TRANS Nr. 16: Nikolaus Unger (University of Warwick): Two ‘Good Europeans’: Nietzschean innovation in the late-Habsburg thought of Hermann Bahr and Stefan Zweig

Reconciliation between national and European identities deserves attention because of its pertinence to European Union expansion and integration in Central Europe. Although topical today, these concerns have also engaged intellectual preoccupation in the past; the philosophical views of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) on the phenomenon of nationalism and the future of European culture anticipate many of these issues, albeit in a late-nineteenth century context.

As he observes in ‘Der europäische Mensch und die Vernichtung der Nationen’ in Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (1878),

Because he was not alone in dealing with the effects that German nationalism was having on European culture at this time, Nietzsche’s ideas provide an innovative intellectual composite worthy of further enquiry.

This article will explore the late-Habsburg reception and reproduction of these ‘good European’ ideals by two of the philosopher’s near contemporaries, Hermann Bahr (1863-1934) and Stefan Zweig (1881-1942).(3) Influential Austrian German authors with a European-wide readership, both experienced and reacted to the late-nineteenth century emergence of nationalism, with its broader implications for Austrian German and European identity construction; searching for new ways to understand themselves, these intellectuals recognised a noteworthy compatibility between their formative Austrian German national identity and the aesthetic pursuit of a transnational European cultural modernity. Not coincidently, the both enjoyed a noteworthy reception of Nietzsche’s philosophy.

By taking into account the generational perspectives that link both Bahr and Zweig to broader transformations in the cultural atmosphere of late-Habsburg Austria, recognising Nietzsche’s role in that change and exploring Bahr and Zweig’s individual responses to his philosophical ideas, this article will show that a Nietzschean reading of both intellectuals can function as an enlightening window into their respective Weltanschauungen before the First World War.

The Generational Perspective

Before 1900, Nietzsche’s observations and conclusions anticipated several important events and movements that contributed to a significant transformation in the cultural atmosphere of the Austrian German intellectual middle class. Politically and culturally, liberalism played a central role in this change; the movement’s drive to transform the old social order and replace the rigid hierarchical system elicited converse effects throughout Habsburg society. During the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, liberal challenge and emulation of the aristocratic class directly stimulated the emergence of classes and nations from below. Its targets and goals, such as the belief in a multi-national Austria united under the banner of German cultural hegemony, laissez faire economic policies and the establishment of a modern economy, the desire to undermine the social position and privileges of the Catholic Church and even an aspiration for the fuller social integration of Habsburg Jewry backfired, furthering social polarisation.

As a result, Pan-Germanism, Christian Socialism and Social Democracy appeared in the Austrian German community in the form of mass political movements. Disillusioned with the liberal political system and the reign of the educated middle class, emergent mass politics shunned liberalism’s faith in reason, order and progress and instead advocated a popular politics of emotion.(4) Focused on the mass political mobilisation of previously unrepresented social groups, these movements did much to both modernise and destabilise existing Austrian German political society.

Emerging alongside these remarkable changes, rapid technological developments enhanced these intellectuals’ sense of living in a modern society, offering an escape from the distinctly unmodern nature of the political system and their increasing ineffectualness within it. Furthermore, scientific and intellectual innovation produced a climate of change that stressed the incompatibility of new values with the still extravagantly conservative mores of much of Austrian society, creating an unsettling environment; a positivist atmosphere of scientific progress and rapid technological change directly aided increased individualisation within the Viennese Bildungsbürgertum between 1890 and 1910, a phenomenon that Jacque Le Rider has labelled an ‘identity crisis’ of individualism.(5)

Modernism also contributed to this broader transformation, especially in its specific impact on artistic and literary culture. Carl Schorske characterises the emergence of modernism in late Habsburg Austria in terms of a broader social value shift, writing, ‘Here historical change not only force[d] upon the individual a search for a new identity but also impose[d] upon whole social groups the task of revising or replacing defunct belief systems’.(6) This is particularly relevant to those involved with the arts. A revolution of the consciousness leading to the production of new socially and historically disengaged cultural forms, modernism was an expression of discomfort rather than a harmonious reflection of fin-de-siècle modernity; it embodied a protest by intellectuals against what was happening around them.(7) A closer look at who these intellectuals were, with a particular emphasis on literature, is in order.

Liberalism’s failure to achieve a full and sustained social and political application in Habsburg Austria confronted two post-liberal generations of intellectuals: the generations of the 1890’s and 1905. Authors of what H. Stuart Hughes has identified as the generation of the 1890’s, intellectuals who were born in the 1850’s and 1860’s and reached maturity at about thirty years of age during this decade, directly participated in the cultivation of Austrian German literary modernity.(8) Their artistic achievements influenced the subsequent generation of 1905; this grouping included those born between the 1870’s and 1890’s: intellectuals who were old enough to share in the cultural transformation of the fin de siècle and yet young enough to go to the front during the First World War. As David Luft characterises the generation of 1905, ‘what was new for those born after 1870 was the centrality of ethical questions, the intersections of the problems of philosophy and literature, and the actual historical experience of their mature years’.(9)

Let us look at a few brief examples. Hermann Bahr, Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) and Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) can be grouped under the generation of the 1890’s. Raised in an environment that understood liberal values as self-evident truths, their formative years coincided with the challenge to liberalism’s hegemony; many of its intellectuals reached maturity in the 1890’s only to revolt culturally against the dry rational convictions of their fathers. Since these three intellectuals were significantly older than Stefan Zweig, let us also take into consideration the example of Robert Musil (1880-1942), who, like Zweig, can be included in the generation of 1905. Raised in the legacy of the generation of the 1890’s and living after the height of liberal nationalism, these intellectuals saw the aesthetic as their starting point, while sharing a cosmopolitan and distinctly apolitical concern for greater German culture.

