Josef
Frey carried on his trade in secondhand goods until 1879.
Frey carried on his trade in secondhand goods until 1879.
Weininger - 1946 - Mind and Death of a Genius
Preface
Ihis book is an interpretation of the mind and death of
Otto Weininger. To make such an interpretation of per-
sonality, I naturally had recourse to the tools of psychology
and psychoanalytic psychiatry, analyzed carefully his volumin-
ous work, Sex and Character, and sought out sources of infor-
mation about him. Since the greater part of Weininger's life
was veiled in darkness, it was necessary for me to get in touch
with his family, his friends, and his contemporaries who had
firsthand knowledge. I also was obliged to search through
Weininger's own works, his correspondence, and the literature
concerning him. A number of letters and postcards pertaining
to his life are here made public for the first time.
This work was undertaken some ten years ago in Norway and
was continued by studies in Copenhagen and in the British
Museum in London. About two years after the start I began to
integrate the material, and some two years thereafter the book
was nearing the stage of completion.
Then came the German invasion. I joined the Norwegian
Army, but the manuscript was left behind in Oslo. After a few
months of fighting, I succeeded in escaping from Norway,
carrying part of the manuscript with me until I finally landed
in this country of freedom.
However, an important part of the manuscript had to be left
with my wife. Several months passed before she and our two
daughters managed to get out of Norway and finally, via
Russia and Japan, arrived in Chicago. In 1941 we were rejoined,
as were the two parts of the manuscript after having circum-
navigated the globe.
Since that time new data has been collected, more research
and deeper studies have been conducted which have brought
about extensive revisions of the manuscript.
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? Preface
I wish to express my gratitude to those who have assisted me
in my work: to Mrs. Rosa Boschan Weininger of Budapest,
for the invaluable information she has given about her brother
and for permission to use the material not previously published;
to the late Sigmund Freud, for his invaluable assistance; to
Wilhelm Treichlinger, of Vienna, who helped to trace the
many sources; to Emil Lucka; to Hans Ewald, of Vienna; Greg-
ory Zilboorg, of New York; Karl A. Mcnninger, of the Men-
ninger Clinic, Topeka, Kansas; and Paul Federn, of New York.
John Hambro of Oslo was helpful in some of the previous
translation, as was Commissioner of Police, Kristian Welhaven,
Oslo, Norway, in acquiring information and material.
Finally, I thank my wife for her always invaluable and
stimulating support.
DAVID ABRAHAMSEN
Columbia University
May 2, 1946
>
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? Contents
INTRODUCTION
SHADOWS OF THE PAST
. TOWARDS THE FUTURE
THE CITY BY THE RIVER
. STUDENT AND GENIUS
THE EMPTY SCENE
. THE EDGE OF FEAR
' SEX AND CHARACTER
'7. CROSSING THE BORDER
f. GENIUS AND INSANITY
ABBREVIATIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE
APPENDIX
INDEX
3
6
M
26
38
59
76
104
196
197
201
217
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? I
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? Illustrations
OTTO WEININGER
LEOPOLD WEININGER
ADELHEID WEININGER
Frontispiece
opposite 6
opposite 18
FACSIMILE OF THE POEM "SCHAUDER"
IN WEININGER'S HANDWRITING 23
LETTER WRITTEN BY FREUD,
MARCH 14, 1938 41
FACSIMILE OF LAST PAGE OF "VERDAMNIS,"
SHOWING WEININGER'S SIGNATURE 67
OTTO WEININGER IN THE SPRING
OF 1903 opposite 162
LETTER WRITTEN BY FREUD,
JUNE 11, 1939
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? I
i
I
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? The Mind and Death of a genius
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? )
;
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? Introduction
T
I he intellectual endeavor of Otto Weininger in its
JL brief span of days brought fame to a young man and
controversy to the scientific minds of two continents. He be-
came famous because he was at the age of twenty-three able
to produce a prodigious philosophical work, profound in con-
ception and rich in precept. He bred controversy because his
doctrines were radical.
The man came as a meteor and disappeared as suddenly. It
was only when he had passed that his ideas started to sparkle,
electrifying the world. Some regarded him as a biologist, others
as a psychologist, still others called him a mystic. Though gen-
erally considered a realist, he was at the same time strongly
suspected of dealing in fantasies. He was praised for his in-
vincible logic and attacked for his crusade against women.
He was full of contradictions. His name became the signal for
dispute and controversy in a thousand cities.
In the muggy and overladen atmosphere of Vienna, Otto
Weininger's ideas frequently were a subject for discussion
among his comrades. In the Vienna of theaters and cafes, of
research institutions and universities, Otto Weininger's work
was born. His outward life was a piece of Viennese life, part
of the life that gave the city its color.
It was in Vienna in the year 1903 that the first work of
Otto Weininger, doctor philosophiae, was published. Its title
was Sex and Character (Geschlecht und Character). 1 Wei-
ninger was severely attacked for Sex and Character. Yet most
of those who berated him made little or no effort to penetrate
into the personality behind the book. The work won little
recognition and perhaps would have been overlooked had not
a certain event taken place. On an autumn evening in 1903,
'This, the only one of Weininger's works to be translated into English, is
called throughout by its English title. The page citations are, however, to pages
in the German original.
