The Schmidl family
However, Marianne Schmidl had actually started out studying mathematics. She did not inherit her passion for ethnology from her family either.
Her father, Dr Joseph Schmidl, was a lawyer. He was Jewish but converted to Protestantism in 1889 before marrying Marianne’s mother, Marie Friedmann. Marianne was born in 1890 and was baptized a Protestant, as was her younger sister, Franziska.
Friedrich and Ferdinand Olivier, sibling artists
Marie Schmidl, née Friedmann, came from of a well-known family of artists. Her grandfather, Marianne’s great-grandfather, was Friedrich von Olivier (1791–1859). Her brothers Friedrich and Ferdinand Olivier were members of the Nazarene group of painters, and her brother Heinrich was also an artist.
Marie Schmidl inherited many artworks from her family which formed the basis of an art collection.
‘Marie Schmidl, one of Friedrich Olivier’s granddaughters, kept a large number of prints by her grandfather, his more talented brother Ferdinand, and her brother-in-law Julius von Schnorr, that had remained in the family’s possession.’ Hans Tietze, 1910
The art collection
In 1908 the Schmidl collection made it into the Österreichische Kunsttopographie (Austrian Art Topography), a kind of travel guide for art in two thick volumes that showcased the artistic monuments of Vienna. Among its entries was the address 31 Colloredogasse. This is where Marianne Schmidl grew up.
Two nieces
After her husband’s death, Marie Schmidl moved into a Protestant-run residence in Wels, Upper Austria. Marianne Schmidl looked after the family-owned artworks. Her sister Franziska died in 1925, leaving behind two daughters. Marianne never married or had children.
A woman in academia
At the museum
After completing her studies Marianne Schmidl started work as a research assistant in the Africa Department at Berlin’s Museum für Völkerkunde (Ethnological Museum). However, she was there only briefly as her father died on 24 June 1916 in Vienna and she had to take care of his estate. From 1917 she worked at the Linden-Museum in Stuttgart. She lost her job there in May 1920 due to staff cuts.
At the library
Back in Vienna, she found an internship at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Austrian National Library). Its director advocated her appointment as a member of staff. In 1924 she was awarded civil servant status. In January 1938, shortly before the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria to the German Reich, she was promoted to senior national librarian.
A research project
Alongside her work at the Nationalbibliothek, Marianne Schmidl continued the research project on African weaving techniques that she had started in Berlin. The Sächsische Forschungsinstitut für Völkerkunde (Saxon Research Institute for Ethnology) financed the project from 1926.
In mid-1927, the anthropologist and ethnologist Otto Reche took over the management of the Leipzig Institute and thus the patronage of Schmidl's project. In 1933, Reche openly professed his allegiance to Adolf Hitler.
Otto Reche (1879–1966) used his research to further the concept of ‘racial hygiene’. He devised the ‘biological certificate of descent’ (biologischer Abstammungsnachweis) which was later used in the National Socialist state for the purposes of Rassenpflege, or maintaining the ‘purity’ of the German race.
During World War Two his racial theories served to legitimize the expulsion and murder of the native population of the East European and Soviet territories conquered by Germany.
He was imprisoned for several months after World War Two but following his release he was able to continue with his work as a scientific expert. In 1965 he was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art.
Context
A half-finished manuscript
1934 kann Marianne Schmidl nur die Hälfte ihres Manuskripts über „Afrikanische Spiralwulstkörbe“ zur Beurteilung einreichen. Sie ist durch ihre zwei Parallel-Jobs überlastet und bei schlechter Gesundheit.
Otto Reche considered that if complete, this could be a ‘work of major significance’. However, as he reminded a colleague, the other issue was that Schmidl was Jewish. Reche said he was glad to be able to reject someone on this basis.
After the Anschluss of Austria
After the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria, Marianne Schmidl came under mounting pressure.
She was instructed to produce a ‘certificate of Aryan descent’ (Ariernachweis) but had difficulty obtaining the necessary paperwork.
She informed the National Socialist authorities that she considered herself to be a Mischling of the first degree (Mischling 1. Grades) as her father had once been Jewish.
Forced into retirement
In June 1938 the Nationalbibliothek was instructed to produce a register of its Jewish staff. Schmidl’s name appeared on the list sent by her employer to the ministry.
