The House of Wittgenstein : a family at war Part 10

Two months later, on March 13, 1942, Diversions Diversions received its New York premiere at a broadcast concert from the Town Hall with Charles Lichter conducting the Columbia Concert Orchestra. Britten did not attend and Peter Pears wrote to a friend: "Wittgenstein is playing his piece on Friday 3:30-4:30 on CBS. Do listen if you can, tho' I expect it will be bad." Gretl, however, did turn up, to see her brother for the first time since May 1939. Paul did not notice her and a friend slip into their seats at the back of the auditorium. To Ludwig she wrote: received its New York premiere at a broadcast concert from the Town Hall with Charles Lichter conducting the Columbia Concert Orchestra. Britten did not attend and Peter Pears wrote to a friend: "Wittgenstein is playing his piece on Friday 3:30-4:30 on CBS. Do listen if you can, tho' I expect it will be bad." Gretl, however, did turn up, to see her brother for the first time since May 1939. Paul did not notice her and a friend slip into their seats at the back of the auditorium. To Ludwig she wrote: I felt I wanted to see him (unseen by him) & also to hear him. He looks well & astonishingly young & as sympathetic as always on the podium. But his playing has become much worse. I suppose that is to be expected, because he insists on trying to do, what really cannot be done. It is eine Vergewaltigung eine Vergewaltigung [a violation]--Yes, he is sick ... [a violation]--Yes, he is sick ...

THE WITTGENSTEINS' WAR

At the beginning of 1938, embarra.s.sed by his continued sensual interest in Francis Skinner, Ludwig scribbled in his diary: "Thought: it would be good and right if he had died, and thereby rid me of my folly ... Although, there again, I only half mean that." For years Ludwig and Francis had been inseparable until on October 11, 1941, the twenty-nine-year-old gardener and mechanic died from a severe and sudden attack of polio--the same disease that had taken the life of Ludwig's nephew Fritz Salzer after the First World War. Ludwig was devastated. Fed up with teaching philosophy at a time of international crisis, he sought and was offered a 28-shilling-a-week job as ward-porter at Guy's Hospital in London. When a doctor there recognized him as the distinguished Cambridge philosopher and went up to greet him, Ludwig "turned white as a sheet and said 'Good G.o.d, don't tell anybody who I am.' "

"My soul is very very tired. It isn't at all in a good state." His job was to carry pills from the dispensary to the wards where he apparently advised patients not to take them. At Guy's the emotional void left by Francis Skinner's death was filled to some degree by a twenty-one-year-old man of humble East End origins and modest mind who worked in the dispensary. His name was Roy Fouracre, and his affectionate name for Ludwig was Old So-and-so. He and Ludwig remained close friends until Ludwig's death in 1951 when he left Roy a little money in his will. From the position of lowly porter Ludwig was soon promoted to that of "ointment maker" and surprised his boss by devising improved methods of ointment preparation that had never been previously considered. His stint at Guy's came to an end when Roy joined the army and Ludwig moved to Newcastle to work as a laboratory a.s.sistant to two doctors who were studying an irregular breathing disorder known as tired. It isn't at all in a good state." His job was to carry pills from the dispensary to the wards where he apparently advised patients not to take them. At Guy's the emotional void left by Francis Skinner's death was filled to some degree by a twenty-one-year-old man of humble East End origins and modest mind who worked in the dispensary. His name was Roy Fouracre, and his affectionate name for Ludwig was Old So-and-so. He and Ludwig remained close friends until Ludwig's death in 1951 when he left Roy a little money in his will. From the position of lowly porter Ludwig was soon promoted to that of "ointment maker" and surprised his boss by devising improved methods of ointment preparation that had never been previously considered. His stint at Guy's came to an end when Roy joined the army and Ludwig moved to Newcastle to work as a laboratory a.s.sistant to two doctors who were studying an irregular breathing disorder known as pulsas paradoxus. pulsas paradoxus. Once again Ludwig demonstrated his originality by devising an altogether novel method by which a patient's pulse might be recorded--"an ingenious departure from standard practice which worked well," as one of the doctors recalled. Once again Ludwig demonstrated his originality by devising an altogether novel method by which a patient's pulse might be recorded--"an ingenious departure from standard practice which worked well," as one of the doctors recalled.

That was Ludwig's English war. In Vienna, the people's enthusiasm for National Socialism, for fighting and even for Hitler himself had started to wane with news of defeat at the battle of Stalingrad. Of the 50,000 Austrian troops of the German Sixth Army that had been surrounded by Russian forces, only 1,200 had survived. Wiener Neustadt was bombed by the Americans in August 1943 and when the heavier bombing of central Vienna started in September 1944 a bleak mood of defeatism spread for the first time among the hearts and minds of the Viennese people.

Towards Hermine and Helene the n.a.z.is had held true to their word, and the two old ladies lived without interference from the authorities for the duration of the war. Helene's husband Max Salzer died in April 1941. His debilitated mental state had played heavily on her nerves, as had the emigration of her only surviving son, Felix, to America. With three of her grandsons fighting in the Wehrmacht, two of whom went missing at the end of the war, these were taxing years for Helene. Hermine too, always shy, now reclusive, had long given up drawing and teaching. Encouraged by members of her family she set about writing her memoirs--a collection of selective, sentimental and sometimes b.i.t.c.hy reminiscences of the family. At first she stayed at Hochreit (the mountain retreat she had inherited from her father). In October 1944, fearing Russian invasion from the east, she fled to Vienna, and as soon as the capital looked set to become a b.l.o.o.d.y battlefield she moved to a house on Gretl's estate at Gmunden. The Wittgenstein Palais, now entirely hers, was converted for use as a hospital for wounded officers.

Of Gretl's two adopted sons the eldest, Wedigo, fought on the German side and was killed. "It goes very near me," Gretl wrote to Ludwig. "I was very fond of him in spite of all of his weaknesses and nothing he could ever have done could have changed that. In fact he was d.a.m.ned innocent.--He was made of a material alien to ours and was built for a different environment than ours and I was always amazed and troubled by his evident affections ..." Jochen, the younger, fought for the Allies, was captured by the Germans and tortured as a traitor. He did however survive the ordeal. When Hitler declared war on the United States in December 1941, Gretl's house on the Kundmannga.s.se was expropriated and put to n.a.z.i use. Many of the things in it were stolen.

In Washington, Ji fell in love with an unusual woman, a mechanically minded enthusiast for Heinz baked beans and fast cars called Veronica Morrison-Bell. She was the third daughter of an obscure Northumberland baronet and was twenty-nine years old when she arrived in America for the first time. As a woman of independent spirit, she had taken a holiday in Tokyo before the war broke out only to find that her route back to Europe was blocked by warships and mines. So she headed east across the Pacific, arriving in California on October 2, 1940. A friend of her parents, the rich patroness Dorothea Merriman, had found her a secretarial post in the Washington office of the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staffs, where they were making hush-hush plans for a Churchill government in exile. Veronica, whose brother was a captain in the 7th Lancers, was fiercely patriotic and it was rumored that her consent to marrying Ji depended upon his giving up his desk job and joining the army to fight the n.a.z.is. In the spring of 1941 Ji duly enlisted as a volunteer officer cadet with the Duke of York's Royal Canadian Hussars, and on July 17, 1942, the couple were married at an officer-training camp at Brockville, Ontario, with a taxi driver as witness. Gretl mourned the loss of her "golden boy" but accepted the situation as best she could. "I like Veronica," she wrote to Ludwig, "I like her very much although I realize that she has a hard & bitter kernel under the soft cover."

