When I think about it I realise that I am extraordinarily humane. At the time of the rule of the Popes the Jews were mistreated in Rome. Until 1830, eight Jews mounted on donkeys were led once a year through the streets of Rome. For my part, I restrict myself to telling them they must go away. If they break their pipes on the journey I can't do anything about it. But if they refuse to go voluntarily, I see no other solution but extermination.
One morning in late March, Paul came into the room where Hermine was sitting, his face white with horror, and said to her: "Wir gelten als Juden" (We count as Jews!). Both he and his sister and their siblings suddenly and unexpectedly found themselves subject to all the anti-Semitic restrictions and prohibitions of the new National Socialist regime. Already barred from his post at the Conservatoire for his patriotic fervor, Paul was now banned from teaching in any civic institution and forbidden from performing in public anywhere within the Reich. Soon the Nazi eye would cast its glower on Hermine's Occupational Institute for Boys. A troop of uniformed men waving swastikas would turn up as she was teaching and order her to evacuate the premises by 4 p.m. as the building was needed as a training school for the Hitler Youth. Soon, too, the Nazis would discover Hilde Schania and her two children hidden away in her flat at Gersthoferstrasse 30, and connect them to Paul. The children themselves would be proof enough that a Jew, the father of Elizabeth and Johanna, was guilty of Rassenschande (race defilement) as codified in Section 2 of the Nuremberg Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor: "Extramarital intercourse between Jews and subjects of the state, of German or related blood, is forbidden."
But before these heavy threats were brought to bear, Hermine and Paul found themselves facing an altogether different charge, for they were in breach of the Fuhrer's decree of March 12 relating to the Reichsflaggengesetz or Reich Flag Law, which forbade Jews from displaying the swastika symbol. So by an odd twist of irony the detested flag that the Gestapo had forced Paul to hang from his Palais under threat of arrest was thus ordered down by the same frantic authority, on the basis that the occupants were now Jewish and had no right to fly it.
FIRST PLANS
Karl Lueger, the turn-of-the-century anti-Semitic mayor of Vienna, when challenged to define a Jew offered the catchphrase formula "Wer ein Jud' ist, bestimme Ich" (I decide who is a Jew). Hitler reserved this special privilege for himself as well and would occasionally (though rarely) grant an Aryanization certificate to Jews that he liked. He insisted, however, on the right to examine each of their applications personally, poring over photographs and letters of recommendation. Most cases hinged on whether a Jewish ancestor of the male line was the true father or a cuckold to his wife's Aryan lover. In such incidents a signed affidavit was needed, which is precisely what happened in the case of Hitler's trusted ally, Field Marshal Erhard Milch, who responded to the Gestapo's discovery that his father Anton Milch was Jewish by asking his mother to sign a statement swearing that his true father had been the Aryan Karl Bauer--her uncle.
To enjoy full civil rights under the new regime each person required a Reich Citizenship Certificate, which could be obtained only by providing proof of Aryan descent. But this in itself was often problematic. Was a Jew considered Jewish by blood or by religion? What if one of his parents was half Jewish by blood but Christian by upbringing? This muddle was supposedly resolved by the Nuremberg Laws of September 1935, in which it was stipulated that a Jew must be defined as anyone who descends from at least three Jewish grandparents or from two Jewish grandparents if they themselves were, on or after September 15, 1935, either married to a Jewish person or a member of the Jewish community. It was further stated that conversion to Christianity by a Jewish grandparent did not change the racial status of that grandparent, who in law remained a Jew; but even this was not clear enough for all cases and in March 1936 the Reich Association for Non-Aryan Christians issued a question-and-answer booklet for further clarification: "What can be said about the marriage of a half-Aryan with a girl who has one Aryan parent, but whose Aryan mother converted to Judaism so that the girl was raised as a Jew? What can be said further about the children of this marriage?"
