Erich Eisner

The talented young conductor and composer Erich Eisner (1897-1956) became assistant to Bruno Walter (1876-1962) in 1921 after his training at the Academy of Music in Munich. Bruno Walter was at that time one of the most important conductors worldwide and Musical Director at the National Theater in Munich. Whoever was allowed to learn with this great musician, many doors were open to him. 

However, anti-Semitic slogans could no longer be overlooked in Munich's cityscape as early as 1922. Bruno Walter recalls in his memoirs "blood-red posters with the sinister swastika." It is very likely that the eminent conductor and his master student worriedly exchanged their observations, for Bruno Walter was also Jewish.  

In 1923, Erich Eisner's apprenticeship with Bruno Walter ended, as the latter moved from Munich to Berlin, where he took over the direction of the Städtische Oper. The two musicians remained in correspondence with each other. In the following years, Erich Eisner gained important professional experience as a conductor in Klagenfurt, St. Pölten, Stuttgart, Leipzig and Landshut and performed under the stage name Erich Erck. 

In 1933, Erich Eisner received an offer from the Stadttheater Stuttgart for a permanent position as conductor. However, he was unable to take up the position because he was Jewish - the takeover of power by the National Socialists prevented the hopeful careers of countless artists* in Germany. Erich Eisner had to give up his stage name Erich Erck and was not admitted to the Reich Chamber of Music - At the same time he was banned from his profession. His appeal, in which he referred to his four years of military service in World War I, was rejected. 
 

In 1927, Erich Eisner met the daughter of the owner of the prestigious shoe store Deutsch-Amerikanische Schuhgesellschaft (D.A.S.): Elsa Knoblauch (1907-1988) was 20 years old, and the very next year she became the manager of a branch of D.A.S. Eisner fell in love with the woman, who was ten years younger, but Elsa's father forbade the marriage because he wanted a man with regular and good income for his daughter, which did not seem assured to him in a musician. 
The father's resistance remained for years, although Eisner was a regular guest in the Knoblauch house. Only after the death of Elsa's father in 1933 were Erich and Elsa able to become engaged and marry on June 26, 1934, in the Liberal Synagogue at Reichenbachstrasse 24 in Munich. In 1935, their son Manfred was born. 
 

Erich Eisner became involved in the Jewish Cultural Association of Bavaria after being banned from his profession by the National Socialists. Both artistically and organizationally, he contributed to a quality musical life there: He conducted the orchestra of the Jewish Cultural League in Munich and was also its managing director. Until 1938 Eisner conducted 18 concerts of the orchestra in Munich and Augsburg. As organist, he played at Munich's main synagogue on Herzog-Max-Strasse. The synagogue, inaugurated in 1887, was built in neo-Romanesque style. It was among the most beautiful in Europe and was the third largest synagogue in Germany. 

On the 50th anniversary of the synagogue, which was celebrated on September 5, 1937, the Jewish community published a commemorative publication. There you can read the very concerned sentence: "To celebrate the 50th anniversary of this day festively, today is not the time."

On June 7, 1938, Hitler gave the order to demolish the main synagogue in Munich - Already two days later, the demolition work began.  
 

After the pogrom night of November 9-10, 1938, Erich Eisner was arrested and placed in "protective custody" in the Dachau concentration camp. At the end of December of the same year he was released with the help of the lawyer Dr. Rottner and was ordered to leave Germany immediately. Rottner was a long-time NSDAP member and lawyer for the Knoblauch family, from which Eisner's wife Elsa came. In the spring of 1939, Erich Eisner emigrated via England to Bolivia, where his family followed him only a year later. Due to the beginning of the Second World War, the plan for Elsa and little Manfred to leave for Bolivia in the fall of 1939 fell through. They arrived there only in May 1940. 
In England, Erich Eisner was taken in by his wife Elsa's family, because Elsa's family had already emigrated in 1937 after their prestigious shoe store had been "Aryanized." Erich Eisner and his small family could have left Germany at the same time, but Eisner first wanted to prepare the emigration of his mother Hermine. During this time, he had already submitted several applications for emigration passports for himself, his wife Elsa and their son Manfred, who was three years old by then. 

