Fritzl. After the war was over ... growing up

 'Unsere junge Republik' ... began Rudi in February 1919 ..

Was it? I guess those with 'well-formed' political ideas see things as they wish.

Is that Fritzl playing piano for Grandma's birthday? Ah, I see. The old 'Rosenknopfen' dances of Franz Behr. Range of five notes ...

We always had a piano. But I never remember father playing it! I think the experience might not have been enduring.

Next a visit to the ballet. 

A Kinderball on 1 March ('Fritz as a Red Indian') and on 16 March to the Volksoper for Karl Schreder's Das Wiener Aschenbrödel with child star Rudi Merstallinger featured. 

Oy! The Kinderball was quite a family outing. Rudi, Minna and Berta (Richard's wife) in Japanses, dirndl and Spanish dress, Rduard and Marie, and 'Hermin'! ...

Then they were on their way, as in ptr-war years. 'Two weeks' stay in Mönichkirchen (13-27 April) 

Snow at Easter with Papa!

At eight years of age he is introduced to Dickens's 'Kindergeschichten'.  And in May, back to school. And the theatre ... the Burgtheater, no less ... for Raimund's well-loved 1834 Der Verschwender. I'm sure he enjoyed the 'magical' bits. The 'social commentary"?  Franz Höbling and Else Wohlgemuth were very well-known players of the era ...

Burgtheater

Then it was summer, and time to head to the mountains for the season. This year the Alpenort of Puchenstuben (00m), on the railway line to Maria Zell, and apparently near skifields ...

There was clearly a tourist bit of Puchenstuben .. the Hotel Gösing looks delicious. It's still there but not in this form 

I don't think the extended Stojetz family would have stayed there. This looks more like it! (Rudi's photo). Ahha! The Trefflinghof. Another bolthole of the National Socialists. They seem rather like the Freemasons ... free holidays for the faithful ..?

This is what they were here for ...
 

Pepi, Fritzl and who? Fritz's first time on a mountain rope ...  the Trefflingtal ..  alas, a little faded ..

His first tramping tour ... 10 August 1919 ... Trefflingfall-Tormäuer-Bärenlacke-Rauher Kamm-Ötscher Gipfel ...  Twice to Kletterer am Siel with ...  ahha Onkel Hermann! Ötscherhölen, Ötschergraben, Spielbüchler, Östcherhaus  ..  

What's this? The Weinberger Gasthaus. Not on the tramp, I think. Weinberg was in the region of Puchenstuben. Hang on, there's little blondie again. And she's labelled 'Helga'. I think Helga stayed around for a long time ... my mother seemed to know her ... or of her ...

And back to school!  And Vienna. And the theatre ..

followed by "die verkaufte Braut". Alweays the opera now, it seems, never the Operette.

Puchenstuben was evidently a sucess, for the family returned there for the Christmas holidays. By which time it was drenched in snow ..

But apparently not for long. Rudi records a Lohengrin at the Hofoper, conducted by Richard Strauss ... no Zettel, alas .. 

And the Sterns gave Fritzl a suit of armour! He must have fancied himself as the Knight of the Schwann! Anyway he was hot stuff at the next year's fancy dress balls!

Schiller's Wilhelm Tell ... tickets to Hoffman's Erzählungen, French classes .. and a part in a school play. October is represented by this postcard ..

Papa and Fritz went on the 'autobus' ...

Fritz is now at the Evangelische Hochschule am Karlsplatz .. 8.15 to 1.40 daily ...

Christmas holidays at Zell am See .. swimming .. skiing ... an unlabelled photo ..

April 1921. Fritzl is ten years old. 136cm, 33 kg ..

Rudi is getting lazy at labelling her photos!

And a first visit to a matinee at the Urania Lichtbild ... all on his own! A Schülervortrag ...  'the company of Walter Esener and Anita Blüme ..' .. Kinderball as 'Mephistopheles' ...

And his birthday treat ...

He's enrolled at the Realschule in the Albertgasse .. and, summer and Christmas 1821, they're back at Puchenstuben! ...  with a bit of school in between ..

20 January 1922. 'Gesund trat einer Büb ins neue Jahr ...'  but 'leider wenig Schnee' ..  back to town, Wilhelm Tell and Die Räuber and more Wagner.

