title: Nazism

text: According to the famous philosopher and political theorist, Hannah Arendt, the allure of Nazism as a totalitarian ideology (with its attendant mobilisation of the German population) resided within the construct of helping that society deal with the cognitive dissonance resultant from the tragic interruption of the First World War and the economic and material suffering consequent to the Depression and brought to order the revolutionary unrest occurring all around them. Instead of the plurality that existed in democratic or parliamentary states, Nazism as a totalitarian system promulgated "clear" solutions to the historical problems faced by Germany, levied support by de-legitimizing the former government of Weimar and provided a politico-biological pathway to a better future, one free from the uncertainty of the past. It was the atomised and disaffected masses that Hitler and the party elite pointed in a particular direction and using clever propaganda to make them into ideological adherents, exploited in bringing Nazism to life.


title: Nazism

text: While the ideologues of Nazism, much like those of Stalinism, abhorred democratic or parliamentary governance as practised in the United States or Britain, their differences are substantial. An epistemic crisis occurs when one tries to synthesize and contrast Nazism and Stalinism as two-sides of the same coin with their similarly tyrannical leaders, state-controlled economies and repressive police structures. Namely, while they share a common thematic political construction, they are entirely inimical to one another in their worldviews and when more carefully analysed against one another on a one-to-one level, an "irreconcilable asymmetry" results.


title: Nazism

text: Although Nazism is often seen as a reactionary movement, it did not seek a return of Germany to the pre-Weimar monarchy, but instead looked much further back to a mythic halcyon Germany which never existed. It has also been seen—as it was by the German-American scholar Franz Leopold Neumann—as the result of a crisis of capitalism which manifested as a "totalitarian monopoly capitalism". In this view Nazism is a mass movement of the middle class which was in opposition to a mass movement of workers in socialism and its extreme form, Communism. Historian Karl Dietrich Bracher argues:


title: Nazism

text: Such an interpretation runs the risk of misjudging the revolutionary component of National Socialism, which cannot be dismissed as being simply reactionary. Rather, from the very outset, and particularly as it developed into the SS state, National Socialism aimed at a transformation of state and society.


title: Nazism

text: [They] were of a revolutionary nature: destruction of existing political and social structures and their supporting elites; profound disdain for civic order, for human and moral values, for Habsburg and Hohenzollern, for liberal and Marxist ideas. The middle class and middle-class values, bourgeois nationalism and capitalism, the professionals, the intelligentsia and the upper class were dealt the sharpest rebuff. These were the groups which had to be uprooted [...].


title: Nazism

text: Contrary to many interpretations of Nazism, which tend to view it as a reactionary movement, as, in the words of Thomas Mann, an "explosion of antiquarianism", intent on turning Germany into a pastoral folk community of thatched cottages and happy peasants, the general thrust of the movement, despite archaisms, was futuristic. Nazism was a headlong plunge into the future, towards a "brave new world." Of course it used to advantage residual conservative and utopian longings, paid respect to these romantic visions, and picked its ideological trappings from the German past. but its goals were, by its own lights, distinctly progressive. It was not a double-faced Janus whose aspects were equally attentive to the past and the future, nor was it a modern Proteus, the god of metamorphosis, who duplicates pre-existing forms. The intention of the movement was to create a new type of human being from whom would spring a new morality, a new social system, and eventually a new international order. That was, in fact, the intention of all the fascist movements. After a visit to Italy and a meeting with Mussolini, Oswald Mosley wrote that fascism "has produced not only a new system of government, but also a new type of man, who differs from politicians of the old world as men from another planet." Hitler talked in these terms endlessly. National Socialism was more than a political movement, he said; it was more than a faith; it was a desire to create mankind anew.


title: Nazism

text: British historian Ian Kershaw, in his history of Europe in the first half of the 20th century, "To Hell and Back", says about Nazism, Italian Fascism and Bolshevism:


title: Nazism

text: They were different forms of a completely new, modern type of dictatorship – the complete antithesis to liberal democracy. They were all revolutionary, if by that term we understand a major political upheaval driven by the utopian aim of changing society fundamentally. They were not content simply to use repression as a means of control, but sought to mobilize behind an exclusive ideology to "educate" people into becoming committed believers, to claim them soul as well as body. Each of the regimes was, therefore, dynamic in ways that "conventional" authoritarianism was not.


title: Nazism

text: After the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, and his subsequent trial and imprisonment, Hitler decided that the way for the Nazi Party to achieve power was not through insurrection, but through legal and quasi-legal means. This did not sit well with the brown-shirted stormtroopers of the SA, especially those in Berlin, who chafed under the restrictions that Hitler placed on them, and their subordination to the party. This resulted in the Stennes Revolt of 1930–31, after which Hitler made himself the Supreme Commander of the SA, and brought Ernst Röhm back to be their Chief of Staff and keep them in line. The quashing of the SA's revolutionary fervor convinced many businessmen and military leaders that the Nazis had put aside their insurrectionist past, and that Hitler could be a reliable partner


title: Nazism

text: After the Nazis' "Seizure of Power" in 1933, Röhm and the Brown Shirts were not content for the party to simply carry the reins of power. Instead, they pressed for a continuation of the "National Socialist revolution" to bring about sweeping social changes, which Hitler, primarily for tactical reasons, was not willing to do at that time. He was instead focused on rebuilding the military and reorienting the economy to provide the rearmament necessary for invasion of the countries to the east of Germany, especially Poland and Russia, to get the "Lebensraum" ("living space") he believed was necessary to the survival of the Aryan race. For this, he needed the co-operation of not only the military, but also the vital organs of capitalism, the banks and big businesses, which he would be unlikely to get if Germany's social and economic structure was being radically overhauled. Röhm's public proclamation that the SA would not allow the "German Revolution" to be halted or undermined caused Hitler to announce that "The revolution is not a permanent condition." The unwillingness of Röhm and the SA to cease their agitation for a "Second Revolution", and the unwarranted fear of a "Röhm putsch" to accomplish it, were factors behind Hitler's purging of the SA leadership in the Night of the Long Knives in the summer of 1934.


title: Nazism

text: Despite such tactical breaks necessitated by pragmatic concerns, which were typical for Hitler during his rise to power and in the early years of his regime, those who see Hitler as a revolutionary argue that he never ceased being a revolutionary dedicated to the radical transformation of Germany, especially when it concerned racial matters. In his monograph, "Hitler: Study of a Revolutionary?", Martyn Housden concludes:


title: Nazism

text: [Hitler] compiled a most extensive set of revolutionary goals (calling for radical social and political change); he mobilized a revolutionary following so extensive and powerful that many of his aims were achieved; he established and ran a dictatorial revolutionary state; and he disseminated his ideas abroad through a revolutionary foreign policy and war. In short, he defined and controlled the National Socialist revolution in all its phases.


title: Nazism

text: There were aspects of Nazism which were undoubtedly reactionary, such as their attitude toward the role of women in society, which was completely traditionalist, calling for the return of women to the home as wives, mothers and homemakers, although ironically this ideological policy was undermined in reality by the growing labour shortages and need for more workers caused by men leaving the workforce for military service. The number of working women actually increased from 4.24 million in 1933 to 4.52 million in 1936 and 5.2 million in 1938, despite active discouragement and legal barriers put in place by the Nazi regime. Another reactionary aspect of Nazism was in their arts policy, which stemmed from Hitler's rejection of all forms of "degenerate" modern art, music and architecture.


title: Nazism

text: ...a peculiar hybrid, half-reactionary, half-revolutionary relationship to established society, to the political system and tradition. ... [Its] ideology was almost like a backwards-looking Utopia. It derived from romantic pictures and clichés of the past, from warlike-heroic, patriarchal or absolutist ages, social and political systems, which, however, were translated into the popular and avant-garde, into the fighting slogans of totalitarian nationalism. The élitist notion of aristocratic nobility became the "völkische" 'nobility of blood' of the 'master race', the princely 'theory of divine right' gave way to the popular national Führer; the obedient submission to the active national 'following'.