Ji, or Stoney as he was known to his fellow officers, trained hard and was considered a proficient soldier, even though he swore too much, and denigrated the Canadian army as "a d.a.m.ned inefficient bunch of dolts." Once his detachment had arrived in France in 1944, he saw action in battles against the Hitler Youth's specially formed Panzer Division. His fluent German made him a useful interrogator, translator and intelligence officer, but he never rose beyond the rank of major as "some b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a Canadian General" blocked his advancement. The problem came at the end of the war when he was involved in the trial of SS Brigadefuhrer Kurt "Panzer" Meyer, a highly decorated German soldier, wrongly accused of ordering the a.s.sa.s.sination of Canadian POWs in Normandy in 1944. Ji was working for the prosecution and even before the trial had begun had let it be known that a guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion and that Meyer would be sentenced to death. During the proceedings, at which he was serving as interpreter, it was revealed that he had tried to influence a witness statement by shouting and intimidation, at which point "some b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a General," that is the Judge Advocate, dismissed him from the court, summoning a new interpreter to take his place. Meyer was sentenced to death but, after vigorous campaigning by both Germans and Canadians, was released from prison in September 1954.

The battles of Paul's war a.s.sumed a very different form. In New York he joined an exile group calling itself Austrian Action, run by Count Ferdinand Czernin, the son of the Austrian Foreign Minister during the First World War. The group's membership was made up of all types and all political persuasions, and was formed to campaign for an overthrow of the n.a.z.i regime in Austria. Paul gave his money and time to supporting the group, playing in several high-profile Austrian Action fund-raising concerts in New York; as a result he was treated with suspicion by the jittery American administration, which believed that all members of Austrian Action were communists. During the war years Paul also gave concerts to rally American troops, performing, for soldiers at Oakland, Camp Shanks and Gulfport Field, an arrangement of Ravel's Concerto with military bra.s.s band accompaniment. In New York in April 1944 he gave a concert in support of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Every week he sent weekly parcels of food and money to old friends and old retainers in Austria, France and England.

With no control over what was happening musically in Europe, he became suspicious that the great repertoire of left-handed piano pieces he had spent his fortune commissioning and which had brought him his career's successes was being stolen from him. There were two sorts of theft. One consisted in rearranging his original left-handed pieces for two hands, and the other in his his works being performed by other two-armed or single-armed pianists. Already, before the war, Ravel, incensed by the liberties Paul had taken with his concerto, had championed the French pianist Jacques Fevrier to play his work as soon as the Wittgenstein contract had expired. To Paul's irritation, Fevrier recorded Ravel's Concerto in 1943. At the same time Richard Strauss, in a move guaranteed to enrage Paul, rededicated his works being performed by other two-armed or single-armed pianists. Already, before the war, Ravel, incensed by the liberties Paul had taken with his concerto, had championed the French pianist Jacques Fevrier to play his work as soon as the Wittgenstein contract had expired. To Paul's irritation, Fevrier recorded Ravel's Concerto in 1943. At the same time Richard Strauss, in a move guaranteed to enrage Paul, rededicated his Panathendenzug Panathendenzug to the young German pianist Kurt Leimer, who went on to make the first recording. to the young German pianist Kurt Leimer, who went on to make the first recording.

In Austria, due to the exodus of Jewish composers, Franz Schmidt became the new embodiment of pure-blood German musical genius. Schmidt was a sick man at the time of the Anschluss and Anschluss and the excitement of long-awaited official recognition went straight to his head. At the premiere of his oratorio the excitement of long-awaited official recognition went straight to his head. At the premiere of his oratorio Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln (The Book of Seven Seals), he gave a n.a.z.i salute from his balcony seat at the Musikverein and undertook to compose another work in praise of the n.a.z.i Party called (The Book of Seven Seals), he gave a n.a.z.i salute from his balcony seat at the Musikverein and undertook to compose another work in praise of the n.a.z.i Party called Die deutsche Auferstehung Die deutsche Auferstehung (The German Resurrection). He died before completing it, but these acts severely limited Schmidt's posthumous international reputation. (The German Resurrection). He died before completing it, but these acts severely limited Schmidt's posthumous international reputation.

Paul, who revered Schmidt almost as a father, was heartbroken to discover, shortly after the composer's death in 1939, that a young fascist pianist called Friedrich Wuhrer was making and performing two-handed arrangements of all the six works originally composed for Paul's left hand. Wuhrer was an ex-student of Schmidt's who Paul later claimed "went about for ten years shouting 'Heil Hitler!' and now only plays music to erase the past." He detested Paul as vehemently as Paul detested him. "In Austria," he wrote to a fellow pianist, "we do not take Herr Wittgenstein seriously. A choleric neurasthenic--rich, presumptuous and, as a pianist, lousy."

Wuhrer claimed to have visited Schmidt on his hospital deathbed, where he had pointed out to the composer that he had not yet written anything "right" for the piano. Schmidt is said to have replied: "But I have already written a piano concerto. You only need to arrange it for two hands!" This, Wuhrer claimed, gave him sanction to rearrange all the works for two hands. Paul wrote furious letters of protest to the composer's widow from America but her replies were muddled and equivocal. She had become unbalanced and was later "put to death" under the n.a.z.i euthanasia scheme. "I know that Wuhrer is lying but how can I prove it?" Paul wrote to Koder in frustration.

During these years Wuhrer performed all of Schmidt's left-hand works in his own two-hand arrangements, ignoring the fact that they were still exclusively contracted to Paul. He had agreed to print a short notice in each concert program--"This work was composed for Paul Wittgenstein and is an arrangement of an original composition for the left hand"--but since Paul was an exiled Jew, listed in the official n.a.z.i handbook Lexikon derjuden in der Musik Lexikon derjuden in der Musik as a banned concert artist, n.o.body in Vienna had to agree to any of his transatlantic demands. Wuhrer's programs consequently appeared without the notice. as a banned concert artist, n.o.body in Vienna had to agree to any of his transatlantic demands. Wuhrer's programs consequently appeared without the notice.

By late 1944 support in Vienna for Adolf Hitler had all but evaporated. The American planes that came to bomb the Viennese were called Liberators. In sortie after sortie their pilots pounded the city from the air believing that they were freeing the people below from the heavy yoke of German oppression. And this is how many of the Viennese saw it too--not as a punishment for having welcomed a h.e.l.lish, compatriot ideologue, surrendered their country to him, implemented his savage schemes with more vim and enthusiasm than the crazed dictator himself could have dreamed possible, or for having defended his brutal regime for five years with their guns, their bombs and their lives--no, the Americans were to be seen as "liberators" and with the bloodthirsty Russian army now approaching at speed from the east it became crucial to the Viennese that the more lenient Americans should get to their city first.

