This essay reviews three recent books from the disciplines of history, art history, and German st... more This essay reviews three recent books from the disciplines of history, art history, and German studies that inject new meaning into age-old questions about why Jewish difference mattered in the creation of modern culture in Central Europe. Each foregrounds the centrality of the dynamic of visibility/invisibility that formed a crucial source of power and control for Jews living among populations that never completely accepted them in Budapest, Vienna, and the cities of Weimar Germany. By highlighting subtle and often unarticulated instances of engagement with Jewish difference that are usually dismissed or relegated to footnotes, these expertly contextualized studies illuminate the invisible circumscribed codes of behavior that shaped Jews' experiences. In doing so, they add a great deal of nuance to our understanding of the history of Jews in modern Central Europe. They show that, while Jewishness was often subtle and ephemeral, the influence of Jews on the culture they created persists.
After the Second World War, using culture – such as theater, film, and writing – to promote Austr... more After the Second World War, using culture – such as theater, film, and writing – to promote Austria as a separate nation became a helpful strategy for Austrians and the Allied Forces alike. In this context, the role of Jews and Jewish difference in revising Austrian self-definitions was particularly fraught. Antisemitic prejudices persisted after the Holocaust, even though Austrian Jews were now largely absent. However, in the early postwar years, antisemitism was more likely to rear its head via code words or backhandedly, in efforts to deny its very existence. This article investigates the presence and consequences of this 'invisible' antisemitism in postwar Vienna by juxtaposing two films made at roughly the same time: Der Prozeß (1948), a film about antisemitism that takes place in a nineteenth-century village over 300 miles away and features only innocent rural Jews and diabolical antisemites, while The Third Man (1949) features an urban tale of the black market and poisoned children set in post-1945 Vienna that does not mention either Jews or the reasons for their absence. This comparison suggests that the simultaneous repression and evocation of Jewish difference that characterized the creation of culture in Vienna before the Holocaust persisted in the immediate postwar era.
Franz Theodor Csokor's three-act drama, Dritter November 1918: Ende der Armee Österreich-Ungarns ... more Franz Theodor Csokor's three-act drama, Dritter November 1918: Ende der Armee Österreich-Ungarns (Third of November 1918: End of the Army in Austria-Hungary) reveals how Jewish difference played an important—if often unrecognized—role in the shaping the terms of Austrian patriotism in the years leading up to 1938. Portrayals of Habsburg loyalty as " Jewish " or " not Jewish " helped articulate how nostalgia for Austria-Hungary would figure in a new sense of Austrianness, a project that took on even more urgency under the authoritarian censors of the Ständestaat. While the play's portrayal of a Jewish doctor as level-headed, peace-loving, and caring countered some egregious antisemitic stereotypes about disloyal and sexually perverted Jews, it also suggested that Jews were overly rational, lacking in emotional depth, and, ultimately, unable to embody a new Catholic, spiritual, Austrian patriotic ideal. Considered in its broader political context, and along with Csokor's earlier unpublished drama Gesetz, the play reveals how labelling Habsburg loyalty as Jewish helped to clarify and critique the nature of what it meant to be Austrian under an authoritarian regime that promoted a pro-Catholic, anti-Nazi vision of Austrian patriotism. It also offers a prime example of how even anti-antisemitic authors like Csokor perpetuated negative stereotypes about Jews, even as they aimed to present them in a more positive light.
Focusing on the relationship between socially constructed ideals of the “Jewish” and “non-Jewish”... more Focusing on the relationship between socially constructed ideals of the “Jewish” and “non-Jewish” as part of a social and symbolic order similar to gender can provide critical and theoretical tools helpful for understanding the role of Jews and others in the creation of modern Central European culture. This article traces the genealogy of this system of constructed ideals from Otto Weininger to Lenny Bruce and offers a number of examples in which the study of German Jewish cultural history can be enhanced by its use.
The collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918 left all Austrians in a state of political, social, and e... more The collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918 left all Austrians in a state of political, social, and economic turmoil, but Jews in particular found their lives shaken to the core. Although Jews' former comfort zone suddenly disappeared, the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy also created plenty of room for innovation and change in the realm of culture. Jews eagerly took up the challenge to fill this void, and they became heavily invested in culture as a way to shape their new, but also vexed, self-understandings.
By isolating the years between the World Wars and examining formative events in both Vienna and the provinces, Becoming Austrians: Jews and Culture between the World Wars demonstrates that an intensified marking of people, places, and events as "Jewish" accompanied the crises occurring in the wake of Austria-Hungary's collapse, with profound effects on Austria's cultural legacy. In some cases, the consequences of this marking resulted in grave injustices. Philipp Halsmann, for example, was wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of his father years before he became a world-famous photographer. And the men who shot and killed writer Hugo Bettauer and philosopher Moritz Schlick received inadequate punishment for their murderous deeds.
But engagements with the terms of Jewish difference also characterized the creation of culture, as shown in Hugo Bettauer's satirical novel The City without Jews and its film adaptation, other texts by Veza Canetti, David Vogel, A.M. Fuchs, Vicki Baum, and Mela Hartwig, and performances at the Salzburg Festival and the Yiddish theater in Vienna. By examining the lives, works, and deeds of a broad range of Austrians, Lisa Silverman reveals how the social codings of politics, gender, and nation received a powerful boost when articulated along the lines of Jewish difference.
Holocaust Representations in History is an introduction to critical questions and debates surroun... more Holocaust Representations in History is an introduction to critical questions and debates surrounding the depiction, chronicling and memorialization of the Holocaust through the historical analysis of some of the most provocative and significant works of Holocaust representation.
In a series of chronologically presented case studies, the book introduces the major themes and issues of Holocaust representation across a variety of media and genres, including film, drama, literature, photography, visual art, television, graphic novels, and memorials. The case studies presented not only include well-known, commercially successful, and canonical works about the Holocaust, such as the film Shoah and Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, but also controversial examples that have drawn accusations of profaning the memory of the genocide. Each work's specific historical and cultural significance is then discussed to provide further insight into the impact of one of the most devastating events of the 20th century and the continued relevance of its memory.
Complete with illustrations, a bibliography and suggestions for further reading, key terms and discussion questions, this is an important book for any student keen to know more about the Holocaust and its impact.
Although beset by social, political, and economic instabilities, interwar Vienna was an exhilarat... more Although beset by social, political, and economic instabilities, interwar Vienna was an exhilarating place, with pioneering developments in the arts and innovations in the social sphere. Research on the period long saw the city as a mere shadow of its former imperial self; more recently it has concentrated on high-profile individual figures or party politics. This volume of new essays widens the view, stretching disciplinary boundaries to consider the cultural and social movements that shaped the city. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire resulted not in an abandonment of the arts, but rather led to new forms of expression that were nevertheless conditioned by the legacies of earlier periods. The city's culture was caught between extremes, from neopositivism to cultural pessimism, Catholic mysticism to Austro-Marxism, late Enlightenment liberalism to rabid antisemitism. Concentrating on the paradoxes and often productive tensions that these created, the volume's twelve essays explore achievements and anxieties in fields ranging from modern dance, theater, music, film, and literature to economic, cultural, and racial policy. The volume will appeal to social, cultural, and political historians as well as to specialists in modern European literary and visual culture.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Beyond the Coffeehouse. Vienna as a Cultural Center between the World Wars - Deborah Holmes and Lisa Silverman
Cultural Parameters between the Wars: A Reassessment of the Vienna Circles - Edward Timms
