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\ Mises Memo
News From the Ludwig von Mises Institute
Lost Mises Papers Found
The discovery of Ludwig von
Mises's papers from Vienna, Aus
tria—in a formerly secret Soviet ar
chive—surely ranks among the most
important and dramatic revelations
of our time. The papers are Mises's
personal and professional archives
from 1900 to the mid-1930s, a time
of explosive intellectual and political
development, when he battled na
tional and international socialism on
all fronts, and laid the groundwork
for his great defense of the free econ
omy and society.
What's more, the very same Mos
cow archive contains the papers of
Mises's associates—both friends and
opponents—from politics and aca
demic life. All these papers are essen
tial in helping to piece together the
story of Mises's years as one of
Europe's intellectual giants. It's truly
a time for celebration.
How They Were Lost
In 1938, when the Nazis made
their move into Austria, Mises had
been teaching in Geneva at the Insti
tute for International Studies for two
years. The German police entered
Mises's Vienna apartment (where he
had stopped in for a short visit only
weeks earlier), stole his papers,
packed them into 38 boxes, and took
them away.
Margit Sereny (and her daughter,
Gitta, now a famed author) fled to
join Mises in Zurich. They were mar
ried there and lived in Switzerland
for two years before emigrating to
the United States in 1940. After his
arrival, Mises wrote his affecting
book Notes and Recollections to pro
Spring
vide a brief chronicle of his life to
that point. He died in 1973 assum
ing his precious papers were gone
forever.
In fact, they ended
up in Soviet hands after
the war, along with
other important papers
from Austria, Germany,
France, and other coun
tries, all of which were
shipped to a secret ar
chive in Moscow for the
duration of the Cold
War. How they were dis
covered, indexed, and
revealed to the world
makes for fascinating history.
How They Were Found
Even during Mikhail Gorbachev's
"glasnost" and "perestroika," the So
viet archives remainedamong the best-
kept Soviet secrets. But
by 1989, when the So
viet State began to un
ravel with the loss of
Eastern Europe, the
Soviet archival hold
ings began to be made
available, partly be
cause of a desperate
scramble for hard cur
rency.
Scholars, who had
heard about the possi
ble contents in 1989,
began to gain access to
this Moscow archive in
1990. What they found
astounded them. The Austrian aca
demic community particularly took
notice, because an entire generation
1997
of its intellectuals had their papers
stored there.
Stefan Karner of the University
of Graz, an economic historian who
has written widely on Soviet prisons
and labor camps after the war, had
long dreamed about gaining access
to these archives. So had Gerhard
Jagschitz of the Univer
sity of Vienna, a highly
regarded expert in Aus
trian history during and
after the war. Both had
extensive experience in
archival work.
In 1990, Karner and
Jagschitz embarked on
an ambitious project
that would take them
two years in the Mos
cow archive and three
more years in detailed analysis of
their findings. When the archive be
came public, they traveled to Mos
cow's Center for the Preservation of
Historical Documentary Collections
on 3 Vyborgskaja Street.
The Austrian col
lection (or "fund'') in
this archive consists of
a massive assembly of
34,000 crates more
than five football fields
long. During 1992 and
1993, Karner and Jag
schitz pored through
the entire collection.
They gave a painstak
ingly careful account
ing of its contents.
Abbreviated lists then
began to appear in ar
chival journals.
The end result of
their labors appeared last year, Con-1
fiscated Austrian Documents: the Aus
trian Fund in the Russian Special

Researchers working in the Russian Special Ar
chives tofind out whathassurvived since confis
cation during World War H.
Archive, edited by Sabine Elisabeth
Gollman, with an introduction by
Karner and Jagschitz. Gollman
works for the Ludwig Boltzmann In
stitute for Research into the Conse
quences of War, which published this
volume, now an academic best-seller
in Austria and Germany.
