The German Human Climate and Its Opposite:
Otto Neurath in England, 1940-45
Günther Sandner
This essay focuses on Otto Neurath’s (1882-1945) years in British exile (1940-1945).
A brief overview shows how the Viennese sociologist, economist and pedagogue
established himself as an acknowledged scholar and intellectual. Although he insisted
on the separation of the societal role of scientist/educator and the role of politician, he
was not apolitical. He frequently dealt with political issues such as the possible
reasons for the rise of National Socialism, re-education and postwar social and
economic planning. While his articles on Plato, Germany and re-education were
controversially debated, Neurath remained rather isolated with his views on the
‘German climate’.
1. How a Refugee on a Lifeboat turned into ‘British Furniture’:
A Brief History of Neurath’s English Years
From Vienna to The Hague
On February 12, 1934, the aggressive and violent conflict between
Austria’s political ‘camps’, the left wing and the right wing, turned
into a brief Civil War. After only a few days, the socialist working
class movement was defeated by fascist paramilitary forces and the
Austrian army. While many of the leftist combatants were arrested,
killed or even executed, most of the leading personalities of the
Austrian Social Democratic Party (SDAP) such as Otto Bauer and
Julius Deutsch fled into exile. Thus, February 1934 brought not only
the definitive end of Austrian democracy; a unique experiment in
communal socialism – the ‘Red Vienna’ that had been admired by so
many leftists throughout the world between 1919 and 1934 – also
came to an end.1
Otto Neurath (1882-1945),2 the economist, sociologist and
philosopher of the ‘Vienna Circle’,3 was one of the many left-wing
intellectuals and pedagogues active in socialist Vienna. Besides his
activities in the ‘Ernst Mach Society’ that aimed to ‘popularize’ the
Vienna Circle’s ‘scientific conception of the world’, from the mid1920s onwards he focused on an ambitious pedagogical project. As
director of the ‘Social and Economic Museum’ that opened in 1925,
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he established an institution of worker’s education and introduced his
own ‘Vienna method of picture statistics’. The museum aimed to play
a decisive role in the creation of new, socialist human beings, which
would function as a future perspective in Austro-Marxist political
theory. Support (not only) from the city council was guaranteed.
The rise of fascism and the decline of Red Vienna which
resulted in the illegality of left-wing organisations and institutions
severely jeopardized this whole project. The highly attentive political
thinker, Otto Neurath and his exhibition team were, however, not
unprepared. Since the early 1930s, he had been internationalizing his
scientific and pedagogical activities, and branches of the museum
soon opened in such locations as Berlin-Kreuzberg, Amsterdam,
London and even New York. Additionally, he was asked by Soviet
officials to train Russian statisticians in his method of visualizing
statistics. For sixty days each year between 1931 and 1934 he worked
as a consultant to the Isostat Institute in Moscow.4 This is where he
was in February 1934. Warned by his colleague and later wife Marie
Reidemeister about what was happening in Austria, he went from
Moscow via Prague to The Hague in the Netherlands, never to return
to Austria again. Obviously he would have been arrested if he had
tried to return to Vienna. Marie Reidemeister-Neurath was convinced
that he ‘had been denounced to the police as a Communist’.5
Relations with the Netherlands had already become closer
when Otto Neurath was invited to participate in the ‘Congress on
World Social Economic Planning’ (1931). As early as 1933 he made
the decision to go to the Netherlands if political problems should arise
in Austria.6 That same year, he founded the ‘International Foundation
for Visual Education’ in The Hague, and the Mundaneum Institute in
1934. Then, in 1936 the ‘International Institute for the Unity of
Science’ was established, under whose auspices the International
Encyclopedia of Unified Science was edited. However, Otto Neurath
could take only a nucleus staff of three others with him when he
moved to Holland in 1934.
Soon the ‘Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics’7 turned into
Isotype (International System of Typographic Picture Education), and
in 1937-38 the successful exhibition in the Netherlands ‘Rondom
Rembrandt’, which showed objects of art in the context of their social
background, was displayed in several department stores.8 With several
book publications ranging from scientific monographs to picture
pedagogical illustrations as well as numerous lectures and congresses,
Neurath established his work in the Netherlands and in the internat-
The German Human Climate and Its Opposite
69
ional intellectual landscape as well. Politics, however, again forced
him to make a move.
This essay focuses on Otto Neurath’s years in England. It
begins with a brief overview of how he and his wife made a new life
for themselves and how he, against all odds, established himself as an
acknowledged scholar and visual educator. I will demonstrate that
although he was interned for about eight months as an ‘enemy alien’,
he always sympathised deeply with British politics, culture, scholarship and lifestyle. I will then consider his relationship to his socialist
friends from the Austrian antifascist émigré scene in England. This
relationship was characterised by continued loyalty and camaraderie,
but also a lack of interest in getting involved in their internecine
conflicts with leftist dissidents and communists. In this context in
particular, Neurath insisted on the separation of the role of the
scientist and educator, of which he was proud, and the role of
politician, which he definitely eschewed. This, however, does not
mean that he was apolitical. Quite the contrary – he frequently
reflected on political issues such as the possible reasons for the rise of
National Socialism, re-education and postwar social and economic
planning. Remarkably, only a portion of his intellectual work has been
published; many of his thoughts and reflections can herefore only be
found in his letters and unpublished manuscripts. One reason for this
might be the lack of positive resonance. While his articles on Plato,
Germany and re-education were debated and even elicited expressions
of concurrence from some, Otto Neurath remained rather isolated with
his views on the ‘German climate’.