title: Nazism

text: Following Nazi Germany's defeat in World War II and the end of the Holocaust, overt expressions of support for Nazi ideas were prohibited in Germany and other European countries. Nonetheless, movements which self-identify as National Socialist or which are described as adhering to Nazism continue to exist on the fringes of politics in many western societies. Usually espousing a white supremacist ideology, many deliberately adopt the symbols of Nazi Germany.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Duchess Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie in Bavaria (24 December 1837 – 10 September 1898) was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I on 24 April 1854 until her assassination in 1898.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Elisabeth was born into the royal Bavarian House of Wittelsbach. Nicknamed Sisi (also Sissi), she enjoyed an informal upbringing before marrying Emperor Franz Joseph I at the age of sixteen. The marriage thrust her into the much more formal Habsburg court life, for which she was unprepared and which she found uncongenial. Early in the marriage, she was at odds with her mother-in-law, Archduchess Sophie, who took over the rearing of Elisabeth's daughters, one of whom, Sophie, died in infancy. The birth of a son to the imperial couple, Crown Prince Rudolf, improved Elisabeth's standing at court, but her health suffered under the strain. As a result, she would often visit Hungary for its more relaxed environment. She came to develop a deep kinship with Hungary and helped to bring about the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: The death of Elisabeth's only son and his mistress Mary Vetsera in a murder–suicide at his hunting lodge at Mayerling in 1889 was a blow from which the Empress never recovered. She withdrew from court duties and travelled widely, unaccompanied by her family. In 1890, she had the palace Achilleion built on the Greek island of Corfu. The palace featured an elaborate mythological motif and served as a refuge, which Elisabeth visited often. She was obsessively concerned with maintaining her youthful figure and beauty. Elisabeth also developed a restrictive diet and she wore extremely tight-laced corsets to keep her waist very small. In 1897, her sister, Sophie, died in an accidental fire at the Bazar de la Charité charity event in Paris. While travelling in Geneva in 1898, Elisabeth was mortally wounded by an Italian anarchist named Luigi Lucheni. Her tenure of 44 years was the longest of any Austrian empress.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Born Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie on 24 December 1837 in Munich, Bavaria, she was the third child and second daughter of Duke Maximilian Joseph in Bavaria and Princess Ludovika of Bavaria, the half-sister of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. Maximilian was considered to be rather peculiar; he had a childish love of circuses and traveled the Bavarian countryside to escape his duties. The family's homes were the Herzog-Max-Palais in Munich during winter and Possenhofen Castle in the summer months, far from the protocols of court. "Sisi" and her siblings grew up in a very unrestrained and unstructured environment; she often skipped her lessons to go riding about the countryside.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In 1853, Princess Sophie of Bavaria, the domineering mother of 23-year-old Emperor Franz Joseph, preferring to have a niece as a daughter-in-law rather than a stranger, arranged a marriage between her son and her sister Ludovika's eldest daughter, Helene ("Néné"). Although the couple had never met, Franz Joseph's obedience was taken for granted by the archduchess, who was once described as "the only man in the Hofburg" for her authoritarian manner. The Duchess and Helene were invited to journey to the resort of Bad Ischl, Upper Austria to receive his formal proposal of marriage. The then fifteen year old Sisi accompanied her mother and sister, and they traveled from Munich in several coaches. They arrived late as the Duchess, prone to migraines, had to interrupt the journey; the coach with their gala dresses never did arrive. Before leaving for Bad Ischl, the Bavarian court had gone into mourning over the death of the Queen-Dowager's brother Georg so they were dressed in black and unable to change to more suitable clothing before meeting the young Emperor. While black did not suit eighteen year old Helene's dark coloring, by contrast, it made her younger sister's blonder looks more striking.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Helene was a pious, quiet young woman, and while she and Franz Joseph felt ill at ease in each other's company, he was instantly infatuated with her younger sister. He did not propose to Helene, but instead, he defied his mother and informed her that if he could not have Elisabeth, he would not marry at all. Five days later, their betrothal was officially announced. The couple was married eight months later in Vienna, at the Augustinerkirche, on 24 April 1854. The marriage was finally consummated three days later, and Elisabeth received a dower equal to US$240,000 today.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: After enjoying an informal and unstructured childhood, Elisabeth, who was shy and introverted by nature, and more so among the stifling formality of Habsburg court life, had difficulty adapting to the Hofburg and its rigid protocols and strict etiquette. Within a few weeks, Elisabeth started to display health problems. She experienced fits of coughing and became anxious and frightened whenever she had to descend a narrow or steep staircase.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: She was surprised to learn she was pregnant and gave birth to her first child, a daughter, Archduchess Sophie of Austria (1855–1857), just ten months after her wedding. The elder Archduchess Sophie, who often referred to Elisabeth as “a silly young mother,” not only named the child (after herself), without consulting the mother, but she took complete charge of the baby, refusing to allow Elisabeth to breastfeed or otherwise care for her own child. When a second daughter, Archduchess Gisela of Austria (1856–1932), was born a year later, the Archduchess took the baby away from Elisabeth as well.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: The fact that she had not produced a male heir made Elisabeth increasingly unwanted in the palace. One day, she found a pamphlet on her desk with the following words underlined:


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Her mother-in-law is generally considered to be the source of the malicious pamphlet. The accusation of political meddling referred to Elisabeth's influence on her husband regarding his Italian and Hungarian subjects. When she traveled to Italy with him, she persuaded him to show mercy toward political prisoners. In 1857, Elisabeth visited Hungary for the first time with her husband and two daughters, and it left a deep and lasting impression upon her, which many historians attribute to the fact that in Hungary, she found a welcome respite from the constraints of Austrian court life. It was "the first time that Elisabeth had met with men of character in Franz Joseph's realm, and she became acquainted with an aristocratic independence that scorned to hide its sentiments behind courtly forms of speech... She felt her innermost soul reach out in sympathy to the proud, steadfast people of this land..." Unlike the Archduchess, who despised the Hungarians, Elisabeth felt such an affinity for them that she began to learn Hungarian. In turn, the country reciprocated in its adoration of her. Writing about his visit to Hungary in 1934, Patrick Leigh Fermor notes that Elisabeth's picture was "framed on desks and tables and grand pianos,” and that her love for Hungary and the Hungarians "was returned with interest and still declared, thirty-six years after her assassination, with all the ardour of Burke for Marie Antoinette."


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: This same trip proved tragic, as both of Elisabeth's children became ill. While Gisela recovered quickly, two-year-old Sophie grew steadily weaker before finally succumbing to her illness and passing away. It is generally assumed today that she died of typhus. Her death pushed Elisabeth, who was already prone to bouts of melancholy, into periods of heavy depression, which would haunt her for the rest of her life. She turned away from her living daughter and began neglecting her, and according to historians, their relationship never recovered.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In December 1857, Elisabeth became pregnant for the third time, and her mother, who had been concerned about her daughter's physical and mental health, hoped that this new pregnancy would help her recover.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: At 173 cm (5 feet 8 inches), Elisabeth was unusually tall. Through fasting and exercise such as gymnastics and riding, she maintained her weight at approximately 50 kg (110 pounds) for most of her life.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In deep mourning after her daughter Sophie's death, Elisabeth refused to eat for days - a behavior that would reappear in later periods of melancholy and depression. Whereas she previously had supper with the family, she now began to avoid this; and if she did eat with them, she ate quickly and very little. Whenever her weight threatened to exceed fifty kilos, a "fasting cure" or "hunger cure" would follow, which involved almost complete fasting. Meat itself often filled her with disgust, so she either had the juice of half-raw beefsteaks squeezed into a thin soup, or else adhered to a diet of milk and eggs.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Elisabeth emphasised her extreme slenderness through the practice of "tight-lacing". During the peak period of 1859–60, which coincided with Franz-Joseph's political and military defeats in Italy, her sexual withdrawal from her husband after three pregnancies in rapid succession, and her losing battle with her mother-in-law for dominance in rearing her children, she reduced her waist to 40 cm (16 inches) in circumference. Corsets of the time were split-busk types, fastening up the front with hooks and eyes, but Elisabeth had more rigid, solid-front ones made in Paris out of leather, "like those of Parisian courtesans", probably to hold up under the stress of such strenuous lacing, "a proceeding which sometimes took quite an hour". The fact that "she only wore them for a few weeks" may indicate that even leather proved inadequate for her needs. Elisabeth's defiant flaunting of this exaggerated dimension angered her mother-in-law, who expected her to be pregnant continuously.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Although on her return to Vienna in August 1862, a lady-in-waiting reported that "she eats properly, sleeps well, and does not tight-lace anymore", her clothing from this time until her death still measured only 47 - 49.5 cm (18 1/2 – 19 1/2 inches) around the waist, which prompted the Prince of Hesse to describe her as "almost inhumanly slender". She developed a horror of fat women and transmitted this attitude to her youngest daughter, who was terrified when, as a little girl, she first met Queen Victoria.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In her youth Elisabeth followed the fashions of the age, which for many years were cage-crinolined hoop skirts, but when fashion began to change, she was at the forefront of abandoning the hoop skirt for a tighter and leaner silhouette. She disliked both expensive accoutrements and the protocol that dictated constant changes of clothing, preferring simple, monochromatic riding habit-like attire. She never wore petticoats or any other "underlinen", as they added bulk, and was often literally sewn into her clothes, to bypass waistbands, creases, and wrinkles and to further emphasize the "wasp waist" that became her hallmark.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: The empress developed extremely rigorous and disciplined exercise habits. Every castle she lived in was equipped with a gymnasium; the Knights' Hall of the Hofburg was converted into one, mats and balance beams were installed in her bedchamber so that she could practise on them each morning, and the imperial villa at Ischl was fitted with gigantic mirrors so that she could correct every movement and position. She took up fencing in her 50s with equal discipline. A fervent horsewoman, she rode every day for hours on end, becoming probably the world's best, as well as best-known, female equestrian at the time. When, due to sciatica, she could no longer endure long hours in the saddle, she substituted walking, subjecting her attendants to interminable marches and hiking tours in all weather.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In the last years of her life, Elisabeth became even more restless and obsessive, weighing herself up to three times a day. She regularly took steam baths to prevent weight gain; by 1894 she had wasted away to near emaciation, reaching her lowest point of 95.7 lbs (43.5 kg). There were some aberrations in Elisabeth's diet that appear to be signs of binge eating, On one occasion in 1878 the Empress astonished her travelling companions when she unexpectedly visited a restaurant incognito, where she drank champagne, ate a broiled chicken and an Italian salad, and finished with a "considerable quantity of cake". She may have satisfied her urge to binge in secret on other occasions; in 1881 she purchased an English country house and had a spiral staircase built from her living room into the kitchen, so that she could reach it in private.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: She is known as one of the most beautiful women of 19th century Europe. In addition to her rigorous exercise regimen, Elisabeth practiced demanding beauty routines. Daily care of her abundant and extremely long hair, which in time turned from the dark blonde of her youth to chestnut brunette, took at least three hours. Her hair was so long and heavy that she often complained that the weight of the elaborate double braids and pins gave her headaches. Her hairdresser, Franziska Feifalik, was originally a stage hairdresser at the Wiener Burgtheater. Responsible for all of Elisabeth's ornate hairstyles, she generally accompanied her on her wanderings. Feifalik was forbidden to wear rings and required to wear white gloves; after hours of dressing, braiding, and pinning up the Empress' tresses, the hairs that fell out had to be presented in a silver bowl to her reproachful empress for inspection. When her hair was washed with a combination of eggs and cognac once every two weeks, all activities and obligations were cancelled for that day. Before her son's death, she tasked Feifalik with tweezing gray hairs away, but at the end of her life her hair was described as "abundant, though streaked with silver threads".


