Exile
The first members of the Vienna Circle left Austria at the beginning of the 1930s. The main reasons for this were the strong anti-Semitism and the widespread rejection of anti-metaphysical and scientific philosophy at the university. Under Austrofascism, the situation became untenable for the politically exposed proponents. Schlicks’s murder in June 1936 also marked the end of his circle after 12 years. The ‘Anschluss’ in March 1938 forced the Jews to flee and isolated the few remaining members. The strong international network and good contacts, especially in the USA and England, helped with the forced emigration. Even though quite a few continued to make significant contributions to science in exile, there was no continuation of the Vienna Circle. There was no Vienna with its intellectual coffee house culture, there were no flats and salons, and there was no Red Vienna with its comprehensive educational movement. After 1945, a tentative new beginning was made with some delay – without the return of the expelled philosophers.
Otto Neurath and Marie Reidemeister in the Netherlands, c.1935
Otto Neurath was in Moscow in February 1934 as a consultant for a pictorial statistics museum. He did not return to Vienna, but travelled via Prague to The Hague in the Netherlands, where the Mundaneum, a branch of the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum, was already in existence. Gerd Arntz and Marie Reidemeister followed him. The graphic designer and illustrator Reidemeister was a key figure in the pictorial statistics team, acting as a ‘transformer’ between science and design.
Rudolf Carnap Papers, 1905-1970, ASP.1974.01, Archives of Scientific Philosophy, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System
Seen in this way, the important scientific movements, which until now had their common center of radiation in Vienna – psychoanalysis, the philosophy of the Vienna Circle, and Kelsen‘s legal and political philosophy – really belonged together and they determined the specific intellectual atmosphere of the Austria that vanished, just as did, in the artistic sphere, the authors Broch, Canetti and Musil.
Gustav Bergmann to Otto Neurath, 1938
Pages from calendar with handwritten entries by Otto Neurath, December 1945
Letter from Karl Menger on resigning his professorship in Vienna and announcing his emigration, a few days after the ‘Anschluss’, 23 March 1938
Student register from 1938 with identification of „Nichtariern“ („non-Aryans“)
Certificate from the emigration department of the Jewish community for Rose Rand regarding a cooking course, 6 January 1939
As a Jew and stateless person, Rose Rand was just able to complete her studies in 1938 with a “non-Aryan doctorate”. Certified completion of a cooking course was required as part of the emigration process. She managed to escape to England in 1939.
Postcards from Edgar Zilsel to Wilhelm Börner, 1939
As a Jew, Zilsel was forced to emigrate. He and his family reached the USA via England.
Kurt Gödel in Princeton with Albert Einstein, 1947
Gödel was a close friend of Albert Einstein. The two met regularly at the Institute for Advanced Study, where they both worked.
WBR, HIN-226197
Kurt Gödel in Princeton with his mother Marianne, 1964
Kurt Gödel never returned to Vienna after his emigration. His mother travelled to Princeton to see him again.
WBR, HIN-229586
The more I think about language, the more it amazes me that people ever understand each other at all.
Kurt Gödel
As cool and matter-of-fact as her philosophical programme programme was formulated - it triggered palace revolution in German philosophy, and thehostility increased in the years the years in which this school importance. As ‘logical positivism‘, it dominates today especially in the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries, while in in Germany, France and Italy could hardly gain a foothold. And in Vienna itself ... 1. SPEAKER In Vienna, the Vienna Circle is dead.
Ingeborg Bachmann, Hörspiel, Der Wiener Kreis, 1953
A new start in Vienna
Poster for the International University Weeks as part of the European Forum Alpbach, 1964
The Forum Alpbach, and in Vienna, the Austrian College, the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS), and the Institute for Science and Art (IWK) endeavoured to invite Austrian exiles, including Philipp Frank, Herbert Feigl, Karl Menger, Rudolf Carnap, and Karl Popper.
Copyright: Forum Alpbach