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? 4 Introduction
Weininger shot himself to death in the house where, seventy-
six years earlier, Beethoven had died. This was the sensational
incident which made people curious about him.
In the succeeding years interest in Otto Weininger's work
spread. By 1925 Sex and Character had been published in
twenty-six printings. Shortly after his death his friend Rappa-
port brought out (in 1907) Vber die letzten Dinge (Con-
cerning the Last Things), a collection of essays, discourses,
and remarks about sadism, masochism, the psychology of mur-
der, criminal psychology, and animal psychology. Many years
later (in 1919) his third and final book, Taschenbuch und
Briefe an einem Freund (Notebook and Letters to a Friend),
was published in Vienna through the agency of another friend,
Arthur Gerber. 2
In the years following the publication of Sex and Character,
views of Weininger and his book were sharply divided. Note-
worthy were the opinions of George Wirth, who called the
book "an unparalleled crime against humanity," 3 and that of
August Strindberg, who enthusiastically wrote, "Here is the
man who has solved the most difficult of all problems. " The
main reason for this clash of opinion lies in the violent and
complex nature of Otto Weininger himself as it is reflected in
his books. Did he have an abnormal mind that produced nor-
mal thoughts or a normal mind that conceived abnormal ideas?
That question, the puzzle of Otto Weininger's personality, is
the subject of the present book.
His twisted personality created a contradictory work re-
flecting his inner struggle. In the first period of his life he
seemed to be quite comfortable within the scope of empirical
science, but later profound doubt of the truth of this method
2 Gerber had had the Taschenbuch and several letters for a long time before
1919, when he gave the manuscript to Oskar Ewald (whose real name was
Oskar Friedlander), another of Otto's friends. The partly illegible stenographic
notations, notes, and letters in this collection were deciphered with great diffi-
culty. Throughout the text references are made to Vber die letzten Dinge as
U. L. D. ; references are made to the later work simply as Taschenbuch.
1 G. Wirth, Ways to Love, p. 219, as quoted in Ivan Bloch, The Sexual Life
of Our Time (London, 1940), p. 17.
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? Introduction
5
continually harassed him and he finally became a skeptic
throughout, involved in his own world. His intellectual de-
velopment was too rapid and went at a pace too fast for his
argumentative abilities, and there did not remain room enough
for his creative, collective strength. He quickly worked out a
solution for his problems, but because of his nature and his
youth, he lacked confidence, and he was forced to look back-
ward even when marching forward.
Weininger's nature forced his mind on long expeditions
into psychology, biology, literature, and philosophy, journeys
from which he never returned. Dissatisfied with scientific re-
search, discontent with his own restless nature, he went
farther and farther along the paths of speculative thought un-
til he was, at the end, quite alone.
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? Shadows of
the Past
It would be hard to find another man who showed even in
mild form the characteristics and the mental processes that
Otto Weininger revealed in the extreme. His personality was
manifold, twisted, fantastic. To understand him and interpret
his mental gyrations is a most difficult task. His outward life
could not reflect the versatility, the sharp lights and the deep
shadows, of his mental life.
In order to understand the structure of Otto Weininger's
personality, it is necessary first to trace the inclinations that
were instruments in shaping his attitudes and reactions, both
sane and morbid, and to study his background. First, there is
the history of his immediate family.
Otto Weininger's father was born January 31, 1854, in
Vienna. His father, Solomon Weininger, was a merchant from
Wradisch, in the county of Neutra, Hungary; his mother, whose
maiden name was Karolina Blau, was born in Nikolsburg,
Southern Moravia. Both of them were Jewish (Letter XIV). 1
Leopold was the eldest--and apparently the only talented one
--of their five or six children (Letters X, XVI). His younger
brother, Friedrich, is said to have been "handsome, charming,
frivolous"; after suddenly deserting his wife and home because
of another woman, he lived through the rest of his life with-
out concerning himself again about his wife or their two chil-
dren (Letter XV). For this Leopold Weininger never for-
gave him; when Friedrich, on his deathbed, asked his brother
to come to see him, Leopold refused--thus showing the rigid
moral attitude typical of him.
1 These letters are to be found in the Appendix. I have assigned numbers to
them for easier reference. Much of the material on the family has been drawn
from an eighteen-page manuscript report of the Reichskriminal-polizeiamt of
Vienna, which I received in 1939.
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? LEOPOLD WEININGER
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? Shadows of the Past 7
Otto Weininger's maternal grandfather was Josef Frey--a
dealer in scrap iron. He was born at Kaladey, Bohemia, in 1829
and was married to Elonore Magdalene Griinwald, who was
born at Szenitz, Hungary, in 1837 and died in 1874.
Josef
Frey carried on his trade in secondhand goods until 1879.
After that time he appeared on the official records as unem-
ployed. He died in 1901 of arteriosclerosis. He was the father
of three children, of whom the oldest, Adelheid (Adele), was
Otto's mother. She was born in Vienna on April 10,1857. '^ne
one fact we know of her early life is the death of her mother
when still quite young. Her family were orderly Jewish peo-
ple, although her brother Armand was reported to be not too
honest. The police reported that he was living in the ill-famed
Massenquartier II, Navarnegasse No. 45, "a favorite residence
of vagrants and tramps. " "He certainly," as the report said,
"did not have a clean record. "
Otto's father did not have a formal education. At the age
of twenty-two he was a foreign-language correspondent with
the banking house of Elias. When he married, he started to
work at handicraft, first in chinaware and later as a goldsmith.
