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Sources for the video

Wienerberg: one corner per family

Around 1895, four families and a widow lived in one room on the Wienerberg, and the border between them was a chalk line. The video asks who saw it and whether they lived better later. These are its sources, statement by statement, for the short video and the long version.

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Video · 1:24 · with sound, in German

What the video shows

Thousands made bricks for Vienna on the Wienerberg, many of them from Bohemia and Moravia. In 1888 the works still lay outside the city, in the municipality of Inzersdorf; since 1892 the area has been part of Vienna, in the Favoriten district. How the families lived was described in April 1895 by a reporter of the Neue Freie Presse: in one room nine beds, four families, each in one corner, plus a widow, and on the red brick paving chalk lines draw the border for each family.

The doctor and Social Democrat Victor Adler had already seen it in 1888. In November he crept into the works at night; seven years later he told a court how he asked a woman with a newborn where she had given birth, and she answered: “Hier.” (Here.) Much of what he knew came from two brickworkers, Raab and Haader. Shortly after his report in the Gleichheit, both were arrested and expelled from the Vienna area. Adler did not know why either, and we have not found what became of them.

On wages the authorities stepped in: the factory inspectorate stopped pay in tin tokens, to be spent in company canteens, as early as 1888. On housing, the factory inspector wrote in 1893 of mass quarters for 15 to 20 people. In April 1895 the brickworkers went on strike; a gendarme seriously injured the worker Franz Urbanek, who died at the beginning of May. In Parliament the Minister of the Interior admitted that workers hardly lived as badly anywhere as at the Wienerberg. The strike ended with 15 to 20 percent higher wages.

Three years later an industrialists’ commemorative volume wrote that all workers lived with their families in separate flats. We have not found a second source for this, and whether it was true for everyone, we do not know. The clay for the bricks came from pits; one of them is today the Wienerbergteich. What remains are the bricks, some with a stamp, and the video asks: where have you ever seen a brick like this?

The video was requested by G.Ritter, thomas_1220_, TheOneYouDontWant01, kathi_strassl, Spiel mit das Lied von Tod and manuel.taschauer. The pictures are real unless they are labelled “KI-Bild” (AI image): the 1872 survey sheet, Victor Adler as a lithograph from the Wien Museum, newspapers and books from 1888 to 1898, aerial photos from the City of Vienna and Google’s 3D of today. Three labelled images, the voice and the sound effects are AI-generated.

Sources and image credits

Data

For the film we cropped, converted and redrew the data.

Google 3D

The Wienerbergteich today: the descent from above to the water, where the clay pit still was in 1956: Google’s photorealistic 3D. In the film the credit stays in the picture for as long as Google’s image is visible: Heute in 3D: Google Maps

Pictures

  1. Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Military Geographic Institute, Aufnahmeblatt 4757-1c 1872 Inzersdorf (the brickworks on the Wienerberg in the municipality of Inzersdorf, third land survey), 1872. Wikimedia Commons. Licence: gemeinfrei (Public Domain). Change: cropped around the “Wienerberger Ziegelöfen”, slow pan; strongly darkened as a quiet background behind the text (both videos).
  2. after Otto Friedrich (1862–1937) (artist; printed by Kunstanstalt Albert Berger), Victor Adler (1852-1918), Arzt, Journalist, Politiker, Begründer der Sozialdemokratischen Arbeiterpartei, around 1920. Wien Museum, inv. no. 227711. Licence: CC0 1.0. Change: cropped to the head, slightly tinted, on a dark background next to the text (both videos).
  3. unknown, Volksfreund, Brünn (the printed text of the question in the Imperial Council of 18 December 1888, with the names Raab and Haader), 27 December 1888. Moravian Library (MZK), digital library. Licence: gemeinfrei (Public Domain). Change: only the lines with the surnames cut out, the line with the names highlighted; the film does not show the lines with a first name because the sources give it differently (both videos).
  4. Erwin Pendl (draughtsman, signed in the picture), Die Gross-Industrie Oesterreichs, Bd. 6 (the bird’s-eye view of the works of the Wienerberger Ziegelfabriks- und Baugesellschaft, p. 84), 1898. Wikimedia Commons (digitised by the Austrian National Library). Licence: gemeinfrei (Public Domain). Change: cropped, slow pan (long video); template for the AI images of the works (both videos).
  5. Motox, Miesbachziegel (a brick with the stamp A M, “Ziegel aus der Fertigung Alois Miesbach” (a brick made by Alois Miesbach)), 2007. Wikimedia Commons. Licence: gemeinfrei (Public Domain). Change: enlarged, on a dark background (both videos).
  6. Raab (brickworker, author of the letter), Victor Adlers Aufsätze, Reden und Briefe, Heft 4: Die Lage der Ziegelarbeiter (Raab’s letter from the Gleichheit no. 51 of 22 December 1888, p. 26), 1888, reprinted 1925. Internet Archive. Licence: gemeinfrei (Public Domain). Change: cropped from the scan, the spoken line bright, the rest darkened (long video).
  7. Eugen Elkan (author; quotes the report of the factory inspector for Vienna), Die österreichische Gewerbeinspection im Jahre 1893, in: Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft, Socialpolitik und Verwaltung, Bd. 4 (the report on the 64 workers’ houses of a large brickworks, p. 332), 1895. Internet Archive (University of Toronto). Licence: gemeinfrei (Public Domain). Change: cropped from the scan, the spoken line bright, the rest darkened (long video).
  8. Central-Volksblatt für den Regierungsbezirk Arnsberg, Aus dem Leben der Ziegelarbeiter am Wienerberg (the reprint of the Neue Freie Presse report), 30 April 1895. ULB Münster (zeitpunkt.nrw), via the German Digital Library. Licence: gemeinfrei (Public Domain). Change: cropped from the scan, the spoken line bright; at the end two lines about the chalk lines (long video).

