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After his family fled Germany, Antony Easton never knew about the enormous fortune his family lost during the Nazi regime. An old suitcase of his father’s revealed the truth.
It all started with a suitcase hidden under the bed.
The year was 2009 and Antony Easton’s father, Peter, had recently passed away.
When starting to deal with the bureaucratic procedures of the inventory, Antony found a small leather suitcase chestnut in his father’s old flat in the town of Lymington, Hampshire, on the south coast of England.
Inside it, there was impeccable German banknotesphoto albums, envelopes full of notes recording different chapters of his life and a birth certificate.
Peter Roderick Eastonwho had prided himself on being English (and Anglican), was actually born and raised in pre-war Germany as Peter Hans Rudolf Eisner, a member of one of the richest Jewish families from Berlin.
Despite the clues about his father’s origins during his childhood, the suitcase’s contents shed light on a past that Antony knew almost nothing about.
The revelations would take him on a decade-long journey, revealing a family devastated by the Holocaust, a missing billion-pound fortune and a legacy of artwork and property stolen under the Nazi regime.
Black and white photographs revealed a glimpse of Peter’s childhood, very different from his son’s modest upbringing in London — they showed a Mercedes with chauffeur, mansions with servants and staircases richly carved with angels.
Even more sinisterly, one of the photos showed Peter Eisner, aged 12, smiling with friends, with a Nazi flag waving in the distance.
“I had the feeling that it was a hand reaching out from the past,” says Antony.
Antony says that his father he was a quiet and serious manalthough prone to tantrums. He avoided talking about his childhood and always dodged questions about his slight German accent.
“There were signs that [ele não era] really like other people… There was a dark aura in your worldAntony said.
An immense fortune
The next big clue about Antony’s family history came from a work of art.
With the help of a friend who spoke fluent German, she asked her to investigate a company called Hahn’s workswhose references were scattered throughout the documents in the suitcase.
After searching online, she sent Antony a photo of a painting that depicted the inside of a large steel mill – apparently belonging to the company.
The 1910 painting by artist Hans Baluschek was called Eisenwalzwerk (Iron Rolling Mill). Belonged to Heinrich Eisnerwho probably ordered it.
Eisner helped transform the steel company Hahn’sche Werke into one of the most technological and expansive companies in Central Europe.
The documents in the suitcase indicated that it was the Antony’s great-grandfather.
Further research revealed that, at the turn of the 20th century, Heinrich was one of the richest businessmen in Germany – the equivalent of a modern multimillionaire.
His company manufactured tubular steel, with factories spread across Germany, Poland and Russia.
Heinrich and his wife, Olga, owned several properties in Berlin and surrounding areas, including an impressive six-story building in the city center.
When he died in 1918, Heinrich left shares in his company – and his personal fortune – to his son Rudolf, who had recently returned from the First World War.
The war was a human catastrophe, but the Hahn’sche Werke prospered during that period.
Rudolf and his family too survived economic and political chaos that followed.
However, within a few years, all would be lost.
Everything changes
In notes found by Antony in the suitcase, Peter remembered hearing conversations between his parents and whispers about Nazi threats.
Jews were blamed by Adolf Hitler and his supporters for Germany’s defeat in World War I and economic hardship.
Rudolf Eisner believed he would be safe if he became his company indispensable for the Nazi regime. For a while, this seemed to work.
But in March 1938 the government investigated the Hahn’sche Werke. Under immense pressure from authorities, the Jewish-owned company was sold at discount price for Mannesmann, an industrial conglomerate whose CEO was a Nazi sympathizer.
In 2000, Mannesmann was acquired by Vodafone in a deal valued at more than 100 billion pounds. At least part of the industrial assets included in this sale would have belonged to Eisner’s business empire.
The dismantling of the company made the Eisners realize they needed to escape.
But any Jew who tried to leave Germany was obliged to hand over 92% of his assets to the State, paying the so-called Reich Escape Tax.
The Eisners were in danger of losing what was left of their wealth.
The agreement
In this context, it emerged Martin Hartigeconomist and tax consultant, who came to have a great influence on the family’s life.
Hartig appears to have offered a solution: the Eisners transferred key elements of their personal fortune to him, mainly property, protecting them from anti-Semitic laws.
Antony believes his grandparents assumed that Hartig one day I would return the goods. They were mistaken.
Documents found in Germany’s federal archives indicate that the transaction It was a “forced sale”a term used to describe the expropriation of Jewish property under the Nazi regime.
Despite losing almost everything, Antony’s grandparents and father managed to escape Germany in 1938.
Train tickets and luggage tags preserved in the suitcase allowed Antony to retrace the family’s journey to England in July 1939.
They lost the equivalent of billions, but they survived. Most of his relatives were imprisoned and killed in concentration camps.
Rudolf died in 1945, after spending much of the war interned by the British on the Isle of Man.
Find the Hartigs
Antony hired an investigator to discover the fate of fortune and stolen goods.
He managed to track down the Eisenwalzwerk painting, which was in the collection of the Brohan Museum in Berlin.
After initial difficulties, documents revealed that the painting had been sold from one of the former Eisner family homes, inherited by Martin Hartig in 1938.
Savoury lived there until he died in 1965. The property passed to his daughter, who later met with Antony.
She claimed that her father helped the Eisners escape and that the purchases were legitimate. Other family members admitted doubts about the origin of the goods.
Vincent, Hartig’s great-grandson, said he believes the Eisners didn’t have much of a choice in transferring the property.
“It’s not about money”
Antony can no longer legally claim the properties.
However, the works of art can still be recovered.
The Brohan Museum said it intends to return the Eisenwalzwerk painting to Heinrich Eisner’s descendants.
Another work has already been returned by the Israel Museum, and a third claim is still underway in Austria.
Among the documents found is a Gestapo list detailing works seized from the family.
“I have always said about restitution: it is not about objects, money and properties, but about peopleAntony said.
When researching the past, he reconstructed the story of his father and grandparents.
“This whole process turned them into real people, who had real lives.”
The Eisner name, lost when the family fled in 1939, now reappears.
Antony’s great-nephew Caspian, born in 2024, was given the middle name Eisner.
“As long as Caspian is around, that name will be with himAntony said.
