The Lady in Gold (54 page)

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Authors: Anne-Marie O'Connor

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“YOU ARE PEACE

  
1
“YOU ARE PEACE”:
Friedrich Rückert, “Du bist die Ruh,” translation by Maria Altmann.

  
2
“I'D LIKE TO GO”:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2006.

  
3
MEPHISTO
WAS BASED:
Maya Roth,
International Dramaturgy: Translation and Transformations in the Theater of Timberlake Wertenbaker
(Brussels: Lang, 2008), p. 94. For the lingering impact of the explosive novel
Mephisto,
see Dieter Sevin,
Die Resonanz des Exils: gelungene und misslungene Rezeption deutschsprachiger Exilautoren
(Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1992), p. 203.

  
4
“I WOULDN'T GET MY HOPES UP”:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2006.

  
5
“HE'S A HOMOSEXUAL”:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2006. On Aslan's sexual orientation, see Lucian O. Meysels,
Die Welt der Lotte Tobisch
(Vienna and Klosterneuburg: Edition Va Bene, 2002), p. 30, and Reinhold Nagele,
Gemälde, Galerie der Stuttgart
(Stuttgart: K. Theiss, 1984), p. 114.

UNREQUITED LOVE

  
1
MARIA, TWENTY-ONE, WAS DEEPLY LOVESICK:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2006.

  
2
THERESE BLOCH-BAUER WAS A STOLIDLY CONVENTIONAL:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2006.

  
3
THE ONLY THING WORSE:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2006.

  
4
NEVER MIND THAT IN HER OFFICIAL WEDDING PHOTO:
This photo is in the family archive of Nelly Auersperg.

  
5
IN MARIA'S EYES:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2001.

  
6
ASIDE FROM WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2001.

  
7
AS EVERYONE KNEW:
Maria Altmann, Cecile Altmann, interviews, 2001.

  
8
HE HAD AMASSED:
Petropolous, “Report of Professor Jonathan Petropoulos.”

  
9
HE LOCKED HEDY:
Stephen Michael Shearer,
Beautiful: The Life of Hedy Lamarr
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 2010), p. 45.

10
MANDL FORCED HEDY:
Ibid., p. 41; Hedy Lamarr,
Ecstasy and Me: My Life as a Woman
(New York: Bartholomew House, 1966), p. 21.

MARIA VIKTORIA

  
1
HER MIDDLE NAME REPRESENTED:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2001–2008.

  
2
THERESE, FORTY-TWO, INITIALLY MISINTERPRETED:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2001. A later poem by Julius Bauer jokingly characterizes Maria as an “unwelcome belated addition to the house.”

  
3
SHE AND GUSTAV COLLECTED “FANTASY WATCHES”:
Elisabeth Sturm-Bednarczyck,
Phantasie-Uhren
[Fantasy Watches]:
Kostbarkeiten des Kunsthandwerks aus der Sammlung Therese Bloch-Bauer
(Vienna: Christian Brandstätter Verlag, 2002), p. 8.

  
4
VIENNA WAS IN THRALL TO:
Ibid.

  
5
“A CRAZE FOR TOTALLY MEANINGLESS ARTICLES”:
Janik and Toulmin,
Wittgenstein's Vienna,
p. 97.

  
6
“THE WOLF AND THE SEVEN LITTLE KIDS”:
Thomas L. Johnson and Eberhard Michael Iba,
Germanic Fairy Tale Landscape: The Storied World of the Brothers Grimm
(Gottingen: Klartext GmbH, 2006), p. 21. The book's version of the tale was told by Maria Altmann.

  
7
FREUD BELIEVED FAIRY TALES:
Elrud Ibsch, Dick Schram, and Gerard Steen,
The Psychology and Sociology of Literature: In Honor of Elrud Ibsch
(Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2001), p. 187.

  
8
HE THOUGHT THAT:
Herman Westerink,
A Dark Trace: Sigmund Freud on the Sense of Guilt
(Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2009), p. 165.

  
9
“FINALLY, HE'S WRITTEN SOMETHING”:
Maria Altmann, interviews, June 2007.

10
JOSEPHINE MUTZENBACHER:
Hamann,
Hitler's Vienna,
pp. 76–77, states authoritatively that Salten authored this “pornographic bestseller”; this was a widespread view.

11
“THE OLD SWINE DO YOU INJUSTICE”:
Maria Altmann, interviews, Sept. 2001.

12
SHE ENROLLED MARIA:
Maria Altmann, interviews. See also Gustav Rinesch's unpublished 191-page memoir, which was written after the war.

MARIA AND LUISE

  
1
MEALS WERE SERVED AT PRECISE HOURS:
Thea Bentley, interviews, Aug. 2006.

  
2

TROTTEL—
IDIOT! WALK FASTER!”:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2006.

