The Jew of Linz

The Jew of Linz
Cover of the first edition
AuthorKimberley Cornish
LanguageEnglish
SubjectLudwig Wittgenstein
PublisherCentury Books, an imprint of Random House
In Germany as Der Jude aus Linz: Hitler und Wittgenstein (1998) by Ullstein Verlag
Published in English
1998
Media typePrint
Pages298
ISBN0-7126-7935-9
LC ClassB3376.W564

The Jew of Linz is a 1998 book by Australian writer Kimberley Cornish, in which the author presents the fringe theories that philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was the childhood catalyst for the antisemitism of Adolf Hitler and that Wittgenstein was involved in the Cambridge Five Soviet spy ring. Cornish is also responsible for the claim that a school photo that features Hitler also shows Wittgenstein, though it has been dated to before the latter's time at the Realschule in Linz.

Contents

Summary

  1. The occasion for Adolf Hitler becoming anti-Semitic was a schoolboy interaction in Linz, circa 1904, with Ludwig Wittgenstein.[1]
  2. Wittgenstein joined the Comintern, and as a Trinity College don, and a member of the Cambridge Apostles, Wittgenstein recruited fellow Apostles Guy Burgess, Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt, all students at Trinity—as well as Donald Maclean from nearby Trinity Hall—to work for the Soviet Union.
  3. Wittgenstein was responsible for the secret of decrypting the German "Enigma" code being passed to Joseph Stalin, which resulted ultimately in the Nazi defeats on the Eastern Front and liberation of the surviving Jews from the camps.
  4. Both Hitler's oratory and Wittgenstein's philosophy of language derive from the hermetic tradition, the key to which is Wittgenstein's "no-ownership" theory of mind, described by P. F. Strawson in his book Individuals (1958).[2].

Realschule

The photograph

Cornish claims that "a photograph of Hitler aged fourteen at the school also shows the fourteen-year-old Wittgenstein".[a][4] He dates the photograph to 1904. Cornish says the Victoria Police photographic evidence unit in Australia examined the photograph and confirmed that it was "highly probable" the other boy is Wittgenstein. "The matter of the photograph" said Cornish "is clearly of great significance for our hypothesis".[4] Cornish claims of the photograph that "proximity would seem indicative of acquaintance" and that it "sustains confidence that the hypothesis is correct".[5][b]

The photo was published with the caption "Professor Oskar Langer mit der Klasse I b , 1900/1901 Rechts oben der 12jährige Adolf Hitler"(Professor Oskar Langer with Class I b, 1900/1901. Top right: 12-year-old Adolf Hitler) in both Hugo Rabitsch's Aus Adolf Hitlers Jugendzeit (1938) and contemporary publicity for that book in Börsenblatt.[7][8][c] A portrait of Langer on the same page of the book is captioned "Hitlers Klassenvorstand 1900/1901" (Hitler's class teacher 1900/1901). Langer has been established by Hermann Möcker as having worked at the school from 1884 only until 1901.[12] At the time of Cornish's publication, historian Brigitte Hamann dated the photograph to 1900 or 1901 for Focus magazine.[13][d] Since then, Austrian historian Roman Sandgruber has asserted it is from 1901 and Israeli historian Steven E. Aschheim has also said it has been "reliably dated" to that year.[17][18] Wittgenstein did not arrive at Linz until the 1903/1904 academic year, as Cornish himself acknowledges.[19]

Wittgenstein and Hitler at Linz

Hitler started at the school in September 1900, repeated the first year in 1901/1902, and left in autumn 1904 to spend the 1904/1905 academic year at the Realschule in Steyr.[20][21] The year at Steyr is discussed by Franz Jetzinger and Joachim Fest[22] near to passages Cornish quotes, and by Alan Bullock on a page of Hitler: A Study in Tyranny that he cites.[23] Yet, Cornish makes no mention of Hitler's time there. Möcker allows for the possibility that Cornish is unaware of Hitler's year at Steyr (Hitler was silent about it in Mein Kampf). But he also does not discount the idea that Cornish withheld knowledge of it because it did not fit his desired narrative of a close relationship between Hitler and Wittgenstein in Linz.[24]

Cornish asserts that Wittgenstein arrived at Linz in 1904,[25] during the "second semester of the academic year 1903/4".[26] The citation given suggests this is a misunderstanding of Wuchterl and Hübner (1979).[27] Their talk of 'the second semester of 1903/04'[e] is about the classes missed by Wittgenstein following the suicide of his brother Rudolf on 2 May 1904.[29][f] It is not about when Wittgenstein began schooling at Linz, which is given by the same authors later as autumn 1903.[31] Brian McGuinness, like Ray Monk, also reports that it was in 1903 that Wittgenstein was sent to Linz.[32]: 50 [g] Later scholarly commentary reasserts this and that Wittgenstein and Hitler were together at the Linz Realschule from 1903 to 1904.[34]

While Hitler was just six days older than Wittgenstein, they were two grades apart at the school, Hitler having repeated the first year and Wittgenstein being advanced a year, as McGuinness records (and Cornish quotes without correction).[35][36][h] There is no evidence that the two got to know each other.[38][39][40] But, as, Aschheim notes, this did not deter Cornish from asserting that the cause of Hitler's 'genocidal anti-Semitism' is a supposed 'schoolboy spat' with Wittgenstein.[41][42]

The Jew of Linz

Cornish's thesis is that the young Wittgenstein was "the very first link in the chain of hatred that led to Auschwitz" and the one Jewish boy from Hitler's school days referred to in Mein Kampf.[43] The last claim referred to the following, as quoted by Cornish:

At the Realschule, to be sure, I did meet one Jewish boy who was treated by all of us with caution, but only because various experiences had led us to doubt his discretion and we did not particularly trust him ...

— Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1943 translation by Ralph Manheim, as quoted by Cornish.[44]

"This paragraph — a mere forty words in English translation — is the focus of our investigation" writes Cornish.[45] Though, as Nicholas Mosley points out:

in the next sentence Hitler goes on to say about the boy (and Mr Cornish does not quote this): "Beyond that, my companions and myself formed no particular opinions in regard to him." And a few lines later Hitler is explaining that at this time ... hearing hostile remarks about Jews ... aroused in him "a feeling of abhorrence". (Mr Cornish does not mention this either.)[46]

Thus Hitler, whilst denying that he was yet anti-Semitic,[i] does refer to a Jewish boy at 'the Realschule' [j] but, as Steven Poole notes, "only due to his lack of 'discretion', rather than his race". Cornish "nevertheless reads this as a revelation of how Hitler's anti-Semitism took root".[48] Sean French writes that there is "No evidence that Hitler, in his final unhappy year, even knew a boy two years above him. If they did know each other, there is no evidence that he was the boy Hitler distrusted".[49] Still, as Michael Feld notes:

Cornish concludes that Hitler hated Jews because he hated Ludwig Wittgenstein. He hated Wittgenstein's family, too -- his Catholic family, his assimilated family -- because they tried to pass for Austrian, and because they had made themselves fabulously wealthy by establishing a steel cartel in the heart of the Habsburg empire. He hated all assimilated Jews. But at root Hitler hated Jews, Cornish tells us, because of his hatred for Ludwig Wittgenstein.[50]

Jackie Assayag asserts that 'a single fact—that the Wittgenstein family in Vienna was never harassed by the Nazis—undermines the argument of the entire book'.[51] Roz Kaveney also suggests that "if Hitler spent his life hating Wittgenstein, it is odd that Wittgenstein's sisters spent the entire war unmolested in Vienna".[52][k]

The Cambridge Five

As Nigel West notes, Cornish identifies Wittgenstein "as a central figure in the Cambridge spy ring: the talent spotter and recruiter".[56]

Frank McLynn reports that Cornish poses the question of why Wittgenstein, who hated academic life, returned to Trinity in 1929. His answer being that:

Wittgenstein, alarmed by the rise of the Nazis and knowing from his schooldays the manner of man the Fuhrer was, thought the way he could best serve humanity was by becoming a Soviet agent in England.[57]

As McLynn notes, the "obvious objection is that Hitler in 1929 was nowhere near the centre of power".[57]

Cornish presses the question of why the Soviet government offered Wittgenstein the chair in philosophy at what had been Lenin's university during the Great Purge. On this point, Cornish contends in interview that it is undeniably proven that Wittgenstein worked for the Soviets by the fact that he was offered a chair in philosophy in 1935 at Kazan, and that even if this were the only proof it would be quite sufficient.[58]

Antony Flew agrees an explanation is needed "since Wittgenstein was very far from being a Marxist philosopher" and offers some support:

Cornish contends that the reason why ... the USSR treated Wittgenstein with such peculiar generosity was that he had been the recruiter of all the Cambridge spies. The question ... can be definitively settled only if and when the relevant Soviet archives are examined. But I am myself as confident as ... it is possible to be that Mr Cornish is right. For people who during the crucial years between Wittgenstein's return to Cambridge in 1929 and that 1935 offer were attending his classes and/or enjoying other personal contacts with him have given me accounts both of the ... overwhelming force of Wittgenstein's personality and of the absoluteness in those years of his Stalinist commitment.[59]

Adam Shatz writes:

There is, to be sure, a simple explanation for the Russian proposal. As Monk notes, "Wittgenstein was perceived as one of the world's greatest philosophers, and it would have been a great coup for any regime to have him. The Soviet authorities probably offered him the job as a courtesy to John Maynard Keynes, who was friendly with Ivan Maiskii, the Russian ambassador." But Cornish thinks such an explanation is far too simplistic.[60]: 21 

Further, West says, not only that there is "nothing to suggest that the Austrian refugee ever met any of his putative subordinates" but that:

The mechanics of recruitment of each of the Cambridge spies are, following the release of the KGB file in Moscow, now well established. ... So the issue of another individual, a talent spotter remotely directing operations, hardly arises.[61]

Similarly, Paul Monk, suggests that "long-standing disputes about who really recruited Philby, Burgess, Maclean, Blunt and Cairncross" appeared to have been already settled.[62] Like West, he also notes Cornish reached his conclusions without consulting the Soviet archives. West writes that "the KGB files tell quite a different story" but "for the committed conspiracy theorist that, too, is further proof of the plot".[63]