Escape from the Netherlands – Internment in Britain
When Nazi troops invaded the Netherlands on May 12, 1940, Otto
Neurath was alarmed. He was not only a well-known partisan of the
Austrian socialists but also a half-Jew according to the Nuremberg
Laws. He gave an exhaustive account of his escape on the eve of May
14, 1940 on several occasions.9 With only a few documents and hardly
any luggage, he and Marie Reidemeister went to the harbour, jumped
onto an overcrowded motorized lifeboat from which they watched
Rotterdam burning, and were finally picked up by a British destroyer
that brought them to Dover.
When Great Britain declared war on Germany on September
3, 1939, Germans and Austrians in that country became “enemy
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aliens”. Despite the fact that many of them were political refugees and
declared anti-Fascists, they were summoned before tribunals which
already started in early October 1939 and categorized as either ‘A’ (to
be interned), ‘B’ (to face restrictions, or be observed) and ‘C’ (to
remain in freedom or, if already interned, be released). Initially there
were only few ‘A’ classifications. However, the German invasion of
Norway and Denmark on April 9, 1940 convinced the British to
tighten their internment policy. They interpreted the Nazi venture –
which they had not foreseen – as a painful defeat. An emotional
debate on possible spies and a fifth column within the country seemed
to require more rigid treatment of the ‘enemy aliens’. When Holland
and Belgium were attacked on May 10, internment was extended to
even those in category ‘C’.10
It was during this critical period that Otto Neurath and Marie
Reidemeister entered the country. Those who came to England after
the German invasion of Norway and Denmark were automatically
classified as ‘B’ and re-classified later as A.11 After arriving in Dover,
the British military first brought Otto Neurath to Pentonville Prison in
London and then to Kempton Park, a transfer camp where the
internees were housed in a racecourse building. Marie Reidemeister
first stayed in Holloway Prison in London.12 Later both were transferred to the Isle of Man, where several internment camps had been
established. A contemporary survey shows that there were a number
of prominent internees and a high percentage of intellectuals, artists
and Jews among them.13 On the Isle of Man, Otto Neurath was
interned in the Onchan camp, while Marie Reidemeister was sent to
Port Erin. Men and women were separated but frequent (later
monthly) meetings were organised. Occasionally they could write
letters to one another. However, it could have been worse: Even Otto
Neurath and Marie Reidemeister must have been afraid of being
deported to Canada or Australia, as many other enemy aliens were.
Even during his internment Neurath continued to identify with
British culture and politics. In numerous letters, he praised the
opportunities they were provided in the camp (correspondence,
cultural activities such as cinema, music and theatre, friendships
among the internees etc.), the humane atmosphere and even the
occasions for making scientific observations: ‘I was more interested in
the sociological facts, therefore less disturbed than some others of my
mates. Both of us regarded the first weeks in prison etc as a kind of
relaxation or holidays after the tension in Holland’, he wrote to
architect Josef Frank.14 And to Felix Kaufmann he related: ‘I was
The German Human Climate and Its Opposite
71
always interested in British prison life, and had paid some pounds for
such an experience – now I got it gratis’.15 Generally internment was
quite alright, he concluded in a radio interview a few years later,
although perhaps a bit too long, he added with a wink.16 This,
however, is in sharp contrast to the perception of many other
internees, even those who were together with Neurath in Onchan.17
Although he was not the only acknowledged intellectual being
interned, it was obviously a great advantage that many British scholars
and scientists knew him and some of his books, especially the picturetext-style book Modern Man in the Making (1939). Even the
policemen in Dover were surprised when he recognized Neurath, he
wrote in a letter.18 However, it was principally due to the interventions
of famous scholars such as Bertrand Russell, Susan Stebbing, Albert
Einstein, Julian Huxley and G.D.H. Cole that Otto Neurath and Marie
Reidemeister (whom he married soon after leaving the camp) were
released after eight months. Already in September 1940, the Royal
Academy had declared that they were both scientists of standing
according to the government White Paper19 but it was not until
December 3 that they were ‘tribunalized’ and then released on
February 7 and 8, 1941.
Internment seemed to have been an important period in
Neurath’s life, and not only because of what he experienced. He also
established contacts in the camp with many people with whom he later
collaborated. Among them were Johann Hirsch, former editor of the
Social Democratic daily Das kleine Blatt, and left-wing German
journalist Johannes Uhlig, co-founder and member of the editorial
board of the émigré newspaper Die Zeitung for which Neurath wrote
articles under a pseudonym.20 He also tried to help those who
remained on the Isle of Man and to arrange their release.21
Oxford
The preconditions for a new start in England were harder than those in
Holland more than six years before. Living as an alien in England
meant that even after release from detention, there were some
restrictions such as the need to obtain permission to travel within
Great Britain. Neurath and Reidemeister, however, started their new
life in an optimistic mood. The famous university town of Oxford
became their new home. They rented a house and despite having to
change their place of residence twice, Otto Neurath in his letters
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always vividly described a quiet and peaceful place with a fabulous
garden, singing birds and the intellectually stimulating atmosphere.