In the massive confusion, the system threw up thousands of surprises and anomalies. Many had not the slightest idea about their grandparents' blood or religion. Furthermore investigations showed that there was far more Jewish blood in the system than the Nazis had either hoped or expected to find. When they discovered that Johann Strauss, the "Waltz King," had Jewish blood they simply erased his record from the registry. Similar complications arose with the ancestors of Richard Wagner's wife and of Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart's librettist, so that special arrangements had to be made in order not to have to ban performances of the Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and the "Blue Danube" Waltz, and so that Hitler could continue to enjoy the Wagner Festival at Bayreuth in the company of the composer's granddaughter.
Many active members of the Nazi Party were brought to a rude awakening when they discovered that they themselves qualified as Jews under the Nuremberg rules. Hitler's vapid English friend Unity Mitford wrote to her sister Diana of a woman called Eva Baum: "She was discovered to be a half-Judin. Isn't it amazing... I am really sorry for her, as the Partei & her hate for the Jews were really all she had." In another letter Miss Mit-ford wrote of her friend Heinz, a member of the SS and a "real Nazi 'aus Uberzeugung' " (by conviction) who suddenly found that he too was half Jewish and whose wife sought Miss Mitford's help in bringing his case to Hitler's attention: "Of course poor Heinz was completely erledigt [shattered] when he heard it, & wanted to shoot himself at once, which it seems to me would have been the best way out... Isn't it awful for them, poor things. I must say it gave me an awful shock when she told me."
The case of the Wittgensteins looked, prima facie, pretty clear-cut. They were all brought up as Catholic Christians. Both their parents (Karl and Leopoldine) had also been brought up as Christians. Their maternal grandmother, Marie Kalmus (nee Stallner; 1825-1911), had no Jewish blood and was brought up Catholic, but her husband, their maternal grandfather, Jacob Kalmus (1814-70), was by blood and by upbringing Jewish. In 1832 both he and his mother converted to Catholicism. On the paternal side their grandmother Franziska Figdor (1814-90) was also Jewish--though she too was baptized as a Christian in adulthood, while her husband Hermann Christian Wittgenstein (1802-78) was, according to the wording on his baptismal certificate of 1839, "educated in the Jewish faith." Three out of their four grandparents were therefore Jewish, which made them Volljuden (full Jews) under the Nuremberg legislation.
According to Hermine, "Our most intimate family had never considered itself Jewish." This may well be true, but was based on the understanding that they were not Jewish because their ancestors had converted, not on any belief that they had no Jewish blood. Sometime before his father's death Paul had taken a keen interest in family genealogy and produced family trees that demonstrated his descent from several distinguished figures of Viennese Jewry, including direct lines to the court financier and Chief Rabbi Samson Wertheimer (1678-1724), and to the famous banker, imperial court factor and arms dealer Samuel Oppenheimer (1635-1703). Through these connections the charts also reveal his kinship to two of the nineteenth century's greatest Jewish composers, Giacomo Meyerbeer and Felix Mendelssohn. In youth, he and Ludwig had applied to join a sports club in Vienna. When they discovered that membership was limited to Aryans, Ludwig had suggested falsifying the application form, which Paul refused to do. Their uncle Louis when asked about the Wittgensteins' Jewishness answered, "Pur sang!" with an affected grin. He, of course, was an ardent Christian Evangelist. When Nazi anti-Semitism became a talking point in England, Ludwig, filled with remorse, went about rousing his friends at inconvenient hours to make formal confessions to them. He felt that he had somehow allowed them to form the impression that he came from a family of Aryan aristocrats, when he should have told them that he was Jewish all along.
So it seems that the Wittgensteins knew
from the start of their Jewish ancestry and that in some respects they were proud of it, but as a family of three generations of practicing Christians they were by 1938 (if not long before) in a state of denial when it came to the crunch question "Are you Jewish?"
Ludwig was surprised when news reached him of the Anschluss, as he had never believed it would happen. He was in Ireland at the time and returned immediately to Cambridge, where he wrote to Paul and Hermine telling them that, if needed, he would come to Vienna straightaway. At the same time he took the precaution of soliciting advice from his friend the economist Piero Sraffa. Sraffa told him not to risk a trip to Austria, as the authorities there were unlikely to let him leave again, that he would have to exchange his Austrian passport for a German one and that if they discovered his Jewish ancestry they might refuse even to do this. Caught between the displeasing alternatives of becoming a German citizen (which "even apart from all the nasty consequences is appalling to me") and applying for a British passport ("something I have always rejected on the grounds that I do not wish to become a sham-Englishman"), Ludwig chose the latter, receiving a year later (on April 14, 1939) a grant of British citizenship.