He and Adelheid Frey were married April 7, 1878, in Vienna
with Jewish ceremonies. Eleven years later, on March 14,1889,
Leopold Weininger became an Austrian citizen.
The marriage was blessed with seven children, all born in
Vienna: Helene, born November 1, 1878; Otto, born April 3,
1880; Franz, born July 22, 1881; Rosa, born May 25, 1883;
Richard, born July 27, 1887; Mathilde, born April 18, 1893;
and Karoline, born November 8, 1898. Otto was thus the
second child and the eldest son.
It appears that Leopold Weininger's personality was like
that of his son Otto. This resemblance was important and was,
as we shall see, deeply significant in understanding Otto's per-
sonality. A description of the elder Weininger appeared in the
newspaper Der Tag (Vienna, January 3, 1923), called "Erin-
nerung an Leopold Weininger" (Memoir of Leopold Wei-
ninger) and written by Emil Lucka, a close friend of the family.
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? Shadows of the Past
In this article Lucka makes the startling statement that Leo-
pold Weininger was "one of the last of the great goldsmiths of
Benvenuto Cellini's family. " This he elaborated in a letter
which he wrote in reply to my request for information. "I
meant," he said, "that the goldsmith's art, which is closely
connected with the name of Cellini, slowly vanished, and that
Leopold Weininger was one of the last--in Austria perhaps
the last--masters of this noble art" (Letter VII).
Because of his artistic skill as a goldsmith, Leopold Wein-
inger's works were valued through Europe and America. A
great many of his creations--statuettes and ornate cups of
gold, platinum, and enamel--were sought by museums. He
himself year after year was called to England and France and
Italy as an expert in the valuation of rare pieces of art.
As his artistic sense was given expression in his craft, so it
also found an outlet in music. Leopold Weininger, besides
having extraordinary musical talents himself, loved music
deeply. Several times he visited Bayreuth to hear Wagner's
operas. In a typical letter to his daughter Rosa he wrote: "Of
course, I have heard The Flying Dutchman played many times,
but I have never before experienced the toneful effects I heard
today. It was quite indescribable. I felt intoxicated when I
left the Playhouse (Festspielhaus), and only the worldly glit-
ter of the dressed-up crowd leaving the theater made me un-
fortunately, painfully sober. When The Dutchman affects
me in this way, what would I not feel listening to Parsifal,
the playing of which I heard on the train (What a prosaic
place! ) without any prospect of ever reaching a complete un-
derstanding of this wonderful masterpiece. . . . To me Rich-
ard Wagner will always be, above everyone else, the great tone
poet! " (Letter XXIV. )
Leopold Weininger was in ecstasy when he did hear Parsifal
in Bayreuth. Later in the same letter he writes: "This is after
Parsifal. If perhaps I wrote a little too much of The Dutch-
man, I am now so overwhelmed I can hardly say a word. I
have been thrilled by the countless grandiose beauties of the
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? Shadows of the Past 9
music and the performance of every single artist. In the first
and third acts there are long, wonderful passages. I have the
feeling of being a cheat to be part of a modern audience, sit-
ting in a comfortable seat and letting others play for me, when
the only thing one should do is kneel down. . . . I go to bed,
but for me that does not mean to sleep. "
Not only was Leopold Weininger gifted in his own art and
in music. He also had a talent for languages. Thanks to this
and to his extensive travels, he was a master of a number of
foreign tongues. And yet this highly gifted man, with all his
sensitivity of mind, was strict, uncompromisingly strict, with
his children. His daughter says, "As a father peerless, never to
be equaled, he cared with the greatest devotion for the lives and
souls of his children. . . . He was loved and feared by us all"
(Letter XIV). Thus, he was austere in his discipline, rigid in
his criticism, and "divine" in his goodness. One may guess
that his marriage was not a happy one, and this supposition is
borne out by his daughter's statement, "His marriage . . .
was not very successful . . . he made enormous demands
upon his wife and children" (Letter VI).
This very austerity one could recognize in his appearance.
"His cheekbones protruded in an energetic way. . . . His lips
hesitated before opening to let the words pass through, and
his chin jutted forward, edged, nearly cruel," says Lucka in
his memoir.
The elder Weininger had a sensitive mind, full of passion
and feeling, but his exterior was closed, and Lucka was led
to remark that there was something gloomy and secretive in
his Renaissance face, as if "he bore a secret in his soul. He
would often talk, but always a small smile covered the suffer-
ing within him, giving the impression that only with the great-
est exertion of will power was it forced back. " Leopold
Weininger disguised his inner life. He withdrew from the
outside world into the shy and lonely seclusion of his own
thoughts.
There was, then, an ambiguity in his nature. He was re-
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? 10
Shadows of the Past
served and inaccessible and sensitive as well. The contrast be-
tween this seclusive side of his nature and the remarkable feel-
ing he revealed in his art and in his music was sharp. To judge
from his letters and from his creations, he was as much an
argumentative artist as a sensitive craftsman. He expressed
his true nature in his art; here he opened his heart and soul.