In December 1944 on a wet, wintry day, a U.S. Liberator bomber on a routine mission released a cl.u.s.ter over Vienna's once-prosperous Wieden district. A bomb landed on the roof of the Wittgenstein Palais. The explosion tore through the back of the building, smashing the garden elevation and bringing down half of the rear exterior wall--the lavish bedroom where Karl had lain dying in 1913 was reduced to rubble; the ceiling of the Musiksaal Musiksaal where Brahms, Mahler and Hanslick had once sat in rapt attention came crashing down to the floor; and the great gla.s.s dome that for seventy years had allowed the sunlight through to the marble staircase below was shattered into thousands of fragments of twisted metal and broken gla.s.s. After a deafening report, the air was filled with dust. Distant sirens disturbed the monotonous patter of rain. where Brahms, Mahler and Hanslick had once sat in rapt attention came crashing down to the floor; and the great gla.s.s dome that for seventy years had allowed the sunlight through to the marble staircase below was shattered into thousands of fragments of twisted metal and broken gla.s.s. After a deafening report, the air was filled with dust. Distant sirens disturbed the monotonous patter of rain.

ROADS' END

In the years after the war Vienna was divided into French, British, Soviet and American sectors of occupation. Movement between these zones was restricted. The Palais found itself in the Russian sector. For a month the great building stood open to the elements and, for nearly a year after that, was boarded up and abandoned. The task of repairing the damage fell to Hermine, but it was not until the spring of 1947 that she was able to move back in. Pictures, furniture, ma.n.u.scripts and a porcelain collection held in storage that had belonged to Paul were shipped out to him in America, but there was no reconciliation, nor any contact with him except through lawyers. If Hermine was elated to be back in the old home, even without her brother as companion, the sensation did not last long, for within six months of her return she was diagnosed with a fatal gynecological cancer.

Ludwig returned to Vienna for the first time in nine years to visit her. He had not been feeling too well himself and had given up his professorship at Cambridge in order to write, moving to Ireland, where he had been hopping from address to address in a state of near nervous collapse. In Vienna he found his eldest sister in a bad way and throughout 1948 her condition worsened. After a big operation at the beginning of 1949 she was told she had but a short time to live--two or three years at most. She then had a slight stroke, followed by another, heavier one, and it was soon apparent to everyone that her death was imminent. Gretl and Helene were at her side as she slipped in and out of consciousness.

Ludwig wanted to return to Vienna again in March, but Gretl tried to block his visit on the grounds that it would only upset Hermine, who was incapable now of recognizing anybody. Rudolf Koder wrote a slightly different account to Ludwig, who replied furiously: It seems that my sister Gretl gave me false news by implying that Hermine is not able to recognise anyone at all. It's very unpleasant to receive contradicting pieces of information. Please don't get influenced by anyone and continue to write the truth as you see it. Don't trust Gretl's judgement, it's too temperamental.

In March 1949, Paul, who had stayed clear of Vienna for over eleven years, was invited to play in two concerts to mark the tenth anniversary of Franz Schmidt's death. Ludwig wrote to Marga Deneke to tell her to inform his brother that Hermine was dying. Presumably she did this, but Paul, who played Schmidt's Beethoven Variations with the Vienna Philharmonic on March 13 and two quintets in the Brahmssaal on the nineteenth, did not go to see his ailing sister.

Vienna was no longer the safe and grandiose city that he remembered from his eager youth, nor did it any longer resemble the quick, cosmopolitan, cultural hub of the inter-war years. The cityscape of 1949 still bore the scars of the war; and the flame of the people, bereft of its Jewish energy, dimmed by the shame of complicity in the n.a.z.i terror, was now reduced to a tragic ember. Paul had long ago thrown in his lot with the Americans and, though he remained at heart a patriotic Austrian, he came to Vienna in 1949, not as an exile yearning for his home, but as a visitor, a hotel guest and an international concert artist. He did not visit the Palais nor even look at it from the street. His heart was full of bitterness.

Ludwig, rashly (for his health was also failing), accepted an invitation from a former philosophy student, Norman Malcolm, to stay at Ithaca in New York State. In April, before leaving for America, he went to see Hermine in Vienna. Paul had already left the city, and Ludwig found his sister's life hanging by its final thread. He wrote to Professor Malcolm: "I haven't done any work since the beginning of March & I haven't had the strength of even trying to do any. G.o.d knows how things will go on now." The doctor in Dublin told him that he was suffering from a pernicious, atypical anemia that could be corrected with iron and liver pills. An X-ray of his stomach where a growth was suspected revealed no abnormalities. On July 21 he sailed on the Queen Mary. Queen Mary.

Ludwig found America hot and bewildering. The Malcolms were kind to him but he felt like "an old cripple" and "too stupid" to write letters. He paid a surprise visit to Paul's house on Long Island but found it empty except for a maid and left without leaving a note. Once again he felt ill, bad enough to submit himself to the rigors of a medical inspection, and once again nothing seriously wrong was found. The day before he had murmured to Malcolm in a breathless frenzy: "I don't want to die in America. I am a European. I want to die in Europe. What a fool I was to come!"

Returning to London he had himself checked again and was finally told the proper cause of his malaise. He had an inoperable and advanced cancer of the prostate, which had spread to his bone marrow, causing anemia. The treatment, a regular oral administration of the female hormone estrogen, was prescribed to arrest his production of testosterone. The side effects of this therapy include sickness, diarrhea, hot flashes, impotence and breast swelling. Unable to work and still feeling restless he decided to return to Austria for Christmas, where he imagined he would die in his old room at the Palais. "I am thinking of going to Vienna for some time as soon as possible. There I'll just do nothing & let the hormones do their work." He gave instructions to his friends not to mention his illness to anyone as it was "of the greatest importance" that his family should not get to hear about it while he was staying there.

On Christmas Eve Ludwig arrived at the Palais and retired to bed. It was on such a Christmas thirty-seven years earlier that Karl had lain dying of cancer and now--another grim Yuletide in the same palatial surroundings--it was the turn of Karl's eldest and youngest children. For two months Ludwig remained in Vienna, spending most of his time prostrate. Each day he went to see Hermine but she could hardly talk to him and when she did it was impossible to understand what she was trying to say. On February 11, 1950, she died. Ludwig wrote to a friend in England: "My eldest sister died very peacefully yesterday evening. We had expected her end hourly for the last 3 days. It wasn't a shock."

Most of Hermine's seventy-five years had been occupied in maidish time-filling activities, spoiled by feelings of inferiority and social inadequacy. She had produced one or two pictures of average merit, the best being of Josef Labor on his deathbed. Her friendships were few but loyal. Above all she had been keeper of the family flame. She had worked hard since her father's death to maintain his estates, standards and values and to honor his memory. She had maintained the Viennese Palais and made significant improvements to Hochreit and the Palais at Neuwaldegg. Her unpublished memoir, written for her great-nephews and -nieces, portrays the Wittgensteins in a fairytale aspect and reveals her to have been fonder and prouder of her uncles and aunts than of most of her siblings or even her mother. Only Ludwig and Gretl are honored in this work. Hans, Rudi, Kurt, Helene and Paul are dismissed with few words. For all Hermine's obvious faults the effect of her death on Ludwig was profound. "Great loss for me and all of us," he wrote in his diary. "Greater than I would have thought."

