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“Real Austrians are those who fight for their Fatherland,” extract from the diary of schoolgirl Anna Hörmann

Transkript 

13th October (1916)
The hope that I was nourishing yesterday, that the rioting wouldn’t happen today, was unfortunately not confirmed. It was even more terrible. They roamed the streets, smashing windows, for example the Zum Lowen inn (Absenger, Idlhofgasse), and the Bayrischer Hof (Hasel, Annenstraße). Also the windows of some private houses, for example Engelhofer’s and very many others. At Blechschmidt the baker’s they stove in twenty-two panes. A lot of street lamps were also pushed over. While those infamous boys and women go about doing these sorts of things here in the hinterland, our brave men are spilling their blood to save the Fatherland. They are fighting the enemy to keep them away from their faithful Fatherland, while its people, actual Austrians, wreak havoc here like the worst kind of enemy. Courageous, loyal, true Austrians fight for their Fatherland, while those infamous boys are not worthy of bearing the name of Austrians.

Translation: Sophie Kidd

Partner 
Dokumentation lebensgeschichtlicher Aufzeichnungen, Institut für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte der Universität Wien
Copyright 
Dokumentation lebensgeschichtlicher Aufzeichnungen, Institut für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte der Universität Wien

Verwendet bei

  • Chapter

    Withdrawal and the development of more independent perspectives

    Although numerous measures were aimed at the uniform mobilization of children, they experienced the war in very different ways. As the war progressed they increasingly turned their backs on propaganda and developed their own views of events.