Cornish also attributes Soviet victory at the Battle of Kursk to their having obtained the key to the Enigma code from Alan Turing, via Wittgenstein. Kaveney asserts that "in fact, the crucial information was given to them by John Cairncross" noting that "the Cambridge spy who arguably won the war for Russia never had anything to do with Wittgenstein".[52]

Steve Clarke classifies Cornish's spymaster thesis as a conspiracy theory.[64][65]

Reception

Shatz remarks that "Cornish's book caused a stir in England when it was published" and that "a number of drolly dismissive commentaries ran in The Guardian, The Economist, The New Statesman, and The Times Literary Supplement" but "nobody took the book seriously".[66] Some of the book's claims did however resurface in the last chapter of a 1999 book by philosopher Laurence Goldstein.[67]

Laurence Goldstein

One of the main issues of contention is the claim that Wittgenstein triggered or substantially contributed to Hitler's antisemitism while they were at school together. This is a view that, says Sandgruber, "must be referred to the realm of inventions".[68] But it is one that had some support from Laurence Goldstein. In his Clear and Queer Thinking (1999), Goldstein called Cornish's book important, writing: "it is overwhelmingly probable that Hitler and Wittgenstein did meet, and with dire consequences for the history of the world" (though the evidence is "admittedly circumstantial").[69]: 164 

Goldstein says that "Cornish suggests, with some plausibility, that at certain points in Mein Kampf where Hitler seems to be raging against Jews in general it is the individual young Ludwig Wittgenstein whom he has in mind" [70] and that Wittgenstein "may have inspired [...] the hatred of Jews which led, ultimately, to the Holocaust".[71] According to Marie McGinn, this is "exactly this sort of sloppy, irresponsible, but 'plausible' style of thought that Wittgenstein's philosophy, by its careful attention to the particular and to not saying more or less than is warranted, is directed against. Goldstein's susceptibility to the charms of such obvious myths makes his hubristic claim that his 'understanding of Wittgenstein's work has improved immeasurably as a result of developing an empathy for the man' offensive as well as risible."[l] Goldstein was also reviewed critically by Anthony Palmer in the journal Philosophical Investigations.[72]

Goldstein suggests that:

After Hitler had established his programme of persecutions, one can easily imagine Wittgenstein being haunted by the thought of what difference it might have made had he taken the trouble to behave less obtrusively and obnoxiously as a schoolboy in Linz.[70]

In response, a review in the journal Philosophy concludes:

It is all too easy to imagine all sorts of things in relation to the Third Reich. Industries are built on such imaginings. Better perhaps to stick to facts ...[67]

Despite such criticisms, Goldstein remained convinced of the book's importance, writing in a 2010 review, that the author Béla Szabados "to his discredit" and "like many of Wittgenstein's admirers, entirely disregards Kimberly Cornish's controversial book" (and its "not yet conclusive evidence").[73]

Others

David G. Stern described Cornish's "account of Wittgenstein's Jewishness as the driving force behind Hitler's anti-Semitism" as "a good example of the dangers of applying the conspiracy theory approach to Wittgenstein".[74] Hans Sluga describes Cornish as a "gossip-writer" and says his book "constructs a completely fantastic narrative".[75]

A leading article in The Economist remarks of Cornish's book, "The logic is simple: if a claim has not been conclusively refuted, then that is a good reason to believe it. This principle is of little use in the natural sciences, but it works profitable wonders in the science of publishing."[76] That, on the "slender basis" that his "family were Jewish converts to Christianity, and the young philosopher went to the same school as Adolf Hitler", Wittgenstein is deemed "unwittingly responsible for the Holocaust" is, according to an editorial in Philosophy Now, a "tasteless piece of nonsense" [77]

Alan Bennett remarks, "it seems probable that the 'one Jewish boy' mentioned early on in Mein Kampf was, as Cornish asserts, Ludwig Wittgenstein. The trouble is Cornish makes his case in such a tendentious and overheated fashion, and utterly without humour, that he invites scepticism."[78] Peter Bradshaw refers to the book as "far-fetched speculation" that had been "attacked by historians as fiction masquerading as history".[79]

Jane Kramer describes The Jew of Linz as "right-wing idiocy ... a fantasy disguised as a disquisition ... which holds that Hitler murdered six million Jews because of an unfortunate brush with Ludwig Wittgenstein in a Linz Realschule".[80] Glen Newey describes it as a "wacko book".[81]

Selected reviews

"The lack of any logical framework makes the work in this book insupportable. Moreover, it is erroneous to think that tenuous fragments of information taken as a sum total lead to a weighty hypothesis." writes Sophie Hampshire in Leonardo, "Cornish needs to exercise rigorous deductive analysis and to curb his imagination if he is to continue writing on such complex topics."[82]

Paul Monk says: "As I read The Jew of Linz, I found myself wondering how on earth Cornish had confected so strange a piece of work. I found it by turns puzzling, funny, challenging and outrageously nutty... Cornish calls his book 'pioneer detective work', but I think it is really pioneer detective fiction."[62]

