Matuschek examines three major phases in the life of the world-famous Austrian author—his years of apprenticeship, his years of success as a professional working writer in Salzburg, and finally his years of exile in Britain, the USA and Brazil.
Including the sort of personal detail conspicuously absent from Zweig's memoir, and incorporating newly discovered documents, Matuschek's biography offers us a privileged view into the private world of the master of psychological insight.
Matuschek examines three major phases in the life of the world-famous Austrian author—his years of apprenticeship, his years of success as a professional working writer in Salzburg, and finally his years of exile in Britain, the USA and Brazil.
Including the sort of personal detail conspicuously absent from Zweig's memoir, and incorporating newly discovered documents, Matuschek's biography offers us a privileged view into the private world of the master of psychological insight.
Three Lives: A Biography of Stefan Zweig
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Overview
Matuschek examines three major phases in the life of the world-famous Austrian author—his years of apprenticeship, his years of success as a professional working writer in Salzburg, and finally his years of exile in Britain, the USA and Brazil.
Including the sort of personal detail conspicuously absent from Zweig's memoir, and incorporating newly discovered documents, Matuschek's biography offers us a privileged view into the private world of the master of psychological insight.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781906548957 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Steerforth Press |
| Publication date: | 11/29/2011 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Random House Publisher Services |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 384 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Three Lives
A Biography of Stefan Zweig
By Oliver Matuschek, Allan Blunden
Steerforth Press
Copyright © 2013 S Fischer Verlag GmbHAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78227-005-8
CHAPTER 1
Part I
A True Brettauer at Heart
If I were to gather together my own childhood experiences, they would have their share of sunshine and clouds; but they would lack that clear, calm radiance that rustling Nature has shed upon you. The lot of a city dweller can be just as tragic, and yet never as great!
To Hermann Hesse 2nd March 1903
Of all the people in Stefan Zweig's family and immediate circle during the early decades of his life, the figure of his father emerges as the least sharply defined. Only one letter of his has ever come to light, other documents written in his hand are virtually impossible to find, and even in the stories told by the family he nearly always plays a secondary role. The surviving photographs only serve to confirm the impression of an unremarkable man: in a whole series of portrait photos in the popular carte de visite format, taken at intervals over several decades, Moriz Zweig cuts a consistently unimposing figure. Neither his pose nor his expression changes, despite the long intervals between photographs and the different photographers involved. Only the cut of his beard alters in line with changing fashions — and his face looks a little more tired from one picture to the next.
Moriz Zweig was born on 28th December 1845 in Prossnitz in Moravia. The spelling of his first name varies: in the printed announcement of his engagement and on his gravestone it is spelt "Moritz", while in the obituary published by the family we find "Moriz". As he himself wrote "Moriz" — when countersigning his son's school reports, for example — and the name is also spelt thus in all official documents, this is the form that we shall use here. The family history records the Zweigs as resident in his birthplace since the middle of the eighteenth century, but in all probability they had been living there for much longer. His father Hermann, like his ancestors before him, traded in assorted goods — in particular textiles — on a growing scale and over an ever wider area, and in 1850 he took the plunge and moved from the provincial town to Vienna, together with his wife Nanette and the rest of the family. Here Moriz attended the upper secondary school, learnt French (eventually becoming completely fluent in the language) and a little English. Following the Zweig family tradition, he became a trader in textiles when he left school. In 1878, using his share of the family fortune and the first money he had earned for himself, he was able to buy what was then a very modest weaving mill in Ober-Rosenthal bei Reichenberg in northern Bohemia (present-day Liberec). The mill lay in a region that was one of the country's most important industrial centres, and known, not without reason, as the 'Manchester of Bohemia'. Moriz Zweig's investment in the latest mechanical looms from England quickly paid dividends, and the business grew in just a few years from a traditional manufactory to a thriving industrial enterprise. Despite his business commitments, Zweig continued to spend most of his time in Vienna, where in due course a branch outlet was established for the sale of the finished textiles. The mill in Bohemia was run by a company secretary, who enjoyed the complete confidence of his employer and remained with the company for many decades.
