Hans Nelböck

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Hans Nelböck , also Johann Nelböck (born May 12, 1903 in Brandel near Lichtenegg in Upper Austria ; † February 3, 1954 in Vienna ) murdered the philosopher Moritz Schlick on June 22, 1936 , which actually meant the end of the Vienna Circle . His act was positively received by anti-Semitic and clerical-fascist circles, while at the same time the ideological context was downplayed and a jealousy motif was placed in the foreground to cover it up.

Life

Hans Nelböck was a farmer's son from a Catholic background who, after attending grammar school in Wels in 1925, began studying philosophy at the University of Vienna with Moritz Schlick. On March 21, 1931 he received his doctorate in philosophy with the dissertation The meaning of logic in empiricism and positivism . He was twice admitted to psychiatric hospitals with the diagnosis “ schizoid psychopathy ”, both times on the basis of a complaint from Moritz Schlick, who had previously received death threats from Nelböck.

The grounds for the judgment by the Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters on May 26, 1937 summarized: “On June 22, 1936, at 9:20 am, the defendant met the professor of the philosophy faculty Dr. Moritz Schlick shot dead in the building of the Vienna University on the main staircase leading to the philosophical faculty at the moment when Dr. Schlick wanted to go to his lecture. The opening of the body revealed that Dr. Schlick was hit by four rounds fired from a 6.35 caliber pistol. [...] The [...] gunshot wounds were absolutely fatal; and Dr. Schlick is actually different even before medical help arrives at the crime scene, where he sank to the ground. "

Hans Nelböck was sentenced to ten years in prison on May 26, 1937 , but asked for a pardon barely two years later - after the " Anschluss of Austria ". In his request he pointed out “that he had done National Socialism a service through his act and the resulting elimination of a Jewish, alien and harmful doctrines, and because of this act he had also suffered for National Socialism. Now that the world view from which he, their accuracy, the fact is recognizing committed is the prevailing today idea of the state, he feels it as a hardship if he still largely a back seat because of the born of this view indeed needs. " Since the public prosecutor, however, to came to the conclusion that primarily personal motives were decisive for Nelbock's act, he was only released on parole on October 11, 1938. From then on, Nelböck worked in the geological department of the petroleum administration for the war economy. When the probation period ended in 1943, he was employed as a technical employee in the main surveying office.

After 1945 Nelböck worked in the Soviet mineral oil administration, from 1947 onwards he was considered to be "good" according to the certificate of good repute. In 1951, Hans Nelböck sued Victor Kraft , who described him as a “paranoid psychopath” in his book Der Wiener Kreis . Kraft agreed to a comparison because he felt threatened by Nelböck.

Ideological environment

Nelböck justified the murder of his “doctoral supervisor” with ideological arguments, among other things. Schlick's anti-metaphysical philosophy had unsettled his moral convictions and thereby lost his life-world support and cohesion. In the indictment against Nelböck it said: "The accused, who is by nature religious, has considered the scientific fight against the positivism represented by Prof. Schlick, or to work against the destructive tendencies of atheistic positivism, to be indispensable." The cover story distracting from the political context was centered around a dispute over a student named Sylvia Borowicka as the motive of the attack by the assassin and by Moritz Schlick's ideological opponents. Nelböck also attributed the rejection of his application for a position at the adult education centers to an intervention by Schlick.

The aspect of the act of conviction played a not insignificant role in the time context of the clerical-fascist regime established in Austria from 1933 to 1938 . A few weeks after the murder, for example, an article by a “Prof. Dr. Austriacus ". The author was the professor for social studies and legal philosophy Johannes Sauter . Although he distanced himself from former students murdering their professors, he saw Nelböck's act as a “fateful consequence” of “evil causes”, namely the anti-metaphysical and thus anti-religious aim of Schlick's positivism . In contemporary anti-Semitic polemics and the classic reversal of guilt, the murdered Schlick was stylized as the real culprit and responsibility for his own murder was assigned to him. The Schuschnigg regime and the National Socialist regime that ruled Austria from 1938 were unanimous in rejecting the Vienna Circle .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johann Nelboeck: The meaning of logic in empiricism and positivism. Dissertation, Vienna 1930.
  2. ↑ Doctorate on March 21, 1931, Archive of the University of Vienna, doctoral protocol 1922–1931, No. 2507.
  3. ^ Printed in Friedrich Stadler: Studies on the Vienna Circle. Origin, Development and Effect of Logical Empiricism in Context . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 948. ISBN 3-518-58207-0 .
  4. ^ Document 13 In: Friedrich Stadler: Studies on the Vienna Circle. Origin, Development and Effect of Logical Empiricism in Context . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 958.
  5. ↑ Renata Lotz-Rimbach: Mord does not expire: Psychogram of a political murder , in: Friedrich Stadler, Fynn Ole Engler (ed.): Stations: the philosopher and physicist Moritz Schlick on his 125th birthday. Springer, Vienna, New York 2009, pp. 81-104.
  6. ↑ Wolfgang L. Reiter: The expulsion of the Jewish intelligence: doubling of a loss - 1938/1945 , p. 6, footnote 17. In: Internationale Mathematische Nachrichten, No. 187 (2001), 1-20. Online (PDF; 3.2 MB)
  7. ^ Postscript: Johann Nelböck (1903-1954). In: Friedrich Stadler: Studies on the Vienna Circle. Origin, Development and Effect of Logical Empiricism in Context . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 961.
  8. ^ Printed in Friedrich Stadler: Studies on the Vienna Circle. Origin, Development and Effect of Logical Empiricism in Context . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 945. ISBN 3-518-58207-0 .
  9. ^ Friedrich Stadler: Documentation: The murder of Moritz Schlick , in: Friedrich Stadler (Ed.), Studies on the Vienna Circle. Origin, Development and Effect of Logical Empiricism in Context. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1997, pp. 920-961.
  10. ↑ Renata Lotz-Rimbach: Mord does not expire: Psychogram of a political murder , in: Friedrich Stadler, Fynn Ole Engler (ed.): Stations: the philosopher and physicist Moritz Schlick on his 125th birthday. Springer, Vienna, New York 2009, pp. 81-104.
  11. ↑ Peter Csendes: Vienna: From 1790 to the present. Böhlau Verlag, 2006, p. 499 f.
  12. ↑ Friedrich Stadler: The other cultural history using the example of emigration and exile of the Austrian intellectuals 1930 - 1940 , in: Rolf Steininger, Michael Gehler (ed.): Austria in the 20th century. A study book in two volumes. From the monarchy to the Second World War. Böhlau, Vienna, Cologne, Weimar, 1997, pp. 535-553.
  13. ↑ Peter Malina: Tatort: ​​Philosophenstiege , in: Michael Benedikt, Rudolf Burger (Ed.): Consciousness, Language and Art, Vienna, 1988, pp. 231-253.
  14. ^ Printed in Friedrich Stadler: Studies on the Vienna Circle. Origin, Development and Effect of Logical Empiricism in Context . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1997, pp. 920–961 and attached documents. ISBN 3-518-58207-0 .
  15. ↑ For the biography of Johannes Sauter see http://gedenkbuch.univie.ac.at/index.php?person_single_id=33757 (last accessed April 26, 2012)
  16. ↑ http://www.uibk.ac.at/zeitgeschichte/zis/library/stadler.html#dok2
personal data
SURNAME Nelböck, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nelböck, Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian murderer of the philosopher Moritz Schlick
DATE OF BIRTH May 12, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Brandel near Lichtenegg, Upper Austria
DATE OF DEATH 3rd February 1954
Place of death Vienna