Annemarie's relationship with her mother was a difficult one. Like the Manns, Annemarie was vehemently anti-Nazi whereas her family, and mother especially, sympathised with the regime. She also befriended Erika and Klaus Mann, German writer Thomas Mann's children, which was a source of great conflict with the Schwarzenbach clan. It was in Berlin that Annemarie first came into contact with morphine, an addition which was to plague her all her life. Photographer Marianne Breslauer, who provides some of the most striking images of Annemarie in the exhibition, commented that the Swiss "couldn't decide whether she was a woman or a man". Her appearance – tall, slim, with a pageboy haircut and wearing men's clothes – often led to some confusion.
She headed to Berlin, whose Bohemian set was very taken with her androgynous glamour. She published her first novel at the age of 23, to great acclaim. In the end she studied history at Zurich University, gaining a doctorate. Annemarie first wanted to be a general, then a pianist and a dancer. "You can read her life like a novel, but no editor would publish it, they would say 'oh it's too much, give me a break', but this is not the case, it's all true," he explained. On it was 30 degrees at noon, but snowing by night – a portent of Annemarie's extreme life, says Alexis.
Her father was a textile industry magnate and her mother the daughter of General Wille, later head of the army. Annemarie was born in Horgen, near Zurich, to one of the wealthiest families in Switzerland. And she said, 'yes, she was a writer, and a lesbian and a morphine addict', and this was the first huge piece of information I had about her," Alexis told swissinfo. "I went to my grandmother and said, 'I didn't know grandfather's sister was a writer'. Alexis did not know much about his great aunt until he found one of her novels on a bookshelf. Friday marked the 100th anniversary of her birth.Īn exhibition on her life is currently being held in the Strauhof Museum in Zurich, which is curated by the historian Alexis Schwarzenbach, her great nephew. At once fragile - she suffered drug addiction - and courageous, she travelled to remote Afghanistan in the 1930s, Annemarie fascinated both men and women.
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