ON JANUARY 26, 1938, the New York Times ran a story about an extremely rare display of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, witnessed by millions of astonished—and frightened—Europeans:

The article describes reactions from England, France, and Portugal in which the display of colors is likened time and again to an ill omen foreboding calamity, war, even the end of the world. And sure enough, two weeks later Adolf Hitler coerced Austrian chancellor Kurt Schnuschnigg into accepting the appointment of the Nazi-friendly Arthur Seyss-Inquart as minister of security, giving the latter control over the entire Austrian police force. The stage was set for the Anschluss, which followed one day after the German invasion of Austria on March 12.

In London, the exiled Austrian poet Hilde Spiel (1911–90) observed the eerie phenomenon and shared the collective premonition of imminent danger. She admitted, however, that such superstition should have no place in the mind of someone schooled in logical positivism and taught by the eminent Moritz Schlick himself. Spiel remembers: “Am 25. steht eine Auro borealis am Himmel. Hier wie in Wien deutet man sie, und die Schlickschülerin tut es auch, als warnendes Vorzeichen böser Dinge. Doch die Eltern weigern sich immer noch, der Wahrheit ins Aug zu sehen.” (On the twenty-fifth an aurora borealis fills the sky. As in Vienna, people here—and the Schlick pupil with them—interpret it as a premonitory sign of bad things to come. But my parents still refuse to face the truth.) Whereas Spiel witnessed the aurora from the relative safety of her London refuge, fellow Austrian writer and playwright Franz Theodor Csokor (1885–1969) observed his native Vienna engulfed in the glowing colors.