{"id":46139,"date":"2017-07-06T09:18:28","date_gmt":"2017-07-06T16:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/?p=46139"},"modified":"2024-06-24T11:05:20","modified_gmt":"2024-06-24T18:05:20","slug":"mystery-sax-player-else-kohler-sprato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/2017\/mystery-sax-player-else-kohler-sprato\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery Sax Player Else K\u00f6hler-Sprato"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few days ago, as I was virtual window shopping on eBay, I happened across a most unusual little gem. It was a promotional shot<\/a> of a professional female saxophone player from Germany. The card was dated May 28, 1945.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Source: mondopix on eBay.com<\/span><\/p>\n

Else K\u00f6hler-Sprato was a solo saxophonist, flutist, as well as clarinetist, who, it would appear, was working in German hotels during WWII. The photo of the performer on the front of this promo shot, shows a woman who is not relaxed, but rather ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. If I had to guess, I would say that she has the look of someone who has experienced a number of tragedies during the war, and is just waiting for another one to hit.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Source: mondopix on eBay.com<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me speculate wildly for a moment…<\/h2>\n

My mother was born in Stuttgart, and was a very young girl when WWII broke out. She told me stories of how the homes she and her grandmother lived in were bombed not once, not twice, but on four different occasions during nighttime bombing raids. The bombs used were fire bombs, which left the structures not only destroyed, but burning to inflict even more damage to the surrounding structures.<\/p>\n

I noticed that the back of the promo shot for Else K\u00f6hler-Sprato had an address in Wuppertal crossed out. A quick Google search this morning confirmed my hunch, that Wuppertal, like Stuttgart, was bombed heavily during WWII.<\/p>\n

Fire bombs were used in nighttime attacks on Wuppertal by the RAF on May 29-30, 1943, and again less than a month later on June 24-25. Making the situation more dire, the fire department was ill-equipped to deal with the resulting fires.<\/p>\n

Other Allied aircraft also carried out numerous smaller air raids on Wuppertal. Overall, more than 6,500 people lost their lives during World War II in Wuppertal from such raids; 38 percent of the built-up urban area was destroyed.<\/p>\n

Source: wikipedia.org<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is A LOT of destruction and loss of life. Just imagine that nearly 40% of your city was destroyed, and 6\u00bd thousand of the people in your city were killed. That would be enough to mess most people up, and some shell shock would likely be reflected in a portrait.<\/p>\n

Of course I am really just speculating wildly here, since we don’t know exactly when the photo of Else K\u00f6hler-Sprato was taken. However, it is fair to say that K\u00f6hler-Sprato no doubt did know some of the horrors of war, but despite them, she continued on doing her job: playing saxophone, flute, and clarinet professionally in hotels in Germany.<\/p>\n

Something that has me scratching my head is her double-barrelled name. Did she just have a hyphenated name because she was born with one? Was she married? Did she hyphenate her name when she got married? All of my family in that generation wore their wedding rings on their right hand. Is what she was wearing an engagement ring? Alas, we will never know.<\/p>\n

Enough speculation, what we do know about Else K\u00f6hler-Sprato<\/h2>\n

In short: not much. I have googled her name, and even the hotel that she may have been playing at in 1945, but have come up with nothing. Perhaps if I tried some German search engines, and\/or perhaps searched the archives of Wuppertal\u2014if any survived the war\u2014I might be able to turn something up. Short of doing something like this however, our knowledge of Else K\u00f6hler-Sprato is based on the promo shot, and the information on the back.<\/p>\n