Daniel Johnson viewed The Jew of Linz as a "revisionist tract masquerading as psycho-history". He wrote, "Cornish correctly identifies 'the twist of the investigation' as the thesis that 'Nazi metaphysics, as discernible in Hitler's writings... is nothing but Wittgenstein's theory of the mind modified so as to exclude the race of its inventor'. So the Jew of Linz was indirectly responsible, at least in part, for the Holocaust. Cornish tries to deflect the implications of his argument thus: 'Whatever 'the Jews' may have done, nothing humanly justifies what was done to them.' But he then offers 'a thought that might occur to a Hasidic Jew, and that is more fittingly a matter for Jewish, as opposed to gentile, reflection: the very engine that drove Hitler's acquisition of the magical powers that made his ascent and the Holocaust possible was the Wittgenstein Covenant violation'. At this point, the nonsensical shades into the downright sinister.[83]

Sean French wrote in the New Statesman: "There is something heroic about this argument and it would be a good subject for a novel about the dangers of creating theories out of nothing. Vladimir Nabokov should have written it. It is not just that there are weak links in the theory. There are no links in the theory." [49] In the same magazine Roz Kaveney calls it "a stupid and dishonest book", and says "[Cornish's] intention is to claim Wittgenstein for his own brand of contemplative mysticism, which he defines as the great insight that IndoEuropeans (or, as he unregenerately terms them, Aryans) brought to Hinduism and Buddhism."[52]

Antony Flew, though persuaded by Cornish's claims about Wittgenstein's role as a Soviet spymaster, is less impressed by his philosophical claims: "On the very first page of Part III, Mr Cornish explains that the essence of this doctrine was expressed by Emerson in his restatement of the original Aryan doctrine of consciousness: '... the act of seeing and the thing seen, the see-er and the spectacle, the subject and the object is one'. I confess, not very shamefacedly, that confronted with such doctrines I want to quote Groucho Marx: 'It appears absurd. But don't be misled. It is absurd.'"[59]

Boyd Tonkin, remarks that as "a bizarre showcase of the paranoid style in history, The Jew of Linz would be hard to beat ... this sad obsessive fantasy displays the depth to which ideas about the past can sink once you dump structural causes and simply chronicle the random collisions of actors who move the world (as Hitler desired) by Will alone".[84]

German historian Michael Rissmann argues that Cornish overestimates Hitler's intellectual capacities and uses fraudulent talks Hermann Rauschning claims to have had with Hitler to prove Hitler's alleged occultist interest.[85]

In contrast, Douglas Davis of the Jerusalem Post describes the theory that Wittgenstein "could have been the catalyst that drove Hitler" as "persuasively argued".[86]

Notes

  1. ^ Though as journalist Carlos Widmann noted, Hitler and the other boy look younger than 14.[3]
  2. ^ A claim disputed by Jan Westerhoff who notes that Wittgenstein is not pictured directly next to Hitler and that it can be assumed the arrangement in such group photos of the period was generally not based on personal preference.[6]
  3. ^ The same photograph also appears in a 1953 memoir of the young Hitler by August Kubizek with the caption "ein Bild aus der ersten Klasse der Linzer Realschule" (a picture from the first Class of Realschule in Linz).[9] and its abridged 1954 translation.[10] It also appears in Hitlers Jugend (1956) by Franz Jetzinger, and repeated in the 1958 translation is the information that it shows Hitler in "a photograph of the first class in the Linz Realschule".[11] The latter is directly cited by Cornish for other reasons but he is silent, at least in the English edition, about its use of the photograph and description of it.
  4. ^ Hamann also told Der Spiegel it predated 1903 and that the child near Hitler was not Wittgenstein.[14] German government library sources date the photograph to circa 1901, American ones to June 1901.[15][16]
  5. ^ The Austrian academic year for secondary education is divided into two semesters and usually runs from September to June or July.[28]
  6. ^ Oddly Cornish renders his (untranslated) quotation from Wuchterl and Hübner (1979) p.28 as 'Ludwig versaumte damals in Linz, wo er die Realschule besuchte, viele Unterrichtsstunden; im zweiten Semester 1903/04 waren es, im Jahre darauf sogar.' i.e. he deletes the numbers of lessons missed by Wittgenstein in the 'second semester' of 1903/1904 and in the following academic year (124 and 425, respectively).[30]
  7. ^ Ray Monk erroneously gives the year that Hitler and Wittgenstein overlapped at the Linz Realschule as 1904–1905 but, almost immediately afterwards, correctly states that Wittgenstein was there from 1903 until 1906.[33] Cornish refers to the first claim but not the second.[4]
  8. ^ Why two boys not in the same class would be together in the photograph was a question raised by Gerald Stieg.[37] Cornish, in the Notes, says only that "It appears to be the photograph of an age group, not a class."[30]
  9. ^ Contrary to some reports, Hitler does not record that he became anti-Semitic because of a Jewish schoolmate in Mein Kampf (or elsewhere).
  10. ^ Möcker suggests the passage could just as easily refer to an incident in Steyr where Hitler had a Jewish classmate. ("Die Passage in Mein Kampf kann sich aber genauso gut auf einen Vorfall in Steyr beziehen, wo Hitler in seinem letzten Realschuljahr einen mosaischen Mitschüler ...") [47]
  11. ^ As Adam Kirsch notes, Hitler personally authorised the reclassification of the Wittgensteins as Mischlinge (half-Jewish) just a few days before the invasion of Poland.[53] This was done, as Anthony Gottlieb puts it, "on the pretext that their paternal grandfather had been the bastard son of a German prince. Nobody believed this tale, but the arrangement enabled the German Reichsbank to claim all the gold and much of the foreign currency and stocks held in Switzerland by a Wittgenstein trust."[54] In interview, Cornish reports on his requests to the FBI and CIA for access to the files he thinks ought exist relating to these money transfers.[55]
  12. ^ McGinn, Marie. "Hi Ludwig!" Times Literary Supplement, no. 5069, 26 May 2000, p. 24. quoted in: Fitzgerald, Michael (2 August 2004). Autism and Creativity: Is There a Link between Autism in Men and Exceptional Ability?. Routledge. p. 308. ISBN 978-1-135-45340-4.