His piano-playing must have come on, because after the show he was bought a Tannhäuser Pot-Pourri .. and then June 1 more Puchenstuben! Two days at Hochschwab -- ten days in the Otztaler and the Stubaien-Aplen ..  Fritzl at 3000 metres ... the Olgrubenjoch (3013m) ..

I see, now, why he expected my younger brother and I to climb everything in sight in our youth ...

Kurt (9) John (6) and mother at Mt Cook.

Pitztalerjochl, Bildstöckljoch, Schaufelspitze (3333m) .. yes, 10 year-old Fritz has, as his mother says. truly caught 'Die Liebe zu den Bergen', and he never lost it ...

1922 may have been the little boy's most demanding in the mountains, but the mountains feature in the photo album alongside school and family. The family had grown by one: Richard and Minna's first (and only) child. A son named [Johannes] Thomas. Tom features largely in the family photos of the next decade ... because his mother had become a professional photographer, sharing a studio and business with Berta Schönickle.  ('die bekannte Hietzinger Atelier Schönickle-Stern'). 

There is a swatch of family photos dated 'Summer 1922'

Rudi, Richard, Mizzi (Bingo the dog), Fritzl, Minna and Tom at Winterbach

Winterbach is a stop, one on from Puchenstuben, on the family's (and everyone else's) favourite Mariazell electric-railway line.

Rudi, Marie, Eduard, Fritz

And one from school. The schoolmates of II Real are labelled ...

Herzog, Ganzl, Schönewolf, Rosenthal, Wantoch, Schneider, Becker, ?Karnenitser. Wunderlich, Wedermann, Hirsch;  Horodetzky, ?Transon, Rauch, Professor Ungar, Hradetzky, Hittler, Rotter, Schachauer, Ackermann, Rand, Lazar, Grünhut, Heitler ...  (*transcription not guaranteed!)

Yes, they'd not long started taking girls.... three here? Plenty of Jews ...

A fortnight for Christmas at Puchenstuben ... why does that name ring a bell in my brain? Oh goodness! This has been on my shelves for 60 years. I never investigated! I thought Puchenstuben meant something like 'Poubelle de table'!  So this is 100 years old?

Puchenstuben? At Christmas ...?

Yes, of course, one pole. Only sissies have two ...

Is this Hermine? And Mizzi ..? I need a physiognimist and younger eyes .. It's not Bingo ...

OK. Puchenstuben or vicinity has a lake ...

I have another box full of stuff. I shall add as I find. Bit overwhelmed right now. Time for a pause. 1923 comes next ..

I wonder if the piano lessons and the French lessons will have any chance against the ski lessons.  Garn! I know they didn't!

Fritzl the little soldier 1915-8

Wartime. 

Less mountains. Less journeys? 

Fritzl celebrated the new year by getting some sort of fever, so haf a page is devoted, naturally, to that. 120cm tall, 19.5kg weight ...

Max Hecher's decoration by the army, the same month, went unrecorded.

March 'unser Bürschel' is OK, with a güten Appetit and -- goodness, is that a noisy musical instrument --

Pepi seems to have undergone a Nachmusterung -- a second fitness for service examination? --

The first photo is the one taken at the family farmlet, digging potatoes ...

The farm

28 June they are at Hochschneeberg ... er, that's a Railway Hotel ..?

A Schneeberg Tour? More names. Grünbacher-Hutte, Wanderin Eicherthütte, Große Kanzel, Grünbach ..

Our little Soldier ...

What's this? A visit to Onkel Gustl (who?) in Pressburg? 'Schiff und Bahnkarte' .. Pfingsten

Fritz is told the story of Adam and Eve .. the old testament ... hummm.

October they are in Winzendorf at the Schneebergbahn ... oh this writing!  'Soldatenspiele' .. No photos. Lots of place-names  .. the 18th century Teichmühle, the walking tracks of the Johannesbachklamm, the ruins of the Emmasberg .. Fritzl went three times to Hohe Wand, then to Stollhof, in a snowstorm, and the family seems to have tramped from there via Wieser, Postl, Völlerin, Mayersdorf, Teichmühle to Winzerdorf. I see this area is a Nature Park nowadays ..

November they are in Vienna. A visit to the Circus Beketow on the Prater with Fritz, Grandma, Minna, Mother ...

Trained elephants, bears, horses ... and the well-known fake Red Indian trick cyclist, Dieck ...

And news from Siberia. From Onkel Max Hecher.

I see that Eduard's address is now XIX/2 Hackhofergasse 37. Is that Nüssdorf?  Hermine, without interned husband, and with teenage daughter, was in her forever home at Lederergasse 23.

And who was Anton Budil? Ah! Another Bernsteindrechsler .. and another Christian Socialist chap .. businessman ... 'Bezirksrat' ... local politician ... ??Zugsführer

Yes. That's he, Anton Wenzel Budil born Margareten 14 July 1860, died 2 February 1922 ...

Christmas 1915. The circus had its effect. Fritzl wants a Red Indian costume. And a Bilderlotto .. but mostly it seems war-themed toys!

a child in wartime

The first recorded event for 1916 is a visit to the Theater an der Wien. Rather a classy one, even though it was a children's 3am matinee. A quick glance down the cast list throws up star actors even I have heard of!  The comedians Karl Tuschl and Franz Glawatsch, soprano Anny Rainer and Therese Tautenhayn, Mizzi Schütz ...

No januts, it seems. A quiet 5th birthday at home with the close family. Murmurings of "Schüle". Visits to Nüssdorf ...

And Aggstein ('12th century castle on top of a rocky outcrop .. above the Danube'). Well, they did got out a bit! Till Fritz got angina. It doesn't seem to have been the best year.  until ... 20 October when Rudi reports that she visited the Direktor of the 'Freie Schüle'.. real life was about to begin!

I'm not quite sure what this document is ...

A bit of wartime bumf?

This, however, is easily identifiable! 

Fliegende Holländer at five years of age? Well, half a century later, when I turned out to have a huge basso singing voice, he said to me that I had the sing 'Der Frist ist um' and Wotan's Farewell at his funeral. Alas (or hurrah!), the much-lauded teenage mega-voice was in tatters, by the time he died, at 84. And, anyway, both pieces were too high for me ...  Rudi recorded his reactions this time ...

I pick up the odd place name. Rotenturmstrasse ... I have been there!

Sadly, none of the 1916 photos are labelled ... are these 'home' or 'away'?

         

Be careful of blondes, Dad!

Hmmmm. A rough lot? 

1917.  Our father told us that they 'spent the war in Hungary'. Well, as we can see, not the whole of the war, but much of 1917. Rudi says, from Székesféhervár,  in September, 'we came here three and a half months ago' .. and this little set of official documents shows them in the city in May .. 32 Erzébet utca ... 

I have not yet been able to discover whether they had (?all) left Vienna for safety reasons ... Rudi is more concerned to relate that Fritzl got the measles ..

In September they visited Aliga am Plattensee, a resort set up as a holiday resort for members of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party. 'The Party' was evidently a larger and larger part of their lives...

Aliga: Fritzl and some happy socialists

.. and always something to climb!

Who is that man? In uniform?

They seem to have returnd to Vienna in September. On the 24th Rudi writes 'Fritz has been at school for a week ..'

Needless to say, Rudi is only interested in her son's progress in writing, reading etc. And some outside school activities ..

He's moving on from 'Peterschens Mondfahrt' to 'Das Djungelbuch' ... Onkel Fritz is on hand for his 7th birthday ...  where are the others?

"Leider ist der Sommer nicht so schön'. They are missing their jaunts. Onkel Fritz seems to have been in Udine. I wonder why. Was he a commercial traveller? Or in the forces? 

Its books, this time, rather than Bergs ... 'Thomsens's Tiergeschichten', Ewald's' 'Was Mütter Natur erzählt', 'Baron Münchusen', Kauff's Märchen, Die Höhlenkinder', 'Robinson in Versen und lustigen Bildern' .. and then skiing makes its first appearance in the history ...

No mention of the War's end!  Or Max Hecher's return home? 

Rudi has started a new volume.  So, so shall I.

I shall add to this one as I exhume more bits and pieces ...

One of my special finds! Already deciphered, a few years back, with the help of Chris Zwarg. 

https://kurtofgerolstein.blogspot.com/2021/01/a-bit-of-european-postal-history-in-my.html