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A Thursday Before the War: 28 May 1914 in Vienna

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2014

Maureen Healy
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Extract

On 28 May 1914, the Viennese press reported that a young man from the sixteenth district in Vienna had attempted suicide. Sitting on a bench at the Pezzlpark, twenty-one-year-old laborer Karl P. shot himself in the head with a revolver. “The motive,” one newspaper reported, “was said to be unrequited love.” By chance, the same park bench would see more action later that day. Pregnant twenty-three-year-old laborer Marie B. was on her way to a birthing clinic when she went into labor. Sitting on what the newspaper now deemed the Selbstmörderbankerl, with the help of two nearby watchmen, she gave birth to a girl. The headline “Death and Life on a Bench” highlighted one extraordinary coincidence in an otherwise ordinary day in the city.

Type
Articles
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 45 , April 2014 , pp. 134 - 149
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 2014 

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References

1 Thanks to Dana Bronson and Musa Jamal who, with support from a Lewis & Clark College Mellon Student-Faculty Collaboration Grant, contributed significant research to this article.

2 All newspapers cited in this article are from 28 May 1914. Here, Deutsches Volksblatt, 28 May 1914, 9.

3 A quick search turns up thirty-two journal articles on World War I with “on the eve” in their titles. Historical Abstracts http://web.ebscohost.com.watzekpx.lclark.edu (accessed 14 September 2013). The Oxford English Dictionary defines “on the eve” as “the time immediately preceding some event, action” http://www.oed.com.watzekpx.lclark.edu (accessed 23 August 2013). The German term am Vorabend is used less commonly.

4 The eight daily newspapers include: Neue Freie Presse, Reichspost, Arbeiter-Zeitung, Deutsches Volksblatt, Neues Wiener Journal, Neuigkeits-Welt-Blatt, Wiener Zeitung, and Neue Zeitung. The three weekly newspapers appearing on Thursdays were Illustriertes Österreichisches Sportblatt, Das Interessante Blatt, and Danzer's Armee-Zeitung. One selection criterion for this project was digital availability on Austrian Newspapers Online (ANNO) at the Austrian National Library, where all but the Arbeiter-Zeitung are found. On the latter, thanks to Alfred Pfoser at the Wien-Bibliothek for making digital copies available. For the authoritative history of the Austrian press, see Paupié, Kurt, Handbuch der österreichischen Pressegeschichte 1848–1959, vol. I (Vienna, 1960)Google Scholar; see also Desput, Joseph, “Die politische Parteien der Doppelmonarchie und ihre Presse,” Österreich in Geschichte und Literatur mit Geographie 20, no. 5 (1976): 316–31Google Scholar; and Orzoff, Andrea, “The Empire without Qualities: Austro-Hungarian Newspapers and the Outbreak of War in 1914,” in A Call to Arms: Propaganda, Public Opinion, and Newspapers in the Great War, ed. Paddock, Troy, pp. 161–198 (Westport, CT, 2004)Google Scholar.

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9 Reichspost, 28 May 1914, 4; Arbeiter-Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 3; Neue Freie Presse, 28 May 1914, 4; Deutsches Volskblatt, 28 May 1914, 3.

10 Deutsches Volksblatt, 28 May 1914, 2. For examples of the newspapers engaging each other directly, see Reichspost (Abend), 28 May 1914, 2; Arbeiter-Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 6.

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17 Deutsches Volksblatt, 28 May 1914, 7; Neuigkeits-Welt-Blatt, 28 May 1914, 6.

18 Reichspost, 28 May 1914, 9.

19 Deutsches Volksblatt, 28 May 1914, 7.

20 Arbeiter-Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 8.

21 Reichspost, 28 May 1914, 8.

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24 Neue Freie Presse, 28 May 1914, 13.

25 Arbeiter-Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 8.

26 Interessante Blatt, 28 May 1914, 1; Neue Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 1.

27 Morton, Frederic, Thunder at Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914 (New York, 1989)Google Scholar, 160. For the Great Powers’ 1913 establishment of an “independent” Albania under the control of a six-country commission, see Pearson, Owen, Albania and King Zog: Independence, Republic and Monarchy 1908–1939 (London, 2004), 44–45Google Scholar.