Bolivia was one of the few countries in the world that granted entry visas to German and Austrian Jews. Around 7000 people found refuge there.
For Erich Eisner, La Paz was the first stop. This large city, located at an altitude of 3600 meters, is the seat of the Bolivian government. A friend of the Knoblauchs, who had already lived in Bolivia since 1934, Semi (?) Herrmann, vouched for Eisner and his family. He had been a shoe salesman before the Nazis came to power and had lived in Bamberg. Now he ran a coffee plantation in Bolivia and hospitably took in Erich Eisner after his arrival in the Avenida 6 Agosto in La Paz.
Having a guarantor was a basic requirement for entry. For the first few months, Eisner's main concern was finding a place for himself and his family to stay, which he eagerly awaited, as Elsa Eisner and son Manfred were still in Germany. Eisner found a room in a house where many other emigrant families lived. This room became the first new home for him, his wife Elsa and four-year-old Manfred. Eisner initially earned his modest living as a piano accompanist at concerts. 

The word quickly got around that Erich Eisner was an excellent musician: in 1941 he was appointed as a lecturer at the state teacher training college in Sucre. Sucre is the capital of Bolivia and lies 800 m lower than La Paz, still at around 2800 m, but the climate is much more pleasant for Europeans who are not used to the high altitude air. 
In Sucre, Eisner was able to fully develop his talents as a musician and organizer: He took care of the development of classical music education and founded a large choir as well as an orchestra in which his students and numerous exiles played. 
Out of the gratitude he felt towards his new homeland, Eisner composed the cantata "Bolivia". In this piece he set verses by the Bolivian poet Yolanda Bedregal de Konitzer (1913-1999), with whom he was friends. And once again it became apparent that Eisner was an excellent organizer who could adapt to difficult circumstances: Since there was no possibility to print the sheet music, he wrote all parts as well as the piano reduction and score by hand. 
The premiere of the entire work did not take place until 2003 in Rischon LeZion in Israel.

Erich Eisner's work in building up classical music quickly bore fruit. In 1944, the Bolivian government commissioned him to found a state symphony orchestra. This was a great sign of confidence and the highest recognition of his abilities. In the meantime, a small orchestra of exiled musicians had been founded in La Paz, which formed the basis for the planned large symphony orchestra. It was to bear the name Orquesta Sinfònica Nacional (OSN).

Eisner returned from Sucre to La Paz, and once again he put his organizational talents to work: He procured sheet music material that was not available or for sale in Bolivia through friends* from the United States. He had them send him pocket scores, small, handy editions of sheet music in which all the parts of a work are listed. From these pocket scores, Eisner handwrote the individual instrumental parts - an unparalleled labor of love!

The debut concert of the Orquesta Sinfònica Nacional took place on Apr. 6, 1945, at the Teatro Municipal in La Paz. Eisner studied many works of European classical music in the years that followed, bringing them to a wide audience in Bolivia. 

It was shortly before Christmas 1955, when the then Federal President Theodor Heuss put his signature on the award certificate of the Federal Cross of Merit: "In recognition of the special services rendered to the Federal Republic of Germany, I award Mr. Erich Eisner, conductor, the Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany" 

This is the text of the certificate, and it is thought-provoking. For in the case of Erich Eisner, there is much to interpret in this standard text: The fact that Eisner rendered outstanding services to the Federal Republic of Germany abroad did not happen voluntarily, after all, because he had been forced by the National Socialists to leave Germany. The fact that he nevertheless - or precisely because of this - worked tirelessly in Bolivia for classical music with a focus on German classical music is to his credit, and the young Federal Republic knew how to appreciate this attitude and use it to its advantage. Erich Eisner was a stroke of luck and a beacon of hope for Germany's reputation abroad shortly after the Second World War. 

Four weeks after receiving the Order of Merit, Erich Eisner died in La Paz.