Correspondence to Alma Mahler, 1955-1956.

Format:

Other

Author/Creator:

Hilberling, Maria Brigitta.

Language:

French

German

Physical Description:

8 items (10 leaves)

Contained In:

Mahler-Werfel Papers. Folder 475.

Place of Publication:

1955-1956.

Language Note:

In German and French.

Biography/History:

Hilberling was a Dominican nun living in the Zoffingen Dominican Convent on Lake Constance (Dominkanerkloster St. Nikolaus). In the early 1930s she had been a teacher at St. Dominikus-Gymnasium, a Catholic girl's high school in Karlsruhe, Germany, run by the Zoffingen Domincan sisters; under the Nazi regime she was dismissed from teaching because she was of half Jewish descent. Arrested and imprisoned in Berlin in September 1944, she stood under threat of the death penalty but was freed along with other prisoners by the advancing Russian troops in April 1945. Later she was an archivist of the Zoffingen Dominican Convent and published a history of it.

Summary:

Hilberling expresses admiration for the work of Franz Werfel and often articulates philosophic and religious reflections. She talks about having been in prison in Berlin during the Nazi era and includes a prayer in French, which she learned from another woman there. Hilberling was an acquaintance of the artist Annemarie Meier-Graefe (the wife at that time of Hermann Broch) and the writer Ellen Delp, both of whom she mentions several times. Also included are 2 9-1/2 x 7 inch photographs of religious artwork in Constance.