Cornish - The Jew of Linz - Comment.

In The Jew of Linz, Cornish carries the reader along on an extraordinary historical investigation, sweeping through 20th century philosophy and fascist ideology, making outlandish claims as to the "true" seeds that spawned Nazism and Adolph Hitler's rise to power, constructing persuasive arguments based on pure speculation and in some cases, false premises, that in the end, in his sketchy conclusion, manages not to connect the dots at all, leaving the reader disappointed and wholly unsatisfied.

Cornish's premise is that the most original philosopher of the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein, attended the same school in Linz as Adolph Hitler, and from this connection, proposes that Hitler began his hatred for the Jews because of little Ludwig and his famous Viennese family. There is a photograph that Cornish claims have undergone extensive forensic examination, and from the evidence at hand, the boy seated at arm's length from young Hitler is Wittgenstein. (They did attend the same school, but that's the extent of the connection) He speculates, contrary to other historical evidence, that the two boy's, a bully Hitler and a stammering, Wittgenstein shared musical and artistic sensibilities. This may be so, however, Cornish's speculation of a playground exchange between the two young boy's is just that, speculation. 

In fact, there is no evidence whatsoever that Hitler had a hidden rage against the Wittgenstein family or the famous philosopher (Hitler's Mein Kampf, for example, would have certainly mentioned this so-called rage against Wittgenstein and his family, as the entire book, for the most part, is Hitler's treatise of anger, but the madman never mentions the family!) however, Cornish bases her entire theses on this spurious premise.

Cornish goes onto speculate that Wittgenstein was the secret communist recruiter that created the most famous English spy ring during WW2. His method of investigation is a simple process of elimination, leaving the reader cornered as to the ringleader's identity. Granted, Wittgenstein did have communist sympathies, like many noteworthy intellectuals at the time, but there is no evidence that he was a master spy for Stalin! 

It is true that Wittgenstein spent a short time in Russia and thought about working on one of the collective farms, (this is certainly not out of character for the moody philosopher) and was in fact asked to join the staff of the university, which he turned down, but this in no way points to him being a Stalinist and a dyed in the wool communist.

The last third of the book is devoted to interpreting Wittgenstein's Tractatus and connecting it to Hitler's views on the Aryan race and Nazism. One has to give Cornish points for imagination, but his understanding of the Tractatus is lacking in many respects. His notions concerning Nazi ideology touches on its occult connections but his leap to the Tractatus and Wittgenstein's notions of the Self, goes way beyond the pale.

This is conspiracy theory sensationalism at its most hysterical form. One will suspect something interesting though outlandish, then goes about searching the "evidence", picking and choosing only the data that will support the premise, ignoring all the other pertinent data to the contrary. If you enjoy conspiracy theories on par with the X-Files, this is the book for you.