QUARANTINE BLOG # 236

November 21, 2020

Part 2

At 35, Gustav Klimt was king of the Vienna art world. Emperor Franz Joseph had awarded him the golden service cross, and had personally congratulated him for his staircase murals in Vienna’s Imperial Burgtheater https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJKuMNxU_GY.

Gustav Klimt

In 1903 Gustav Klimt agreed to paint Adele’s portrait. A portrait by Gustav Klimt was no small gift. A Klimt commission at the time cost 4,000 crowns, one-fourth the price of a well-appointed country villa.

The Lady in Gold

Klimt unveiled his first portrait of Adele in Vienna in June 1908. It made Adele, at 26, an instant celebrity. Her lips were red and full. Her eyes stared out from a light-filled gold leaf. Like the Mona Lisa, this painting seemed to embody femininity.

Klimt placed Adele in a field of real gold leaf, giving her the appearance of a religious icon, which art historians compare to the mosaic portrait of the 6th century Empress Theodora of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Empress Theodora

In 1912, he unveiled a second commissioned portrait of Adele. It was a very different work. Here was a serious Adele, her expression was mature, direct, with world-weary eyes and cigarette-stained teeth.

Adele Bloch-Bauer

Gustav Klimt died on February 6, 1918, the victim of syphilis, a stroke, and the Spanish influenza. He was 55.

By the early and mid 1920s, Adele was always tired, not feeling well, and suffering from headaches and vague ailments. No record of a diagnosis exists. She refused to go to the doctor. One wintry day in January 1925, Adele felt feverish, went to lie down, and slipped into a coma. Early the next morning, January 24, Adele was dead, at the age of 43 of meningitis. 

Ferdinand was devastated. He turned his wife’s room into a shrine. He asked servants to ensure there were always fresh flowers in the room.

What Do You Do With A Girl Like Maria?

When Maria Bloch-Bauer was born, Therese, Adele’s sister, at age 42, initially misinterpreted her last pregnancy as “the change of life.” She thought she was done with the endless needs of small children.

Maria Bloch-Bauer

Therese and Gustav collected “fantasy watches,” tiny pieces that knew the precise hour, created at a time when many Austrians relied on church clocks and sundials. Each was as intricate as a Faberge egg.

Tulip watch by Jean Rousseau

To Therese, a new baby meant the end of idyllic collecting trips with Gustav to Venice. To Gustav, his unexpected daughter was an unadulterated delight.

In the eyes of her indulgent father, Maria could do no wrong. One day Maria came home and innocently repeated a new word some older schoolboys taught her. It was the name of a popular condom brand. Her father burst out laughing. Therese was horrified. She immediately enrolled Maria in a private highbrow girls’ school.

In early 1937, Maria Bloch-Bauer, stood with guests of the family around the grand piano at their apartment. A family friend, and one of Vienna’s most popular pianists, Paul Ulanowsky, was going to play for them. As Ulanowsky sat down at the piano, a young man, Fritz Altmann, stepped out of the crowd and asked if the pianist could play Schubert. What a ridiculous question! Ulanowsky was one of the best interpreters of Schubert in Europe! Who would dare ask such an impertinent question?

Maria wondered what Ulanowsky would make of his cocky audacity. But the distinguished Ulanowsky merely smiled affectionately, and introduced “the opera singer, Fritz Altmann.” Ulanowsky began to languidly play the first notes of the sensual Schubert ode to love, Du bist die Ruh – “You Are Peace” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqcIgSviGVQ.

Maria was startled. This was a stirring romantic song, of desire and fulfillment. It hinted at the private world behind bedroom doors, on picnic blankets in the Vienna Woods. A world Maria had yet to enter. Now Fritz conjured up this unknown realm of seduction. Fritz turned to Maria and looked her in the eyes, as if he were singing to her alone.

As Ulanowsky artfully interpreted the piece, Fritz looked boldly at Maria. The music stopped. Fritz turned away and walked across the room to sit down with a crowd of men. Maria was crestfallen.

For the next few weeks, Maria made it a point to run into Fritz, at a lunch or recital. Fritz clearly enjoyed the attention of this young beauty, but though he flirted with her, he was casual and aloof.

Fritz Altmann

Weeks went by. Fritz was friendly, but cool. He never  arranged a date. Maria’s brothers told her Fritz Altmann was in love with another woman. He would be living with this woman except for one complication: she had a husband. Yet if the woman was married, there was hope.

But persistence won out. Maria and Fritz Altmann wed on December 9,1937. She and Fritz drove to an elegant hotel near the Danube, on the outskirts of Vienna. Her wedding night had come at last.

Maria was terribly disappointed. Her long-awaited first embrace was awkward and embarrassing. Maria cursed herself as a “stupid iron virgin,” a fumbling child, a pitiful disappointment.

Then, in a moment of passion, Fritz cried out: “Lene!”

Lene? Maria paused to digest this. Fritz froze with embarrassment.

But Maria was flooded with a strange relief. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know about his married girlfriend, though she prayed it was finally over. Now it was out in the open.  Maria began to shake with irrepressible amusement. Fritz stared at her with astonishment. “Well, at least now I know her name,” Maria managed to say.

Work Makes Freedom

Not long after Maria and Fritz returned from their honeymoon, their world began to crumble. Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg said Austria would allow Hitler’s forces to enter Austria unopposed. A convoy of trucks appeared, filled with Nazis. They raised their arms crying, “Heil Hitler!” Men in the crowd, chanted, “Down with the Jews!”

A few mornings later, Maria awoke to loud noises in the garage. Strange men pried open the garage door, and they were rolling her car into the street. The officer in charge of the men smiled when he saw Maria and introduced himself as Gestapo agent Felix Landau. They were “confiscating” the car, Landau explained.

Landau told Maria and Fritz they had to move out of the apartment. As they headed downstairs to another apartment in the building, the guards brought Landau’s things in. They were now Landau’s prisoners.

Days later Gestapo officers seized Gustav Bloch’s Stradivarius cello. That night, Bernhard Altmann, Fritz’s brother, sent word: “You must leave the country. All of you. I’ll arrange it. Don’t do anything to provoke the Gestapo.”

Bernhard Altmann

In late April 1938, the Gestapo came to pick up Fritz for questioning. “We’ll bring him back this afternoon,” Landau assured Maria.

Night fell. Then dawn. Fritz had not returned. Maria learned that Fritz was at Rossauer Lande where political prisoners were held by the Gestapo. Fritz would be released, Landau said, when his brother, Bernhard, turned over the foreign accounts of his textile factory.

Rossauer Lande Prison

Maria was permitted to write to Fritz every day, on pieces of paper the size of an index card. Fritz could write every other week.

Imprisoned with only the clothes on his back, Fritz asked for extra clothes, pajamas, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. Maria sent him the requested items, plus five reichsmarks with which he could purchase extra food. 

One day in early May 1938, Maria went to the police to bring fresh shirts to Fritz, but he had been transferred to another prison. Fritz’s next letter was signed, “Your husband, Z207.” He was now a number. Then, suddenly, silence. The letters stopped. Fritz had been transferred to Dachau. As Fritz passed through the black iron gates, he saw the words spelled out, in twisted metal: ARBEIT MACHT FREI. WORK MAKES FREEDOM.

Next Saturday, Part 3.

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