As he grew older he turned his back to the world more and
more. His age had "gone mad," he said. After World War I
he became less and less attracted to his art, although numer-
ous requests for his work came from England and the United
States. His loss of interest seemed to be due, Lucka says, to
"a gloom which eventually penetrated his whole personality. "
In his last years he suffered from cancer of the bladder and
underwent surgery. Yet, notwithstanding his pain, he con-
stantly inquired about concerts and, according to Lucka,
listened to them even up to his last moment. He died April 1,
1922. 2
In existing literature about Otto Weininger, nothing is writ-
ten about his mother. Otto never mentioned her in his letters.
She was an ordinary woman--a good, simple woman, as her
daughter described her--but she was beautiful, if we may
judge from her photograph. She also had a gift for languages,
but in the main she was "only a housewife and mother" (Let-
ter XIV). She was overshadowed by the stronger personality
of her husband. It is not difficult to see why no such deep
understanding developed between mother and son as between
the boy and his father. For several years Adelheid Weininger
was ill with tuberculosis, from which she ultimately died. 3
Meager as this information is, it imparts a picture of Otto's
mother as a typical domestic woman who looked after her
children and tended to the cooking and housework so far as
2 According to the official records, his death was not registered in Der Israelitische
Kultusgemeinde in Vienna. In the records it is told that his body was taken
to Munich, and there is reason to believe that he had left the Jewish religion
earlier.
>> The information given comes from her daughter, from official records, and
from letters sent me by Otto Weininger's friends.
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? Shadows of the Past
11
her illness permitted her to do so. Otto never spoke directly
of her, but it is possible that she in many ways formed the
psychological basis for the type "mother" described in Sex
and Character as opposed to "prostitute. " He writes, among
other things: "A mother takes care that the children she has
borne have enough food. Look only at the dignified resolution
and the grave zeal of the good housewife and mother slaughter-
ing one chicken after another. The mother cannot stand to
throw away any food, no matter how little it be. Her object
in life is the preservation of the race. " If we keep in mind
the influence of the home upon one's pattern of behavior, it
is reasonable to conclude that the type he is describing is his
own mother.
From a psychopathological point of view, Otto's brother
Richard is the most interesting member of the family. He was
born near Vienna in 1887, passed through the regular schools,
then through a commercial school, before he became a mer-
chant. 4 The only court notice of him records that once in
1910 he was fined 10. 00 Kronen ($2. 50) for infraction of
Paragraph 459 of the Criminal Code--"action or omission
through which a danger of fire may arise. " It seems that
Richard had an unusual personality structure resembling the
introverted, inaccessible personality of his father and that of
his brother Otto. His sister describes him as follows: "He is
very handsome and very gifted, and he is wealthy. He is an
Epicurean with a feminine disposition, vain, very hard, and a
lady's man. . . . It is a principle with him not to see his fam-
ily. When he was young he caused many difficulties for my
father. He is the sort of man who will always influence every-
4 His first wife denies that he went through any university and says that he
therefore had no right to the title he is sometimes given in the official records.
During his first year as a merchant he made a small fortune. He entered the
Evangelical church in 1906 and married a Jewish woman in 1912. In Novem-
ber, 1922, he divorced his first wife and married soon afterward (March, 1923),
once again to a Jew. Rosa Weininger states that both his wives were wealthy
when he married them (Letter XI) and that he is now living in the United
States (Letter X). The official documents report him as living in England.
He has declined to make himself known.
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? 12
Shadows of the Past
body. He has a great sense of beauty. He would walk over
your dead body, but he may also give shelter to a beggar when
he is in a good mood and when he is admired. He definitely
is not an ordinary man" (Letter X). And further: "He will
show goodness when least expected. He is hungry for sensa-
tion, audience, applause. " (Letter XI. )
As we shall see later, there is an amazing resemblance be-
tween Otto and Richard in their seeking after sensation, in
their egocentricity and craving for applause, in their feminine
vanity, and in their looks.
As to Otto Weininger's sisters, Mathilde and Karoline, they
both became Christians. The latter was the more gifted, espe-
cially in languages. A description of her character when she
was sixteen years old has been found in a letter from Leopold
Weininger: "I have never seen Karoline moved or touched,
not to mention shocked. When I have scolded her for this
over and over again, as well as for her complete lack of any
sense of gratitude, she has tried to pretend an indifference
which contradicts her inner feeling. I can add no word to
alleviate this sentence. I suppose she cannot help it. God
probably created her that way. "
Up to this time practically nothing has been known of
Otto's early youth. He himself never mentioned his childhood.
Yet the information in our possession gives us a glimpse or
two into the home where Otto grew up.
Documents in the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde of Vienna
indicate that Otto was born in Vienna on April 3, 1880, after
a normal pregnancy and without artificial help. His Hebrew
name was Schlomoh. The date of his circumcision and the
name of the physician performing it are also recorded. Very
early he showed a rare mental maturity, and at the age of four-
teen months he spoke quite distinctly.
In his early years he was apparently very much influenced
by his father. And another factor entered--his home environ-
ment, which seems to have affected him deeply, however un-
conscious he may have been of its force at the start of his life.
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? Shadows of the Past 13
Undoubtedly serious conflicts took place between his parents.
This fact is brought out by the following remarks of his sister:
"The married life of my parents was not peaceful. That was
due to my father's strong personality, his sharp criticism, and
his great demands upon his family. We children let Mother
spoil us, we confided in her, but to us Father was the supreme
judge.
