Gertrud Bender was born on October 15, 1892, in Ludwigshafen. She studied voice in Mannheim, debuted in Breslau (present-day Wrocław) in 1915, and undertook engagements in Berlin and Cologne before going to the Stuttgart Opera in 1921 as a soubrette. There, she sang roles such as Cherubino in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Ännchen in Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz, and Yvonne in Ernst Krenek’s Jonny spielt auf. In 1929, she married the conductor Joseph Rosenstock and went with him to Mannheim, where he served as chief music director. In the years that followed Bender gave guest performances and worked as a voice teacher.
After Rosenstock’s dismissal in 1933 because of his Jewish background, he became musical director of the Jewish Cultural Federation in Berlin and fled to Japan in 1936. Bender’s marriage to a Jew prevented her from receiving any engagements, and so she was forced to rely on guest performances. During a performance in Brünn (present-day Brno) in 1935, she was informed that she had been expelled from the Reich Theater Chamber, effectively ending her career as an artist. Fearing further persecution, she fled to Switzerland in 1937 and, because she was unable to obtain a residence permit there, emigrated to the United States in 1939. There, she settled in New York, but was unable to find work as a singer or voice teacher and had to make ends meet as a maid and hotel worker. Her marriage had since fallen apart as a result of the long period of separation from her husband. Having been granted 5000 deutschmarks as restitution, she returned to Germany in 1957. Gertrud Bender died on March 31, 1965, in Stuttgart.
1892 Ludwigshafen
1965 Stuttgart