In the table of contents is the
name that had so excited Karner and
Jagschitz, and now economists and
freedom lovers the world over:
"LUDWIG MISES, NATION-
ALOKONOM" (Economist). What
follows is an index of his papers' ac
tual contents, along with the identi
fication number (Osterreichbestand
#623, Fundbuch #1) necessary to
gain access. The Mises papers were
contained in 196 large files (faszikels)
comprising altogether as many as
20,000 separate items.
Secret or Public?
The Mises papers were first
brought to American attention by
Richard Ebeling, who teaches at
Hillsdale College (Michigan). Pro
fessor Ebeling, an adjunct scholar of
the Mises Institute, is also editor of
two of our books, Money, Method,
and the Market Process and The Aus
trian Theory of the Trade Cycle and
Other Essays.
The Ebeling memo on the lost
Mises papers went out to American
economists on November 1, 1996.
In it, he tells the dramatic story of
how the papers were stolen from
Miscs's apartment and ended up in
Russia. Ebeling describes his visit to
Moscow after he learned the name of
the archive and the catalog number
of the Mises fund. He returned from
Russia with photocopies of many of
the documents, some ofwhich are on
display at Hillsdale, March 9-13,
1997.
The memo, however, did not
provide the name of the archive or
the fund number where the papers
were located, nor did further inquiries
yield results.The memo was also mis
taken on a crucial matter: whether
the archive was public and accessible
to the academic community.
"This archive still is secret and
restricted," Ebeling wrote. Worse
still, "the archive in which Mises's
papers are stored is being transferred
to another ministry's control that is
much more secretive." The "window
of opportunity to have had access to
them is once again closed."
Fortunately for Misesians the
world over, this was not the case.
Mises Institute senior scholar Hans-
Hermann Hoppe knew Stefan
Karner by reputation and contacted
the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute in
December 1996 while doing re
search in Austria. To his surprise and
delight, Hoppe found that the book
Confiscated Austrian Documents was
by then widely available.
Hoppe returned to America with
the Karner and Jagschitz book (now
in our library), and the Mises Insti
tute immediately alerted the aca
demic community to the name and
address of the archive in Moscow
where the Austrian collection is held,
along with the catalog number nec
essary to locate the Mises fund.
Hoppe noted that the archiveis open
to the public, and that copies of the
Mises papers are $1 a page.
The news of the Moscow collec
tion reached the widest possible
audience on January 30, 1997, when
the Will StreetJournal headline read:
"The Mises Archive: A Treasure Un
covered" (see page 8). David Asman,
editor of the op-ed page, had imme
diately realized the significance of
the find, and ran Hoppe's essay on
the Karncr and Jagschitz discovery,
News From the Ludwig von Mises Institute
along with an analysis of what it
means to the academic community
and indeed to the cause of liberty.
Carl Modig, chief Russian spe
cialist in the archives of the U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Museum, saw
Hoppe's article and called to say it
was die best he had seen explaining
to the layman why archival discover
ies and research are so important.
(He also told us that the museum's
library holds most ofMises's books.)
What's There?
What's in the files in Moscow?
Included are Mises's scholarly and
business correspondence with col
leagues, publishers, journaJisrs, and
students; private groups such as Ro
tary; professional economic associa
tions; universities and institutes;
such international institutions as the
League of Nations and the European
Customs Union; and personal corre
spondence.
Also, Mises bibliographies; in
formation on those to whom he
served as an adviser; papers related to
his lectures and seminars, including
stenographic notes and literature ref
erences; political and economic arti
cles, lectures, and reviews; books,
bibliographies, newspapers, jour
nals, pamphlets, and brochures with
contributions by Mises; and excerpts
from the journal Bolshevik on Mises.
Since the endofWrld Wirll, the main building
for the Russian Special Archive in Moscow has
housed thelostAustrian "fund" andother confis
cated materials.
Spring 1997
 Also, protocols of meetings of
the Austrian Chamber of Commerce
and other institutions and organiza
tions through which Mises fought
totalitarianism; his report on the
Middle-European Economic Meet
ing; and documents related to his
service in the Austrian Army during
World War I.
