Faking Klimt to Survive: Elisabeth Lederer – Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt’s Life After 1938

The Last Klimt: Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt’s Life After 1938

In the shimmering cultural landscape of turn-of-the-century Vienna, the Lederer family stood as titans of industry and patrons of the arts. August and Szeréna Lederer were not merely wealthy; they were tastemakers whose discerning eye and immense fortune helped shape the course of modern art. Their collection of works by Gustav Klimt was legendary, and the artist himself was a close family friend. Into this world of privilege, Elisabeth was born in 1894. Her life seemed destined for gilded security. Yet, the seismic political shifts of 1938 would shatter this illusion, forcing Elisabeth into a desperate battle for survival that defines Elisabeth Lederer – Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt’s life after 1938.

A Gilded Cage in Viennese Jewish Society Before the Storm

Elisabeth’s upbringing was steeped in the intellectual currents of Vienna. Surrounded by the avant-garde, she herself possessed artistic talent, encouraged by Gustav Klimt. Her marriage to Baron Wolfgang Bachofen-Echt further solidified her position within the upper echelons of society. However, the shadows of antisemitism were lengthening. The Anschluss in March 1938, the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany, transformed this simmering prejudice into systematic, state-sanctioned persecution.

For Vienna’s assimilated Jewish families like the Lederers, part of the vibrant Viennese Jewish society, the new reality was a brutal awakening. The Nuremberg Laws were swiftly implemented, stripping them of their rights and property. For Elisabeth, the cataclysm was personal. The Nazi regime’s policies tore through “mixed” marriages. In 1938, her marriage to the Baron was dissolved, the same year their young son died. Stripped of the protection her husband’s name afforded her, Elisabeth, now legally defined as Jewish, began her terrifying ordeal after the Nazi annexation.

The Klimt Paternity Claim: A Gambit in Nazi Vienna

As escape from the Reich became impossible, Elisabeth Lederer’s struggle after 1938 intensified. She and her mother, Szeréna Lederer, devised a plan of audacious desperation. Their strategy hinged on a long-whispered family rumor: that Elisabeth was not the biological daughter of the Jewish industrialist August Lederer, but the illegitimate child of their close friend, the “German-blooded” national icon, Gustav Klimt.

Proving such a claim in the hyper-bureaucratic and racially obsessed Nazi state was a monumental task. It required navigating a labyrinth of pseudo-scientific racial “examinations” and procuring official validation. After a perilous process, Elisabeth obtained a “certificate of ancestry” from the infamous Reich Office for Genealogical Research. This document officially declared that her legal father, August Lederer, was not her biological one, a crucial turning point in Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt’s post-Anschluss experience.

Pseudoscience and Survival: The Racial-Biological Assessment

The “evidence” assembled to support this life-or-death claim was a grotesque parody of scientific inquiry. The report was built on sworn statements, chief among them from her mother, Szeréna Lederer, who signed an affidavit from exile. The core of the examination, however, was a racial-biological assessment. Photographs of Elisabeth were compared with those of her two “undisputedly” Jewish brothers and with portraits of August Lederer and Gustav Klimt. The official report, laden with the jargon of racial science, concluded that her descent from Klimt was “not improbable.”

To bolster this visual “evidence,” the family enlisted further “expert” opinions, including a graphological analysis. The most bizarre contribution came from Paul Schultze-Naumburg, a fanatical Nazi art critic and racial theorist. He was presented with sculptures by Elisabeth and, in a pseudoscientific diatribe, argued her work showed no “Jewish traits.” He concluded her talent could only be explained by a “non-Jewish lineage.” This ludicrous assertion, from a leading Nazi ideologue, lent a veneer of credibility to the Klimt paternity claim.

A Fragile Safety: Life as a ‘Mischling’ in Vienna

Armed with this bizarre portfolio, the certificate was issued. Elisabeth was officially reclassified as a “Mischling” (a person of mixed race). This piece of paper transformed her status, offering a fragile shield. Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt’s survival post-1938 seemed, for a moment, secured.

While her family’s immense Lederer art collection was systematically plundered by the Nazis, with Hermann Göring himself taking a personal interest in the Klimt masterpieces, Elisabeth managed to survive in Nazi Vienna. Her story diverges sharply from the over 65,000 Viennese Jews who were murdered. She remained, a ghost of the city’s brilliant past.

The later years of Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt did not have a happy ending. The years of persecution and loss took a profound toll. She died in Vienna on October 19, 1944, and was laid to rest in the family vault in the Hietzing Cemetery.

Her story is a powerful Viennese tale. It is a narrative not only of survival but of the absurdity of a system that forced individuals to fabricate new identities to escape murder. Elisabeth Lederer’s story after the Anschluss reveals the lengths a family would go to fight for a chance to live. Her journey through this darkness is a stark reminder of the hidden histories that lie just beneath Vienna’s imperial facades—stories of resilience, compromise, and the desperate struggle to survive.