When Austrians Ate Dogs: Marienthal

Reinhard Mueller. Marienthal: Das Dorf, die Arbeitslosen, die Studie. ffnnsbruck: StudienVerlag, 2008. 423 pp. EUR 39.90 (cloth), ffSBN 978-3-7065-4347-7. Reviewed by Nathan Marcus Published on H-German (fiune, 2010) Commissioned by Benita Blessing When Austrians Ate Dogs: Marienthal Reinhard Müller’s book revisits one of the most important studies on unemployment: the 1933 work Die Arbeitslosen von Marienthal. is study was a path-breaking empirical investigation by a group of young Austrian sociologists on the psychological e ects of prolonged unemployment for the out-of-work community.[1] ffts title referenced an Austrian village located twenty- ve kilometers south of Vienna, where the closure of the only factory in 1932 put most of the population out of work, leaving it in poverty and destitution. But only aer an English translation appeared in 1971 did the study gain worldwide recognition.[2] ffn their study, the Austrian researchers showed that the destructive e ects of idleness and hopelessness that came with prolonged unemployment led to a contraction of the individuals’ spheres of existence. ey observed a diminution of expectation and activity, a disrupted sense of time, as well as a steady decline into resignation and apathy, which led the researchers to conclude that the long-term unemployed were unlikely to be the protagonists of a socialist revolution. Famous for its straightforwardness, its usage of multiple methods (for example, the study of apple consumption, newspaper circulation, theatrical performances, and housekeeping statistics), and for its humanistic approach (the study included a number of close-up, personal life histories), the investigation was also sensitive to gender di erences. e researchers devoted an equal amount of case studies to women and men; they demonstrated that unemployed women, whose days remained lled with childcare and household work, had a considerably less disrupted sense of time. e study only provided a short sketch of the history of Marienthal’s factory and workers, and Müller’s book provides for the rst time a detailed description of the village’s past and of the context of the homonymous study. vide the historical backdrop for the original investigation .By illuminating the past of the factory and its workers, Müller shows that Marienthal was, and is, more than just a village of the unemployed. ffn order to make his argument, Müller devides the book into three parts. e rst and most extensive section begins with the history of Gramatneusiedl, the agricultural village adjacent to what later became Marienthal. e second section is dedicated to the original Marienthal study itself, and includes biographical sketches of its authors and researchers. e nal and shortest section of the book consists of interviews conducted in 1984 with three of the original Marienthal researchers. Gramatneusiedl dates back to ca. 1120, but lile is known about its early years. Wrien documents record a church built in 1399, and the siege of Vienna in 1529 is known to have destroyed large parts of the village. e rst mention of a mill appears in 1591 and records show that in 1751 it was sold to a new owner. A school was established in 1762 and the village’s rst inn opened nine years later. ffn 1820, a new investor bought the mill and transformed it into a ax-spinning factory, which was sold to the industrialist Hermann Todesco in 1830. His son Max built its rst worker residences sometime aer 1845, and it was these residences, located close to the mill, which would become the center of Marienthal. Marienthal’s population grew quickly: in 1823, it was home to 23 people; in 1846 its population counted 258 people; by 1850 this gure had risen to 517. Aer the railways arrived from Vienna in 1846, a spinning factory was constructed, and a weaving factory was built in 1855. e plant was sold to the family of Vinzenz Miller (later von Miller zu Aichholz) in the 1880s, and continued to expand. e population of Marienthal more than doubled until the onset of the First World War, rising to 1,689 peoMüller set out to collect all available information on ple by 1910. About 30 percent of the factory’s workforce the village, the study, and the authors, in order to pro- came from surrounding villages, while most other work1 H-Net Reviews ers came from Bohemia and Moravia. communal and political organizations that ourished in Marienthal. Noteworthy is the separate section dedicated Marienthal had already experienced periods of high to ve Marienthal communists executed by the Nazis in unemployment following the First World War. ffn 1919, 1943. is rst part ends with an extensive and comthe unemployment rate in the district of Gramatneusiedl mented bibliography on Marienthal and Gramatneusiedl. stood at 23 percent, but economic recovery during the period of in ation quickly reduced the number of unemployed..Following the stabilization of the Austrian cure almost overwhelming detail, although interestrency, unemployment gures rose and remained above ing, is not obviously relevant. For example, it is unclear forty percent during 1923 and 1924. e sale of the textile why Müller mentions that the teacher Moritz flahrer, factory to the Mauthner conglomerate in 1925 breathed founder of Gramatneusiedl’s voluntary re brigade in new life into Marienthal, and unemployment all but dis- 1894, commied suicide our of fear that he might appeared. Aer the work force was reduced to half its have contracted rabies from a dog bite and that a few size in fiuly 1926, the purchase of new machines led to the years earlier another teacher had taken his life, too. rehiring of red workers a year later. By 1929, the num- Similarly, Müller chooses to mention–without further ber of workers at the Marienthal factory had reached its explanation–that by 1970 all streets in Gramatneusiedl highest level ever: twelve hundred workers and ninety had been tarred and lined with regular sidewalks. white-collar employees were on its payroll. But the cole book’s second part is dedicated to the Marienlapse in 1926 of the bank Neue Wiener Bankgesellscha thal study itself. Oo Bauer, leader of the Social DemoAG, headed by Stephan Mauthner and which had cratic Party, suggested the investigation into the village nanced much of his enterprise, heralded the decline of aer a series of reports on Marienthal were printed in Marienthal. By March 1929, the workload at the factory the socialist newspaper Das Kleine Bla. Financed by diminished. ffn