because he takes it to a conclusion or because he has to take it to a conclusion, also takes it to a conclusion, then the question is answered once and for all, and then the person who asked the question does not exist any longer. If we say that this person is dead from the moment when he answers his own question, we make things too simple, says Oehler. On the other hand, we can find no better way of expressing it than by saying that the person who asked the question is dead. Since we cannot name everything and so cannot think absolutely, we exist and there is an existence outside of ourselves, says Oehler. If we have come as far as we have come (in thought), says Oehler, we must take the consequences and we must abandon these (or the) thoughts that have (or has) made it possible for us to come this far. Karrer exercised this faculty with a virtuosity which, according to Karrer, could only be called mental agility, says Oehler. If we suppose that I, and not Karrer, were in Steinhof now, says Oehler, and you were talking to me here, the thought is nonsensical, says Oehler. The chemist Hollensteiner’s suicide had a catastrophic effect upon Karrer, says Oehler, it had to have the effect upon Karrer that it did, rendering chaotic, in the most devastating manner, Karrer’s completely unprotected mental state in the most fatal manner. Hollensteiner, who had been a friend of Karrer’s in his youth, had, as will be recalled, committed suicide just at the moment when the so-called Ministry of Education withdrew funds vital to his Institute of Chemistry. The state withdraws vital funds from the most extraordinary minds, says Oehler, and it is precisely because of this that the extraordinary and the most extraordinary minds commit suicide, and Hollensteiner was one of these most extraordinary minds. I, says Oehler, could not begin to list the number of extraordinary and most extraordinary minds — all of them young and brilliant minds — who have committed suicide because the state, in whatever form, had withdrawn vital funds from them, and there is no doubt, in my mind, that in Hollensteiner’s case we are talking about a genius. At the very moment that was most vital to Hollensteiner’s institute, and so to Hollensteiner himself, the state withdrew the funds from him (and thus from his institute). Hollensteiner, who had, in his own day, made a great name for himself in chemistry, which is today such an important area of expertise, at a time when no one in this, his own country, had heard of him, even today, if you ask, no one knows the name Hollensteiner, says Oehler, we mention a completely extraordinary man’s name, says Oehler, and we discover that no one knows the name, especially not those who ought to know the name: this is always our experience, the people who ought to know the name of their most extraordinary scientist do not know the name or else they do not want to know the name. In this case, the chemists do not even know Hollensteiner’s name, or else they do not want to know the name Hollensteiner, and so Hollensteiner was driven to suicide, just like all extraordinary minds in this country. Whereas in Germany the name Hollensteiner was one of the most respected among chemists and still is today, here in Austria Hollensteiner has been completely blotted out, in this country, says Oehler, the extraordinary has always, and in all ages, been blotted out, blotted out until it committed suicide. If an Austrian mind is extraordinary, says Oehler, we do not need to wait for him to commit suicide, it is only a question of time and the state counts on it. Hollensteiner had so many offers, says Oehler, none of which he accepted, however. In Basel they would have welcomed Hollensteiner with open arms, in Warsaw, in Copenhagen, in Oxford, in America. But Hollensteiner didn’t even go to Göttingen, where they would have given Hollensteiner all the funds he wanted, because he couldn’t go to Göttingen, a person like Hollensteiner is incapable of going to Göttingen, of going to Germany at all; before a person like that would go to Germany he would rather commit suicide first. And at the very moment when he depends, in the most distressing manner, on the help of the state, he kills himself, which means that the state kills him. Genius is abandoned and driven to suicide. A scientist, says Oehler, is in a sad state in Austria and sooner or later, but especially at the moment when it appears to be most senseless, he has to perish because of the stupidity of the world around him and that means because of the stupidity of the state. We have an extraordinary scientist and ignore him, no one is attacked more basely than the extraordinary man, and genius goes to the dogs because in this state it has to go to the dogs. If only an eminent authority like Hollensteiner had the strength and, to as great an extent, the tendency toward self-denial so as to give up Austria, and that means Vienna, and go to Marburg or Göttingen, to give only two examples that apply to Hollensteiner, and could there, in Marburg or in Göttingen, continue the scientific work that it has become impossible for him to continue in Vienna, says Oehler, but a man like Hollensteiner was not in a position to go to Marburg or to Göttingen, Hollensteiner was precisely the sort of person who was unable to go to Germany. But it was also impossible for Hollensteiner to go to America, as we see, for then Hollensteiner, who was unable to go to Germany because the country made him feel uncomfortable and was intensely repugnant to him, would indeed have gone to America. Very, very few people have the strength to abandon their dislike of the country that is fundamentally ready to accept them with open arms and unparalleled goodwill and to go to that country. They would rather commit suicide in their own country because ultimately their love of their own country, or rather their love of their own, the Austrian, landscape, is greater than the strengths to endure their own science in another country. As far as Hollensteiner is concerned, says Oehler, we have an example of how the state treats an unusually