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Elisabeth used these captive hours during grooming to learn languages; she spoke fluent English and French, and added modern Greek to her Hungarian studies. Her Greek tutor, Constantin Christomanos, described the ritual:


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Elisabeth used cosmetics and perfume sparingly, as she wished to showcase her natural beauty. On the other hand, to preserve her beauty, she tested countless beauty products prepared either in the court pharmacy or by a lady-in-waiting in her own apartments. She appeared to favor "Crème Céleste" (compounded from white wax, spermaceti, sweet almond oil, and rosewater), but preferred a wide variety of facial tonics and waters.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Her night and bedtime rituals were just as demanding. Elisabeth slept without a pillow on a metal bedstead, which she believed was better for retaining and maintaining her upright posture; either raw veal or crushed strawberries lined her nightly leather facial mask. She was also heavily massaged, and often slept with cloths soaked in either violet- or cider-vinegar above her hips to preserve her slim waist; her neck was wrapped with cloths soaked in Kummerfeld-toned washing water. To further preserve her skin tone, she took both a cold shower every morning (which in later years aggravated her arthritis) and an olive-oil bath in the evening.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Elisabeth had an aversion to being photographed, especially later in her life, and was quick with a fan or sunshade to prevent her portrait being taken.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Franz Joseph was passionately in love with his wife, but she did not reciprocate his feelings fully and felt increasingly stifled by the rigidness of court life. He was a stolid and sober man, a political conservative who was still guided by his mother and her adherence to the strict Spanish Court ceremonial regarding both his public and domestic life, whereas Elisabeth inhabited a different world altogether. Restless to the point of hyperactivity, naturally introverted, and emotionally distant from her husband, she fled him as well as her duties of life at court, avoiding them both as much as she could. He indulged her wanderings, but constantly and unsuccessfully tried to tempt her into a more domestic life with him.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Elisabeth slept very little and spent hours reading and writing at night, and even took up smoking, a shocking habit for women which made her the further subject of already avid gossip. She had a special interest in history, philosophy, and literature, and developed a profound reverence for the German lyric poet and radical political thinker Heinrich Heine, whose letters she collected.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: She tried to make a name for herself by writing Heine-inspired poetry. Referring to herself as Titania, William Shakespeare's Fairy Queen, Elisabeth expressed her intimate thoughts and desires in a large number of romantic poems, which served as a type of secret diary. Most of her poetry relates to her journeys, classical Greek and romantic themes, and ironic commentary on the Habsburg dynasty. Her wanderlust is defined by her own work:


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Elisabeth was an emotionally complex woman, and perhaps due to the melancholy and eccentricity that was considered a given characteristic of her Wittelsbach lineage (the best-known member of the family being her favorite cousin, the eccentric Ludwig II of Bavaria), she was interested in the treatment of the mentally ill. In 1871, when the Emperor asked her what she would like as a gift for her Saint's Day, she listed a young tiger and a medallion, but: "...a fully equipped lunatic asylum would please me most".


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: On 21 August 1858, Elisabeth finally gave birth to an heir, Rudolf (1858–1889). The 101-gun salute announcing the welcome news to Vienna also signaled an increase in her influence at court. This, combined with her sympathy toward Hungary, made Elisabeth an ideal mediator between the Magyars and the emperor. Her interest in politics had developed as she matured; she was liberal-minded, and placed herself decisively on the Hungarian side in the increasing conflict of nationalities within the empire.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Elisabeth was a personal advocate for Hungarian Count Gyula Andrássy, who also was rumored to be her lover. Whenever difficult negotiations broke off between the Hungarians and the court, they were resumed with her help. During these protracted dealings, Elisabeth suggested to the emperor that Andrássy be made the Premier of Hungary as part of a compromise, and in a forceful attempt to bring the two men together, strongly admonished her husband:


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: When Elisabeth was still blocked from controlling her son's upbringing and education, she openly rebelled. Due to her nervous attacks, fasting cures, severe exercise regime, and frequent fits of coughing, the state of her health had become so alarming that in October 1860 she was reported to suffer not only from "green-sickness" (anemia), but also from physical exhaustion. A serious lung complaint of "Lungenschwindsucht" (tuberculosis) was feared by Dr. Joseph Škoda, a lung specialist, who advised a stay on Madeira. During this time, the court was rife with malicious rumors that Franz Joseph was having a liaison with an actress named Frau Roll.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Elisabeth seized on the excuse and left her husband and children, to spend the winter in seclusion. Six months later, a mere four days after her return to Vienna, she again experienced coughing fits and fever. She ate hardly anything and slept badly, and Dr. Škoda observed a recurrence of her lung disease. A fresh rest cure was advised, this time on Corfu, where she improved almost immediately. If her illnesses were psychosomatic, abating when she was removed from her husband and her duties, her eating habits were causing physical problems as well. In 1862 she had not seen Vienna for a year when her family physician, Dr. Fischer of Munich, examined her and observed serious anemia and signs of "dropsy" (edema). Her feet were sometimes so swollen that she could walk only laboriously, and with the support of others. On medical advice, she went to Bad Kissingen for a cure. Elisabeth recovered quickly at the spa, but instead of returning home to assuage the gossip about her absence she spent more time with her own family in Bavaria. In August 1862, after a two-year absence, she returned shortly before her husband's birthday, but immediately suffered from a violent migraine and vomited four times en route, which might support a theory that some of her complaints were stress-related and psychosomatic.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Rudolf was now four years old, and Franz Joseph hoped for another son to safeguard the succession. Dr. Fischer claimed that the health of the empress would not permit another pregnancy, and she would regularly have to go to Kissingen for a cure. Elisabeth fell into her old pattern of escaping boredom and dull court protocol through frequent walking and riding, using her health as an excuse to avoid both official obligations and sexual intimacy. Preserving her youthful appearance was also an important influence in her avoidance of pregnancies:


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: She was now more assertive in her defiance of her husband and mother-in-law than before, openly opposing them on the subject of the military education of Rudolf, who, like his mother, was extremely sensitive and not suited to the life at court.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: After having used every excuse to avoid pregnancy, Elisabeth later decided that she wanted a fourth child. Her decision was at once a deliberate personal choice and a political negotiation: by returning to the marriage, she ensured that Hungary, with which she felt an intense emotional alliance, would gain an equal footing with Austria.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 created the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary. Andrássy was made the first Hungarian prime minister and in return, he saw that Franz Joseph and Elisabeth were officially crowned King and Queen of Hungary in June.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: As a coronation gift, Hungary presented the royal couple with a country residence in Gödöllő, east of Buda-Pest. In the next year, Elisabeth lived primarily in Gödöllő and Buda-Pest, leaving her neglected and resentful Austrian subjects to trade rumors that if the infant she was expecting were a son, she would name him Stephen, after the patron saint and first king of Hungary. The issue was avoided when she gave birth to a daughter, Marie Valerie (1868–1924). Dubbed the "Hungarian child", she was born in Buda-Pest ten months after her parents' coronation and baptised there in April. Determined to bring this last child up by herself, Elisabeth finally had her way. She poured all her repressed maternal feelings on her youngest daughter to the point of nearly smothering her. Sophie's influence over Elisabeth's children and the court faded, and she died in 1872.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: After having achieved this victory, Elisabeth did not stay to enjoy it, but instead embarked on a life of travel, and saw little of her children. "If I arrived at a place and knew that I could never leave it again, the whole stay would become hell despite being paradise". After her son's death, she commissioned the building of a palace on the Island of Corfu which she named the "Achilleion", after Homer's hero Achilles in "The Iliad". After her death, the building was purchased by German Emperor Wilhelm II. Later it was acquired by the nation of Greece (now Greek National Tourism Organization) and converted to a museum.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Newspapers published articles on her passion for riding sports, diet and exercise regimens, and fashion sense. She often shopped at the Budapest fashion house, "Antal Alter" (now Alter és Kiss), which had become very popular with the fashion-crazed crowd. Newspapers also reported on a series of reputed lovers. Although there is no verifiable evidence of her having an affair, one of her alleged lovers was George "Bay" Middleton, a dashing Anglo-Scot. He had been named as the probable lover of Lady Henrietta Blanche Hozier and father of Clementine Ogilvy Hozier (the wife of Winston Churchill). To prevent him from becoming lonely during her long absences, Elisabeth encouraged her husband Franz Joseph's close relationship with actress Katharina Schratt.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: On her journeys, Elisabeth sought to avoid all public attention and crowds of people. She was mostly travelling incognito, using pseudonyms like 'Countess of Hohenembs'. Elisabeth also refused to meet European monarchs when she did not feel like it. On her high-speed walking tours, which lasted several hours, she was mostly accompanied by her Greek language tutors or her ladies-in-waiting. Countess Irma Sztáray, her last lady-in-waiting, describes the reclusive and highly sensitive empress as a natural, liberal and modest character, as a good listener and keen observer with great intellect.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Almost all of the ten readers who accompanied Elisabeth on her journeys were in their mid-twenties and of Greek origin. The most famous one was Constantin Christomanos, a future playwright and theater director, whose memoirs of Elisabeth were banned by the Viennese court. The others were the lawyer Nikos Thermoyanis, Roussos Roussopoulos, who thanks to Elisabeth became an honorary consul in Budapest, Constantin Manos, who became a resistance fighter against the Turks in Crete, and Marinos Marinaky, a future sportsman and co-founder of the famous Greek soccer club Panathinaikos. The last tutor who accompanied the Empress was the English-Greek Frederic Barker. He also served as a middleman for negotiations to sell the Achilleion Palace on Corfu. After Sisi's death Barker continued to stay in touch with the imperial family and became a freemason. On her voyages Elisabeth was also accompanied by a Swedish therapist, Arvid Ludvig Kellgren, to whom she even wrote romantic poetry.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In 1889, Elisabeth's life was shattered by the death of her only son Rudolf, who was found dead together with his young lover Baroness Mary Vetsera, in what was suspected to be a murder-suicide on Rudolf's part. The scandal was known as the Mayerling incident after the location of Rudolf's hunting lodge in Lower Austria, where they were found.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Elisabeth never recovered from the tragedy, sinking further into melancholy. Within a few years, she had lost her father, Max Joseph (in 1888), her only son, Rudolf (1889), her sister Duchess Sophie in Bavaria (1897), Helene (1890) and her mother, Ludovika (1892). After Rudolf's death she was thought to have dressed only in black for the rest of her life, although a light blue and cream dress discovered by The Hofburg's Sisi Museum dates to this time. To compound her losses, Count Gyula Andrássy died a year later, on 18 February 1890. "My last and only friend is dead," she lamented. Marie Valerie declared, "...she clung to him with true and steadfast friendship as she did perhaps, to no other person."


