Grünangergasse 10, 1010 Vienna, Austria
Most visitors to central Vienna pass through the streets around St. Stephen’s Cathedral in search of imperial architecture, Mozart souvenirs and traditional coffee houses. Libertarians have another reason to explore the narrow lanes southeast of the cathedral. Grünangergasse 10 once was home to the Grüner Anker, the restaurant where Ludwig von Mises and the members of his famous private seminar continued their arguments long after the formal proceedings had ended.
While the road still bears the name, the sign has disappeared, and almost everything inside has changed. Yet the address remains one of Vienna’s most evocative sites for anyone interested in the history of classical liberalism and the Austrian School of economics.
Mises, his circle and its songs
Ludwig von Mises was one of the twentieth century’s most important defenders of economic freedom. His work on money, socialism, bureaucracy and human action offered a systematic challenge to central planning at a time when much of Europe’s intellectual class was moving in the opposite direction.
Between approximately 1920 and 1934, Mises gathered a remarkable group of economists, philosophers, lawyers and social scientists for his private seminar in Vienna. Participants included Friedrich Hayek, Gottfried Haberler, Fritz Machlup, Oskar Morgenstern, Felix Kaufmann and Alfred Schütz. The seminar was not a university course in the usual sense. Participation was by invitation, and its members met to test ideas through demanding discussion rather than simply listening to lectures.
The formal meetings took place at the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, where Mises worked—not at the Grüner Anker itself. But the seminar did not necessarily end when its official session was over. The participants frequently continued their discussions over food and wine.
The circle even developed its own collection of songs. The philosopher Felix Kaufmann composed humorous Miseskreislieder, or “Mises Circle songs,” setting arguments about economics, philosophy and methodology to familiar Viennese melodies. Fritz Machlup also contributed to this musical tradition. The songs suggest a group that was intellectually serious without being solemn: abstract disputes about value theory, logic and the social sciences could continue around a restaurant table and eventually become material for collective singing.
The Grüner Anker is explicitly identified in surviving material connected with the songs. It was part of the circle’s social geography: a place where scholarship, friendship and Viennese hospitality came together.
The meeting place after the meeting
The Grüner Anker was located at Grünangergasse 10, in Vienna’s first district. A tavern had existed at the site since at least the eighteenth century, while the present building dates from 1784. According to Vienna’s municipal history service, the name “Zum grünen Anker”—“At the Green Anchor”—probably developed from the older local designation grüner Anger, referring to a green or communal meadow, rather than from anything nautical. The street still bears the name.
In line with Vienna’s cosmopolitan nature, the restaurant was focused on Italian cuisine. For the Mises Circle, the restaurant served as an informal second seminar room. Accounts describe its members remaining there until late in the evening. That is precisely why libertarians should care about it. Intellectual movements do not develop only in lecture halls and published books. They also grow through voluntary associations, friendships, private conversations and places where people are free to argue without an official programme. The Grüner Anker represents the human infrastructure behind the Austrian School: a private restaurant table supporting a community of thinkers whose ideas would travel far beyond Vienna.
How to get there
It is only a few minutes’ walk from St. Stephen’s Cathedral. From Stephansplatz, walk east along Schulerstraße and turn into Grünangergasse. The street is narrow and relatively quiet compared with the major tourist routes nearby.
Visitors should look for the building rather than for a surviving Grüner Anker sign. The original establishment no longer operates under that name. The municipal history entry nevertheless preserves “Zum grünen Anker” as the historical identity of the house.
Mises’s former apartment at Wollzeile 24 was also nearby, although the building in which he lived has been replaced. Together, Wollzeile, Grünangergasse and the former Chamber of Commerce buildings allow a determined visitor to reconstruct a small part of Mises’s everyday Vienna.
What is there now: Ma Crêperie
The premises are now occupied by Ma Crêperie, a restaurant offering Austrian, French and Mediterranean-style dishes. The restaurant was extensively remodelled after the Grüner Anker disappeared.
The most entertaining account of a libertarian pilgrimage to the address comes from economist Benjamin Powell. Visiting Vienna in 2006, Powell arrived expecting to find the Grüner Anker but encountered Ma Crêperie instead:
“I arrived at Grünangergasse 10 without a hitch but found Restaurant Ma Creperie instead of the Grüner Anker.”
Powell went inside, drank Grüner Veltliner and asked about the building’s history. The manager put him in contact with Johann Glück III, a member of the family that had previously operated the Grüner Anker. Glück told Powell that his grandfather had run the restaurant when members of the Mises Circle visited.
The former owner also possessed a guest book containing the signatures of prominent diners from the early 1920s onward. Powell found no Mises Circle signatures in it. Glück suggested that regular customers might simply not have been asked to sign.
Sources:
- Benjamin Powell, “The Misesian Sights: An Austrian Visits Vienna,” Mises Daily, 25 August 2006. (Mises Institute)
- “Misesian Must-See Places in Vienna,” Mises Institute. (Mises Institute)
- Wien Geschichte Wiki, “Zum grünen Anker,” City of Vienna. (Geschichte Wiki)
- J. Huston McCulloch, “Miseskreislieder,” Ohio State University. (ASC Ohio State)
- Felix Kaufmann, Ausgewählte Miseskreislieder, PDF hosted by Ohio State University. (ASC Ohio State)
- Ma Crêperie restaurant website and current restaurant listing. (ma-creperie.eatbu.com)
- FirmenABC, business entry for Yuan Cheng / Ma Creperie, Grünangergasse 10 (firmenabc.at)
Contribution by: Sebastian Reil
“Vienna opera house at night. La opera de Viena por la noche” by J. A. Alcaide, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
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