Mark Twain, whose passport bore the name Samuel Langhorne Clemens, crossed the Atlantic Ocean 49 times. In Europe the American writer visited many German-speaking cities, from Berlin to Vienna, and many points in-between.

The future globetrotter’s first foreign trip was a voyage across the Pacific to the Sandwich Islands as a journalist for a Sacramento newspaper in 1866. Twain wrote ecstatically about his Hawaii trip and his time in Maui: “I never spent so pleasant a month before, or bade any place good-bye so regretfully.”

Mark Twain spent five months in the German capital. He and his family remained in Europe from 1891 until 1895. Learn more about his Berlin stay and this book by Andreas Austilat below. PHOTO: Amazon.com

The very next year, in 1867, Twain made his first European journey and Atlantic crossing, funded by San Francisco’s Daily Alta California newspaper (1849-1891), when he visited France, the Mediterranean, and the Holy Land. That trip, which did not include Germany, resulted in Twain’s first humorous, bestselling travel adventure, The Innocents Abroad (1869, published in Germany in 1875 as Die Arglosen im Ausland). It would become one of his all-time bestsellers, outselling even his Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn novels.

Mark Twain in Berlin

Eleven years later, in 1878, Twain again sailed across the Atlantic, this time visiting Central and Southern Europe. That trip resulted in A Tramp Abroad (1880, German edition 1892, as Bummel durch Europa), which included tales from Germany and Switzerland, plus Twain’s infamous essay “The Awful German Language.”

Mark Twain in 1907. PHOTO: LOC

Twenty-four years and several books later, in fall 1891, bedeviled by money and health woes, seeking escape and new book material, Mark Twain boarded a steamer bound for France. He and his family would remain in Europe until 1895, visiting mainly France, Germany, and Italy, with longer stays in Berlin, Florence, and Paris. Twain arrived in the capital city of Germany at a time when that nation had been unified for barely two decades.

By the 1890s, Mark Twain was already famous and an experienced world traveler. For this trip he was joined by his wife Olivia (“Livy”) and their three daughters (Susy 19, Clara 17, and Jean 11), residing in the German capital for five months, learning what he could about Kaiser Wilhelm’s Berlin – and the German language. The two older girls were already familiar with German from their first trip to Germany, in part thanks to Rosa, their German nanny at that time. Their father, on the other hand, was less familiar with the spoken language, although he could read German well enough to follow most of the news in the German Zeitungen (newspapers).

Before leaving the United States, Twain had closed down his expensive Hartford, Connecticut mansion and secured a paid offer for the publication of a series of six European “travel letters,” one of which would be from Berlin (“The Chicago of Europe” in the Chicago Daily Tribune, April 3, 1892). Although by then Twain had earned a significant amount of money from book royalties, he was a terrible investor. He had lost a fortune – his own money and that of his wife – through poor investments and the failure of his own publishing house. The 1891 European trip was an escape from debt and an attempt to find new material for future books and income.

Winter in Berlin (1891-1892)
Twain’s second trip to Germany took him primarily to Berlin, where he and his family lived for five months – from October 1891 until March 1892. For most of their time in the German capital city it was winter. A Berlin winter, as I can verify, based on personal experience, is cold and grey – when it’s not cold and dark. When Samuel Clemens was there, it was even colder and gloomier. Tiled coal stoves (the Kachelofen, highly praised by Twain for its efficiency) were the prevailing source of heat in the city. The coal soot combined with frequent fog and freezing cold made the atmospheric conditions at that time worse than they are today.

Twain was already suffering from arthritis at the age of 55 in Berlin, making it painful for him to use his right arm for writing, a true disaster for a man who made a living as a writer. Mrs. Clemens had lived with a heart condition since childhood. Prior to moving to Berlin, both Twain and his wife had spent time for “cures” at two European spas: Aix-Les-Bains in France and Marienbad in Bohemia (then part of Austria-Hungary, now in the Czech Republic). Twain would later write about both places as part of his six travel letters.

Twain, well known in Germany, became the toast of the town in Berlin. During his time there he was treated as something of a celebrity. He was interviewed by German, foreign, and American journalists, invited to various social and diplomatic events, and was also embraced by Berlin’s American expat community. Twain also had a distant cousin who lived in Berlin. Alice von Versen (née Clemens, from St. Louis, Missouri) was married to Maximilian von Versen, an adjutant general to the Kaiser, and a member of the imperial court. Twain was often invited to dinner parties at the von Versen residence, and he later met with Kaiser Wilhelm II himself in February 1892.

Vanished Berlin
If you’d like to visit the sites where Twain lived and spent time in Berlin in 1891/1892, you’re out of luck. Both the apartment house and the hotel where the family resided have vanished, as have the cafés and restaurants where Twain dined. About the only landmark remaining is the Brandenburg Gate that Twain could see from the Royal Hotel on Unter den Linden, where he lived during the last several months of his Berlin stay. That monument was almost a century old when Twain saw it, having been completed as a grand entrance to the city in 1791.