Despite his considerable successes, Moriz Zweig was cautious, not to say very cautious, in all his business and private affairs. This circumspection was not just a personal characteristic of his, but a general family trait common to all its male members. The family's rapid rise, within a few generations, from the ghetto of a provincial town in Moravia to ownership of one of the country's most successful weaving mills was highly gratifying to all those involved, but success did not breed excess, and the family was never given to vulgar ostentation or display. Moriz Zweig was very proud of the fact that he never had to sign a promissory note, that even in times of financial difficulty he never had to take out a loan, and that his account always remained in credit. It need hardly be said that he banked with the most respected banking houses of his day. Backward- looking though his attitude to money may have seemed in later years, when investing in other companies and speculating on the stock market had become second nature to the modern businessman, it looked like the future in his own day: for whatever opportunities and enticements the business world offered, the absolute first priority was to safeguard the family's fortune and social status, which was dependent not least on the value and stability of its capital assets. It was important to have something to fall back on. The conditions for leading a "quiet" life in this sense were favourable, as long as one was comfortably off.
As a young man Moriz Zweig witnessed for himself the growth and expansion of modern Vienna. The railway network had long since been extended to connect the capital with the Crown Lands, which had further stimulated economic growth. Extensive residential areas had been built in the industrial centres to house the immigrant workers, and the construction ofpublic and private buildings on Vienna's Ringstrasse was seen as a further monument in stone to the expansionist boom years of the Grunderzeit. After the initial euphoria this ambitious project was hit by a number of setbacks: the stock market collapse of 1873 briefly shook the business world to its foundations, and a number of entrepreneurs were plunged into ruin by the financial crisis. But the Zweig family appears not to have suffered any significant losses.
Moriz Zweig's retiring ways were manifested not only in his business dealings, but also in his private life. He never played a prominent role in professional or business associations or on the city's social circuit. He never accepted any award, and instead of cutting a figure at smart receptions he preferred to stay at home in the evenings and play on his beloved piano. The diary entry made by his son Stefan many years later, in December 1915, shows very clearly where this diffidence finally led him: "Father's seventieth birthday. A very quiet affair, no emotion, no fuss or finery. One felt how cut-off we are from our world. Perhaps that's how I will end up too. People can be a disappointment. Sometimes I understand the old man, even though I don't want to become like him."
In August 1878 Moriz Zweig announced his engagement. His future wife, Ida Brettauer, was nine years his junior and "a good match", as the saying went, who was in line to receive a not insubstantial dowry. Like Moriz, she was not a native of Vienna, but had moved to the city from Italy when she was sixteen. Her father, Samuel Ludwig Brettauer, worked in banking and finance, and had settled with his family in Ancona, on Italy's Adriatic coast, prior to Ida's birth on 5th May 1854. Brettauer's wife Josefine, a Landauer by birth, came from Hurben in the vicinity of Augsburg, while he himself hailed from Hohenems in Vorarlberg. Hence the fact that German was spoken at home among the immediate family while Ida was growing up, even though they were living in Italy. In addition to the languages of their native and adoptive countries, all the members of the family also spoke French. Multilingualism and a cosmopolitan approach to life came naturally to the Brettauers anyway. The wider family, with its lawyers, bankers and merchants, was scattered across many countries in Europe and as far afield as America. In good times it numbered presidents, aristocratic houses and even the Vatican among its clients. The substantial successes that the family chalked up to its account — in the most literal sense — engendered a self-confidence and poise that could easily be interpreted by outsiders as snobbish conceit. In this respect Ida Brettauer ran true to type, and she changed little after her marriage to Moriz Zweig. As his later daughter-in-law Friderike put it, Moriz played the part of a retiring and conciliatory "prince consort" in the marriage — her point being that Ida Zweig was unquestionably cast in the role of queen.
