Brigitte Hamann. Hitler's : A Dictator's Apprenticeship. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. xx + 482 $ 35.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-512537-5.

Reviewed by Lutz Musner

Published on H-Urban (September, 1999)

Brigitte Hamann is an independent scholar ing disintegration of the late multinational Habs‐ and recognized specialist in nineteenth and twen‐ burg empire which resulted in severe conficts be‐ tieth century Austrian history who became widely tween "clericalists" and Habsburg loyalists on one known for her work on Empress Elisabeth of Aus‐ side, libertines and German nationalists on the tria[1]. In this volume on the Viennese years of other. As in other parts of imperial Austria, Ger‐ Adolf Hitler, she presents an empirically rich ac‐ man nationalists forcefully turned against non- count of the cultural and social history of Austro- German folk groups, particularly Czechs, who rep‐ Hungary's imperial city in the last years before resented the majority of migrant workers seeking , as well as its impact upon Hitler. Her employment and better life chances because of basic objective is to provide an interpretative the gradual decline of the agricultural sector in frame of the sources of the racist, anti-Semitic, the countryside. and totalitarian dimension of Hitler's personality The second, much larger part, is devoted to and politics. Vienna as the center of the Austro-Hungarian The monograph deals with Hitler's early de‐ monarchy, and its social and cultural fabric in the velopment in three main parts. The frst part out‐ years before the Great War. In three chapters lines his childhood and family background in the Hamann attempts to summarize the main fea‐ Austrian province of Upper Austria and its capital, tures of the imperial city by showing its rather Linz, where Hitler attended high0 school. Aside unique context of monarchic rule and politics, the from the portrayal of complicated family rela‐ prevailing tradition of baroque culture, and its tions, characterized by a caring mother and a ambivalent attitudes towards modernity and harsh father demanding absolute obedience, modernism. Most of what Hamann compiles here Hamann sketches the cultural and political cli‐ is already well known historical knowledge about mate of turn-of-the-century Linz. Linz was heavily Fin de Siecle Vienna, which became a major re‐ infuenced by the political tensions and the ongo‐ search topic for cultural and social historians in H-Net Reviews the aftermath of Carl E. Schorske's pioneering cal rhetoric which resonated collective feelings work [2]. Her own contributions are, frstly, new and prejudices of xenophobia and ethnic exclu‐ fndings about Hitler's engagements and activities sion of non-Germans, and by setting up a system in Vienna, his bad fate as artist, male and human of 'municipal socialism' that counterbalanced the eccentric; and secondly, a sober and careful analy‐ most disastrous efects of accelerated industrial‐ sis and presentation of those theoreticians of race ization and market capitalism, he was able to base and ethnicity, who echoed the crisis of liberalism an anti-liberal rule of the city on a solid majority and early mass much more severely of petite and lower middle classes than in other (Western) capitals of Europe. Ob‐ clienteles. Lueger's populism framed the city's po‐ scure writers and heralds of world explanation litical space as an 'imagined community' by ex‐ such as Guido von List, Joerg Lanz von Liebenfels cluding and denunciating the 'others', in particu‐ and Carl Ritter von Schoenerer launched violent lar Jews and Slaves, for the sake of ethnic unity ideologies of Germanic world rule, xenophobia, and cultural homogeneity. Lueger's mesmerism in anti-Semitism, and anti-Slavic racism by naming transferring ideas and emotions onto others in 'an the ' ' superior and others 'lower almost supernatural way', as contemporary ob‐ races' or 'slave people'. servers reported, made him a perfect model of the "The zeitgeist was saturated with terms like modern people's tribune, who frequently recalls 'master race' and 'inferior race.' In order to cor‐ pre-democratic rules of the past, while neverthe‐ roborate race theories scientifcally, many 're‐ less being a forceful agent of structural change searchers' went haywire, measuring and compar‐ and technological modernization. ing skulls and extremities, establishing alleged The third part of Hamann's study encompass‐ racial diferences in the blood, in the electric re‐ es Hitler's immediate encounters with the city, his sistance, and in the breath, which was supposed misfortune at making an educational and profes‐ to express some kind of primal personal power. sional career as an artist, and his miserable life in Racial hierarchies were constructed. Everything, the gray army of migrants, casual laborers, and even diferences in the evolutionary levels of the migrants who desperately fought for a minimal Austro-Hungary's various nationalities, were ex‐ income to meet the basic needs of food and hous‐ plained by way of 'race'. (...) All race theoreticians ing. She also investigates Hitler's attitudes to‐ rejected the fundamental principles of legal wards Jews, which seem to have lacked any of the equality and democracy: the 'slave peoples' were brutish anti-Semitism that Hitler became notori‐ not considered worthy of the same rights as the ous for later on. To the contrary Hitler had mainly 'master peoples'."[3] Hamann presents ample evi‐ Jewish friends when he was a resident of the dence that Hitler not only knew these products of men's hostel in 1909, and he profted from Jewish paranoid "Weltanschauung" but has also studied social institutions in many ways, from public them with interest and great dedication. 'Waermestuben' to soup kitchens and Jewish citi‐ Another innovative dimension of Hamann's zens' donations to homeless shelters and men's perspective on Vienna in 1900 is the attention she hostels. devotes to the emergence of new political role What is astonishing about Hamann's Hitler's models which gave birth to the rise of populism Vienna is the almost entire disappearance of and authoritarian styles of mass politics. Karl "Hitler" as political phenomenon within the huge Lueger, lord mayor of Vienna between 1897 - bulk of information about the city's troublesome 1911, is a key fgure in this. In combining both course through modernity and modernization be‐ anti-egalitarian and patronizing motifs in a politi‐ fore 1914. Though Hamann is able to draw a vivid

2 H-Net Reviews picture of a city caught up in seemingly endless others refer to Hitler's enthusiasm for Gustave le ruptures and contradictions of political crisis, cul‐ Bon's Psychology of the Masses , still leaves unan‐ tural avant-garde and social confict, she is hardly swered some disturbing questions about his able to contextualize the genealogy of Hitler's tremendous success. Why did so many Germans monstrosity as fascist dictator without mercy and freely, enthusiastically and without within the specifc setting of Fin de Siecle Vienna. any hierarchical pressure follow Hitler's politics Though she presents evidence that Vienna's socio- of totalitarianism, war, and genocide? Why did political climate and some of its ideological and they happily accede to the destruction of democ‐ political key fgures from the Right had a forma‐ racy, civil rights and individual liberty? Why tive infuence on Hitler's later career as politician, could such a mediocre person without any quali‐ it never becomes distinctly clear which specifc ties and qualifcations become a mighty catalyst trajectories caused Hitler's transformation from of political turmoil and change? Was it a mere ac‐ mediocre and physically weak young man with cident that Hitler became the key actor of an no special talent or predisposition toward crime apocalyptic scenario which turned Europe into a and the demonic to his charismatic stage as mes‐ nightmare? Was it just by chance that Hitler spent merizing leader of the German masses in the his formative years in Vienna which during the 1930s who seduced the "little man", laborers, aca‐ Nazi regime became such a singular brutish and demics, and middle classes alike. Though she ad‐ notorious place of violent anti-Semitism and mits this missing dimension by saying that racial hatred? Many more questions asking for "Hitler's career cannot be derived, let alone un‐ the sources and reasons of Hitler's unique impact derstood, from his situation in Vienna" and that on a highly developed and culturally well-difer‐ this "Austrian had a career only in the Weimar Re‐ entiated society can be put forward. But in spite public,"[4] it has to be stated that the explanatory of all reservation and criticism Hamann's book, apparatus of her study remains largely unsatisfy‐ which ofers a lot of until recently unknown infor‐ ing. mation about Hitler's youth and early adulthood, This critique might not only appeal to can be recommended to anyone interested in Hamann's Hitler's Vienna alone but to a whole se‐ Hitler's biography and the history of German ries of biographically inspired studies. According Nazism. to Jochen Koehler, who reviewed a variety of re‐ Notes cent publications [5], it seems to be very difcult [1]. See, for example, Brigitte Hamann, Elisa‐ to ultimately anchor Hitler's murderous ideology beth: Kaiserin wider Willen (Wien: Amalthea Ver‐ and totalitarian impetus in the peculiarities of his lag, 1982). early (Viennese, , Landshut etc) years. [2]. Carl E. Schorske.Fin de Siecle Vienna: Poli‐ Koehler favors an explanatory model which tics and Culture New York: Alfred A. Knopf Pub‐ analyses Hitler's monstrous career as the result of lisher, 1980). a socio-pathological interaction between a leader and a specifcally conditioned "Volksgemein‐ [3]. Hamann, Hitler's Vienna, 204. schaft" (folk community) which was urgently [4]. Ibid., 404. yearning for political and even spiritual relief [5]. Jochen Koehler, Das Charisma des Er‐ from the disastrous and impoverished living con‐ folges. Aufstieg und Fall des Führers Adolf Hitler ditions in the , doomed by eco‐ aus heutiger Sicht in Lettre International (Heft 44, nomic crisis, high unemployment, and a rapid 1999). self-erosion of democratic rule and culture. Nev‐ ertheless, this interpretation, which can among

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Citation: Lutz Musner. Review of Hamann, Brigitte. Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship. H- Urban, H-Net Reviews. September, 1999.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3415

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