Oliver Hilmes

Of all the colorful figures on the twentieth-century European cultural scene, hardly anyone has provoked more-polarized reactions than Alma Schindler Mahler Gropius Werfel (1879-1964).

Mistress to a long succession of brilliant men, she married three of the best known: the composer Gustav Mahler, the architect Walter Gropius, and the writer Franz Werfel.

Her admirers regarded Alma as a self-sacrificing figure of inspiration to great artists, many of whom indeed exhibited a remarkable devotion to her.