The incident led to a court hearing and raised lasting questions about Wittgenstein's conduct as a schoolteacher in rural Austria.
Key Facts
- Victim's age
- 11 years old
- Date of incident
- April 1926
- Court hearing date
- 17 May 1926
- Court location
- Gloggnitz, Austria
- Wittgenstein's return visit
- Approximately 10 years later, to seek forgiveness
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Ludwig Wittgenstein, who had trained as an elementary school teacher in Austria after World War I, was employed at a village school in Otterthal. He was reported to have struck multiple pupils, and concerns about his physical discipline of students had already existed before the incident came to official attention.
In April 1926, Wittgenstein struck 11-year-old pupil Josef Haidbauer on the head during class, causing the boy to collapse unconscious. The incident was reported to police, and Wittgenstein was summoned to a court hearing in Gloggnitz on 17 May 1926, where a judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation.
The court hearing's outcome was never publicly published, and biographer Alexander Waugh has suggested Wittgenstein's family may have intervened to suppress the matter. The philosopher was exonerated according to one account, but the case shadowed his early career. About a decade later, Wittgenstein returned to the village to ask the former pupils for forgiveness.