Walter Taussig

[1908-2003]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Walter Taussig's life was forever altered on March 11, 1938, when Adolf Hitler invaded Austria. Born in Vienna on February 9, 1908, Taussig had been building a promising musical career in his homeland when the political upheaval of Nazi Germany reached Austrian shores, forcing him into a decades-long exile that would reshape both his personal life and professional trajectory.

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Taussig received his musical education at the prestigious Vienna Music Academy, where he graduated in 1928. He studied composition with Franz Schmidt and conducting with Robert Heger, establishing himself in the rich musical tradition that made Vienna one of Europe's cultural capitals. His principal instrument was the oboe, and by the late 1930s, he was working throughout Europe as a conductor and musician.

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The young conductor was part of a musical family deeply embedded in Viennese intellectual life. His father worked as an editor for Die Neue Freie Presse, a prominent Austrian newspaper, and had written editorials warning of the dangers of Nazism. His sister, Herta Taussig (later Freitag), was pursuing advanced studies in mathematics and physics at the University of Vienna, having received her Magister Rerum Naturalium in 1934. She taught at the university as a "Gymnasium Professur" from 1934 until the events of March 1938 brought their world crashing down."

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-Excerpt from article "Walter Taussig", ORT Music and the Holocaust website

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For more information, please visit:

https://holocaustmusic.ort.org/resistance-and-exile/walter-taussig/

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