Personal Information

Name
Margarethe (Grete) Julie Legler-Schindler
Gender ♀️ Female

Parents ( 1 )

Father
Julius Victor Berger
Mother Anna Sofie Moll-Schindler-Bergen

Additional Information

Additional Info

Year 1907Wilhelm Legler (1875-1951)Margarethe (Grete) Julie Legler-Schindler (1881-1942) and their son Wilhelm (Willy) Carl Emil Legler (1902-1960).

Relation to Gustav Mahler (1860-1911): A half-sister of his wife

  • Half sisters: 2:
  1. Alma Mahler (1879-1964). Her father is Jacob Emil Schindler (1842-1892).
  2. Maria Eberstaller-Moll (1899-1945). Her father is Carl Julius Rudolf Moll (1861-1945).
  • Died: 04-12-1942 Landesirrenanstalt, Grosschweidnitz, Dresden, Germany. Aged 62. Murdered by the Nazis.
  • Buried: 05-01-1943 Central cemetery (41A-G2-7), Vienna, Austria. Legler Family grave.

1883. Alma Mahler (1879-1964) and Margarethe (Grete) Julie Legler-Schindler (1881-1942).

1883 ca. Margarethe (Grete) Julie Legler-Schindler (1881-1942) and Alma Mahler (1879-1964). Vienna.

1884 ca. Alma Mahler (1879-1964) and Margarethe (Grete) Julie Legler-Schindler (1881-1942). Vienna.

1886 ca. Alma Mahler (1879-1964)Anna Sofie Moll-Schindler-Bergen (1857-1938) and Margarethe (Grete) Julie Legler-Schindler (1881-1942). Vienna.

1889. Margarethe (Grete) Julie Legler-Schindler (1881-1942) and Alma Mahler (1879-1964). Vienna.

1889 ca. Alma Mahler (1879-1964)Margarethe (Grete) Julie Legler-Schindler (1881-1942) and Jakob Emil Schindler (1842-1892)Plankenberg castle, Austria.

1889 ca. Alma Mahler (1879-1964)Carl Julius Rudolf Moll (1861-1945)Margarethe (Grete) Julie Legler-Schindler (1881-1942)Anna Sofie Moll-Schindler-Bergen (1857-1938) (in the middle) and Jakob Emil Schindler (1842-1892)Plankenberg castle, Austria.

1889 ca. Margarethe (Grete) Julie Legler-Schindler (1881-1942)Carl Julius Rudolf Moll (1861-1945) and Anna Sofie Moll-Schindler-Bergen (1857-1938) (standing). Plankenberg castle, Austria.

1890 ca. Alma Mahler (1879-1964)Anna Sofie Moll-Schindler-Bergen (1857-1938) and Margarethe (Grete) Julie Legler-Schindler (1881-1942). City of Altaussee.

1891. Alma Mahler (1879-1964) and Margarethe (Grete) Julie Legler-Schindler (1881-1942). Vienna.

Year 1907. Wilhelm (Willy) Carl Emil Legler (1902-1960)Margarethe (Grete) Julie Legler-Schindler (1881-1942) and her mother in law Adele Kohler.

Photo grave.

More

  • Nicknames: Grete, Gretel, Gretl, Legler-Schindler
  • 04-02-1879 Vienna: Jacob Emil Schindler (1842-1892) married the operetta singer Anna Sofie Moll-Schindler-Bergen (1857-1938), who may have been pregnant at the time of the wedding. Their financial situation was somewhat desperate and they had to share an apartment with a colleague of Schindler's, Julius Victor Berger (1850-1902). While still living there, they gave birth to a daughter who would later become famous as Alma Mahler (1879-1964), Gustav Mahlers wife.
  • 00-00-1881 Vienna: During a period when Jacob Emil Schindler (1842-1892) was absent due to an illness, Anna Sofie Moll-Schindler-Bergen (1857-1938) began an affair with Julius Victor Berger (1850-1902). It is believed that her daughter Margarethe (Grete) Julie Schindler (1880-1942), was actually a daughter of Julius Victor Berger (1850-1902). Grete was two years younger than Alma. Alma learned only later that Grete was her half-sister. In their childhood the two had a good relation but later they had hardly anything to do with each other.
  • Married: 04-09-1900 Bad Goisern
  • 25-12-1911: Suicide attempts. From then on she spent the rest of her life in mental institutions in Austria and Germany (with one brief period of an exception). She suffered from dementia praecox: Dementia praecox (a "premature dementia" or "precocious madness"). A chronic, deteriorating psychotic disorder characterized by rapid cognitive disintegration, usually beginning in the late teens or early adulthood. The term was first used in 1891 by Arnold Pick (1851-1924), a professor of psychiatry at Charles University in Prague. His brief clinical report described the case of a person with a psychotic disorder resembling hebephrenia. German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) popularised it in his first detailed textbook descriptions of a condition that eventually became a different disease concept and relabeled as schizophrenia. Kraepelin reduced the complex psychiatric taxonomies of the nineteenth century by dividing them into two classes: manic-depressive psychosis and dementia praecox. This division, commonly referred to as the Kraepelinian dichotomy, had a fundamental impact on twentieth-century psychiatry, though it has also been questioned. The primary disturbance in dementia praecox is a disruption in cognitive or mental functioning in attention, memory, and goal-directed behaviour. Kraepelin contrasted this with manic-depressive psychosis, now termed bipolar disorder, and also with other forms of mood disorder, including major depressive disorder. He eventually concluded that it was not possible to distinguish his categories on the basis of cross-sectional symptoms.
  • 00-00-1917 Divorce.
  • 04-12-1942 Dresden: Grete was killed by the Nazis because of her mental illness. Alma Mahler (1879-1964) is not impressed by the fate of her younger half-sister. In Alma Mahler-Werfel's autobiography My Life she described her as a "dependent younger sister".
  • 1898-1946 Correspondence to Alma Mahler: Two items from Gretl were inserted by Alma between the pages of her diary: a postcard, at the entry for 12. Oct. 1898 (Suite 8), and a letter at the entry for 27. Sept. 1900 (Suite 19); see Tagebuchsuiten ed. Beaumont and Rode-Breymann. A undated item from Gretl to Wilhelm Legler (1875-1951) and Wilhelm (Willy) Carl Emil Legler (1902-1960) was written while she was institutionalized and bears a drawing by her. The item from Legler to Alma, dated 1946, reports some news about Alma's family members from the war period.

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