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Hanns Eisler

Birthplace: Leipzig, Saxony, Germany
Death: Died in Berlin, Germany
Immediate Family:

Son of Dr.phil. Rudolf Eisler and Ida Maria Eisler
Husband of Charlotte Eisler
Ex-husband of Louise Fischer Eisler Boschan Jolesch
Father of Georg Eisler
Brother of Ruth Fischer and Gerhart Eisler

Occupation: Composer
Managed by: Randy Schoenberg
Last Updated:

About Hanns Eisler

Hanns Eisler (6 July 1898 – 6 September 1962) was a German and Austrian composer.

Eisler was born in Leipzig where his Jewish father, Rudolf Eisler, was a professor of philosophy. In 1901 the family moved to Vienna.

His sister was Ruth Fischer (Elfriede Eisler), a leader of the German Communist Party (KPD) during the 1920’s, and author of The Sexual Ethics of Communism, and Stalin and German Communism: A Study in the Origins of the State Party.

His brother was the journalist and Communist Gerhart Eisler who was believed to be a major Comintern agent operating under the name of Hans Berger. Louis Budenz, a former managing editor of the Daily Worker, called him, "the Number One Communist in the U.S." in a speech in the fall of 1946. Time Magazine wrote of him, "He turned up in China, charged with purging the party of spies and dissidents, sent so many men to their deaths that he was known as 'The Executioner'".[1]

[edit]Early Years and Bertolt Brecht

During World War I Hanns Eisler served as a front-line soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army and was wounded several times in combat. Returning to Vienna after Austria's defeat, he studied from 1919 to 1923 under Arnold Schoenberg. Eisler was the first of Schoenberg's disciples to compose in the twelve-tone or serial technique. He married Charlotte Demant in 1920, they separated in 1934.

In 1925 Eisler moved to Berlin—then a hothouse of experimentation in music, theater, film, art and politics. There he became a member of the Communist Party of Germany. In 1928, he taught at the Marxist Worker's School in Berlin and his son Georg Eisler, who would grow up to become an important painter, was born.

His music became increasingly oriented towards political themes and, to Schoenberg's dismay, more "popular" in style with influences drawn from jazz and cabaret. At the same time, he drew close to Bertolt Brecht, whose own turn towards Marxism happened at about the same time. The collaboration between the two artists lasted for the rest of Brecht's life.

Eisler wrote the music for several Brecht plays, including The Decision (1930), The Mother (1932) and Schweik in the Second World War (1957). They also collaborated on protest songs that intervened in the political turmoil of Weimar Germany in the early 1930s. Their Solidarity Song became a popular militant anthem sung in street protests and public meetings throughout Europe, and their Ballad of Paragraph 218 was the world's first song protesting laws against abortion. Brecht-Eisler songs of this period tended to look at life from "below"—from the perspective of prostitutes, hustlers, the unemployed and the working poor. He worked with Brecht and the director Slatan Dudow on the documentary film Kuhle Wampe which was banned by the Nazis in 1933.

[edit]In Exile

After 1933, Eisler's music and Brecht's poetry were banned by the Nazi Party. Both artists fled, first to Moscow where The Measures Taken was produced and staged.[2] Eventually, they sought refuge in the United States, along with other exiles fleeing Nazi Germany.

In New York City, Eisler taught composition at the New School and wrote experimental chamber and documentary music. Moving shortly before World War II to Los Angeles, he composed several Hollywood film scores, two of which—Hangmen Also Die! and None but the Lonely Heart—were nominated for Oscars. Also working on Hangmen Also Die! was Bertolt Brecht, who wrote the story along with director Fritz Lang.

In 1947 he wrote the book Composing for the Films with Theodor W. Adorno. But in several chamber and choral compositions of this period, Eisler also returned to the twelve-tone method he had abandoned in Berlin. His Fourteen Ways of Describing the Rain—composed for Arnold Schoenberg's 70th birthday celebration—is considered a masterpiece of the genre.

Eisler's two most notable works of the 1930s and 40s were the monumental Deutsche Sinfonie (1935-57)—a choral symphony in eleven movements based on poems by Brecht and Ignazio Silone—and a cycle of art songs published as the Hollywood Songbook (1938-43). With lyrics by Brecht, Mörike, Hölderlin and Goethe, it established Eisler's reputation as one of the twentieth century's great composers of German lieder.

[edit]The House Investigation

Eisler's grave in Berlin

Eisler's promising career in the U.S. was interrupted by the Cold War. He was one of the first artists placed on the Hollywood blacklist by the movie studio bosses. In two interrogations by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the composer was accused of being "the Karl Marx of music" and the chief Soviet agent in Hollywood. Among his accusers was his sister Ruth Fischer, who also testified before the House Committee that her other brother, Gerhart, was a major Communist agent. The Communist press denounced her as a "German Trotskyite." Among the works that Eisler composed for the Communist Party was the Comintern March, "The Comintern calls you / Raise high Soviet banner / In steeled ranks to battle / Raise sickle and hammer."