September 1929, the majority of its facilthe American Rockefeller Foundation and the Chamber ities closed and in February 1930 the factory shut down for Workers and Employees of ffiower Austria and Vicompletely. Twelve hundred workers were now unemenna, the study was conducted by the Österreichische ployed and almost 75 percent of Marienthal’s population Wirtschaspsychologische Forschungstelle, a commerwas dependent on government support. eir economic cial research institute led by Paul ffiazarsfeld. e resituation and that of the village deteriorated rapidly, and search, conducted from November 1931 onwards, was many residents lived on the verge of total poverty. partially inspired by ongoing discussions among AusA new factory that opened in 1932 only employed a trian socialists on whether prolonged unemployment led fraction of the former workers, but eventually a num- to apathetic inactivity, or instead instilled a revolutionber of circumstances brought about the disappearance of ary spirit among people without work. e research mass unemployment. Some families moved away, while showed that the resignation, inactivity, and idleness exothers found new work, or began commuting to Vienna. perienced by the out-of-work community, resulted in reAer the Nazi takeover of Austria in 1938, the Marienthal duced political interests, making the long-term unemfactory was “aryanized,” changed ownership once more ployed unlikely revolutionary subjects. Methodologiin 1940, and nally closed again in 1943. Following the cally, the study combined non-reactive techniques, such war, production at the factory recommenced, but em- as the evaluation of statistical data, records, and unnoployed only 90 workers, primarily women. e factory ticed observations, with reactive techniques like visits, closed its gates again in 1958, but in 1962 a new chemical questionnaires, and case studies. factory opened on its grounds, which currently employs Among the interesting primary documents reprinted 220 workers. in this section are instructions to eld researchers, sevMüller’s historical account is enriched by primary eral early reviews (including one from 1933 by the Amerdocuments, including a description of Gramatneusiedl ican Robert N. McMurry entitled “When Men Eat Dogs”), by Ferdinand Royss dating back to 1754, a social study and a police report from the Gendarmerie at Gramatof the Marienthal factory from 1835, an account of Gra- neusiedl on the recent arrival of the researchers from Vimatneusiedl during the 1848 October Revolution, and enna, whom the police suspected were spreading comexcerpts from proceedings of the village’s community munist propaganda. e second part ends with informacouncil. Müller also presents his readers with biographi- tive biographical sketches of all the project’s een recal sketches of the di erent factory owners, including the searchers, bibliographies of their publications, and a bib“aryanizer” Fritz Ries and detailed studies of the various liography of the Marienthal study itself. 2 H-Net Reviews tionship of some sort between ffiazarsfeld, fiahoda and Danzinger was somehow intertwined with the study, but it remains unclear if it impacted the Marienthal ndings. ffn any case, Müller does not provide a clear answer. e book’s third section consists of three separate interviews conducted in 1984 with Marie fiahoda, Gertrude Wagner, and ffioe Danzinger. fiahoda, who was married to ffiazarsfeld, worked at the institute and wrote the text of the Marienthal study. Wagner was employed by the institute and participated in the evaluation of the collected data, while Danzinger had done much of the eldwork. e interviews are revealing: fiahoda remembers that Danzinger had a central role in the study, but that she only participated reluctantly, while Wagner is of the opinion that Danzinger’s e orts did not receive su cient recognition. Danzinger, rst unwilling to grant an interview, nally recalls living in Marienthal for a few weeks and having hated it. en, when invited to participate in the evaluation of the data, she had refused, because, as she recalls, she had been angry–it is unclear why. One of the most dramatic revelations in the interviews concerns a love triangle that might have a ected the study itself. Danzinger and fiahoda had both been members of the Austrian socialist student’s union in high school and had studied education together from 1927 to 1929. Danzinger subsequently worked with ffiazarsfeld at the Psychological ffnstitute of Vienna University. Meanwhile, fiahoda, who had married ffiazarsfeld in 1927, gave birth to their daughter ffioe. But in 1932, at the time of the study, fiahoda and ffiazarsfeld already lived apart and later got divorced. Wagner remembers Danzinger causing unspeci ed trouble at the time of the study and fiahoda claims Danzinger was never asocialist. A rela- Müller’s book is an encyclopedic book of reference, a compendium of facts, dates, and gures on Gramatneusiedel, Marienthal, and the Marienthal study. ffts primary documents situate it as an invaluable compendium for scholars interested in the investigation for their teaching or research. But as a methodological case study, this book’s importance goes beyond Austrian history. Although Müllers actual thesis is nebulous, one theme is nonetheless clear: historians can never fully comprehend, let alone objectively evaluate, the relevance of the myriad facts and events that shape the course of history. Müller’s book is a trove of such fascinating facts, details, and insights into the history of Marienthal, its factory and its workers, and into the lives of the people involved in the study that made this lile Austrian village famous. Notes [1]. Marie fiahoda-ffiazarsfeld, Hans Zeisl, Die Arbeitslosen von Marienthal: Ein soziographischer Versuch über die Wirkungen langdauernder Arbeitslosigkeit (ffieipzig: Hirzel, 1933). [2]. Marie fiahoda, Paul F. ffiazarsfeld, Hans Zeisel, Marienthal: e sociography of an unemployed community (Chicago and New York: Aldine, Atherton, 1971). fff there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the list discussion logs at: hp://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl. Citation: Nathan Marcus. Review of Mueller, Reinhard, Marienthal: Das Dorf, die Arbeitslosen, die Studie. H-German, H-Net Reviews. fiune, 2010. URL: hp://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=30333 is work is licensed under a Creative Commons Aribution-NoncommercialNo Derivative Works 3.0 United States ffiicense. 3