28 Neuigkeits-Welt-Blatt, 28 May 1914, 3.

29 Reichspost, 28 May 1914, 4.

30 Jelavich, Barbara, History of the Balkans (Cambridge, MA, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 99.

31 Neuigkeits-Welt-Blatt, 28 May 1914, 2; Neue Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 1–2.

32 Neue Freie Presse, 28 May 1914, 26.

33 Deutsches Volksblatt, 28 May 1914, 3.

34 Arbeiter-Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 2.

35 Neue Freie Presse, 28 May 1914, 2.

36 Arbeiter-Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 5; Neue Freie Presse, 28 May 1914, 2; Neue Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 3.

37 Deutsches Volksblatt, 28 May 1914, 10.

38 Neue Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 4.

39 Reichspost, 28 May 1914, 10.

40 Illustriertes österreichisches Sportblatt, 28 May 1914, 11.

41 Illustriertes österreichisches Sportblatt, 28 May 1914, 2 and 14.

42 Deutsches Volksblatt, 28 May 1914, 9.

43 The Delegations met in Vienna and Budapest in alternate years, with each deliberating separately and communicating with the other only in writing. For overview of the work of the Delegations, see Höbelt, Lothar, “The Delegations: Preliminary Sketch of a Semi-Parliamentary Institution,” Parliaments, Estates & Representation 16, no. 2 (December 1996): 149–54Google Scholar.

44 Wiener Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 4, 5, and 9.

45 Deák, István, Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps, 1848–1918 (New York, 1990)Google Scholar, 132.

46 “Was des Bürgers Fleiß geschaffen, schütze treu des Kriegers Kraft,” Kaisershymne (1854).

47 Wiener Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 8.

48 Reichspost, 28 May 1914, 5.

49 Interessante Blatt, 28 May 1914, 11; Neue Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 7.

50 Interessante Blatt, 28 May 1914, 9.

51 Mayrhofer, Josef, ed., Das Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 99 im Weltkrieg 1914–1918 (Vienna/Znaim, 1929)Google Scholar.

52 Auf dem Felde der Ehre, 1914–1915, vol. 2 (Vienna, 1915)Google Scholar, 27.

53 See Healy, Maureen, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I (Cambridge, MA, 2004)Google Scholar, chap. 5.

54 Reichspost, 28 May 1914, 8.

55 Interessante Blatt, 28 May 1914, 7.

56 Arbeiter-Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 10.

57 Illustriertes Österreichisches Sportblatt, 28 May 1914, 25.

58 Ibid., 26.

59 For route of the Karpathenfahrt, see “Horseless Age,” The Automobile Trade Magazine 33 (1914)Google Scholar, 972.

60 Reichspost, 28 May 1914, 12; see also Wiener Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 16.

61 Deutsches Volksblatt, 28 May 1914, 1.

62 Neue Freie Presse, 28 May 1914, 6 (Abendblatt).

63 Interessante Blatt, 28 May 1914, 26.

64 For prewar press reporting on deadly car crashes, see Sachs, Wolfgang, Die Liebe zum Automobil. Ein Rückblick in die Geschichte unserer Wünsche (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1984)Google Scholar.

65 Neues Wiener Journal, 28 May 1914, 10.

66 Neuigkeits-Welt-Blatt, 28 May 1914, 7.

67 Neues Wiener Journal, 28 May 1914, 9.

68 Neuigkeits-Welt-Blatt, 28 May 1914, 4.

69 Modeled on the competitions started by Prussian Prince Heinrich, such flights were meant to test the newest airplanes and afford pilots a chance to show their skills. See Kehrt, Christian, “‘Das Fliegen ist immer noch ein gefâhrliches Spiel.’ Risiko und Kontrolle der Flugzeugtechnik von 1908 bis 1914,” in Kalkuliertes Risiko. Technik, Spiel und Sport an der Grenze, ed. Gebauer, Gunter et al. , pp. 199–224 (Frankfurt/New York, 2006)Google Scholar.