AI, voice and music

Three images are painted with AI and labelled “KI-Bild” (AI image) in the film: the room from above after the Neue Freie Presse’s description of 1895 and our chalk plan, the works after Pendl’s bird’s-eye view of 1898, and the same works at night (only in the long video). Painted with Nano Banana 2.1, animated with Kling 3.0. Dimensions, people, windows and laundry are invented, which is why the label says “so könnte es ausgesehen haben” (this is how it might have looked). The chalk plan is schematic; we do not know the room’s dimensions. Voice and sound effects are AI-generated: the voice with Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS (“Charon”), the clack of bricks and the scratch of chalk with ElevenLabs. There is no music.

Each statement in the Short and its sources

  1. Each family had one corner. The border was a chalk line on the brick floor.

    The chalk lines appear only in this one report; every place we found it is a reprint of the Neue Freie Presse. That is why its name is on screen from the first second. The film says “brick floor” for the newspaper’s “brick paving”.

  2. This is how families lived who made bricks for Vienna on the Wienerberg. Many came from Bohemia and Moravia.

    “Many”, not “they”: not all of them came from there. Raab and Haader came from Moravia, from Hombok and Gewitsch (today Hlubočky and Jevíčko). And “for Vienna”, not “Vienna’s bricks”: the Wienerberg was the largest supplier, not the only one.

  3. Bricks from the Wienerberg were used in the Arsenal and in the Parliament.

    Only in the long video. The buildings are older than 1888: these are bricks from the Wienerberg, not the bricks of the families in the film. The film does not name the City Hall, the Votivkirche or the Opera, for which we found no reliable source; nor the Heinrichhof, which was demolished.

  4. As early as 1888 the doctor and Social Democrat Victor Adler crept into the brickworks at night.

    The editors of Adler’s writings say “December” in 1922 and 1925; that is wrong, the report was already in the Gleichheit on 1 December 1888. In 1888 the brickworks lay in the municipality of Inzersdorf, not yet in Vienna. The long video says: “In November 1888 a doctor went into the works at night.” and quotes Adler: “Wir mussten uns einschleichen” (we had to sneak in).

  5. In a barrack he asked a woman with a newborn: Where did you give birth? On screen: “Hier.” (Here.)

    Only Adler himself tells the question and the answer, seven years later in court; his report of 1888 does not have them. That is why the screen says “erzählt von Victor Adler, sieben Jahre später” (told by Victor Adler, seven years later). The factory inspector also writes that children were born in such rooms. No source knows the woman’s name.

  6. What he knew came from two workers: Raab and Haader. Shortly after Adler’s newspaper report, both were arrested and expelled from the Vienna area.

    The film says “shortly after”, not “for it”: no source says why the two were arrested, Adler did not know either. “From the Vienna area” because Inzersdorf was not yet part of Vienna in 1888 and the expulsion applied to three districts. The film gives no first names; the sources give Raab’s first name differently. What became of the two after February 1889 we did not find, nor any picture of them. The long video says “Much of what he knew came from two workers.” and “At the beginning of December the gendarmerie arrested first Raab, then Haader.”

  7. “Sonntag hatten sie uns beide photographiert, Größenmaß und Personsbeschreibung aufgeschrieben.” (On Sunday they had photographed us both and written down our height and description.) A plain-clothes guard took them by train as far as Lundenburg, Raab wrote.

    Only in the long video. Only Raab tells this, in Adler’s paper; that is why the film says “Raab wrote”. Lundenburg is now called Břeclav.

  8. On wages the authorities stepped in: in 1888 the workers were paid in tin tokens, which they had to spend in company canteens. That same year the factory inspectorate put a stop to it.

    Only in the long video. The film gives no figure for the tin money; the sources give no reliable one.

  9. In 1893 the factory inspector examined the workers’ houses of a large brickworks. Many flats were mass quarters, meant for 15 to 20 people. That it was the works of the Wienerberger Ziegelfabriks- und Baugesellschaft was written by the Neue Freie Presse in 1895.

    Only in the long video. The official report does not name the company; only the newspaper assigns it. The number of residents (2,807 or 2,817) differs between the prints, so the film gives none. The company is named as it was called then; the film says nothing about today’s company.

