I saw a video today about Hitler, Stalin and Trotsky all being regulars at the same coffee shop in Vienna. I remember reading somewhere that Tito and Freud also used to go there. That made me wonder, why was Vienna such a hotspot for historical figures at the time and what made it lose its status?
the video I saw: https://youtu.be/I9sy8gcQltg
Hi,
While you wait for an answer, you may be interested in this previously answered question:
I hope this helps!
Pre-WWI, Vienna was the leading capital and intellectual centre of one of the largest empires in Europe at the time, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. You could view it as comparable to London, Paris or Berlin, drawing in talented citizens from across the empire to study. Hitler came to Vienna to study art, but was rejected. Freud studied medicine. Tito was not well educated in a formal sense, but he worked in car factories, and cars as a new technology were much more advanced in Vienna than his village. Generally anyone who was anyone in Austro-Hungary would come from their village/ town and spend some time in Vienna.
The other two are probably a bit misleading to associate with Vienna. The life of a high-level revolutionary at this time generally involved a lot of travel around major cities- Stalin spent only a month in Vienna, for Trotsky his years in Vienna were followed by subsequent years in Paris, and later months in New York. It would be sort of like associating Lenin or Stalin with London- they stayed there for a bit, but nothing major happened. As the main city next to Czarist Russia, and without a militant secret police, it's no surprise exiled revolutionaries such as Trotsky or Stalin chose to spend a few years/ weeks living there and drinking coffee as opposed to being on the run.
With this in mind, it's no surprise that Vienna had a larger number of intellectuals and potential revolutionaries than much of the surrounding area. But why do we know so many of them than say London or Paris?
The answer lies in the collapse of Austro-Hungary during WWI. Pre-war, Austro-Hungary had been on the skids for a long time. Its military defeat by Prussia in 1867 should have been a wake-up call to modernize, but instead it got bogged down in internal affairs, separating out Hungary and creating two layers of government. Both Russia and Austro-Hungary had similar problems in the later half of the 19th century, with revolutionaries who assassinated royals (in Russian Alexander II was killed by The People's Will and Princess Sisi was killed in Austria, wife of the Kaiser), and both were amongst the least effective nations in WWI. But while Russia had been engaged in Russification- getting its people to speak Russian, promoting a single Russian identity through the orthodox church, Austro-Hungary was splintering along nationalist lines into Austria, Hungary and several other states.
As a result, after the war Austro-Hungary no longer existed- but its scattered citizens spread across the new 5 (or more) states would have a great impact across state borders. Many of its former citizens and soldiers left the rump state of Austria- Hitler went to Germany, Tito to the newly formed kingdom of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. Of all the people you mention above, only Freud had "made it" in Vienna, being a respected doctor, and he chose to cling on until the Nazis annexed Austria and his very life was in danger.
Because so many people left to different surrounding countries, the people had a greater effect on European history than if they had stayed in Vienna/ Austria proper. Hitler ruled Germany and Tito Yugoslavia. Freud went to London and his ideas spread even further. Ditto Wittgenstein and Cambridge- first the psychologists and philosophers ideas spread in Britain and then along with other WWII exiles on to the US.
As a post-script, the rump status of Austria and Vienna diminished even further after WWII when it was quartered between the 4 allies for 10 years. As an example of how low Austria had sunk, a very expensive house built by millionaire philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was used as a Soviet stables. In 1955, the allies agreed to give back Vienna and the country became whole again, but on condition of neutrality. Nowadays Vienna is a very nice mid-size European city, with a good art scene, but it is no longer anything like the major political or intellectual centre it once was.