  
3
LUISE'S WEDDING BANQUET:
Nelly Auersperg, archive.

  
4
FOR HER WEDDING PHOTO, LUISE STARED:
Nelly Auersperg, archive.

  
5
EVEN AS A MARRIED WOMAN:
Rinesch, unpublished memoir.

  
6
CHRISTL WAS ALREADY HAVING:
Tony Felsovanyi and Maria Altmann, interviews.

  
7
“FLAMING SOCIALIST”:
Tony Felsovanyi, interviews, Menlo Park, June 23, 2006.

  
8
ANTON FELSOVANYI CONQUERED CHRISTL:
Tony Felsovanyi, interviews, Menlo Park, June 23, 2006.

  
9
“A BIG NAZI”:
Tony Felsovanyi, interviews, Menlo Park, June 23, 2006.

10
SHE QUIETLY EXPLAINED THAT CHRISTL'S RELATIONSHIP:
Tony Felsovanyi, interviews, Menlo Park, June 23, 2006, and by telephone, 2006–2011.

STUBENBASTEI

  
1
JEWS, JUST 2.8 PERCENT:
Evan Burr Bukey,
Hitler's Austria: Popular Sentiment in the Nazi Era, 1938–1945
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), p. 131.

  
2
“THE SPIRIT OF THE TOWN”; “VERY HUMANISTIC”; “JEWISH HUMOR”:
Rinesch, memoir.

  
3
“AN ASPIRING OPERA SINGER”:
Rinesch, memoir.

  
4
BERNHARD ALTMANN SWEPT INTO:
Maria Altmann, interview, June 2006.

  
5
“IF I WERE A PRINCE”:
Maria Altmann, interview, June 2006.

THE HOUSEPAINTER FROM AUSTRIA

  
1
“REVELATION OF THE JEWISH RACIAL SOUL”:
R. J. Overy,
The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia
(London: Allen Lane, 2004), p. 360; Sultano and Werkner,
Oskar Kokoschka,
p. 80.

  
2
“AN INSULT TO GERMAN WOMANHOOD”:
Barbara McCloskey,
Artists of World War II
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005), p. 50.

  
3
“THE JEWISH LONGING FOR WILDNESS”:
Alan Milchman and Alan Rosenberg,
Postmodernism and the Holocaust
(Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998), p. 93.

  
4
“NATURE AS SEEN BY SICK MINDS”:
Overy,
The Dictators,
p. 360.

  
5
“AS FOR THE DEGENERATE ARTISTS”:
Text of Hitler's 1937 Munich speech, “Die Kunst ist in den Volkern begrundet,” in E. M. Forster and Philip Gardner,
Commonplace Book
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987), p. 110.

  
6
“HOUSEPAINTER FROM AUSTRIA”:
Sultano and Werkner,
Oskar Kokoschka,
p. 12.

  
7
“WE CALL UPON OUR ARTISTS”:
Robert M. Edsel,
Rescuing Da Vinci: Hitler and the Nazis Stole Europe's Great Art, America and Her Allies Recovered It
(Dallas: Laurel Publishing, 2006), p. 9.

  
8
HITLER KNEW HE WAS WIELDING:
Max Knight, trans.,
A Confidential Matter: The Letters of Richard Strauss and Stefan Zweig
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 115.

  
9
“TO STRAUSS THE COMPOSER”:
Norman Del Mar,
Richard Strauss: A Critical Commentary on His Life and Works,
vol. 3 (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1978), p. 47.

10
THE NAZIS BANNED FELIX SALTEN'S 1923
BAMBI:
Siegried Mattl and Werner Michael Schwarz,
Felix Salten
(Vienna: Holzhauren Verlag, 2006), p. 63, say
Bambi
was declared verboten in Germany in 1935, and in 1936 the Gestapo ordered copies seized. See also Angela Lambert,
The Lost Life of Eva Braun
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 2006), p. 32.

11
MORE THAN SIXTEEN THOUSAND “DEGENERATE” ARTWORKS:
Lynn H. Nicholas,
The Rape of Europa
(New York: Vintage, 1995), p. 23.

12
“TO MAKE SOME MONEY”:
Ibid.

13
“EXHIBITION OF JEWISH COMMUNIST ART”:
Sultano and Werkner,
Oskar Kokoschka,
p. 68.

WITH OR WITHOUT YOU

  
1
FRITZ'S COLLECTION INCLUDED:
Maria Altmann, interviews, June 16, 2006.

  
2
MARIA PANICKED:
Maria Altmann, interviews, June 16, 2006.

  
3
“IF YOU MARRY HIM”:
Maria Altmann, interviews, June 2006.