Ihis book is an interpretation of the mind and death of
Otto Weininger. To make such an interpretation of per-
sonality, I naturally had recourse to the tools of psychology
and psychoanalytic psychiatry, analyzed carefully his volumin-
ous work, Sex and Character, and sought out sources of infor-
mation about him. Since the greater part of Weininger's life
was veiled in darkness, it was necessary for me to get in touch
with his family, his friends, and his contemporaries who had
firsthand knowledge. I also was obliged to search through
Weininger's own works, his correspondence, and the literature
concerning him. A number of letters and postcards pertaining
to his life are here made public for the first time.
This work was undertaken some ten years ago in Norway and
was continued by studies in Copenhagen and in the British
Museum in London. About two years after the start I began to
integrate the material, and some two years thereafter the book
was nearing the stage of completion.
Then came the German invasion. I joined the Norwegian
Army, but the manuscript was left behind in Oslo. After a few
months of fighting, I succeeded in escaping from Norway,
carrying part of the manuscript with me until I finally landed
in this country of freedom.
However, an important part of the manuscript had to be left
with my wife. Several months passed before she and our two
daughters managed to get out of Norway and finally, via
Russia and Japan, arrived in Chicago. In 1941 we were rejoined,
as were the two parts of the manuscript after having circum-
navigated the globe.
Since that time new data has been collected, more research
and deeper studies have been conducted which have brought
about extensive revisions of the manuscript.
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? Preface
I wish to express my gratitude to those who have assisted me
in my work: to Mrs. Rosa Boschan Weininger of Budapest,
for the invaluable information she has given about her brother
and for permission to use the material not previously published;
to the late Sigmund Freud, for his invaluable assistance; to
Wilhelm Treichlinger, of Vienna, who helped to trace the
many sources; to Emil Lucka; to Hans Ewald, of Vienna; Greg-
ory Zilboorg, of New York; Karl A. Mcnninger, of the Men-
ninger Clinic, Topeka, Kansas; and Paul Federn, of New York.
John Hambro of Oslo was helpful in some of the previous
translation, as was Commissioner of Police, Kristian Welhaven,
Oslo, Norway, in acquiring information and material.
Finally, I thank my wife for her always invaluable and
stimulating support.
DAVID ABRAHAMSEN
Columbia University
May 2, 1946
>
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? Contents
INTRODUCTION
SHADOWS OF THE PAST
. TOWARDS THE FUTURE
THE CITY BY THE RIVER
. STUDENT AND GENIUS
THE EMPTY SCENE
. THE EDGE OF FEAR
' SEX AND CHARACTER
'7. CROSSING THE BORDER
f. GENIUS AND INSANITY
ABBREVIATIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE
APPENDIX
INDEX
3
6
M
26
38
59
76
104
196
197
201
217
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? I
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? Illustrations
OTTO WEININGER
LEOPOLD WEININGER
ADELHEID WEININGER
Frontispiece
opposite 6
opposite 18
FACSIMILE OF THE POEM "SCHAUDER"
IN WEININGER'S HANDWRITING 23
LETTER WRITTEN BY FREUD,
MARCH 14, 1938 41
FACSIMILE OF LAST PAGE OF "VERDAMNIS,"
SHOWING WEININGER'S SIGNATURE 67
OTTO WEININGER IN THE SPRING
OF 1903 opposite 162
LETTER WRITTEN BY FREUD,
JUNE 11, 1939
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? I
i
I
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? The Mind and Death of a genius
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? )
;
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? Introduction
T
I he intellectual endeavor of Otto Weininger in its
JL brief span of days brought fame to a young man and
controversy to the scientific minds of two continents. He be-
came famous because he was at the age of twenty-three able
to produce a prodigious philosophical work, profound in con-
ception and rich in precept. He bred controversy because his
doctrines were radical.
The man came as a meteor and disappeared as suddenly. It
was only when he had passed that his ideas started to sparkle,
electrifying the world. Some regarded him as a biologist, others
as a psychologist, still others called him a mystic. Though gen-
erally considered a realist, he was at the same time strongly
suspected of dealing in fantasies. He was praised for his in-
vincible logic and attacked for his crusade against women.
He was full of contradictions. His name became the signal for
dispute and controversy in a thousand cities.
In the muggy and overladen atmosphere of Vienna, Otto
Weininger's ideas frequently were a subject for discussion
among his comrades. In the Vienna of theaters and cafes, of
research institutions and universities, Otto Weininger's work
was born. His outward life was a piece of Viennese life, part
of the life that gave the city its color.
It was in Vienna in the year 1903 that the first work of
Otto Weininger, doctor philosophiae, was published. Its title
was Sex and Character (Geschlecht und Character). 1 Wei-
ninger was severely attacked for Sex and Character. Yet most
of those who berated him made little or no effort to penetrate
into the personality behind the book. The work won little
recognition and perhaps would have been overlooked had not
a certain event taken place. On an autumn evening in 1903,
'This, the only one of Weininger's works to be translated into English, is
called throughout by its English title. The page citations are, however, to pages
in the German original.
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? 4 Introduction
Weininger shot himself to death in the house where, seventy-
six years earlier, Beethoven had died. This was the sensational
incident which made people curious about him.
