Anna Eisenmenger

Abstract

Her book, Blockade: The Diary of an Austrian Middle-Class Woman, 1914–1924, is less a diary than a memoir based on her notes from those years. It primarily concerns the years between 1918 and 1924, since her daily life was, she says, hardly affected by the war, though her husband, a doctor, died of overwork during those years and one son was killed at the Front, another son and her son-in-law gravely wounded and maimed for life, and her daughter became seriously ill from malnutrition. The book provides an excellent insight into the impact of the war and the peace on the middle classes on the losing side and sheds some light on why the Austrian middle class was to welcome Hitler with such enthusiasm.