The crisis presented by liberalism’s insuccesses greatly affected both generations. Their fathers’ bourgeois attempt to imitate aristocratic aesthetic values and assimilate their political position failed with their inability to exercise real political change from above, directly resulting in the transformation of the aesthetic into an escapist refuge from the unfavourable reality of political society.(10) Highly regarded among members of this social class, the arts offered a desirable and noble alternative career path for the writers, artists and architects of the generation of the 1890’s to follow.(11) The inapplicability of traditional liberal values, which individual members of the generation of the 1890’s saw in their changing social, political and cultural environment, elicited a collective generational rebellion against them; this younger generation sought instead to replace their fathers’ defunct belief system with the pursuit of ‘die Wahrheit’ as they understood it - in aesthetic terms.(12) Describing this ‘truth’, Bahr writes,

To the generation of the 1890’s, a preoccupation with the changing world around them and the psychological aspects of humanity replaced the liberal concern with Bildung und Besitz prevalent among their fathers’ generation.(14)

The examples of Bahr, Schnitzler and Hofmannsthal clearly illustrate this. Raised during liberalism’s height, they witnessed firsthand the decline of its political involvement and felt the tension between its universalistic values and their elitist reality. Because of this, they turned toward a newfound concern with the instinctual and psychological, explored through the aesthetic, that helped them better come to terms with their post-liberal social and political environment.

Musil and Zweig present an additional component of this phenomenon. Raised in the liberal tradition and exposed to the revolt of the generation of the 1890’s, they concerned themselves with neither; these intellectuals appreciated and assimilated the important cultural accomplishments of their predecessors, understanding these values as a point of departure.(15) The existential problem of humanity, the stability of High German culture and the predicament of liberal intellectual thought replaced an interest in national political involvement and the exploration of the truth through the aesthetic. Raised by liberals and reaching young adulthood during the fin de siècle, the generation of 1905 experienced the crisis of individualism with the generation of the 1890’s as their guides.

Overall, this broader phenomenon greatly affected both post-liberal generations and each cultivated a distinct yet linked response. Reflecting on this experience and highlighting the intellectual ties between the generation of the 1890’s and 1905, Musil writes,

Seen together, these brief examples help to reveal the post-liberal intellectual paradigm operating within the Austrian German Bildungsbürgertum around the turn of the century. Sharing a background rooted in liberalism and confronted with its decline, authors like Bahr, Schnitzler, Hofmannsthal, Musil and Zweig developed individual yet connected intellectual responses to a shared problem.

Austrian German Liberalism and Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy

Operating alongside this generational phenomenon, Nietzsche’s philosophy directly contributed to the broader transformation in the cultural atmosphere of the Austrian German intellectual bourgeoisie. The poignant anti-liberal message of his 1872 Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik corresponded with rising dissatisfaction with the liberal atmosphere of late 1870’s Austria. Although his philosophy would later change its direction, Nietzsche understood and reflected upon the limited, but significant, success of his first book in the 1886 edition of The Birth of Tragedy, which included a new preface entitled ‘Versuch einer Selbstkritik’;

Alluding to the impact of German nation building, he acknowledges the intoxicating mixture of rationalism and romanticism of the time, which contributed to the fertile intellectual climate among Austrian German intellectuals for the reception of these ideas.(18)

By the late 1870’s/early 1880’s, liberalism had exerted greater influence in Austria than in the German Empire. However, liberalism in the Austro-Hungarian Empire faced rising nationalist concerns among the Austrian Germans of Cisleithania, who saw their culture and resources threatened by Slav nationalism and therefore incorporated a new national component into their liberal-national ideology.(19) Die Geburt der Tragödie came to enjoy such a significant reception among Austrian German Bildungsbürger circles precisely because its message was more topical in Austria than in Germany at this time.

Indirectly confronting the ideas of his day, Nietzsche focuses on what he sees as the problem of German culture in the work’s 1872 preface, warning readers,

Questioning the transformation within Greek culture from the pre-Hellenic period, a time which featured the cultural predominance of tragic drama and the collective ritual of its performance, to Hellenism, with its post-Socratic tradition of analytic philosophy and emphasis on individualism, the crux of Nietzsche’s argument is simple: this age of tragedy, the golden age of classical Greece, featured an aesthetic component consisting of an Apollonian and Dionysian duality, which the Hellenic period acutely lacked. As he purports, Greek culture lost something when this Attic balance between reason and emotion gave way to an emphasis on Hellenic logic. Reflecting on the past, Nietzsche implicitly criticises his time, attacking the heavy emphasis that liberalism places on rationalism and individualism because it marginalises a necessary and affirmative communal emotive component; with Greek civilisation as an example, German culture faces similar jeopardy. This line of reasoning aroused the attention of several important Austrian German intellectuals.

Largely due to the relevance of his ideas to Austrian German liberalism, Nietzsche’s distinctive response to classical tradition and the uniqueness of his attempt to transform it found its first enthusiastic readership in Vienna and not Berlin. Overall, the philosopher remained largely ignored in both the Austrian and German popular sphere until the 1890’s, after which he would come to have worldwide cultural impact. However, before 1890, Nietzsche cultivated a small but key following in Austrian German Bildungsbürger intellectual circles. Significantly influencing every thinker Austria produced during this period, including Bahr and Zweig, Nietzsche’s ideas helped redefine the direction of Austrian German cultural thought as a whole.

