Arnold Schönberg and summer retreat antisemitism in the Salzkammergut
Online memorial exhibition
Antisemitic racial attitude
Object #39
Antisemitic racial attitude
Arnold Schönberg
Self-portrait
22/X 1921
Pencil on paper
Catalogue raisonné 297-14v
Belmont Publishers, Pacific Palisades
The announcement of a Jew-free summer retreat in Mattsee and other villages in Salzburg Province met with tolerance and reassurance from the Provincial Tourism Association based in the city of Salzburg. In the given circumstances, it is incomprehensible why the attitude bias in the village was kept from Schönberg. Berta Schönberg could not have been unaware of this any more than her husband Heinrich, the composer’s brother, who traditionally stayed in Mattsee in July. Presumably, Heinrich, a Jew who had converted to Protestantism, simply ignored the community’s antisemitic racial attitude.
Maintaining the objective of keeping Mattsee “free from Jews” continued in the following seasons into the early 1930s, the phrase a community tourism slogan; the Salzburger Chronik reported on 1 August 1922 that “again this year, the beautiful health resort succeeded in remaining free of Jews.”
Cf. Therese Muxeneder: Arnold Schönbergs Konfrontationen mit Antisemitismus (III), in: Journal of the Arnold Schönberg Center 16/2019. Edited by Eike Feß and Therese Muxeneder. Wien 2019, p. 165–254