“Built of Contradictions”

The diary of Gertrud Bleichröder, written in 1888, the year of the three emperors, opens an unusual, personal window into Jewish, upper middle-class Berlin. The twenty-three-year old describes her day-to-day life from ice skating in Tiergarten to reading the Socialists Act in the Reichstag and writes about the books she was reading, her thoughts, and her conversations. Gertrud Bleichröder wanted to live by her own convictions and came to see that this attitude collided with the limits of women’s socially dictated role.