Anyway, it was helpful that Neurath had built up contacts in
England long before. Already in January 1935 he had organized an
informal meeting on Logical Positivism in London, and the ‘Fourth
International Congress for Unity of Science’ took place in Cambridge
a few months after the German occupation of Austria in 1938. This
congress served as a forum to constitute the international committee
for the forthcoming congresses and the organisational committee for
the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science. Shortly after his
release from internment, he worked with Joseph A. Lauwerys and
Susan Stebbing to organise a small conference on ‘Terminology’ in
Oxford from 3 to 5 October, 1941.22
Soon they founded the Isotype Institute with their friend,
philosopher Susan Stebbing, as president, and became director and
secretary of studies, respectively. Initially, the Isoytpe Institute had
premises at Nuffield College thanks to the help of G.D.H. Cole; later
they had offices in their home. Otto Neurath started giving lectures on
‘Logical Empiricism and the Social Sciences’ at All Souls College
using material he had (partly) prepared during internment. He was a
frequently-invited speaker and lecturer in the following years, not only
at universities but also in the context of many other cultural, political
and educational groups and institutions. Neurath’s activities in
England as an individual and on behalf of the Isotype Institute
included writing and publishing articles and books, producing
exhibitions, lecturing, discussing, and participating in cultural life in
general. A remarkable part of his British work was to collaborate with
Paul Rotha on British documentaries commissioned by the Ministry of
Information to which the Isotype Institute contributed animated
diagrams. His several film projects, such as Blood Transfusion (1941),
The World of Plenty (1943) and Land of Promise (1946) were noteworthy efforts that appeared at the peak of the British documentary
movement.23
At the end of the war, Neurath started to participate in a
project in Bilston, in the Black Country near Birmingham. According
to the invitation extended by Town Councilman A.V. Williams in July
1945, the aim was to design an exhibition based upon picture statistics
which illustrated the transformation of an old slum into a progressive,
modern settlement. The future dwellers were to be given the opportunity to participate in the planning. However, Neurath dies before the
exhibition was finished; it opened about a year after his death.24
The German Human Climate and Its Opposite
73
Reading the voluminous correspondence of Neurath’s years in
England, an ambivalent impression remains. On the one hand, he was
engaged in varied work and activities, and received much public
response; on the other hand, it must not be overlooked that his plans
went far beyond what he achieved. For example in the field of
(preparing) postwar educational activities (an Isotype Thesaurus, a
prototype exhibition, a travelling museum etc.) he could not raise the
necessary funding. He repeatedly tried to find patrons and mobilise
financial resources, in form of a fixed annual allowance e.g. with the
help of his cousin, entrepreneur Gustav Neurath. However, these
efforts failed. Nevertheless he always presented England as the ideal
country for his work. It was the land where they belonged. Between
1941 and 1945, the process of integration went forward step by step.
‘You see’ he wrote to Marie (‘Mitzi’) Jahoda, ‘we gradually become a
kind of British Furniture’.25
2. Red Vienna in Great Britain: Neurath and the Antifascist
Émigrés
Marie Jahoda was one of many socialist intellectuals who formed an
Austrian political left-wing community in Great Britain. She and
Neurath knew each other well, not only because she had worked in
Neurath’s Social and Economic Museum in Vienna for a short time. In
contrast to Jahoda, however, Neurath always wanted to draw a clear
dividing line between the politician and the scientist. He wanted to
contribute to social progress and human happiness as a “social
engineer”, not as a politician. Nevertheless, the fight against Hitler
and Nazism was a crucial element in the self-interpretation of his
pedagogical activities. Although he stayed in contact with his Austrian
socialist friends, he tried to keep his distance from party politics in
general and the quarrels among the different Austrian émigré groups
in particular.
