmund Freud.)

As between the two famous brothers who did not end their own lives, Waugh devotes much more discussion to Paul. To an extent, this certainly is justified, in that Ludwig's life story is recounted in numerous other books (the best, in my experience, is "Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius" by Ray Monk) and Paul's life intrinsically is much more interesting (which is not to say that his accomplishments outstripped Ludwig's). In World War I Paul displayed exemplary military courage during his short battlefield service, but in the first month of the war he was shot and lost his right arm. Afterwards, he had to endure more than a year as a POW in scandalous conditions in Russia, including a stint in the Krepost in Omsk, where Dostoevsky had been imprisoned and which served as the setting for "The House of the Dead." Beginning even in captivity Paul then transformed himself, with impressively adamantine will, into a left-handed concert pianist (aided somewhat by financial resources that allowed him to commission works for the left-hand from composers such as Ravel, Strauss, Prokofiev, and Britten).

While I can understand Waugh giving more attention to Paul than Ludwig, he is too stinting in his discussion of Ludwig and the significance of his work as a philosopher. For example, Ludwig's "Philosophical Investigations", almost certainly his single greatest philosophical work and arguably the most important book of philosophy in the 20th Century, receives nary a mention.

THE HOUSE OF WITTGENSTEIN reveals both of the famous brothers to be quite eccentric and fundamentally troubled. They both were capable of acts of courage and honor, but they did not get along easily with most people, they both had violent tempers, and both were often self-centered jerks. There is a sense in which both were caught up in and conflicted by their privileged and wealthy upbringing.

The most interesting part of the book concerns the family's efforts, after the "Anschluss" or German annexation of Austria, to wrangle permission from the Nazis for some family members to leave Austria with a portion of their fortune and for the others to be left alone in Austria (again, retaining some of their fortune) as "Mischling" rather than be shipped away to concentration camps. Nazi records showed three of the four grandparents of the Wittgenstein siblings to be Jews; therefore, under the Nuremberg laws, the siblings all were "Volljuden" or "full Jews". There were old long-suppressed family rumors, however, that their paternal grandfather was in actuality a bastard, sired by a German aristocrat, and eventually the clan successfully lobbied to have that pedigree endorsed by none other than Hitler, which rendered all of them "Mischling" or "half-breeds." This saga of the negotiations with the Nazis that allowed them to make it through World War II alive, albeit considerably less rich, takes up fifty pages of the book.

Waugh's narrative jumps around somewhat, from one Wittgenstein to another and back and forth in time, but the jumps are gracefully handled and easy to follow. In all, the narrative is very deftly managed and the writing, pleasantly informal, is a relaxing treat. I rather doubt that the book will be of much interest to anyone who does not already have an interest in Ludwig or Paul Wittgenstein or the peculiar culture of Vienna between 1875 and WWII, and even for them a few stretches of the book might elicit a few yawns. But for them, Alexander Waugh tells this story in as interesting and readable fashion as possible.

I was wandering thru Borders with a 30% coupon and came upon this book. I had previously read the review in the NYRB. As have many people, I have been influenced by Ludwig W's take on philosophy and read it all (except Remarks on Mathematics, which I started with grim determination in a tavern, but quickly gave up on.) I wondered why they had two copies in the store but on checking out realized it is due to the relative popularity of the author and the clout of the publisher, Doubleday.

Those from industrial philosophy now approaching their dotage may remember the sixties and seventies when information about the private life of Ludwig W existed in only in scattered reminiscences and a few anecdotes which made him seem a moral monster. This information and also access to the Nachlass was jealously protected by a group of acolytes. His behavior was excused by his genius (but Einstein was a nice guy!) or having a tortured soul (try working the nite shift at Burger King!) Anyway, as more complete biographies appeared, some of the mystery disappeared.

At first, I regretted my buy, but as suicides and other tragedies thinned the cast, I became more interested and finished the book. And it's Paul W who's the main character, not Ludwig, as it turns out.

