Central-Hotel, by Friedrichsstrasse Station

 

 Von Unbekannter Grafiker . - Bildindex der Kunst und Architektur,

In 1878, the Friedrichsstrasse railway station was opened. Two years later, it was Central-Hotel’s turn to open its large doors, just some yards from the station. The idea was to attract tourists and travelers, thanks to the proximity to the train.

The hotel was biggest in town, with a facade of 100 meters. Five hundred rooms, its own post and telegraph office, a tourist office selling train and round trip tickets, a café-restaurant. Concerts were often held in the hotel, especially in the winter garden which could seat 3.000. The majority of the guests were traveling salesmen who certainly appreciated the American bar and the in-house wine tasting room. 

The touristic character was emphasized by several restaurants with premises in the same building (the building occupied a whole block of houses) serving regional food: a Black Forest parlor, a Bavarian beer courtyard, a Heidelberg student hall, a Hansa room, a Silesian barn, an East Frisian fisherman's pub, a Rhineland hall. Was that all ? No way : the Central-Hotel housed also the Central Restaurant with the Diana Bar, the Central Café and the Bauer Café, which had been earlier at the corner of Unter den Linden.

The winter garden, before being transformed into a theatre

In terms of capacity, the Central Hotel was larger than its rival, the Kaiserhof, 1500 m away. But despite its equivalent equipment and its better transport connections, the Central couldn’t ultimately compete with the Kaiserhof. While the Kaiserhof was a hotel for diplomats, aristocrats and politicians (I'm sorry to say that some of them were Nazis, including Hitler), the Central Hotel developed into a hotel for passers-by, which attracted more travelers who wanted to stay near the train station.  

The Central was in the slightly disreputable area of the Friedrichsstrasse train station while the Kaiserhof was in the posh residential and government district on Wilhelmplatz. Added to this was that Friedrichstrasse was not a wide avenue but an ordinary street, which was disadvantageous for the representative effect of the Central Hotel. And then, the Kaiserhof was not that far from train stations either : it had the Anhalter and the Potsdamer at 600 meters.

By 1910 the Hotel Adlon on Pariser Platz developed into the most prestigious hotel in Berlin, displacing both the Kaiserhof and the Central Hotel. The Central Hotel, however, had a trump card. It housed a magnificent ballroom-winter garden, which after being rebuilt, become the legendary Wintergarten theatre, one of Berlin’s most famous when it came to variety, revue and operetta.

Among the most important owners of Central-Hotel was the Aschinger concern, known for its restaurants and beer halls but also a big actor in the hotel business. 

 

 

 




    

"From the outset, the Central Hotel was intended to cater for international visitors, advertising itself in Bradshaw’s guides as ‘the most agreeable and comfortable habitation which Berlin can offer to Foreigners.’ Those with expensive tastes could be put up in rooms on the first floor, where were ‘fitted up in princely style’, while the more modest requirements of the ‘merchant and countryman’ could be accommodated on the second and third floors. Newspapers from across the Continent, as well as England and the USA, were offered in the reading room, along with directories of ‘every Capital and [the] most important Manufacturing Towns of the Globe’. The library stocked books in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian.

Architecturally, the hotel was executed in a neo-Renaissance style like many of the other large-scale building projects taking place across the city at the time. Turrets topped with cupolas and flagstaffs stood at each end of its lengthy and rather austere façade along Friedrichstraße. At street level a parade of shops occupied the ground floor spaces overlooking the street, and included chocolate makers, umbrella makers, cigarette sellers, and stationers.

The public rooms inside the hotel were the last word in opulence. They boasted marble columns, mahogany panelling, leather furnishings, and glass chandeliers. Neoclassical sculptures framed fireplaces and ornate mirrors filled entire walls. Not a single surface was left without some form of elaborate decoration."

From inthejungleofcities.com

The reading-room

The hotel seen from Friedrichsstrasse facing North. In the background, the station's railway bridge.

