And never
Adapting themselves to the milieu of the people or country where they live is not only an external protective measure for Jews, but a deep internal desire. Their longing for a homeland, for rest, for security, for friendliness, urges them to attach themselves passionately to the culture of the world around them. And never was such an attachment more effective- except in Spain in the fifteenth century- or happier and more fruitful than in Austria. Having resided for more than two hundred years in the Imperial city, the Jews encountered there an easygoing people, inclined to conciliation and under whose apparent laxity of form lay buried the identical deep instinct for cultural and aesthetic values which were so important to the Jews themselves.
And they met with more in Vienna: they
found there a personal task. In the last century the pursuit of art in Austria
had lost its old traditional defenders and protectors, the Imperial house and
the aristocracy. Whereas in the eighteenth century Maria Teresa had Gluck
instruct her daughters in music, Josef II ably discussed his operas with Mozart,
and Leopold III himself composed music, the later emperors, Franz II and Ferdinand, had no interests
whatever in artistic things; and our Emperor Franz Josef, who in his eighty
years never read a book other than the Army Register, or even taken one in his
hand, evidenced moreover a definite antipathy to music.
The nobility as well
had relinquished its erstwhile protector’s role; gone were the glorious days
when the Esterazys harbored a Haydn, the Lobkowitzes and the Kinsky’s and Waldsteins
competed to have a premiere of Beethoven
in their palaces, where a Countess Thun threw herself on her knees before the
great demigod, begging him not to withdraw Fidelio from the Opera. But
now Wagner, Brahms, Johann Strauss and Hugo Wolf had not received the slightest
support from them. To maintain the Philharmonic on its accustomed level, to
enable the painters and sculptors to make a living, it was necessary for the
people to jump into the breech, and it was the pride and ambition of the Jewish
people to cooperate in the front ranks to carry on the former glory of the fame
of Viennese culture.
They had always loved this city and had entered into its life wholeheartedly, but it was first of all by their love for Viennese art that they felt entitled to full citizenship, and that they had actually become true Viennese. In public life they exerted only a meager influence; the glory of the Imperial house overshadowed every private fortune, the leading positions in the administration of the State were held by inheritance, diplomacy was reserved for the aristocracy, the army and higher officialdom for the old families, and the Jews did not even attempt ambitiously to enter into these privileged circles. They tactfully respected these traditional rights as being quite matter-of-course. I remember, for example, that throughout his entire life my father avoided dining at Sacher’s, and not for reasons of economy- the difference in price between it and the other large hotels was insignificant – but because of a natural feeling of difference: it would have been distressing or unbecoming to him to sit at a table next to a Prince Schwarzenberg or a Lobkowitz It was only in regard to art that all felt an equal right, because love of art was a communal duty in Vienna, and immeasurable is the part in Viennese culture that Jewish bourgeoisie took, by their cooperation and promotion.
They were the real audience, they filled the theaters and the concerts, they bought the books and the pictures, they visited the exhibitions, and with their more mobile understanding, little hampered by tradition, they were the exponents and champions of all that was new. Practically all the great art collections of the nineteenth century were formed by them, nearly all the artistic attempts were made possible only by them; without the ceaseless stimulating interest of the Jewish bourgeoisie, Vienna, thanks to the indolence of the court, the aristocracy, and the Christian millionaires, who preferred to maintain racing stables and hunts to fostering art, would have remained behind Berlin in the realm of art as Austria remained behind the German Reich in political matters. Whoever wished to put through something in Vienna, or came to Vienna as a guest from abroad and sought appreciation as well as an audience, was dependent of the Jewish bourgeoisie. When a single attempt was made in the Anti-Semitic period to create a so-called ‘national’ theater, neither authors, nor actors, nor a public was forthcoming; after a few months the ‘national’ theater collapsed miserably, and it was by this example that it became apparent for the first time that nine-tenths of what the world celebrated as Viennese culture in the nineteenth century was promoted, nourished, or even created by Viennese Jewry.
For it was precisely in the last years- as
it was in Spain before that equally tragic decline – that the Viennese Jews had
become artistically productive although not in a specifically Jewish way; rather,
through a miracle of understanding, they gave to what was Austrian, and
Viennese, its most intensive expression. Goldmark, Gustav Mahler, and Schonberg
became international figures in creative music, Oscar Strauss, Leo Fall and
Kalman brought the tradition of the waltz and the operetta to a new flowering,
Hofmannsthal, Arthur Schnitzler, Beer- Hofmann, and Peter Altenberg gave
Viennese literature European standing such as it had not possessed under
Grillparzer and Stifter; Sonnenthal and Max Reinaredt renewed the city’s
universal fame as a home of the theater, Freud and others great in science drew
attention to the long famous University-everywhere, as scholars, as virtuosi,
as painters, as theatrical directors and architects, as journalists, they
maintained unchallenged high positions in the intellectual life of Vienna. Because
of their passionate for the city, through their desire for assimilation, they
adapted themselves fully, and were happy to serve the glory of Vienna. They
felt that their being Austrian was a mission to the world; and – for honesty’s
sake it must be repeated – much, if not the most of all that Europe and America
admire today as an expression of a new, rejuvenated Austrian culture, in
literature, the theater, in the arts and crafts, was created by the Viennese
Jews who, in turn, by this manifestation
achieved the highest artistic performance of their millennial spiritual
activity. Centuries of intellectual energy joined here with a somewhat effete
tradition and nurtured, revived, increased and renewed it with fresh strength and
by tireless attention.
Only the coming decades will show the crime that Hitler perpetrated against Vienna
when he sought to nationalize and provincialize
this city whose meaning and culture were founded in the meeting of the most
heterogeneous elements, and in her spiritual supernationality.
For the genius
of Vienna- a specifically musical one- was always that it harmonized all the national and lingual contrasts. Its culture was a synthesis of
all Western cultures. Whoever lived there and worked there felt himself free of
all confinement and prejudice. Nowhere was it easier to be a European, and I
know that to a great extent I must thank this city, which already in the time of
Marcus Aurelius defended the Roman- the universal- spirit, that at an early age
I learned to love the idea of comradeship as the highest of my heart.
One lived well and easily and without cares in that old Vienna, and the Germans in the North looked with some annoyance and scorn upon their neighbors on the Danube who, instead of being ‘proficient’ and maintaining rigid order, permitted themselves to enjoy life, ate well, took pleasure in feasts and theaters and, besides, made excellent music. Instead of German ‘proficiency,’ which after all has embittered and disturbed the existence of all other peoples, and the forward chase and greedy desire to get ahead of all others, in Vienna one loved to chat, cultivated a harmonious association, and light-heartedly and perhaps with lax conciliation permitted each one his share without envy. ‘Live and let live’ was a famous Viennese motto, which today still seems to me to be more humane than all the categorical imperatives . . .
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