Johanna Wimmer (née Stiglitz) grew up in Lundenburg (today Břeclav/Czech Republic) and in 1913, at the age of seventeen, started to keep a diary. After the war broke out she extended her notes to include life and experiences seen through a propagandistically transfigured perspective onto the events of the war; only after much delay did she perceive its significance for her personal environment. Johanna Wimmer probably moved to Vienna before the end of the war, where she met her later husband Franz Wilhelm Wimmer.