Ludwig was himself expecting to die, but for a year after Hermine's demise he continued writing and moving from place to place. In April 1950, he went to Cambridge, then, after a brief sojourn in London, moved to Oxford, took a holiday in Norway in August, settling on his return into the house of his doctor Edward Bevan and his wife in Cambridge. By February his decline was such that it was decided any further treatment would be pointless. Bucked by this, Ludwig told Mrs. Bevan, "I am going to work now as I have never worked before." Immediately he set about writing a large portion of the book now known as On Certainty. On Certainty. He made it (just) to his sixty-second birthday. "Many happy returns!" said Mrs. Bevan. "There will be no returns," he answered. On the following morning he composed his last philosophical thought: He made it (just) to his sixty-second birthday. "Many happy returns!" said Mrs. Bevan. "There will be no returns," he answered. On the following morning he composed his last philosophical thought: Someone who dreaming says "I am dreaming," even if he speaks audibly in doing so, is no more right than if he said in his dream "it is raining," while it was in fact raining. Even if his dream were actually connected with the noise of the rain.

That night Ludwig's condition deteriorated considerably and when Dr. Bevan told him that he was not likely to survive more than a couple of days he said, "Good!" Before pa.s.sing out for the last time he murmured to Mrs. Bevan: "Tell them I've had a wonderful life!" His final moments-unconscious and oblivious--were attended at his bedside by four of his former students and, at their behest, a Dominican monk. He was buried the next day (April 30, 1951) by Catholic rite in the cemetery of St. Giles, Cambridge. None of his family or friends from Vienna was present.

If ever there were a case to show that cancer is a genetic disease, the Wittgenstein family should be submitted as the first exhibit of concluding proof. Eighteen months before Hermine's death Maria Salzer (He-lene's daughter) was killed by cancer. In time both of Helene's daughters and several of her granddaughters as well as her great-granddaughters would be stricken by the same disease. Helene herself died of it in 1956. She had not seen her brother Paul since 1938.

As for Gretl, she outlived Helene by a couple of years, but they were not especially happy ones. She returned to Vienna but with none of the old gaiety or sense of purpose. Her social life was not the same as it had been in the 1920s and 1930s and she was lonely. The burden she felt at the antics of her rakish elder son (who married five times and was a constant financial drain) was compounded by her disappointment over the postwar idleness and lack of ambition of her younger son. After 1945, Ji had turned his back on his high-flying Washington career; he opted instead for the indolent life of an English country squire, settling in Dorset, where he and Veronica raised a family.

Of Paul, Gretl never spoke again, but she mentioned him in letters to Ludwig before he died. "For a time I really believed that Paul would get over his att.i.tude," she told him, "but now I see that we have really lost him. He is not a forgetter & I don't see that age is going to make him mellower. I understand him so much better now than in the old days, when his outward overbearingness fooled me."

In 1958 the heart which had given her trouble since the days of her maidenhood finally gave in. She had three strokes in quick succession, rallied enough to pretend to her grandson that she had plenty of energy and would be all right, but spent the remainder of her days struggling for consciousness at an expensive private clinic on the Billrothstra.s.se. It was in a small bedroom here, in the Rudolfinerhaus, that she died on September 27. Of the Wittgenstein siblings, Gretl was the warmest, the most humorous and the kindest, but she was also the bossiest, the most ambitious and the most worldly. She hated these traits in herself but lacked the strength to resist them. Despite her knack for irritating and interfering she was remembered with deep affection by her many friends and descendants. She was buried on October 1, 1958, in the town cemetery at Gmunden, next to her husband.

THE END OF THE LINE

Paul Wittgenstein died on March 3, 1961. He was seventy-three years old. Like his younger brother, he too had fallen prey to cancer of the prostate and its attendant anemia, but in the end it was an acute attack of pneumonia that killed him.

In outward appearance his last years in America had been successful. His family, which by the end of November 1941 included a son, Paul Jr., moved from Huntington to a comfortable mock-Tudor residence with land and views across Long Island Sound at Great Neck. He continued to spend most of his time, except for the weekends and the longer holidays, in Manhattan, but despite this unconventional arrangement and the disparity of age between him and his wife, the marriage was, by some accounts at least, a happy one. In 1946 he and his family were granted full American citizenship and Paul never repined. During semiretirement from the concert platform in 1958 he published three books of piano music for the left hand, including some of his own arrangements, of which he was exceedingly proud. In the same year he was awarded an honorary doctorate, in recognition of his services to music, by the Philadelphia Musical Academy.

He had many piano pupils, all of whom he taught for free, and the work brought him fulfillment. One of his students, the talented composer and later award-winning film director Leonard Kastle, became his closest friend. His playing during this period, however, deteriorated sharply. At its peak, in the period between 1928 and 1934, he was a world-cla.s.s pianist of outstanding technical ability and sensitivity who was able to galvanize an audience by his arresting stage manner. His posthumous reputation as a pianist is however low. This is partly caused by his altering the music of famous composers who subsequently railed against him. Ravel continued to complain about him until his death, Prokofiev insulted him in his autobiography and Britten revised the score of his Diversions Diversions after 1950 in order to create an "official version" that would stop Paul playing it by rendering his version obsolete. It is also the case that Paul made very few recordings, most of which are bad. A 1928 piano-roll performance of his own arrangement of the Bach-Brahms D minor Chaconne is faultless, but the two recordings he made of the Ravel Concerto and one of Strauss's after 1950 in order to create an "official version" that would stop Paul playing it by rendering his version obsolete. It is also the case that Paul made very few recordings, most of which are bad. A 1928 piano-roll performance of his own arrangement of the Bach-Brahms D minor Chaconne is faultless, but the two recordings he made of the Ravel Concerto and one of Strauss's Parergon Parergon are not so good. Clumsy errors, thoughtless phrasing and unnecessary tampering with the music spoil all three performances. are not so good. Clumsy errors, thoughtless phrasing and unnecessary tampering with the music spoil all three performances.

It would appear that the nervous strain of concert-giving was too great for him. While in the early years he could turn in performances of high quality, his playing was occasionally harsh and ham-fisted. As the years progressed the physical and mental effort overwhelmed him and he produced more of the latter and fewer of the former. Orchestras and conductors that had invited him once, seldom sought to rebook him. In England Marga continued to search for work for her old friend but found it increasingly difficult. The conductor Trevor Harvey, who had performed Diversions Diversions with Paul in Bournemouth in October 1950, wrote to her eight years later: with Paul in Bournemouth in October 1950, wrote to her eight years later: I think I am going to have a great deal of difficulty in getting much for Paul. I'm sure I know you well enough to say exactly what I think and that you won't be offended because of your old friendship with P.W. The question is--how does he now play? Because last time he was here he didn't create a good impression--frankly, the Britten performance with me in Bournemouth had lots of moments of brilliance but there was a good deal of hard playing and as a performance it sometimes misunderstood Britten's intentions ... Paul may, of course, be playing infinitely better than he was last time but it's going to be difficult to persuade people without any evidence.

Two weeks after that Bournemouth performance Paul played Diversions Diversions again under Sir Malcolm Sargent at the Royal Albert Hall in London. again under Sir Malcolm Sargent at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The Times The Times critic recorded "a warm reception" but continued: "familiarity with these works has bred in him a certain contempt for refinement of detail, which he could well remedy by studying each afresh from the printed score." critic recorded "a warm reception" but continued: "familiarity with these works has bred in him a certain contempt for refinement of detail, which he could well remedy by studying each afresh from the printed score."

