Persons, Objects & Events

Josef Winter was stationed during the First World War in the fortress of Franzensfeste near Brixen/Bressanone and fought on the southern battlefields as a member of the Imperial-Royal Bicycle Units, which had already been inaugurated around 1900. Furthermore, as a qualified baker he performed an important function in provisioning for his company. After the end of the war, Josef Winter continued working as a baker in his home town of Schlierbach.

Friedrich Adler, son of the Social Democratic Party leader Victor Adler, was the Party Secretary of the Austrian Social Democrats between 1911 and 1914. As an opponent of the war, he objected to the Social Democrat war policy and ultimately resigned from his position as Party Secretary. On 21 October 1916, Friedrich Adler assassinated the Austro-Hungarian Prime Minister Karl Graf Stürgkh, whom he regarded as being responsible for the continuation of the war. Adler was then sentenced to death, but reprieved by Emperor Karl and amnestied shortly before the end of the war.

Ottokar Hanzel was a mathematics and descriptive geometry teacher from Vienna. During the First World War he was a Landsturm captain on the Italian front.

During the First World War First Lieutenant Rudolf Richter from Vienna was stationed among other locations in Kötschach-Mauthen and fought in the mountain war against Italy in the Carnic Alps. Numerous photographs document the circumstances of warfare at an altitude of over six thousand feet, where the topographical and climatic conditions alone were frequently a threat to the lives of the soldiers. Indeed, Rudolf Richter was buried in an avalanche, but survived this accident without harm.

The Viennese auditor Adolf Müller fought in the First World War in the military operations on the Eastern Front. In more than a hundred forces postcards he wrote at regular intervals to his wife Louise Müller and also greeted his two sons Otto and Gottfried in several cards, their illustrations casting a satirical light on the everyday routine of soldiers on the front.

Otto Bauer was a social democrat politician and, from November 1918, the first Foreign Minister (Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs) of the First Republic. Bauer resigned from his office in July 1919 following the failure to achieve unification with Germany.

Like many of his contemporaries, Stefan Zweig was euphoristic at the start of the war, but this attitude changed radically from 1915 on. After working in the War Archives, he used the opportunity of a lecture series in neutral Switzerland to become an exile.

In January 1917 the forester Josef Posch from Königstetten began to note down his experiences in the mountain conflict against Italy in succinct but simultaneously very realistic entries. His impressions are shaped by snow many feet high, cold and continual shortage of provisions, finally focusing on the question of the sense of these ordeals. Josef Posch’s notes ended on 31 March of the same year.

Franz Heinisch’s notes tell of his eventful life. The barber came from Znaim (today Znojmo/Czech Republic) and worked among other places in Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin and on a cruise ship before the outbreak of the First World War forced his return and duty in the eastern and southern theatres of war. A member of the Imperial-Royal Regiment No. 99, he was wounded several times and buried in an avalanche in the mountains of the Julian Alps in winter 1917 – an incident he was lucky to survive, since it cost so many soldiers their lives in the mountain war against Italy.

Mathilde Hanzel, a teacher in Vienna, was a member of the AÖFV, an association that militated constantly during the First World War for peace.

The film pioneer Alexander Kolowrat-Krakowsky was appointed director of the Film Office in the War Press Headquarters in 1915. As a result, his company, “Sascha Filmfabrik”, founded in 1910, became the central film production unit in Austria Hungary.

Kokoschka is regarded as an early exponent of expressionism. As a young man he was deployed in the First World War as a soldier on the front and was seriously wounded in 1915.

The Viennese tailor Maximilian Hauswirth fought among other places on the southern battlefields of the First World War. Numerous photographs compiled into an album for “her Max” by his second wife Hermine Hauswirth (née Hauptmann) reveal not only the special difficulties of the mountain war against Italy, but also testify to a profoundly patriotic mindset.

After the outbreak of the First World War Maria Anna Siess joined as helper in the so-called “Labedienst” of the Red Cross, which organised knitted wares, food and other “loving tokens of solidarity” for the soldiers on the front. Having married the regimental physician Karl K. in 1916, the Viennese Maria Anna Siess ended this activity and subsequently accompanied her husband’s garrison.

Max Josef Metzger was a Catholic theologist and priest, who became a convinced pacifist following his experiences at the front in the First World War. He was sentenced to death by the Nazi regime and executed in 1944.

Rudi Stephan was one of the great young generation composers in Germany. At the age of only 27, Stephan fell on the Galician front and was therefore only able to complete a few works.

The last Emperor acceded to the throne in 1916 and reigned until the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in November 1918.