  10. In April 1895 the brickworkers went on strike, some 3,000 at the Wienerberger, some 4,000 in the whole Vienna Basin.

    The Kölnische Zeitung of 17 April 1895 likewise reports “4000 Ziegelarbeiter des Wiener Beckens” (4,000 brickworkers of the Vienna Basin). Other figures of up to 10,000 appear in one source only. The Short says only: “In 1895 the brickworkers went on strike.”

  11. On 20 April a gendarme in Rothneusiedl seriously injured the brickworker Franz Urbanek on the head. Franz Urbanek died at the beginning of May.

    Only in the long video. The Kölnische Zeitung of 4 May 1895 reports his death in the prison hospital. The sources differ on the day (2 or 3 May) and the weapon (sabre or bayonet); the film therefore says “at the beginning of May” and names no weapon.

  12. A reporter described the room from the beginning: four families and a widow. In each corner stood two beds, in the middle of one wall a ninth, opposite it the stove. On screen: “9 Betten · 4 Familien · 1 Witwe” (9 beds, 4 families, 1 widow).

    The chalk plan in the film traces this description, schematically: the newspaper gives no dimensions of the room. There is no second, independent report on this room, so the film names the reporter.

  13. A resident told him: “So sind wir nur 17. Aber da gibts Leute mit fünf Kindern und die haben auch nur eine Zimmerecke.” (So we are only 17. But there are people with five children who also have only one corner of a room.) “Die Familie in der Zimmerecke, das ist die Lösung der Wohnungs- und Existenzfrage” (the family in the corner of a room, that is the solution to the housing and existence question), he wrote.

    Only in the long video. The newspaper’s sentence is meant bitterly, so it always appears in full on screen. The resident’s beginning (“Wir habens noch viel besser als andere …”) is shown in writing so that the “only” makes sense.

  14. Families also lived in old brick kilns. In one of them the newspaper counted 26 people.

    Only in the long video. The film shows no picture of it: no source describes what such a kiln looked like inside, and an invented vault would be a place that did not exist like that.

  15. In Parliament the Minister of the Interior admitted: workers hardly lived this badly anywhere. On screen: “… wie am Wienerberg, kaum irgendwo anders …” (as at the Wienerberg, hardly anywhere else)

    Indirect speech: the minister, Marquis Bacquehem, spoke in the House of Deputies on 25 April 1895; the quotation marks are the newspaper’s, which is why the screen says “so der Schwäbische Merkur” (according to the Schwäbischer Merkur). Four newspapers report the same speech, including the Deutscher Reichsanzeiger of 26 April and the Düsseldorfer Volksblatt of 29 April (“höchst mangelhaft”, highly inadequate). The minister called the Wienerberg an exception. The film does not show the Merkur scan; the library makes it available for reading only.

  16. On 26 April the strike ended, with 15 to 20 percent higher wages. On wages the strikers had achieved something. And on housing?

    Only in the long video. The Düsseldorfer Volksblatt of 29 April 1895 gives the “15–20prozentige Lohnerhöhung” (15 to 20 percent pay rise).

  17. In November 1895 Adler spoke before the jury court. Four houses with forty family flats each were being built, he said. That was all that had been built out there in eight years. On screen: “Victor Adler vor dem Schwurgericht, angeklagt wegen eines Artikels zum Streik” (Victor Adler before the jury court, charged over an article on the strike).

    Only in the long video. Only Adler, in his own defence; that is why the sentence appears as a quotation with name and occasion. We know of the charge only from the editors of his speeches.

  18. Three years later an industrialists’ commemorative volume wrote: all workers live with their families in separate flats. We have not found a second source for this.

    The volume does not say who wrote the text; its title page calls it “dargebracht von den Industriellen Oesterreichs” (presented by the industrialists of Austria), so the film does not say “the company”. Our search for an independent report on the housing in 1897 to 1900 found nothing; we could not reach the factory inspection reports for 1896 to 1899. So the film only says what we found, and in the long video: “Whether it was true for everyone, we do not know.”

  19. The clay for the bricks came from pits like this one. In 1956 there was a pit here; today it is a pond.

    “Like this one”, because this pit was only opened between 1912 and 1938: where the water lies today was still a field in 1888. So the families did not live here, and the film never says “under this pond”. The long video says: “Today the pit is a pond.”

  20. In the 1960s brick production on the Wienerberg ended. The recreation area was created in the 1980s. The other pits were filled with rubbish and rubble.

    Only in the long video. The film gives no exact year; the sources give none.

  21. What remains are the bricks. Some carry a stamp, this one: A M, for the brick manufacturer Alois Miesbach. He died in 1857.

    Spoken only in the long video; the Short shows the brick with its caption. The brick is older than the story in the film; it stands for the bricks that came from the Wienerberg. Other bricks carry H D, for Heinrich Drasche. The photo does not show how large the brick is. The question at the end (“Where have you ever seen a brick like this?”) recalls Adler’s question in the barrack.

Literature and sources

How wohnwahn measures