Alma and the Silent Woman

We’ve all been in situations in which we have thought to ourselves, “Boy, my _______ (fill in the blank: neighbor, co-worker, relative, etc.) is a weird guy.” Maybe this story will give you some perspective as to what constitutes “weird.”

Just over a century ago, in 1920, police in Dresden, Germany were called to the scene of a crime in which the bloody body of a decapitated woman was reportedly spotted in an alley behind the home of an eccentric artist. As it turned out, it was not a woman, but a life-sized “doll” created to look like a woman named Alma Gropius.

For those not familiar with the songs of ‘sixties song-writer and political humorist Tom Lehrer, Alma was one of the most interesting women in European history. In 1964, Lehrer was inspired to write a song about her after stumbling across “the juiciest, spiciest, raciest obituary it has ever been my pleasure to read.” An accomplished musician, Alma associated with some of the most famous artists and writers of the early 20^th Century—and had affairs with many of them. Among her many celebrity conquests were three that she actually married: composer Gustav Mahler, architect Walter Gropius, and writer Franz Werfel. Lehrer’s song is filled with the wit and clever rhymes that made him one of my all-time favorites. Here is the song and the lyrics:

Alma Mahler-Gropius-Werfel has been described as a muse to great men, and she undoubtedly inspired many of them with her intelligence, her beauty, or her passion. Perhaps it was a combination of these factors. At her funeral, a eulogist described her as “an energizer of heroes;” a woman “whose companionship stimulates her chosen man to the ultimate heights of his creative abilities;” she was “a pure light, the flame of an Olympic fire.” Hyperbole aside, she seemed to have had a certain impact on intellectual men. None was more affected by her than an Expressionist painter named Oskar Kokoschka.

Kokoschka, an Austrian artist and poet, met Alma at a party in 1912 and the two almost immediately began a torrid love affair that continued off and on for several years. Inspired by his passion for Alma, in 1913 Oskar completed one of his most acclaimed paintings, Die Windsbraut (variously translated as The Tempest or the Bride in the Wind) When she finally broke off their relationship in 1915, he sold Die Windsbraut in order to buy a horse and join the German cavalry in World War I. He was sent to fight the Russians in the Ukraine, and things did not go well for Oskar. Shot in the skull, bayonetted in the chest, and suffering from concussions caused by bombs exploding nearby, he somehow survived the war, but doctors described him as mentally unstable.

That brings us to the doll. Tortured by his unrequited love for Alma, missing his muse, and, just perhaps, a little off-kilter from his military experience, he commissioned a Munich artist and puppet-maker to create a life-sized model of Alma. Using photographs, Alma’s actual measurements, and other details provided by Oskar, the female artisan produced a doll with a striking resemblance to Alma. It was stuffed with sawdust and, thankfully, covered with white feathers rather than human skin. Oskar was reportedly disappointed with the result, however, as it somehow lacked the vitality of the real thing. Still, he sketched and painted “the Silent Woman,” as he called it, numerous times, in various poses. Stories circulated claiming that he dressed it in lingerie and fine clothes, took it riding in his carriage, and even sat with it in his box at the opera. He later denied these stories, but it all brings to mind the delightful movie Lars and the Real Girl.

By this time, Alma’s first husband, Mahler, had died, she had married and divorced Gropius, and was planning to marry Werfel. Finally realizing that a reunion with Alma was not in the cards, Oskar threw a party to publicly declare that his passion for Alma was dead. The Silent Women, dressed in her Parisian finery, was the guest of honor while Oskar and his friends drank themselves into a stupor. Near dawn, encouraged by his enthusiastic and inebriated guests, he took the doll into the garden and decapitated it. He poured red wine over the body and tossed it into the alley. The red wine on the white feathers looked enough like blood that the neighbors grew alarmed and alerted the authorities. That must have resulted in a fascinating conversation.

Kokoschka continued to love Alma for the rest of his life, and he lived until 1980. When Hitler came to power, the artist was declared a degenerate by the Nazis and forced to leave Germany. Let that sink in for a moment. The Nazis declared him a degenerate. Now there’s something to put on the old resumé.

So, the next time you start to say that your ________ (neighbor, co-worker, relative) is acting a bit strange, take a deep breath. And think about Oskar.