In the succeeding years interest in Otto Weininger's work
spread. By 1925 Sex and Character had been published in
twenty-six printings. Shortly after his death his friend Rappa-
port brought out (in 1907) Vber die letzten Dinge (Con-
cerning the Last Things), a collection of essays, discourses,
and remarks about sadism, masochism, the psychology of mur-
der, criminal psychology, and animal psychology. Many years
later (in 1919) his third and final book, Taschenbuch und
Briefe an einem Freund (Notebook and Letters to a Friend),
was published in Vienna through the agency of another friend,
Arthur Gerber. 2
In the years following the publication of Sex and Character,
views of Weininger and his book were sharply divided. Note-
worthy were the opinions of George Wirth, who called the
book "an unparalleled crime against humanity," 3 and that of
August Strindberg, who enthusiastically wrote, "Here is the
man who has solved the most difficult of all problems. " The
main reason for this clash of opinion lies in the violent and
complex nature of Otto Weininger himself as it is reflected in
his books. Did he have an abnormal mind that produced nor-
mal thoughts or a normal mind that conceived abnormal ideas?
That question, the puzzle of Otto Weininger's personality, is
the subject of the present book.
His twisted personality created a contradictory work re-
flecting his inner struggle. In the first period of his life he
seemed to be quite comfortable within the scope of empirical
science, but later profound doubt of the truth of this method
2 Gerber had had the Taschenbuch and several letters for a long time before
1919, when he gave the manuscript to Oskar Ewald (whose real name was
Oskar Friedlander), another of Otto's friends. The partly illegible stenographic
notations, notes, and letters in this collection were deciphered with great diffi-
culty. Throughout the text references are made to Vber die letzten Dinge as
U. L. D. ; references are made to the later work simply as Taschenbuch.
1 G. Wirth, Ways to Love, p. 219, as quoted in Ivan Bloch, The Sexual Life
of Our Time (London, 1940), p. 17.
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? Introduction
5
continually harassed him and he finally became a skeptic
throughout, involved in his own world. His intellectual de-
velopment was too rapid and went at a pace too fast for his
argumentative abilities, and there did not remain room enough
for his creative, collective strength. He quickly worked out a
solution for his problems, but because of his nature and his
youth, he lacked confidence, and he was forced to look back-
ward even when marching forward.
Weininger's nature forced his mind on long expeditions
into psychology, biology, literature, and philosophy, journeys
from which he never returned. Dissatisfied with scientific re-
search, discontent with his own restless nature, he went
farther and farther along the paths of speculative thought un-
til he was, at the end, quite alone.
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? Shadows of
the Past
It would be hard to find another man who showed even in
mild form the characteristics and the mental processes that
Otto Weininger revealed in the extreme. His personality was
manifold, twisted, fantastic. To understand him and interpret
his mental gyrations is a most difficult task. His outward life
could not reflect the versatility, the sharp lights and the deep
shadows, of his mental life.
In order to understand the structure of Otto Weininger's
personality, it is necessary first to trace the inclinations that
were instruments in shaping his attitudes and reactions, both
sane and morbid, and to study his background. First, there is
the history of his immediate family.
Otto Weininger's father was born January 31, 1854, in
Vienna. His father, Solomon Weininger, was a merchant from
Wradisch, in the county of Neutra, Hungary; his mother, whose
maiden name was Karolina Blau, was born in Nikolsburg,
Southern Moravia. Both of them were Jewish (Letter XIV). 1
Leopold was the eldest--and apparently the only talented one
--of their five or six children (Letters X, XVI). His younger
brother, Friedrich, is said to have been "handsome, charming,
frivolous"; after suddenly deserting his wife and home because
of another woman, he lived through the rest of his life with-
out concerning himself again about his wife or their two chil-
dren (Letter XV). For this Leopold Weininger never for-
gave him; when Friedrich, on his deathbed, asked his brother
to come to see him, Leopold refused--thus showing the rigid
moral attitude typical of him.
1 These letters are to be found in the Appendix. I have assigned numbers to
them for easier reference. Much of the material on the family has been drawn
from an eighteen-page manuscript report of the Reichskriminal-polizeiamt of
Vienna, which I received in 1939.
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? LEOPOLD WEININGER
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? Shadows of the Past 7
Otto Weininger's maternal grandfather was Josef Frey--a
dealer in scrap iron. He was born at Kaladey, Bohemia, in 1829
and was married to Elonore Magdalene Griinwald, who was
born at Szenitz, Hungary, in 1837 and died in 1874.
Josef
Frey carried on his trade in secondhand goods until 1879.
After that time he appeared on the official records as unem-
ployed. He died in 1901 of arteriosclerosis. He was the father
of three children, of whom the oldest, Adelheid (Adele), was
Otto's mother. She was born in Vienna on April 10,1857. '^ne
one fact we know of her early life is the death of her mother
when still quite young. Her family were orderly Jewish peo-
ple, although her brother Armand was reported to be not too
honest. The police reported that he was living in the ill-famed
Massenquartier II, Navarnegasse No. 45, "a favorite residence
of vagrants and tramps. " "He certainly," as the report said,
"did not have a clean record. "
Otto's father did not have a formal education. At the age
of twenty-two he was a foreign-language correspondent with
the banking house of Elias. When he married, he started to
work at handicraft, first in chinaware and later as a goldsmith.
