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“Long live freedom”: The Schmidham author Sandra Freudenberg came across the Empress’s love of the mountains in the diaries of ladies-in-waiting and daughters as well as Sisi’s own notes, which she also lived out in the Tegernsee mountains.
© Christian Scholle
Likeable tomboy from the films of the 50s and tragic empress: Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary has many facets.
Author Sandra Freudenberg adds something unknown: Sisi was an early alpinist.
Schmidham
– For many, the “Sissi” films are part of the Christmas ritual.
Whether the classic with Romy Schneider, documentaries or the new series with Dominique Devenport as Elisabeth, which tell the life of those born on Christmas Eve 1837.
There is also an extensive collection of literature about the Empress of Austria, which Sandra Freudenberg is now supplementing with a book from a completely different, unknown perspective.
The author, who lives in Schmidham, shows the monarch from her mountain-loving side, which she also lived out in the Tegernsee Valley.
Among other things, Empress Sisi undertook a private pilgrimage up to the Kircherl am Riederstein at an altitude of 1,207 meters, climbed into the Wolfsschlucht near Siebenhütten and spent the night in one or two huts high above Lake Tegernsee in the mountains - always equipped with a silver cup to keep herself safe on the way to feast on udder-fresh milk, and sometimes tormented by fleas when she spent the night in a simple hut.
Research in diaries of ladies-in-waiting and daughters
How does the author and founder know this?
“I evaluated the diaries of the ladies-in-waiting and the daughters,” says Freudenberg, and how she got to know a completely different Sisi than the one known in previous literature.
“A friend, pacifist and enthusiastic mountaineer,” enthuses the author.
She got her first idea while researching her book about King Ludwig II in the mountains, which was published in 2020.
In this context, she looked more closely at the Wittelsbachers and was surprised to find “that Sisi was a very passionate mountaineer.”
Mind you: in times when this was not appropriate for women and they were labeled as tomboys.
The leading Sisi biographer Brigitte Hamann also follows this line, complains Freudenberg.
She was an absolute opponent of mountaineering, dismissed it as cloud climbing and accused the Empress of not taking her representative duties seriously because of such escapades.
Freudenberg: “I was surprised at how spitefully Sisi was viewed.”
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Sisi's mountain tours at the summer retreat on Lake Tegernsee
The mountain enthusiast from Schmidham counters this with what she researched in about a year and a half of intensive study of the original sources.
She read Empress Elisabeth's great love of nature from the tours, some of which were described in lyrical style.
Sisi had met her as a child through her mother, Duchess Ludovika, in Bavaria.
Among other things, during hikes at the summer residence in Tegernsee, where Sisi, even as Empress, enjoyed the combination of a morning swim in the lake and a mountain tour.
What she appreciated about hiking was that “it clears your head and calms your spirit.”
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And although she obviously had no sporting ambitions, the Empress put in a huge workload, which was particularly difficult for the ladies-in-waiting, who often had to pick up a carriage if the terrain permitted it.
Or they took an easier route.
Up to Schildenstein, for example, where the entourage took the route to Königsalm and Gaißalm, while, as is known from daughter Valerie's diary, the imperial family mastered the alpine challenge through the Wolfsschlucht.
As a very young woman, Sisi gained experience on the Großglockner and when she still lived in Possenhofen, she often rode to Munich, where she had her horse looked after at the Four Seasons Hotel and walked the 32 kilometers back to Lake Starnberg.
These and numerous other tours between Bad Ischl and Vienna Woods, Meran and Montreux are described in the book.
However, much more space is taken up by a cultural-historical classification and Sisi's personal descriptions.
“How does she describe the place, how did she like it and where else can you find and feel her?” These were her guiding principles, says Freudenberg, who describes the three and a half years of intensive study of the topic as a “huge win”.
Not only because she got to know a very democratic and peace-loving woman, but also because she saw women's mountaineering from a different perspective.
The book “Sisi – Long live freedom.
Favorite Paths of an Indomitable Empress” by Sandra Freudenberg was published by Frederking & Thaler (ISBN: 978-3-95416-376-2), costs 34.99 euros and is available in local bookstores, among other places.