4 ms·

If you can, read Zweig's The World Of Yesterday, a memoir on life in Vienna before WW1. It's surely rose-tinted, but the amount of culture and intellectual life

If you can, read Zweig's The World Of Yesterday, a memoir on life in Vienna before WW1. It's surely rose-tinted, but the amount of culture and intellectual life was outstanding, what an enormous loss. (Hitler also lived there at the time, going to the same class as Wittgenstein for a year or two, neither remembering each other later)

antupis 7y ago
Also Trotski, Stalin, Tito and Freud lived in Vienna same time https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21859771 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21859771
- keiferski 7y ago
  And of course all the artists; Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele, to name a few.
jhbadger 7y ago
There's also a good recent book by Karl Sigmund called "Exact Thinking in Demented Times" which is about the Logical Positivists in Vienna during this period (and the later interwar period) which included Wittgenstein.
- a_bonobo 7y ago
  With a preface by Douglas R Hofstadter, nice! I'll get it, thank you :)
bloak 7y ago
I think they were at the same school but not in the same class. There's a theory (more fun than plausible) that Hitler was influenced by Wittgenstein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jew_of_Linz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jew_of_Linz One of the problems with the theory is perhaps that other children at school are unlikely to have known about Wittgenstein's Jewish ancestry: his immediate family were practising Roman Catholics; one doesn't normally advertise the religion of one's grandparents. Of course if Hitler also denied remembering Wittgenstein that would be another problem with the theory. The linked Wikipedia page doesn't seem to mention that.
- a_bonobo 7y ago
  You're right, they were the same age and at the same school but apparently Hitler had to repeat a grade and Wittgenstein was pushed one grade ahead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein#Jewish_background_and_Hitler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein#Jewish_bac...

antupis 7y ago

Also Trotski, Stalin, Tito and Freud lived in Vienna same time https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21859771 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21859771

keiferski 7y ago
And of course all the artists; Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele, to name a few.

jhbadger 7y ago

There's also a good recent book by Karl Sigmund called "Exact Thinking in Demented Times" which is about the Logical Positivists in Vienna during this period (and the later interwar period) which included Wittgenstein.

a_bonobo 7y ago
With a preface by Douglas R Hofstadter, nice! I'll get it, thank you :)

bloak 7y ago

I think they were at the same school but not in the same class. There's a theory (more fun than plausible) that Hitler was influenced by Wittgenstein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jew_of_Linz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jew_of_Linz One of the problems with the theory is perhaps that other children at school are unlikely to have known about Wittgenstein's Jewish ancestry: his immediate family were practising Roman Catholics; one doesn't normally advertise the religion of one's grandparents. Of course if Hitler also denied remembering Wittgenstein that would be another problem with the theory. The linked Wikipedia page doesn't seem to mention that.

a_bonobo 7y ago
You're right, they were the same age and at the same school but apparently Hitler had to repeat a grade and Wittgenstein was pushed one grade ahead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein#Jewish_background_and_Hitler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein#Jewish_bac...