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The Jew of Linz

The Jew of Linz
The Jew of Linz.jpg
Cover of the first edition
Author Kimberley Cornish
Language English
Subject Ludwig Wittgenstein
Publisher Century 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 type Print
Pages 298
ISBN
LC Class B3376.W564

The Jew of Linz is a 1998 book by Australian writer Kimberley Cornish, in which Cornish alleges that the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had a profound effect on Adolf Hitler when they were both pupils at the Realschule (lower secondary school) in Linz, Austria, in the early 1900s. Cornish also alleges that Wittgenstein was involved in the Cambridge Five Soviet spy ring during the Second World War.

Cornish used a school photograph from the Realschule (lower secondary school) in Linz, Austria, on his book cover. That boy in the top-right corner is undisputedly Hitler (see above right). Cornish alleges that Wittgenstein is the boy on the bottom left; he says the Victoria Police photographic evidence unit in Australia examined the photograph and confirmed that it was "highly probable" the boy is Wittgenstein. German government and U.S. sources date the photograph to 1901, slightly after Hitler's arrival at the school, but two years prior to Wittgenstein's enrollment.

Wittgenstein and Hitler both attended the Linz Realschule, a state school of about 300 students, and were there at the same time only from 1903 to 1904, according to Wittgenstein's biographers. While Hitler was just six days older than Wittgenstein, they were two grades apart at the school—Hitler was repeating a year and Wittgenstein had been advanced a year. Cornish's thesis is not only that Hitler knew the young Wittgenstein, but that he hated him, and that Wittgenstein was specifically the one Jewish boy from his school days referred to in Mein Kampf. The last claim referred to the following quote:

Likewise at school I found no occasion which could have led me to change this inherited picture. 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; but neither I nor the others had any thoughts on the matter.

Cornish argues further that Hitler's anti-Semitism involved a projection of the young Wittgenstein's traits onto the whole Jewish people. It should be noted that Wittgenstein did have three Jewish grandparents but Wittgenstein himself, and his mother and father, were Roman Catholics.


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