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: The Mayerling scandal increased public interest in Elisabeth, and she continued to be an icon and a sensation in her own right wherever she went. She wore long black dresses that could be buttoned up at the bottom, and carried a white parasol made of leather in addition to a concealing fan to hide her face from the curious.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Elisabeth spent little time in Vienna with her husband. Their correspondence increased during their last years, however, and their relationship became a warm friendship. On her imperial steamer, "Miramar", Empress Elisabeth travelled through the Mediterranean. Her favourite places were Cape Martin on the French Riviera, and also Sanremo on the Ligurian Riviera, where tourism had started only in the second half of the nineteenth century; Lake Geneva in Switzerland; Bad Ischl in Austria, where the imperial couple would spend the summer; and Corfu. The Empress also visited countries not usually visited by European royals at the time: Morocco, Algeria, Malta, Turkey, and Egypt. The Emperor was hoping that his wife would finally settle down in her palace Achilleion on Corfu, but Sisi soon lost interest in the fairytale property. The endless travels became a means of escape for Elisabeth from her life and her misery.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In 1898, despite warnings of possible assassination attempts, the 60-year-old Elisabeth traveled incognito to Geneva, Switzerland. However, someone from the Hôtel Beau-Rivage revealed that the Empress of Austria was their guest.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: At 1:35 p.m. on Saturday 10 September 1898, Elisabeth and Countess Irma Sztáray de Sztára et Nagymihály, her lady-in-waiting, left the hotel on the shore of Lake Geneva on foot to catch the steamship "Genève" for Montreux. Since the empress despised processions, she insisted that they walk without the other members of her entourage.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: They were walking along the promenade when the 25-year-old Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni approached them, attempting to peer underneath the empress's parasol. According to Sztáray, as the ship's bell announced the departure, Lucheni seemed to stumble and made a movement with his hand, as if he wanted to maintain his balance. In reality, however, in an act of "propaganda of the deed", he had stabbed Elisabeth with a sharpened needle file that was long (used to file the eyes of industrial needles) that he had inserted into a wooden handle.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Lucheni originally planned to kill the Duke of Orléans, but the Pretender to France's throne had left Geneva earlier for the Valais. Failing to find him, the assassin selected Elisabeth when a Geneva newspaper revealed that the elegant woman traveling under the pseudonym of "Countess of Hohenembs" was the Empress Elisabeth of Austria.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: After Lucheni struck her, the empress collapsed. A coach driver helped her to her feet and alerted the Austrian concierge of the Beau-Rivage, a man named Planner, who had been watching the progress the Empress made toward the "Genève". The two women walked roughly to the gangway and boarded, at which point, Sztáray relaxed her hold on Elisabeth's arm. The Empress then lost consciousness and collapsed next to her. Sztáray called for a doctor, but only a former nurse, a fellow passenger, was available. The boat's captain, Captain Roux, was ignorant of Elisabeth's identity, and since it was very hot on deck, he advised the countess to disembark and take her companion back to her hotel. Meanwhile, the boat was already sailing out of the harbor. Three men carried Elisabeth to the top deck and laid her on a bench. Sztáray opened her dress and cut Elisabeth's corset laces so she could breathe. Elisabeth revived somewhat and when Sztáray asked her if she was in pain, she replied, "No". She then asked, "What has happened?" and lost consciousness again.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Countess Sztáray noticed a small brown stain above the left breast of the Empress. Alarmed that Elisabeth had not recovered consciousness, she informed the captain of her identity, and the boat turned back to Geneva. Elisabeth was carried back to the Hotel Beau-Rivage by six sailors on a stretcher improvised from a sail, cushions and two oars. Fanny Mayer, the wife of the hotel director, a visiting nurse, and the countess undressed Elisabeth and removed her shoes, at which point Sztáray noticed a few small drops of blood and a small wound. When they then removed her from the stretcher to the bed, she was clearly dead. Frau Mayer believed the two audible breaths she heard the Empress take as she was brought into the room were her last. Two doctors, Dr. Golay and Dr. Mayer arrived, along with a priest, who was too late to grant her absolution. Mayer incised the artery of her left arm to ascertain death and found no blood. She was pronounced dead at 2:10 p.m. Everyone knelt down and prayed for the repose of her soul, and Countess Sztáray closed Elisabeth's eyes and joined her hands. Elisabeth had been the Empress of Austria for 44 years.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: When Franz Joseph received the telegram informing him of Elisabeth's death, his first fear was that her death was caused by suicide. It was only when a later message arrived, detailing the assassination, that he was reassured on that point. The telegram asked permission to perform an autopsy, and the response was that whatever procedures were prescribed should be adhered to.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: The autopsy was performed the next day by Golay, who discovered that the weapon, which had not yet been found, had penetrated into Elisabeth's thorax, fractured the fourth rib, pierced the lung and pericardium, and penetrated the heart from the top before coming out the base of the left ventricle. Because of the sharpness and thinness of the file, the wound was very narrow and, due to pressure from Elisabeth's extremely tight corseting, the hemorrhage of blood into the pericardial sac around the heart was slowed to mere drops. Until this sac filled, a medical emergency known as cardiac tamponade, the beating of her heart was not impeded, which is why Elisabeth had been able to walk from the site of the assault and up the boat's boarding ramp. Had the weapon not been removed, she would have lived a while longer, as it would have acted like a plug to stop the bleeding.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Golay photographed the wound but turned the photograph over to the Swiss Procurator-General, who had it destroyed, on the orders of Franz Joseph, along with the autopsy instruments.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: As Geneva shuttered itself in mourning, Elisabeth's body was placed in a triple coffin: two inner ones of lead, the third exterior one in bronze, reposing on lion claws. On Tuesday, before the coffins were sealed, Franz Joseph's official representatives arrived to identify the body. The coffin was fitted with two glass panels, covered with doors, which could be slid back to allow her face to be seen.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: On Wednesday morning, Elisabeth's body was carried back to Vienna aboard a funeral train. The inscription on her coffin read, "Elisabeth, Empress of Austria.” The Hungarians were outraged, and the words, "and Queen of Hungary" were hastily added. The entire Austro-Hungarian Empire was in deep mourning; 82 sovereigns and high-ranking nobles followed her funeral cortege on the morning of 17 September to the tomb in the Capuchin Church.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: After the attack, Lucheni fled down the Rue des Alpes, where he threw the file into the entrance to No. 3. He was caught by two cabdrivers and a sailor, then secured by a gendarme. The weapon was found the next day by the concierge during his morning cleaning; he thought it belonged to a laborer who had moved the day before and did not notify the police of his discovery until the following day. There was no blood on the file and the tip was broken off, which occurred when Lucheni threw it away. The file was so dull in appearance it was speculated that it had been deliberately selected because it would be less noticeable than a shiny knife, which would have given Lucheni away as he approached. Lucheni had planned to purchase a stiletto, but lacking the price of 12 francs he had simply sharpened an old file into a homemade dagger and cut down a piece of firewood into a handle.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Although Lucheni boasted that he acted alone, because many political refugees found a haven in Switzerland, the possibility that he was part of a plot and that the life of the emperor was also in danger was considered. Once it was discovered that an Italian was responsible for Elisabeth's murder, unrest swept Vienna and reprisals were threatened against Italians. The intensity of shock, mourning, and outrage far exceeded that which occurred at the news of Rudolf's death. An outcry also immediately erupted over the lack of protection for the empress. The Swiss police had been well aware of her presence, and telegrams to the appropriate authorities advising them to take all precautions had been dispatched. Police Chief Virieux of the Canton of Vaud had organized Elisabeth's protection, but she had detected his officers outside the hotel the day before the assassination and protested that the surveillance was disagreeable, so Virieux had no choice but to withdraw them. It is also possible that if Elisabeth had not dismissed her other attendants that day, an entourage larger than one lady-in-waiting could have discouraged Lucheni, who had been following the Empress for several days, awaiting an opportunity.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Lucheni was brought before the Geneva Court in October. Furious that the death sentence had been abolished in Geneva, he demanded that he be tried according to the laws of the Canton of Lucerne, which still had the death penalty, signing the letter: "Luigi Lucheni, anarchist, and one of the most dangerous".


