Austria in The Time of National Socialism - Austrians in Exile

Austrians in Exile

From March to November 1938, 130.000 people managed to escape legally or illegally from Austria. Among the most famous emigrating artists, there were the composers Arnold Schönberg and Robert Stolz, the film-makers Leon Askin, Fritz Lang, Josef von Sternberg, Billy Wilder, Max Reinhardt, the actors Karl Farkas and Gerhard Bronner and the writers Hermann Broch, Robert Musil, Anton Kuh and Franz Werfel. Friedrich Torberg, who witnessed the German invasion ("Anschluss") in Prague, did not return to Vienna. Erich Fried flew with this mother to London after his father had been killed by the Gestapo in May 1938 during an interrogation. Stefan Zweig escaped via London, New York, Argentina and Paraguay to Brazil where he committed suicide in February 1942, together with this wife Charlotte Altmann. 1936 Nobel laureate in medicine Otto Loewi had to pay his prize money back before emigrating. Additional scientists going into exile were Sigmund Freud, Erwin Schrödinger, Kurt Gödel, Martin Buber, Karl Popper and Lise Meitner. Bruno Kreisky, who had to leave the country for political reasons and because of his Jewish origin, emigrated to Sweden. After his comeback, he served as Austrian Chancellor from 1970 to 1983.