The pianist Siegfried Rapp, who had lost his right arm during a battle in the Second World War, was especially bitter. He wrote to Paul asking permission to perform some of the works that he had commissioned and was bluntly refused: You don't build a house [Paul told him] just so that someone else can live in it. I commissioned and paid for the works, the whole idea was mine ... Constructing this house has cost me a great deal of money and effort--I was in any case far too generous with contracts as in the Ravel case, and I am now being punished for it. But those works to which I still have the exclusive performance rights, they are to remain mine as long as I still perform in public; that's only right and fair. Once I am dead or no longer give concerts, then the works will be available to everyone because I have no wish for them to gather dust in libraries to the detriment of the composers.

Rapp was determined to wrestle something from Paul's catalogue of commissions and after Prokofiev's death succeeded in getting a copy of the left-hand concerto from the composer's widow, and in 1956, to Paul's acute irritation, he gave the world premiere performance in Berlin. His att.i.tude to Paul was aggressively negative. Writing to the Czech pianist Otakar Hollmann, Rapp remarked: "I had imagined that there might be nothing special about Wittgenstein's playing but what I heard on the records was indescribably bad... I am mightily horrified and disappointed. He's no pianist at all! To me Wittgenstein is now nothing but a rich dilettante."

Paul should have retired earlier from the concert platform, but he was a fighter and continued to view each performance as a test of his endurance and his nerve. To give up would have been, for him at least, an unacceptable admission of failure. He continued giving tours and public performances of ever-decreasing merit through his final illness, and right up until the year before his death. It was not vanity that compelled him, for at heart he was a modest man. "You are overrating me by far," he wrote to his student Leonard Kastle shortly before his death. "I have only a few redeeming points, the rest isn't worth much, and that's not fishing but the truth."

It was of course the same c.o.c.ktail of pride, honor and obstinacy that stood in the way of any reconciliation with his siblings, but here each of the Wittgensteins was similar and each equally to blame. When Gretl and Paul were summoned to a court hearing in New York to swear on behalf of a friend applying for U.S. citizenship, they both sent representatives as they could not face meeting one another. Or as Gretl put it: "I was sure that he would have hated meeting me, so I sent my lawyer." Hermine said that she thought often of Paul on her deathbed but would not go the length of asking to see him, and as she lay dying Ludwig speculated: "I believe that she wants to make peace, so to speak, from her side and to extinguish all the bitterness." But nothing was done about it.

A similar situation had arisen with a memorandum that Paul drew up concerning the great Wistag quarrel. He commissioned it "since it is possible that at a later date it might be needed in order to save my honour" but sent instructions to his lawyer: "I would ask you initially not to send a copy to my brother, but to do so only if he expressly requests it." Of course Ludwig did nothing of the sort and therefore never read it, despite the fact that, in its final form, the memorandum was headed with a note: "The following was not originally intended as an appendix to my testament or for my children, but was much more intended for my brother who lives in England to read."

If Paul had been at home when Ludwig breezed by in 1949, the bitter feud--at least as it existed between the brothers--might well have ended there. Both felt miserable about the rift but with the exception of that one ad hoc visit neither was prepared to make the first move. Marga tried, on several occasions, to bring them together but her efforts were clumsy and caused great offense: Paul is in Oxford with the Denekes [Ludwig wrote to Rudolf Koder in March 1949] and recently I received a strange invitation, which filled me with disgust, from Miss Deneke, asking to visit her during Paul's stay. I wrote back stating my reasons about my unwillingness to accept the invitation ... I am certain it was not written on Paul's instructions. I believe rather that she wanted to bring about the get-together and my brother gave her the permission to invite me, which she, because of her stupidity, did in a most stupid way.

A year later, when Paul was in England playing Diversions Diversions, Marga, undaunted by Ludwig's previous response, tried him again. This time she went to see him in person at his attic lodgings in St. John Street, Oxford: He was sitting in a dressing gown over a fire [she recalled]. His voice still had its old musical huskiness but it sounded weak and suffering was written on his pale face. After a minute he asked me to leave him. He said it made him shudder to recall old memories and seeing me brought back thoughts of Vienna and his home that were too much for him.

Paul rarely spoke to his children about Ludwig or about his sisters. In 1953 he wrote to Rudolf Koder: "I kept out of contact with my brother from 1939; he wrote me one or two letters when I was visiting England, in response to Miss Deneke's invitation. I did not answer them. I do not know whether I would have done anything if I had been aware that he was terminally ill." By then Paul had managed to put his past behind him. Ludwig and Gretl believed that he had to estrange himself from his family in order to lead a free, fulfilled and happy existence.

After Hermine's death the once glorious Palais Wittgenstein was sold for development. Razed to the ground by cranes, bulldozers and wrecking b.a.l.l.s, the final demolition marked the symbolic end to the Wittgenstein story. Paul and his son were the last surviving descendants in the male line from Karl and without the slightest hope of a return to the Palais in Vienna they looked to find a new ident.i.ty and a new hope in the brash, optimistic life of America.

That our house in the Alleega.s.se is not only to be sold but razed to the ground is very sad but, I suppose, unavoidable [Paul wrote to Rudolf Koder]. But who can nowadays live in and upkeep a palais of such extravagance of s.p.a.ce and grandiosity? Just think of the staircase and the salons on the first floor. Even at the time when I and my late sister were living there, the maintenance costs were far more than we could afford.

On Monday, March 6, 1961, friends were invited to pay their last respects in the American way. Paul's body had been moved from the North Sh.o.r.e Hospital where he had died to the Fliedner Funeral Home on Middle Neck Road where, on the following day at 10 a.m., a service was given. No words were said. A small congregation a.s.sembled. A man at the front stood up and placed a phonograph needle on a 33 rpm recording of Brahms's German Requiem. Each time a side was finished the man went forward and turned the record over until, at length, the music reached its winding conclusion: Selig sind die Toten, die in dem Herrn sterben, von nun an. Ja der Geist spricbt, dab sie ruben von ibrer Arbeit; denn ibre Werke folgen ibnen nacb.

(Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.) n.o.body came to the front to speak, no epicedium was read, no prayers. The needle arm was lifted and returned to its position of rest and, when the turntable had ceased its spinning, everyone filed out.

The New York Times New York Times ran a long obituary highlighting the important incidents of Paul's career. In London Trevor Harvey praised his exceptional generosity, concluding his obituary in the ran a long obituary highlighting the important incidents of Paul's career. In London Trevor Harvey praised his exceptional generosity, concluding his obituary in the Gramophone Gramophone magazine: "As a personal friend Paul Wittgenstein will never be forgotten while those who knew him are alive; but long after his friends are no more, music lovers will have reason to remember him with grat.i.tude for the music he caused to be written." Marga's tribute to her eccentric old friend appeared in the London magazine: "As a personal friend Paul Wittgenstein will never be forgotten while those who knew him are alive; but long after his friends are no more, music lovers will have reason to remember him with grat.i.tude for the music he caused to be written." Marga's tribute to her eccentric old friend appeared in the London Times Times, eleven days after his death: "Loyalty to his friends was part of his strong personality. Paul Wittgenstein has indeed added a distinguished page to the history of music."