A few days later the director of the Nationalbibliothek advised Marianne Schmidl to apply for retirement on the basis of the ‘Regulation on the Restructuring of the Austrian Professional Civil Service’. On 1 October 1938 she went into ‘permanent retirement’ at the age of 48.
Declared a ‘full Jew’
On 16 May 1939 Marianne Schmidle was notified that her application to be granted the same legal status as Jewish Mischlinge had been rejected. She was now classified definitively as a ‘full Jew’ (Volljüdin).
After lengthy investigations, in 1941 the National Socialist authorities found proof that Marianne Schmidl’s maternal grandfather Eduard Adolf Friedmann had also been Jewish before getting baptized in 1855.
No way out
Even before this fateful decision, Marianne Schmidl had to submit a declaration of assets and pay the levy on Jewish assets (Judenvermögensabgabe).
She was reliant on financial support from her brother-in-law Karl Wolf, although in 1938 he too had lost his post as professor of physics at the University of Vienna for political reasons.
Quotation from Nebehay (in German). In his memoir, published in 1995, the art dealer recalled meeting Marianne Schmidl (Christian M. Nebehay: Das Glück auf dieser Welt. Erinnerungen, Vienna 1995, pp. 72-73).
The art dealer Christian Nebehay
Now in a grave financial position, Marianne Schmidl decided to sell her artworks from the family collection.
With a tatty portfolio under her arm, she went to see the art dealer Christian M. Nebehay. He was impressed with the drawings and put her in touch with the C. G. Boerner auction house in Leipzig.
Two auctions in Leipzig
C. G. Boerner took 19 of the drawings and put them up for auction in April 1939. In May 1941 C. G. Boerner auctioned additional artworks from the Schmidl family’s collection.
Marianne Schmidl did not, however, deliver the drawings in person. Her brother-in-law Karl Wolf and her friend Etta Becker-Donner, a colleague from the Museum für Völkerkunde, did so on her behalf. In this way the drawings were not labeled as being from Jewish ownership – it was hoped that they would therefore sell for a higher price.
Murdered in the Holocaust
No funds to emigrate
Friends advised Marianne Schmidl to emigrate like so many other Jews at this dreadful time. Schmidl attempted to emigrate to the USA but lacked the funds. She had to hope that she would be able to survive somehow in Austria.
Deportation
On 9 April 1942 Marianne Schmidl was deported to the Izbica ghetto in Poland. The circumstances and precise date of her death are unknown, but Izbica was a transit ghetto where Jews were held prior to their onward deportation to the extermination camps in Sobibór and Bełżec. None of the approximately 4,000 Austrian Jews deported to Izbica survived.
Restitution
Acquired for the Nationalgalerie
Important museums including the Nationalgalerie (National Gallery) in Berlin acquired artworks from Marianne Schmidl at the two auctions in Leipzig. The Nationalgalerie paid 4,600 and 3,700 Reichsmarks respectively for the artworks and added them to its ‘Sammlung der Zeichnungen’ (Inventory of Drawings).
Restituted from the Kupferstichkabinett collection
In 1992 the ‘Sammlung der Zeichnungen’ was transferred to the Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings) in Berlin. A project was launched in 2013 to investigate the provenance of the drawings.
Marianne Schmidl’s drawings were identified as cultural property looted as a result of Nazi persecution and they were returned to the rightful heirs in 2014.
The following museums also returned artworks originally belonging to the Schmidl collection: the Albertina in Vienna (2013), the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Dresden State Art Collections) (2015), the National Gallery of Art in Washington (2016), the Hamburger Kunsthalle art museum (2018), and the Lenbachhaus museum in Munich (2019).
Film by rbb on Marianne Schmidl
Marianne Schmidl's life was explored in a seminal work by Katja Geisenhainer.
Related links
Entry in the Proveana research database →
Katja Geisenhainer: Schmidl, Marianne (deutsche-biographie.de) →
Press release of Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, October 8, 2014
Press release of National Gallery of Art Washington, August 19, 2016
Press release Lenbachhaus Munich, October 29, 2019
Lenbachhaus: Who was Marianne Schmidl
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden: „Welke Blätter“ für den „Sonderauftrag Linz“ →