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Gisela Brinker-Gabler, biography
Biography
Schüler was born in Elberfeld on February 11, 1869. Her mother, Jeannette Schüler (née Kissing) was a central figure in her poetry, and the main character of her play Die Wupper was inspired by her father, Aaron Schüler. She married Jonathan Berthold Lasker in 1894 and moved with him to Berlin, where she trained as an artist. She published her first poetry volume in 1902. She and Lasker divorced in 1903 and she wed Georg Lewin (known under a pseudonym of Herwarth Walden) six months later. Between 1906 and 1911, she published her first prose and prose collection, Das Peter-Hille-Buch and Die Nächte der Tino von Bagdad respectively, as well as a play called “Die Wupper” and a volume of poetry called Meine Wunder. She separated from Lewin in 1910 and divorced him in 1912, leaving her destitute and dependent on friends such as Karl Kraus.
Schüler won the Kleish Prize in 1932, but was physically harassed and threatened by Nazis due to her Jewish heritage. She emigrated to Zurich, Palestine, and finally Jerusalem in 1937. She was stripped of her German citizenship the year after and could not return to Europe due to World War II’s outbreak. Schüler suffered the aftereffects of a heart attack as her health deteriorated; she died on January 22, 1945 in Jerusalem.
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