Edward Teller - roots

[VICTORS <victors@sviva.gov.il>]

Here is a detail about Teller, which I know from my uncle.



My uncle knew Teller as a child, they studied violin with the same

professor. This was before WWI (1918) in Banat, a region in western Romania,

which belonged then to Austria-Hungary. Teller lived in Budapest, but he

spent his summer holiday at his grandparents in Lugoj, not so far away.

Lugoj was a small town with an ethnically-mixed but traditionally tolerant

population. Hungarian, German and Romanian were spoken by everybody. The

locals learned them as children from each other, without the need to take

lessons. The German that Teller heared first was the Austrian type, not

exactly as it is spoken today in Austria, but as it was spoken in Hungary,

Banat, Transylvania and Bukowina and other regions of the empire at that

time. Traditionally, German was spoken in the Jewish families from that

region. Later, when he studied in Germany, he probably build on it the

accent that he heared in Germany.



I have seen Teller about 15 years ago when he visited the Weizmann

Institute. Since I knew something about his roots I expected him to be

conservative. Indeed, his English was very clear but with a strong Hungarian

accent, which he did not try to hide. Like an old-time aristocrat, he wore

high boots (in the summer heat of Israel) and an elegant hand stick. He

looked to me as a proud relic from long-gone times that he still

cherished...



Regards,



Victor



-----Original Message-----

From: franz.schoenhofer@CHELLO.AT [mailto:franz.schoenhofer@CHELLO.AT]

Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2005 12:26 AM

To: RuthWeiner@AOL.COM; '"jjcohen"'; bobcherry@cox.net;

radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

Subject: Edward Teller at Austrian TV - homages 









Franz Schoenhofer

PhD, MR iR

Habicherg. 31/7

A-1160 Vienna

AUSTRIA

phone -43-0699-1168-1319



I never had the pleasure to meet Edward Teller personally, but I very

well remember a discussion on Austrian TV about nuclear issues, in which

Edward Teller participated. I do not and did not share his political

agenda about the nuclear race, but being interested in history and

especially in history of nuclear agenda and politics influenced by them

I am fully convinced that he played a very important role in recent

history and I fully esteem him as a very important contributor to

science.



If I remember correctly the discussion I want to refer to was in 1978,

just before there was a referendum in Austria on whether our ready-to-go

nuclear power plant should be started. (The referendum finished with -

what the greens called an overwhelming majority of - 50.4% "no" votes,

with a ridiculous low participation of about 60% of the population.) 



At this discussion there was of course the well-known distribution of

about five militant anti-nuclears against Teller. The anti-nuclears

started the discussion with an almost endless list of accusations,

especially accusing Teller for his contribution to the hydrogen-bomb.

One of them - Mr. Lötsch - was especially eager to make himself heard as

the top anti-nuclear, pro-environment advocate and put forward in some

sentences about ten accusations and even more topics, one of the

lousiest and best known tricks in the "art" of discussion. 



Edward Teller started to answer to Lötsch's accusations. He spoke to my

surprise a perfect German as spoken in Germany - no grammatical or

wording errors, most surprising no Hungarian accent (Ruth!). I am sure

that he came into contact with German in Hungary as a boy, but this must

have been the Austrian type. Thinking that he most probably learned

German during his studies in Germany in the 1920's this was amazing that

he fifty years later spoke it still fluently without accent!



Edward Teller had not taken any notes during the Lötsch accusations. He

started to calmly answer them one by one. Soon Lötsch started to

interrupt him and (well known lousy trick) accusing him of using to much

time of the discussion. Edward Teller looked smiling at him and told him

"You have put forward such a lot of topics, that I must have the

opportunity to answer them all, how much time this might take." Lötsch

and the others went down and they did not dare after Teller finished his

contribution after a rather long to start more attacks because they knew

that Teller would easily destroy their unjustified utterings with his

authority. 



So Edward Teller was without doubt a very outstanding personality. 



Franz





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