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Since Elisabeth was famous for preferring the common man to courtiers, known for her charitable works, and considered such a blameless target, Lucheni's sanity was questioned initially. Elisabeth's will stipulated that a large part of her jewel collection should be sold and the proceeds, then estimated at over £600,000, were to be applied to various religious and charitable organizations. Franz Joseph remarked to Prince Liechtenstein, who was the couple's devoted equerry, "That a man could be found to attack such a woman, whose whole life was spent in doing good and who never injured any person, is to me incomprehensible". Everything outside of the crown jewels and state property that Elisabeth had the power to bequeath was left to her granddaughter, the Archduchess Elisabeth, Rudolf's child.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Lucheni was declared to be sane, but was tried as a common murderer, not a political criminal. Incarcerated for life, and denied the opportunity to make a political statement by his action, he attempted to kill himself with the sharpened key from a tin of sardines on 20 February 1900. Ten years later, he hanged himself with his belt in his cell on the evening of 16 October 1910, after a guard confiscated his uncompleted memoirs.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In the Volksgarten of Vienna, there is an elaborate memorial monument featuring a seated statue of the Empress by Hans Bitterlich, dedicated on 4 June 1907.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: On the promenade in Territet, Switzerland, there is a monument to the Empress created by in 1902. This town is between Montreux and Chateau Chillon; the inscription mentions her many visits to the area.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Near the location of her assassination at Quai du Mont-Blanc on the shore of Lake Geneva, there is a statue "in memoriam", created by Philip Jackson and dedicated in 1998 on the 100th anniversary of the assassination.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: A large number of chapels were named in her honour, connecting her to Saint Elisabeth. Various parks were named after her, such as the Empress Elisabeth Park in Meran, South Tyrol.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Various residences that Elisabeth frequented are preserved and open to the public, including her Imperial Hofburg apartment and the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, the Hermesvilla in the Vienna Woods, the Imperial Villa in Bad Ischl, the Achilleion on the Island of Corfu, and her summer residence in Gödöllő, Hungary. Her childhood family summer residence, Possenhofen Castle, houses the Empress Elizabeth Museum. The Empress's specially built railway sleeping car is on display at the Technisches Museum in Vienna.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Several sites in Hungary are named after her: two of Budapest's districts, Erzsébetváros and Pesterzsébet, and Elisabeth Bridge.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In the village Gastouri on the Greek island of Corfu a fountain is named after Elisabeth. The Empress had donated the "Fountain under the Sycamores" for the locals. It was festively inaugurated in 1894 by the church dignitaries and later named "Elisabeth Fountain".


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Empress Elisabeth and the Empress Elisabeth Railway (West railway) named after her were recently selected as a main motif for a high value collector coin, the Empress Elisabeth Western Railway commemorative coin.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In 1998, Gerald Blanchard stole the Koechert Diamond Pearl known as the Sisi Star, a 10-pointed star of diamonds fanning out around one enormous pearl from an exhibit commemorating the 100th anniversary of her assassination at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna. It was one of approximately 27 jewel-encrusted pieces designed and made by court jeweler Jakob Heinrich Köchert for her to wear in her hair, which appears in a portrait of her by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. The Star was recovered by Canadian Police in 2007 and eventually returned to Austria. Although Blanchard possessed the priceless jewel, no one was ever formally charged with stealing it. Two versions of the stars were created: a second type without a pearl center, was designed by court jeweller Rozet & Fischmeister. Some stars were given to ladies of the court. One set of 27 diamond stars was kept in the Imperial family; they are seen in a photograph that shows the dowry of Rudolf's daughter, Archduchess Elisabeth, known as "Erzsi", on the occasion of her wedding to Prince Otto of Windisch-Graetz in 1902.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: There are several statues of Empress Elisabeth in Slovakia: bronze statue by Gyula Donáth from 1903 in Bardejov spa in Bardejov and busts in Poltár and in Prešov. Also Elisabeth Bridge connecting towns Komárno in Slovakia and Komárom in Hungary (which used to be one town at the time when it was built), which was built in 1892 is named after Sissi.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Other statues in memory of Empress Elisabeth were erected in Salzburg, in the garden of the former Hotel Strauch in Feldafing, where she used to stay on her later travels, in Budapest, in Funchal on Madeira, and in many other places.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In 1932 the comic operetta "Sissi" premiered in Vienna. Composed by Fritz Kreisler, the libretto was written by Ernst and Hubert Marischka, with orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett. Although the pet name of the empress was always spelled "Sisi," never "Sissi," this incorrect version of her name persisted in the works about her that followed.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In 1943 Jean Cocteau wrote a play about an imagined meeting between Elisabeth and her assassin, "L'Aigle à deux têtes" (The Eagle with Two Heads). It was first staged in 1946.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In 1992, the musical "Elisabeth" premièred at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. With libretto by Michael Kunze and music by Sylvester Levay, this is probably the darkest portrayal of the Empress' life. It portrayed Elisabeth bringing a physical manifestation of death with her to the imperial court, thus destroying the Habsburg dynasty. The leading role in the premiere was played by Dutch musical singer Pia Douwes. "Elisabeth" went on to become the most successful German-language musical of all time and has enjoyed numerous productions around the world.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In his 1978 ballet, "Mayerling" Kenneth MacMillan portrayed Elisabeth in a "pas de deux" with her son Prince Rudolf, the principal character in the ballet.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In 1993 French ballerina Sylvie Guillem appeared in a piece entitled, "Sissi, l'impératice anarchiste" (Sissi, Anarchist Empress), choreographed by Maurice Béjart to Strauss's "Emperor Waltz".


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: The 1921 film "Kaiserin Elisabeth von Österreich" was one of the first films to focus entirely on Elisabeth. It was co-written by Elisabeth's niece, Marie Larisch (who played her younger self at the age of 62), and starred Carla Nelsen as the title character. The film later achieved notoriety when a group of con-artists started selling stills from the murder scene as actual photographs of the crime.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In 1936, Columbia Pictures released "The King Steps Out", a film version of the operetta "Sissi", directed by Josef von Sternberg. It starred opera diva Grace Moore and Franchot Tone.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Jean Cocteau directed the 1948 film version of his play "The Eagle with Two Heads". Michelangelo Antonioni's 1981 film "The Mystery of Oberwald" is another adaptation of Cocteau's play.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In the German and Italian-speaking world, Elisabeth's name is often associated with a trilogy of romantic films about her life directed by Ernst Marischka which starred a teenage Romy Schneider and made her famous worldwide:


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In early dramatizations, Elisabeth appears as peripheral to her husband and son, and so is always shown as a mature character. Schneider's characterization of Elisabeth as a young woman is the first time the "young" empress is seen on screen. The trilogy was the first to explicitly depict the romantic myth of Sissi, and ends abruptly with her determination to live a private life. Any further exploration of the topic would have been at odds with the accepted image of the loving wife, devoted mother, and benevolent empress. The three films, newly restored, are shown every Christmas on Austrian, German, Dutch, and French television. In 2007, the films were released as "The Sissi Collection" with English subtitles. Schneider came to loathe the role, claiming, "Sissi sticks to me like porridge ()." Later she appeared as a much more realistic and fascinating Elisabeth in Luchino Visconti's "Ludwig," a 1972 film about Elisabeth's cousin, Ludwig II of Bavaria. A portrait of Schneider in this film was the only one, taken from her roles, which is displayed in her home.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Ava Gardner played the empress in the 1968 film "Mayerling", in which Omar Sharif starred as Crown Prince Rudolf.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: A 1991 French-German film called "" ( "Sisi und der Kaiserkuss") starred French actress Vanessa Wagner as Sisi, Nils Tavernier as Emperor Franz Joseph and Sonja Kirchberger as Helene.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: An indirect reference to Elisabeth is made in the 2004 film Phantom of the Opera. The heroine Christine (portrayed by Emmy Rossum) wears an elaborate white/silver ball gown in her first leading role, with diamond stars in her long, dark hair. The ensemble is modeled after Elisabeth’s attire and hairstyle in the iconic Winterhalter portrait.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In 2007, German comedian and director Michael Herbig released a computer-animated parody film based on Elisabeth under the title "Lissi und der wilde Kaiser" (lit.: "Lissi and the Wild Emperor"). It is based on his Sissi parody sketches featured in his television show "Bullyparade." In "Bullyparade – Der Film" (2017), Elisabeth is played by Herbig.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: A recent appearance of Sisi was in the new 2012 biopic about Ludwig II of Bavaria titled "Ludwig II", where she was played by Hannah Herzsprung.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In December 2014, to coincide with the presentation of the Pre-Fall 2015 'Metier d'arts' collection by luxury fashion house Chanel, shown in the Schloss Leopoldskron palace, creative director Karl Lagerfeld directed a short film featuring Cara Delevingne as Empress Elisabeth accompanied by Pharrell Williams. During a dream sequence, the duo sing a song written by Williams entitled "CC the World", playing on the iconic interlocking logo of the fashion house, the initials of its founder Coco Chanel, as well as the Empress's nickname 'Sisi'. Lagerfeld recreated the iconic gown worn by Elisabeth in the , whilst Pharrell takes on attire similar to Franz Joseph.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: The 2022 film "Corsage" directed by Marie Kreutzer focuses on Empress Elisabeth's life following her 40th birthday celebrations. The film premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival within the Un certain regard section and actress Vicky Krieps, who played the Empress, was awarded ex aequo the Best Performance Prize.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: The 2023 Austrian-German-Swiss film "Sisi & I" directed by Frauke Finsterwalder and starring Sandra Hüller, Susanne Wolff, Tom Rhys Harries and Angela Winkler, tells the story of Empress Elisabeth from the point of view of her lady-in-waiting, Irma Sztáray, with Wolff playing the role of Empress Elisabeth and Hüller in the role of Sztáray. The film is expected to be released in Germany on 16 March 2023.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Elisabeth was portrayed in episode 1 of the 1974 British television series "Fall of Eagles". Diane Keen played the young Elisabeth and Rachel Gurney portrayed the empress at the time of Rudolf's death.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: The 1992 BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple mystery "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side" centers around the shooting of a fictitious film about Elisabeth. The role of the actress portraying the empress was played by Claire Bloom.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: The season five finale of the Austrian detective television series "Kommissar Rex" (1994) revolves around a deluded woman affected by myth of the empress. The episode, appropriately, is entitled, "Sisi."