Ideally, the papers in the Austrian
fund should be returned to the own
ers or their descendants (Gitta Ser-
eny in Mises's case). After all, they
are stolen property, first by the Nazis
and then by the Communists. But
due to nationalist political pressures,
Russia has stopped selling its actual
archives. However, thanks to modern
technology, exact copies can be made
available.
Why It Matters
As the failures of government
planning mount, and die old statist
paradigms fall one by one, the bril
liance and heroism of Ludwig von
Mises is increasingly evident. Nearly
25 years after his death, his name
resonates more widely than at any
time since the Second World War.
Even some on die political left have
been forced to admit diat Mises was
right where Marx, Keynes, Samuelson,
and Harrington were all wrong.
Mises ranks among the very few
great thinkers of our century who
emerge untainted and uncom-
promised by such perverse political
ideologies as national socialism,
communism, and social democracy.
He fought all forms of socialism and
welfarism from his earliest days until
his death, and left us magnificent
treatises explaining the errors of
modern economics and philosophy.
Through these works, he has inspired
and taught legions of students and
professors as well as intellectual lead
ers in every field.
Given Mises's growing stature, it
is essential that we understand every
thing we can about the man, his ideas
and their formation, and his proper
place in the history of our century.
We alreadyhave his American papers
Spring 1997 News From the Ludwig von Mises Institute
at Grove City College (Pennsylvania)
and his American library at Hillsdale.
The discovery of his European pa
pers, made possible only by the
crumbling of the Soviet state that he
had foreseen, makes a proper evalu
ation of Mises finally possible. As
Hoppe wrote in the WillStreetJour
nal, "it is another gift the collapse of
socialism has given to lovers of free
dom the world over."
Misesians Cheer
This huge collection of Austrian
papers opens up great possibilities
for academic research. The Mises In
stitute is now working with the
Boltzmann Institute and the Aus
trian State Archives, which are in
turn working with die Russian Special
Archive, to haveallthe Austrianpapers
put on CD-ROMs—which, unlike mi
crofilm, do not deteriorate—and made
available to the world. •
Ludwig von Mises duringthe 1930s
Economist
of the gentury
Most exciting for us, the Mises
Institute has at last been able to com
mission a comprehensive biography
of this great social and economic
thinker. This fulfills a promise Insti
tute president Lew Rockwell made
to Mises's widow Margit when she
asked him to found die Institute.
To do the job right requires not
only access to appropriate archival
materials in a number of countries. It
also requires years ofcareful research,
advanced economic training, fluency
in English, German, and French, and
wide familiarity with the complex
political and intellectual history of
Austria and Germany from the turn
of the century to 1940, when Mises
emigrated to the United States. Find
ing such a person is no easy task. •
The Mises Biographer
From our first encounter with
Jorg Guido Hiilsmann, it was clear
he was a star. Only 30 years old, he
has written two books in German on
monetary and political theory from a
decidedly Misesian (and Roth-
bardian) point of view, and all
through his
years in school,
he read widely
in the Austrian
School, in Ger
man, English,
and French.
Since re
ceiving his PhD
in economics
from the Tech
nical r7n ivp r- Guido Hiilsmann talking
to students at the Mises
sity of Berlin, University.
he has written
two major articles for The Review of
Austrian Economics and one for The
Journal ofLibertarian Studies. He has
also published academic articles in
German, and serves as chief econo
mist for a firm of banking consult
ants in Berlin.
Hulsmann teaches at our sum
mer Mises University, where he is one
of the most popular instructors, and
takes part in our Austrian Scholars
Conference. Well-schooled in Euro
pean history, political philosophy, law,
and the history of economic thought,
he also cares intensely about the man
whose life he will chronicle. Mis
esians can hardly wait. •
Members Gather
The discovered Mises papers
weren't the only subject of conversa
tion at our Supporters Summit,
January 24-25 in Newport Beach,
California. With outstanding speak
ers, we explored the theme of "The
Bankruptcy of American Politics."
The point is that federal goings-on in