"weisse Struempfe oder neue Kutten": Cultural Decline in Vienna in the 1930s - John Warren
"Wiener Kreise": Jewishness, Politics, and Culture in Interwar Vienna - Wolfgang Maderthaner and Lisa Silverman
A City Regenerated: Eugenics, Race, and Welfare in Interwar Vienna - Paul Weindling
Free Dance in Interwar Vienna - Andrea Amort
Hollywood on the Danube? Vienna and Austrian Silent Film of the 1920s - Alys George
Between Tradition and a Longing for the Modern: Theater in Interwar Vienna - Birgit Peter
The Hegemony of German Music: Schoenberg's Vienna as the Musical Center of the German-Speaking World - Therese Muxeneder
Anticipating Freud's Pleasure Principle? A Reading of Ernst Weiss's War Story "Franta Zlin" (1919) -
Facts and Fiction: Rudolf Brunngraber, Otto Neurath, and Viennese Neue Sachlichkeit - Jon Hughes
The Viennese Legacy of Casanova: The Late Erotic Writings of Arthur Schnitzler and Franz Blei - Birgit Lang
An Englishman Abroad: Literature, Politics, and Sex in John Lehmann's Writings on Vienna in the 1930s - Robert Vilain
This essay reviews three recent books from the disciplines of history, art history, and German st... more This essay reviews three recent books from the disciplines of history, art history, and German studies that inject new meaning into age-old questions about why Jewish difference mattered in the creation of modern culture in Central Europe. Each foregrounds the centrality of the dynamic of visibility/invisibility that formed a crucial source of power and control for Jews living among populations that never completely accepted them in Budapest, Vienna, and the cities of Weimar Germany. By highlighting subtle and often unarticulated instances of engagement with Jewish difference that are usually dismissed or relegated to footnotes, these expertly contextualized studies illuminate the invisible circumscribed codes of behavior that shaped Jews' experiences. In doing so, they add a great deal of nuance to our understanding of the history of Jews in modern Central Europe. They show that, while Jewishness was often subtle and ephemeral, the influence of Jews on the culture they created persists.
After the Second World War, using culture – such as theater, film, and writing – to promote Austr... more After the Second World War, using culture – such as theater, film, and writing – to promote Austria as a separate nation became a helpful strategy for Austrians and the Allied Forces alike. In this context, the role of Jews and Jewish difference in revising Austrian self-definitions was particularly fraught. Antisemitic prejudices persisted after the Holocaust, even though Austrian Jews were now largely absent. However, in the early postwar years, antisemitism was more likely to rear its head via code words or backhandedly, in efforts to deny its very existence. This article investigates the presence and consequences of this 'invisible' antisemitism in postwar Vienna by juxtaposing two films made at roughly the same time: Der Prozeß (1948), a film about antisemitism that takes place in a nineteenth-century village over 300 miles away and features only innocent rural Jews and diabolical antisemites, while The Third Man (1949) features an urban tale of the black market and poisoned children set in post-1945 Vienna that does not mention either Jews or the reasons for their absence. This comparison suggests that the simultaneous repression and evocation of Jewish difference that characterized the creation of culture in Vienna before the Holocaust persisted in the immediate postwar era.
Franz Theodor Csokor's three-act drama, Dritter November 1918: Ende der Armee Österreich-Ungarns ... more Franz Theodor Csokor's three-act drama, Dritter November 1918: Ende der Armee Österreich-Ungarns (Third of November 1918: End of the Army in Austria-Hungary) reveals how Jewish difference played an important—if often unrecognized—role in the shaping the terms of Austrian patriotism in the years leading up to 1938. Portrayals of Habsburg loyalty as " Jewish " or " not Jewish " helped articulate how nostalgia for Austria-Hungary would figure in a new sense of Austrianness, a project that took on even more urgency under the authoritarian censors of the Ständestaat. While the play's portrayal of a Jewish doctor as level-headed, peace-loving, and caring countered some egregious antisemitic stereotypes about disloyal and sexually perverted Jews, it also suggested that Jews were overly rational, lacking in emotional depth, and, ultimately, unable to embody a new Catholic, spiritual, Austrian patriotic ideal. Considered in its broader political context, and along with Csokor's earlier unpublished drama Gesetz, the play reveals how labelling Habsburg loyalty as Jewish helped to clarify and critique the nature of what it meant to be Austrian under an authoritarian regime that promoted a pro-Catholic, anti-Nazi vision of Austrian patriotism. It also offers a prime example of how even anti-antisemitic authors like Csokor perpetuated negative stereotypes about Jews, even as they aimed to present them in a more positive light.
