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 mid- 1920s onwards he focused on an ambitious pedagogical project. As director of the ‘Social and Economic Museum’ that opened in 1925, 68 Günther Sandner 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-