By March 18, 1938, he had still heard nothing from his family in Vienna but had worked out for himself that "by the annexation of Austria by Germany I have become a German citizen and, by the German laws, a German Jew (as three of my grandparents were baptized only as adults)." As far as the rest of his family was concerned he took the view that since "they are almost all retiring and very respected people who have always felt and behaved patriotically it is, on the whole, unlikely that they are at present in any danger."
In Vienna, Paul and Hermine were of much the same opinion. Neither had bothered to make a study of the Nuremberg Laws, but they blithely assumed that, even if their Jewish blood were held against them by the new regime, they would probably be protected by virtue of the family's high standing in Austrian public life. All they needed to do was to explain how good, worthy and patriotic the Wittgensteins had always been and that should be enough to ensure them their Deutschblutigkeitser-klarungen, or German Blood Certificates. Of course it was never going to be that simple. Paul went first on his own to an office in the Minoriten-platz, waited for several hours in a queue in the hallway only to be told when he reached the end of it that rules were rules and his application for special treatment was rejected.
On April 30, Gretl returned from America. She had stopped briefly in Paris for an emergency meeting with Ludwig and to call on Jerome. By the time she reached Vienna she was full of bright ideas about what needed doing. All her adult life she had hosted diplomats, politicians and people in important positions and now, at this moment of national and familial crisis, she sensed the long-awaited opportunity to exhibit her energies and capabilities. First she insisted that Paul had been wasting his time with the authorities in Vienna, they were pettifogging power-maniacs, she knew far more important people in the high echelons of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) in Berlin. These were the people to whom they should apply with a properly drawn-up dossier itemizing all the family's worthy and patriotic achievements.
Hermine was put in charge of collecting the information. She wrote to Ludwig asking if he would lend his weight to their application by sending her a list of his medals, wartime deeds and charitable actions. Fearing, perhaps, that this might jeopardize his own ongoing application for British citizenship, Ludwig wrote back to Paul:
Although I won't join with you in making this application, I am however convinced of its justifiability for you. You may of course cite my war service etc.; it's just that this must not lead to a misunderstanding that as a result I am automatically involved in your application. With much love and good wishes, yours Ludwig.
The stated intention of Hermine's dossier was "to prove the German and Christian nature of the Wittgenstein family and the numerous services performed by the family members for their Fatherland." On a neatly drawn family tree it was also stated that the Wittgensteins wished to carry on making charitable donations in future and to "do everything in our power to prove that we retain a similar attitude towards the common good of the new regime, even though the family assets have been considerably reduced by World War and inflation." A list of Paul's military achievements and some of his less secretive donations was easy to draw up, but Hermine had to write to some of Ludwig's army friends to ask them what they knew, if anything, about his decorations. As to Kurt's army record it was decided that no mention should be made of his men refusing to obey orders, but the dossier should simply state that he had fought with courage and shot himself at the end only in order to avoid capture by the Italians.
As to the list of the family's charitable donations, this too proved to be problematical for upon closer investigation Hermine discovered that a great deal of the money had been misspent--the million kronen that Ludwig had donated for a super-cannon, for instance, had been wasted; the million Kurt had left to charity had disappeared; the 600,000 that Dr. von Eiselsberg had taken in the name of cancer research had never been put to any such use. Hermine found countless lowering examples of this type and each new discovery grieved her. When the authorities discovered her father's 40,000-florin donation toward the cost of building the "Golden Cabbage" (the exhibition hall of the Vienna Secession) in 1898, they demanded the removal of a fixed plaque commemorating this act of Jewish generosity. "Jews who become philanthropists and endow foundations are dirty dogs [said Hitler in conversation]. As a rule, it's the most rascally of them who do that sort of thing. And then you'll hear these poor Aryan boobies telling you: 'You see, there are good Jews!' "
At the beginning of June Paul and Gretl, bearing Hermine's "beautiful" dossier, traveled to Berlin, the dynamic and cosmopolitan capital of Hitler's Reich. Here, in the lion's den, the place where the Nazi Party had its headquarters, Jews felt safer than in Vienna. From the moment they stepped off the train at Berlin's Anhalter Bahnhof, Paul and Gretl noticed how not everybody in Berlin was wearing swastika badges and armbands as they did in Vienna; that there was no red paint daubed on Jewish shops. Here Jews were still permitted to attend theaters and cinemas, to eat in restaurants and cafes, to own and run shops that were still serving Aryan customers. On the Kurfurstendamm, Berlin's main shopping street, only one boutique displayed the sign ubiquitous in Vienna: "No Jewish customers." In sharp contrast to the German capital, Vienna now seemed a thuggish and provincial backwater.
