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1913: When Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin all lived in the same place
- hackandthink 2y agoA book about Vienna in 1913, it was very popular in Germany, I've heard good things about it. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/236412/1913-by-florian-illies/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/236412/1913-by-flor...
- AlbertCory 2y ago> No-one knows if Hitler bumped into Trotsky, or Tito met Stalin. But works like Dr Freud Will See You Now, Mr Hitler - a 2007 radio play by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran - are lively imaginings of such encounters. Now I want to check this out!
- QuercusMax 2y agoIt's actually Mrs Hitler (referring to Adolph's mom): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Freud_Will_See_You_Now,_Mrs._Hitler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Freud_Will_See_You_Now,_Mr... Can't seem to find any recordings available of the BBC production of it, and BBC doesn't seem to have it available. But you can buy the script here: https://shop.stagescripts.com/categories/plays/full-length/drama/drama-a-m/dr-freud-will-see-you-now-mrs-hitler.html https://shop.stagescripts.com/categories/plays/full-length/d...
- mikhailfranco 2y agoThe other much-argued encounter is that Wittgenstein was a year or two above Herr Schicklgruber in high-school. Obviously Ludwig was Jewish, and far more intelligent than Adolf, so it established a fervent resentment... or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein#Jewish_background_and_Hitler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein#Jewish_bac...
- Joker_vD 2y agoImagine how the history would change if someone managed to smuggle a 20 megaton nuclear bomb into Vienna of 1913? I would read that!
- lostlogin 2y agoThat’s just it though. Creaking empires would remain as would the politics and attitudes that led to the war and its flow into WW2. Something else would start it. What would it be?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bloopernova 2y agoJapan and the USSR would start separate expansionist wars. Germany would probably have some form of Nazi party in charge. Don't know if there would be an actual Axis, but WW2 in the Pacific might be very similar to the original timeline.
- lostlogin 2y agoThe USSR and Nazi Germany were due (in part) to WW1. Its an interesting thought exercise.
- tgv 2y agoI think that explosion would have been enough to set off WW1.
- gregopet 2y agoI mean Franz Ferdinand would still probably be killed, so..
- glandium 2y agoThis reminds me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o7e1i7nJuQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o7e1i7nJuQ
- causal 2y agoIf anything this highlights how important Vienna was pre-WW1 and how much that status has changed. I suspect history articles of the future could likewise point to Manhattan as having hosted many famous people simultaneously, and anyone living today wouldn't find that terribly surprising.
- mikhailfranco 2y agoSame people. Many refugees (mostly Jewish) from Vienna went to Manhattan, or the Manhattan Project. A few, like Freud or Popper, stopped in Britain, but many passed through to New York. Bernays (Freud's nephew) used his uncle's psychological insights to invent propaganda, marketing, advertising and PR. Others invented atomic and hydrogen bombs (probably less devastating than therapy and ads :) Some were Soviet atomic spies that reported back to the USSR. Much of American pre-war/post-war intellectual life is due to European refugees. It's interesting to posit what might have happened without the influx.
- Saturnial22 2y ago[flagged]
- piombisallow 2y agoAnd arguably much of current decline in intellectual standards in the public space is to blame on the integration and Americanization of their descendants.
- thruway516 2y agoWoah! what? Lol. Considering the number of nobel laureates, manhattan project scientists, turing award winners not to mention industry pioneers, prominent cultural figure etc that group has produced it would seem they did the opposite.
- piombisallow 2y agoThat's what I'm saying, read my comment again. America's highest intellectual achievements came after WW2, when there was the highest influx of European intellectuals (who studied in Europe, or were first generation). The current state of affairs is imo a kind of regression to the mean, where the culture that created them couldn't be reproduced in the US system - thus the integration and americanization of their descendants.
- piombisallow 2y agoThe Austro-Hungarian Empire and Vienna in particular were an amazing place, a sort of proto-EU that really had a shot at creating lasting prosperity and peace in Europe. I highly recommend Stefan Zweig's "The World of Yesterday", his memoirs of life before WW1. It reads disturbingly like an account of today's world, written just on the cusp of WW3.
