“Charlie Chaplin, Eisler’s friend in postwar Hollywood, described the ruthlessness of the Eisler siblings as coming out of one of Shakespeare’s histories. Hanns Eisler’s use of music as a ‘political weapon’ would be a defining element in Weimar Germany. Many from the political centre and right would claim that Eisler’s music was a factor in this shaky German Republic becoming unstable, even ungovernable.”

– from Forbidden Music