Freistadt 1917

Freistadt, the district capital, is an economic and cultural hub of the Lower Mühlviertel region. This recently discovered early portrait of the city, produced by the Vienna-based Sascha-Film, was made during World War I. The film, enhanced with beautiful sepia tones, depicts the distinctly middle-class lifestyle both inside and outside the medieval city walls, which remain almost entirely intact to this day. The prisoner-of-war camp operating in Freistadt at the same time—which housed up to 20,000 prisoners in a large barracks complex—was omitted from the report.