[edit]His Supporters

Eisler's supporters—including his friend Charlie Chaplin and the composers Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein—organized benefit concerts to raise money for his defense fund, but he was deported early in 1948.

Folksinger Woody Guthrie protested the composer's deportation in his lyrics for "Eisler on the Go"—recorded fifty years later by Billy Bragg and Wilco on the Mermaid Avenue album. In the song, an introspective Guthrie asked himself what he would do if called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, ""I don't know what I'll do, / I don't know what I'll do / Eisler's on the come and go / and I don't know what I'll do."

[edit]On Departing from America

On 26 March 1948, Eisler and his wife departed from LaGuardia Airport flying to Prague. Before he left he read a statement:


About his House testimony, he said: "I listened to … the questions of these men and I saw their faces. As an old anti-fascist it became plain to me that these men represent fascism in its most direct form … but I take with me the image of the real American people whom I love."

[edit]In East Germany

Eisler returned to Germany and settled in East Berlin. Back in East Germany, he composed the national anthem of the German Democratic Republic, a cycle of cabaret-style songs to satirical poems by Kurt Tucholsky, and incidental music for theater, films and television. His most ambitious project of the period was a modern opera on the Faust theme. The libretto, which he published in 1952, portrayed Faust as an indecisive person who betrayed the cause of the working class by not joining the Peasants' War. This interpretation was attacked by the official DDR press and even by Walter Ulbricht and was refused authorization by a cultural commission summoned specially for the case by the Berlin Academy of Arts. All of these disapproved of the negative depiction of Faust as a renegade and accused the work of being "a slap in the face of German national feeling" (Neues Deutschland) and of having "formalistically deformed one of the greatest works of our German poet Goethe" (Ulbricht). Disheartened, Eisler stopped work on the music for the opera and it was never completed. Ironically, less than five years after his deportation from the United States, Eisler was again forced to testify in hearings where his political loyalty was questioned.[specify] Although he continued to work as a composer and to teach at the East Berlin conservatory, the gap between Eisler and the cultural functionaries of East Germany grew wider in the last decade of his life. During this period, he befriended musician Wolf Biermann, whose critical attitude towards the GDR government later led to exile in West Germany.

On 27 July 1953 Time reported:

" West Berlin police arrested a pudgy little drunk in a greasy suit for brawling over his taxi fare, found that he was none other than Hanns Eisler, East Germany's top composer, former Hollywood tunesmith, and brother of famed Communist Gerhart Eisler. Barely able to stand on his feet, Eisler treated his jailers to a long night of pie-eyed indiscretions. "The stock of freedom in East Germany is not high," he shouted. "Too much freedom doesn't become a people. As for the uprising of June 17, "we expected it because the workers were not living as well as workers in West Germany. In fact, the living standard in the U.S.S.R. is lower than that of the U.S.A." Sober and silent 22 hours later, Eisler was released, scurried back to the Soviet zone.[3]

Eisler collaborated with Brecht until the latter's death in 1956. He never recovered completely from his friend's demise and his remaining years were marred by depression and declining health. He died in East Berlin and is buried near Brecht in the Dorotheenstadt Cemetery.


1918: Gesang des Abgeschiedenen ("Die Mausefalle" (after Christian Morgenstern); "Wenn es nur einmal so ganz still wäre" (after Rainer Maria Rilke)

1919: Drei Lieder (Li-Tai-Po, Klabund); "Sehr leises Gehn im lauen Wind"; "Spartakus"

1922: Allegro moderato and Waltzes; Allegretto and Andante for Piano

1923: Divertimento; Four Piano Pieces

1925: Eight Piano Pieces

1926: Tagebuch des Hanns Eisler (Diary of Hanns Eisler); 11 Zeitungsausschnitte; Ten Lieder; Three Songs for Men's Chorus (after Heinrich Heine)

1928: "Drum sag der SPD ade"; "Lied der roten Matrosen" ("Song of the Red Sailors", with Erich Weinert); Pantomime (with Béla Balázs); "Kumpellied"; "Red Sailors' Song"; "Couplet vom Zeitfreiwilligen"; "Newspaper's Son"; "Auch ein Schumacher (verschiedene Dichter)"; "Was möchst du nicht" (from Des Knaben Wunderhorn); "Wir sind das rote Sprachrohr"

1929: Tempo der Zeit (Tempo of Time) for chorus and small orchestra, op. 16; Six Lieder (after Weinert, Weber, Jahnke and Vallentin); "Lied der Werktätigen" ("Song of the Working People"; with Stephan Hermlin)

1930: "Die Maßnahme" ("The Measure", Lehrstück, text of Bertolt Brecht), op. 20; Six Ballads (after Weber, Brecht, and Walter Mehring); Four Ballads (after B. Traven, Kurt Tucholsky, Wiesner-Gmeyner, and Arendt); Suite No. 1

1931: "Lied der roten Flieger" (after Kirsanow); Four Songs (after Frank, Weinert) from the film Niemandsland'; Three Songs from the film Kuhle Wampe (texts of Brecht); "Ballad of the Pirates", "Song of Mariken", Four Ballads (with Bertolt Brecht); Suite No. 2; Three Songs after Erich Weinert; "Das Lied vom vierten Mann" ("The Song of the Fourth Man"); "Streiklied" ("Strike Song"); Suite No. 3