Focusing on the relationship between socially constructed ideals of the “Jewish” and “non-Jewish”... more Focusing on the relationship between socially constructed ideals of the “Jewish” and “non-Jewish” as part of a social and symbolic order similar to gender can provide critical and theoretical tools helpful for understanding the role of Jews and others in the creation of modern Central European culture. This article traces the genealogy of this system of constructed ideals from Otto Weininger to Lenny Bruce and offers a number of examples in which the study of German Jewish cultural history can be enhanced by its use.
The collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918 left all Austrians in a state of political, social, and e... more The collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918 left all Austrians in a state of political, social, and economic turmoil, but Jews in particular found their lives shaken to the core. Although Jews' former comfort zone suddenly disappeared, the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy also created plenty of room for innovation and change in the realm of culture. Jews eagerly took up the challenge to fill this void, and they became heavily invested in culture as a way to shape their new, but also vexed, self-understandings.
By isolating the years between the World Wars and examining formative events in both Vienna and the provinces, Becoming Austrians: Jews and Culture between the World Wars demonstrates that an intensified marking of people, places, and events as "Jewish" accompanied the crises occurring in the wake of Austria-Hungary's collapse, with profound effects on Austria's cultural legacy. In some cases, the consequences of this marking resulted in grave injustices. Philipp Halsmann, for example, was wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of his father years before he became a world-famous photographer. And the men who shot and killed writer Hugo Bettauer and philosopher Moritz Schlick received inadequate punishment for their murderous deeds.
But engagements with the terms of Jewish difference also characterized the creation of culture, as shown in Hugo Bettauer's satirical novel The City without Jews and its film adaptation, other texts by Veza Canetti, David Vogel, A.M. Fuchs, Vicki Baum, and Mela Hartwig, and performances at the Salzburg Festival and the Yiddish theater in Vienna. By examining the lives, works, and deeds of a broad range of Austrians, Lisa Silverman reveals how the social codings of politics, gender, and nation received a powerful boost when articulated along the lines of Jewish difference.
Holocaust Representations in History is an introduction to critical questions and debates surroun... more Holocaust Representations in History is an introduction to critical questions and debates surrounding the depiction, chronicling and memorialization of the Holocaust through the historical analysis of some of the most provocative and significant works of Holocaust representation.
In a series of chronologically presented case studies, the book introduces the major themes and issues of Holocaust representation across a variety of media and genres, including film, drama, literature, photography, visual art, television, graphic novels, and memorials. The case studies presented not only include well-known, commercially successful, and canonical works about the Holocaust, such as the film Shoah and Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, but also controversial examples that have drawn accusations of profaning the memory of the genocide. Each work's specific historical and cultural significance is then discussed to provide further insight into the impact of one of the most devastating events of the 20th century and the continued relevance of its memory.
Complete with illustrations, a bibliography and suggestions for further reading, key terms and discussion questions, this is an important book for any student keen to know more about the Holocaust and its impact.