The wedding had taken place in September 1878, and on 13th October of the following year the first child of this unequal couple was born in Vienna. It was a boy. Given the name Alfred, he promptly assumed the role of heir apparent — to stick with the dynastic metaphors — because it was already clearly understood that this boy, health permitting, would one day take over the running of the family business.
A little over two years later, on 28th November 1881, in the family's apartment at Schottenring 14 in the 1st District, a second child was born. It was another boy, and he would be called Stefan.
A matter of days after he was born there was a major incident in Vienna that sent a shockwave of horror through the city. On 7th December escaping gas from the stage lighting in the Ringtheater caused fire to break out during a performance of Jacques Offenbach's opera Tales of Hoffmann. The decision to evacuate the building was taken much too late, and the operation was severely hampered by the fact that the doors of the auditorium only opened inwards. As a result of this serious design fault the doors were jammed shut by the jostling crowds, and in the ensuing panic as people tried to escape, appalling scenes of carnage were witnessed. Estimates of the number of dead range between three hundred and five hundred. The Zweigs were particularly affected by these events because their apartment overlooked the theatre, so that the disaster unfolded literally before their eyes. They looked on aghast as the flames took hold and the chaos spread. With that strange mixture of helplessness and fascination that those who observed the disaster must have felt, the parents even fetched Alfred, then just two years old, to watch from the windowsill. He later said that the images of the blazing building were his earliest memories.
Ida Zweig's second pregnancy had run its course without any notable problems, but following the birth of the child she was found to be suffering from a severe hormonal imbalance. Not long afterwards she fell ill with sclerosis of the middle ear. This insidious condition, which can be caused by hormonal factors, manifests itself in a chronic inflammation of the tympanic cavity, which causes sclerosis of the mucous membrane and disrupts the delicate mechanism of the ossicles so that they can barely function, if at all. Since the onset of deafness was gradual, the doctors and their patient initially underestimated the seriousness of the disease and its possible repercussions. After some lesser problems, Ida Zweig's hearing faded rapidly and irretrievably in just a few months; medical science had not yet devised an effective therapy or surgical procedure. The young wife soon needed an ear trumpet to follow conversations, and attending larger social gatherings became a test of her patience and powers of concentration. All thought of going to concerts, operas and theatre performances had to be abandoned. But in due course a pleasurable alternative presented itself — after initial scepticism, she developed a lifelong passion for the cinema, where the silent films of the day could be understood perfectly well even without the musical accompaniment.
Despite her handicap, Ida Zweig retained her essentially cheerful temperament throughout her illness. But as a result of the deafness her more contrary inclinations became more pronounced. Normally fairly placid by nature, she could erupt into terrifying rages if pushed too far. She was always seen as something of a curiosity among her social acquaintance — and not just because of her illness. Added to that, it must have seemed quite odd to some outside observers in those days that she frequently served such exotic dishes as risotto and artichokes at her table — in memory of her native land.
For almost the entire year she kept her more valuable jewellery in a safe (where most of it went missing in 1938), ordinarily wearing just some modest brooches, rings and necklaces. She dressed relatively plainly for everyday wear, but always in a manner that befitted her station, of course. Ida Zweig was not a conspicuously elegant lady, but until 1914 she remained a customer of the city's foremost dressmakers; and doubtless she was also a familiar visitor to the shop on the ground floor of the building where they subsequently lived in the Rathausstrasse, which traded in furs "En gros et en detail", as the sign above the entrance proclaimed.
As the wife of a mill owner she had assembled a circle of acquaintances around her who regularly met for tea. But it would be an exaggeration to describe this as a "salon". The Zweig family home was frequented not by composers, painters, actors and writers, but rather — much as one would expect — by lawyers, industrialists and bankers of their acquaintance, together with their wives. Looking back in later years Alfred Zweig described them as "Jewish bourgeoisie of the first rank throughout", adding that the family always maintained its distance from Christian social circles, as was the unspoken rule in Vienna.
