Walburga Oesterreich

Who was Walburga Oesterreich?

Walburga "Dolly" Oesterreich was an American homemaker and wife of a wealthy textile manufacturer. She gained notoriety for her bizarre 10-year affair with Otto Sanhuber which culminated in the shooting death of her husband. The story inspired both a feature film, The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom, and a made-for-TV movie starring Neil Patrick Harris, The Man in the Attic.

Dolly Oesterreich first became friendly with 17-year-old Otto Sanhuber around 1913 and described him as her "vagabond half-brother." The two quickly became lovers and met clandestinely at Sanhuber's boarding room or at a nearby hotel. They also arranged trysts at Dolly's home but, when neighbors began noting Otto's increasingly frequent comings and goings and alerted her husband, Dolly suggested to Otto that he quit his job and secretly move into the Oesterreich's upstairs attic to allay any further suspicions. He readily agreed to the arrangement. Not only would this put him in closer proximity to his lover but it would also give him time to pursue his dream of writing pulp fiction stories. Sanhuber would later describe himself as Dolly's "sex slave".