[1][2] Eisel was born into a Communist (albeit relatively apolitical) working-class family in Lauterbach, a small town roughly 100 km (63 miles) north-east of Frankfurt am Main.

At the start of 1945 he was ordered to go to nearby Battenberg to join one of the flak units set up to try to reduce the impact of enemy bombing raids on the important railway line there.

In May 1945 the end of the war marked a return to multi-party government and Eisel, by then 16 years old, immediately took the opportunity to join the local Communist Party.

[3] However, he still felt undertrained, and that same year he accepted an offer to attend the Academy of Arts in Leningrad, where one of his teachers was Boris Ioganson, and where he continued his artistic development till 1957.

[6] During his Potsdam period Eisel also joined a geological expedition to Mongolia, contributing his skills as a simultaneous translator and as a truck driver.

The impact of unfamiliar visual impressions acquired on his overseas visits enabled him greatly to sharpen his eye for portraits and landscapes.