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Blockade: The Diary of an Austrian Middle-Class Woman, 1914-1924
English, Pages 98. Reprinted in 2013 with the help of original edition published long back. This book is in black & white, Hardcover, sewing binding for longer life with Matt laminated multi-Colour Dust Cover, Printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, there may be some pages which are blur or missing or black spots. If it is multi volume set, then it is only single volume. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. We found this book important for the readers who want to know more about our old treasure so we brought it back to the shelves. (Customisation is possible). Hope you will like it and give your comments and suggestions. Original Blockade The Diary of an Austrian Middle-Class Woman 1914-1924 [Hardcover], Original Anna Eisenmenger
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
98 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1932
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 24, 2020
I found this book incredibly moving. We do not learn much about Austrian history in the UK, aside from the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. I wasn't aware of the hardships of the blockade post war and it was sad to read about Anna's plight. I've read other reviews where readers were reduced to tears and I can understand that.
Around the halfway mark of the book, I thought it would be interesting to try and find out where in Vienna the Eisenmenger's lived. This led me to discovering that the characters and the timelines in this diary are not true. It was hard to remain invested in the family with this knowledge particularly for some of the more dramatic later scenes.
I wondered whether potentially the novel was written as a propaganda piece. There is a lot of strong commentary in favour of Wilson, the British Government and the war to end all wars. I would imagine there would have been an ready audience at the time for tales of remorse from the losing sides.
Around the halfway mark of the book, I thought it would be interesting to try and find out where in Vienna the Eisenmenger's lived. This led me to discovering that the characters and the timelines in this diary are not true. It was hard to remain invested in the family with this knowledge particularly for some of the more dramatic later scenes.
I wondered whether potentially the novel was written as a propaganda piece. There is a lot of strong commentary in favour of Wilson, the British Government and the war to end all wars. I would imagine there would have been an ready audience at the time for tales of remorse from the losing sides.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 6, 2025
I listened to this as a book on tape with Pete Quinones reading it. He broke it down into ten parts that were about 35 minutes long, which made it very digestible and easy to process.
This book should scare the dickens out of everyone. Almost every problem in the world is a created problem and avoidable. We cannot avoid natural disasters, but we can avoid any and all manmade disasters. Blockade is a description of the manmade disaster in Austria as a result of WWI and the after effects and shortages. The children suffer, have soft bones, lose weight, and do not fully develop. The parents suffer right along with them as they can do nothing about it because their family is being destroyed by government actions.
There are those who profit off the blockade and they make everyone else's life miserable but there are also people just doing everything they can to make life livable considering the conditions they cannot solve and had nothing to do with. It is very depressing because these kinds of conditions are very easily to replicate and they are done often and most often these days by the United States. I found myself about halfway through the novel thinking about Iraq from 1990 to present and how the US essentially committed a campaign of genocide in much the same way. Today Yemen is experiencing the same conditions, fully supported by the US military and government.
These are crimes against humanity because they do not make the central or local govt's suffer. The gov't of the blockaded nation just impoverishes its own people further while the upper class still enjoy all their perks and do more than shave the cream off the top. They shave and drink most all of everything and allow the middle and low class to fight over scraps. What this book describes is what the global elite want world wide. They want people poor, begging for sustenance, and unable to have children while they move around in gold plated autos and planes and eat the finest foods.
This is a great read, but it is horrible at the same time.
This book should scare the dickens out of everyone. Almost every problem in the world is a created problem and avoidable. We cannot avoid natural disasters, but we can avoid any and all manmade disasters. Blockade is a description of the manmade disaster in Austria as a result of WWI and the after effects and shortages. The children suffer, have soft bones, lose weight, and do not fully develop. The parents suffer right along with them as they can do nothing about it because their family is being destroyed by government actions.
There are those who profit off the blockade and they make everyone else's life miserable but there are also people just doing everything they can to make life livable considering the conditions they cannot solve and had nothing to do with. It is very depressing because these kinds of conditions are very easily to replicate and they are done often and most often these days by the United States. I found myself about halfway through the novel thinking about Iraq from 1990 to present and how the US essentially committed a campaign of genocide in much the same way. Today Yemen is experiencing the same conditions, fully supported by the US military and government.
