Dr. Armand Eisler

Armand Eisler was born in Paris as the legitimate son of the factory owner Ferdinand Eisler and his wife Rosalia, née Mayer. In addition to Armand, the Jewish family had two other sons. After elementary school, Armand Eisler attended the state grammar school in Olmütz [today: Olomouc in the Czech Republic], where he graduated in 1899. He then enrolled in law at the university and was awarded a doctorate in law in 1903. He also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. Even as a student, he became involved in the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) [today: SPÖ]. After his year in court, he becomes a lawyer in 1904. In 1910, he married the Jewish Emilie Fleischer; the marriage remained childless.

After the defeat of the Dual Monarchy, the break-up of Austria-Hungary and the expulsion of the Habsburgs, Armand Eisler founded the Social Democratic Association of Intellectual Workers together with Max Adler. He is also an advisor to the Socialization Commission in Vienna and syndic of the Russian-Austrian Foreign Trade Company.

[Note: The Socialization Commission in Vienna is set up at the end of 1918 as the State Commission for Socialization to plan and implement the successive transfer of private companies into public ownership. The Vienna Commission was initially chaired by Otto Bauer and later by Wilhelm Ellenbogen.]

On March 12, 1938, Armand Eisler witnessed the demise of free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. He was arrested by the Gestapo on March 20, 1938 and deported on April 2, 1938 on the so-called 'Prominent Transport' to the Dachau concentration camp. On September 23, 1938, he was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp, from which he was released on May 22, 1939 on the condition that he leave occupied Austria as soon as possible.