ABSTRACT
Isolde Ahlgrimm's parents were both natives of Vienna. Although he was born in Vienna in 1874, her father Karl Friedrich's family came originally from Hamburg in the north of Germany, and this was a heritage of which his daughter remained proud throughout her life. At the turn of the twentieth century he had achieved the position of editor for Urban & Schwarzenburg, a German company that imported medical text-books. There were many such companies in Vienna, which was at the time an internationally recognized centre for cutting-edge medical research and teaching and where the latest developments in medicine and psychology supported a vigorous publishing industry. Karl Friedrich, who, like his daughter, throughout his life remained devoted to his native city, passed up many opportunities for promotion in Germany in order to stay in Vienna. Events in neighbouring Germany and the imminent failure of the Weimar government portended an increasingly ominous threat to the former seat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
