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Archduke Ferdinand of Austria

1918–2004

Born
6 Dec 1918, Vienna
Country of birth
Austria–Hungary, today Austria
Died
6 Aug 2004, Ulm
facts
8
sources
1
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

A life in time

  1. Born · Vienna

    Birth, Vienna

  2. Died · Ulm

    Death, Ulm

What was it like?

The world around Vienna, 1918: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

Archduke was born around the same time as Ettore Sottsass, Federico Fellini, and Édith Piaf.

Born around the same time

  • Ettore Sottsass

    1917 · Italian architect and designer (1917–2007)

  • Federico Fellini

    1920 · Italian filmmaker (1920–1993)

  • Édith Piaf

    1915 · French singer (1915–1963)

  • Frank Sinatra

    1915 · American singer and actor (1915–1998)

  • Stanley Matthews

    1915 · English association football player (1915-2000)

  • John F. Kennedy

    1917 · president of the United States from 1961 to 1963 (1917–1963)

Fashion

Infant swaddling for physical development

To help them grow straight, infants in the Kirchberg region were placed in a swaddling cushion for several months, which prevented them from moving or kicking.

Strict social dress codes in Vienna

Prosperous women in Vienna followed strict rules for social success, requiring different outfits for specific daily activities like morning errands, afternoon tea, or exhibition openings.

Music

Traditional wedding dance and procession music

The Zillertaler Tramplan was a traditional wedding dance performed as the wedding party walked from the church to the inn. It was a regional dance piece that later became a musical signature of tourism in the Ziller Valley.

Instruments and foot-tapping dance customs

In the Ziller Valley, traditional wedding music was performed by ensembles consisting of two fiddles, a diatonic accordion, a Tyrolean folk harp, and a string bass. Dancers at these events frequently tapped their toes in time with the music, using specific patterns for two-four and three-four time signatures.

Getting around
Around 1914–1914

State control of Austrian railways in 1914

By 1914, the Imperial-Royal State Railways held a near monopoly, with 82 percent of the 22,981 kilometers of railway tracks in Austria being state-owned.

Around 1925–1925

Transport in 1925: Horses and Electric Trams

Around 1925, most of the population in rural Austria relied on horse-drawn carriages for transport, while city dwellers in Vienna used a modern network of electric trams and buses. Private automobiles were rare, reserved only for the very wealthy.

Daily life

Childhood and education in Tyrol

Children in rural Tyrol often faced heavy agricultural labor, which frequently hindered their school attendance. Access to further education was strictly dependent on the family's financial situation.

Housing for the poor in Vienna

In 1909, around 66,000 people in Vienna were bed-renters who did not have their own home and paid to use a bed for only a few hours. Many tenement buildings lacked running water, toilets, and electricity, requiring residents to collect water from a corridor tap called a Bassena.

Food

War bread and synthetic food substitutes

When bread grain became scarce during the war, bakers used inferior surrogates, causing the resulting "war bread" to crumble into thousands of crumbs when cut. Housewives also increasingly relied on synthetic food substitutes like margarine and beet sugar to supplement limited supplies.

Wartime food queues and charity soup meals

During World War I, famine forced city dwellers to wait in queues for hours, sometimes starting at night, for small and often unpalatable food rations. A single daily meal at charity kitchens might consist of a thin vegetable soup of turnips, carrots, and beets, costing 30 heller.

Prices and wages
Around 1925–1925

Food prices in 1925 Vienna

In 1925, a kilogram of bread in Vienna cost 65.2 Groschen, while a kilogram of beef cost 329.4 Groschen.

Around 1910–1910

Cost of soup ingredients in 1910

In 1910, a Maggi beef bouillon cube cost 5 hellers, whereas a full kilogram of soup meat was significantly more expensive at 1 crown and 50 hellers.

Work

Hardships of domestic service work

Domestic servants often worked from early morning until late at night, and until 1911, masters had the legal right to physically punish their staff. Even after laws were passed in 1920 to limit hours to 13 per day, many servants continued to work longer shifts and could not lock their own rooms.

Low wages and long hours

A worker in wool weaving could earn 34 Heller for finishing a shoulder collar, which took a significant amount of time, or roughly 51 Heller per day if highly skilled. Cigarette paper production workers could earn 10 to 12 Kronen for a long shift starting at 5 a.m. and ending at 8:30 p.m.

News and letters

Postage-free military mail during the war

During World War I, military personnel could send letters weighing up to 100 grams and official field service postcards postage-free within the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.

Vienna's fast pneumatic mail service

In Vienna, the pneumatic tube system delivered messages within the city in about 30 minutes, costing 15 kreuzer or 30 heller, which was equivalent to the price of two ordinary letters or a loaf of bread.

During their lifetime

  1. 1918

    Women gained suffrage in 1918 Weimar reforms

    Following the 1918 proclamation of the Weimar Republic, a new democratic system was established that enfranchised women and mandated an eight-hour workday for laborers.

  2. 1919

    Women gain vote, 1919

    The new Republic introduced women's suffrage, with women voting for the first time in the February 1919 national assembly elections.

  3. 1923

    Hyperinflation peak, 1923

    In 1923, the cost-of-living index soared to 1,183,600 compared to 100 in 1914, reflecting the catastrophic hyperinflation after the war.

  4. 1923

    Currency restabilization fueled economic recovery by 1927

    Following the restabilization of the currency in late 1923, Germany secured 800 million gold marks in foreign loans by 1927, which helped industrial production return to 1913 levels.

  5. 1927

    Palace of Justice fire, 1927

    On July 15, 1927, police fired on protesters during a general strike, resulting in 89 deaths and thousands of injuries.

  6. 1933

    Mass unemployment, 1933

    In February 1933, the Great Depression reached a peak in Austria, leaving approximately 600,000 people unemployed.

Family

Parents

Spouses

Ancestors and children

Open the full tree

Four generations back to the right, the children to the left. The number beside a child counts the generations of descendants known after them.