References

  1. ^ Monk, Ray. "A mind on fire: A century alter its publication, Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus remains one of the most radical works of modern philosophy." New Statesman, vol. 150, no. 5637, 17 Sept. 2021, pp. 58 Gale A677790858 "Hitler, who was almost exactly the same age as Wittgenstein ... attended the same school, which in 1998 prompted the writer Kimberley Cornish to speculate that Wittgenstein was the original cause of Hitler's anti-Semitism. But there is no evidence of this or even of them having met."
  2. ^ Strawson, Peter. Individuals. Methuen, 1958.
  3. ^ Widmann, Carlos (5 July 1998). "Der Indiana Jones von Linz". Der Spiegel (in German). ISSN 2195-1349. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  4. ^ a b c Cornish 1998, p. 11.
  5. ^ Cornish 1998, p. 91.
  6. ^ Westerhoff, Jan (1 June 1999). "Gefährliche Beziehungen - Wittgenstein, Hitler und der Holocaust" [Dangerous Relationships – Wittgenstein, Hitler, and the Holocaust]. literaturkritik.de (in German). Retrieved 1 March 2026. Abgesehen von der Tatsache, daß der vermutete Wittgenstein nun keineswegs direkt neben Hitler abgebildet ist, ist das Photo auch insofern als Beleg nicht ernst zu nehmen, als man davon ausgehen kann, daß die Verteilung auf solchen Gruppenphotos Anfang des Jahrhunderts in der Regel nicht nach persönlicher Neigung, sondern eher nach alphabetischen oder Symmetrieprinzipien geschah.
  7. ^ Rabitsch, Hugo (1938). Aus Adolf Hitlers Jugendzeit (in German). Munich: Deutscher Volksverlag. p. 149.
  8. ^ Anon. (21 January 1938). "Jugenderinnerungen eines zeitgenöffifchen Linzer Realfchülers aus Adolf Hitlers Jugendzeit Von Hugo Rabitich" (PDF). Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel (in German). Leipzig. p. [7] 253.
  9. ^ Kubizek, August (1966) [1953]. Adolf Hitler : mein Jugendfreund. Graz und Stuttgart : Leopold Stocker Verlag. p. 89.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  10. ^ Kubizek, August (1954). Young Hitler : The Story of Our Friendship. Translated by E.V. Anderson, with an introduction by H. R. Trevor-Roper. London: Allan Wingate. Between pages 48 and 49. The First Form of the Secondary School at Linz.
  11. ^ Jetzinger, Franz (1958). Hitler's Youth. Translated by Lawrence Wilson, Foreword by Alan Bullock. London: Hutchinson. Between pages 104 and 105.
  12. ^ Möcker, Hermann (2006). "Hitlers Schülerbiographie – nachgeprüft und berichtigt". In Haidacher, Christoph; Schober, Richard (eds.). Von Stadtstaaten und Imperien (in German). Universitätsverlag Wagner. p. 140. ISBN 978-3-7030-0420-9. Das Foto lässt sich über den mit abgebildeten Lehrer eindeutig identifizieren: Es handelt sich um den Klassenvorstand der 1.b, Prof. Oskar Langer, der 1884 bis 1901 an der Linzer Realschule wirkte, ab dem folgenden Schuljahr aber deren Lehrkörper nicht mehr angehörte.
  13. ^ Thiede, Roger (16 March 1998). "Phantom Wittgenstein". Focus (in German). Archived from the original on 14 July 2021. Retrieved 15 February 2026.
  14. ^ Widmann, Carlos (5 July 1998). "Der Indiana Jones von Linz". Der Spiegel (in German). ISSN 2195-1349. Archived from the original on 27 February 2023. Retrieved 19 February 2026.
  15. ^ "The Digital Picture Archives of the Federal Archives". Archived from the original on 1 October 2025. Retrieved 13 May 2011.
  16. ^ *"Hitler, As youth; with classmates in school picture; Linz, Austria; June 1901". U.S. Library of Congress. Retrieved 13 May 2011.
  17. ^ Sandgruber, Roman (2022). Hitler's Father: Hidden Letters: Why the Son Became a Dictator (1st ed.). New York: Pen & Sword Books Limited. pp. 239–240. ISBN 978-1-3990-1928-6. It is not possible for Wittgenstein and Hitler to be seen together in a class photo of 1 B, as the Australian historian Kimberly Cornish tried to prove in a somewhat oblique book, not only because the two were never in the same class, but because Wittgenstein, when the photo was taken in 1901, was not yet at school at all.
  18. ^ Aschheim 2018, p. 125.
  19. ^ Cornish 1998, p. 9.
  20. ^ Kershaw, Ian (2000). "Hitler, 1889–1936". W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 16–19. ISBN 978-0-393-32035-0.
  21. ^ Jetzinger, Franz (1958). "Adolf at Secondary School". Hitler's Youth. Translated by Lawrence Wilson, Foreword by Alan Bullock. London: Hutchinson. pp. 63–67.
  22. ^ Fest, Joachim C. (2000) [1974]. Hitler. translated by Richard and Clara Wilson. London : Penguin. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-14-005950-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  23. ^ Bullock, Alan (1962) [1952]. Hitler : A Study In Tyranny. p. 26. Adolf left the Linz Realschule in 1904 ... because his record at school was so indifferent that he had to accept a transfer to another school at Steyr..