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: A heavily fictionalized version of Elisabeth's younger years is portrayed in a 1997 animated children's series, "Princess Sissi."


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Arielle Dombasle portrayed Elisabeth in the 2004 French television film "Sissi, l'impératrice rebelle", detailing the last five days of her life.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Sandra Ceccarelli portrayed an older Elisabeth in the 2006 television dramatization of the Mayerling Incident, "The Crown Prince". Her son and his lover were played by Max von Thun and Vittoria Puccini.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In December 2009, "Sisi", a two-part mini-series, premiered on European television, produced by a German, Austrian and Italian partnership, starring Cristiana Capotondi as Elisabeth and David Rott as Emperor Franz Joseph. Like the 1997 animated series, this film portrays the romantic mythology surrounding the unhappy marriage of Elisabeth and Franz Joseph, but the political problems of the empire and the personal troubles of the main characters are dealt with in much better detail than in many other dramas.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In October 2015 an Italian cartoon series "Sissi: La Giovane Imperatrice" (Sissi: The Young Empress) began broadcasting on Mondo TV. In 2018 after airing two seasons totalling 56 episodes (26 minutes each, with 52 shorter 11-minute episodes slated for its 3D third season) it sold its second season to JeemTV, after already having ported it to TV Azteca in 2017.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In the 2022 Netflix miniseries "The Empress", centering on Sissi's life, she is played by Turkish German actress Devrim Lingnau.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Constantin (1867–1911) who served as Elisabeth's modern Greek language tutor from 1891 to 1893 and escorted her during her stay in Corfu, published his memoirs of her shortly after her death, in his 1899 "Tagebuchblätter" (Diary Pages). Although he portrayed Elisabeth in an idealistic favourable manner as a fairytale princess come to life, his book greatly displeased the Imperial Court that declared him "persona non grata" and forced him to resign his University teaching position in Vienna and leave Austria.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In September 2022, Netflix released "The Empress", a six-episode series dramatizing Elisabeth's life. A companion novel, also titled "The Empress", will publish in tandem with the show. The novel is written by Gigi Griffis.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Elisabeth's youth and early adult life are dramatized in the novel "Imperial Waltz" by William S. Abrahams (Dial Press, 1954).


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Elisabeth appears as a significant character in Gary Jennings' 1987 novel "Spangle". The novel concerns a circus traveling through Europe at the close of the 19th century, and portrays Elisabeth's interest in circuses and daredevil horseback riding.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Her story inspired the 2003 children's book "The Royal Diaries: Elisabeth, The Princess Bride" set during her teenage years in 1853 and 1854.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: She appears in a cameo in the short story "The Road to Charing Cross" in the book "Flashman and the Tiger" by George MacDonald Fraser (1999). She dances with the anti-hero, Harry Flashman at a ball at the end of the story, in which Flashman has helped prevent her husband the Emperor from being assassinated.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Mark Twain (a.k.a. Samuel Clemens) wrote about the assassination of the Empress of Austria in an article entitled "The Memorable Assassination," which he did not submit for publication.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: The Empress haunts a deadly Christmas house party in the form of a chatty biography, "Life of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria", in Georgette Heyer's mystery, "Envious Casca" (1941). The book and its disappearance form part of the goings-on that drive the various family members and guests to distraction.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Author Allison Pataki wrote a historical fiction novel about Elisabeth and her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph entitled "The Accidental Empress", in February 2015. Its sequel, "Sisi, Empress on Her Own", was published in March 2016.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Journalist Jennifer Bowers Bahney wrote the non-fiction narrative of the theft of the Koechert diamond and pearl jewel titled "Stealing Sisi's Star: How a Master Thief Nearly Got Away with Austria's Most Famous Jewel", published by McFarland & Co., June 2015.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: In 1988, historian Brigitte Hamann wrote "The Reluctant Empress: A Biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria", reviving interest in Franz Joseph's consort. Unlike previous portrayals of Elisabeth as a one-dimensional fairy tale princess, Hamann portrayed her as a bitter, unhappy woman full of self-loathing and suffering from various emotional and mental disorders. She was seen to have searched for happiness, but died a broken woman who never found it. Hamann's portrayal explored new facets of the legend of Sisi, as well as contemplating the role of women in high-level politics and dynasties.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Elisabeth and her purported lover, George "Bay" Middleton are included in the 2014 historical fiction novel, "The Fortune Hunter" by Daisy Goodwin.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: Dutch singer Petra Berger's album "Eternal Woman" includes "If I Had a Wish", a song about Elisabeth.


title: Empress Elisabeth of Austria

text: The Elizabeth Church in Lviv, Ukraine (now the Greek Catholic Church of Sts. Olha and Elizabeth, Lviv), was founded in 1903 by the Emperor in memory of Elisabeth.


title: Advertising

text: Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a specific good or service, but there are wide range of uses, the most common being the commercial advertisement.


title: Advertising

text: Commercial advertisements often seek to generate increased consumption of their products or services through "branding", which associates a product name or image with certain qualities in the minds of consumers. On the other hand, ads that intend to elicit an immediate sale are known as direct-response advertising. Non-commercial entities that advertise more than consumer products or services include political parties, interest groups, religious organizations and governmental agencies. Non-profit organizations may use free modes of persuasion, such as a public service announcement. Advertising may also help to reassure employees or shareholders that a company is viable or successful.


title: Advertising

text: In the 19th century, soap businesses were among the first to employ large-scale advertising campaigns. Thomas J. Barratt was hired by Pears to be its brand manager—the first of its kind—and in addition to creating slogans and images he recruited West End stage actress and socialite Lillie Langtry to become the poster-girl for Pears, making her the first celebrity to endorse a commercial product. Modern advertising originated with the techniques introduced with tobacco advertising in the 1920s, most significantly with the campaigns of Edward Bernays, considered the founder of modern, "Madison Avenue" advertising.


title: Advertising

text: Worldwide spending on advertising in 2015 amounted to an estimated . Advertising's projected distribution for 2017 was 40.4% on TV, 33.3% on digital, 9% on newspapers, 6.9% on magazines, 5.8% on outdoor and 4.3% on radio. Internationally, the largest ("Big Five") advertising agency groups are Omnicom, WPP, Publicis, Interpublic, and Dentsu.


title: Advertising

text: Egyptians used papyrus to make sales messages and wall posters. Commercial messages and political campaign displays have been found in the ruins of Pompeii and ancient Arabia. Lost and found advertising on papyrus was common in ancient Greece and ancient Rome. Wall or rock painting for commercial advertising is another manifestation of an ancient advertising form, which is present to this day in many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America. The tradition of wall painting can be traced back to Indian rock art paintings that date back to 4000 BC.


title: Advertising

text: In ancient China, the earliest advertising known was oral, as recorded in the Classic of Poetry (11th to 7th centuries BC) of bamboo flutes played to sell confectionery. Advertisement usually takes in the form of calligraphic signboards and inked papers. A copper printing plate dated back to the Song dynasty used to print posters in the form of a square sheet of paper with a rabbit logo with "Jinan Liu's Fine Needle Shop" and "We buy high-quality steel rods and make fine-quality needles, to be ready for use at home in no time" written above and below is considered the world's earliest identified printed advertising medium.


title: Advertising

text: In Europe, as the towns and cities of the Middle Ages began to grow, and the general population was unable to read, instead of signs that read "cobbler", "miller", "tailor", or "blacksmith", images associated with their trade would be used such as a boot, a suit, a hat, a clock, a diamond, a horseshoe, a candle or even a bag of flour. Fruits and vegetables were sold in the city square from the backs of carts and wagons and their proprietors used street callers (town criers) to announce their whereabouts. The first compilation of such advertisements was gathered in "Les Crieries de Paris", a thirteenth-century poem by Guillaume de la Villeneuve.


title: Advertising

text: In the 18th century advertisements started to appear in weekly newspapers in England. These early print advertisements were used mainly to promote books and newspapers, which became increasingly affordable with advances in the printing press; and medicines, which were increasingly sought after. However, false advertising and so-called "quack" advertisements became a problem, which ushered in the regulation of advertising content.


