Thomas Schäfer-Elmayer
How leadership experience and a keen understanding of people became a unique success concept—discover the personality who has shaped Elmayer for decades.
From The Saddle To The Dance Floor
Raised amid the splendour of the late monarchy, the young cavalry officer Willy Elmayer becomes the most successful gallop rider in the k.u.k. Army, before being sent to fight on various fronts in the First World War. In 1918, he is left with nothing: a cavalry officer without a horse, an imperial soldier without an emperor, the son of a lieutenant field marshal without wealth. Yet as the man of action he is, he swaps riding breeches for white tie and tails and embarks on a new career.
Author
Willy Elmayer von Vestenbrugg
Editor: Thomas Schäfer-Elmayer
Publisher
Kremayr-Scheriau-Verlag
22,– Euro
This book is available exclusively from Elmayer
It begins in Vienna in the “Roaring Twenties” and takes him to Bad Gastein, Berlin, Prague and Paris. He teaches notable figures from many countries and, above all, Vienna’s young people; he opens countless balls—among them, in 1935, the first Vienna Opera Ball—and in 1945 he loses everything once again. His apartment is destroyed by bombing, and only by a miracle is Elmayer not completely destroyed.
He starts over, teaching Red Army soldiers as well as GIs the basic steps of the Viennese Waltz and Viennese courtesy; he becomes the teacher of Vienna’s re-emerging society, writes books, gives lectures, presents radio programmes, devotes himself to the welfare of former prisoners, and supports numerous other charitable projects.
Thomas Schäfer-Elmayer, Willy Elmayer’s grandson, discovered a copy of this biography of Willy Elmayer—published posthumously by Kremayr & Scheriau in 1966—in the family archives: “From the Saddle to the Dance Floor”, the captivating story of a man who made history.
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