70 Deutsches Volksblatt, 28 May 1914, 7.

71 Interessante Blatt, 28 May 1914, 2 and 7.

72 Deutsches Volksblatt Mittag-Ausgabe, 28 May 1914, 3.

73 An estimated 20 percent of the naval and 36 percent of army pilots died during the war. O'Connor, Martin D., Air Aces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1914–1918 (Mesa, AZ, 1986)Google Scholar, 8. For remarkable aerial photographs taken by Austrian pilots, see Baur, Fitz and Brunner, Joseph, Wir Flieger, 1914–1918. Der Krieg im Fliegerlichtbild (Vienna, 1930)Google Scholar.

74 Interessante Blatt, 28 May 1914, 6.

75 Reichspost, 28 May 1914, 8.

76 Neue Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 7.

77 Reichspost, 28 May 1914, 24.

78 Interessante Blatt, 28 May 1914, 21.

79 Arbeiter-Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 13.

80 Fleischmann, Wilhelm, et al. , The Book of the Dairy: A Manual of the Science and Practice of Dairy Work (London, 1896)Google Scholar, 321.

81 Arbeiter-Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 12.

82 Illustriertes Österreichisches Sportblatt, 28 May 1914, 8. On the origins of caffeine-free coffee, see Pendergrast, Mark, Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World (New York, NY, 1999)Google Scholar.

83 Neue Freie Presse, 28 May 1914, 29.

84 Ibid., 23.

85 Ibid., 12. For follow-up on the glacier closing, see “Die Wegfreiheit in den Bergen,” Mitteilungen des deutschen und österreichischen Alpenvereins 7–8 (April 1919), http://www.literature.at/ (accessed 8 August 2013).

86 Neues Wiener Journal, 28 May 1914, 10; Wiener Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 7; Arbeiter-Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 6.

87 Neue Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 5.

88 Neue Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 3; and Reichspost, 28 May 1914, 6.

89 Reichspost, 28 May 1914, 9.

90 Neue Freie Presse, 28 May 1914, 13.

91 Arbeiter-Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 6.

92 Bowman, William, “Despair Unto Death? Attempted Suicide in Early 1930s Vienna,” Austrian History Yearbook 39 (2008): 138–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 141.

93 Wiener Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 7.

94 For explanations of suicide in popular discourse of the time, see Hoffmann, Susanne, “Suizidalität im Alltagsdiskurs: Populare Deutungen des ‘Selbstmords’ im 20. Jahrhundert,” Historical Social Research 34, no. 4 (December 2009): 188–203.Google Scholar

95 Arbeiter-Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 7.

96 Ortmayr, Norbert, “Selbstmord in Österreich, 1819–1988,” Zeitgeschichte 17, no. 5 (1990): 209–25Google Scholar, at 216. 1907–1913 were peak years for suicide in Austria. The suicide rate fell in 1914 and continued to fall every year during the war. Ortmayr, 222. One anomaly on 28 May was that, with the exception of aviation enthusiast Stampach, all suicides appear to have been civilians. In fact, suicides were more frequent among members of the military than among civilians.

97 RGBl. 160, 25 Juli 1914, “Verordnung des Gesamtministeriums vom 25. Juli 1914 über den Besitz von Waffen, Munitionsgegenständen und Sprengstoffe und den Verkehr mit denselben.”

98 Neuigkeits-Welt-Blatt, 28 May 1914, 30.

99 Danzer's Armee-Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 11. This newspaper appeared every Thursday, and thus on 28 May 1914. It was edited by Carl Danzer “unter Mitwirkung eines Kreises höhere Offiziere.”

100 Danzer's Armee-Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 2.

101 Interessante Blatt, 28 May 1914, 17. “Roxroy” would have been a popular manifestation of the wider “contemporary craze for spiritualism and psychical research” that existed in philosophical and scholarly Viennese circles. See Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas, “The Modern Occult Revival in Vienna, 1880–1910,” Durham University Journal 80 (1980): 63–68Google Scholar, at 63.

102 Neuigkeits-Welt-Blatt, 28 May 1914, 25.

103 Interessante Blatt, 28 May 1914, 11.

104 Nestroy, Johann, Three Comedies, trans. Knight, Max and Fabry, Joseph (New York, 1967)Google Scholar, 23.

105 Danzer's Armee-Zeitung, 28 May 1914, 1.