Confined to a small but important audience, these intellectuals greeted Nietzsche as ‘a German thinker with German roots addressing what were thought to be largely German problems’.(21) This was especially true of several Bildungsbürger students at the University of Vienna in the 1870’s; sharing a nouveau riche educated bourgeois family background, the ‘Pernerstorfer Circle’ included: Victor Adler (1852-1918), Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), Engelbert Pernerstorfer (1850-1918), Sigfried Lipiner (1856-1911), Richard von Kralik (1852-1934), Heinrich Friedjung (1851-1920), Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) and Max von Gruber (1853-1927). In 1872, these intellectuals joined a politically oriented university organisation: the Leseverein der deutschen Studenten Wiens. The reading society was founded in December 1871 ‘to adhere to and represent the German character of the University of Vienna at every opportunity’.(22)

Responding to liberalism’s problematic social appliance, these intellectuals joined the Leseverein with a clear agenda: a combination of nationalism and social reform that sought to reunite the spirit of the German Volk and create a more cohesive and just social order.(23) While the primary activities of this organisation between 1871-1874 concentrated almost exclusively on the criticism of liberalism and class structure, 1875-1878 saw the emphasis of its programme fall more on the cultivation of a new Weltanschauung through the ideas of Nietzsche and Wagner.(24)

Since Nietzsche’s early writings criticised the avaricious individualism implicit to liberalism’s implementation, his emotive philosophy of tragedy struck a deep personal chord with the group. In October 1877, members of the Pernerstorfer Circle, including Adler, corresponded with the philosopher and held several public lectures and discussions at the university on Nietzsche’s ideas through the medium of the Leseverein.(25) Additionally, Lipiner actively pursued a close relationship with Nietzsche from 1877-1878, establishing a direct and dynamic dialogue between Nietzsche and the organisation. Through Lipiner, Nietzsche’s early philosophical ideas influenced the members of both the Circle and the Leseverein, directly spreading these ideas through a limited but extremely influential university crowd.(26) Although brief, Nietzsche’s introduction into the Austrian German cultural sphere through this organisation would have lasting effects.

By 1878, however, the Austrian government forced the Leseverein’s dissolution, citing radical anti-liberal conduct, and the group’s activities moved beyond the university. Influenced by Nietzsche and Wagner and critical of liberalism, Adler, Pernerstorfer and Friedjung joined the pan-German nationalist Georg von Schönerer (1842-1921) to draft the influential Linz Program in June 1882, thus forever changing the nature and direction of Austrian German politics. The group’s other members went on to propagate this Nietzschean Weltanschauung in their respective cultural fields.

This reception is important because it marks the beginning of a distinctly Austrian, rather than German, movement within Austrian German Bildungsbürger society that directly links members of the Pernerstorfer Circle with Bahr, who at this time was a university student deeply involved in the political aspects of their project, and subsequently Zweig. The thoughts on Nietzsche’s philosophy discussed and disseminated through the Leseverein and its successor organisations altered the way in which many of those who received these ideas understood their own culture. Nietzsche helped them to break apart the bonds of liberal cultural tradition, directly bringing about the personal and social evolution of a modernist response to their situation. Each of these individuals, who would later become influential figures in their own right, embraced his ideas, creating a remarkable intellectual legacy inherited by the generation of the 1890’s and 1905.

Overall, the emergence of alternative cultural forces to liberalism, in both political-technological and artistic-literary forms, coupled with its failure, created an environment in which Austrian German intellectuals of these two post-liberal generations became increasingly concerned and preoccupied with cultural, social and personal identity in the changing world around them. As demonstrated above, a limited but significant reception of Nietzsche’s philosophy figured prominently in this transformation. In light of this Nietzschean perspective, let us look more closely at the case of Hermann Bahr.

Hermann Bahr’s Reception of Nietzsche

Hermann Bahr provides an excellent example of this generational phenomenon. Raised and educated in a liberal environment, Bahr broke away from the world of his father in order to participate in radical mass politics while attending the University of Vienna. Finding politics an unsuitable medium through which to engage the human spirit, Bahr instead embraced a newfound emphasis on the aesthetic through the cultivation of cultural modernity in Austria and the exploration of his own national identity as an Austrian and European by mediating between Austrian, German and foreign cultures.(27) Although several intellectuals influenced this dynamic Weltanschauung, Nietzsche’s contributions have yet to be adequately recognised due to a lack of surviving material and limited scholarly exploration of the subject. A review of the existent material reveals significant insight into the philosopher’s importance to Bahr.

Bahr’s schooling at the Benedictine Gymnasium in Salzburg offers the earliest documented evidence of his interest in Nietzsche. Influenced by the religious and Baroque environment, as well as Greek philosophical humanism, the young Bahr took a deep interest in philology, which was Nietzsche’s academic discipline before philosophy. In his 1923 autobiography, Bahr reflects on his youthful Weltanschauung at the time:

Although these observations were made later in his life, Bahr’s early studies in Salzburg did forge a desire for the further pursuit of this end. Seeking to explore these intellectual preoccupations, he enrolled in the University of Vienna as a student of classical philology and philosophy in 1881. However, Viennese café life and political activism proved more exciting, leading him to abandon classical philology altogether.

Interestingly, this was not at all unusual given the university environment of the 1880’s. The development of student radicalism hastened after the fall of the Austrian German liberals from the Cisleithanian government in 1879 and the strong emergence of Schönerer’s pan-German movement represented the most concrete example of what was a generational revolt against liberalism’s shortcomings. Radical student groups in Vienna, especially the Leseverein and its successor organisations, marked the reaction of Austrian German youth against the culture and atmosphere in which they were raised. Furthermore, resentment for their political marginalisation by the Taaffe government (1879-1893), the desire not to be let down again in terms of political control of the Monarchy and the social disintegration aided by liberal economic policies evoked their desire to reorganise Austria politically on the principles of German nationalism and socialism, two spheres of political thought still compatible at this time. Bahr actively involved himself in this movement, becoming one of Schönerer’s closest assistants.

During this period, the philosophies of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Wagner figured prominently in Bahr’s Weltanschauung. For our purposes here, Nietzsche is of central importance. Bahr considered himself one of the earliest Nietzsche enthusiasts, something that seems highly likely considering his proximity to members of the Pernerstorfer Circle and Schönerer as well as the legacy of the Leseverein.(29) While Bahr’s appreciation for the philosopher was undoubtedly profound, Nietzsche’s early Wagnerian philosophy and distinctly anti-liberal message did not lead him into as much trouble with the authorities as his affinity towards the ideals of Bismarck and Wagner; at this time, the pan-German movement appropriated what they perceived as their nationalist views in order to further their own agenda.(30)

Political activism gained Bahr a radical reputation, resulting in serious consequences for the young student.(31) Excluded from the universities of the Austrian Empire, Bahr moved to the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin in April 1884. Distanced from the day-to-day activities of the evolving pan-German movement, Bahr quickly fell out with Schönerer because of his ideological split with the future socialist leaders Adler and Pernerstorfer in 1885, one factor that led Bahr to take a keen interest in socialism before abandoning political participation altogether in favour of the arts.

