Ingeborg Bachmann

Austrian poet and author

Born: June 25, 1926 · Died: October 17, 1973

Famous Persons

Who was Ingeborg Bachmann?

Ingeborg Bachmann (Austrian German: [ˈɪŋəbɔrɡ ˈbaxman]; 25 June 1926 – 17 October 1973) was an Austrian poet and author. Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of Olga (née Haas) and Matthias Bachmann, a schoolteacher. Her father was an early member of the Austrian National Socialist Party. She had a sister, Isolde, and a brother, Heinz. In 1949, she received her PhD from the University of Vienna with her dissertation titled "The Critical Reception of the Existential Philosophy of Martin Heidegger"; her thesis advisor was Victor Kraft. She studied philosophy, psychology, German philology, and law at the universities of Innsbruck, Graz, and Vienna. After graduating, Bachmann worked as a scriptwriter and editor at the Allied radio station Rot-Weiss-Rot, a job that enabled her to obtain an overview of contemporary literature and also supplied her with a decent income, making possible proper literary work.

Graffiti portrait of Bachmann at the Robert Musil Museum in Klagenfurt.

Historical significance

She is regarded as one of the major voices of German-language literature in the 20th century. In 1963, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature by German philologist Harald Patzer.

Grave of Ingeborg Bachmann at Zentralfriedhof Annabichl Klagenfurt

Sources and further reading

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Wikipedia source

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“Ingeborg Bachmann.” thisDay, thisday.info/people/ingeborg-bachmann/. Accessed 20 Oct. 2026.

APA

Ingeborg Bachmann. (n.d.). thisDay. Retrieved October 20, 2026, from https://thisday.info/people/ingeborg-bachmann/

Chicago

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