There is an official commemorative plaque for Twain on the building that replaced the one where he had a flat at Körnerstraße 7 in Berlin’s Tiergarten district. While there are few traces left of Twain’s time in 19th-century Berlin, his legacy and name can be found in today’s Berlin. You can walk down Mark-Twain-Straße in Hellersdorf, or visit the nearby state library in Marzahn-Hellersdorf that also bears his name. A bit farther out, not far from the former Tegel Airport, in Berlin-Reinickendorf, stands the Mark-Twain-Schule, an international elementary school.

Continued below…

Mark Twain in Vienna

There were two reasons Mark Twain and his wife accompanied their daughters Clara and Jean in 1897 to what was then the capital of Austria-Hungary. The public, announced reason was that Clara Clemens wanted to study piano under the tutelage of Theodor Leschetizky, a famous Viennese pianist. The real reason was that Samuel Clemens was broke, having declared bankruptcy in the State of New York in 1894. (Twain was a far better writer than a businessman!) The Vienna trip would serve two purposes: 1. Provide an economical place for the family to live. 2. Offer Twain the opportunity to continue his lecture tour, now in Central Europe, to earn money while also producing new material.

And indeed, although he had no personal or legal obligation to do, Sam Clemens managed to pay back all of his creditors and get his finances back into the black by 1898, before leaving Vienna. But the family had other worries. Before going to Austria, during his world tour (which had begun in 1891 and included India, Ceylon, South Africa), in August 1896, Twain’s daughter Susy had died of meningitis at home in Hartford at the age of 24. Around the same time, their other daughter Jean was diagnosed with epilepsy. On top of that, in Vienna the family learned that Sam’s older brother Orion Clemens had died in December 1897.

Mark Twain spent 20 months in Vienna, Austria between September 1897 and May 1899. Part of that time, from May 1898 to October 1898, the family resided in a villa in Kaltenleutgeben in the Vienna Woods. IMAGE: Amazon.com

But on the bright side, perhaps even more than had been the case in Berlin, Mark Twain was the toast of the town in Vienna. He was now even more famous and noted than during the Berlin years. The Vienna newspapers, particularly the Neue Freie Presse, covered the American writer’s every move. (In fact we know more about Twain’s Vienna stay from those newspapers than from his own meager accounts.) Twain had met Kaiser Wilhelm II in Berlin. And in Vienna he was granted an audience with Emperor Franz Josef on 25 May 1899, just before he returned to the US.

But Twain did not just bask in his fame. He took an active interest in political and other events in the Austrian capital. His 1897 essay “Stirring Times in Austria” is a serious examination (with flashes of the usual Twain wit) of the turmoil in the Austrian parliament over Count Badeni’s efforts to give the Czech language equal status with German in conducting government affairs. Twain also noted the antisemitism was evident in those days. (Samuel Clemens’s own first name led some ignorant Austrians to falsely assume that his Mark Twain pen name was intended to hide his Jewish background.) The Dual Monarchy was in fact a complex multi-ethnic conglomeration that would finally collapse at the end of the First World War. Twain demonstrated a remarkable understanding of what was happening around him. His German skills, while far from perfect, had now reached a level where he could use German sources to stay well informed. He also had Austrian and other friends in Vienna who spoke English and could be helpful.

One such good friend was the Viennese journalist (Neues Wiener Tagblatt) and writer Eduard Pötzl (1851-1914). Pötzl and Twain had a lot in common. Like Twain in the US, the Austrian writer also made humorous and pointed observations about his own country and culture. Pötzl became Twain’s friend and best informant about Viennese and Austrian culture. The two corresponded often, and these letters have recently offered a more detailed view of Twain’s Vienna days. (Not only Twain, but also his wife and his daughter Clara exchanged letters with Eduard Pötzl, in Clara’s case, writing in German!) Much as people today exchange text messages, Pötzl and Twain exchanged letters in Vienna. From them we know that Twain complained about his gout, and Pötzl apologized for being unable to visit the family because of a bad cold. Later in their postal correspondence, Twain and Pötzl became less formal, writing on a first-name basis. The two continued to exchange letters even after Twain had returned to the US.

As much as he was revered and celebrated in Vienna, Twain did have his detractors, most notably Karl Kraus, the owner and editor of the magazine Die Fackel (The Torch). In his magazine he took Twain to task, calling him “a senile humorist” and criticizing him for, among other things, making fun of the German language. Kraus was only in his mid-twenties at the time, and he was antisemitic – a possible (false) reason for his anti-Twain stance.

For their almost two-year stay in Vienna, the Clemenses first took up residence at the Hotel Métropole on the top floor overlooking the Danube Canal near the Ferdinandbrücke (today the Schwedenbrücke/Sweden bridge). The now notorious Métropole, located on Franz-Josefs-Kai (today’s Ringstraße) in the First District, served as Gestapo headquarters in Vienna during the Nazi era. It was heavily damaged by Allied bombing during World War II and the ruins were later torn down.

