Berlin Cabaret

by Peter Jelavich

Step into Ernst Wolzogen's Motley Theater, Max Reinhardt's Sound and Smoke, Rudolf Nelson's Chat noir, and Friedrich Hollaender's Tingel-Tangel. Enjoy Claire Waldoff's rendering of a lower-class Berliner, Kurt Tucholsky's satirical songs, and Walter Mehring's Dadaist experiments, as Peter Jelavich spotlights Berlin's cabarets from the day the curtain first went up, in 1901, until the Nazi regime brought it down.

Fads and fashions, sexual mores and political ideologies--all were subject to satire and parody on the cabaret stage. This book follows the changing treatment of these themes, and the fate of cabaret itself, through the most turbulent decades of modern German history: the prosperous and optimistic Imperial age, the unstable yet culturally inventive Weimar era, and the repressive years of National Socialism. By situating cabaret within Berlin's rich landscape of popular culture and distinguishing it from vaudeville and variety theaters, spectacular revues, prurient "nude dancing," and Communist agitprop, Jelavich revises the prevailing image of this form of entertainment.

Neither highly politicized, like postwar German Kabarett , nor sleazy in the way that some American and European films suggest, Berlin cabaret occupied a middle ground that let it cast an ironic eye on the goings-on of Berliners and other Germans. However, it was just this satirical attitude toward serious themes, such as politics and racism, that blinded cabaret to the strength of the radical right-wing forces that ultimately destroyed it. Jelavich concludes with the Berlin cabaret artists' final performances--as prisoners in the concentration camps at Westerbork and Theresienstadt.

This book gives us a sense of what the world looked like within the cabarets of Berlin and at the same time lets us see, from a historical distance, these lost performers enacting the political, sexual, and artistic issues that made their city one of the most dynamic in Europe.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Research

336 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 1993

About the author

Peter Jelavich specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of Europe since the Enlightenment, with emphasis on Germany. His areas of interest include the interaction of elite and popular culture; the history of mass culture and the media; and the application of cultural and social theories to historical study.

Reviews

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does a good job of examining the German cabaret/Kleinkunst movement from roughly the Wilhelmine period to the Second World War. There is some overlap between what is generally understood as cabaret (especially in France) and what the term came to mean in Germany. Jelavich is aware of this distinction and his treatment takes into account the specific way that German stage shows/revues/vaudeville, etc. were performed, critiqued, analyzed, censored, and finally snuffed out by Nazi repression and American bombing in the Second World War.

One chapter in "Berlin Cabaret" treats mockery of the powerful on stage (an especially touchy subject in a culture as martial and monarchical as Germany). Another section of the book deals with the place of race on stage (especially revues like "the Chocolate Kiddies" and Josephine Baker doing her banana-skirt dances); this chapter shows how even well-meaning cabaretists (sic) tended to reduce blackness itself to a shorthand for everything that was supposedly vital (but also primitive) about the humans spirit. Other topics covered include lesbianism, anti-Semitism (at first pretty innocuous but increasingly ominous as Germany headed toward the abyss), and the "New Woman".

There is lots of solid information in here, for the general reader or the scholar looking for a quality secondary source written by someone who knows what they're talking about. Photos and illustrations are scattered liberally throughout the book, providing a good visual aid to accompany the text. All in all this was a solid study of a fascinating subject. The coda of the book is easily the hardest part of the work to digest, and deals with the performance of cabarets in concentration camps or entertainment performed for those en route to extermination camps. The question the author raises, whether art can help one survive atrocity or is itself a sacrilege in the face of horror, is something that can never probably be answered conclusively, but it certainly ends the book on a dour (if unavoidable) note. Recommended nonetheless.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

A surprisingly thorough survey of Berlin's cabarets that also provides a good overview of the history of Berlin from the early 20th century till after the war. Jelavich explains the differences between the proper Berlin cabarets and what most Americans are more familiar with from films like the Blue Angel, discusses the politics of the cabarets, and also covers the careers of major performers, writers and club owners. It has enough nuanced analysis and historical context to be interesting to academics interested in cultural history while being well-written and appreciative enough of the writers and performers to appeal to fans of music and theater during this period. The final chapter on cabaret performances in concentration camps is also very well done.

[Anna]

I am working on a cabaret piece with a friend who knows a LOT more about it than I do, so I'm boning up.

If this were a cabaret show, "boning" would be a double entendre. But it's just a book review.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Bakunin and Walter Benjamin, this really dovetailed nicely.
Now I will always blame fascists for bad art.

[Sarah Zama · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was expecting a bit more.
It is a nice introduction to the cabaret as a form of art and it covers its early history, from the beginning in France, concentrating then on the German experience. It covers many aspects of cabaret as an expression, touching on different, but close forms of entertainment, such as variety shows or revues. But it concentrates on very specific experiences, exploring how certain cabarets, certain shows or certain artists came to the fore, became famous and then disappeared.
It was interesting, but very sporadic. I never got a good grasp of what cabaret was in the Weimar time and so also asserting these specific experiences became difficult and not very meaningful.
I also felt I needed more context in a more sociological way. The reasons why cabaret emerged and especially why it became so popular are touched, but never truly explored, so that I ended up feeling I was missing something important.
The author explores a thesis that cabaret in Berlin was as political as people normally think it was, but personally I didn’t find that very convincing.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://jenniemeid.blogspot.com/2021/...

In de vakantie had ik tijd om Berlin Cabaret van PeterJelavich te lezen, over de opkomst en ondergang van Cabaret in jonge wereldstad Berlijn. In de periode 1901 tot 1940 krijgt het Berlijnse Cabaret vorm en geeft satirisch commentaar op maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen, veranderende politieke en seksuele mores en gaat uiteindelijk in WOII ten onder.

Een boeiend geschreven boek.

#peterjelavich #berlincabaret #berlinthewickedcity #cthulhuberlin #weimarberlin #babylonberlin #berlijn #berlin #cabaret #kleinkunst #marlenedietrich #WOII #lezenisleuk #boekenkast #boek #bookstagram #bookstagrammer

[Alan Culler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of a series of books I read for a research project on cabaret.