title: Advertising

text: Thomas J. Barratt of London has been called "the father of modern advertising". Working for the Pears soap company, Barratt created an effective advertising campaign for the company products, which involved the use of targeted slogans, images and phrases. One of his slogans, "Good morning. Have you used Pears' soap?" was famous in its day and into the 20th century. In 1882, Barratt recruited English actress and socialite Lillie Langtry to become the poster-girl for Pears, making her the first celebrity to endorse a commercial product.


title: Advertising

text: Becoming the company's brand manager in 1865, listed as the first of its kind by the "Guinness Book of Records", Barratt introduced many of the crucial ideas that lie behind successful advertising and these were widely circulated in his day. He constantly stressed the importance of a strong and exclusive brand image for Pears and of emphasizing the product's availability through saturation campaigns. He also understood the importance of constantly reevaluating the market for changing tastes and mores, stating in 1907 that "tastes change, fashions change, and the advertiser has to change with them. An idea that was effective a generation ago would fall flat, stale, and unprofitable if presented to the public today. Not that the idea of today is always better than the older idea, but it is different – it hits the present taste."


title: Advertising

text: Enhanced advertising revenues was one effect of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Thanks to the revolution and the consumers it created, by the mid-19th century biscuits and chocolate became products for the masses, and British biscuit manufacturers were among the first to introduce branding to distinguish grocery products. One the world's first global brands, Huntley & Palmers biscuits were sold in 172 countries in 1900, and their global reach was reflected in their advertisements.


title: Advertising

text: In June 1836, French newspaper "La Presse" was the first to include paid advertising in its pages, allowing it to lower its price, extend its readership and increase its profitability and the formula was soon copied by all titles. Around 1840, Volney B. Palmer established the roots of the modern day advertising agency in Philadelphia. In 1842 Palmer bought large amounts of space in various newspapers at a discounted rate then resold the space at higher rates to advertisers. The actual ad – the copy, layout, and artwork – was still prepared by the company wishing to advertise; in effect, Palmer was a space broker. The situation changed when the first full-service advertising agency of N.W. Ayer & Son was founded in 1869 in Philadelphia. Ayer & Son offered to plan, create, and execute complete advertising campaigns for its customers. By 1900 the advertising agency had become the focal point of creative planning, and advertising was firmly established as a profession.


title: Advertising

text: As a result of massive industrialization, advertising increased dramatically in the United States. In 1919 it was 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the US, and it averaged 2.2 percent of GDP between then and at least 2007, though it may have declined dramatically since the Great Recession.


title: Advertising

text: Industry could not benefit from its increased productivity without a substantial increase in consumer spending. This contributed to the development of mass marketing designed to influence the population's economic behavior on a larger scale. In the 1910s and 1920s, advertisers in the U.S. adopted the doctrine that human instincts could be targeted and harnessed – "sublimated" into the desire to purchase commodities. Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, became associated with the method and is sometimes called the founder of modern advertising and public relations. Bernays claimed that:In other words, selling products by appealing to the rational minds of customers (the main method used prior to Bernays) was much less effective than selling products based on the unconscious desires that Bernays felt were the true motivators of human action. "Sex sells" became a controversial issue, with techniques for titillating and enlarging the audience posing a challenge to conventional morality.


title: Advertising

text: In the 1920s, under Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, the American government promoted advertising. Hoover himself delivered an address to the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World in 1925 called 'Advertising Is a Vital Force in Our National Life." In October 1929, the head of the U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Julius Klein, stated "Advertising is the key to world prosperity." This was part of the "unparalleled" collaboration between business and government in the 1920s, according to a 1933 European economic journal.


title: Advertising

text: The tobacco companies became major advertisers in order to sell packaged cigarettes. The tobacco companies pioneered the new advertising techniques when they hired Bernays to create positive associations with tobacco smoking.


title: Advertising

text: Advertising was also used as a vehicle for cultural assimilation, encouraging workers to exchange their traditional habits and community structure in favor of a shared "modern" lifestyle. An important tool for influencing immigrant workers was the American Association of Foreign Language Newspapers (AAFLN). The AAFLN was primarily an advertising agency but also gained heavily centralized control over much of the immigrant press.


title: Advertising

text: At the turn of the 20th century, advertising was one of the few career choices for women. Since women were responsible for most household purchasing done, advertisers and agencies recognized the value of women's insight during the creative process. In fact, the first American advertising to use a sexual sell was created by a woman – for a soap product. Although tame by today's standards, the advertisement featured a couple with the message "A skin you love to touch".


title: Advertising

text: In the 1920s psychologists Walter D. Scott and John B. Watson contributed applied psychological theory to the field of advertising. Scott said, "Man has been called the reasoning animal but he could with greater truthfulness be called the creature of suggestion. He is reasonable, but he is to a greater extent suggestible". He demonstrated this through his advertising technique of a direct command to the consumer.


title: Advertising

text: In the early 1920s, the first radio stations were established by radio equipment manufacturers, followed by non-profit organizations such as schools, clubs and civic groups who also set up their own stations. Retailer and consumer goods manufacturers quickly recognized radio's potential to reach consumers in their home and soon adopted advertising techniques that would allow their messages to stand out; slogans, mascots, and jingles began to appear on radio in the 1920s and early television in the 1930s.


title: Advertising

text: The rise of mass media communications allowed manufacturers of branded goods to bypass retailers by advertising directly to consumers. This was a major paradigm shift which forced manufacturers to focus on the brand and stimulated the need for superior insights into consumer purchasing, consumption and usage behaviour; their needs, wants and aspirations. The earliest radio drama series were sponsored by soap manufacturers and the genre became known as a "soap opera." Before long, radio station owners realized they could increase advertising revenue by selling 'air-time' in small time allocations which could be sold to multiple businesses. By the 1930s, these "advertising spots," as the packets of time became known, were being sold by the station's geographical sales representatives, ushering in an era of national radio advertising.


title: Advertising

text: By the 1940s, manufacturers began to recognize the way in which consumers were developing personal relationships with their brands in a social/psychological/anthropological sense. Advertisers began to use motivational research and consumer research to gather insights into consumer purchasing. Strong branded campaigns for Chrysler and Exxon/Esso, using insights drawn research methods from psychology and cultural anthropology, led to some of the most enduring campaigns of the 20th century.


title: Advertising

text: In the early 1950s, the DuMont Television Network began the modern practice of selling advertisement time to multiple sponsors. Previously, DuMont had trouble finding sponsors for many of their programs and compensated by selling smaller blocks of advertising time to several businesses. This eventually became the standard for the commercial television industry in the United States. However, it was still a common practice to have single sponsor shows, such as The United States Steel Hour. In some instances the sponsors exercised great control over the content of the show – up to and including having one's advertising agency actually writing the show. The single sponsor model is much less prevalent now, a notable exception being the Hallmark Hall of Fame.


title: Advertising

text: The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the introduction of cable television and particularly MTV. Pioneering the concept of the music video, MTV ushered in a new type of advertising: the consumer tunes in "for" the advertising message, rather than it being a by-product or afterthought. As cable and satellite television became increasingly prevalent, specialty channels emerged, including channels entirely devoted to advertising, such as QVC, Home Shopping Network, and ShopTV Canada.


title: Advertising

text: With the advent of the ad server, online advertising grew, contributing to the "dot-com" boom of the 1990s. Entire corporations operated solely on advertising revenue, offering everything from coupons to free Internet access. At the turn of the 21st century, some websites, including the search engine Google, changed online advertising by personalizing ads based on web browsing behavior. This has led to other similar efforts and an increase in interactive advertising.


title: Advertising

text: The share of advertising spending relative to GDP has changed little across large changes in media since 1925. In 1925, the main advertising media in America were newspapers, magazines, signs on streetcars, and outdoor posters. Advertising spending as a share of GDP was about 2.9 percent. By 1998, television and radio had become major advertising media; by 2017, the balance between broadcast and online advertising had shifted, with online spending exceeding broadcast. Nonetheless, advertising spending as a share of GDP was slightly lower – about 2.4 percent.


title: Advertising

text: Guerrilla marketing involves unusual approaches such as staged encounters in public places, giveaways of products such as cars that are covered with brand messages, and interactive advertising where the viewer can respond to become part of the advertising message. This type of advertising is unpredictable, which causes consumers to buy the product or idea. This reflects an increasing trend of interactive and "embedded" ads, such as via product placement, having consumers vote through text messages, and various campaigns utilizing social network services such as Facebook or Twitter.


title: Advertising

text: The advertising business model has also been adapted in recent years. In media for equity, advertising is not sold, but provided to start-up companies in return for equity. If the company grows and is sold, the media companies receive cash for their shares.


title: Advertising

text: Domain name registrants (usually those who register and renew domains as an investment) sometimes "park" their domains and allow advertising companies to place ads on their sites in return for per-click payments. These ads are typically driven by pay per click search engines like Google or Yahoo, but ads can sometimes be placed directly on targeted domain names through a domain lease or by making contact with the registrant of a domain name that describes a product. Domain name registrants are generally easy to identify through WHOIS records that are publicly available at registrar websites.


title: Advertising

text: Advertising may be categorized in a variety of ways, including by style, target audience, geographic scope, medium, or purpose. For example, in print advertising, classification by style can include display advertising (ads with design elements sold by size) vs. classified advertising (ads without design elements sold by the word or line). Advertising may be local, national or global. An ad campaign may be directed toward consumers or to businesses. The purpose of an ad may be to raise awareness (brand advertising), or to elicit an immediate sale (direct response advertising). The term above the line (ATL) is used for advertising involving mass media; more targeted forms of advertising and promotion are referred to as below the line (BTL). The two terms date back to 1954 when Procter & Gamble began paying their advertising agencies differently from other promotional agencies. In the 2010s, as advertising technology developed, a new term, through the line (TTL) began to come into use, referring to integrated advertising campaigns.