Travelling throughout Europe and living in Paris and Berlin, Bahr focused his energy wholeheartedly on the aesthetic; he explained and commuted the ideals of naturalism and the French decadent movement to his German and Austrian audience, gaining a prominent literary reputation. Intent on cultivating modernist literature in Austria for a short time before returning ‘to Europe’, Bahr moved to Vienna in 1891 where a special encounter with the young Hofmannsthal and a job as a theatre critic kept him from realising the latter.(32) As a result, he decided to bring the European cultural avant-garde to Austria through the Jung Wien impressionist group. The ‘organizer of Austrian literature’, Bahr founded a new weekly cultural journal, Die Zeit, in 1894, through which he continued what he had begun during his time in Paris: the modernist transformation of conservative liberal bourgeois artistic values and the cultivation of modernity in the arts.(33)

Through Hermann Bahr, Austria found the cult of the new. His activities with Jung Wien developed an innovative and unique Austrian literary and theatrical impressionism and neo-romanticism/symbolism independently of their northern German, French, English, Russian and Italian counterparts. This specifically Austrian impressionism differed in its outspoken musicality of language and production, very much the product of a multinational state seeking to bridge the gap between East and West. In doing so, these intellectuals developed a genuinely Viennese and Austrian response to an important Parisian achievement.

In understanding the Jung Wien movement, we recognise Nietzsche as one of Bahr’s impressionist influences. A letter to his father from Berlin on 20 July 1890 reveals important evidence of his views on the philosopher’s significance; Bahr writes about his ability to anticipate major intellectual movements and alludes to his own response to Nietzsche, which long preceded the popular philosophical acceptance that the now insane philosopher gained throughout German and Austrian German intellectual society in that year.(34) Alongside Bahr’s early Gymnasium and University experiences with Nietzsche, the more recently published Jenseits von Gut und Böse (1886) played a prominent role in Bahr’s conception of impressionism. Through Bahr’s reception of this work, Viennese impressionism inherited the notion of ‘Alles-ist-relativ’ and the revaluation of all values, two concepts and principles that later opponents of the movement would use aptly against it.(35) Bahr’s autobiography reflects this:

One of the main presuppositions of Viennese impressionism, Bahr’s Nietzschean insight into the interconnection between the aesthetic and moral appears clearly here.

Throughout the fin de siècle, Bahr’s greatest concern remained modernism in literature and the arts. His work at Die Zeit best applied these aims. Here, a very interesting link with Nietzsche emerges. New research into the sparse surviving correspondence between Bahr and Nietzsche’s sister, Elisabeth, reveals significant insight. In the two letters that have survived from this period, Bahr asked Elisabeth sometime in early January 1899 if she would provide Die Zeit with a critique of some recently published writings on her brother, which she declined citing her uncritical nature and her love-hate relationship with Nietzschean scholarship.(37) She did, however, promise Bahr an excerpt from her introduction to a recently published work on her brother and several aphorisms and/or a longer treatise from Nietzsche’s unpublished papers. According to the correspondence, this news greatly pleased Bahr, who naturally preferred the unpublished material to the excerpt, and he intended to publish this in a special Easter issue of the paper.(38) Unfortunately, and for reasons unknown, these were not published in Die Zeit in 1899, leaving us with an unfortunate minor mystery.

However, Bahr’s diaries from that year echo impressions of these events, although remarkably in someone else’s handwriting. His entry glowingly refers to the book recommended by Elisabeth as well as her introduction, before reflecting admiringly on the relationship that she shares with her brother’s legacy and the intensity it entails. Indeed, this account clearly betrays his feelings towards the philosopher in 1899:

This evidence challenges the misconception of Bahr as a ‘notoriously unstable’ megalomaniac who initially dismissed Nietzsche merely as a "talented and amusing feuilletonist" before eventually having to concede the philosopher’s readability.(40) Why would Bahr dismiss a thinker whose message so clearly matched his modernist project and complimented his formative Weltanschauung, even before he embraced the aesthetic? An oversimplification of Bahr’s nuanced reception of Nietzsche’s ideas, which is completely understandable given the serious lack of surviving evidence on the subject, paints a misleading and incorrect picture, which further research can help to clarify.

All in all, the philosophies of Nietzsche and Ernst Mach, combined with the thinking of Maurice Barrès and Goethe, stimulated Bahr’s cultivation of an impressionistic irrational lifestyle of constant experience and change in direct response to the rational, conservative and hegemonic values of liberal society. Because of his ever-shifting, dynamic artistic beliefs, many of his contemporary critics labelled him a Verwandlungskünstler, leading to a lasting prejudice against him in literary scholarship from the Krausian perspective. Yet this view underestimates the scope of his modernising project. By emphasising difference and diversity to both nations, ethnic groups and ideas, Bahr really internalised and responded to the observations that Nietzsche makes regarding the cultural transformations accompanying modernity, especially his reflections on nationalism and the ‘good European’ ideal.

This appears plainly in Bahr’s conception of transnational relationships within the broader supranational context of European culture. Utilising metaphor, Bahr compared different nations to the individual flowers in a bouquet; every flower, or nation, regardless of condition, contributed to the whole bouquet, Europe, with its requisite membership in the group.(41) A response to Nietzsche’s observations and his own encounter with the polarising tendencies of nationalism, these views express a novel attempt at reconciliation:

This mission presents an important and often-overlooked aspect of Bahr’s mature Weltanschauung. Furthermore, it highlights a significant Nietzschean response. Let us move then to the case of Stefan Zweig.

Zweig’s Reception of Nietzsche

Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 to a Jewish Austrian German Viennese family and raised in a staunch liberal atmosphere. He experienced the intellectual and aesthetic revolution of Bahr’s generation while still attending the Gymnasium, thus sharing a modern, cosmopolitan and distinctly apolitical concern for the stability of greater Central European German culture common to the generation of 1905. Living beyond the liberal nationalism of his father’s generation, Zweig drafted a European direction based on a number of intellectual influences, including Nietzsche and Bahr. Although ample material exists demonstrating his attraction to the philosopher, it has yet to find thorough academic treatment.

Interesting in respect to his Jewish heritage, Zweig’s commitment to the ‘good European’ ideal corresponded with his status as what Jacob Golomb has described as a Grenzjude or ‘marginal Jew’.(43) Generally speaking, Nietzsche’s ideas gave marginal Jews like Zweig, who faced the identity crisis presented by assimilation in addition to the broader social and cultural transformations mentioned above, a multifaceted tool with which they could address their biggest problem: self-understanding. Nietzsche’s diagnoses and prognoses of a Western culture and civilisation whose growth and development made Jews into victims despite their participation in it presented Grenzjuden with a means to approach this crisis.

From the perspective of the two passages cited at the beginning of this article, Zweig’s biography and career choices reveal echoes of Nietzsche. Zweig’s professional decision to focus more on translating works from other languages into German rather than producing original poetry after the completion of his doctorate is interesting in this respect; the job of organising and editing, as well as stimulating other writers with his criticism and advice, became Zweig’s new artistic modus operandi after 1904. This decision led to his transformation into a European man of letters and a translator and mediator of foreign writers to the German Sprachraum. In terms of the latter, much of his work between 1904 and 1914 focused on the Belgian writer Émile Verhaeren (1855-1916), a poet unknown in Germany and Austria with whom Zweig shared a steadfast belief in Whitmanesque humanism and a close friendship; it is through his ten year Verhaeren project that Zweig’s dedication to Nietzsche’s ‘good European’ ideal appears most clearly.

Due to the generational influence of Hermann Bahr, Zweig developed an understanding of his own Austrian German cultural identity that corresponded with his Europeanism; he did not view the two as incompatible. In 1913, Zweig urged Bahr to write his autobiography so that Bahr could also be incorporated into his European cultural mission. As with his introduction of Verhaeren in Germany and Austria, Zweig saw in Bahr the Austrian German cultural icon that he could take to other European cultures. Responding to Nietzsche and his generational predecessors, Zweig felt that he could best serve greater German and European culture by functioning as a translator and go-between.

An exploration of the surviving correspondence between Zweig and Nietzsche’s sister reveals a remarkable relationship that highlights his affection for these ideals. Zweig first contacted Elisabeth formally in autumn 1911, after purchasing several early letters between Nietzsche and a childhood friend, some unpublished poetry and the early draft of a novel.(44) Interested in publishing this material in a newspaper or journal, Zweig sought permission from the philosopher’s sister, as she was the administrator of his estate. This, unfortunately, was not possible, because the Berliner Tageblatt had already published the material in late 1902 without the permission of Elisabeth and therefore infringed on its copyright; the newspaper paid a fine to the archive, which settled the dispute and granted all rights to the material to the paper.(45) Given this situation, which made republication without the permission of the Berliner Tageblatt impossible and largely superfluous, Zweig offered to sell the letters to the Nietzsche Archiv at cost so that they would not go back on the antiquities market. Elisabeth was hesitant to agree to his suggestion because of the shrinking budget of the Archiv and its already substantial accumulation of letters; she was, however, interested in the novel fragment, which Zweig did not want to part with.(46) As the surviving correspondence indicates, they settled their differences by Zweig selling the letters to a friend of Elisabeth’s at cost and keeping the novel fragment for himself, citing that its value to the author transcended monetary boundaries.(47) This remained a concern of Elisabeth’s, because in late 1915, she wrote to Zweig after hearing a rumour that he had sold his Nietzsche autograph collection, which was not the case. Unfortunately, only Zweig’s end of the correspondence has survived, but it reveals much about Nietzsche’s influence on the author. As he points out, it is a personal intellectual honour for him to possess the material, upon which he places supreme value, and he would not sell it; if he ever did, it would only be to the Nietzsche Archiv.(48)

Based on Nietzsche’s vision of a new Europe and Hermann Bahr’s work cultivating literary modernism in Austria, Zweig’s late-Habsburg Weltanschauung matured to contain the combination of Austrian German identity, humanism and faith in the grander European cultural scheme. At home in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Zweig’s education and early professional experience led him throughout Europe and beyond. Living outside the realm of practical political participation because of his family background, education and profession, he concentrated the bulk of his activities on the cultivation of an apolitical transnational European aesthetic ideal based on the Austrian German liberal tradition in which he was raised and the cultural legacy of the generation of the 1890’s. He considered himself an Austrian German and saw no problem with the fact that his publisher and a sizable portion of his audience were Reich German, not Austrian.

On the other hand, it is also important to recognise the importance of the ‘good European’ ideal of his early adulthood. Zweig’s extensive travels to Belgium, France and England in addition to his work introducing Verhaeren to the German-speaking world directly contributed to the formation of a distinctive European understanding of his own Austrian German identity. Rooted in Austria, Zweig sought to mediate between different European cultures in the humanist tradition of Erasmus; and before 1914, this was all too possible. However, the First World War tested this unique Weltanschauung.