Once he wrote to Karl Czernetz, a leading representative of
the London Bureau of the Austrian Socialists, that he got ‘so many
letters and invitations from Austrian Socialists of various kinds that I
really sometimes do not know who is who. […] Some of the Austrian
centres in other towns are ours, but it is not always simple to find out
that. The average Viennes [sic!] cannot distinguish the various cows
and calves, as I found out more than once. Please be kind enough and
tell me, at least, what at the moment exists.’26 Czernetz in response
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pointed out his Social Democratic view of the left-wing émigré scene:
There was, as he put it, on the one hand, the ‘Group of Austrian
Socialists’ which were politically represented by the ‘London Bureau’
and on the other the ‘Group of Austrian Trade Unionists’. Both
founded the Austrian Labour Club. In contrast, the Free Austrian
Movement (FAM) and the League of Austrian Socialists were both
(more or less) Communist organisations.27
Did Neurath remain a loyal member of the Austrian Socialists
and did he side with them against the Communists? Although he
definitely did not believe Czernetz who wrote to him that the FAM
was already dead, he seemed to share the Socialist’s distanced stance
and even hostility towards the Austrian Communists. He definitely
wanted to avoid any close contact with Communist activities. For him,
even the Austrian PEN Club in England was suspicious. For instance,
he asked Marie Jahoda if he should remain a PEN member despite the
fact that its president, Robert Neumann, appeared as one of the two
main speakers in a FAM-organised mass demonstration in 1943.28
Already in August 1942, he had rejected an invitation he received
from Jahoda for a meeting on Austrian Culture cohosted by the FAM
and the PEN Club29 and stressed the fundamental difference between
politicians and scientists.30 Jahoda did participate as a delegate of the
London Bureau.31
This said, he attended a number of political events staged by
the Social Democrats. Already in 1941, he accepted the official
invitation of Oscar Pollak to participate in the activities of the
Austrian Committee for Post-War Relief that was chaired by former
parliamentarian Emmy Freundlich, and wrote a memorandum on fuel
supplies.32 Freundlich also headed the International Co-operative
Women’s Guild which co-organised an exhibition on housing that
Neurath worked on. In addition he gave a number of lectures such as
one on ‘Planning in Socialist Vienna’ that was organized by the
‘Fabians’ Socialist Propaganda Committee’ and the ‘Birmingham
Austrian Labour Club’, probably at the beginning of 1943.33
In any case, Neurath always wanted to be a loyal comrade to
his old socialist friends. However, there were some conditions. He
wanted to keep politics separate from his educational work, and he did
not want to get involved in the controversies among the organisations
of the Austrian working-class movement. ‘The political quarrels
between the refugees are disappointing’ he wrote to the US-émigré
Hugo Breitner,34 the former commissioner of financial affairs in Red
Vienna. Neurath was a political intellectual, not a politician. But
The German Human Climate and Its Opposite
75
perhaps there was another problem that, as far as I can see, he never
fully expressed. Austrian Social Democracy and the Austrian
Socialists in exile interpreted for a long time and even after the
‘Anschluss’ the Austrian working class as constituting a single entity
with the German one. To defeat Hitler and construct a future Socialist
society appeared to be a common objective for both the Austrian and
the German working class movement. Although the union with
Germany had not been part of the parties’ manifestos since 1933, this
Pan-German tradition was by no means dead. Germany seemed to be
an important economic, political and not least cultural ally. Even the
Socialists came to advocate an independent Austrian nation, though
they adopted this position much later than the Communists and only in
the context of the Moscow Declaration of 1943. Neurath’s approach,
however, was the opposite of the Pan-Germanism that many Socialists
have been accused of harboring.
3. The German Climate and the Rise of National Socialism
The Peculiarities of the Germans
The course of Otto Neurath’s life was deeply affected by the rise of
National Socialism. However, as was true of Austrian leftists in
general, National Socialism was not his first traumatic experience with
dictatorship and not the one that forced him to flee his country. It was
Austro-Fascism, the ‘Dollfuß-Gang’35 as he put it contemptuously.
However, not only were many of his friends and acquaintances in
Germany and Austria persecuted by the Nazis; soon after the
Anschluss, his only son was deported to the Dachau and Buchenwald
concentration camps (probably because the Nazis mistook him for his
father).36
His reflection about National Socialism was not only guided
by these personal experiences. There was a pressing question that he
tried to answer intellectually: Why did all this happen in Germany and
not somewhere else? Was National Socialism a particular German
phenomenon? How could so many German people tolerate violence,
persecution and dictatorship? He was deeply convinced that certain
German peculiarities were responsible for that. In this context, he
began to reflect on what he called the ‘German climate’ (or sometimes
‘German atmosphere’). Although he published only a few articles and
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essays, most of pseudonymously, in which he outlined this concept
more can be found in his Nachlass.37 Discussions about the German
climate were also a permanent – and sometimes central – theme in his
correspondence, in which he sought to persistently convince others of
his view and to discuss it with them. What exactly did he mean by
‘German climate’? There were two main features to which he
permanently returned: The idea of ‘the Genius’ and the categorical
imperative.38 He repeatedly pointed out why they formed a dangerous
blend in Germany at the time.
Reflecting on the idea of the genius, he echoed Edgar Zilsel’s
critique,39 though without mentioning him. The genius in German
literature and philosophy represented an outstanding personality
directed by his visions and intuitions. He was felt to be exempt from
rules and restrictions and allowed to act above the law because he is
not to be judged in the same way as ordinary people. In this sense, a
genius could even resort to criminal actions, while the masses needed
to obey. As Neurath put it, the idea of the genius in German literature
was often related to demons, nature, something which was ‘higher’
than ordinary life, located in the world of metaphysics. He identified
Goethe as one of the main representatives of the cult of the genius –
both as the author of ‘Faust’ and as a personality in literary history
who was portrayed in biographies in a genius-like manner.40
The role of the genius, in Neurath’s view, corresponded in a
way to the privileged status the ‘German climate’ attached to
obedience. He related this feature (obedience to authorities) even to
Luther whom he repeatedly criticized, notably for his verbal assaults
against the Jews. However, for Neurath it was especially Kant’s ethics
that supplied justification for the idea of the genius by ranking
fulfillment of duty above the individual’s consciousness.