Gretl had succeeded in arranging a meeting with Captain Fritz Wiedemann, Hitler's ADC, at the Chancellery, Berlin W8. The introduction may have been arranged by the Dodds. William Dodd, the American Ambassador to Berlin, knew both Jerome and Gretl, while his daughter, Martha Dodd, was seen at parties in Washington with Ji. But Ambassador Dodd hated all Nazis with the exception of Hermann Goring and had, in any case, left Berlin in December 1937. Martha, his daughter, also disliked Wiedemann, describing him in her book Through Embassy Eyes as "exuding eroticism, with heavy face and beetling eyebrows, friendly eyes and extremely low forehead, [and] rather attractive ... but I got the distinct impression of an uncultivated, primitive mind, with the shrewdness and cunning of an animal, and completely without delicacy or subtlety."
A more likely source of Gretl's introduction to Wiedemann was his mistress, the pushy Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingfurst, who was in Washington enjoying the same diplomatic-party circuit as Gretl at the beginning of April. The two women had met one another before that in Vienna and also in Paris. In a sense they were rivals--as both were Viennese hostesses, both batting their eyelids at the same small circle of prominent diplomats and both actively seeking to use their connections to their own strategic advantage. The Princess (who had had an illegitimate son by Franz Salvator of Austria-Tuscany, a member of the same family that had leased and subsequently sold the Villa Toscana at Gmunden to the Stonboroughs) had become the lover of Fritz Wiedemann in order to maintain close contact with Hitler, whom she first met when acting as ambassador for
the British press baron Lord Rothermere.
Hitler was briefly infatuated by Princess Stephanie, but by the time Paul and Gretl came to see Fritz Wiedemann he had discovered that she was Jewish, that she was the mistress of his adjutant and that, according to his advisers, she might also be a double agent. In his conversations he called her "a scarecrow," adding: "I prefer a friendly little kitchen wench to a politically minded lady!" Because of this, Wiedemann had to explain to Paul and Gretl that he was being cold-shouldered by the Fuhrer and that he could not possibly arrange an audience as he was expecting himself to be sacked at any moment. Instead he arranged for them to see SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Kurt Mayer, who headed the Reich Agency for Genealogical Research on the Schiffbauerdamm a few streets away. Soon after this meeting Wiedemann was sacked by Hitler and posted abroad as German consul in San Francisco. Gretl later admitted that she had liked him very much despite his being of little help.
At the Agency for Genealogical Research, Paul and Gretl met Kurt Mayer, who had a doctorate in history, running an office staff of eighty-one men and forty-two women, most of whom were in their late twenties or early thirties, struggling to process an avalanche of Aryanization requests from desperate Jewish families. By the end of the war Mayer and his staff had sifted through 52,000 case files, fewer than 10 percent of which resulted in any change to the classification of the applicant.
At his desk Mayer looked courteously over Paul and Gretl's papers and listened to their arguments but concluded that the past glories of the Wittgenstein family had nothing to do with the case: they had three Jewish grandparents and must therefore accept the official classification of Volljuden. Their only hope was to discover that one of these grandparents was the illegitimate son or daughter of an Aryan in which case they might be eligible for the status of Mischling, or half-breed, which, although unpleasant, would at least exempt them from the more oppressive laws applied to Volljuden: "A second Aryan grandparent is essential," he told them.
The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War Page 24