Speeding back from Belgium on the Orient Express on the eve of war, Zweig would find it difficult to escape the wave of nationalism descending over Europe; like many other Jewish intellectuals, he became caught up in the intense excitement for war so common in August 1914.(49) Returning to Vienna, Zweig’s first impulse was to drop everything and join the war effort; although he was found unfit for military service, he remained eager to serve Austria and managed to gain an assignment in the Kriegsarchiv. There, Zweig polished up official press releases and sketched inspiring military accounts from the front, directly contributing to the Austrian government’s propaganda machine. Although his enthusiasm for service would later change, Zweig’s actions clearly illustrate his commitment to Austrian German identity in the early years of the war.

Despite claiming to have been silent in Die Welt von Gestern, Zweig did indeed write during this period of initial enthusiasm; these writings are important precisely because of his later disdain for and denial of these actions in the autobiography.(50) The thoughts echoed in three late 1914 essays corresponded with his firm belief in his own Austrian German identity and these views found their way into Zweig’s interaction with other intellectuals.(51) Yet it is important to remember that this patriotism is not altogether surprising considering the context and time.

Zweig’s nationalism manifested itself most bluntly in ‘An die Freunde im Fremdland’, where he writes,

The open farewell elicited the response of his French friend and colleague Romain Rolland (1866-1944) in the form of a letter consisting of one simple line: ‘Ich bin unserm Europa treuer als Sie, lieber Stefan Zweig, und ich verleugne keinen meiner Freunde’.(53) Rolland’s words rattled Zweig. After a lengthy exchange, Zweig conceded that his initial patriotic national euphoria had transformed into a silent protest at the war: ‘Wo es Krieg gibt, müssen wir - ich schrieb es ja auch [in ‘An die Feunde in Fremdland’] - meiner Meinung nach schweigen’.(54)

Increasingly lost in the collapsing pre-war world of security around him, Zweig became completely ineffectual. Unable to transcend nationalism and be a ‘good European’, he focused on the only thing he could change: his attitude towards the war. The newfound commitment to be silent in the face of personal and intellectual turmoil affected his relationships with his professional friends; these writings placed him in the ‘no man’s land’ between the patriotic national camps of the German Richard Dehmel (1863-1920) and the Belgian Verhaeren, alienating him from the latter. Their friendship, which had meant so much to Zweig in the decade preceding the war, suffered badly because of the war.

Like Zweig, Verhaeren became caught up in much of the patriotic enthusiasm at the war’s beginning and published several attacks against Germany in the press.(55) Although Zweig was genuinely concerned about the Belgian’s whereabouts and situation, a real friction emerges in the correspondence between Zweig and Rolland, who knew of Verhaeren’s whereabouts, regarding the Belgian. In a letter to Zweig on 24 November 1914, Rolland updated Zweig on Verhaeren’s status, writing, ‘Übrigens gehören Sie, um die Wahrheit zu sagen, nicht zu seinen besten’.(56) This rift grew by early 1915. In a letter to Rolland on 23 March 1915, Zweig writes,

Strange because of the ten-year importance of Verhaeren to his Weltanschauung and Europeanism, Zweig’s reaction shows that his cosmopolitan cultural outlook based itself heavily on his firm commitment to his own Austrian German identity. In this time of turmoil and crisis, it was into his national roots that he retreated for Gemeinschaft and support. The reality of this situation, in combination with an inability to continue to be a ‘good European’, left him feeling both powerless and miserable.

A similar break occurred with Hermann Bahr. As demonstrated above, Zweig sought to incorporate Bahr into his pre-war campaign for European cultural exchange. Much as with Verhaeren, a major rift appears to have developed over their different points of view on the war. In a letter to Bahr on Christmas Day, 1914, Zweig writes,

In light of these sentiments, it is not surprising that Zweig would have felt extremely disenchanted by Bahr’s Kriegssegen, an overtly nationalistic collection of essays published in 1915.(59) While Zweig confided his deepest feelings of inner turmoil over his personal response to the war, Bahr replied somewhat haughtily,

Based on the surviving correspondence, it appears that the circumstances surrounding Zweig’s cooling towards Bahr corresponded with those of Verhaeren: the emphasis on the need for intellectual silence in response to the First World War. Unfortunately, this view left Zweig isolated from intellectuals who did not agree and overcome with a deep feeling of powerlessness.

Zweig’s letter to Elisabeth, sent a few days before her birthday in 1916, echoes the tension within his Weltanschauung and reveals his feelings towards Nietzsche. Zweig writes,

Interesting in terms of Nietzsche’s overall influence on the author, these sentiments illustrate Zweig’s inability to reconcile nationalism and the ‘good European’ ideal in the strenuous circumstances of 1916.

The First World War tested the Austrian German composition of cosmopolitan liberalism mixed with aesthetic humanism cultivated by the author in the two decades preceding its outbreak.(62) Faced with the incongruity of his supranational ideals with his environment, Zweig turned wholeheartedly to his Austrian German identity for support. Without a doubt, the zealous and naïve enthusiasm of August 1914 must have been quite embarrassing with the benefit of hindsight. As he wrote in The World of Yesterday comparing his generation’s experience of the outbreak of the Second World War to that of the First,

Written in exile by a deeply troubled intellectual who saw his homeland forever changed by National Socialism and the ideal of Europe in which he believed ravaged by man’s unthinkable inhumanity to his fellow man, Zweig’s words echo the personal embarrassment and resentment of an idealistic man who regretted not being able to see the writing on the wall. Furthermore, the passage betrays Zweig’s true feelings in August 1914: identification with those who felt Austria and Germany had been innocently attacked. Based on the surviving evidence, it is reasonable to assume that Zweig was, in retrospect, discomfited by his earlier thoughts and actions, especially his blind faith in his Vaterland and ignorance of the human and psychological costs of the ensuing catastrophe; hence the denial of these actions in his autobiography.

Committed to the ‘good European’ ideal yet unable to transcend nationalism’s draw, Zweig’s inability to effectively reconcile these contrasting elements within his late-Habsburg Weltanschauung emphasises several central themes discussed here. A Nietzschean perspective on these two authors presents a significant intellectual paradigm worthy of further scholarly attention.

