Der schönste Sommer meines Lebens*

Opening Ingeborg Bachmann Room

Ingeborg Bachmann came from the Gailtal region on her father's side. She spent many, partly formative, summer months at Tobaihof in Obervellach near Hermagor. The summer of '45 brings unheard excitements into the life of teenager Ingeborg Bachmann. The 18-year-old befriends a British occupation soldier named Jack Hamesh. “I will study, work, write, I live, I live.” “Everyone is talking about me, and of course, the whole family. They say she is going with a Jew. And Mother is of course quite nervous about the gossip. I told Mother I will walk up and down Obervellach and Hermagor with Jack ten times and if everything turns upside down, now more than ever,” she confided to her diary.

Even in her literary work, she often refers to the place and the region, as seen in the short story “Das Honditschkreuz” or in the poetry cycle “From a Land, a River and the Lakes.”

Mag.a Katharina Herzmansky (Scientific Curatorial Management Ingeborg Bachmann House Klagenfurt): “Against this background and on the occasion of her 100th birthday in the year 2026, a dedicated space in the Gailtal Museum will be created in cooperation with the kärnten.museum / Ingeborg Bachmann House Klagenfurt, to connect Ingeborg Bachmann with her Gailtal heritage. Objects from the Ingeborg Bachmann collection of the Province of Carinthia will be on permanent display accompanied by text and image documents.”

* Ingeborg Bachmann: War Diary, Suhrkamp 2010