Auction Date:2010 Jan 13 @ 10:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
Highly influential Austrian-British philosopher (1889–1951) whose primary interests included logic, mathematics, and language. ALS in German, one page, lightly-lined, 5 x 7.75, March 4, 1947. Wittgenstein writes from Trinity College in Cambridge to Barbara Gaun, the Wittgensteins’ longtime housekeeper. In part (translated): “Yes, one can hardly imagine how much you had to suffer in Vienna [because of the war]. It is luck that my sister was ill. If only this hard winter would pass quick. It is much harder here than years ago. I am always very healthy. I hope to see you in a short time.” In fine condition, with intersecting mailing folds, one through a single letter of signature, and a small office stamp to lower left corner.
Wittgenstein’s frustration with life at Cambridge is evident here. Having returned to the university following World War II, he found life there “much harder...than years ago.” It’s also easy to imagine his feeling pangs of guilt that his family’s housekeeper had been left behind in Austria while he and his siblings made a deal with the devil to spare their lives. The origins of the tale date to 1938, when the philosophical genius found himself as a crossroad after Germany annexed his homeland of Austria, putting Wittgenstein, who was Jewish, at risk. Although he managed to acquire British citizenship, he returned to Austria in 1939 to assist his family in being classified as a mix of Aryan and Jewish blood—literally a life-or-death request and something that required the personal approval of Hitler. Purportedly, their request—one to remove the Jewish label—was one of only a dozen approved by Hitler...out of 2,100 applications. In exchange, the family gave the Nazi Party its assets, including gold that today would be worth about $50 million! Appointed chairman of the philosophy department at Cambridge University during World War II, he resigned temporarily and volunteered in an English hospital and also worked as a laboratory assistant. After the war he returned to Cambridge, but having never particularly cared for the “intellectual atmosphere” at the university, permanently resigned his post in 1947 to focus on writing.
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5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
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