Conclusion

Nietzsche’s late-nineteenth century views on nationalism and Europe are significant because they functioned as an inspirational source for near contemporary intellectuals directly confronted by similar issues. Austrian German thinkers of two different post-liberal generations drew on the philosopher as a resource to help them come to terms with broader cultural and social transformations; Nietzsche’s observations aided their attempts to understand themselves in a changing social, cultural and intellectual environment. As demonstrated above, Bahr and Zweig present good examples of this overall phenomenon.

A reassessment of their thought in terms of their reception and reproduction of Nietzsche’s ideas is worthy of further attention; it provides an important interpretive window into their late-Habsburg construction of a separate Austrian German national identity under the transnational umbrella of greater German and European culture. Preoccupied with the tension between a supranational cultural space and the tendency of late-nineteenth century nationalism to polarise and appropriate culture for its own ends, Nietzsche’s ideas found resonance with both intellectuals, who like the philosopher sought a reconciliation of the two. Although sceptical of nationalism’s drive to divide German and European culture, all three intellectuals remained unable to transcend it. It is in this context that their individual yet linked responses offer insight relevant today, especially in light of recent cultural tensions between national identity construction and EU integration in Central Europe.

(1) Friedrich Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches: Erster Band, Aph. 475, in Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (eds), Nietzsches Werke kritische Gesamtausgabe (KGA), Abt. 4 Bnd. 2, p. 319. Original emphasis.

(2) Friedrich Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Aph. 251, in KGA, Abt. 6 Bnd. 2, pp. 201-2.

(3) This brief study is part of a larger project on modern Austrian history, which investigates the significance of these two authors to the country’s broader twentieth and twenty-first century national development.

(4) Carl E. Schorske, Fin-De-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979), p. 119.

(5) Jacques Le Rider, Ralph Manheim (trans.), ‘Between Modernism and Postmodernism: The Viennese Identity Crisis’ Austrian Studies 1 (1990), p. 4.

(7) Scott Spector, ‘Introduction: Uneven Cultural Development? Modernism and Modernity in the "Other" Central Europe’ Austrian History Yearbook, 33 (2002), p. 146.

(8) H. Stuart Hughes, Consciousness and Society (Brighton: Harvester Press Limited, 1979), pp. 18-19.

(9) David S. Luft, Robert Musil and the Crisis of European Culture, 1880-1942 (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 14-5.

(11) Donald G. Daviau, ‘The "Austropäer" Hermann Bahr as Catalyst and Mediator of Modernity in a European Context’, in Understanding Hermann Bahr (St. Ingbert: Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 2002), pp. 473-4.

(12) Moritz Csáky, ‘Die Sozial-Kulturelle Wechselwirkungen in der Zeit des Wiener Fin de Siècle: Versuch einer Deutung’ in Peter Berner, Emil Brix and Wolfgang Mantl (eds), Wien um 1900: Aufbruch in die Moderne (Wien: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1986), pp. 142-3.

(13) Hermann Bahr, ‘Die Moderne’, reprinted in Gotthard Wunberg, Die Wiener Moderne. Literature, Kunst und Musik zwischen 1890 und 1910 (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981), p. 191.

(14) Carl E. Schorske, Thinking with History: Explorations in the Passage to Modernism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 145-6.

(16) Robert Musil, ‘Stilgeneration und Generationsstil’, in Robert Musil, Adolf Frisé (ed.), Gesammelte Werke in Einzelausgaben. Tagebücher, Aphorismen, Essays und Reden, 2 (Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag, 1955), p. 838.

(17) Friedrich Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie, in KGA, Abt 3 Bnd 1, p. 5. Original emphasis.

(18) For an in-depth description of Nietzsche’s reception in Austria, see the first chapter of Steven E. Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 1890-1990 (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1992) and Hans Gerald Hödl, ‘Die Nietzsche-Rezeption in Österreich im frühen 20. Jahrhundert’, in Rüdiger Görner and Duncan Large (eds), Ecce Opus, Nietzsche-Revisionen im 20. Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003), pp. 139-64.

(19) Pieter M. Judson, Exclusive Revolutionaries: Liberal Politics, Social Experience,and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848-1914 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), pp. 194-5.

(20) Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘Vorwort an Richard Wagner’, in Die Geburt der Tragödie, KGA, pp. 19-20.

(22) William J. McGrath, Dionysian Art and Populist Politics in Austria (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974), p. 33-4.

(23) William J. McGrath, ‘Mahler and the Vienna Nietzsche Society’, in Jacob Golomb, Nietzsche and Jewish Culture (New York: Routledge, 1997), p. 223.

(25) Aldo Venturelli, ‘Nietzsche in der Berggasse 19’ Nietzsche-Studien, 13 (1984), p. 449.

(26) In 1877, both Sigmund Freud and his friend Josef Paneth were also members of the Leseverein. Both became involved in this direct dialogue with Nietzsche and Paneth would even spend time with the philosopher in Nice in 1883/1884. Gerald Hödel, ‘Nietzsche in Österreich; Prometheische Religion: Siegfried Lipiners poetische Nietzsche-Rezeption’, in Michael Benedikt, Endre Kiss, Reinhold Knoll (eds), Verdrängter Humanismus - Verzögerte Aufklärung IV. Anspruch und Echo. Sezession und Aufbrüche in den Kronländern zum Fin-de-siècle Philosophie in Österreich 1880-1920 (Klausenburg: Leben, Kunst, Wissenschaft, 1998), p. 380.

(27) Hermann Bahr , Adalbert Schmidt (ed.), Hermann Bahr: Briefwechsel mit seinem Vater (Wien: H. Bauer Verlag, 1971), pp. 196-7; Donald G. Daviau, ‘Hermann Bahr: An extraordinary Example of Transnational Networking, with special reference to Central Europe’, http://www.kakanien.ac.at/beitr/ncs/DDaviau1.pdf/show_pdf.