- ViktorRay 2y agoIt’s interesting how the way that author you mentioned describes the attitudes and views of his parents and the upbringing he had when he was a young lad growing up in Europe of the 1890’s. It’s surprisingly very similar to the attitudes in parents of the 1990’s America and the upbringing many of us who grew up in the 1990’s…. Was interesting. Especially the way it all shattered after world war 1. Hell the author fled Europe to escape the Nazis. I read in a history book that that author committed suicide in despair because he thought the Nazis would win. His memoirs of his life are filled with sadness and melancholy. The enormous optimism that his parents had for him in his upbringing during the 1890’s. When his parents and many of their generation believed the march of science would lead to a new century of reason and peace and progress….and then in his lifetime the world descended into a level of brutality and violence and horror that would have been unimaginable in centuries prior… Poignant stuff
- eastbound 2y ago[flagged]
- cambalache 2y agoAny word on the current genocide being perpetrated by Israel?
- eastbound 2y agoYes. If you’re a small country with little army, don’t throw 7,000 rockets on a bigger country’s living neighborhoods between Jan 1st 2023 and Oct 7 2023. This is not Dresden here.
- luckystarr 2y agoI've been to Café Central. There was a waiter standing outside telling you only to come in whenever a seat has been vacated. Once in it didn't feel crammed, and it was quite the sight. Don't eat "Sacher Torte", it's quite bland for today's standards. The Kaiserschmarrn was fantastic though.
- buildsjets 2y agoI worked a 6 month aerospace industry assist detail in Vienna. They put me up in the Hilton hotel on Stadtpark for the entire time. Loved having my breakfasts right across the street in Café Prückel, with their 90 year old tuxedo clad waiters. Interesting to think of the famous persons that may have gathered there in days of yore. Agree on the Sacher Torte, it's just an extraordinarily dry chocolate layer cake with a bit of apricot jam as the layer separator, enrobed in a tasteless waxy ganache. I tried it all over the city including of course at Hotel Sacher. I'm sure I could make a modern version at home that was actually delicious. For every hit there is a miss... and for every Wienerschnitzel there is a Tafelspitz.
- spacechild1 2y ago> Agree on the Sacher Torte, it's just an extraordinarily dry chocolate layer cake That's why it's served with whipped cream :)
- imp0cat 2y agoThis. It's actually quite delicious when eaten together.
- harry_ord 2y agoTafelspitz is waste of good altweiner backfleisch. I quite like the Sache Torte in the place I live. More importantly though it's coming up to Krapfen season.
- teetertater 2y agoWhen I first moved to vienna, I also decided to check out Cafe Central. I ordered a tea (cost 5€). A teapot arrived, with a teabag on the side that I was supposed to brew myself. But the water was lukewarm, not nearly hot enough for tea. I complained to the waiter (dressed in something like a tuxedo). He dipped his finger in my teapot!! Then begrudgingly brought me new water lol.
- colinb 2y agoThere's a rather lovely Tom Stoppard play [0] that centers on the fact that James Joyce, Tristan Zara and Lenin all lived in Zurich in 1917. It's been a long time since I saw it, but I approximately recall a line were one of the characters tells [noted Dada-ist] Zara to sober up with the words "You want multicoloured micturition? Go to Moscow. They'll make you piss blood there!" [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travesties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travesties
- fiftyacorn 2y agoDidn't lenin meet musolini in Zurich too
- botswana99 2y agoThere was also a lot of other cool stuff happening in Vienna in that time period - Math, Philosophy (https://www.diplomacy.edu/blog/deep-roots-digital-era-five-vienna-thinkers/ https://www.diplomacy.edu/blog/deep-roots-digital-era-five-v...), the Arts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Secession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Secession), music (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Viennese_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Viennese_School) and even physics (Boltzmann). Too bad they had to screw it all up by getting all nationalist, nativist, and anti-Semitic.