I did eventually come to a more sympathetic understanding of Ludwig by getting all that background on this rich and influential Austrian family and the members' various tribulations and eccentricities. Addtionally, it was good to see the philosopher treated in a book by an author who has no agenda and, in fact, seems a bit unimpressed by the subject (as person and discipline).

By the end of the book, as we were into a long description of the Wittgensteins and the German racial purity laws, I was really interested. This was a truly facinating glimpse of one aspect of life under the Nazis and how one might finesse it, given the leverage.

I really liked the book for these historical reasons. There are footnotes in the back, but in fact most of the details of the book are undocumented. I'm not suggesting any malfeasance here, it's not just that kind of book. And I see why Waugh's previous book on his own family was well received, as he does have a very engaging style. So I'd say if you're interested in Paul or Ludwig, or just like biographies of the rich and famous in general or even interested in central European modern history, this is a good book.

Karl Wittgenstein left his many children a fortune practically unparalleled among the commoners of the Austro-Hunagrian empire through his enormous diversified wealthy holdings; he also left them his love of classical music (Mahler, Strauss, and Schoenberg all played in his salon), and unfortunately his incredibly fastidious temperament that brought them each much misery and made it difficult for them to stand one another (or other people). Alexander Waugh's THE HOUSE OF WITTGENSTEIN is a biography of his children, three of whom committed suicide (all for very different reasons and in mysterious circumstances), and two of whom left indelible marks on the twentieth century: the one-armed pianist Paul, one of the foremost classical artists of his era, and his youngest brother Ludwig, the great philosopher. Given that Alexander Waugh (himself from a famously talented, and famously unhappy, family) is a classical music critic, the primary focus of this story is Paul, a man perhaps not of the highest talents but who used his family fortune to commission piano pieces for the left hand from Korngold, Britten, and Ravel that ensured him fame and greatly enriched the piano repertoire; but the biography also focuses a great deal on Paul, and on two of their sisters, Gretl and Hermine, who were important figures within the family.

Waugh really is exciting when he tells us about the news of the family's love of music and Paul's career as both a pianist and as a patron of great composers; unfortunately, he is less exciting when it comes to describing Ludwig's philosophy, which he clearly does not understand and views mostly as mere chicanery. And though portraits of both Hermine and Gretl emerge from the biography, most of their other siblings remain mysteries. So too do the Wittgensteins' parents, Karl and Leopoldine--though Waugh tells us much about how Karl left home very early, we learn little about how he became one of the greatest industrialists the Austro-Hungarian Empire had ever seen. Taking the long view of the entire family rather than just focusing on Paul necessitated that Waugh should have learned more than he did, and that he also should have written a bigger book. But the underlying story of how the Wittgensteins lost their fortune, through their own muddled generosity, through the devastation of the Austrian economy after WWII, and through the Reichsbank draining them dry to get out of Austria after the Anschluss, is a compelling story.

This book examines the Wittgenstein family, a fabulously rich Austrian dynasty, through three generations. The elder Wittgenstein, Karl, cornered the steel market in the Austro-Hungarian empire in the latter part of the 19th century and became one of the richest men in the world.

The family was headquartered in a lavish Vienna palace and often hosted personalities like Brahms and Mahler for musical evenings. One of the daughters, Gretl, was painted by Gustav Klimt. They were scions of artistic life in the Austrian capital even though three of the four grandparents were Jews who converted to Christianity. Later, this was to be the cause of great trouble when the occupying Nazis classified them as Jews.

Of Karl's eight children, three committed suicide and two achieved fame: Ludwig has been hailed as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century while Paul, who lost an arm fighting in World War I, became a well-known left-handed virtuoso who commissioned works from Richard Strauss, Prokofiev, Benjamin Britten, Hindemith and most notably the great left-handed concerto of Maurice Ravel.

This breezily-written book goes into great detail about the strained relations between various family members but is overbalanced in favor of Paul, who emerges clearly as the book's hero.