POSTSCRIPT

Hilde Wittgenstein lived until March 2001, by which time she was completely blind and insensible from Alzheimer's disease. Thirty years earlier she had moved from Long Island, New York, to Newfoundland, Pennsylvania, where she lived in a house that she had designed using plastic Lego bricks. Paul's body was exhumed from its grave on Long Island and reinterred at the Pine Grove cemetery nearby. As the years pa.s.sed she became increasingly suspicious of everyone around her and estranged herself from her staunchest allies: Karoline Rolly, Dorothy Lutz (the lady who looked after her), her son Paul Jr., and one of her daughters. Despite her suspicious nature she gave a large portion of her fortune to a cultish Pennsylvanian Christian group. For years she kept Paul's library of valuable ma.n.u.scripts jealously locked in a room of her house, to which no one was permitted entry. After her death it was discovered to contain many treasures, including the long-lost ma.n.u.script of Hin-demith's lived until March 2001, by which time she was completely blind and insensible from Alzheimer's disease. Thirty years earlier she had moved from Long Island, New York, to Newfoundland, Pennsylvania, where she lived in a house that she had designed using plastic Lego bricks. Paul's body was exhumed from its grave on Long Island and reinterred at the Pine Grove cemetery nearby. As the years pa.s.sed she became increasingly suspicious of everyone around her and estranged herself from her staunchest allies: Karoline Rolly, Dorothy Lutz (the lady who looked after her), her son Paul Jr., and one of her daughters. Despite her suspicious nature she gave a large portion of her fortune to a cultish Pennsylvanian Christian group. For years she kept Paul's library of valuable ma.n.u.scripts jealously locked in a room of her house, to which no one was permitted entry. After her death it was discovered to contain many treasures, including the long-lost ma.n.u.script of Hin-demith's Piano Music with Orchestra. Piano Music with Orchestra. After Hilde's death Paul's library, consisting of three and a half tons of books and ma.n.u.scripts, was auctioned off at Sotheby's in London. It was bought by a Chinese entrepreneur called Ng, who had made his fortune by introducing the Big Mac burger to the people of Hong Kong. After Hilde's death Paul's library, consisting of three and a half tons of books and ma.n.u.scripts, was auctioned off at Sotheby's in London. It was bought by a Chinese entrepreneur called Ng, who had made his fortune by introducing the Big Mac burger to the people of Hong Kong.

Elizabeth, Johanna and Paul (Jr.) Wittgenstein were brought up strictly by both their parents on Long Island. They remembered their father as "a stern, incomprehensible and a somewhat distant and imposing figure" who was exceptionally enthusiastic about Christmas. All three spoke English at home in Long Island and could not understand when their parents talked to one another in German. They were taught to play the piano by Paul's former pupil Erna Otten, but none of them was, or is, particularly musical. Elizabeth had no children. After school she gravitated toward the caring professions, but suffered from her father's nervous temperament and died in an accident, which has never been fully explained, at Flushing, Queens, in February 1974. Johanna, whose name was changed to Joan in childhood, married a Dane and has five children, the eldest of whom was born during Paul's lifetime. She is presently retired from the book trade and lives on her own in a remote house in the woods of Virginia. Paul Jr. suffered ill-health from his teens. He was a gifted mathematician and for a while worked as a computer programmer. In the early 1960s he learned how to paint at a psychiatric clinic, and soon after his discharge from the hospital moved permanently to Austria, where he has mounted several successful exhibitions of his paintings using the name Louis Wittgenstein. were brought up strictly by both their parents on Long Island. They remembered their father as "a stern, incomprehensible and a somewhat distant and imposing figure" who was exceptionally enthusiastic about Christmas. All three spoke English at home in Long Island and could not understand when their parents talked to one another in German. They were taught to play the piano by Paul's former pupil Erna Otten, but none of them was, or is, particularly musical. Elizabeth had no children. After school she gravitated toward the caring professions, but suffered from her father's nervous temperament and died in an accident, which has never been fully explained, at Flushing, Queens, in February 1974. Johanna, whose name was changed to Joan in childhood, married a Dane and has five children, the eldest of whom was born during Paul's lifetime. She is presently retired from the book trade and lives on her own in a remote house in the woods of Virginia. Paul Jr. suffered ill-health from his teens. He was a gifted mathematician and for a while worked as a computer programmer. In the early 1960s he learned how to paint at a psychiatric clinic, and soon after his discharge from the hospital moved permanently to Austria, where he has mounted several successful exhibitions of his paintings using the name Louis Wittgenstein.

The s...o...b..rough brothers, Thomas and Ji, were never on especially good terms. Thomas died in 1986, having sold off most of his inheritance, including Gretl's modernist dwelling on the Kundmannga.s.se, Klimt's famous painting of his mother and several Ludwig Wittgenstein ma.n.u.scripts to which he had no proper t.i.tle. Threatened for years with demolition, the Kundmannga.s.se Palais was eventually rescued by architectural enthusiasts and is presently the Viennese home of the Bulgarian Cultural Inst.i.tute. Thomas's only surviving child, Pierre, works in private banking and has two daughters.

Ji s...o...b..rough died in 2002 at Glendon in Dorset. For some time he had been troubled by his obligations to the Lloyd's Insurance Company and was fitted in his last years with a pacemaker. His wife Veronica died shortly before him. They had three children but only one grandchild, who is a poetess. The Glendon estate was sold in 2007.

The Salzer line has flourished numerically even though many of its members have been stricken by cancer. Most of Helene's descendants continue to live in Austria, where they share (in ever-decreasing apportionment) the ownership of the Wittgenstein summer retreat at Hochreit. Helene and Max's second son, Felix Salzer, the famous musicologist, died in 1986. Four years later his widow sold his ma.n.u.script collection for $1.85 million--it included the original ma.n.u.script of Beethoven's A major Cello Sonata, a letter by Schubert and a rondo by Mozart. In 1958 Felix had inherited the Palais at Neuwaldegg. He never lived there. For a while it became a convalescent home for 200 ethnic-German displaced persons. He later sold it for 23 million Austrian schillings. The land was divided up. Some of it was made into private housing estates, while a large slice of land pa.s.sed into government ownership. In 2006 Paul's heirs succeeded in winning back a small portion of the Neuwaldegg estate through the Const.i.tutional Court for Victims of National Socialism. has flourished numerically even though many of its members have been stricken by cancer. Most of Helene's descendants continue to live in Austria, where they share (in ever-decreasing apportionment) the ownership of the Wittgenstein summer retreat at Hochreit. Helene and Max's second son, Felix Salzer, the famous musicologist, died in 1986. Four years later his widow sold his ma.n.u.script collection for $1.85 million--it included the original ma.n.u.script of Beethoven's A major Cello Sonata, a letter by Schubert and a rondo by Mozart. In 1958 Felix had inherited the Palais at Neuwaldegg. He never lived there. For a while it became a convalescent home for 200 ethnic-German displaced persons. He later sold it for 23 million Austrian schillings. The land was divided up. Some of it was made into private housing estates, while a large slice of land pa.s.sed into government ownership. In 2006 Paul's heirs succeeded in winning back a small portion of the Neuwaldegg estate through the Const.i.tutional Court for Victims of National Socialism.