  
4
MARIA'S MOTHER MADE THE BEST OF IT:
In the private family memoir, one contributor said some in the family were “horrified” that Maria was marrying Fritz. In some cases, the accounts given in my interviews were supported by interviews in an early 248-page draft of a privately published family memoir, undertaken by the Prentice and Bentley branch of the family, with interviews with Maria Altmann, Nelly Auersperg, and others. Michael Bentley allowed me to read an early draft in Vancouver in August 2006.

  
5
“NO. WE ARE GALICIAN”:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2001.

  
6
“WE DON'T BELIEVE IN DOWRIES”:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2001. According to the private family memoir, Fritz also brushed off the idea of a dowry in a separate appointment with Gustav.

  
7
“BACK IN THE DAY”:
Poem by Julius Bauer, Maria Altmann, archive. “Tisch-Rede zur Feier des Hochzeitpaares, Fritz und Maria, am December 1937, Gesprochen von Julius Bauer.”

  
8
MARIA WAS STUNG:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2007.

  
9
“THE SILENCE OF THE BRIDAL BED”:
Edgar Alfred Bowring, ed.,
The Poems of Goethe
(Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2004), p. 61.

10
“STUPID IRON VIRGIN”:
Maria Altmann, interviews, June 16, 2006.

11
“LENE
!
”:
Maria Altmann, interviews, June 16, 2006.

12
“WELL, AT LEAST NOW I KNOW”:
Maria Altmann, interviews, June 16, 2006.

THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE

  
1
WHEN THEY RETURNED, BERNHARD HANDED THEM THE KEYS:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2001.

  
2
“WELL, WE EASTERN JEWS”:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2001.

  
3
“THE BLOCH-BAUERS ARE NOT
OSTJUDEN
”:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2001.

  
4
A FEW DAYS LATER, A MESSENGER ARRIVED:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2001.

  
5
“GERMAN BLOOD:
” Peter Utgaard,
Remembering and Forgetting Nazism: Education, National Identity and the Victim Myth in Postwar Austria
(New York: Berghahn Books, 2003), p. 75.

  
6
BUT ROBERT WOULDN'T HEAR OF:
Thea Bentley, interview, Vancouver, Aug. 2006.

  
7
“HEIL HITLER
!
” AND “JEWS, KICK THE BUCKET
!
”:
Hans Mühlbacher, interviews, Mar. 2006.

  
8
“AUSTRIA WILL LIVE AGAIN”:
Hans Mühlbacher, interviews, Mar. 2006.

  
9
“IT'S JUST NONSENSE”:
Hans Mühlbacher, interviews, 2007.

10
A FEW MORNINGS LATER, MARIA AWOKE:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2001.

11
“ARE YOU SURE?”:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2007.

12
GET US TO THE HUNGARIAN BORDER:
Interviews with Maria Altmann and Bernhard's son, Cecil Altmann, 2001.

13
“DO YOU KNOW YOUR HUSBAND”:
Maria Altmann, interview, 2001.

14
“WOULD YOU MIND”:
Maria Altmann, interview.

15
CHRISTL COULDN'T TALK LONG:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2006–2007.

16
HE FOUND HIS OLD WORLD WAR I PISTOL:
Tony Felsovanyi, Maria Altmann, interviews.

17
“HE WAS SO HAPPY”:
Maria Altmann, interviews.

18
SOMETIMES THE WATER WAS MIXED WITH ACID:
Berkley,
Vienna and Its Jews,
p. 259.

19
THEY GRABBED A WOMAN:
Thomas Weyr,
The Setting of the Pearl: Vienna Under Hitler
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 77.

20
JEERING CROWDS WERE PLUNDERING:
Mark Mazower,
Hitler's Empire
(New York: Penguin, 2008), p. 49.

21
DAPPER LOUIS ROTHSCHILD:
Petropoulos,
Art as Politics in the Third Reich,
p. 84.

22
THE GESTAPO AGENTS WHO “SEARCHED” THE HOME:
Saul Friedlander,
Nazi Germany and the Jews,
vol. 1:
The Years of Persecution, 1939–1945
(New York: HarperCollins, 1997), p. 243.

23
“BUT THE ANSCHLUSS HAS NONETHELESS”:
Gordon Brook-Shepherd,
Anschluss
(London: Macmillan, 1963), p. 203.

24
“I HAVE BEEN INFORMED”:
David Lehr,
Austria Before and After the Anschluss
(Pittsburgh: Dorrance, 2000), p. 113.

25
HUNDREDS OF VIENNESE JEWS:
Mazower,
Hitler's Empire,
p. 50.

26
“IN THE PAST, GERMANS”:
Jonathan Goldstein,
The Jews of China,
vol. 2 (Armonk, NY, and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), p. 114.

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