Austrian Culture

I have been reading with some amusement the revival of the controversy over Austria’s past role in the rise of Nazism.

As the son of a Viennese-educated father who was lucky enough to leave Vienna in 1933, much before the Anschluss, whose memories were quite a mixture of nostalgia and hatred (not uncommon among those who were nurtured by that culture as well as feeling its thorny side), I can only admire the ability of some of your readers to see “culture” as “orchestras” and “state operas” alone.

But did Nazi Germany possess an excellent philharmonic? Did not Hitler visit Bayreuth festivals? True. But one has also to recall Gustav Mahler’s experience in Vienna, has to read Arthur Schnitzler’s plays to see how thin this veneer of “culture” and propriety can be (and was) in Vienna.

With all respect, Austria did produce great men such as Freud, Mahler, Klimpt and Herzl, but it also gave rise to the political anti-Semitism of people such as Schoenerer, Karl Leuger and finally Adolf Hitler.

“Culture” does not equate with “humanity.”

GABRIEL MENKES

Van Nuys