City Hall Park
From: Wiener Bilder, Nr. 25, 20.6.1926
WBR, F-3189
When the chemist Wolfgang Pauli Sr. founded a committee to erect a memorial to Ernst Mach in the mid-1920s, Moritz Schlick was one of the main proponents. At his request, Albert Einstein also joined the committee. The location is remarkable: The monument is not in the arcaded courtyard of the university – where Mach had been a professor – but in Rathauspark. The bust of the social reformer and writer Josef PopperLynkeus, also unveiled six months later in Rathauspark, is a logical addition: He was a friend of Mach, and both played an important role in social democracy and the Vienna Circle – both philosophically and in terms of social reform.
Memorial to Ernst Mach by Heinz Peteri (1926), Photo 1928
The physicist and philosopher was an important forerunner of the Vienna Circle. This is reflected not only in Schlick’s speech at the unveiling of the monument, but also in the name of the association that Schlick chaired.
Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv, 3.3.2.FC1.1856M
Memorial for Josef Popper-Lynkeus von Hugo Gerlach (1926), Foto 1928
Popper-Lynkeus was an engineer, writer, and social reformer. With his concept of a general nutrition conscription“ he presented a model for unconditional, universal basic provision. This also inspired Neurath’s concepts of socialisation.
Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv, 3.3.2.FC1.1857M
„To the memory of Ernst Mach“
The Neue Freie Presse published texts by Moritz Schlick and the physicists Albert Einstein, Felix Ehrenhaft, and Hans Thirring to mark the unveiling of the monument.
WBR, F-19124
Otto Neurath with his father Wilhelm Neurath and Josef Popper-Lynkeus (from left), c. 1900
The economist and professor at the Hochschule für Bodenkultur (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences) Wilhelm Neurath was a friend of Josef Popper-Lynkeus. Their ideas were an important influence on Otto Neurath.
ÖNB/Wien, Cod. Ser. n. 32005, Beilage 6, Nr. 32
Josef-Popper-Lynkeus, Phantasies of a Realist, Dresden, published by Carl Reißner, 1918
Elimination of pseudo-problems –rejecting nonsense is not resignation.
Ernst Mach
This is when Josef Popper‘s works emerge, elevating him from the ranks of groundbreaking inventors to those of social pioneers. He writes “The General Nutrition Conscription”, which is first banned as dangerous to the state, then – strange contradiction – ridiculed as a utopia, but which is certainly one of the foundations on which the new state will be built in the not too distant future.
Felix Salten, Memories of Popper-Lynkeus