The ‘German climate’, however, was not identical to the
national character. For Neurath, not every German was automatically
a representative of the ‘German climate’. What he wanted to address
were specific relations between certain features of German philosophy
and literature and the behaviour of people. A human climate
represented an ensemble of certain modes of behaviour, statements
and articulations. Although Neurath identified these elements in
German philosophy and literature he did not mean that every German
was fully aware of the literary and philosophical heritage. However,
he felt that the educated classed could always find good reasons for
war and brutality and for a lack of sympathy. And the masses were
deeply influenced by these thoughts published in newspapers, and
The German Human Climate and Its Opposite
77
transmitted through education. What Neurath did not suggest was a
special German gene responsible for war-mongering and brutality.
It seems a more likely hypothesis, that kind and friendly German
boys and girls may become influenced by the over emphasis on
certain things in the tradition of the “best” German literature, and
so be indirectly prepared for Nazidom, rather than that we
subscribe to the Vansittart theory,41 that on an average Germans
are butcherbirds by birth.42
There were two crucial elements in Neurath’s critique of the ‘German
climate’. First, he insisted that the Nazis did not only abuse these
traditions; rather, they could use them as the basis for their inhuman
ideology and politics. This point constitutes a difference between
Neurath and many other critics of Germany. Secondly, he did not
merely refer to the well-known ‘problematic’ parts of the German
heritage. Naturally, Neurath did not mean that first and foremost
Goethe or Kant paved the way for the Nazis. Actually he discussed the
various elements of the ‘German climate’ exemplarily by citing
philosophers and authors such as Otto Weininger (Geschlecht und
Charakter – Sex and Character, 1903), Julius Langbehn (Rembrandt
als Erzieher – Rembrandt as Educator, 1890), Hans Grimm (Volk
ohne Raum – A People without Space, 1926), Oswald Spengler (Der
Untergang des Abendlandes – The Decline of the West, 1918 and
1922), Houston Steward Chamberlain (Die Grundlagen des
Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts – The Foundations of the Nineteenth
Century, 1899) and even the violent anti-Semite Paul de Lagarde. But
beyond these aggressive attacks on so-called weaklings, elaborations
on superior races, contempt for Jews, women and others, Neurath
identified dangerous features even in the writings of some uncontested
cultural authorities. Thus, he followed the traces of inhumanity deep
into the heart of German culture, literature and philosophy.
Support for his views was meager, even among his friends, as
Neurath’s correspondence demonstrates.43 In a fictional debate among
three persons published in the émigré newspaper Die Zeitung, he
provided a pedagogical approach opposing the dominance of the idea
of the genius and the categorical imperative cited above. The paper’s
editorial department distanced itself somewhat from the content of
Neurath’s pseudonymous contribution.44 For Neurath, the British
climate functioned as a high-contrast foil to the German one. The
promotion of happiness, kindness, friendship, brotherhood, mutual
help and assistance, individual consciousness, tolerance, common
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sense, ‘civil courage’, lack of regulations (‘muddle’) and many other
features he presented repeatedly as typical characteristics of a tradition
in the Anglo-Saxon world, which represented the opposite of the
German atmosphere. ‘The Anglosaxon world is much more our world,
than the continental one’ is how he put it.45 In one of his late essays, he
stressed the difference as follows:
It will perhaps be useful to distinguish between ways of life, in
which “self-sacrifice” has no limits, as far as the “State” or some
“Deity” is concerned, and those in which the “personal
conscience” plays an important role, and no order from the outside
forces a person to think it a “duty” to persecute and torment his
neighbour.46
Although he was disappointed by the success of National Socialism in
Austria, he defended his homeland by distinguishing its ‘climate’ from
the one in Germany. This seems astonishing not only because of the
long tradition of anti-Semitism in Austria (of which he naturally was
aware), the fact that Hitler was a native of Austria, and that some of
the intellectuals he presented as representatives of an inhuman climate
were Austrians such as Otto Weininger. He also claimed that the
Germans were intellectually isolated vis a vis the Viennese, who
shared ideas developed by the Wiener Kreis (such as Logical Empiricism) with British and even with French philosophers.47 Neurath’s
distinction between the Austrian and the German intellectual tradition
was in accordance with his thesis of a particular Austrian philosophy
in which Kant only played a minor role.48
He engaged with these views in his unfinished project on
Tolerance and Persecution which he aimed to present in a picturetext-style book comparable to the successful Modern Man in the
Making. He planned to survey the relations between state organisations, literature and human behaviour, the emergence and making
of traditions, the question of how resistance against war, persecution
and brutality was weakened, and outlined what promotes friendship.
