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Marie Antoinette van Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen

1896–1965

Born
23 Oct 1896, Potsdam
Country of birth
German Empire, today Germany
Died
4 Jul 1965, Bolzano
facts
8
sources
1
images and files
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Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

A life in time

  1. Born · Potsdam

    Birth, Potsdam

  2. Died · Bolzano

    Death, Bolzano

What was it like?

The world around Potsdam, 1896: 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.

Marie was born the same year as Tristan Tzara, Antonin Artaud, and Dziga Vertov.

Born the same year

  • Tristan Tzara

    Romanian-French poet (1896–1963)

  • Antonin Artaud

    French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director (1896-1948)

  • Dziga Vertov

    Russian-Soviet documentary/avantgarde filmmaker (1896-1954)

  • Uberto de Morpurgo

    Italian tennis player (1896–1961)

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald

    American writer (1896–1940)

  • Georgy Zhukov

    Marshal of the Soviet Union (1896-1974)

Fashion

Distinctive vests signaled marital status in Betzingen

In Betzingen, married men wore black velvet vests, while unmarried men wore red cloth vests with twelve silver buttons. Bachelors also traditionally displayed a red handkerchief from their pocket when searching for a bride.

Rural and urban wedding attire customs

In rural areas, brides traditionally wore black dresses that could be reused for other festive occasions, while white wedding dresses became popular in cities late in the century. Brides traditionally wore a white veil with a myrtle wreath as a symbol of virginity.

Music

Costs for attending local festival banquets

Citizens often paid an entry fee of 20 to 30 Pfennig to attend local festive banquets, which featured patriotic music, choral performances, and speeches.

Diverse musical repertoires in cities

Musical life was diverse, blending folk music and rustic dances with military band repertoires that featured marches, operetta tunes, and original works.

Getting around

City carriage travel rates

Local carriage travel in cities like Barmen and Elberfeld was common, with a non-stop ride costing 50 Pfennig for up to two people, or 1 Mark for a half-hour ride.

Steamship travel on the Weser River

By the late 19th century, steamships on the Weser river were a popular tourist attraction, with the upstream journey from Hamelin to Münden taking 15 hours and 30 minutes, and the downstream journey taking 8 hours and 29 minutes.

Daily life

Access to running water varied by class

Working-class homes often lacked running water, requiring water to be heated in cooking pots, while wealthier, modern homes featured hot-water heaters and running water in the kitchen and bathroom.

Compulsory primary education was six hours daily

Children attended primary school for six hours daily, often sitting four to a bench; primary education became free of charge in 1891.

Food

Meat was a luxury for working families

In working-class households, meat—often cheap sausage or ground meat—was a luxury, frequently reserved for Sunday meals, and sometimes stretched with breadcrumbs to make meat-like dishes like fake rabbit. Men, seen as the primary providers, often received the largest portions of meat, while wives and children ate significantly less.

Simple breakfasts and rare egg treats

Breakfast typically consisted of brown rye bread and a watery brew of coffee and barley, as milk and sugar were considered expensive luxuries. Eggs were an extremely rare delight, and one worker noted that it was amazingly rare for him to even get one.

Prices and wages

Prices of furniture and staples

Furniture was affordable compared to food; a simple chair cost about 3.75 marks and a matching table was 8.75 marks. In contrast, butter was expensive, costing about 1 mark per pound or up to 1.86 marks per kilogram.

Around 1900–1900

Cost of basic food items

Around 1900, one kilogram of pork cost about 1.50 marks, while horse meat was available for 50 pfennigs. A kilogram of rye bread cost 23 pfennigs, and one kilogram of coffee was a luxury item priced at 4.15 marks.

Work

Long hours for rural workers

Rural laborers in eastern Germany could work up to 18 or 19 hours a day during summer, including rest periods, often starting at 3 a.m. to feed horses and not returning home until 9 p.m. or later. In contrast, winter work was restricted to daylight hours, typically running from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

The factory workday and wages

In a machine factory around 1890, the standard workday lasted 11 hours, beginning at 6 a.m. and ending 12 hours later, interrupted only by a 20-minute coffee break and a one-hour lunch break. Workers commonly earned weekly wages ranging from 12 to 30 marks, though fines for tardiness or absences were often deducted directly from these earnings.

News and letters

Berlin Pneumatic Tube Delivered Messages Within Hours

The pneumatic tube system in Berlin used air pressure to send messages at 50 km/h, allowing letters to be delivered within the city in about one hour.

Cost of Fast Communication at the Time

A pneumatic post letter cost 30 pfennig and a postcard cost 25 pfennig, an amount that equaled the price of a liter of beer or a kilogram of rye bread around 1900.

During their lifetime

  1. 1898

    The Bread Riots of 1898

    Widespread bread riots broke out across Italy in 1898 due to rising wheat prices, leading to mass repression, including the Bava Beccaris massacre in Milan where up to 400 people were killed.

  2. 1905

    Nationalization of Italian Railways, 1905

    In 1905, the Italian state nationalized the railway network, forming the State Railways (FS) to modernize transport and boost heavy industry.

  3. 1906

    Simplon Tunnel opens, 1906

    In 1906, the Simplon Tunnel, at 19.7 km the world's longest at the time, opened, connecting Italy and Switzerland by rail.

  4. 1910

    Life expectancy rose to 47 years by 1910

    By 1910, advancements in medicine, hygiene, and infrastructure, such as improved water and sewage systems, increased the average life expectancy to 47 years, compared to 37 years in 1871.

  5. 1913

    Peak of Italian migration, 1913

    In 1913, Italian migration hit a record peak, with 870,000 people leaving the country in a single year.

  6. 1914

    Ten percent of households accessed electricity by 1914

    By 1914, approximately ten percent of German households had access to electricity, transforming daily life through new lighting and urban infrastructure.

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.