28 Unfinished draft of a sketch of a biography of

UNFINISHED DRAFT OF A SKETCH OF A BIOGRAPHY OF

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN written in 1953 for private circulation by F.A. v. Hayek, with some later corrections and insertions

Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in on April 26, 1889, as the youngest child of a family unusually gifted in se- veral ways.1)

His paternal grandfather, a jewish wool - merchant in Saxony, had married a daughter of another similar family who had established themselves in Vienna and there become bankers and made themselves well known as patrons of the arts and for their musical gifts. Not long after their marriage this couple also moved to Vienna and here Karl Wittgenstein, Ludwig’s father, grew up to become one of the most success- ful industrialists of old . Highly gifted and strong willed, the young man soon revolted against the efforts to give him a careful classical education, and at the age of seventeen withdrew himself from the paternal authority by running away to America when, after he had been expelled for indiscipline from one of the best schools, he was to be put in charge of a domestic tutor.

The family learnt only after some weeks that he had arrived at New York with little more than his fiddle and was main- taining himself there as waiter and barkeeper and later by

1) In this sketch I act essentially as compiler of information collected from others. I have undertaken it because as a distant relation (a second cousin once removed) of L.W., who like him moved from Austria to England, I know at least the background in both countries and a great many of his friends. But though I have met him many times over an inter- val of nearly thirty years, I have never known him well. I had promised several of my informants that they would see a draft of this before I published anything – indeed this draft was intended mainly as a skeleton to be filled in by the comments of W.’s friends and was not intended to be published in this form. But as I never completed it, I also never circulated it for approval and comments as I had in- tended. Unfinished draft of a sketch of a biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein 29

- 2 - teaching the violin, mathematics, and German. After two years he returned to Vienna, studied for a short time at the Institute of Technology and worked in various engineering firms. A job offered to him by a relative as a draftsman on the construction of a new steel rolling mill in provided the great opportunity: entering at the age of 25, he soon virtually directed the construction and after four years had risen to the position of managing director of the new works. His further rise, which in another ten years made him head of the biggest iron and steel company in Austria and one of the richest men in the country is reminiscent of that of some of the American industrial leaders and has only few counterparts among European business men of the period. An early acquisition of the patent for the Thomas process and the organisation of the first cartel in his industry in Austria were among the decisive steps in this career. He was able to retire from active business when he was scarcely over fifty and when his youngest son was only nine years old. He was not only a man of exceptional energy and organizing capacity but also of considerable intellectual and artistic gifts: a collection of his occasional articles and lectures on economic policy, put together after his death,1) show a lucidity and terseness of expression in which some friends believe to recognize a similarity of intellectual style with his philosopher - son, who certainly shared with his father some traits of temperament and who was more devoted to him than to any other member of the family.

Karl Wittgenstein had married early and his wife, the daughter of a Viennese banker and a girl from a Styrian country family, was in her way also a remarkable person: gentle and like her husband highly musical, it was large- ly due to her that the Wittgenstein home in Vienna became a center of musical life where Johannes Brahms was a fre- quent guest.

1) Karl Wittgenstein, Zeitungsartikel and Vortra¨ge, private- ly printed, Vienna 1913.