Although beset by social, political, and economic instabilities, interwar Vienna was an exhilarat... more Although beset by social, political, and economic instabilities, interwar Vienna was an exhilarating place, with pioneering developments in the arts and innovations in the social sphere. Research on the period long saw the city as a mere shadow of its former imperial self; more recently it has concentrated on high-profile individual figures or party politics. This volume of new essays widens the view, stretching disciplinary boundaries to consider the cultural and social movements that shaped the city. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire resulted not in an abandonment of the arts, but rather led to new forms of expression that were nevertheless conditioned by the legacies of earlier periods. The city's culture was caught between extremes, from neopositivism to cultural pessimism, Catholic mysticism to Austro-Marxism, late Enlightenment liberalism to rabid antisemitism. Concentrating on the paradoxes and often productive tensions that these created, the volume's twelve essays explore achievements and anxieties in fields ranging from modern dance, theater, music, film, and literature to economic, cultural, and racial policy. The volume will appeal to social, cultural, and political historians as well as to specialists in modern European literary and visual culture.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Beyond the Coffeehouse. Vienna as a Cultural Center between the World Wars - Deborah Holmes and Lisa Silverman
Cultural Parameters between the Wars: A Reassessment of the Vienna Circles - Edward Timms
"weisse Struempfe oder neue Kutten": Cultural Decline in Vienna in the 1930s - John Warren
"Wiener Kreise": Jewishness, Politics, and Culture in Interwar Vienna - Wolfgang Maderthaner and Lisa Silverman
A City Regenerated: Eugenics, Race, and Welfare in Interwar Vienna - Paul Weindling
Free Dance in Interwar Vienna - Andrea Amort
Hollywood on the Danube? Vienna and Austrian Silent Film of the 1920s - Alys George
Between Tradition and a Longing for the Modern: Theater in Interwar Vienna - Birgit Peter
The Hegemony of German Music: Schoenberg's Vienna as the Musical Center of the German-Speaking World - Therese Muxeneder
Anticipating Freud's Pleasure Principle? A Reading of Ernst Weiss's War Story "Franta Zlin" (1919) -
Facts and Fiction: Rudolf Brunngraber, Otto Neurath, and Viennese Neue Sachlichkeit - Jon Hughes
The Viennese Legacy of Casanova: The Late Erotic Writings of Arthur Schnitzler and Franz Blei - Birgit Lang
An Englishman Abroad: Literature, Politics, and Sex in John Lehmann's Writings on Vienna in the 1930s - Robert Vilain
Uploads
By isolating the years between the World Wars and examining formative events in both Vienna and the provinces, Becoming Austrians: Jews and Culture between the World Wars demonstrates that an intensified marking of people, places, and events as "Jewish" accompanied the crises occurring in the wake of Austria-Hungary's collapse, with profound effects on Austria's cultural legacy. In some cases, the consequences of this marking resulted in grave injustices. Philipp Halsmann, for example, was wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of his father years before he became a world-famous photographer. And the men who shot and killed writer Hugo Bettauer and philosopher Moritz Schlick received inadequate punishment for their murderous deeds.
But engagements with the terms of Jewish difference also characterized the creation of culture, as shown in Hugo Bettauer's satirical novel The City without Jews and its film adaptation, other texts by Veza Canetti, David Vogel, A.M. Fuchs, Vicki Baum, and Mela Hartwig, and performances at the Salzburg Festival and the Yiddish theater in Vienna. By examining the lives, works, and deeds of a broad range of Austrians, Lisa Silverman reveals how the social codings of politics, gender, and nation received a powerful boost when articulated along the lines of Jewish difference.
In a series of chronologically presented case studies, the book introduces the major themes and issues of Holocaust representation across a variety of media and genres, including film, drama, literature, photography, visual art, television, graphic novels, and memorials. The case studies presented not only include well-known, commercially successful, and canonical works about the Holocaust, such as the film Shoah and Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, but also controversial examples that have drawn accusations of profaning the memory of the genocide. Each work's specific historical and cultural significance is then discussed to provide further insight into the impact of one of the most devastating events of the 20th century and the continued relevance of its memory.
