In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

[37], (7) Lines: 38 to ——— -1.2pt Pg ——— Normal Pag PgEnds: TEX [37], (7) 2 High School The development of my studies in the university requires some reflection on the background acquired in high school. I went to a Real-Gymnasium, which meant that I had eight years of Latin, six years of English, and, as an optional subject, two years in Italian. Besides, my parents took care that I had some elementary tuition in French. The school was further characterized during the war years of 1914 to 1918 by the drafting of a number of the regular teachers for military service, so that certain courses were supplied by persons exempt from military service who came from outside the regular teaching personnel. These happened to be the most influential for us teenagers. Especially should be mentioned the English teacher Otto Erwin Kraus, who so far as I know had been a journalist in England before returning at the beginning of the war to Austria and entering the teaching service. He was a knowledgeable intellectual who was especially interested in psychoanalysis in the variety of Alfred Adler. One of the high points of my high school education was the study of Hamlet, during a semester, as interpreted by Alfred Adler’s psychology of Geltung. One of the regular teachers was Philip Freud, an excellent physicist and mathematician, who taught us so well that in the last year of high school (eighth grade), a friend of mine, Robert Maier, and I were quite able to become interested in the Theory of Relativity, which had just become famous; and Albert Einstein’s presentation of his theory of 1917, which had just come out, is still one of my most valuable possessions. We studied it and at first could not understand it, but then we discovered that our difficulty was caused by the simplicity of the theory. We understood it perfectly well but could not believe that something so simple could arouse such 37 autobiographical reflections [38], (8) Lines: 51 ——— 0.0pt P ——— Normal P * PgEnds: P [38], (8) a furor as a difficult new theory. The mathematical apparatus, of course, was entirely at our disposition. When we encountered these seeming difficulties of understanding, we consulted with Freud, our physics teacher, and found out about our problems and received further information. I remember especially from such a session with Freud his bringing to our attention that, according to the new theory of atoms, when you take a saw and cut through a piece of wood, you separate atomic structures. How it is possible to separate atomic structures by a handsaw was for him the greatest puzzle in the structure of physical reality. Freud had seen the problem of reduction and the autonomy of the various strata in the reality of being. The stratification of reality led to an incident in another connection . One of the very good people who came from the outside during these years was a chemist from the Polytechnik in Vienna, Strebinger. I was called up for an oral test after I had been absent from a lecture in which the question of the composition of citric acid had been discussed. I had learned the matter at home and knew all about citric acid, but I could not answer the question of how one obtains it, because I thought there was some complicated chemical process involved. Then I was thundered down as an egregious jackass, because I did not know that citric acid is obtained by squeezing lemons. I got a bad grade that semester. Another man from the Polytechnik who was of importance was Kopatschek, the mathematician. In mathematics, after we reached the prescribed level of differential calculus, we went further with enthusiasm into the theory of matrices and some hints at group theory. This wide range of interest represented by very good teachers will explain my receptiveness when I came to the university. But before I came to the university, in the vacation between the Abiturium and the beginning of my university studies in the fall, I studied the Kapital of Marx, induced of course by the current interest in the Russian Revolution. Being a complete innocent in such matters, I was of course convinced by what I read, and I must say that from August 1919 to about December of that year I was a Marxist. By Christmas the matter had worn off, because in the meanwhile I had attended courses...

Share