Hedwig Lemberger, the youngest daughter of Carl and Karoline Lemberger, was born in Vienna on 13 April 1873. She had six siblings: Hermann (1862–1942), Ida (1861–1942), Rudolf (1863–1922), Siegfried (1865–1924), Pauline (1866–1869) and Melanie (1870–1942). After attending elementary and secondary school and the Protestant school for further education, Lemberger attended courses as a guest student at the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna, where she worked on her publications on the textile industry between 1906 and 1911. She then found employment as a secretary at the Zentralstelle für Kinderschutz und Jugendfürsorge (Central Office for Child Protection and Youth Welfare). In 1917, Lemberger entered public service: In the industrial inspectorate, Lemberger was responsible for monitoring female workers in Bohemia who were serving in the war. From 1918, she was employed as a consultant for women's work at the Federal Ministry for Social Administration. She was responsible for setting up a job placement service and retraining opportunities for unemployed women after the end of the Great War. From 1921, Lemberger was assigned to the trade inspectorates in Vienna's 5th and 6th districts, where she remained until 1938. She was involved in the women's movement, for example as a member of the Bund Österreichischer Frauenvereine (BÖFV) (National Council of Women Austria, NCW Austria.

After the annexation of Austria to the German Reich in 1938, Hedwig Lemberger was among those persecuted due to her Jewish origins. On 29 June 1938, she complied with the request to declare her assets. On 13 March 1938, Lemberger was granted leave of absence due to her Jewish descent and was retired on 31 January 1939 on the basis of Section 3, Paragraph 1 of the Ordinance on the Reorganization of the Austrian Civil Service. At this time, Lemberger was already living at Hasenauerstraße 16 in Vienna’s 19th district; previously, like her brother Hermann, she had lived at Universitätsstraße 4 in Vienna’s 1st district. Hermann Lemberger, who had practiced the profession of stock exchange clerk, owned a number of works of art by Isidor Kaufmann, Franz Eybl, John Quincy Adams, Hans Ranzoni and others, which were expropriated by the Gestapo in 1941/1942. In November 1940, Lemberger moved into a sublet at Kreindlgasse 15/2 in Döbling, Vienna’s 19th district, where she lived until her escape to Barcelona in June 1941. There she boarded the SS Villa de Madrid with her works of art, which had been cleared for export, and reached New York on 13 July 1941. In 1948, as the only survivor of the family, Hedwig Lemberger made inquiries about the works of art seized by the Gestapo from her brother Hermann, who was presumably murdered in Treblinka, but these came to nothing. Hedwig Lemberger died in New York on 9 March 1951 and was buried at Rodedale and Rosehill Cemetery in Linden, New Jersey.