This book could not have been written without the extraordinary kindness, willingness and enthusiasm of hundreds of people from all around the world. I am extremely grateful to everyone who helped and relieved that I got only two rebuffs. Most of all I wish to thank Joan Ripley, Paul Wittgenstein's daughter, who put all her papers at my disposal, allowed me to interview her for hours on end and never tried to censor anything. The British Academy gave me a generous grant without which I would not have been able to find such detail in so many countries.To the following and to countless numbers whose names do not appear below I give heartfelt thanks: Gillon Aitken (literary agent), Dr. Otto Biba (Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna), Richard Bidnick (for information on Paul Wittgenstein), Antonia von Boch (for translation and research), Tricia Boyd (Edinburgh University Library), Hans Brofeldt (expertise on left-handed piano music), Peter von Brucke (Wittgenstein cousin), Paula Byrne (advice on research grants), Julie Courtenay (Lady Margaret Hall Archive), Martin Cullingford (Gramophone (Gramophone magazine), Damian Dlaboha (translation and research), Michael Fishwick (publisher and editor), Charles Fitzroy (introductions in Vienna), Dr. Edwin Frederick Flindell (expert on Paul Wittgenstein), Alexander Fraser (Russian translation), Georg Gaugusch (for research in the Vienna archives), Colin Harris (Bodleian Library), Berkant Haydin (Joseph Marx Society), Monica Herren (Pa.s.sionist Historical Archives, New Jersey), Dr. Thomas Hohne, of Hohne, In der Maur und Partner Rechtsanwalte (legal adviser in Vienna), Gerald Howard (American publisher), Peter James (copy editor), Peter Ja.n.u.s (Library of Congress, Washington), Glyn Jones (expert translator), Leonard Kastle (student and friend of Paul Wittgenstein), Johannes Koder (son of Rudolf Koder), Anne Marie Kollgaard (Danish translation), Sandy McGinnis (Paul Wittgenstein's granddaughter), Professor Brian McGuinness (expert on Ludwig Wittgenstein), David McKit-terick (Trinity College Library) and the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, Fiona McKnight and Noelle Mann and the Prokofiev Archive at Goldsmiths' College, London, Dr. Deborah Mawer (Ravel expert at Lancaster University), James Miller (Sotheby's), Dr. Hans Mohnl (Central Inst.i.tute of Meteorology and Geodynamics, Vienna), Rosemary Moravec (Austrian National Library, Vienna), Michael Nedo (Wittgenstein Archive, Cambridge), Professor Arbie Orenstein (Juilliard School of Music), Erna Otten (student of Paul Wittgenstein), Jesse Parker (Paul Wittgenstein student), Catherine Payne magazine), Damian Dlaboha (translation and research), Michael Fishwick (publisher and editor), Charles Fitzroy (introductions in Vienna), Dr. Edwin Frederick Flindell (expert on Paul Wittgenstein), Alexander Fraser (Russian translation), Georg Gaugusch (for research in the Vienna archives), Colin Harris (Bodleian Library), Berkant Haydin (Joseph Marx Society), Monica Herren (Pa.s.sionist Historical Archives, New Jersey), Dr. Thomas Hohne, of Hohne, In der Maur und Partner Rechtsanwalte (legal adviser in Vienna), Gerald Howard (American publisher), Peter James (copy editor), Peter Ja.n.u.s (Library of Congress, Washington), Glyn Jones (expert translator), Leonard Kastle (student and friend of Paul Wittgenstein), Johannes Koder (son of Rudolf Koder), Anne Marie Kollgaard (Danish translation), Sandy McGinnis (Paul Wittgenstein's granddaughter), Professor Brian McGuinness (expert on Ludwig Wittgenstein), David McKit-terick (Trinity College Library) and the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, Fiona McKnight and Noelle Mann and the Prokofiev Archive at Goldsmiths' College, London, Dr. Deborah Mawer (Ravel expert at Lancaster University), James Miller (Sotheby's), Dr. Hans Mohnl (Central Inst.i.tute of Meteorology and Geodynamics, Vienna), Rosemary Moravec (Austrian National Library, Vienna), Michael Nedo (Wittgenstein Archive, Cambridge), Professor Arbie Orenstein (Juilliard School of Music), Erna Otten (student of Paul Wittgenstein), Jesse Parker (Paul Wittgenstein student), Catherine Payne (Strad (Strad magazine), Wendy Perez (New York Public Library), Peter Phillips magazine), Wendy Perez (New York Public Library), Peter Phillips (Musical Times) (Musical Times), Stephen Port-man (Paul Wittgenstein student), Ursula Prokop (biographer of Margaret Wittgenstein), Sally Riley (translation rights), Anna Sander (Balliol College Archives), Albert Sa.s.smann (expert on Paul Wittgenstein and left-hand piano repertoire), Ed Scarcelle (Scherman Music Library, New York), Professor Carl Schachter (music professor, friend of Felix Salzer), Erhard Schania (half-brother of Hilde Wittgenstein), Tony Simpson and the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation Ltd., Peter Stadlbauer (General Settlement for Victims of National Socialism, Vienna), Roberta Staples (Lady Margaret Hall Library), Glenn Stefanovics (expert on the eastern front, 1914-18), Maria Stracke (descendant of Helene Wittgenstein), Alan Tadiello (Balliol College Library), Dr. Bob Thompson (Universal Edition, New York), Mark Thomsen (Paul Wittgenstein's grandson), Frits van der Waa (correction to the first draft), Stephen Walsh (music professor at Cardiff University), Peter Ward-Jones (Bodleian Music Library), Eliza Waugh (proofreading and Italian translation), Christopher Wentworth-Stanley (archival research in Vienna) and Geoffrey Williams (University of Albany).

ABBREVIATIONS

BL Bodleian Library, Oxford Bodleian Library, Oxford BR Bertrand Russell Bertrand Russell GBW Gesamtbriefwechsel, digital database Gesamtbriefwechsel, digital database HW Hermine Wittgenstein Hermine Wittgenstein HW1 Hermine Wittgenstein, "Familienerinnerungen" Hermine Wittgenstein, "Familienerinnerungen"

HW2 Hermine Wittgenstein, Hermine Wittgenstein, Aufzeichnungen "Ludwig sagt..." Aufzeichnungen "Ludwig sagt..."

JSt John s...o...b..rough ("Ji") John s...o...b..rough ("Ji") KW Karl Wittgenstein Karl Wittgenstein LpW Leopoldine Wittgenstein (nee Kalmus) Leopoldine Wittgenstein (nee Kalmus) LW Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Wittgenstein MD Marga Deneke Marga Deneke MSt Margaret s...o...b..rough ("Gretl") Margaret s...o...b..rough ("Gretl") NYT New York Times New York Times...o...b..Austrian National Library, Vienna Austrian National Library, Vienna PA Prokofiev Archive Prokofiev Archive pc private collection private collection PW Paul Wittgenstein Paul Wittgenstein WMGA Wachtell, Manheim and Grouf Archive Wachtell, Manheim and Grouf Archive WP Washington Post Washington Post

1. VIENNESE DEBUT 3 "The interiors of the houses are unspeakably squalid." Lansdale, p. 19.3 "A man who had been but a short time." Unsigned article, Harper's Magazine Harper's Magazine, 3/1898, quoted in ibid., p. 11.4 "Whereas in politics, in administration." Zweig, p. 19.5 "Quite apart from the price." PW to MD, 12/30/1936, BL.7 "he perpetually finds himself feeling contempt." David Pinsent, Diary, 9/24/1913, reprinted in Flowers, vol. 1, p. 225.7 "The feeling that I shall have to die." LW to BR, 9/20/1913, GBW.7 "He can't stand either of them." LWs aversion to his sister and brother-in-law is recorded by both Russell and Pinsent; see Flowers, vol.1, p. 226.7 "UNFORTUNATELY I have to go to Vienna." LW to BR, undated [12/1913], GBW.

