Hietzinger Hauptstraße 113, Vienna, 13th district

Hietzinger Hauptstraße 113, Vienna, 13th district
January 1910 – August 1911

		At New Year’s 1909/1910 Schönberg moved with his family and two servants to a larger apartment in Hietzing, where he payed an annual rent of 2600 Kronen: "Second floor, 6th door, five rooms, lavatory, bath, servant’s room, pantry, balcony, garden privileges." (Schönberg’s letter to Josef Polnauer on 14 August 1911) On Hietzinger Hauptstraße he supposedly busily occupied himself with painting, to which photographs of his apartment convincingly testify. Numerous "visions," portraits and self-portraits were created. "If I lay my hands on Schönberg or his wife or his mother-in-law, blood will flow." – As a result of a quarrel with his landlord, Philip Josef von Wouvermans, allegedly arising from a sexual to-do between Schönberg’s nine-year-old daughter and Wouverman’s younger son, Schönberg was run out
of the apartment in Hietzing in mid 1911 and settled again in Berlin. In a letter of 29 August 1911 to Ferruccio Busoni, written from his Bavarian "exile" in Berg on the Lake of Starnberg, Schönberg reported the reasons for his "flight": "A monster living in the same house with me in Vienna, who is obviously insane (but which for the moment cannot be medically proven), imagines that he must kill me. The reason for his fury is founded upon lies, but even these are of too little consequence to justify this rage that threatens my life. Because of the danger either of being killed or of being imprisoned for exceeding the bounds of self-defense, with its accompanying agitations, and following various futile attempts to achieve peace and security either by appealing to the authorities or by resorting to the revolver, I was forced on 4 August temporarily to flee with my family. Which is why I am here. Now I had hoped to bring an end to the matter through my lawyer, but after much writing back and forth, I see little chance of getting this raving madman, who meanwhile is still raving!!!, off my back. And thus I cannot return to Vienna!! Thus the question of resettling as a result of this unfortunate situation, the ‘force majeure,’ is not a question of what I want to do, but rather of what I must do." Schönberg – to the surprise of all interested parties – entrusted the organization of his move to his pupils Alban Berg and Josef Polnauer.