In her earlier years, she was politically active in the Communist Party of Austria (Kommunistische Partei Österreichs, or KPÖ).
Fleeing the Nazis, she lived in exile in the Soviet Union at Moscow's Hotel Lux, afterwards writing several books about her experiences there.
[1] Her uncle was Ottomar Heinsius von Mayenburg, a pharmacist who became a millionaire with his invention of a brand of toothpaste, Chlorodont.
At that time Antoinette was the companion of Theodor Körner, Edler von Siegringen, who later served as 4th President of Austria.
Through them, von Mayenburg was introduced to a circle of young socialists and became friends with intellectuals such as the writer Elias Canetti and Ernst Fischer, editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, who influenced her political views.
In 1934, she and her husband took an active part against Engelbert Dollfuss in the Austrian Civil War, forcing them to flee Austria.
[4] Her book is not a deep analysis of Stalinism or the Great Purge, rather it shows life at the hotel with anecdotes and details of the terror and betrayal experienced by the exile community during most of the 1930s,[8] and of their sexual mores and secrets, especially during the earlier years.