Paul behaved with great courage when captured by the Russians in World War I. He underwent awful suffering in squalid prison camps. The cruelty with which the Russians treated their prisoners of war should not I suppose have come as any surprise, but I was not previously aware of it.

The main shortcoming of the book is the relatively cursory treatment it affords to Ludwig, who was certainly the family member with the best lasting claim to fame. I think I learned more from the Wikipedia pages on Ludwig ([...]) than from this book. The author makes little attempt to grapple with the meaning of his philosophy or analyze his lasting influence. He basically suggests that Wittgenstein was hailed as a genuis because his work was so incomprehensible. I had the impression that for this author, the emperor had no clothes. But there must have been more to it than that.

Instead, we get pages and pages about Paul, whose limited historical importance today rests on the piano music he commissioned. Paul quarreled with most of the composers he patronized, always insisting on a more prominent piano part and less orchestra. He never played the Prokofiev concerto and drove Ravel crazy by insisting on changes.

The vast Wittgenstein fortune was lost through a combination of poor investments, the stock market crash of 1929 and the Nazis who fought tooth and nail to get their hands on what was left. The chapter on the Wittgensteins' frantic efforts to have themselves declassified as Jews or escape from Austria makes harrowing reading. With all their money and influence, they succeeded. Others were not so fortunate.

In the end, I wondered what this book added up to. It was interesting but most of the characters were so mediocre, petty and pathetic that I eventually tired of them.

Fiction would find it difficult to top this account of a 19th-20th century European family: raised in great wealth but generally unable to manage life. Being as I am in music the book was doubly interesting. Can you imagine Johannes Brahms coming to a musicale at your home? Highly recommended.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent

The above is a quote from Ludwig Wittgenstein. I'm not sure what its about. I read this book to get some backround on the philosopher (also because I head a good series on the Wittgenstein family on BBC radio 4). His family was brilliant, wealthy and tragic, three of his brothers committed suicide; his father was domineering, his mother catatonic. Ludwig did not speak to his surviving brother Paul for the last years of his life. The family, however, was intensely musical.
There is a good description of the early years in Vienna, and, a little known (to me) description of the First world War battles between Austria and Russia, which were more complex than you might expect. Ludwig's brother Paul, a noted pianist, lost his arm in one battle; and the majority of the book is taken up with Paul's struggle to relaunch his career. As the family were so wealthy Paul could afford to commission the major composers of the day to write pieces which could be played with one hand. Paul then went on to perform these pieces, but could never quite overcome the feeling that people came to his concerts to see the spectacle of a one handed pianist, rather than for his inherent talent. There are very descriptive elements too of the families struggle with Nazism, their horror at being declared Jewish (a grandparent, may have been Jewish, and therefore they were declared jewish, despite being Christian for generations); and the insanity of their efforts to disprove their claim - they had to establish that one of their grandparents was illegitimate.
However, there is almost nothing about Ludwig. He drifts through the book, but the central character is Paul, and I was quite disappointed about that, as before I read the book Ludwig was the only family member I knew about. Now he's the one I know least about. Oh dear.

Vaguely aware of who the Wittgenstein brothers Paul and Ludwig were, I feared the subject matter would be a highbrow detailed discussion of their works. Quite the contrary! Mr. Waugh disdains what could have been a dry pedantic review and approaches the story from another angle: a uniquely vibrant and talented family, graced with impossible wealth, who just don't get along very well. It's a rollickingly jolly read, full of humor, quirkiness, personality, and intelligence. "I never wanted it to end," as the old chestnut goes. The personal foibles of the famous are always a source of fascination and this book is bang on winner. You won't be sorry you bought it.

I confess before reading this book I had no prior knowledge of the Wittgenstein family, which included two apparently famous members, Paul and Ludwig. I can say now that if you have an interest in either of these two men, or this macabre family in general, this is a book that should be purchased and read.

