I remember the day my father came back from the war, and he told us that my brother was not going to return.  I was so distraught at the words when they came from his mouth that I began to cry, and after that I stopped drawing all together. It felt as though a core piece of me was gone and all my ambition of wanting to draw was gone. The feeling that I would never see my brother again just hurts me every time I think about it. The thought that my brother died, and we still lost was hard for me to understand. Why did my brother die for his county if we still lost the war? Why was all the blame for the war put on us, don’t they know that we didn’t even start this war? I wanted to know why my father did not save him. Why did he not save his own son when he might have been able to. What will happen to us with the fall of the Kaiser?  Will the people target us too as someone who caused the defeat in the war? Will my father be fired because of how the war went. I have so many questions in my head that I just want to be gone. I wish my brother had not gone off to the war and died I want him to still be here.

Historical foundations: I wanted to base most of the diary on how Muller felt about the loss of her brother because It felt that he was the most important person to him. At the beginning of the comic we see that see stops drawing because of his death and only starts to draw again to get away from her father. It also makes sense that she would feel worried about the overthrowing of the Kaiser because they were also in a rather rich family and her father was also a general. While her main thoughts would be on her brother she would still have these minor thoughts about the war and how it ended especially because of who her father is.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj1zI37773_AhWRkYkEHfGuAnYQFnoECBAQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.in.gov%2Fdoe%2Ffiles%2Fguide.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2s_4CMIrrX8Uxw6sxAWAqV

I was 15 years old and everyday I love to draw the things that I see around me between the chores I must do around the House after school. My father makes it so that I don’t have to get a job. My brother which is younger than me also goes to school, and he plans to join the army as an officer like my father. I work on my studies and help my mom keep the house clean. At this point I wouldn’t call myself a great artist, but it keeps me occupied and I like to do it. While other German artists like to draw more art for people, I just draw art of whatever I see. Me and my brother like to eat together and talk during school. We talk about what we want to do in the future. My father talks about how things for the Kaiser are getting difficult. I’m nervous about my brother becoming a soldier but its natural for him to want to follow our father’s path. I hope that this doesn’t lead to anything that could get my brother and father hurt.  I don’t know what I want to do yet, but I don’t want to be an artist for my job. I want to be free with my art and must paint certain thing would take that away from me.

Most of what I based my characters information on is from the comic Berlin-City-Of-Stones where Muller liked art when she was young but when her brother dies, she stops drawing. I also based my information based off what was happening at the time which was the start of World War 1. Since she wants to make sure her brother is alright it would be understandable that she would be worried about him becoming a soldier, but since her father is a general, she would not be so worried that she would try to stop him. With her father being in the military it would be understandable if she knew more about what was happening with the military and what kind of state that the world was in.

“Origin of the War  :  Events & Statistics  :  Articles & Essays  :  Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Rotogravures, 1914-1919  :  Digital Collections  :  Library of Congress.” The Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/collections/world-war-i-rotogravures/articles-and-essays/events-and-statistics/origin-of-the-war/. Accessed 2 June 2023.