She was raised as a foundling by the Viennese merchant Hannes Stritzinger. She was, as they say in Viennese, a “Rabenbratl”, she had never met her parents. However, her temperament betrayed her Eastern European origins. She was already seducing young men at the age of 14. One day she fled from his house and never came back.
Her name was Klara Zischka and as a sutler she made the soldiers in Emperor Franz I’s army camp in Schwarzlackenau near Jedlersee happy. Napoleon Bonaparte had taken Vienna and most of the neighboring villages were occupied by his troops. The French commander defeated the Austrians at Austerlitz and demanded a war indemnity of 40 million francs. Emperor Franz sent a contingent of troops to Hungary to bring hidden gold reserves to Vienna as a down payment on the sum demanded.
The imperial cash transport arrives a week late in Purkersdorf , which is occupied by the French. Napoleon was also staying there. Klara Zischka accompanied the motorcade. The commander wanted to pay the war indemnity personally. When he opened the top, he was amazed. The sutler, dressed only in a woolen coat, sat on a crate and smiled. He looked at the racy woman , he liked her. He took her by the hand and led her to another covered wagon. They both climbed in and the tarpaulin fell. Two guards secured the vehicle.
When the native Corsican returned to Vienna, the courtesan came back to him. This woman spent the best time of her life with Napoleon. He rented her an apartment on Kohlmarktand dressed her. When France and Austria make peace, Napoleon Bonaparte leaves Vienna. The emperor ‘s secret police were looking for her. She is to be tried as a traitor . The police find Klara Zischka hanging dead from the window cross in her apartment. Before the marriage of Marie Louise von Habsburg, the daughter of Emperor Franz I to Napoleon Bonaparte, she insists that all stories about the sutler Klara Zischka be suppressed by the authorities.
(Sources: Czeike, Felix: Der Graben, (Wiener Geschichtsbücher, Band 10), 137 pages, Vienna, Zsolnay 1972, ISBN: 978-3552024014; Welfenburg, Hubert: Die frivolsten Geschichten aus dem alten Wien, 305 pages, Vienna, Elektra, 1980, ISBN: 978-3272070162; Czeike, Felix: Unbekanntes Wien 1870-1920, 22 pages, 44 sheets of illustrations, Lucerne, 1998, ISBN: 978-3765812170)
Time Travel Tip: In the Schwarzlackenau, meadow area and street in Floridsdorf. Battlefield against the French forces.
Editor: Michael Ellenbogen
