Annemarie Schwarzenbach

Annemarie Minna Renée Schwarzenbach (23 May 1908 – 15 November 1942) was a Swiss writer, journalist and photographer.

Her bisexual mother brought her up in a masculine style, and her androgynous image suited the bohemian Berlin society of the time, in which she indulged enthusiastically.

Her anti-fascist campaigning forced her into exile, where she became close to the family of novelist Thomas Mann.

She would live much of her life abroad as a photo-journalist, embarking on many lesbian relationships, and experiencing a growing morphine addiction.

In America, the young Carson McCullers was infatuated with Schwarzenbach, to whom she dedicated Reflections in a Golden Eye.

Schwarzenbach reported on the early events of World War II, but died of a head injury, following a fall.

Annemarie Schwarzenbach was born in the city of Zurich, Switzerland.

When she was four, the family moved to the Bocken Estate in Horgen, near Lake Zurich, where she grew up.

Her father, Alfred, was a wealthy businessman in the silk industry.

Her mother, Renée Schwarzenbach-Wille, the daughter of the Swiss general Ulrich Wille and descended from German aristocracy, was a prominent hostess, Olympic equestrian sportswoman and amateur photographer.

Her father tolerated her mother's bisexuality.

From an early age, she began to dress and act like a boy, a behaviour not discouraged by her parents and that she retained all her life.

In fact, in later life, she was often mistaken for a young man.

At her private school in Zurich she studied mainly German, history and music, neglecting the other subjects.

She liked dancing and was a keen piano player, but her heart was set on becoming a writer.

She studied in Zürich and Paris and earned her doctorate in history at the University of Zurich at the age of 23.

She started writing while still a student.

Shortly after completing her studies, she published her first novella Freunde um Bernhard (Bernhard's Circle), which was well received.

In 1930, she made contact with Erika and Klaus Mann (daughter and son of Thomas Mann).

She was fascinated by Erika's charm and self-confidence.

A relationship developed, which much to Schwarzenbach's disappointment did not last long (Erika had her eye on another woman: the actress Therese Giehse), although they always remained friends.

Still smarting from Erika's rejection, she spent the following years in Berlin.

There she found a soulmate in Klaus Mann and became a frequent visitor to the family Mann's house.

With Klaus, she started using drugs.

She led a fast life in the bustling, decadent, artistic city that was Berlin towards the close of the Weimar Republic.

She lived in Westend, drove fast cars and threw herself into the Berlin night-life.

"She lived dangerously. She drank too much. She never went to sleep before dawn", recalled her friend Ruth Landshoff.

Her androgynous beauty fascinated and attracted both men and women.

In 1932, Schwarzenbach planned a car trip to Persia with Klaus and Erika Mann and a childhood friend of the Manns, the artist Ricki Hallgarten.

The evening before the trip was due to start, on 5 May, Ricki, suffering from depression, shot himself in his house in Utting on the Ammersee.

For Schwarzenbach, this was the first time she encountered death directly.

She took several trips abroad with Klaus Mann, to Italy, France and Scandinavia, in 1932 and 1933.

Schwarzenbach's lifestyle ended with the Nazi takeover in 1933, when bohemian Berlin disappeared.

Tensions with her family increased, as some members sympathised with the far-right Swiss Fronts, which favoured closer ties with Nazi Germany.

Her parents urged Schwarzenbach to renounce her friendship with the Manns and help with the reconstruction of Germany under Hitler.

This she could not do, since she was a committed anti-Fascist and her circle included Jews and political refugees from Germany.

Instead, later on, she helped Klaus Mann finance an anti-Fascist literary review, Die Sammlung, which helped writers in exile from Germany by publishing their articles and short stories.

The pressure she felt led her to attempt suicide, which caused a scandal among her family and their conservative circle in Switzerland.

Also in 1933, she travelled with the photographer Marianne Breslauer to Spain to carry out a report on the Pyrenees.

Marianne was also fascinated by Schwarzenbach: "She was neither a man nor a woman," she wrote, "but an angel, an archangel" and made a portrait photograph of her.