  24. ^ Möcker, Hermann (2001). "War Wittgenstein Hitlers 'Jude aus Linz', wie Kimberley Cornish aus antipodischer Sicht meint? Biographische Korrekturen zum Schüler Adolf und Gedanken zu einem krausen Buch" (PDF). Contributions of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society (in German). IX (2): 82. ISSN 1022-3398. Es fällt auf, dass Cornish auf Hitlers Steyrer Realschuljahr nicht eingeht, wobei zu klären wäre, ob er davon nichts wusste - weil auch Hitler über seine Zeit in Steyr schweigt - oder ob er sein Wissen absichtlich zurückhielt, weil ihm ein Vorfall auf der Steyrer Realschule nicht in seine "Wunschkombinationen" passte. Ein Buchtitel wie Der Jude aus Steyr hätte Cornish's Behauptungen über das Naheverhältnis Hitlers und Wittgensteins in Linz nicht gerade gestützt.
  25. ^ Cornish, Kimberley. "The boy who haunted Hitler; Book Extract." Sunday Times [London, England], 8 Mar. 1998, p. 1. Gale Academic OneFile, Accessed 3 Mar. 2026. Gale A59993637 "Ludwig was educated at home by governesses and tutors for his first 14 years, but his father decided in 1904 to send him away ... to a state school in the provinces."
  26. ^ Cornish 1998, p. 9, 241.
  27. ^ Wuchterl, Kurt; Hübner, Adolf (1979). "Wittgenstein und Wien". Ludwig Wittgenstein in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (in German). Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt. p. 28. ISBN 978-3-499-50275-0. Ludwig versäumte damals in Linz, wo er die Realschule besuchte, viele Unterrichtsstunden; im zweiten Semester 1903/04 waren es 124, im Jahre darauf sogar 425.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  28. ^ S, Bodenman, Paul; Education, United States Department of (1981). The Educational System of Austria. Washington, D.C. : U.S. Department of Education. p. 7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  29. ^ Waugh, Alexander (30 August 2008). "The Wittgensteins: Viennese whirl". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 28 February 2009. Retrieved 17 March 2026.
  30. ^ a b Cornish 1998, p. 241.
  31. ^ Wuchterl, Kurt; Hübner, Adolf (1979). "Zeittaffel". Ludwig Wittgenstein in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (in German). Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt. p. 138. ISBN 978-3-499-50275-0. 1903 Wittgenstein verlaBt das Elternhaus, wo er bisher Privaterziehung erhielt. Ab Herbst Besuch der Realschule in Linz,{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  32. ^ McGuinness, Brian (Bernard Francis) (1988). Wittgenstein : a life, Young Ludwig, 1889-1921. Berkeley [etc.] : University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-06451-5.
  33. ^ Monk 1990, p. 15.
  34. ^ Beaney, Michael (2023). "Introduction". Tractatus logico-philosophicus. New York: Oxford University Press. p. xv. ISBN 978-0-19-886137-9. Ludwig was educated at home until 1903, when his father changed his views on how his children should be taught after the death of Hans ... and sent Ludwig to a Realschule ... in Linz. (Adolf Hitler, who was just six days older than Wittgenstein, also attended this school from 1900 to 1904, but Hitler was a year behind his year group and Wittgenstein was a year ahead.) He stayed there until 1906..
  35. ^ McGuinness 1988, p. 51.
  36. ^ Cornish 1998, p. 10.
  37. ^ Stieg, Gerald (1998). "Kimberley Cornish : Wittgenstein contre Hitler. Le Juif de Linz, Paris, PUF, 1998". Austriaca : Cahiers universitaires d'information sur l'Autriche. 47 (1). Presses universitaires de Rouen et du Havre: 211. Loin de moi de mettre en cause les résultats "hautement probables" des laboratoires de la police australienne qui conclue à l'identité du garçon avec Wittgenstein. Il reste néanmoins une énigme historique : selon d'autres sources plus dignes de foi, que M. Cornish ne nie ni ne rectifie, Adolf et Ludwig n'ont pas fréquenté la même classe. Que font-ils donc ensemble sur cette photo ? [Far be it from me to question the "highly probable" results of the Australian police laboratories, which concluded that the boy was indeed Wittgenstein. Nevertheless, a historical enigma remains: according to other, more reliable sources, which Mr. Cornish neither denies nor corrects, Adolf and Ludwig were not in the same class. What, then, are they doing together in this photograph?]
  38. ^ Longerich, Peter (2017). Hitler: A Life. OUP Oxford. p. 947. ISBN 978-0-19-251574-2. There is no evidence for any contact between Hitler and Wittgenstein, who was in a more senior class.
  39. ^ Monk, Ray (1990). Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. Random House. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-4481-1267-8. Hitler, though almost exactly the same age as Wittgenstein, was two years behind at school. ... There is no evidence that they had anything to do with one another. Wittgenstein spent three years at the school, from 1903 to 1906.