Complete with illustrations, a bibliography and suggestions for further reading, key terms and discussion questions, this is an important book for any student keen to know more about the Holocaust and its impact.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Beyond the Coffeehouse. Vienna as a Cultural Center between the World Wars - Deborah Holmes and Lisa Silverman
Cultural Parameters between the Wars: A Reassessment of the Vienna Circles - Edward Timms
"weisse Struempfe oder neue Kutten": Cultural Decline in Vienna in the 1930s - John Warren
"Wiener Kreise": Jewishness, Politics, and Culture in Interwar Vienna - Wolfgang Maderthaner and Lisa Silverman
A City Regenerated: Eugenics, Race, and Welfare in Interwar Vienna - Paul Weindling
Free Dance in Interwar Vienna - Andrea Amort
Hollywood on the Danube? Vienna and Austrian Silent Film of the 1920s - Alys George
Between Tradition and a Longing for the Modern: Theater in Interwar Vienna - Birgit Peter
The Hegemony of German Music: Schoenberg's Vienna as the Musical Center of the German-Speaking World - Therese Muxeneder
Anticipating Freud's Pleasure Principle? A Reading of Ernst Weiss's War Story "Franta Zlin" (1919) -
Facts and Fiction: Rudolf Brunngraber, Otto Neurath, and Viennese Neue Sachlichkeit - Jon Hughes
The Viennese Legacy of Casanova: The Late Erotic Writings of Arthur Schnitzler and Franz Blei - Birgit Lang
An Englishman Abroad: Literature, Politics, and Sex in John Lehmann's Writings on Vienna in the 1930s - Robert Vilain
Notes on Contributors
Index
By isolating the years between the World Wars and examining formative events in both Vienna and the provinces, Becoming Austrians: Jews and Culture between the World Wars demonstrates that an intensified marking of people, places, and events as "Jewish" accompanied the crises occurring in the wake of Austria-Hungary's collapse, with profound effects on Austria's cultural legacy. In some cases, the consequences of this marking resulted in grave injustices. Philipp Halsmann, for example, was wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of his father years before he became a world-famous photographer. And the men who shot and killed writer Hugo Bettauer and philosopher Moritz Schlick received inadequate punishment for their murderous deeds.
But engagements with the terms of Jewish difference also characterized the creation of culture, as shown in Hugo Bettauer's satirical novel The City without Jews and its film adaptation, other texts by Veza Canetti, David Vogel, A.M. Fuchs, Vicki Baum, and Mela Hartwig, and performances at the Salzburg Festival and the Yiddish theater in Vienna. By examining the lives, works, and deeds of a broad range of Austrians, Lisa Silverman reveals how the social codings of politics, gender, and nation received a powerful boost when articulated along the lines of Jewish difference.
In a series of chronologically presented case studies, the book introduces the major themes and issues of Holocaust representation across a variety of media and genres, including film, drama, literature, photography, visual art, television, graphic novels, and memorials. The case studies presented not only include well-known, commercially successful, and canonical works about the Holocaust, such as the film Shoah and Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, but also controversial examples that have drawn accusations of profaning the memory of the genocide. Each work's specific historical and cultural significance is then discussed to provide further insight into the impact of one of the most devastating events of the 20th century and the continued relevance of its memory.
Complete with illustrations, a bibliography and suggestions for further reading, key terms and discussion questions, this is an important book for any student keen to know more about the Holocaust and its impact.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Beyond the Coffeehouse. Vienna as a Cultural Center between the World Wars - Deborah Holmes and Lisa Silverman
Cultural Parameters between the Wars: A Reassessment of the Vienna Circles - Edward Timms
"weisse Struempfe oder neue Kutten": Cultural Decline in Vienna in the 1930s - John Warren
"Wiener Kreise": Jewishness, Politics, and Culture in Interwar Vienna - Wolfgang Maderthaner and Lisa Silverman
A City Regenerated: Eugenics, Race, and Welfare in Interwar Vienna - Paul Weindling
Free Dance in Interwar Vienna - Andrea Amort
Hollywood on the Danube? Vienna and Austrian Silent Film of the 1920s - Alys George
Between Tradition and a Longing for the Modern: Theater in Interwar Vienna - Birgit Peter
The Hegemony of German Music: Schoenberg's Vienna as the Musical Center of the German-Speaking World - Therese Muxeneder
Anticipating Freud's Pleasure Principle? A Reading of Ernst Weiss's War Story "Franta Zlin" (1919) -
Facts and Fiction: Rudolf Brunngraber, Otto Neurath, and Viennese Neue Sachlichkeit - Jon Hughes
The Viennese Legacy of Casanova: The Late Erotic Writings of Arthur Schnitzler and Franz Blei - Birgit Lang
An Englishman Abroad: Literature, Politics, and Sex in John Lehmann's Writings on Vienna in the 1930s - Robert Vilain
Notes on Contributors
Index