These are crimes against humanity because they do not make the central or local govt's suffer. The gov't of the blockaded nation just impoverishes its own people further while the upper class still enjoy all their perks and do more than shave the cream off the top. They shave and drink most all of everything and allow the middle and low class to fight over scraps. What this book describes is what the global elite want world wide. They want people poor, begging for sustenance, and unable to have children while they move around in gold plated autos and planes and eat the finest foods.
This is a great read, but it is horrible at the same time.
July 10, 2025
World War I is the worst thing that ever happened, with the Russian Revolution and Holodomor just to the side on this dubious podium.
The author appears to live such an ideal Central European life in the early 20th century - a doctor husband whose biggest fault, cigars, helps his widow out down the road, and a stable of 4 musically gifted children in Vienna. But ... some Serbian radicals decide they've had enough of the Austro-Hungarian empire, take out Franz Ferdinand, every country in Europe makes nothing but bad decisions, and then the genocide of Europe's greatest crop of young people in history commences.
If you're gonna fight a war, you better win, because half the time the peace is worse than the conflict, as was the case for the author and her family in a blockade-induced hyperinflation. One of Mrs. Eisenmenger's sons is killed on the Russian front, another blinded, and another come back a bitter angry communist. Her son-in-law is maimed and it's all the author can do to keep her daughter and grandchild nourished.
We see the author work her way through the gray market of Vienna to get 'luxury' items like tins of milk, grain, a few chickens and rabbits. Country contacts help as they have items to trade, and the upper middle class of Vienna lose their furniture and pianos in the bargain. Worthless commies murder ranch animals just for meanness and try to burn down farms. Unable to build, all that religion of hate can do is destroy.
The currency hyperinflates and a banker friend correctly encourages Mrs. Eisenmenger to put her krona in stocks and foreign currencies. I see why the author of When Money Dies quoted the book so much. I'm surprised more bitcoiners haven't read this, and I'm disappointed it's not assigned text in 10th grade world history class.
The 'winners' of WWI come off as subhuman, starving the defeated into malnutrition after the armistice, and somehow making life worse for the urban Austrian civilian population than during the war. The ending of the book has a single good thing amidst more death for this poor woman's family. If I could reverse anything in history it would be this conflict. Those who suffered through it deserve to be read, and this text offers a lot to the memoir reader, the economic historian, and the hard money advocate. This book is readily available as a PDF and is worth your time.
The author appears to live such an ideal Central European life in the early 20th century - a doctor husband whose biggest fault, cigars, helps his widow out down the road, and a stable of 4 musically gifted children in Vienna. But ... some Serbian radicals decide they've had enough of the Austro-Hungarian empire, take out Franz Ferdinand, every country in Europe makes nothing but bad decisions, and then the genocide of Europe's greatest crop of young people in history commences.
If you're gonna fight a war, you better win, because half the time the peace is worse than the conflict, as was the case for the author and her family in a blockade-induced hyperinflation. One of Mrs. Eisenmenger's sons is killed on the Russian front, another blinded, and another come back a bitter angry communist. Her son-in-law is maimed and it's all the author can do to keep her daughter and grandchild nourished.
We see the author work her way through the gray market of Vienna to get 'luxury' items like tins of milk, grain, a few chickens and rabbits. Country contacts help as they have items to trade, and the upper middle class of Vienna lose their furniture and pianos in the bargain. Worthless commies murder ranch animals just for meanness and try to burn down farms. Unable to build, all that religion of hate can do is destroy.
The currency hyperinflates and a banker friend correctly encourages Mrs. Eisenmenger to put her krona in stocks and foreign currencies. I see why the author of When Money Dies quoted the book so much. I'm surprised more bitcoiners haven't read this, and I'm disappointed it's not assigned text in 10th grade world history class.
The 'winners' of WWI come off as subhuman, starving the defeated into malnutrition after the armistice, and somehow making life worse for the urban Austrian civilian population than during the war. The ending of the book has a single good thing amidst more death for this poor woman's family. If I could reverse anything in history it would be this conflict. Those who suffered through it deserve to be read, and this text offers a lot to the memoir reader, the economic historian, and the hard money advocate. This book is readily available as a PDF and is worth your time.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews