The House of Wittgenstein: A Family At War

By Alexander Waugh

'The story in this book is so gripping and fascinating that it is remarkable that it has never been told in this way before' Simon Heffer, Literary Review
'Masterly ... His writing is brisk, confident and colourful ... a pleasure to read' Sunday Telegraph

The true story of a one-handed pianist and the fall of his aristocratic family

The Wittgenstein family was one of the richest, most talented and most eccentric in European history. The domineering paternal influence of Karl Wittgenstein left his eight children fraught by inner antagonisms and nervous tension. Three of his sons committed suicide; Paul, the fourth, became a world-famous concert pianist (using only his left hand), while Ludwig, the youngest, is now regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century.

In this dramatic historical and psychological epic, Alexander Waugh traces the triumphs and vicissitudes of a family held together by a fanatical love of music yet torn apart by money, madness, conflicts of loyalty and the cataclysmic upheaval of two world wars.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Jan 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9781408842027

Alexander Waugh

Alexander Waugh is the grandson of Evelyn and son of Auberon. He has been the chief Opera Critic at both the Mail on Sunday and the Evening Standard, and is also a publisher, cartoonist and award-winning composer. He is the author of Fathers and Sons, Time and God. He reviews regularly for national newspapers and magazines.

Reviews for The House of Wittgenstein

[markpeterwest · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A great insight into a family who's vicissitudes spread across the beginnings of the twentieth century and two world wars. They are all absolutely mental, and quite possibly none of them were ever happy. It tapers off towards the end, as the Wittgensteins themselves do likewise.

[jcbrunner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Friedrich Torberg loved to tell the anecdote about two boys in Prague who approach the two rich daughters from behind, look at their faces and, having passed them, exclaim: "God is just!" Similarly, all the wealth of the Wittgenstein family could not buy them happiness. Led by a despotic tycoon, the family members made each other's lives a living hell, three of the five sons ended their life by suicide. Only in music could they communicate and play together. Their money made the rest of humanity tolerate their ill-behavior and bad manners. Their madness was not without a spark of genius: Ludwig Wittgenstein's appeal for silence can be interpreted as a means to keep the Freudian demons in check. The focus of this family biography is not on him, though, but on his slightly older brother Paul.Paul Wittgenstein was a talented amateur pianist whose wealth allowed him to bypass the usual gatekeepers. His family simply hired the Musikverein for him and filled its seats with servants and hanger-ons. Having lost his right arm in the first months of the First World War (which he spent as a Russian POW), he used his wealth to have the best of composers such as Korngold, Ravel and Rachmaninov write him concerts for a one-handed pianist.The highlight of the biography is the bitter tale of the Wittgenstein family's dispossession by the Nazis and the internal family feud that made it possible. While the Wittgenstein family had converted to Christianity a hundred years ago, the Nürnberg race laws reverted them into Jews (a classification US immigration officials upheld), thus forsaking their local fortunes. The Wittgensteins had transferred some of their wealth to Switzerland and other countries, which started a devil's bargain with the Nazis for the lives of some clan members who wanted to continue to stay in Austria during the Nazi years. The Nazis deftly used the internal divisions amongst the family members to extract a huge part of the family wealth. Paul Wittgenstein, safely escaped to New York, had to fight tooth and nail to hang on to some of his part of the family fortune. Other family members were all to willing to sacrifice his wealth for their private accommodations with the Nazis. This ruptured many of the remaining family relations. Hit by a bomb, the Palais Wittgenstein in Vienna was razed after WWII and replaced by a bland office building in 1950. Only Ludwig Wittgenstein's strange foray into architecture survives today as the Bulgarian cultural institute.Overall, an interesting account about an odd family with a suicidal bent that fits well into Austria's World of Yesterday literature.