- mikhailfranco 2y agoThe best single volume overview is this page-turner, which embraces Vienna and Paris, for math, science, philosophy, literature and art at the turn of the 20th century: The First Moderns: Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-Century Thought William R. Everdell https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/244346.The_First_Moderns https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/244346.The_First_Moderns
- starfezzy 2y agoAre people's historic perspectives really that cartoonishly small-minded? The early 20th century was a flashpoint where rising powers decided who would become the global superpower. Agree or not about antisemitism and nationalism, both of those were enormously popular, mainstream things. It wasn't weird or fringe to adopt an national ideology character used by those things. So much of Europe (centered around Germany) acting on those views isn't the cause of their downfall—on the contrary, they were convinced (and these were not dumb people who couldn't see patterns) that such things would strengthen their people and their homes. So obviously that isn't what "screwed it all up". What screwed it all up was the existence of other rising powers and the timing of it all. Their rise was threatened by a strong Germany. This is all completely mundane, predictable global politics. The rest, about who was "evil" and "the bad guys" is almost entirely fiction written by the victors—also, coincidentally, completely mundane and predictable.
- starfezzy 2y agoClarifying that I misread who this was a response to. I thought you were talking about Germany and the area around it, and in specific with the last part of your comment, referring to Germany.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- roschdal 2y agoIf only they had let him into Art school...
- samatman 2y agoFor once the headline is under-selling it, I'm used to hearing this put as "all attended the same café".
- cafard 2y agoHow about The Man Without Qualities for an interesting view of Vienna about then?
- costco 2y agoIs it good? I really liked Wittgenstein's Vienna, but I haven’t read anything else about the era so I don’t have much basis of comparison. Tempted to work on my German so I can understand Karl Kraus though.
- cafard 2y agoGood, but it is long. I have read it only in English, though I do have it in German, purchased for about $5 at a charity shop. As for Kraus, somebody put out In These Great Times, a slim collection of essays, about 35 years ago. Much more recently, Jonathan Franzen brought out The Kraus Project, which I have not seen.
- stonethrowaway 2y agoWent to Cafe Central one evening without knowing any of this until today. Just on a vacation. The interior was strikingly rustic and I enjoyed the coffee and cake they had but had completely forgotten about it otherwise. I suspect Trotsky and Hitler forgot about it too.
- isoprophlex 2y agoMakes you wonder if there's a group of people living somewhere right now in 2024, that will be talked about similarly in 2135...
- helpfulContrib 2y ago[dead]
- ljlolel 2y agoObviously San Francisco
- booleandilemma 2y agoMaybe it'll be the people of HN. I wouldn't mind getting romanticized.
- kristopolous 2y agoHaving traveled many places, my suspicion it's a place like Taipei or Shenzhen.
- ein0p 2y agoSome of the coffee houses are still there. I visited them when I was in Vienna. They aren’t the hotbed of revolutionary thought anymore, it seems. Vienna was basically the center of western civilization for quite a while, and it shows to this day.
- UncleSlacky 2y agoI have an idea for a great "Young Ones" reboot...
- worstspotgain 2y agoI guess that's where the guy running the simulator was zoomed in on for that year.
- Flatcircle 2y agowow
- effed3 2y agodon't forget Karl Kraus, was somewhere around, and has something to say....
- bryanrasmussen 2y agoThe first rule of Time Travel is - don't nuke Vienna.
- dh2022 2y agoActually… maybe the first target hit from the future should be Vienna.. you would have gotten rid of two of the biggest dictators ever…
- bryanrasmussen 2y agohttps://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/feb/21/time-travellers-kill-adolf-hitler https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/feb/... https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HitlersTimeTrave...
- vt85 2y ago[dead]
- mattmaroon 2y agoOne of these things is not like the others...
- ralphc 2y agoThe headline sounds like the perfect premise for a sitcom. I'm smelling Emmy...
- kristopolous 2y ago...along with Hayek and Von Mises.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- southernplaces7 2y agoIt's hard for me to not imagine a quiet early evening setting in some modest cafe in central Vienna at this time, in which A skinny young Austrian, living close to the edge of deep poverty, sits down for a bowl of soup, notices that he has no salt at hand, and signals over to the moderately older, rougher looking pockmarked man with a vaguely central Asian cast to his face at the next table that he should lend him his salt. And then there they sit in their respective bubbles of poverty and social obscurity, meters apart, two of the greatest butchers of the 20th century, who in less than 30 years would each be leading millions of men to their deaths in destroying the others regime while carving Europe with rivers of blood.