He and Adelheid Frey were married April 7, 1878, in Vienna
with Jewish ceremonies. Eleven years later, on March 14,1889,
Leopold Weininger became an Austrian citizen.
The marriage was blessed with seven children, all born in
Vienna: Helene, born November 1, 1878; Otto, born April 3,
1880; Franz, born July 22, 1881; Rosa, born May 25, 1883;
Richard, born July 27, 1887; Mathilde, born April 18, 1893;
and Karoline, born November 8, 1898. Otto was thus the
second child and the eldest son.
It appears that Leopold Weininger's personality was like
that of his son Otto. This resemblance was important and was,
as we shall see, deeply significant in understanding Otto's per-
sonality. A description of the elder Weininger appeared in the
newspaper Der Tag (Vienna, January 3, 1923), called "Erin-
nerung an Leopold Weininger" (Memoir of Leopold Wei-
ninger) and written by Emil Lucka, a close friend of the family.
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? Shadows of the Past
In this article Lucka makes the startling statement that Leo-
pold Weininger was "one of the last of the great goldsmiths of
Benvenuto Cellini's family. " This he elaborated in a letter
which he wrote in reply to my request for information. "I
meant," he said, "that the goldsmith's art, which is closely
connected with the name of Cellini, slowly vanished, and that
Leopold Weininger was one of the last--in Austria perhaps
the last--masters of this noble art" (Letter VII).
Because of his artistic skill as a goldsmith, Leopold Wein-
inger's works were valued through Europe and America. A
great many of his creations--statuettes and ornate cups of
gold, platinum, and enamel--were sought by museums. He
himself year after year was called to England and France and
Italy as an expert in the valuation of rare pieces of art.
As his artistic sense was given expression in his craft, so it
also found an outlet in music. Leopold Weininger, besides
having extraordinary musical talents himself, loved music
deeply. Several times he visited Bayreuth to hear Wagner's
operas. In a typical letter to his daughter Rosa he wrote: "Of
course, I have heard The Flying Dutchman played many times,
but I have never before experienced the toneful effects I heard
today. It was quite indescribable. I felt intoxicated when I
left the Playhouse (Festspielhaus), and only the worldly glit-
ter of the dressed-up crowd leaving the theater made me un-
fortunately, painfully sober. When The Dutchman affects
me in this way, what would I not feel listening to Parsifal,
the playing of which I heard on the train (What a prosaic
place! ) without any prospect of ever reaching a complete un-
derstanding of this wonderful masterpiece. . . . To me Rich-
ard Wagner will always be, above everyone else, the great tone
poet! " (Letter XXIV. )
Leopold Weininger was in ecstasy when he did hear Parsifal
in Bayreuth. Later in the same letter he writes: "This is after
Parsifal. If perhaps I wrote a little too much of The Dutch-
man, I am now so overwhelmed I can hardly say a word. I
have been thrilled by the countless grandiose beauties of the
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? Shadows of the Past 9
music and the performance of every single artist. In the first
and third acts there are long, wonderful passages. I have the
feeling of being a cheat to be part of a modern audience, sit-
ting in a comfortable seat and letting others play for me, when
the only thing one should do is kneel down. . . . I go to bed,
but for me that does not mean to sleep. "
Not only was Leopold Weininger gifted in his own art and
in music. He also had a talent for languages. Thanks to this
and to his extensive travels, he was a master of a number of
foreign tongues. And yet this highly gifted man, with all his
sensitivity of mind, was strict, uncompromisingly strict, with
his children. His daughter says, "As a father peerless, never to
be equaled, he cared with the greatest devotion for the lives and
souls of his children. . . . He was loved and feared by us all"
(Letter XIV). Thus, he was austere in his discipline, rigid in
his criticism, and "divine" in his goodness. One may guess
that his marriage was not a happy one, and this supposition is
borne out by his daughter's statement, "His marriage . . .
was not very successful . . . he made enormous demands
upon his wife and children" (Letter VI).
This very austerity one could recognize in his appearance.
"His cheekbones protruded in an energetic way. . . . His lips
hesitated before opening to let the words pass through, and
his chin jutted forward, edged, nearly cruel," says Lucka in
his memoir.
The elder Weininger had a sensitive mind, full of passion
and feeling, but his exterior was closed, and Lucka was led
to remark that there was something gloomy and secretive in
his Renaissance face, as if "he bore a secret in his soul. He
would often talk, but always a small smile covered the suffer-
ing within him, giving the impression that only with the great-
est exertion of will power was it forced back. " Leopold
Weininger disguised his inner life. He withdrew from the
outside world into the shy and lonely seclusion of his own
thoughts.
There was, then, an ambiguity in his nature. He was re-
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? 10
Shadows of the Past
served and inaccessible and sensitive as well. The contrast be-
tween this seclusive side of his nature and the remarkable feel-
ing he revealed in his art and in his music was sharp. To judge
from his letters and from his creations, he was as much an
argumentative artist as a sensitive craftsman. He expressed
his true nature in his art; here he opened his heart and soul.
