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Vienna, November 17, 1918
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear friend,
Your registered express letter of the 7th arrived here on the 14th; with that, I am writing you today without any formalities and also without content; I hardly have anything to relate and am counting on the supposition that Rank has been with you for a long time when you read this and has reported everything new about himself, Jones, Sachs, etc. I will also add further that no Martin and no news from him has come. You also know the standstill of all negotiations, works, enterprises!
Of our concerns the greatest, most difficult one seems superfluous. Germany is not becoming Bolshevist, but rather is continuing to develop sensibly and will have overcome the most difficult thing with the Hohenzollern inheritance of the organization. On the other hand, nothing seems to be helping us. The Habsburgs have left behind nothing but a pile of crap. It is quiet here, except for the railway stations, but nothing else is working. Limitations and deprivation are worse than ever. We lost the best man, perhaps the only one who might have been up to the task, through death;1 nothing can likely be done with the Christian Socialists and the German Nationalists. Nothing has changed in the relations with the neighboring nations, despite a supposedly total change in the situation. The dynasty has certainly covered up a lot; now it is lying there naked. The new Hungary stands with us no differently than the old did with old Austria.
I would like to summon up very much sympathy for the Hungarians, but I am unsuccessful in doing so. I can't get away from the savagery and immaturity of this very uneducated people. I was certainly no adherent of the ancien régime, but it seems doubtful to me whether it is a sign of political shrewdness to beat to death the smartest of the many counts2 and to make the stupidest one president.3—Our analysis has actually also had trouble. No sooner does it begin to interest the world on account of the war neuro