clear and important mind. For years Hollensteiner begged for the funds that he needed for his own research, says Oehler, for years Hollensteiner demeaned himself in the face of a bureaucracy that is the most repugnant in the whole world, in order to get his funds, for years Hollensteiner tried what hundreds of extraordinary and brilliant people have tried. To realize an important, and not only for Austria but, without a shadow of doubt, for the whole of mankind, undertaking of a scientific nature with the aid of state funds. But he had to admit that in Austria no one can realize anything with the help of state funds, least of all something extraordinary, significant, epoch-making. The state, to whom a nature like Hollensteiner’s turns in the depths of despair, has no time for a nature like Hollensteiner’s. Thus a nature like Hollensteiner’s must recognize that it lives in a state, and we must say this about the state without hesitation and with the greatest ruthlessness, that hates the extraordinary and hates nothing more than the extraordinary. For it is clear that, in this state, only what is stupid, impoverished, and dilettante is protected and constantly promoted and that, in this state, funds are only invested in what is incompetent and superfluous. We see hundreds of examples of this every day. And this state claims to be a civilized state and demands that it be described as such on every occasion. Let’s not fool ourselves, says Oehler, this state has nothing to do with a civilized state and we shall never tire of saying so continually and without cease and on every occasion even if we are faced with the greatest difficulties because of our ceaseless observation, as a repetition of the same thing over and over again, that this is a state where lack of feeling and sense is boundless. It was Hollensteiner’s misfortune to be tied by all his senses to this country, not to this state, you understand, but to this country. And we know what it means, says Oehler, to love a country like ours with all of one’s senses in contrast to a state that does everything it can to destroy you instead of coming to your aid. Hollensteiner’s suicide is one suicide among many, every year we are made aware of the fact that many people whom we value and who have had talent and genius and who were extraordinary or most extraordinary have committed suicide, for we are constantly going to cemeteries, says Oehler, to the funerals of people who, despairing of the state, have committed suicide, who, if we stop to think, have thrown themselves out of windows or hanged themselves or shot themselves because they felt that they had been abandoned by our state. The only reason we go to cemeteries, says Oehler, is to inter a genius who has been ruined by the state and driven to his death, that is the truth. If we strike a balance between the beauty of the country and the baseness of the state, says Oehler, we arrive at suicide. As far as Hollensteiner was concerned, it became clear that his suicide was bound to distress Karrer, after all, the two had had an unbelievable relationship as friends. Only I always thought that Hollensteiner had the strength to go to Germany, to Göttingen, where he would have had everything at his disposal, says Oehler: the fact that he did not have this strength was the cause of his death. It would also have been of no use to have tried even more intensely to persuade him to go to Göttingen at any price, Karrer said, says Oehler. A nature that was not quite as sensitive as Hollensteiner’s would of course have had the strength to go to Göttingen, to go anywhere at all, simply to go where all the necessary funds for his scientific purposes would be at his disposal, says Oehler. But for a nature like Hollensteiner’s it is, of course, utterly impossible to settle down in an environment, especially for scientific purposes and in any scientific discipline, that is unbearable to that nature. And it would be senseless, says Oehler, to leave a country that you love but in which you are bound, as we can see, gradually to perish in a morass of indifference and stupidity, and go to a country where you will never get over the depression that that country breeds in you, never get out of a state of mind that must be equally destructive: then it would be better to commit suicide in the country you love, if only out of force of habit, says Oehler, rather than in the country that, not to mince words, you hate. People like Hollensteiner are admittedly the most difficult, says Oehler, and it is not easy to keep in contact with them because these people are constantly giving offense — a characteristic of extraordinary people, their most outstanding characteristic, giving offense — but on the other hand there is no greater pleasure than being in contact with such extremely difficult people. We must leave no stone unturned, says Oehler, and we must always, quite consciously, set the highest value on keeping in contact with these extremely difficult people, with the extraordinary and the most extraordinary, because this is the only contact that has any real value. All other contacts are worthless, says Oehler, they are necessary but worthless. It is a shame, says Oehler, that I didn’t meet Hollensteiner a lot earlier, but a remarkable caution toward this person, whom I always admired, did not permit me to make closer contact with Hollensteiner for at least twenty years after I had first set eyes on Hollensteiner, and even then our contact was not the intense contact that I would have wished for. People like Hollensteiner, says Oehler, do not allow you to approach them, they attract you and then at the crucial moment reject you. We think we have a close relationship with these people whereas in reality we can never establish a close relationship with people like Hollensteiner. In fact, we are captivated by such people as Hollensteiner without exactly knowing the reason why. On the one hand it is not, in fact, the person, on the other it is not their science, for we do not understand either of them. It is something of which we cannot say what it is and