(30) Bahr noted in Selbstbildnis: ‘Bismarck und Wagner waren die Zeichen der deutschen Macht über die Welt. Wir erinnerten uns aus unserer Kindheit...Jeder junge Mensch war damals Wagnerianer. Er war es, bevor er noch einen einzigen Takt seiner Musik gehört hatte.’, p. 139.

(31) For a more complete treatment of Bahr’s political involvement see: Donald G. Daviau, ‘Hermann Bahr and the Radical Politics of Austria in the 1880s’, in Understanding Hermann Bahr (St. Ingbert: Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 2002), pp. 48-68.

(32) Heinz Kindermann, Hermann Bahr: Ein Leben für das Europäische Theater (Graz: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1954), p. 49.

(35) Endre Kiss, Der Tod der k.u.k. Weltordung in Wien - Ideengeschichte (Wien: Böhlau, 1986), p. 152.

(37) Letter from Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche (EFN) to Bahr. Four handwritten pages on Nietzsche Archiv stationary signed by EFN and dated 19 January 1899. Österreichische Theatermuseum, Wien, Nachlass Hermann Bahr, Signatur A-17575 BaM. Special thanks to archivist Christiane Mühlegger for her help with my research.

(38) Letter from Hermann Bahr to EFN. Two handwritten pages on Die Zeit stationary signed by Bahr and dated 27 January 1899. Goethe- und Schiler-Archiv (GSA), Weimar, Nachlass Friedrich Nietzsche, Signatur 721BW-145. Special thanks to the GSA archivists for their help with my research.

(39) Moritz Csáky (ed.), Hermann Bahr, Tagebücher, Skizzenbücher, Notizenhefte, 2, 1890-1900 (Wien: Böhlau, 1996), p. 372.

(40) Robert S. Wistrich, ‘Friedrich Nietzsche and the Austrian Fin-de-Siècle’, in Jacob Golomb (ed.), Nietzsche and the Austrian Culture (Wien: WUV, 2004), p. 44.

(41) ‘The "Austropäer" Hermann Bahr as Catalyst and Mediator of Modernity in a European Context’, p. 478.

(43) Jacob Golomb, ‘Nietzsche and the Marginal Jews’, in Jacob Golomb (ed.), Nietzsche and Jewish Culture (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 174.

(44) Letter from Stefan Zweig to EFN. Four handwritten pages on personal stationary signed by Zweig and dated 14 October 1911. GSA, Signatur 72/BW-6194.

(45) Letter from EFN to Stefan Zweig. Seven dictated handwritten pages on Nietzsche Archiv stationary signed by EFN and dated 17 October 1911. Manuscript Correspondence, Stefan Zweig Collection in Reed Library at the State University of New York, College at Fredonia (SZC). Special thanks to associate curator Gerda Morrissey for her help with my research.

(46) Letter from EFN to Stefan Zweig. Three dictated handwritten pages on Nietzsche Archiv stationary signed by EFN and dated 23 October 1911. SZC.

(47) Letter from Stefan Zweig to EFN. Two handwritten pages on personal stationary signed by Zweig and dated 26 October 1911. GSA, Signatur 72/BW-6194.

(48) Letter from Stefan Zweig to EFN. One typewritten page on personal stationary signed by Zweig and dated 7 December 1915. GSA, Signatur 72/BW-6194.

(49) Marsha L. Rozenblit, Reconstructing a National Identity: The Jews of Habsburg Austria during World War One (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 42-3.

(50) Stefan Zweig, Die Welt von Gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europäers (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1941).

(51) These three essays include: ‘Ein Wort von Deutschland’ and ‘Die schlaflose Welt’, published on 6 and 18 August 1914 respectively in the Neue Freie Presse, and ‘An die Freunde im Fremdland’, published on 19 September 1914 in the Berliner Tageblatt.

(52) Reprinted in Erwin Rieger, Stefan Zweig, Der Mann und das Werk (Berlin: J.M. Spaeth, 1928), pp. 63-9.

(53) Romain Rolland, ‘Brief an Stefan Zweig, 28 September 1914’, Eva und Gerhard Schewe, Christel Gersch, and Waltraud Schwarze (eds), Briefwechsel 1910-1940 (Berlin: Rütten & Loening, 1987), p. 70.

(55) Donald A. Prater, European of Yesterday, A Biography of Stefan Zweig (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 74.

(56) Romain Rolland, ‘Brief an Stefan Zweig, 24 November 1914’, Briefwechsel 1910-1940, p. 110.

(57) Stefan Zweig, ‘Brief an Romain Rolland, 23 March 1915’ in Stefan Zweig,Briefe 2. 1914-1919 (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag, 1998) , p. 57.

(58) Stefan Zweig, ‘Brief an Hermann Bahr, 25 December 1914’, in Jeffrey B. Berlin, Hans-Ulrich Lindken, and Donald A. Prater (eds), Stefan Zweig, Briefwechsel mit Hermann Bahr, Sigmund Freud, Rainer Maria Rilke und Arthur Schnitzler (Frankfurt am Main: S, Fischer, 1987), pp. 42-3.

(60) Hermann Bahr, ‘Brief an Stefan Zweig, 31 December 1914’, Stefan Zweig, Briefwechsel mit Hermann Bahr, Sigmund Freud, Rainer Maria Rilke und Arthur Schnitzler, pp. 45-6.

(61) Letter from Stefan Zweig to EFN. One handwritten page on plain stationary signed by Zweig and dated 7 July 1916. GSA, Signatur 72/BW-6194.

(62) L. B. Steiman, ‘The Agony of Humanism in World War I: The Case of Stefan Zweig’ Journal of European Studies, 6:2 (1976), p. 102.

For quotation purposes:
Nikolaus Unger (University of Warwick): Two ‘Good Europeans’: Nietzschean innovation in the late-Habsburg thought of Hermann Bahr and Stefan Zweig. In: TRANS. Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften. No. 16/2005. WWW: http://www.inst.at/trans/16Nr/05_2/unger16.htm