  40. ^ Sluga, H. (1996). Ludwig Wittgenstein: Wittgenstein: Life and work, An introduction. In H. D. Sluga & D. G. Stern (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein (p. 4). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. "It is one of the ironies of history that the future philosopher and the future dictator actually attended the same school for a year. There is, however, no evidence that the two got to know each other in that period." ISBN 9780521465915
  41. ^ Aschheim, Steven E. (2018), "8. Vienna: Harbinger of Creativity and Catastrophe", Fragile Spaces, De Gruyter, p. 125, doi:10.1515/9783110596939-008, ISBN 978-3-11-059693-9, retrieved 19 February 2026, There is a picture in which Hitler and allegedly Wittgenstein are shown together ... The picture, however, has been reliably dated to 1901, whereas Wittgenstein only enrolled in the Realschule two years later. While the two attended the same school for that limited period there is no evidence that their paths ever crossed, a fact which did not deter Cornish from asserting that the source of Hitler's genocidal anti-Semitism is to be found in his schoolboy spat with Wittgenstein!{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
  42. ^ Robinson, Christopher C (2006). "Why Wittgenstein Is Not Conservative: Conventions and Critique". Theory & Event. 9 (3). Notes. doi:10.1353/tae.2006.0037. ISSN 1092-311X. xix. There is a book, touted as "historical research", that claims the anti-Semitism leading to the Final Solution was the consequence of a schoolyard squabble between Hitler and Wittgenstein ... This particular line of argument is built upon one historically accurate anecdote: Hitler and Wittgenstein were both born in 1889, and attended the same high school..
  43. ^ Cornish 1998, p. 13.
  44. ^ Cornish 1998, p. 12.
  45. ^ Cornish 1998, pp. 12–13.
  46. ^ Mosley, N. (1998, Mar 14). "Books: Root of the nazi party's anti-semitism? Nicholas Mosley disputes claims made for a philosopher's childhood influence on a future dictator, and later role in bringing him down." The Daily Telegraph ProQuest 316976506
  47. ^ Möcker 2001, p. 82.
  48. ^ Steven Poole "Books: The List." Guardian [London, England], 26 Mar. 1998, p. 14. Gale Academic OneFile Gale A76113370/
  49. ^ a b French, Sean. "The idea that Hitler and Wittgenstein were once schoolmates is certainly compelling. But it's hardly the stuff of serious historical conjecture." New Statesman, vol. 127, no. 4376, 13 Mar. 1998, p. 18. Gale A20484978
  50. ^ Feld, Michael. "Blame it on Wittgenstein: author claims that Hitler's hatred of a young Jewish philosopher-to-be produced Nazism and the Holocaust: The Jew of Linz: Wittgenstein, Hitler and their secret battle for the mind." Globe & Mail [Toronto, Canada], 1 Aug. 1998 Gale A30208949
  51. ^ Assayag, Jackie (1999). "Comment devient-on antisémite? Wittgenstein contre Hitler ou le discours contre la méthode". L'Homme (in French) (152): 186. ISSN 0439-4216. JSTOR 25156966. un seul fait — la famille Wittgenstein à Vienne ne fut jamais inquiétée par les nazis — ruine le propos de tout le livre
  52. ^ a b c Kaveney, Roz. New Statesman, vol. 127, no. 4388, 5 June 1998. p. 48. Gale A20954080
  53. ^ Kirsch, Adam (11 June 2009). "The Wittgenstein Illusion". The New York Review of Books. Vol. 56, no. 10. ISSN 0028-7504. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
  54. ^ Gottlieb, Anthony (30 March 2009). "A Nervous Splendor". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
  55. ^ "Kimberley Cornish, auteur de « Wittgenstein contre Hitler »". Le Monde (in French). 21 October 1998. Archived from the original on 1 March 2026. Retrieved 16 March 2026.
  56. ^ West, Nigel (1998). "The Jew of Linz: Cornish, Kimberley: London: Century, Random House 298 pp., Publication Date: March 1998". History: Reviews of New Books. 26 (4): 216–217. doi:10.1080/03612759.1998.10528263. ISSN 0361-2759.
  57. ^ a b McLynn, Frank. "Changing the course of history; History." Sunday Times [London, England], 15 Mar. 1998, p. 6. Gale A59993196
  58. ^ "Kimberley Cornish, auteur de « Wittgenstein contre Hitler »". Le Monde (in French). 21 October 1998. Archived from the original on 1 March 2026. Retrieved 16 March 2026. Que Wittgenstein ait travaillé pour les Soviétiques est prouvé, de manière incontestable, par le fait qu'une chaire de philosophie lui fut offerte, en 1935, à l'université de Kazan celle-là même où Lénine avait fait ses études. ... Mon livre apporte, au demeurant, bien d'autres preuves du lien qui unissait Wittgenstein aux Soviets. Mais quand il n'y aurait que celle-là, elle suffirait amplement.
  59. ^ a b Flew, Antony (July 1999). "The Jew of Linz: Wittgenstein, Hitler and their Secret Battle for the Mind" (PDF). Free Life : A Journal of Classical Liberal and Libertarian Thought (32). London: Libertarian Alliance: 14. ISSN 0260-5112.
  60. ^ Shatz, Adam (1998). "Inside Publishing : School Ties". Lingua Franca. pp. 19–21. Archived from the original on 10 November 2007.
