From Anschluss back to Bismarck Central-European Fictive Journey with Aid of the Press
From Anschluss back to Bismarck Central-European Fictive Journey with Aid of the Press

Summary/Abstract: Why does a journalist living in the 20th century quote a more than 60 year old interview? One month after the Anschluss in 1938 by Nazi Germany Lipót Aranyi analysed the interview by Mór Jókai, famous Hungarian writer and columnist, with Chancellor Bismarck. He refused to unify Austria, e.g. the Monarchy with Germany. Aranyi quoted him in a desperate situation: what was not on the agenda of Bismarck, it was a fact in the 20th century Europe. Aranyi quted obviously by heart the interview, this is why he committed some errors in details, but he was wright to state the interview had a vivid echo in some European capitals. In this essay I try to follow the echo in Vienna and Berlin, the latter was more connected to the topos of Central-Europe, to the relations with Germany, Germans. One daily fiercely attacked the Chancellor. But the „pencil-affair” most probably had no longterm effect on Bismarck.

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