1932: "Ballad of the Women and the Soldiers" (with Brecht); "Song from the Urals" (after Tretyakov); Seven Piano Pieces; Kleine Sinfonie (Little Symphony)

1934: "Einheitsfrontlied" ("United Front Song"); "Saarlied" ("Saar Song"), "Lied gegen den Krieg" ("Song Against War"), "Ballade von der Judenhure Marie Sanders" ("Ballad of the Jewish prostitute Marie Sanders"), Songs from Die Rundköpfe und die Spitzköpfe; "Sklave, wer wird dich befreien" ("Slave, who will liberate you"; with Brecht); "California Ballad"; Six Pieces; Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H (string trio)

1935: "Die Mutter" ("The Mothers", with Brecht; cantata)

1935: Lenin Requiem for solo voices, chorus and orchestra; Deutsche Sinfonie (after texts of Bertolt Brecht and Ignazio Silone)

1937: "Friedenssong" ("Peace Song", after Petere); "Kammerkantaten" ("Chamber Cantatas"); Ulm 1592; "Bettellied "("Begging Song", with Brecht); "Lenin Requiem" (with Brecht)

1938: Cantata on Herr Meyers' First Birthday; String Quartet

1939: Nonet No. 1

1940: Chamber Symphony; Suite for Septet No. 1

1940/41: Film Music to The Forgotten Village

1940/41: Nonet No. 2

1941: Woodburry-Liederbüchlein (Woodbury Songbook, 20 Songs); "14 Arten" (for the 70th birthday of Arnold Schoenberg)

1942: "Hollywood-Elegien" ("Hollywood Elegies"; with Brecht) in the Hollywooder Liederbuch (Hollywood Songbook)

1943: Film music for Hangmen Also Die!; Piano Sonata No. 3

1943: Songs to "Schweik in the Second World War"; "Deutsche Misere" (with Brecht)

1946: "Glückliche Fahrt" ("Prosperous Voyage", after Goethe); Incidental music to The Life of Galileo

1947: Septet No. 2

1948: "Lied über die Gerechtigkeit" ("Song of Justice", after W. Fischer)

1949: Rhapsody; "Lied über den Frieden" ("Song about Peace"); National Anthem of the DDR (text by Becher); "Treffass"

1950: "Mitte des Jahrhunderts" (after Becher); Four Lieder on Die Tage der Commune; Children's Songs (with Brecht)

1952: "Das Lied vom Glück" ("The Song of Happiness"; after Brecht); "Das Vorbild" (after Goethe)

1955: Songs for the film Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti; "Im Blumengarten" ("In the flower garden"); "Die haltbare Graugans"; Three Lieder after Brecht; "Bel Ami"

1956: Vier Szenen auf dem Lande ("Four Scenes from the Country", after Erwin Strittmatter); Children's Songs (after Brecht); "Fidelio" (after Beethoven)

1957: Bilder aus der Kriegsfibel; "Die Teppichweber von Kujan-Bulak" ("The Carpetweavers of Kujan-Bulak", with Brecht); "Lied der Tankisten" (text by Weinert); "Regimenter gehn"; "Marsch der Zeit" ("March of Time", after Mayakovsky); Three Lieder (after Mayakovsky and Peter Hacks); "Sputnik-Lied" ("Sputnik Song", text of Kuba)

1958: "Am 1. Mai" ("To May Day", with Brecht)

1962: "Ernste Gesänge" ("Serious Songs"), seven Lieder after Friedrich Hölderlin, Viertel, Giacomo Leopardi, Richter, and Stephan Hermlin


^ The Man from Moscow, Time Magazine, Monday, 17 February 1947

^ Bertolt Brecht and the Politics of Secrecy by Eva Horn, p. 17

^ Names that Make the News, Time Magazine, Monday 27 July 1953

-------------------- Aber es ist wirklich zu dumm, dass erwachsene Menschen, Künstler, die wahrhaftig Besseres zu sagen haben sollten, sich mit Weltverbesserungstheorien einlassen, obwohl man ja aus der Geschichte wissen kann, wie all das ausgeht. Wenn ich etwas zu sagen hätte, würde ich ihn wie einen dummen Jungen übers Knie legen und ihm 25 heruntermessen und ihn versprechen lassen, dass er nie mehr seinen Mund aufmacht und sich auf Notenschreiben beschränkt. Dafür hat er Talent und das andere soll er andern überlassen. - Arnold Schönberg über Hanns Eisler nach dessen Verhör vor dem House Committee on

 Un-American Activities, 1947
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Hanns Eisler's Timeline

July 6, 1898
Leipzig, Saxony, Germany
Age 21
April 20, 1928
Age 29
Vienna, Austria
December 7, 1937
Age 39
Prague, Hlavní město Praha, Hlavní město Praha, Czech Republic
Age 55
September 6, 1962
Age 64
Berlin, Germany