Arnold Schönberg and summer retreat antisemitism in the Salzkammergut
Online memorial exhibition
Arrogance and Oriental Allures
Object #8
Arrogance and Oriental Allures
Mattsee, 1910s
Austrian National Library, Vienna
Apart from emphasizing the idyllic countryside, the curative power of the mud baths and a wealth of attractions (regattas, theater, concerts, water jousting), the local tourism association stressed that “members of that nation” were successfully warded off “who play the dominating role in most of the Salzkammergut health resorts” with their “arrogance and Oriental allures” (Salzburger Chronik, 27 April 1921). Mattsee rose to become a meeting point for Catholic, German national and National-Socialist factions. The “landscaped idyll” was the perfect scene for “ideological purity in the sense of celebrated Germanity” (Siegfried Hetz).
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