He presented one of the possible results in an essay: ‘We may learn
from the history of toleration and persecution, that toleration has
seldom been presented as a gift by one victorious and powerful
authority; it appeared rather where various groups, which were in a
position to fight, resolved to abstain from struggle and to create some
modus vivendi.’49
In contrast to many other émigrés, he insisted on the
connection between German culture and Nazi barbarism. However, he
The German Human Climate and Its Opposite
79
rejected approaches that at first glance seem to closely resemble his
own such as that of his friend Carl Herz50 or Sir Robert Vansittart,
although he did not completely reject the Vansittart thesis of a
particular German tradition of militarism and brutality. However,
there may be a surprising affinity of (parts of) his approach to that of
someone whom he repeatedly included as a typical representative of
German culture: like Thomas Mann, he stressed the role of philosophical idealism, Romanticism and the romantic school as ideal
preconditions for the Nazi ideology.51 So, what were the consequences
of these reflections? Was Nazi Germany a hopeless case in Neurath’s
view?
Pedagogy and Re-Education
A logical problem emerges from the effort to answer the question that
follows from Neurath’s conception of the ‘German climate’. On one
hand, he presented the German climate as the result of traditions,
attitudes and social behaviour developed over centuries; on the other
hand, he felt that the same climate would allow re-educating a
totalitarian-formed people in a free, tolerant, pluralistic and democratic way – not in some distant future but within a few years. Some of
his friends, such as architect Josef Frank, pointed out that there was a
contradiction.52 Others such as his cousin Gustav Neurath simply
rejected the idea that re-educating the Germans makes any sense at all.
‘I have practically come to the conclusion that the re-educating of
Germany can only be performed with machine guns, and this is a very
lenient way of dealing with them after what they have done to other
Races and Nations’ he put it.53
Otto Neurath, however, never shared this pessimistic attitude.
A human climate can be changed, he was convinced, though this is
anything but an easy project. He stressed ‘that we should not
overestimate the doubtlessly existing relative persistence of such
habits as part of a social pattern’.54 To change an intellectual climate
calls for self-criticism, self-education of the respective people and
educational measures from outside as well. His contributions to the
debate on re-educating Germany after the war received more attention
in public than did his considerations about the ‘German climate’.
Thus, his ideas – published mostly in a few articles in the Journal of
Education – resulted in an intellectual debate and even controversy.
First, he co-authored an article with Joseph A. Lauwerys in 1944 in
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which they compared the editions of the Putzger school atlas editions
from 1910 and 1937 and stressed their imperialist-German and racist
propaganda. This book, they made clear, ought not to be used in
German schools after the war.55 In 1945 they published a three-part
treatise on Plato’s Republic and German Education explaining why
Plato’s concept of a ‘totalitarian republic which appears to be a centre
of intolerance and persecution’56 was not appropriate for a reorientation of Germany’s pupils. Even before Karl Popper did so,
Neurath stressed the inhuman character of Plato’s republic.57
However, the two authors were attacked by British philosophers and
Plato experts, who pleaded for a contextual understanding of Plato and
criticized the two authors for not being capable of doing so. Finally,
Neurath reflected on German Education and Democracy (1945) in
which he critically reviewed Werner Richter’s book Re-educating
Germany and compared its approach to his own.58
In general, pictorial pedagogy and Isotype played a central
role in his conception of a democratic civic education after the war. In
addition to its advantages as an approach able to transcend different
social, educational and national levels, there was one reason why
pictorial pedagogy was particularly appropriate: The educational
system was deeply implicated by Nazism. ‘I think that the lack of
teachers after this war (just teachers have been Nazis and their
helpers) will be the soil for Visual Education by ISOTYPE’,59 he
insisted. With the help of Isotype any democratically thinking persons
even from other professions, and not trained as teachers, could teach
in schools.
There were some specific projects in which he could apply his
reflections. One was the Belgium Committee within the Conference of
Allied Ministers of Education, both chaired by Joseph A. Lauwerys.
What could be done with films and other visual aids, and how could
they be used to address the concrete local problem in Eupen and in
Malmedy, the Nazi-occupied parts of Belgium where Nazi teachers
had instructed pupils for years? The committee invited Neurath as an
expert to discuss with him possible measures for effective denazification. According to the minutes, he made suggestions and stressed the
differences between Nazi and Western education. Moreover, he gave a
general outlook on the opportunities yielded by visualisation.60
Neurath who died on December 22, 1945 was convinced that
literature that reflected the Nazi standpoint should not necessarily be
banned; however, nor should it be used in schools.61 Denazification in
his view meant examining a long intellectual and cultural tradition.
The German Human Climate and Its Opposite
81
The British climate he had come to know in the last years of his life
served him as an example. He insisted that lessons had to be learnt
from the recent past. The Nazi crimes should not simply be turned into
history; instead, they should result in strong educational efforts to
prevent future atrocities.
Notes
1
Anson Rabinbach, The Crisis of Austrian Socialism. From Red Vienna to Civil War,
1927-1934 (London, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983).
2
For biographical information see e.g. Paul Neurath, ‘Otto Neurath (1882-1945) –
Life and Work’, in Elisabeth Nemeth/ Friedrich Stadler (eds), Encyclopedia and
Utopia. The Life and Work of Otto Neurath (1882-1945) (Dordrecht/Boston/London:
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996), pp. 15-28.
