Right here we stand before a tribute to a life lived passionately. This is the Hanns Eisler Plaque. It marks a place connected to a composer who defied easy labels.
The Hanns Eisler Plaque commemorates a man of music. Eisler was not just any composer. He was a German-Austrian composer with a powerful connection to Bertolt Brecht. He wrote scores for films and even composed East Germany’s national anthem. The Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin bears his name to this day.
Johannes Eisler was born in Leipzig in 1898. His family soon moved to Vienna. Imagine young Hanns. He had no piano and no lessons but he taught himself music. At 14 he joined a socialist youth group. World War I interrupted his musical path. He served as a front-line soldier. It was physically demanding because he was not in great health and small in stature. He was injured in combat.
After Austria’s defeat Eisler studied under Arnold Schoenberg. He was the first of Schoenberg’s students to use the twelve-tone technique. Eisler then moved to Berlin. It was a hub for music film and theater. He supported the Communist Party. Eisler also taught at the Marxist Workers’ School. His music became political. It drew from jazz and cabaret. This shift dismayed Schoenberg.
His collaboration with Brecht led to protest songs. These resonated in the Weimar Republic’s turmoil. “Solidarity Song” became an anthem. “Ballad of Paragraph 218” protested anti-abortion laws. These songs viewed life from the bottom focusing on prostitutes and the unemployed.
In 1933 the Nazi Party banned Eisler’s music and Brecht’s poetry. Eisler became an exile. He traveled through Europe. He even visited the United States twice. During his travels, Eisler composed what he felt was important.
In 1938 he emigrated to the United States. He taught at The New School. He also wrote chamber music. He joined Brecht in Los Angeles in 1942. There he composed film scores earning Oscar nominations. He worked with Brecht and Fritz Lang on Hangmen Also Die.
In the U.S. he began the “Research Program on the Relation between Music and Films”. This Rockefeller Foundation grant led to his book Composing for the Films with Theodor W. Adorno. Eisler returned to the twelve-tone method. His Fourteen Ways of Describing the Rain became a masterpiece.
Eisler’s works included Deutsche Sinfonie. It used poems by Brecht and Ignazio Silone. His Hollywood Songbook set lyrics by German poets. This established him as a great composer of German lieder.
However the Cold War disrupted his career. He was blacklisted in Hollywood. The House Committee on Un-American Activities accused him. They called him “the Karl Marx of music”. His sister Ruth Fischer testified against him. Supporters like Chaplin and Bernstein held benefit concerts. They could not prevent his deportation in 1948.
Before leaving the U.S. he expressed his bitterness. He said that he could understand being driven out by Hitler but not by America. Eisler returned to Europe. He eventually settled in East Berlin. There he composed East Germany’s national anthem.
His opera Johannes Faustus faced criticism. Cultural officials disapproved of its portrayal of Faust. The opera project stalled. Eisler became depressed. Later in life he befriended Wolf Biermann. But he could not prevent Biermann from losing his citizenship.
Hanns Eisler died in 1962 in East Berlin. He is buried near Brecht. His life was full of music and political struggle. His legacy lives on through his compositions and the plaque we see here. Let the Hanns Eisler Plaque be a reminder of art’s power. It shows how art can challenge injustice. It also marks one man’s unwavering commitment to his beliefs.