Frederick Eckstein

Friedrich Eckstein ( born February 17, 1861 in Perchtoldsdorf in Vienna, † November 10, 1939 in Vienna ) was an Austrian polymath, writer, patron and Theosophist. He was a friend and temporary employees of Sigmund Freud and is in its Discontents in the culture of the friend from whom Freud says that he had informed him of yoga.

Life

Friedrich Eckstein was born on 17 February 1861 in Perchtoldsdorf as one of ten children of Albert Eckstein and Amalie Wehle. The father was a chemist and inventor and owner of a parchment factory. The Jewish family belonged to the Viennese haute bourgeoisie.

About the Stammtisch his father the young cornerstone learned personages such as the General and inventor Francis of Uchatius, social philosopher, inventor and writer Josef Popper - Lynkeus, forestry engineer Wilhelm Franz Exner and the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, know. With this he was his life long connected in friendship.

Eckstein was introduced by Franz Hartmann in theosophy. In June 1886 he received a personally signed by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky foundation charter for the Viennese Masonic Lodge of the Theosophical Society. 1887 He founded the first official lodge of this company in Austria, whose president he became. He was friends with Gustav Meyrink and wrong with the theosophist Henry Steel Olcott and until his departure from Vienna with Rudolf Steiner. This esteemed him highly and personally talked about 1890 in the circle of theosophists at Marie Lang on, but then dismissed the theosophy as " Schwachgeistigkeit ".

Eckstein had early contacts with Lebensreform circles ( vegetarianism ). He was married in 1898 to Bertha Helene servant ( 1874-1948 ). They led the St. Genois Schlössl in Baden near Vienna a salon in which Peter Altenberg, Arthur Schnitzler, Karl Kraus and Adolf Loos, ie " the whole of Vienna " wrong. Schnitzler used for his drama The Vast the Ecksteinvilla in Baden and the 1899 -born son Percy Eckstein as a template. 1904 cornerstone was abandoned by his wife, who under the pseudonym Sir Galahad as a journalist and writer went after her divorce in 1909, a name.

In literary master tables (eg in the Café Imperial, second reception room left) met Eckstein Karl Kraus, Arthur Schnitzler, Felix Salten, Hugo Wolf, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Franz Werfel, Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Musil, Adolf Loos, Leo Trotsky and especially Anton Bruckner, whose pupil and later patron and private secretary he was.

Eckstein's sister Emma went down in the history of psychoanalysis as Irma. She had a catastrophic nose surgery by Freud's friend Wilhelm Fliess behind. Another sister from him, Therese Schlesinger, was a well known politician and women's rights activist, who belonged to the Federal Council from 1919 to 1923 the Constituent National Assembly and the National Council, thereafter until 1930.

Anecdotes

René Fülöp Miller Friedrich Eckstein:

" In Vienna, where literature, art, music, philosophy and business had their home in coffee houses, it was only natural that Mac Eck, the wisdom in persona was seated at a cafe table. In a corner of the Café Imperial he sat from morning to midnight. He had a goatee and a Mongolian eyes neckline. His age was even his most intimate friends unknown ... Julius, the old head waiter, claimed in any case, he had Mac Eck already found in the same corner of the café, when he began his career as Piccolo. Even among the most famous Viennese celebrities, there was no one who would not like to see on Mac Ecks Stammtisch. Hugo Wolf, Johann Strauss, E. Blavatsky and Annie Besant, Ferdinand Bruckner, Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler and Leon Trotsky - they all took counsel with him. When Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Rilke, Werfel and a poem in doubt, they made ​​a pilgrimage to Mac Corner. Architects gave him their formulas, composers their scores for consideration before their plans, their equations mathematician, physicist. Lawyers and psychoanalysts discussing their cases with him. Actor asked him about their roles and historians about their theories of history. Even the imperial Hofzeremonienmeister appeared one day to consult Mac Eck over a disputed question of the Spanish Hofetiquette. Mac Eck knowledgable in all areas. Did anyone know the major and minor rivers in Paraguay to know some information about neo-Thomism, the first romantic poem or the earliest mention of the toothbrush, so he turned to Mac Corner. The scoffers Karl Kraus, who had pitched in the Imperial at the next table his seat, the only dared to make fun of Mac Ecks omniscience. , I had a nightmare last night, 'he once told. , A band Brockhaus climbed down from the shelf to look up something in Mac Corner. ' Mac Eck, who knew all things spiritual, of course, also knew about all the practical questions about it. He could say, art dealers, which lovers would be interested in a very bestimmes image from the early Renaissance; He saw at a glance the difference in the weave of Brno and English fabrics, he could give booksellers the value of first editions and knew who would finance what in Europe. "

Torberg told the following story about Eckstein:

"... The polymath cornerstone was the most famous of the regulars at the Café Imperial ... author of a sadly lost monograph with the wonderful title ', formed The world spirit at the organ enormously well-read and enormously, stood the old cornerstone in reputation, easy to know everything. There was no question he could not answer immediately, and sometimes he took the answer foreboding and knowledgeable in advance, without waiting for the question. One whispered to himself that the great Brockhaus, if he did not know something, secretly got up and gazed after the old cornerstone. Once, the, press ' brought a message that a new work of the poet Kun - Han Su was the speech, could the old cornerstone of his questioning disciples come up immediately with accurate information about the work of this major Chinese poet, who is the only tried to revive one among the last emperors of the Ming Dynasty reached the highpoint verse again. Although turned out the next day that it was merely a transmission error by Knut Hamsun in Kun - Han Su, but the old Eckstein had once known everything, and you respected him so much that one was inclined to continue to believe in the existence of a Chinese poet named Kun - Han Su. "

Works

• Ancient, nameless days. Memories from seventy years of study and travel. Reichner, Vienna 1936 ( autobiography) Reprint ( Reprint): Edition studio in the Viennese journal magazines -Verlag, Wien, 1988, ISBN 3-900379-25-4