Vera Broido

Vera, to the right Photo: August Sander.

Vera Broido, writer and feminist, was born in St Petersbug in 1907, the daughter of two Russian Jewish revolutionaries. In 1914, when Vera was seven, her mother, prominent Menshevik Eva Broido, was sentenced to exile in Siberia for taking a stand against the war. 

During her time in Berlin in the 1920s Vera met the avant garde artist and Dadaist Raoul Hausmann and became his lover and muse, living in a ménage à trois with him and his wife Hedwig Mankiewtiz in the fashionable Charlottenburg district of Berlin.

After a stay in Northern Ireland, she later settled down in England, where she died in 2004.

    

Christopher & his kind

In 1976, more than 30 years after his time in Berlin, Christopher Isherwood wrote his memoirs: Christopher and his kind. The book deals not only with his Berlin experiences: after Berlin, Isherwood traveled around Europe and eventually moved to California, where he died in 1986.

In this book, he comments on his Berlin books, which were written in first person and where the narrator is presented in a somewhat impersonal way. Now Christopher "comes out". He assumes his homosexuality and explains that if he chosesto live in Berlin in the years 20-30, it was mainly because of the sexual freedom that reigned there.
"Paris", a metropolis often considered as the Mecca of romanticism, glamor, eroticism, not to say vice, "meant 'girls'", he explains. While Berlin meant 'boys'.

A few years ago, a film was made for television, based on Isherwood's memoirs.

The link is here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-MD4z7_RI4

    

Christopher Isherwood and Sally Bowles

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5423652

One of the books that best describes inter-war Berlin, and which shaped our vision of that place and that time, is Goodbye to Berlin, by Christopher Isherwood.

The novel, a partly autobiographical account of Isherwood's time in 1930s Berlin, describes pre-Nazi Germany and the people he met. It is written as a connected series of six short stories and novellas.

Moving to Germany to work on a novel, the young writer Isherwood becomes involved with a diverse array of German citizens: the caring landlady, Frl. Schroeder; the "divinely decadent" Sally Bowles, a young Englishwoman who sings in the local cabaret and her coterie of admirers; Natalia Landauer, the rich, Jewish heiress of a prosperous family business; Peter and Otto, a gay couple struggling to accept their relationship and sexuality in light of the rise of the Nazis. 

The apartment where Christopher lived was situated at Nollendorfstrasse 17. The building was full of eccentrics who inspired not only Goodbye to Berlin but also another novel: The Last of Mr. Norris. He lived there with Jean Ross, the model for the nightclub singer and aspiring actress Sally Bowles. His landlady, Meta Thurau, inspired the character of Fräulein Schroeder, who, in Isherwood’s fiction, stood for the typical Berliner of those days.

Sally Bowles, impersonated by Liza Minnelli, is one of the main characters of Cabaret, the award-winning film from 1972 directed by Bob Fosse.

Other posts about Christopher Isherwood:

http://www.weimarberlin.com/2017/08/christopher-his-kind.html?q=isherwood

 

 

http://www.weimarberlin.com/2017/09/more-on-isherwoods-berlin.html?q=isherwood 

 

 

    

 

Comedian Harmonists

Bulgarian Archives State Agency

The Comedian Harmonists were a German vocal sextet. During the interwar period, they were renowned throughout Europe. The Comedian Harmonists separated after being banned by the cultural authorities of Nazism, three of their members being Jews.

The members: Ari Leschnikoff, Roman Cycowski, Erich A. Collin, Harry Frommermann, Robert Biberti, Erwin Bootz. They met especially to form the group, they did not know each other before. Leschnikoff and Cycowski were employed in the Grossen Schauspielhaus, one of the most important scenes in Berlin.

Click here !

 
Their success coincided with the rise of Nazism in Germany. Roman Cycowski will say: "We were a bright light in a very dark time". The generalization of radio, and phonograph in homes has also served their popularity.
 
The band influenced the orchestras of Jack Hylton in Britain and Ray Ventura in France. His style later made many emulators ranging from the Frères Jacques to Max Raabe.
 
In 1997, Josef Vismaier devoted an excellent film to them, which can be seen on youtube, unfortunately without subtitles in english (but in spanish, yes).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-2pjdN_VMM

Another film about the Harmonists, a documentary this time, but still without subtitles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r-ZWjX0gPA

    

Berlin's anthem

The song "Berliner Luft" by Paul Lincke 

is considered an unofficial anthem of the city. It is played every year as the finale of the Berliner Philharmoniker’ season. A bit like Land of Hope and Glory for the BBC Proms at Albert Hall in London.

Here, in the beautiful version of Lizzi Waldmüller, not a Berliner but an Austrian singer  (!).

To hear it, click here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgKiAb5b2LI&t=78s

    

It's in the air...