For others, the book may be mainly interesting for the information brought forward on some inlets of European history, such as the break-up of the Hapsburg Empire; the dreadful treatment of captured soldiers by Russia in World War I; the constricted social life of Vienna; the too easy take over of Austria by Germany in the late 1930s; and the summersaults of Hitlerian logic in defining who was a Jew.

While I still do not have a clue why Ludwig is (was?) considered a noted philosopher, I do think the talented author, Mr. Waugh, gives a good notion of the gifts and shortcomings of Ludwig's brother Paul, the one-armed concert pianist.

As an aside, I think Paul Romano executed a nice book jacket design.

This review is going to take the unusual step of referring you to another review posted here: that of R. M. Peterson. He does a very fine job of writing about this very good book. I need not repeat his remarks (but probably will).

I knew nothing of the Wittgenstein family, except that Ludwig was a world-famous philosopher. Alexander Waugh does a fine job of examining this complex family and the times and milieu in which they lived. The book is thoroughly researched and owes much of its richness to the author's complete access to Paul Wittgenstein's daughter, who, as Waugh states, "put all her papers at my disposal, allowed me to interview her for hours on end and never tried to censor anything."

Although the eight offspring of Karl and Leopoldine "Poldy" Wittgenstein are the main focus of this history, echos of Hermann Wittgenstein (b. 1802) are heard too. Hermann, Karl's father, was a nasty anti-Semite who roundly abused his son, which pushed Karl to run away from home and drove him to prove his father wrong about his worthlessness. Karl proceeded to use his wife's money to become one of the richest industrialists in all of Europe. He insisted his sons follow exactly in his own footsteps, but Paul, Ludwig, Hans, and Rudi resisted. Hans and Rudi killed themselves, and Kurt did too, but he did so in the line of duty at the very end of WW I. There are many suicides and deaths in this family, and many miseries.

I was struck, as anyone would be, by all the unhappiness of the sons and daughters of Karl and Poldy. But when I read how the overbearing and monstrous Karl, carrying on his own father's cruelty, would pick up his boys by their ears to test if they would cry or not (if they didn't cry, he would shout "Hochgeboren!" (well bred), but if they cried, he would shout "Nichtgeboren!" (lower class or literally "not born")), I immediately understood why his offspring hated themselves.

This family's history probably would have been forever lost except for the fact that their money brought them widespread prominence. Karl was able to buy art, rare music manuscripts, huge mansions, and recognition, although of a false sort. His children, at least those who didn't kill themselves, inherited his vast fortune and used it for various purposes, most of which in the long run were for naught. Gretl, a headstrong and unappealing person who married a wretched American of equally repulsive character, continued to buy art and rare musical manuscripts. Paul tried to buy warm winter coats for the Austrian army but failed. Ludwig wanted nothing to do with the money and attempted to give it away. And when Hitler's Nazis were happily welcomed into Austria and Vienna, the Wittgensteins were labeled as Jews, which meant they had to relinquish almost all their wealth.

Paul's story is fascinating and focused on most, as the author had more information about him than any other family member. His story is well worth hearing. Before WW I the Wittgenstein family welcomed the likes of Brahms and Mahler into their mansion in Vienna and patronized the arts. Paul, against his father's wishes, became a pianist. Then, when war broke out, he joined the army but was promptly wounded in his right arm and captured by the Russians. His arm was amputated and he was transported to Siberia. But, after months of misery, he was brought home. With his money, he was able to pay composers to write piano pieces specifically for the left hand. Ravel, Prokofiev, and Strauss were among them. After obsessive practice and rearrangement of these pieces, which he was able to do because he owned them, he created a musical career for himself. He was moody, violent, controlling, and difficult, but he also was determined and stubborn. He refused to relinquish the family wealth to the Nazis, fought with his own family members who were more willing to yield to the Nazis in exchange for their own safety, and eventually he fled to America.