3
The ‘Vienna Circle’ (Wiener Kreis) was a group of early twentieth-century philosophers who gathered around Moritz Schlick after he became professor at the
University of Vienna in 1922. Its radically anti-metaphysical programme aimed to
reconceptualize empiricism incorporating recent advances in the sciences.
4
Friedrich Stadler, ‘Wiener Methode der Bildstatistik und politische Grafik des Konstruktivismus. Wien-Moskau 1931-1934’ in Hanns Haas (ed.): Österreich und die
Sowjetunion 1918-1945 (Vienna: Österreichisch-Sowjetische Gesellschaft, 1984), pp.
220-249.
5
Marie Reidemeister-Neurath, ‘26 September 1924 and after’, in Marie Neurath/Robert Cohen (eds), Otto Neurath. Empiricism and Sociology (Dordrecht/Boston:
Reidel, 1973), pp. 56-64 (p. 62).
6
Marie Neurath and Otto Neurath, ‘Wiener Methode, Isotype. Ein Bericht’, in:
Friedrich Stadler, Arbeiterbildung in der Zwischenkriegszeit (Vienna/Munich: Löcker,
1982), pp. 24-30.
7
The ‘Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics’ (Wiener Methode der Bildstatistik) was
developed by Otto Neurath at the Social and Economic Museum (Gesellschafts- und
Wirtschaftsmuseum) between 1925 and 1934. Its aim was to show social facts
pictorially.
8
Hadwig Kraeutler, Otto Neurath. Museum and Exhibition Work. Spaces (Designed)
for Communication (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2008), pp. 163-171.
82
Günther Sandner
9
E.g. Neurath to Breitner, 16 March 1941 and Neurath to Frank 22 September 1942
(Estate Otto and Marie Neurath, Austrian National Library, Vienna = ANL, 1217/38
and 1219/5).
10
Peter Gillman and Leni Gillman, ‘Collar the Lot!’ How Britain Interned and Expelled its Wartime Refugees (London/Melbourne/New York: Quartet Books, 1980).
11
Miriam Kochan, Britain’s Internees in the Second World War (London, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1983), pp. 157-59.
12
The arrival in England is described by Marie Neurath in: ibid., pp. 33-36.
13
Gillman 1980 (note 10), pp. 176-77.
14
Neurath to Frank, 22 September 1942 (ANL, 1219/5).
15
Neurath to Kaufmann, 20 April 1942 (Estate Paul Neurath, Department of
Sociology, University of Vienna).
16
Neurath/Cohen 1973 (note 5), p. 73.
17
See Kochan 1983 (note 11).
18
Neurath to Frank, 27 November 1945.
19
Kochan 1983 (note 11), pp. 123-24.
20
Franz Schlosser (=Otto Neurath), ‘Österreichs menschliches Klima’, in Die Zeitung.
Londoner deutsches Wochenblatt, 27 October 1944; Arthur Feltner (=Otto Neurath),
‘Das Genie und der kategorische Imperativ’, in Die Zeitung. Londoner deutsches
Wochenblatt, 16 February 1945.
21
Cf. the case of Georg Hahn, a physician from Düsseldorf, who was interned until
after the end of the war (Neurath-Hahn correspondence [ANL, 1219/35-41).
22
Friedrich Stadler, ‘The “Wiener Kreis” in Great Britain: Emigration and Interaction
in the Philosophy of Science’, in Edward Timms/Jon Hughes (eds), Intellectual
Migration and Cultural Transformation: Refugees from National Socialism in the
English-Speaking World (Vienna/New York: Springer, 2003), pp. 155-179.
23
Michael Burke/Toby Haggith, ‘Words divide: pictures unite. Otto Neurath and
British propaganda films in the Second World War’, in Imperial Museum Review, No.
12, 1999, pp. 59-70.
24
Sybilla Nikolow, ‘Planning, Democratization and Popularization with ISOTYPE,
ca. 1945: A Study of Otto Neurath's Pictorial Statistics with the Example of Bilston,
England’, in Friedrich Stadler (ed.), Induction and Deduction in the Sciences
(Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004), pp. 299-329.
The German Human Climate and Its Opposite
25
Neurath to Jahoda, 4 June 1943 (ANL, 1220/35).
26
Neurath to Czernetz, 27 September 1943 (ANL, 1218/13).
83
27
Czernetz to Neurath, 1 October 1943 (ANL, 1218/13). For the Socialist Emigration
see Helene Maimann, Politik im Wartesaal. Österreichische Exilpolitik in Großbritannien 1938 bis 1945 (Wien/Köln/Graz: Böhlau, 1975), pp. 82-90.
28
Neurath to Jahoda, 15 November 1943 (ANL 1220/35).
29
London, Aug. 29-30, 1942. See Maimann 1975 (note 27), p. 141; Richard Dove,
‘“Die Eigenart des österreichischen Geistes zur Anschauung bringen”. Kulturpolitik
im Exil, in Marietta Bearman et al (eds), Wien – London, Hin und Retour. Das
Austrian Centre in London 1939 bis 1947 (Wien: Czernin, 2004), pp. 63-68.