The fact that the family was Jewish was neither denied nor particularly emphasised. Stefan's birth had been registered under the serial number 1968 for the year 1881 by the Jewish religious community, but so far no documents have come to light that would enable us to determine what role, if any, the Zweigs played in the life of the Jewish community. And the testimony of family members gives us hardly anything to go on here. The family no doubt attended the synagogue for the main Jewish feast days and festivals but at home in December neither the Jewish Festival of Lights, Hanukkah, nor the Christian Christmas was celebrated. The latter was entirely normal in other Jewish families who had moved away from their faith. The only concession to the season was a small Christmas tree decorated for the servants — and presents were also given to the domestic staff, to the enormous chagrin of the two Zweig boys.
In material terms the boys wanted for nothing. To the extent that they spent time with the children themselves, the parents took great care to treat them both equally. But for most of the time the two boys were entrusted to the care of a nanny. In fact, in what is probably the earliest photo of Stefan, taken when he was around nine months old, he is seen not with his mother or both parents, but with his Slovakian nanny Margarete. In the years that followed the two brothers had their photograph taken frequently. The velvet suits with the enormous-looking bows knotted around their necks, which they are wearing in one of the photos, were probably their — not very comfortable — everyday wear. Stefan in particular, with his round face, chestnut-brown hair and big, dark eyes was regarded as an adorable child by those who had not witnessed one of his feared temper tantrums. On one occasion, indeed, a member of the Austrian imperial household stopped her carriage in order to speak to the sweet little boy who was walking in the park with his father — a memorable occasion that went down in family history.
In 1886 the Viennese painter Eduard Krautner was commissioned to paint a portrait of Stefan in his sailor suit with an anchor embroidered on the chest. The oil painting he produced for the parents was almost a photographic likeness of the boy. Only his faint smile had been brought out a little more strongly by the artist, an experienced practitioner of his craft, who produced hundreds of these portraits.
Since Ida Zweig's hearing difficulties often left her a little disconnected from everyday family life, her mother was more than happy to step in when needed to help with the children's upbringing. When the family moved in 1895 from the Schottenring to a larger apartment at Rathausstrasse 17, Grandma Brettauer, who had lost her husband in the meantime, lived in the neighbouring apartment on the same floor, so that she was now very close to her two grandsons in every sense. Alfred Zweig remembers her as a "very capable Bavarian Hausfrau of the old school, [who] knew everything there was to know about looking after children, especially when they were ill". Despite her down-to-earth manner, she too exhibited all the inborn snobbery of the Brettauers. Even as a grown man and a world-renowned writer known by the Zweig family name, Stefan would come up against the self-regard of his relations on his mother's side: "This pride in coming from a 'good' family was deeply ingrained in all the Brettauers, and if one of them in later years wished to show me special regard he would remark, condescendingly, 'You're a true Brettauer at heart,' as if to say to me approvingly, 'You turned out all right.'" Still, his unusual profession (and not least, no doubt, its unexpectedly lucrative earnings) had earned him the highest respect even in this branch of the family.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Three Lives by Oliver Matuschek, Allan Blunden. Copyright © 2013 S Fischer Verlag GmbH. Excerpted by permission of Steerforth Press.
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Table of Contents
Introduction Three Lives in Retrospect 11
Part I 21
A True Brettauer at Heart 23
We Called It "School" … 37
Golden Pages 49
The Observer 69
"Why Don't You Go to India?" 85
Trials and Tribulations of a Writer 99
Emotional Turmoil 113
In the Hero Factory 133
At the Top of the Tower 155
Part II 177
The House on the Hill 179
Steffzweig and the Radioten 203
"Hounded Like a Wild Boar" 225
Lapses 245
Part III 273
Life on the Edge 275
The Gathering Darkness 303
A World of Tomorrow? 331
Sources and Literature 357
Index 373
Image Rights 381