Ludwig's story is also fascinating but horrifying. As a self-hating homosexual, he was never comfortable with people and never at peace. He renounced his fame and his wealth and took menial jobs. In fact he tried his hand as a school teacher but went into uncontrollable rages against his "stupid" students. He lashed out at them and it can be said that he actually murdered one of them, a hemophiliac boy he struck who subsequently died. Ludwig often thought about suicide and went into deep depressions. His family members did not understand why anyone thought of him as anything more than a useless idiot. Waugh does not discuss Ludwig's accomplishments as a writer and philosopher. He is more focused on Paul.

Although I'm glad to be leaving this family, I'm very appreciative to Alexander Waugh for telling their story. It's an interesting and educational one, even though it's often unpleasant. I am now reading Waugh's own family history, "Father's and Sons."

Alexander Waugh - of The House of Waugh: Famous Writers - has written a superb biography of a group of people who were related by blood but could not make a family together. The nine children of Austrian Karl Wittgenstein - one daughter died as a baby - were all born in the late 19th century and grew up fabulously wealthy in Vienna. Their father had amassed a huge fortune in business and the family enjoyed the fruits of his fortune. They shared a common interest in music and emotional weaknesses that made it difficult to maintain relationships with each other, or to many people outside the family.

The first two sons committed suicide in the early 20th century, a third disappeared and was presumed dead in the US, while a fourth killed himself at the end of WW1 in murky circumstances. So, three brothers dead of suicide and another never heard from again. The final two brothers - the two youngest - were strange birds themselves. Paul, who lost his right arm in action in WW1, was a pianist - all members of the family were musical - and performed special piano compositions with his left hand. He had a career of sorts in both Europe and the United States. The other son, Ludwig, was a famous philosopher, based mainly in Cambridge, England, but lived here and there during his adulthood, often taking menial jobs as a way of supporting himself and avoiding interaction with the world around him. Ludwig was gay and had many "crushes" and a few relationships but was mainly a loner. Paul, who was straight, waited til he was in his 50's to finally marry a woman 28 years younger than himself, with whom he had already fathered two daughters at the time of their marriage.

The three Wittgenstein sisters were equally as odd as their brothers. The oldest daughter remained at home, never marrying, and finally evolving into a very mannish-looking old woman. The two younger daughters did marry, one very unhappily but producing two sons; the other marrying and maintaining a somewhat happy relationship with her husband and raising a family together. The sisters also survived the war; two in Vienna and one in the US. But few of the siblings were on speaking terms at the end. Long-standing family feuds - both real and imagined - tore the family apart.

Okay, here's what I find interesting. The Wittgenstein family were practicing Catholics and Protestants, but had three Jewish grandparents. All three grandparents converted to Christianity, seemingly as a way to assimilate into modern Austrian society. The family, by the time the eight children of Karl Wittgenstein were born, maintained their Christian identity by denying their Jewish roots. However, when the Nazis took power in the 1930's and after the Anschluss in 1938, having three Jewish grandparents - no matter how many conversion slips they could produce - still made the Wittgensteins Jewish under Nazi law. For the children still living in the Ostreich, this made a difference between life and death, and between fortune and prosperity. The way to "get around" the "fully-Jewish" status accorded to the Wittgensteins, was to try to "de-Judify" the family even further by getting one of the grandparents - in this case the father of Karl - declared the illegitimate son of a Christian father, rather than the legitimate son Jewish father. So, papers had to be produced, from 1802, testifying that Karl Wittgenstein's father, Herman Christian Wittgenstein, was the son of a Christian, rather than a Jew. This was done to gain the family members "Mischling" status, providing some protection from the Nazi laws.

My question, which is not exactly about the Wittgenstein family but they are a very good example of converting through assimilation, is how many Jews in western and middle Europe did so in the 19th century? We speak today of losing Jews through assimilation, but I'd love to know how many were lost in earlier times. I'll bet it was a fairly large number, particularly those who were the more affluent after the Napoleonic laws giving Jews citizenship.

Waugh's book is a very well-written look at a "dysfunctional" family that began with so much in terms of money and brilliance, but has over the generations been whittled down to two or three survivors.