During his time in Vienna, Twain frequently visited the city’s popular coffee houses and watering spots. One such place was the still popular, historic 550-year-old Griechenbeisl. Today guests at this pub and restaurant can visit the “Mark Twain Room”, whose walls bear the signatures of artists, scholars and politicians – including Mark Twain. Unlike in Berlin, it is still possible to see many of the buildings and places in Vienna where Mark Twain was during his time there, the Métropole being one of the few exceptions. There are even a few historical markers at some sites.

The historical marker at the residence where the Clemens family lived in Kaltenleutgeben during the summer and early fall of 1898. See the English translation below. PHOTO: Peter Markl/meinbezirk.at

Following eight months at the Métropole, at the end of May 1898, the family moved to a villa at Karlsgasse 3 in the town of Kaltenleutgeben, not far from Vienna in the Vienna Woods. Since November 1985, a Twain memorial marker is located there (see photo above). Adorned with the image of a Mississippi River steamboat, the plaque reads (in German): “The distinguished and famous American author Mark Twain (1835 – 1910) lived in this house [at] Karlsgasse 3 from the end of May until mid-October 1898.” Kaltenleutgeben was the site of a cold-water treatment clinic (Kaltwasserheilanstalt) run by Dr. Wilhelm Winternitz, where Mrs. Clemens and Jean hoped to improve their health.

As he had done while living in central Vienna, Twain spent his time in Kaltenleutgeben writing, occasionally taking the train into the city for various functions. The family moved back to Vienna on 15 October 1898. But this time they resided at a different hotel, the Hotel Krantz (now the Ambassador) at Neuer Markt 5, until daughter Jean’s worsening epilepsy forced the Clemenses to return to the United States at the end of May 1899. The Ambassador today also has a small memorial marker near the entrance, noting Mark Twain’s residence there.

While studying music in Vienna, Clara Clemens met her future husband, the Jewish, Russian-born American pianist, conductor and composer Ossip Gabrilowitsch (1878-1936), who was also studying under Leschetizky. They would marry on 6 October 1909 in Connecticut. From 1910 to 1914 Gabrilowitsch conducted in Munich. In 1918 he was appointed the founding director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Their only child, daughter Nina Gabrilowitsch (1910-1966), was Samuel Clemens’s last direct descendant.

Sources

If you’d like to learn more about Mark Twain and his family’s life in Germany and Austria, there are several books on the subject.

Mark Twain in Berlin by Andreas Austilat (Berlinica, 2013)
Newly discovered stories and an account of Twain’s Berlin adventures.
Andreas Austilat, a deputy editor at Berlin’s leading daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, has compiled this book about Twain in the German capital, along with some of his related personal accounts that were first published in US newspapers in the early 1890s. Well illustrated, this volume provides a lively account of the life of the Clemens family in Berlin. Andy Borowitz: “This fascinating book is a must-read for any Twain enthusiast.”
Get it from Amazon.com: Mark Twain in Berlin – paperback or hardcover

‘Our Famous Guest’: Mark Twain in Vienna by Carl Dolmetsch (Univ. of Georgia Press, 1993)
Most Twain biographies either ignore or devote little space to his time in Vienna. This 1993 book by Carl Dolmetsch, professor emeritus of English at the College of William and Mary, fills in the missing information by using Twain’s writings and correspondence, local newspaper accounts, and other sources to provide a fuller picture of the Clemens family’s life in the Austrian capital.
Get it from Amazon.com: ‘Our Famous Guest’: Mark Twain in Vienna – hardcover ($53.90, used $3.75, $15.00)

American Vandal: Mark Twain Abroad by Roy Morris Jr. (Belknap Press, 2015)
Amazon: “For a man who liked being called the American, Mark Twain spent a surprising amount of time outside the continental United States. Biographer Roy Morris Jr., focuses on the dozen years Twain spent overseas and on the popular travel books – The Innocents Abroad, A Tramp Abroad, and Following the Equator – he wrote about his adventures.”
Get it from Amazon.com: American Vandal: Mark Twain Abroad – Kindle or hardcover

RELATED

A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain (1880)
A free downloadable or printable illustrated version of Twain’s book about his travels in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. NOTE: Includes Appendix D, “The Awful German Language” which can be downloaded separately. (Each of the book’s many chapters is a separate download. Format options: PDF, EPUB, MOBI, and more
Free printable version or download: A Tramp Abroad – CONTENTS (Wikisource)
Free printable version or download: A Tramp Abroad (1880) (Wikisource)

Stirring Times in Austria by Mark Twain
A free downloadable or printable version of Twain’s article that first appeared in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine for March, 1898 (Volume 96), pp. 530-540. Format options: PDF, EPUB, MOBI, and more
Free printable version or download: Stirring Times in Austria (1898) (Wikisource)