Fondazione Hermann Hesse Montagnola
Women
Marie and Adele Hesse

Within Hesse's family, two women were determinant for his formation: his mother Marie, who died in 1902, and his sister Adele, two years older than him, with whom he kept a strong relation until her death in 1949.

In 1904 Hesse marries Mia Bernoulli, 9 years older than him – the first woman in Switzerland to have a photography atelier. They move to Gaienhofen on the lake of Constance, where their three children are born: Bruno in 1905, Heiner in 1909 and Martin in 1911. Mia Bernoulli and Hermann Hesse divorce in 1919.

In Ticino Hermann Hesse meets a young woman, Ruth Wenger. He marries her in 1924; they will divorce three years later.

Shortly afterwards Ninon Ausländer comes into Hesse's life. In 1931 the couple moves in the Casa Rossa in Montagnola. They get marry the same year.
Hermann Hesse will stay with Ninon until his death, in 1962.

Marie Hesse
Adele Gundert-Hesse

Mia Bernoulli (1868–1963)

In 1903, at the age of 26, Hesse falls in love, in Basle, with Maria Bernoulli, 9 years older than him. Maria is a free-lance photographer and is the first woman in Switzerland to have a studio in the old town. Moreover she is a talented musician. Together they set out on journeys and frequent the artistic circles in Basle. Shortly before their marriage in 1904, Hesse writes to a friend of his that Mia is very similar to him «as far as concerns education, life experience and intelligence, older than me, but from all sides a clever and indipendent personality». After the marriage they move to Gaienhofen, on the lake of Constance, where their children Bruno, Heiner and Martin are born in 1905, 1909 and 1911.

Mia, who had always been introvert, is now withdrawing more and more into herself, while her husband escapes from the imaginary idyll of his family and throws himself into his work and travelling. In 1912 they move to Bern.

The second son Heiner, (1909-2003), well remembered his mother during the Bernese period: a cheerful person, full of life, who often took walks with her children, excursions in the mountains or went swimming with them. In 1918 the couple decides to separate. In the meantime Mia shows the first symptoms of a mental illness. She gets worse and must be sent to a psychiatric clinic. In the same year Hesse and Mia separate once and for all.

In the tale Iris, which Hesse writes after the separation and dedicates to Mia, it says:
«she would rather live with flowers and music and perhaps a book nearby, and in a solitary silence […] Sometimes she was so delicate and sensitive  that anything extraneous could hurt her and made her cry […] Then she was radiant again and quiet in a solitary happiness, and who saw this, felt how difficult it was to reach this beautiful and peculiar woman to offer her something or to have a meaning for her.»

After recovering from the mental crisis, Mia organizes the dismantling of the house in Bern and moves to Ascona. When she gets old she moves to her son Martin in Bern, and later goes in a rest home, where she will pass away at the age of 95. Till the end she cultivated many interests and played the piano.

Mia Bernouilli

Ruth Wenger (1897–1994)

In the Spring of 1919 Hesse leaves definitively his family in Bern and moves to Montagnola in the Casa Camuzzi. In this period he meets the beautiful, young and fascinating singer Ruth Wenger, who, in Summer, moves to Carona with her parents.

Hesse soon becomes close to the Wengers, whom he sees regularly. In particular with Ruth's mother, the writer Lisa Wenger, Hesse will develop a  deep and lasting  friendship. Hesse and Ruth  meets very often, though only for short time, either in Carona or  in Zurich, where Ruth  studied singing.

In 1923 Hermann Hesse gives her friend the love short story, richly illustrated, Piktors Verwandlungen. They marry in 1924, without  changing much of their daily life. They soon become quite unhappy, but they will only divorce in 1927.

In 1928 Hesse recalls Ruth with his poem Einer einstigen Geliebten [To a former Lover]:
«You celebrated the Sacrament with me
And lust appeared to you with love,
And therefore you did not unveiled me,
You never revealed me the anxious riddle of your being and confiding in love,
You always remained a mystery to me. […]»

Ruth Wenger

Ninon Ausländer (1895–1966)

Ninon was born in 1895 in Cernowitz, a small town in the farthest East of the Hapsburg Empire. At the age of 14 she read  Peter Camenzind and, very impressed by the novel, she wrote to Hermann Hesse. This started an uninterrupted correspondence between the well known author, 18 years older than her, and the young fan, who did  not lack a critical mind.
Ninon era nata nel 1895 a Cernowitz, una piccola città dell'estremo est dell'Impero Asburgico.

In 1913 Ninon left for Vienna where she began to study medicine, and later History of Art, Archeology and Philosophy. Here she met her first husband, Fred Dolbin, an engineer, who afterwards became a famous caricaturist. She studies in Paris and Berlin.

Ninon and Hermann Hesse first meet in Montagnola in 1922.
Their love affair begins in Zurich in March 1926, when they both were going through the separation from their respective spouses,  Fred Dolbin and Ruth Wenger.
Ninon often visited Hess at the Casa Camuzzi in Montagnola; after a while they finally moved together. Soon Hesse got used to having her near him, even though this reality was a sort of play for him.

In 1927 Hesse writes the following poem:

For Ninon
Staying by me,
where life is full of darkness
and outside the stars hasten
and everything is sparkling,
knowing the centre
of the wheel of life,
all this makes you and your love for me
a good spirit.
In my darkness
you sense the well hidden star.
With your love
you remind me
of life's sweetest essence.
Foto Martin Hesse © All rights reserved
 
 
Hesse resigns himeself unwillingly to this marriage and writes to Alfred Kubin:
«My marriage is nothing else than what I conceive a marriage can be: a capitulation after a long resistence, an act of surrender [...] however I am grateful to this woman for having  me lead  into temptation  again, almost at the limit of aging; and that she takes care of the house and feeds me with healthy food, since I am often very ill.»
In the same year of their marriage, 1931, they move to the Casa Rossa, on the outskirts of Montagnola, where Ninon keeps the house with determination and resolution, supports Hesse, and keeps away unwelcomed visitors.


Ninon still follows her interests, which, during the years, have concentrated in Greek mythology. The frequent trips to Greece mean physical and intellectual separations, which give her new strength to face daily life. Ninon shares her experiences with Hesse, and by telling him about her travels, he is able to participate to his wife's life.

In a letter from 1954 to Gisela Kleine, Ninon expresses how important it was for her to have a life of her own, independent from Hesse:
«Do not teach that the spirit of sacrifice is a feminine postulate. Being  companion  is a need  for the husband as well as for the wife, but it should be a secondary aim and not the main thing.»

After Hesse's death she explains:
«For this reason he could only live with me […] because I knew that his work, and not only, also the inclination to work, was the most important thing for him; love, society, friendship and comradeship, all was of minor importance.»

After Hermann's death in 1962, Ninon will make an accurate inventary of his legacy and decides to donate it to the German Archive of Literature of Marbach. After finishing the manuscript Kindheit und Jugend vor Neunzehnhundert, Hermann Hesse inn Briefen und Lebenszeugnissen [Childhood and Youth before 1900. Hermann Hesse in letters and testimonies of life], Ninon dies on September 22, 1966, in Montagnola.

Ninon Ausländer

© Fondazione Hermann Hesse Montagnola