The revue Es liegt in der Luft (It’s in the air) by Marcelus Schiffer and Micha Spoliansky had its first representation in 1928. In the three main roles, Margo Lion (Schiffer's wife), Marlene Dietrich (no so famous yet) and Oskar Karlweis. Karlweis was an Austrian actor who often played in light comedies and operettas. In Berlin, he played one of the three suitors of Lilian Harvey in Die drei von der Tankstelle, a highly successful film, remade in Hollywood in the 50's.

In the film we can also see the German ensemble Comedian Harmonists, a musical band very in vogue.

The best-known number of Es liegt in der Luft was undoubtedly Wenn die beste Freundin (If the best girlfriend with the best girlfriend), a song whose theme could be understood as ambiguous from the point of view of relations between the sexes. It even became a kind of lesbian anthem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1WMKZVp_C8

The text of the song:

Wenn die beste Freundin

Mit der besten Freundin

Um was einzukaufen,

Um was einzukaufen,

Um sich auszulaufen,

Durch die Straßen latschen,

Um sich auszuquatschen,

When the best girlfriend

With the best girlfriend

Go do some shopping,

Go do some shopping,

To get some exercise,

Wander through the streets,

Blabbing about everything,

Says the best girlfriend

To the best girlfriend:

My best, my best girlfriend!

And then a trio, where the husband joins both "girlfriends":

Girl 1: You cheated on me with her.

Husband: Because you cheated on me with her.

Girl 2: And you cheated on me with him

Girl 1: Because you cheated on me with him

Husband: What's this for intricate family relations! Don't we want to get along?

 

    

 

 

Margo Lion

When it comes to Berliner cabaret, one almost instinctively thinks of the great Marlene Dietrich. But she was not the only star in that heaven, far from it.
 

Marguerite "Margo" Lion, born in Istanbul in 1899, was a French actress and singer. She arrived in Berlin in 1921 and debuted in the cabaret 'Die Wilde Bühne' in 1923. She also appeared in such iconic cabarets as Schall und Rauch and Kabarett der Komiker.

She was married to lyricist Marcellus Schiffer and was a friend of Marlene Dietrich. In the magazine "It's in the Air" (1928), she sang with Marlene the duet "Wenn Die beste Freundin mit die Beste Freundin "(when the best girlfriend with the best girlfriend ...), which became a lesbian hymn in the 1920s.

In cinema, she played in seventy-five films between 1926 and 1975 and found her most significant role in 1931 in Georg Wilhelm Pabst's The Three-penny Opera (French version) in which Margo, in the role of Jenny, sings The Bride of the Pirate.

She also starred in the film "24 Hours of a Woman's Life," based on a text by Stefan Zweig, Robert Land's board in 1931.

She left Berlin in 1933 and continued her career in France. There, among other productions, she appeared in La Bandera, by Julien Duvivier (1935). Also in Lola, by Jacques Demy.

She died in 1989, a little too early to enjoy the sight of the Berlin Wall collapsing.

    

Berlin cabaret: a film without Liza Minnelli

Berlin Cabaret - Die Wilde Bühne A film by Fabienne Rousso-Lenoir.

The world of the Berliner cabaret of 1919 and 1933 was one of the most fascinating cultural phenomena of the Weimar Republic. It sums up the spirit of the Roaring Twenties and reflects history with bold and innovative ways. From the years of the boom, through the period of depression and inflation, and ending with the seizure of power by the Nazis.

A fascinating film. But don’t take my word for it, watch yourself the movie of Fabienne Rousso-Lenoir:

https://vimeo.com/81314874

    

Alfred Döblin

Yet another famous Berliner not born in Berlin... 

The writer Alfred Döblin was born in Stettin, now in Poland. He began his collaboration with Herwarth Walden in 1910, and participated in the Expressionist journal Der Sturm (The Storm).

Established in the district of Berlin-Lichtenberg, in the eastern part of the city, he witnessed the 1919 street-fights in Berlin, which became later the subject of his novel November 1918. During his Berlin period, Döblin wrote numerous articles (about plays and films, but also about life on the streets of the capital), among others for the German-language daily Prager Tageblatt. These articles offer a striking picture of everyday life in the Berlin of the Weimar Republic.

His most famous work is Berlin Alexanderplatz, dated 1929. In this novel, he describes the low life of Berlin from the years 1925-1930. The main character is an anti-hero: a repentant criminal whom fate catches up and who falls back into delinquency. This resolutely modern narrative is composed of biblical and mythological references, collages of extracts from newspapers, and mixes tragedy with popular humor, in a cacophony and a frightful chaos.

This novel is often compared to Celine’s Journey to the end of the night. It has been adapted to the screen on numerous occasions, first in 1931 by Piel Jutzi with Heinrich George in the lead role, then in 1979 by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who made it a television series of 14 episodes.

Döblin, of Jewish origin, left Germany in 1933 (like Brecht, like Grosz, like so many others), and in 1936 he became a French citizen.

