Neurath: Growing up in Vienna

The Neuraths were a middle-class family, Jewish, assimilated, and successfully integrated into Viennese society. There were four children: three sons, Otto, Herbert and Hans, and a daughter, Gerda. Their father Rudolf was a physician, their mother Hedda (née Samek) a volunteer for the Red Cross. Dr. Rudolf Neurath was a pediatrician and associate professor of pediatrics and as such a colleague of Dr. Sigmund Freud in the School of Medicine at the University of Vienna. Leader in the city’s children’s health care program, Dr. Neurath became part of Red Vienna’s great social achievements.

Hans’ mother died in 1936. His father continued his work as a pediatrician and as a professor at the University of Vienna. Winter semester 1937/38 turned out to be his last because in March of 1938 Anschluss happened. The Nazis seized power in Austria and more than 2,000 students were expelled for reasons of “race” as well as more than 200 of the teaching staff. Dr. Rudolf Neurath’s Habilitation was revoked and on April 22 he was thrown out of the University (at age 69!). Not much later, Hans’ affidavit enabled his father to emigrate to the United States. Dr. Neurath settled in New York where he died ten years later. Hans and his wife also helped his brothers emigrate to the U.S. where Otto became a successful cardiologist and Herbert a professional violinist and professor of musicology. His sister Gerda emigrated to Australia and became a social worker.

Childhood and Youth

Hans Neurath was born on October 29, 1909. He began his secondary education in 1919. If Hans wanted to become a lawyer, a doctor or a scientist, education at a Gymnasium was a matter of course. Attending it represented the elite form of secondary education since only 4% of the Viennese population sent their sons to the Gymnasium, while 13% of the Jewish families did so for their sons. The curriculum was rigorous: Hans studied Latin, Greek, German language and literature, history and geography, mathematics, physics, and religion, and took French as an elective. Hans and his brothers—politically committed—joined the Association of Socialist High School Students. (Hans: “Our family had the stigma of being liberals in a rather conventionally conservative environment.”) It was laboratory experimentation organized by this student organization that kindled in part Hans’ interest in chemistry as did in part his chemistry teacher. Hans characterized his high school experience as “relatively uneventful, except for a few inspiring teachers, and others who made no secret of their nationalist prejudices.”

Hans was also musically very gifted and very early on began to take piano lessons. He later achieved such a level of performance that a professional career as a concert pianist was considered an option. His piano teacher, however, had to remind him that his preoccupation with science was incompatible with a career as a professional pianist. As a matter of fact, all Neurath brothers were accomplished musicians; Otto played the cello throughout his years, but only Herbert made music his profession when he became professor of musicology and a concert violinist.

Quite a number of childhood memoirs from this time tell of a happy family life, music lessons and music playing, soccer, family meals, and summer vacations in the mountains. And it was during the vacations while hiking with his family that Hans came to fall in love with the mountains, a love that was to define him lifelong.

Student at the University of Vienna

In 1927, Hans graduated from the Gymnasium and entered the University of Vienna. In spite of his accomplishment as a pianist, Hans realized that he would never be able to compete at the highest levels, so science it was, a field of interest since his early teens. He enrolled in the department of chemistry. He also joined the Association of Socialist University Students. One of the members of this fraternity was Bruno Kreisky, two years Hans’ junior, who during the Second Republic will become chancellor of Austria.