title: Advertising

text: Virtually any medium can be used for advertising. Commercial advertising media can include wall paintings, billboards, street furniture components, printed flyers and rack cards, radio, cinema and television adverts, web banners, mobile telephone screens, shopping carts, web popups, skywriting, bus stop benches, human billboards and forehead advertising, magazines, newspapers, town criers, sides of buses, banners attached to or sides of airplanes ("logojets"), in-flight advertisements on seatback tray tables or overhead storage bins, taxicab doors, roof mounts and passenger screens, musical stage shows, subway platforms and trains, elastic bands on disposable diapers, doors of bathroom stalls, stickers on apples in supermarkets, shopping cart handles (grabertising), the opening section of streaming audio and video, posters, and the backs of event tickets and supermarket receipts. Any situation in which an "identified" sponsor pays to deliver their message through a medium is advertising.


title: Advertising

text: Billboards, also known as hoardings in some parts of the world, are large structures located in public places which display advertisements to passing pedestrians and motorists. Most often, they are located on main roads with a large amount of passing motor and pedestrian traffic; however, they can be placed in any location with large numbers of viewers, such as on mass transit vehicles and in stations, in shopping malls or office buildings, and in stadiums. The form known as street advertising first came to prominence in the UK by Street Advertising Services to create outdoor advertising on street furniture and pavements. Working with products such as Reverse Graffiti, air dancers and 3D pavement advertising, for getting brand messages out into public spaces. Sheltered outdoor advertising combines outdoor with indoor advertisement by placing large mobile, structures (tents) in public places on temporary bases. The large outer advertising space aims to exert a strong pull on the observer, the product is promoted indoors, where the creative decor can intensify the impression. Mobile billboards are generally vehicle mounted billboards or digital screens. These can be on dedicated vehicles built solely for carrying advertisements along routes preselected by clients, they can also be specially equipped cargo trucks or, in some cases, large banners strewn from planes. The billboards are often lighted; some being backlit, and others employing spotlights. Some billboard displays are static, while others change; for example, continuously or periodically rotating among a set of advertisements. Mobile displays are used for various situations in metropolitan areas throughout the world, including: target advertising, one-day and long-term campaigns, conventions, sporting events, store openings and similar promotional events, and big advertisements from smaller companies.


title: Advertising

text: A new advertising approach is known as advanced advertising, which is data-driven advertising, using large quantities of data, precise measuring tools and precise targeting. Advanced advertising also makes it easier for companies which sell ad-space to attribute customer purchases to the ads they display or broadcast.


title: Advertising

text: Increasingly, other media are overtaking many of the "traditional" media such as television, radio and newspaper because of a shift toward the usage of the Internet for news and music as well as devices like digital video recorders (DVRs) such as TiVo.


title: Advertising

text: Online advertising began with unsolicited bulk e-mail advertising known as "e-mail spam". Spam has been a problem for e-mail users since 1978. As new online communication channels became available, advertising followed. The first banner ad appeared on the World Wide Web in 1994. Prices of Web-based advertising space are dependent on the "relevance" of the surrounding web content and the traffic that the website receives.


title: Advertising

text: In online display advertising, display ads generate awareness quickly. Unlike search, which requires someone to be aware of a need, display advertising can drive awareness of something new and without previous knowledge. Display works well for direct response. Display is not only used for generating awareness, it's used for direct response campaigns that link to a landing page with a clear 'call to action'.


title: Advertising

text: As the mobile phone became a new mass medium in 1998 when the first paid downloadable content appeared on mobile phones in Finland, mobile advertising followed, also first launched in Finland in 2000. By 2007 the value of mobile advertising had reached $2 billion and providers such as Admob delivered billions of mobile ads.


title: Advertising

text: More advanced mobile ads include banner ads, coupons, Multimedia Messaging Service picture and video messages, advergames and various engagement marketing campaigns. A particular feature driving mobile ads is the 2D barcode, which replaces the need to do any typing of web addresses, and uses the camera feature of modern phones to gain immediate access to web content. 83 percent of Japanese mobile phone users already are active users of 2D barcodes.


title: Advertising

text: Some companies have proposed placing messages or corporate logos on the side of booster rockets and the International Space Station.


title: Advertising

text: Unpaid advertising (also called "publicity advertising"), can include personal recommendations ("bring a friend", "sell it"), spreading buzz, or achieving the feat of equating a brand with a common noun (in the United States, "Xerox" = "photocopier", "Kleenex" = tissue, "Vaseline" = petroleum jelly, "Hoover" = vacuum cleaner, and "Band-Aid" = adhesive bandage). However, some companies oppose the use of their brand name to label an object. Equating a brand with a common noun also risks turning that brand into a generic trademark – turning it into a generic term which means that its legal protection as a trademark is lost.


title: Advertising

text: Early in its life, The CW aired short programming breaks called "Content Wraps", to advertise one company's product during an entire commercial break. The CW pioneered "content wraps" and some products featured were Herbal Essences, Crest, Guitar Hero II, CoverGirl, and Toyota.


title: Advertising

text: Controversy exists on the effectiveness of subliminal advertising (see mind control), and the pervasiveness of mass messages (propaganda).


title: Advertising

text: With the Internet came many new advertising opportunities. Pop-up, Flash, banner, pop-under, advergaming, and email advertisements (all of which are often unwanted or spam in the case of email) are now commonplace. Particularly since the rise of "entertaining" advertising, some people may like an advertisement enough to wish to watch it later or show a friend. In general, the advertising community has not yet made this easy, although some have used the Internet to widely distribute their ads to anyone willing to see or hear them. In the last three quarters of 2009, mobile and Internet advertising grew by 18% and 9% respectively, while older media advertising saw declines: −10.1% (TV), −11.7% (radio), −14.8% (magazines) and −18.7% (newspapers). Between 2008 and 2014, U.S. newspapers lost more than half their print advertising revenue.


title: Advertising

text: Another significant trend regarding future of advertising is the growing importance of the niche market using niche or targeted ads. Also brought about by the Internet and the theory of the long tail, advertisers will have an increasing ability to reach specific audiences. In the past, the most efficient way to deliver a message was to blanket the largest mass market audience possible. However, usage tracking, customer profiles and the growing popularity of niche content brought about by everything from blogs to social networking sites, provide advertisers with audiences that are smaller but much better defined, leading to ads that are more relevant to viewers and more effective for companies' marketing products. Among others, Comcast Spotlight is one such advertiser employing this method in their video on demand menus. These advertisements are targeted to a specific group and can be viewed by anyone wishing to find out more about a particular business or practice, from their home. This causes the viewer to become proactive and actually choose what advertisements they want to view.


title: Advertising

text: Niche marketing could also be helped by bringing the issue of colour into advertisements. Different colours play major roles when it comes to marketing strategies, for example, seeing the blue can promote a sense of calmness and gives a sense of security which is why many social networks such as Facebook use blue in their logos.


title: Advertising

text: Google AdSense is an example of niche marketing. Google calculates the primary purpose of a website and adjusts ads accordingly; it uses keywords on the page (or even in emails) to find the general ideas of topics disused and places ads that will most likely be clicked on by viewers of the email account or website visitors.


title: Advertising

text: The concept of crowdsourcing has given way to the trend of user-generated advertisements. User-generated ads are created by people, as opposed to an advertising agency or the company themselves, often resulting from brand sponsored advertising competitions. For the 2007 Super Bowl, the Frito-Lays division of PepsiCo held the "Crash the Super Bowl" contest, allowing people to create their own Doritos commercials. Chevrolet held a similar competition for their Tahoe line of SUVs. Due to the success of the Doritos user-generated ads in the 2007 Super Bowl, Frito-Lays relaunched the competition for the 2009 and 2010 Super Bowl. The resulting ads were among the most-watched and most-liked Super Bowl ads. In fact, the winning ad that aired in the 2009 Super Bowl was ranked by the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter as the top ad for the year while the winning ads that aired in the 2010 Super Bowl were found by Nielsen's BuzzMetrics to be the "most buzzed-about". Another example of companies using crowdsourcing successfully is the beverage company Jones Soda that encourages consumers to participate in the label design themselves.


title: Advertising

text: This trend has given rise to several online platforms that host user-generated advertising competitions on behalf of a company. Founded in 2007, Zooppa has launched ad competitions for brands such as Google, Nike, Hershey's, General Mills, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Zinio, and Mini Cooper. Crowdsourcing remains controversial, as the long-term impact on the advertising industry is still unclear.


title: Advertising

text: Advertising has gone through five major stages of development: domestic, export, international, multi-national, and global. For global advertisers, there are four, potentially competing, business objectives that must be balanced when developing worldwide advertising: building a brand while speaking with one voice, developing economies of scale in the creative process, maximising local effectiveness of ads, and increasing the company's speed of implementation. Born from the evolutionary stages of global marketing are the three primary and fundamentally different approaches to the development of global advertising executions: exporting executions, producing local executions, and importing ideas that travel.


title: Advertising

text: Advertising research is key to determining the success of an ad in any country or region. The ability to identify which elements and/or moments of an ad contribute to its success is how economies of scale are maximized. Once one knows what works in an ad, that idea or ideas can be imported by any other market. Market research measures, such as , and provide insight into what is working in an ad in any country or region because the measures are based on the visual, not verbal, elements of the ad.