 

WIntergarten, Berlin's great variety theater

 

 The Wintergarten was the most famous variety theater in Berlin. It was housed in the same building complex as the Central-Hotel. The Central-Hotel opened in 1880 near the recently opened Friedrichsstrasse railway station. It boasted a large glass-decked palm-garden, 75 x 23 meters, used for concerts and other shows. In time, the winter garden became a venue for so called "varieté", with famous stars appearing, like Yvette Guilbert, Loie Fuller, La belle Otero, Cleo de Merode, Saharet, The Five Sisters Barrison, and Lillian Russell. And in 1895, the world’s first commercial film showing took place there.

"As their name suggests, "varietés" provided a "variety" of unconnected and "specialized" entertainments, primarily songs, acrobatic stunts, and animal acts, but also skits, magic tricks, tableaux, and even popular opera arias. The variety show was an urban institution that had originated in England, where it was called music hall, in the first half of the nineteenth century. The concept of the variety show soon spread to the continent, as well as to America, where it was known as vaudeville."  (Peter Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret)

In 1900 the place was rebuilt by Bernhard Sehring, who became famous for building the Theater des Westens. Among other things, the glass dome was covered and the room received an interior typical of a theater. Based on an idea by Bernhard Sehring, light bulbs were attached to the ceiling to imitate a starry sky. In 1928 the theatre was rebuilt again. With around 3,000 seats it was now one of the largest and most modern theaters in Europe, including a space where dining was possible during the performance. 

 

 

The Wintergarten had become one of the most popular meeting places of feverish Berlin (the other one being Scala, on the Lutherstrasse). Some of the most famous artists producing themselves were the enormously popular satiric singers Claire Waldoff and Otto Reutter, and also Grethe Weiser. 

 

Otto Reutter

 

Revue 1932

Hotel Central

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Claire Waldoff, Berlin's own Edith Piaf

 

In episode 1 of the third season of the TV series Babylon Berlin, Charlotte Ritter listens to a record. It is by Claire Waldoff (1884-1957), a popular Berlin singer of the 1920s. The song has a feminist message, it's all about men being useless and about kicking them out of the Reichstag. Out with men, in with women!

Es weht durch die ganze Historie
Ein Zug der Emanzipation
Vom Menschen bis zur Infusorie
Überall will das Weib auf den Thron
Von den Amazonen bis zur Berliner Range
Braust ein Ruf wie Donnerhall daher:
"Wat die Männer können, können wir schon lange
Und vielleicht 'ne janze Ecke mehr.

"All through History, an emancipation storm is blowing. From men to microbes, everywhere the female wants to ascend the throne. Whatever men can do, we can do too since long ago, and a lot better maybe." (my own very free English version of Raus mit den Männern aus dem Reichstag).   

Click to hear the song!

 

The recording is probably from 1926 and the lyrics are by the great Friedrich Hollaender, who composed music for productions by Max Reinhardt end was involved in Berlin's Kabarett scene.He was the author of the music in The Blue Angel, including the main theme, in English called Falling in love again.

But back to the singer:  Claire Waldoff. Though born far from the capital, he became the quintessential Berlin singer.

 

Waldoff (right) with Margo Lion

 

What follows are excerpts from Peter Jelavich's "Berlin cabaret", from 1993.

Like all "true Berliners," she came from elsewhere. The daughter of a former miner who opened a pub, Waldoff grew up in Gelsenkirchen, in the Rhine-Ruhr industrial basin.

Her account of her arrival in the capital: "Then I saw the giant city Berlin and was overwhelmed. I immediately sensed the special character of this city, its unheard-of tempo, its temperament, its incredible brio ... I fell passionately in love with Berlin. Not because the city was beautiful or the Imperialcapital, but because it was Berlin, with its special atmosphere, its vivacious and curt character." In the ensuing months Waldoff became a keen observer of the city's manners, and she gained perfect mastery of its brash dialect.

Describing her employment of the local dialect and mannerisms, she noted: "I began to become the Berliner, a prototype of the Berliner, a representative of modern Berlin." By the 1920s Tucholsky was equating her with the statue of Berolina on the Alexanderplatz.