    

Bertolt Brecht, a berliner?

Monday, August 7, 2017

Bertolt Brecht, one of the most important playwrights of the twentieth century, was NOT born in Berlin, but in Bavaria. But, does the place of birth matter? Picasso was born in Malaga, but it is as a French artist that he is known for most people.

The same goes for Brecht. He arrived in Berlin in 1924, to join Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater, and it was in the cultural capital of Germany (of Europe some would say) that he wrote The Threepenny opera, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Saint Joan of the Stockyards.

The year 1933 marked a turning point for him, as for many other artists and writers. This is not an innocuous year, it is the year when the Nazis take power in Germany. Brecht was not Jewish, but he became a Communist, another favorite target for Nazi repression.

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) and his wife Helene Weigel (1900-1971) are buried in the Dorotheenstadt cemetery in Berlin. The playwright wanted a grave "where all the dogs would want to piss".

In the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, a former theater of variety, Brecht made the first performance of the Opera de quat'sous in 1928 and his first triumph. With its overflowing of gilding, its cherubs, its caryatids with swollen breasts, the contrast couldn’t be more marked with the miserly staged by Brecht, with his clear and rigorous theater. The poet liked this distance between the stage and the audience. After the war, when he chose to settle in the communist half of Berlin, it was this theater that Brecht obtained to set up his troupe of the Berliner Ensemble.

Michael Bienert, a guide to literary walks, takes theater lovers to other parts of Berlin, exploring Brecht's relations with the Nazi regime and then with the GDR.

From the Berlin of the 1920s, which Brecht, the young provincial born in Bavaria in Augsburg, discovers with avidity, there is not much left. The cafes and cabarets that Brecht used to visit around the Kurfürstendamm are no more. But there remains a letter written to a friend in 1920: "Berlin is a wonderful place, can’t you steal 500 marks and come?"

Thank you for the informations borrowed from the site http://maisons-ecrivains.fr/

    

Billy Wilder, his life before Hollywood

One of Billy Wilder's first films

Where did Billy Wilder, the director of Some like it hot, The apartment and Irma la douce, begin his career ? In Hollywood ? No, in Berlin. 
 

He was born in Galicia under Austrian rule, in 1906, as Samuel Wilder. In 1926 he came to Berlin, where, before achieving success as a writer, he allegedly worked as a « taxi dancer », at Hotel Eden. 
 

After writing crime and sports stories as a stringer for local newspapers, he was eventually offered a regular job at a Berlin tabloid, where he writes articles but also short stories and feuilletons, often about crime. His research bring him into contact with various circles and different people and lead him to become familiar with a variety of sets and characters that are found later in his films.

 

Developing an interest in film, he began as a screenwriter. He collaborated with several other newcomers (like Fred Zinnemann and Robert Siodmak) on the 1929 feature People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag). He wrote the screenplay for the 1931 film adaptation of a novel by Erich Kästner, Emil and the Detectives.
 

He makes a good living and begins to collect works of contemporary art, notably furniture signed Mies van der Rohe.

After the rise of Hitler in 1933, Wilder, who was a Jew, left for Paris, then Hollywood, where he, over the years, became one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers, winning several Oscars.

You can watch the film Menschen am Sonntag here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D9W2zfZPps

    

Old Berlin still exists

What is left of the Berlin of the Roaring Twenties? Anyone who’s seen the photographs or filmed reports on the Berlin of 1945 has seen the havoc that Hitler's madness inflicted on the Berliners. All reduced to debris.

Apparently. Because, in fact, destruction affected mainly the central districts, with the official buildings of the Wilhelmstrasse, the Chancellery of Hitler, the main ministries. But as soon as one moves away, either towards the West or towards the East, one finds the pre-war style of buildings. A district like Prenzlauer Berg, for example, has much the same appearance today as in 1939. Or in 1920. On the west side, although the facades of the Kurfürstendamm have changed considerably since the golden years, Wilmersdorf or Charlottenburg do not appear to have been affected by allied bombing or Soviet artillery.

    

Tourism in the 20's

Tourism was already well developed in 1920’s Berlin. When Bang, the Dane who wanted to open a bar in Berlin, first met Geza, the hungarian journalist, the later asked him, sarcastic :

"So you are a tourist ? One of those they take on Thien's the open buses to show them the Brandenburg Gate, the Tiergarten, Potsdam and its peerless baroque palace?"

"Don’t you see he's not a tourist ?" Paul said. "Bang is an intelligent person and tourism is by definition a silly activity."

"And useless," adds Heinz. "In your village you will reach the universal, Tolstoy knew it already."

"Tolstoy, and I. You forget that I was a tourist guide," says Geza.

"And, mind you, when he had just arrived from Budapest, when he did not know the difference between Alexanderplatz and Potsdamerplatz," Paul explains.

Excerpt from the novel "Berlin-Expo" available on Amazon.fr