As he grew older he turned his back to the world more and
more. His age had "gone mad," he said. After World War I
he became less and less attracted to his art, although numer-
ous requests for his work came from England and the United
States. His loss of interest seemed to be due, Lucka says, to
"a gloom which eventually penetrated his whole personality. "
In his last years he suffered from cancer of the bladder and
underwent surgery. Yet, notwithstanding his pain, he con-
stantly inquired about concerts and, according to Lucka,
listened to them even up to his last moment. He died April 1,
1922. 2
In existing literature about Otto Weininger, nothing is writ-
ten about his mother. Otto never mentioned her in his letters.
She was an ordinary woman--a good, simple woman, as her
daughter described her--but she was beautiful, if we may
judge from her photograph. She also had a gift for languages,
but in the main she was "only a housewife and mother" (Let-
ter XIV). She was overshadowed by the stronger personality
of her husband. It is not difficult to see why no such deep
understanding developed between mother and son as between
the boy and his father. For several years Adelheid Weininger
was ill with tuberculosis, from which she ultimately died. 3
Meager as this information is, it imparts a picture of Otto's
mother as a typical domestic woman who looked after her
children and tended to the cooking and housework so far as
2 According to the official records, his death was not registered in Der Israelitische
Kultusgemeinde in Vienna. In the records it is told that his body was taken
to Munich, and there is reason to believe that he had left the Jewish religion
earlier.
>> The information given comes from her daughter, from official records, and
from letters sent me by Otto Weininger's friends.
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? Shadows of the Past
11
her illness permitted her to do so. Otto never spoke directly
of her, but it is possible that she in many ways formed the
psychological basis for the type "mother" described in Sex
and Character as opposed to "prostitute. " He writes, among
other things: "A mother takes care that the children she has
borne have enough food. Look only at the dignified resolution
and the grave zeal of the good housewife and mother slaughter-
ing one chicken after another. The mother cannot stand to
throw away any food, no matter how little it be. Her object
in life is the preservation of the race. " If we keep in mind
the influence of the home upon one's pattern of behavior, it
is reasonable to conclude that the type he is describing is his
own mother.
From a psychopathological point of view, Otto's brother
Richard is the most interesting member of the family. He was
born near Vienna in 1887, passed through the regular schools,
then through a commercial school, before he became a mer-
chant. 4 The only court notice of him records that once in
1910 he was fined 10. 00 Kronen ($2. 50) for infraction of
Paragraph 459 of the Criminal Code--"action or omission
through which a danger of fire may arise. " It seems that
Richard had an unusual personality structure resembling the
introverted, inaccessible personality of his father and that of
his brother Otto. His sister describes him as follows: "He is
very handsome and very gifted, and he is wealthy. He is an
Epicurean with a feminine disposition, vain, very hard, and a
lady's man. . . . It is a principle with him not to see his fam-
ily. When he was young he caused many difficulties for my
father. He is the sort of man who will always influence every-
4 His first wife denies that he went through any university and says that he
therefore had no right to the title he is sometimes given in the official records.
During his first year as a merchant he made a small fortune. He entered the
Evangelical church in 1906 and married a Jewish woman in 1912. In Novem-
ber, 1922, he divorced his first wife and married soon afterward (March, 1923),
once again to a Jew. Rosa Weininger states that both his wives were wealthy
when he married them (Letter XI) and that he is now living in the United
States (Letter X). The official documents report him as living in England.
He has declined to make himself known.
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? 12
Shadows of the Past
body. He has a great sense of beauty. He would walk over
your dead body, but he may also give shelter to a beggar when
he is in a good mood and when he is admired. He definitely
is not an ordinary man" (Letter X). And further: "He will
show goodness when least expected. He is hungry for sensa-
tion, audience, applause. " (Letter XI. )
As we shall see later, there is an amazing resemblance be-
tween Otto and Richard in their seeking after sensation, in
their egocentricity and craving for applause, in their feminine
vanity, and in their looks.
As to Otto Weininger's sisters, Mathilde and Karoline, they
both became Christians. The latter was the more gifted, espe-
cially in languages. A description of her character when she
was sixteen years old has been found in a letter from Leopold
Weininger: "I have never seen Karoline moved or touched,
not to mention shocked. When I have scolded her for this
over and over again, as well as for her complete lack of any
sense of gratitude, she has tried to pretend an indifference
which contradicts her inner feeling. I can add no word to
alleviate this sentence. I suppose she cannot help it. God
probably created her that way. "
Up to this time practically nothing has been known of
Otto's early youth. He himself never mentioned his childhood.
Yet the information in our possession gives us a glimpse or
two into the home where Otto grew up.
Documents in the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde of Vienna
indicate that Otto was born in Vienna on April 3, 1880, after
a normal pregnancy and without artificial help. His Hebrew
name was Schlomoh. The date of his circumcision and the
name of the physician performing it are also recorded. Very
early he showed a rare mental maturity, and at the age of four-
teen months he spoke quite distinctly.
In his early years he was apparently very much influenced
by his father. And another factor entered--his home environ-
ment, which seems to have affected him deeply, however un-
conscious he may have been of its force at the start of his life.
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? Shadows of the Past 13
Undoubtedly serious conflicts took place between his parents.
This fact is brought out by the following remarks of his sister:
"The married life of my parents was not peaceful. That was
due to my father's strong personality, his sharp criticism, and
his great demands upon his family. We children let Mother
spoil us, we confided in her, but to us Father was the supreme
judge.