30
Neurath to Jahoda, 4 August 1942 (ANL, 1220/35).
31
Maimann 1975 (note 27), 141.
32
Freundlich to Neurath, 9 September 1942 (ANL, 1219/8).
33
Town Crier, Birmingham’s Labour Weekly, 30 January 1943, 6.
34
Neurath to Breitner, 4 December 1943 (ANL 1217/38).
35
Neurath to Freundlich, 7 September 1943 (ANL, 1219/9).
36
Christian Fleck/Albert Müller/Nico Stehr, ‘Nachwort’, in Paul Martin Neurath, Die
Gesellschaft des Terrors. Innenansichten der Konzentrationslager Dachau und
Buchenwald. Edited by Christian Fleck/Nico Stehr (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
2004), pp. 409-454.
37
See for instance the Wiener Kreis Archief, Haarlem (=WKA): ‘Das menschliche
Klima Deutschlands’ (204/ K. 65), ‘Eine Aussprache über das deutsche Klima’ (204/
K. 66), ‘Deutschlands menschliches Klima I: Der geniale Mensch und der
kategorische Imperativ’ (204/ K. 67)(WKA, Haarlem) or ‘Vom deutschen menschlichen Klima’ (ANL, Ser.n. 42.317).
38
Arthur Feltner (=Otto Neurath), ‘Das Genie und der kategorische Imperativ’, in Die
Zeitung, Londoner deutsches Wochenblatt, No. 415, 16. Februar 1945, p. 7.
39
Edgar Zilsel, Die Geniereligion. Ein kritischer Versuch über das moderne
Persönlichkeitsideal, mit einer historischen Begründung (1918). Edited and introduced by Johann Dvorak (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1990).
40
Feltner (=Neurath) 1945 (note 38).
84
Günther Sandner
41
Robert Lord Vansittart, former Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office,
claimed in his books such as Black Record (1941) or Bones of Contention (1945), that
the vast majority of the Germans were ‘unsuited to democracy’, were the most
aggressive people in all of history, and were responsible for World War II.
42
Otto Neurath, ‘Education in Occupied Germany – Intricate Problems’ (WKA,
205/K. 74).
43
See for example Neurath’s ‘Brief an Freunde’, 23 October 1944 (WKA, 364/ L.7).
44
Feltner (=Neurath) 1945 (note 38).
45
Neurath to Brenner, 3 November 1944 (Estate Paul Neurath, Department of Sociology, University of Vienna).
46
Otto Neurath, ‘Ways of Life in a World Community’, in The London Quarterly of
World Affairs, July 1944, 29-32, 31.
47
E.g. Otto Neurath, ‘Contributing Features in the Emotional and Intellectual Isolation of the Germans’ (WKA, 201/K. 48).
48
Otto Neurath, ‚Die Entwicklung des Wiener Kreises und die Zukunft des Logischen
Empirismus (1936)’, in Rudolf Haller/Heiner Rutte (eds), Otto Neurath. Gesammelte
philosophische und methodologische Schriften, vol 2 (Vienna: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1981), pp. 673-702.
49
Neurath, Ways of Life, 1944 (note 46).
50
Carl Herz, The Straight Line. From Soldier King to Soldier Dictator (London/New
York: Hutchinson, 1942). Neurath to Herz, 20 December 1942 (ANL, 1220/11).
51
Manfred Görtemaker, Thomas Mann und die Politik (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer,
2005), pp. 196-205.
52
Frank to Neurath, 5 August 1945 (ANL, 1218/52).
53
Gustav Neurath to Otto Neurath, 30 November 1944 (ANL, 1222/40).
54
Otto Neurath, ‘International Planning for Freedom (1942)’, in Neurath/Cohen, 1973
(note 5), pp. 422-440 (p. 429).
55
Otto Neurath/J.A. Lauwerys, ‘Nazi-Textbooks and the Future’, in The Journal of
Education, vol. 76 (1944), Nos. 904 and 905, 574-575.
56
Otto Neurath and J.A. Lauwerys, ‘Plato’s Republic and German Education’, in The
Journal of Education, vol. 77 (1945), No. 907, 57-59; No. 910, 222-224 and No. 913,
394.
The German Human Climate and Its Opposite
85
57
Antonia Soulez, ‘Does understanding mean forgiveness? Otto Neurath and Plato’s
Republic in 1944-45’, in Elisabeth Nemeth/Richard Heinrich (eds), Otto Neurath.
Rationalität, Planung, Vielfalt (Wien: Oldenbourg Akademie Verlag, 1999), pp. 167183.
58
Otto Neurath, ‘Germany’s Education and Democracy’, in The Journal of Education, vol. 77 (1945), No. 912, 370-71.
59
Neurath to Freundlich, 7 September 1943 (ANL, 1219/9).
60
Memorandum prepared by Dr. Otto Neurath at the request of the Commission on
the Belgian Memorandum (1945) (WKA, 550/ N. 125).
61
Neurath/Lauwerys, 1955 (note 55).