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By Thomas Riegler “In 1951 and 1955 Philby was investigated as ‘the third man’ after the defection of the first two members of the Cambridge Five. As journalist Gordon Corera puts it: ‘By a strange quirk of fate, the title of Graham Greene’s screenplay was now applied to the man, unbeknown to anyone, may have…
By Elizabeth O’Neil “During the 1930s and 1940s, thousands of scientists and intellectuals fled Austria. Some, especially those with Jewish heritage, left in the early 1930s when the threat of Nazi antisemitism became apparent. Others remained in Austria through the war years and left afterwards in search of financial security. This “intellectual migration,” as scholars…
By Jonathan Singerton “Over the duration of its existence between 1829 and 1917, the Society donated around 4.2 million Austrian Gulden to the American cause. Unlike other missionary societies, the Leopoldine Society restricted its alms to causes solely for use in North America, meaning the United States and Dominion of Canada.“ Early nineteenth-century America was…
By Duncan Bare “While much is already known about what US intelligence did in Austria between 1945 and 1955, relatively little has been written to date about their structure(s) or personnel, except to add ‘flavor’ and depth to stories of their operational exploits or specific projects.“ My Project “America’s Eyes On and In Central Europe:…
By Dóra Fedeles-Czeferner “Schwimmer and her co-workers at NOE and FE were associated with no less an achievement than the creation of the modern women’s movement and the spreading of its innovative ideas in Budapest, then in provincial cities in Hungary. Her closest associates, who, in addition to coordinating the everyday affairs of NOE and…
By Andrew Nagorski “…Dr. Sigmund Freud, no less, with his gleaming violet eyes, his hard carved beard, his note of tense and even exasperated superiority, was advancing gravely to host and hostess. A hush came over the room as he moved forward like a boat through bulrushes; guests crammed to watch, but were bent back…
By Kristina E. Poznan “Truly I was the luckiest guy in all the world to land here . For the first time in my life I represent a creative, alive, and wide-awake chemist.” – Percy L. Julian to Robert Thompson, December 1929 (Afro American, July 30, 1932) Percy Lavon Julian became the third African American…
by Mark S. Weiner Why does the honor guard of the Mountain Rescue Association (MRA), the umbrella organization for all mountain rescue in America, carry Austrian ice axes when it stands in respect at memorials for fallen search-and-rescue personnel? For the past two years, I have been making a documentary film about the Austrian mountain…
with Andreas Nierhaus, David Schreyer, and Peter Stuiber Beginning in 2020, the Wien Museum MUSA presented the exhibition “Richard Neutra. Homes for California”. This expedition highlighted the US-based work of one of the Austrian history’s foremost modernist architects. To accompany it, a publication was made that also focuses on Neutra’s contemporaries. The basis for this…
with Jacqueline Vansant, Guest Host Only a limited number of Jewish children, accompanied or alone, immigrated to the United States during WWII. As a result perhaps, the topic has been largely overlooked in popular literature. Austrian children and youth who fled Nazi-occupied Austria to land safely, against all the odds, in the United States has…