Karl Walter Bernstein

Karl Walter Bernstein also known by his stage name Karl Walter (born February 20, 1908 in Dresden ; † September 21, 1973 ) was a German musician and orchestra conductor .

Live and act

Childhood and youth

Karl Walter Bernstein was born in Dresden as the son of the stone sculptor Paul Bernstein and his wife Frieda nee. Child born. His foster parents , who had fled to Germany from the turmoil of the Russian Revolution , enabled him to receive musical training in the subjects of singing , violin and saxophone . At the age of 14 he played in a band for the first time and at 21 he was already conductor.

time of the nationalsocialism

During the time of National Socialism he was arrested in 1933 because of his Jewish-sounding family name, but was released on presentation of his Aryan proof . However, under pressure from the Reich Chamber of Music, he only used his first name "Karl Walter" as the orchestra name. During the thirties and the beginning of the forties, his nine-person formation performed mainly in the Hotel "Eden" and in the "Regina-Palast" in Dresden and in the "Chemnitzer Hof" in Chemnitz .

With the expansion of the Second World War in 1941, dance events were only permitted with restrictions, most members of the orchestra were called up for military service and replaced by foreign workers from the occupied territories. Performing and listening to jazz music in public was viewed as subversive and could lead to sanctions such as a performance or professional ban, as well as fines or imprisonment. In 1941, Bernstein married Elisabeth Güttler, and their son Peter came from this connection. The family commuted between the venues Dresden and Chemnitz. In 1944, Karl Walter Bernstein was drafted into the medical service. At the end of 1944 serious symptoms of peripheral arterial occlusive disease ("intermittent claudication") appeared. An operation in early 1945 prevented an amputation .

Time of the Soviet occupation zone and the GDR

After the end of World War II , Bernstein became a member of the SPD . He then refused to join the SED after the forced unification of the SPD and KPD in April 1946 . He put together a 16-piece orchestra and played for the first time in June 1946 for the reopening of the Golden Lion in Chemnitz-Rabenstein . Further concerts in the Chemnitz area followed. In February 1947, the Chemnitz broadcasting station of the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk was looking for its own dance orchestra as part of a competition. Although the Karl Walter Orchestra received by far the most votes from the audience, the choice fell - probably for political reasons - on the runner-up, the Wolfgang Grellmann Orchestra. During this time, well-known musicians such as the trumpeter and arranger Walter Eichenberg (1946/1947), the drummer Fips Fleischer (1946/1947) and the trumpeter Horst Fischer (1948/1949) played in the Karl Walter orchestra.

As early as 1947 began a long series of restrictions, harassment , slander and prohibitions with which the communist rulers tried to discipline Bernstein and his band and to bring them "in line" because American jazz music was not acceptable to the regime for cultural and political reasons. From 1947 to 1949 the orchestra played regularly in the Kurhaus of the Hohenstein-Ernstthal mineral bath . From 1947 to 1949, Bernstein was banned from performing in the Chemnitz area from the police chief in Chemnitz. From November 1950, the SED was banned from appearing in the entire GDR.

From 1949 to 1953 the orchestra performed regularly at the Neustadt inn in Chemnitz-Siegmar . This was followed by further harassment in the 1950s with a performance ban. Because Bernstein continued to perform despite the ban, a fine of 3,000 marks was imposed on him. As a result, part of his home furnishings was seized as a result. Bernstein hired a lawyer to file a complaint with Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl , which was unsuccessful. In November 1953, the Karl-Marx-Stadt District Council ordered the orchestra to be dissolved. In order to be able to support his family, Bernstein worked as a driver from late 1953 to early 1954 .

From April 1954 he was allowed to perform again - on condition that the list of titles be approved beforehand. But already at the end of March the next campaign against Bernstein was in the Chemnitz Volksstimme : In the article Get off the podium, Karl Walter! the author demanded that the ban be maintained. The composer Paul Kurzbach also joined this campaign. The council of the district decided on March 30, 1954 a permanent performance ban for the Karl Walter orchestra. Bernstein was also excluded from the FDGB . The musicians in his orchestra were only allowed to perform individually in other bands.

West Berlin and Federal Republic of Germany

Bernstein and his family fled to West Berlin on the night of April 1, 1954. 17 of his musicians followed him a few days later. A little later, with the support of the RIAS , it was possible to make up for the orchestra inventory that was initially left behind. After a first engagement in the West Berlin “ Titania-Palast ” in April 1954, a month later an engagement in the Hamburg cabaret “Faun” and later in the Düsseldorf “Palladium” followed.

However, of the 17 musicians who had followed him to the Federal Republic, only 6 remained; the rest were lured away by other orchestras or returned to the GDR. So bass, 3 saxophones and 2 trumpets had to be re-cast. The original four-part trombone setting was dissolved except for the trombonist Heinrich Neith. On August 13, 1955, the Chemnitz “Volksstimme” reported with satisfaction under the heading “Broken with Karl Walter” about the orchestra's problems.

In 1955 the orchestra played in US officers' clubs in Munich and Landstuhl . Bernstein moved with his family to Hohenecken near Kaiserslautern . From June 1957 to May 1958, he worked for a long time in the American officers' club in the Libyan capital Tripoli . Bernstein returned to Germany in 1958 because of renal colic . However, his band stayed in Libya and played under new management.

In June 1958, Bernstein put together a new orchestra and performed with it again in the Landstuhl Officers' Club. From October 1958 an engagement at the Hamburg “Lido” followed. At the end of 1958, the Telefunken company made the orchestra's first and only recordings under the title “Tanz im Lido”. After a last engagement at the Deutsches Theater in Munich in January / February 1959, Bernstein disbanded the orchestra.

He moved with his family to Dortmund , where he ran various guesthouses and hotels together with his wife and son until he retired in 1970.

Web links

• Karl Walter Bernstein at Discogs (English)
• Photo of Karl Walter Bernstein with orchestra at a rehearsal

Literature and source

Karl-Peter Fleischer: Karl Walter and his orchestra . A documentation, self-published, Chemnitz 2004, ISBN 978-3-00-013934-5

Individual evidence

1. ↑ What happened to the Karl Walter Orchestra? | Free press archive. Retrieved December 21, 2019 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Soviet zone: infected by music . In: Spiegel Online . tape April 16 , 1954 ( spiegel.de [accessed December 21, 2019]).
3. ↑ Ost-Schlager / Music: Barriers to Boogie-Woogie . In: Spiegel Online . tape 1 January 1, 1954 ( spiegel.de [accessed December 21, 2019]).
4. ^ Exclusion of Karl Walter Bernstein from the FDGB