The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War

Alexander Waugh's absorbing epic about the Wittgenstein family, especially Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm during WW1 and subsequently achieved fame as a one-armed pianist, makes for fascinating reading. It fleshes out that cultural period in Vienna, and provides insights into Paul Wittgenstein's relationships with various composers, among them Ravel, Britten, Prokofief and Strauss, who were commissioned by him to compose music for the left hand. But it is also a story about a mega disfunctional family which includes Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the foremost philosophers of the 20th century, and how they ultimately dealt with their heritage (part Jewish) and the Nazis. Beautifully written, it is a "must read" on so many levels.

This book examines the Wittgenstein family, a fabulously rich Austrian dynasty, through three generations. The elder Wittgenstein, Karl, cornered the steel market in the Austro-Hungarian empire in the latter part of the 19th century and became one of the richest men in the world.The family was headquartered in a lavish Vienna palace and often hosted personalities like Brahms and Mahler for musical evenings. One of the daughters, Gretl, was painted by Gustav Klimt. They were scions of artistic life in the Austrian capital even though three of the four grandparents were Jews who converted to Christianity. Later, this was to be the cause of great trouble when the occupying Nazis classified them as Jews.Of Karl's eight children, three committed suicide and two achieved fame: Ludwig has been hailed as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century while Paul, who lost an arm fighting in World War I, became a well-known left-handed virtuoso who commissioned works from Richard Strauss, Prokofiev, Benjamin Britten, Hindemith and most notably the great left-handed concerto of Maurice Ravel.This breezily-written book goes into great detail about the strained relations between various family members but is overbalanced in favor of Paul, who emerges clearly as the book's hero.Paul behaved with great courage when captured by the Russians in World War I. He underwent awful suffering in squalid prison camps. The cruelty with which the Russians treated their prisoners of war should not I suppose have come as any surprise, but I was not previously aware of it.The main shortcoming of the book is the relatively cursory treatment it affords to Ludwig, who was certainly the family member with the best lasting claim to fame. I think I learned more from the Wikipedia pages on Ludwig ([...]) than from this book. The author makes little attempt to grapple with the meaning of his philosophy or analyze his lasting influence. He basically suggests that Wittgenstein was hailed as a genuis because his work was so incomprehensible. I had the impression that for this author, the emperor had no clothes. But there must have been more to it than that.Instead, we get pages and pages about Paul, whose limited historical importance today rests on the piano music he commissioned. Paul quarreled with most of the composers he patronized, always insisting on a more prominent piano part and less orchestra. He never played the Prokofiev concerto and drove Ravel crazy by insisting on changes.The vast Wittgenstein fortune was lost through a combination of poor investments, the stock market crash of 1929 and the Nazis who fought tooth and nail to get their hands on what was left. The chapter on the Wittgensteins' frantic efforts to have themselves declassified as Jews or escape from Austria makes harrowing reading. With all their money and influence, they succeeded. Others were not so fortunate.In the end, I wondered what this book added up to. It was interesting but most of the characters were so mediocre, petty and pathetic that I eventually tired of them.

This book is interesting in that it depicts the two sides of great wealth in the course of each family member's life.The negotiations with the Nazi government is interesting. That each member of the family escaped the lawless and brutal physical tactics of the Nazi is amazing.

I actually know a descendent of Wittgenstein. I thought this was a really good book. It covers a lot about Paul - but I was fascinated since I knew of him, but really nothing about him. It was interesting to learn the dynamics amongst the siblings and between the parents, etc... All families are unhappy in their own unique way, eh? I will be sure to re-read this before I go to Vienna again. Well written.

superbly written. learned much about the Hapsburg empire as well. Waugh's grandfather knew people from Florence as well. Waugh has great facility as a writer which reminds me that my first extravaganza was twenty some Oxford English Dictionary. one of my few treasures.

It’s a shame that the publisher did not review and correct the text. The material is interesting, but as the book progresses one realizes that the author loses the control of it. The book has a big problem, and it is its lack of structural approach. Although it starts as a book about the family, it ends up being a short of a biography about Paul Wittgenstein… short of. It is also full of typos, rarely a German word is correctly spelt. There are passages that are cited twice without mentioning one another, which revels that the author hasn’t even proofread his manuscript. The carelessness of this edition is indescribable.

This is a fascinating look into the life of the lesser-known (but no less brilliant and crazed and obsessive) brother. No novel could as persuasively match the facts of one of the most afflicted (with genius and torment) families in the twentieth century.

But the detail becomes tedious at times, & it's a long read....Worth reading for all the historical & artisticinformation.

An excellent account of the lives and history of a wealthy, talented and eccentric family during a tumultuous time in Europe

A fascinating story; of course sad, shows how everyone is a prisoner of his destiny, and how the greatest of families can be destroyed in the course of a single generation. Also a European tragedy, reflecting the barbarity and plain stupidity which reigned supreme in Austria and Germany.

This book reads like a well written novel, even though it is non fiction and even though I learned a great deal about the historical period from just before World War I through World War II… and two extremely important personalities of the 20th century. The characters were fascinating and well developed and I couldn't wait to get back to it every time I put it down. I highly recommend this book.

There is a great deal of new material in this, from my point of view. It is very interesting and illuminating and based on extensive research and remarkable, even personal, knowledge of members of this extensive family.There is not very much about Ludwig, the chief interest for me; but a great deal about Paul, the left handed pianist, because the author's background is music.But even with Ludwig there are useful things. On p104 we have the explanation of Ludwig's giving away to his sublings (3 of them) all his wealth, inherited from his father. The connexion between 'The Tractatus' and Tolstoy's 'Gospel in Brief' is very clear: Ludwig was simply obeying the Christian principle.The two homosexual experiences with Francis Skinner seem to settle the issue often debated: the shame of these prevented any recurrence in this paragon of moral purity, his struggle for perfection. The information given by WWBartley about meetings in the Prater with homosexual men is still not justified in any way.The actions of the Nazis in trying to get the family money are very well explained. 125 kilogramme bars of gold in a Swiss bank were handed over so that the sisters could continue to live in Vienna as non jews. Otherwise, they would have been sent to the concentration camp. There is almost no mention of Ludwig's part in this, which other recent writings have given.The author is a journalist and, for the most part, the writing is very accessible. There is, perhaps, too much detail that is tedious about Paul.

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