Friedrich Engel-Janosi
1978
Austrian History Yearbook
In the very human summation of the eight decades of his life, Friedrich Engel-Janosi wrote in his memoirs in 1974 that it seemed to him that, all in all, "he saw nothing that he had done that should make him feel ashamed-mistakes, failures, regrets, to be sure, but nothing about which to be ashamed. It is something, even if not much." In the same context, he also did not judge the value of his former relations with people just by the not too large number of contacts he had maintained for all
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... se years.' To this is to be added that Engel-Janosi, the son of a member of a Jewish industrial family coming from Hungary and a doyen of Austrian historians, who was born in Ober-Dobling, in Vienna, exercised a fascinating attractiveness, particularly over young people, until he died on March 7, 1978. Young people admired and loved him and frequently visited his home, where for four decades his first wife, Carlette, and, following her death shortly after their return from the United States, his second wife, Christiane, stood beside him as charming hostesses and conversationalists. That his wide knowledge, his scholarly abilities, and his descriptive powers had not declined even in advanced age are evidenced by the articles and reviews he wrote and published up to a few weeks before his death. As editor of the Austrian monthly periodical, Zeitgeschichte, I am proud of the fact that both the fourth and fifth volumes (1976)(1977)(1978) contain scholarly essays written by him. Still others were planned. In his often passionate discussions with younger historians or with specialists in other fields, including the natural sciences and the arts, in which he was interested because of his insatiable thirst for knowledge, the freshness of his spirit, his commitment, and his ability to make contacts were particularly conspicuous. His friends were unaware that he was eighty-five years old until his last illness a few weeks before his death. In his conversations he seemed ageless. The deep concern and sorrow of his youngest students over his death are clearly expressed in the necrology by
doi:10.1017/s0067237800010158
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