3. KARL'S GREAT REBELLION 10 "1864 Advised to leave school." Quoted in HWI, p. 37.12 "Main activity was to distinguish between." Ibid.12 "I cannot write to my parents." KW to his sister Bertha, 9/29/1865, quoted in ibid., p. 39.12 "Mother's letter made me terribly happy." KW to his brother Louis, 10/30/1865, quoted in ibid., p. 38.13 "You may think that I am a rotten son." KW to his mother, 2/7/1866, quoted in full in ibid., p. 39.

4. ENTREPRENEUR 13 "If it is Father's urgent wish." KW to his brother Louis, 1/27/1866, quoted in HWi, p. 41.15 "Karl has a good heart but he left." f.a.n.n.y Wittgenstein to LpW, undated (Sept. 1873), quoted in full in ibid., p. 52.16 "Well, they are all like that." Quoted in ibid., p. 53.16 "Dear Miss, My son Karl, unlike his brothers." Hermann Wittgenstein to LpW, 9/16/1873, quoted in full in ibid., p. 54.17 "To h.e.l.l with you!" Quoted in ibid., p. 55.18 "An industrialist must take chances." KW, "Die Ursachen der Entwicklung der Industrie in Amerika," 1898; reprinted in KW, Politico-Economic Writings Politico-Economic Writings, p. 59. KWs gambling enthusiasms may be traced in Daily North Western, "The Daily North Western, "The American Way--C. M. Schwab Gives Austrians Some Lessons," 1/28/1902, and American Way--C. M. Schwab Gives Austrians Some Lessons," 1/28/1902, and American Heritage Magazine American Heritage Magazine, "When the Headlines Said: Charlie Schwab Breaks the Bank," 4/1958, vol. 8, issue 3, in which he is confusingly referred to as "Dr. Griez Wittgenstein."18 "had been estimated at 200 million kronen." Karl Menger, Reminiscences of the Wittgenstein Family Reminiscences of the Wittgenstein Family, reprinted in Flowers, vol. 1, p. III.

5. MARRIAGE TO AN HEIRESS 19 Jerome Steinberger was the son of a bankrupt kid-glove importer. The stories of Herman and Jacob Steinberger, M. J. Steinberger & Sons, Maurice Wertheimer & Co. and the death of Mrs. Wertheimer may be followed in: New York pa.s.senger lists; US census returns 1860, 1880, 1900; New York City Directories, and articles and notices in the New York Times New York Times including: "Important Business Failures," 6/13/1877; "Disappearance of Lady," 6/27/1878; "The Wertheimer Mystery," 6/28/1878; "Body Not Yet Discovered," 6/30/1878; "Mrs. Wertheimer Found Drowned," 7/2/1878; "Hebrew Fair," 12/13/1895; "Home for Aged Hebrews," 6/4/1897; "Failure of Glove Firm," 1/18/1898, p. 12; "Affairs of Wertheimer & Co.," 1/19/1898; "New Corporations," 1/22/1898; "Legal Notices," 2/17/1898; "Legal Notices," 4/7/1898; "In the Real Estate Field," 3/31/1900; "Bankruptcy Notices," 7/11/1900; "Deaths Reported; Manhattan and Bronx," 12/27/1900. including: "Important Business Failures," 6/13/1877; "Disappearance of Lady," 6/27/1878; "The Wertheimer Mystery," 6/28/1878; "Body Not Yet Discovered," 6/30/1878; "Mrs. Wertheimer Found Drowned," 7/2/1878; "Hebrew Fair," 12/13/1895; "Home for Aged Hebrews," 6/4/1897; "Failure of Glove Firm," 1/18/1898, p. 12; "Affairs of Wertheimer & Co.," 1/19/1898; "New Corporations," 1/22/1898; "Legal Notices," 2/17/1898; "Legal Notices," 4/7/1898; "In the Real Estate Field," 3/31/1900; "Bankruptcy Notices," 7/11/1900; "Deaths Reported; Manhattan and Bronx," 12/27/1900.19 His sister, Aimee, married William. "Weddings of the Day--Guggenheim--Steinberger," NYT NYT, 10/18/1904. After Aimee Steinberger's marriage to William Guggenheim a previous wife took him to court for bigamy. See: "Says Her Divorce Isn't a Valid One," NYT NYT, 1/19/1909, p. 5; judge's summing up quoted in Davis, The Guggenbeims The Guggenbeims, p. 281.20 "She possessed a 'rare' beauty." MD, "Memoirs," vol. 2, p. 78.

6. THE DEATH OF RUDOLF WITTGENSTEIN 21 "my perverted disposition." Magnus Hirschfeld in Jabrbucb fur s.e.xuelle Zwiscbenstufen Jabrbucb fur s.e.xuelle Zwiscbenstufen, vol. VI (1904), p. 724, quoted in Bartley, 3rd ed., p. 35, n. 16.22 "Forsaken, forsaken, forsaken am I!" Verla.s.sen bin icb. Verla.s.sen bin icb. Trans. Glyn Jones from a German version in Haseler, p. 6. Trans. Glyn Jones from a German version in Haseler, p. 6.

7. THE TRAGEDY OF HANS 23 "When my seven-year-old brother, Rudi." HW1, p. 96.25 "It was tragic that our parents." Ibid., p. 102.25 "Industrialist Karl Wittgenstein has suffered." Neues Wiener Tagblatt Neues Wiener Tagblatt, 5/6/1902, quoted in Gaugusch, p. 14, n. 65.26 "My father's frequent joking." Die oft glubende l.u.s.tigkeit manes Vaters scbien mir nicbt l.u.s.tig sondern nur gefabrlicb. Die oft glubende l.u.s.tigkeit manes Vaters scbien mir nicbt l.u.s.tig sondern nur gefabrlicb. MSt, Notebook, quoted in Prokop, p. 14. MSt, Notebook, quoted in Prokop, p. 14.26 "known to be h.o.m.os.e.xual." See Bartley, Wittgenstein Wittgenstein, 3rd ed., p. 36.26 "in 1903 the family was informed." Monk, p. 12.27 "Of course a man can take a pistol." JSt to Brian McGuinness, 6/18/1989, pc.27 "I believe that my gifts are such." Otto Weininger, Tascbenbucb Tascbenbucb, quoted in Abrahamsen, p. 97.

8. AT HOME WITH THE WITTGENSTEINS 30 "a uniform reminiscent of an Austrian hunting outfit." Erna Otten to E. Fred Flindell, 6/20/67, pc.30 "always festive occasions." HW1, p. 79.31 "Nothing more should be played now." Anecdote told by PW to his pupil Steve Portman in the late 1940s, who relayed it to the author, 5/2007.31 "Dear and esteemed and gracious lady." Eduard Hanslick to LpW, 4/11/1904, ONB.32 "Who is Dr. s...o...b..rough?" Marquise de Fontenoy, "Buys Archduke's Palace," WP WP, 1/8/1914, p. 6.