The audience was surprised and delighted by the totally novel manner of Waldoff's perform ance. Unlike cabaret's other chanteuses and soubrettes, she was anything but mondaine: her short, stocky build, bushy red hair, and simple dress were in marked contrast to the corseted figures, stylish coiffures, and haute couture sported by the other cabaret divas. While these women utilized a conventional repertory of hand, arm, and body gestures while singing, Waldoff stood absolutely still; at most she would move her head, roll her eyes, and use her rather harsh, guttural voice for expressive purposes. Only between the stanzas of the marsh-reed song did she perform a little dance, in which she waddled in a circle like a duck.

Other chanteuses employed double-entendres and similar indirect means of expression to evoke amorous affairs, in which the men were invariably wealthy bons vivants, while the women ranged across all strata of society, from the seemingly proper upper-class wife to the loose shopgirl. Waldoff, in contrast, employed straightforward expressions to describe relations exclusively among the lower classes. She would employ a thick Berlin dialect, and take on the role of either the "boy" or the "girl" (it was well-known that she was a lesbian in private life).

Then and now

  

This is how Friedrichsstrasse, in the heart of Berlin, looked in the 1930s. The photo is taken from the corner of Leipzigerstrasse, looking North. Worth to note is the sign "Moka Efti", on the right side. That is the café made famous by the TV-series Babylon Berlin, except it was not a night-club IRL but just a café, albeit a luxurious one. 

Foto: Kurt Breuer - Bundesarchiv - Uploaded by Jörn Bier

 

The same spot, 75 years later. Google Maps.

 

    

 

 

Rudolf Levy, painter

Auto-portrait

Another tragic destiny in inter-war Europe. Rudof Levy, born in Stettin, Poland in 1875, active artist in Germany, France, New York, exiled in Italy and finally trapped by the Nazi murderers and killed, 1944, because his art was deemed "degenerate" but mostly because he was a Jew. 

 

 

 

 

Egon Jacobsohn, the other raging reporter

 

                      Egon Jacobsohn with young Willy Czerwinski

 

Noted journalists from the Weimar Era are Egon Erwin Kisch, "the raging reporter", Kurt Tucholsky and of course Carl von Ossietzky (not to mention the fictional Samuel Katelbach, from Babylon Berlin).

A lesser known name today, but a notorious one in his time, is Egon Jacobsohn (1895-1969). He didn't have the litterary ambitions of Tucholsky and he was not engaged in politics like Ossietzky or Kisch. But he was a creative and very innovative journalist.

Jacobsohn was born in Kochstrasse, the heart of Berlin press world at the time. His father was a cigar dealer and his mother an actress. He was also nephew to the famous Berlin comedian duo Anton and Donat Herrnfeld, who directed an Yiddish Theater near Alexanderplatz.

Jacobsohn started his own film magazine, the Filmhölle, revealing scandals in the silent German film.

He worked for the Ullstein publishing house, first at the Berliner Morgenpost, then as editor of the local section of "B.Z. am Mittag", where he recruited a young man from Vienna called Billy Wilder.... He interviewed Asta Nielsen and Henny Porten, Conan Doyle and Albert Einstein. He even interviewed Fritz Haarmann, the Vampire of Hannover, before the police managed to do so.

He was not only an admired reporter - he became news himself as he appeared in a wide range of disguises: as waiter, croupier, tramp, sausage vendor, barrel- organ player, fireman, or even burglar. He could claim to the title of "inventor" of undercover-journalism. In 1919 he had a spectacular idea : the Berliner Morgenpost would publish a "wanted" poster of a suspected murderer and offer a thousand marks for his arrest. The first who recognized the wanted person would receive the sum. That was unprecedented in the press, not only in Berlin but probably in the whole world.

And the suspect, whose portrait appeared not only in the press, but also on posters all over Berlin, was none other than Egon Jacobsohn himself…

In the end, it was a 13-year-old boy named Willy Czerwinski who recognized him - and pocketed the reward.

Following the coming to power of Hitler on 30 January 1933, Jacobsohn, a Jews, a famous journalist whose name was in a death-list, lived in clandestinity until he succeeded in escaping to London, where he took on a new identity as the journalist Egon Jameson. As such, he wrote a number of books. He died in London in 1969.