Marie Jahoda über die Wiener »Vereinigung sozialistischer Mittelschüler«

Wien, 1924 bis 1926

Ja wer kommt denn da, ja wer kommt denn da?
Es ist die Gruppe Jahoda.
Da kommen mit wuchtigem Schritt sie,
der Edi und die Mitzi.

I joined the organisation of socialist high school students […]. A year later, I was elected chairman of the organisation. It was a highly educational assignment. For our monthly meetings, which were attended by 100–200 members and which I chaired, I invited leading socialists as speakers. Otto Bauer came and that started a warm personal relationship with him. […]

There was Zoltan Ronai<00_02>,¹ a Hungarian refugee from the Horthy regime² – a gentle, loveable man and a wonderful teacher. He led a seminar for about 20 of us on Austro-marxism. He was quite critical of orthodox Marxism. I made a fool of myself in one discussion. Ronai had demonstrated from occupational data that [Karl] Marx’s theory of the progressive polarisation of social classes was wrong. Do you give up a theory just because some facts do not fit it? I asked. Ronai was shocked by such disregard for the real world. I have never forgotten the lesson.

And then there was Otto Neurath, erstwhile Minister for Planning in the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic. Condemned to death by the subsequent regime³ he had fled to Vienna where he became a leading member of the Vienna circle, a leading spirit in the party’s institutions for adult education, founder and director of the municipality’s Museum of Social and Economic Developments<05>, and God knows what else. He was a huge man, tall and massive with a flaming red beard. He signed all his letters with drawing an elephant – a fitting symbol. He treated us high school students as if we were his equals.

Marie Jahoda Albu: Reconstructions. [Keymer, Sussex: Published by the author] 1996, S. 33–34.

© Reinhard Müller -- Graz, im Oktober 2006