Ernst Kissinger was born in Bad Kissingen on January 7, 1910 as the son of Albert and Jenny Kissinger, née Baer. His father owned a reputable men’s clothes and tailor business at Marktplatz where the family also lived.

Since 1919, Ernst Kissinger attended Kissingen Realschule where his class teacher characterized him as “well gifted, … lively spirit, active during lessons”, “who promises to become a proficient student”. In 1925, he successfully graduated with good grades” (See: School Archive Jack-Steinberger-Gymnasium). Ernst had to suffer from hurtful experiences with his classmates’ anti- Semitism as early as in Weimar Republic. In 1925, he had been excluded from the inofficial graduation party together wish Sally Tachauer and Max Jeidel. Ernst Kissinger wrote later: “I had my bitter experiences in classes 4, 5, and 6 of Realschule from 1923-1925. We were three Jews in our class (Max Jeidel, now in Israel, Sally Tachauer went to England). Then a boy who was a bit older than us came into our class (Ernst Kissinger is writing about Peter Deeg who later became a lawyer) and turned most of our classmates into a wild horde of anti-Semites. They insulted us, mobbed us by means of words and actions. They didn’t talk to us, excluded us from all their meetings outside school. You can imagine what that does to people at that age who haven’t got the skin of an elephant” (Personal report by Ernst Kissinger, Tel Aviv, in a letter to H.-J. Beck).

After his time at school, Ernst Kissinger continued the family tradition and followed his father to become a tailor. He made his apprenticeship at the firm “Lang & Mainz” who had moved their company headquarters from Nuremberg to Berlin. Ernst Kissinger also stayed in Cologne and Düsseldorf temporarily.

Ernst Kissinger decided very early that he wanted to emigrate. “I eventually made up my mind to emigrate to Palestine”, he states, “after Hitler’s seizure of power. At that time, I was in Nuremberg, the “Capital of the Movement” and a person with open eyes could predict that in those days it was not possible for Jews to continue living in Germany. Nobody could picture what extermination would take place. I got a normal certificate of immigration by the English Mandate Government which was relatively easy to get in those days… Surely, the decision to go to a faraway country with a difficult climate, without any family and money, was not easy.” In 1934, Ernst Kissinger travelled to Trieste where he boarded a ship to Tel Aviv.

Ernst Kissinger had become an independent entrepreneur in Palestine. In Tel Aviv, he opened – following the family tradition – a men’s tailor shop which soon became very reputable. Everybody who thought he was somebody had a suit made for himself at Ernst Kissinger’s in Nachlat-Binyamin-Street 32. In Tel Aviv, Ernst Kissinger met Oda Scheuer, the love of his life. In her autobiography, she remembers their first meeting: “And in 1943, I met my husband who came from Bad Kissingen. He was also a real “Jecke” (crazy person), he was even crazier than I was. I was on holiday for the first time, the first time that I indulged in that and had lunch in a small boardinghouse on Carmel. And there were two men sitting at my table, one of them was a rather well-known violinist, a Hungarian, and a Herr Kissinger. That way, we got into a conversation – in German of course. Later I met him again in Tel Aviv, he lived there, too.” Some months later, Ernst Kissinger and Oda Scheuer married. The Kissingers were absolutely enthusiastic when the State of Israel was founded: “In 1948, when the State of Israel was proclaimed, we were all absolutely euphoric. At last, a little spot that belongs to us, where we are not third-class people, where we can’t be persecuted, where we can’t be murdered. Of course, that was a big error.” In the War of Independence, the absolutely non- soldierly Ernst Kissinger was drafted as a policeman. But he soon got the task that suited him much better: to produce uniforms for the army as a tailor: “Then he was content, that was very good. And the gun was lying under the bed or anywhere else.”

Ernst Kissinger died in Tel Aviv in September 1994 at the age of 84.