  61. ^ West 1998, p. 216–217.
  62. ^ a b Monk, Paul. "The Jew of Linz: Wittgenstein, Hitler and Their Secret Battle for the Mind." Quadrant, vol. 42, no. 9, Sept. 1998, pp. 79+. Accessed 10 Feb. 2026. Gale A21172488
  63. ^ West 1998, p. 217.
  64. ^ Clarke, Steve (2002). "Conspiracy Theories and Conspiracy Theorizing". Philosophy of the Social Sciences. 32 (2): 131. doi:10.1177/004931032002001. ISSN 0048-3931. There are large numbers of people who believe that the United States' military has conspired to keep the public uninformed about visits by alien lifeforms (Shermer 1997, 91-93). Others believe that Elvis Presley conspired to fake his own death (Brewer-Giorgio 1988). Some even believe that Ludwig Wittgenstein led a secret double life as a Soviet spymaster (Cornish 1997).
  65. ^ Clarke, Steve. "Conspiracy Theories and the Internet: Controlled Demolition and Arrested Development." Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology, vol. 4 no. 2, 2007, p. 176, 180. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/228144.
  66. ^ Shatz 1998, p. 19.
  67. ^ a b Anon. (July 1999). "Booknotes". Philosophy. 74 (3): 462. doi:10.1017/S0031819199000522. ISSN 0031-8191.
  68. ^ Sandgruber, Roman (2022). Hitler's Father: Hidden Letters: Why the Son Became a Dictator (1st ed.). New York: Pen & Sword Books Limited. p. 239. ISBN 978-1-3990-1928-6. that Hitler's anti-Semitism had expressed itself or even ignited through contacts with Jewish classmates has been claimed above all in connection with Ludwig Wittgenstein. However, [...] that his time at secondary school was the reason for Hitler's hostility to Jews must be referred to the realm of inventions.
  69. ^ Goldstein, Laurence (1999). "Wittgenstein the Man". Clear and queer thinking : Wittgenstein's development and his relevance to modern thought. New York : Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-8476-9545-4.
  70. ^ a b Goldstein 1999, p. 169.
  71. ^ Goldstein 1999, p. 164.
  72. ^ Palmer contends that what Goldstein calls his Mandy Rice-Davies approach to interpreting Wittgenstein is "not an approach to interpretation at all" but "presupposes an understanding of what has been said and seeks only to question the ulterior motives for, and the seriousness or honesty shown, in saying it". Palmer, A. (2002). "Reviews". Philosophical Investigations. 25 (2): 218–220. doi:10.1111/1467-9205.00172. ISSN 0190-0536.
  73. ^ Goldstein, Laurence (7 August 2010). "Ludwig Wittgenstein on Race, Gender and Cultural Identity". Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Archived from the original on 17 November 2025. Retrieved 12 February 2026.
  74. ^ Stern, David. "Was Wittgenstein a Jew?" in Klagge, James C., ed. (2001). Wittgenstein: Biography and Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, p. 241. ISBN 978-0-521-80397-7
  75. ^ Sluga, Hans (28 December 2017). "Introduction: Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Man, the Life, and the Work". In Sluga, Hans; Stern, David G. (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein (2 ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 3, 25. doi:10.1017/9781316341285. ISBN 978-1-316-34128-5.
  76. ^ "Magnates and metaphysics". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Archived from the original on 30 November 2020. Retrieved 18 February 2026.
  77. ^ "News: Spring 1998 | Issue 20 | Philosophy Now". philosophynow.org. Retrieved 18 February 2026.
  78. ^ Bennett, Alan (20 January 2000). "Diary: What I did in 1999". London Review of Books. Vol. 22, no. 02. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved 18 February 2026.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  79. ^ Bradshaw, Peter (20 June 2003). "Max". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
  80. ^ Kramer, Jane (1 March 1999). "The Accidental Führer". The New Yorker. p. 87. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 23 February 2026.
  81. ^ Newey, Glen. "Thursday Book: What happened to Adolf?" Independent [London, England], 16 July 1998, p. 5. Gale General OneFile Gale A66786997
  82. ^ Hampshire, Sophie. Review of The Jew of Linz, by Kimberly Cornish. Leonardo, vol. 32 no. 3, 1999, p. 232-233. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/607867.
  83. ^ Johnson, Daniel. "What didn't happen in Linz," The Sunday Times Literary Supplement, 17 April 1998.
  84. ^ Boyd, Tonkin (21 March 1998). "A week in books". The Independent. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
  85. ^ Rissmann, Michael. Hitlers Gott. Vorsehungsglaube und Sendungsbewußtsein des deutschen Diktators, Zürich München: Pendo, 2001, p. 95 and footnote 456.
  86. ^ Davis, Douglas. "Hitler's pet hate" Jerusalem Post, 20 April 1998. p.17 ProQuest 319221469

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