Annemarie Hase

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Annemarie Hase (born June 14, 1900 in Berlin as Annita Maria Hirsch , † February 22, 1971 in West Berlin ) was a German-Jewish cabaret artist , theater and film actress .

In the " Golden Twenties " of the last century Annemarie Hase was one of the most established German cabaret artists. She performed on all of Berlin's well-known cabaret stages, and great artists such as Friedrich Hollaender , Kurt Tucholsky , Hermann Vallentin , Marcellus Schiffer , Klabund and Erich Kästner wrote her texts. Even after her return from exile during the National Socialist dictatorship, into which she had to go because of her Jewish roots, she continued to work in East and West Germany . Although she was one of the big names in cabaret in the twenties, there is hardly any information about her apart from a few theater reviews and newspaper articles, as well as mentions or brief entries in relevant books. The great esteem Annemarie Hase enjoyed among her fellow artists is shown in the poem Announcement of a Chansonette , which Erich Kästner wrote for her.

Significance for cabaret of the 1920s

Annemarie Hase was born on June 14, 1900 as the third of five children under the real name Annita Maria Hirsch, but was only called Annemarie all her life. The family was wealthy, the father Robert Hirsch owned a small soap factory. For generations the family had been completely assimilated in Prussian-German society, all family members were baptized and did not live in any way Jewish.

The young Annemarie was a very lively child who, like her father, had a good sense of humor. She enjoyed a carefree childhood. When she was 13, the family was shaken by her father's completely unexpected suicide and suddenly torn from financial security because the father's company was bankrupt. Annemarie and two of her sisters then went to the Empress Augusta School. The father's suicide was largely taboo, and the children were told that it was an accident. Despite this stroke of fate and against numerous misgivings, Annemarie Hase made the decision to go to the theater. Her dream was to become a "sentimental", a classic character actress. But even at the entrance exam for the Max Reinhardt Drama School , she was prophesied that the role of a comedian would suit her better.

After her first engagements at the Osnabrück Theater and in Halberstadt , she finally appeared on a cabaret stage for the first time in 1921 in Schall und Rauch, which was revived by Max Reinhardt . She performed so-called “old Berlin hostel songs” in her coarse, cheeky way. But it was only really discovered by Trude Hesterberg when she opened her Wilde Bühne , which became a springboard for many artists at the time. With her parodies of suburban soubrettes, Annemarie Hirsch, who now called herself Hase, quickly played her way into the small circle of distinguished cabaret artists. The character of this political criticism is particularly reflected in the chanson "Mit'n Zopp", which the poet Klabund wrote for her and was a satirical of the old empire.

Annemarie Hase developed her own style. In the political cabaret of the 20s, she embodied the type of a petty singer without being lewd. With an unmistakable Berlin snout, she sang from the people, for the people - and the people loved her for it. Like the cabaret artists Rosa Valetti and Kate Kühl , she embodied a gripping, tough type of woman.

Despite her cabaret successes, Annemarie Hase was always drawn to the theater stage. In Berlin, however, further artistic training was hardly possible, as people always wanted to see her in roles of the “Berlin type”. In 1922 she went to the Münchner Kammerspiele and worked there in Bertolt Brecht's “ Drums in the Night ”. Further engagements at the Deutsches Volkstheater in Berlin and at the Kleiner Schauspielhaus in Hamburg until the beginning of the thirties, however, remained without resounding success.

Annemarie Hase received special appreciation as a cabaret artist through her appearances in all of Friedrich Hollaender's revues from 1927 to 1933. Hollaender was the most important representative of the political-satirical revue that had developed from the literary number cabaret in the mid-twenties. In his first revue “That's you!” He wrote and composed the number for Annemarie Hase: “The Potsdamer Edelfasan or The Last Hairpin”. When Hollaender reopened the Tingel-Tangel-Theater in 1931 , Annemarie Hase was one of the main forces in his revues, including “Spuk in der Villa Stern” - a revue that caused a sensation in the charged political climate. The Berliner Börsen-Zeitung summarized the plot as follows: “The Stern family, who are related to philistines and related by marriage to Neureichs, are giving a costume ball in their villa. The strangest situations arise from the excitement and ridiculousness of the family and their guests. Until a real burglar finally appears ... the master of the house asks him to break into the safe; to which the guests offer their jewelry; which the daughter of the house imposes. ”(CD booklet, p. 35f) - The revue was a bit of time criticism, biting and of course terrifyingly realistic against the background of the threatening political shift to the right. Hollaender held up the mirror to the fine Berlin carefree society, especially with the chanson sung by Annemarie Hase “ It's all the Jews to blame ”. In spite of these exposures, the audience did not take the warnings very seriously, they saw above all the amusement. After all, the revue was a great success.

At the same time, Annemarie Hase was a sought-after guest on one of the most established stages of political cabaret at the beginning of the thirties: in Werner Finck's catacomb . Between 1921 and 1933 she was on stage alongside all the major cabaret greats: from Blandine Ebinger to Valeska Gert and Kurt Gerron to Paul Graetz and Rosa Valetti. Joachim Ringelnatz , who had a close friendship with Annemarie Hase, was of the opinion "that apart from himself only the Hase was able to recite his poems appropriately." (CD booklet, p. 3)

Work in the Jewish Cultural Association

Annemarie Hase's career, and with her that of numerous others, came to an abrupt end when the National Socialists came to power . Because of her Jewish descent, she was banned from performing. Nevertheless, she decided to stay in Germany for the time being and work as a cabaret artist for as long as possible. She resigned from the Protestant church to join the Jewish Cultural Association founded in June 1933 . With that she could at least perform in front of a “Jewish” audience. In private rooms and later in Cafe Leon on Lehniner Platz, she found an artistic niche existence alongside other people who stayed there, which meant more struggle for survival than professional continuation. When the repressive measures finally became too overwhelming, she went into exile in London in 1936.

exile

In the first few years she kept her head above water with odd jobs, and she did not have an official work permit. Knitting earned her the most money during this time. There was no livelihood for her as a cabaret artist in England. Something like literary-political cabaret simply had no tradition there. In addition, she was not one of the big stars like Elisabeth Bergner or Fritz Kortner , for whom England was only a stopover on the way to the USA. She only became artistically active again in 1938, when the Free German Cultural Association (FDKB) was founded by emigrants. Annemarie Hase was one of the most committed supporters of this initiative, not only performing, but also rehearsing the songs. Until 1943 some political-satirical reviews were staged. The most successful one was called Mr. Gulliver goes to school , in which the hero from Jonathan Swift's novel travels back in time into the future and in 1942 comes into conflict with the Nazis in Germany. The number presented by Hase was particularly applauded . In Germany, a scrubwoman is missing . The Observer wrote on January 3, 1943: “Humor in émigré theater is often tense. But these players can laugh at themselves and at their lives in exile. ”(CD booklet, p. 47) None of the contributors could live from the income on the modest stage in Upper Park Road .

In 1940 she was hired by the BBC . As early as 1938, the BBC had been supporting the so-called “ ether war ” by producing programs in German that could be heard secretly via people's receivers in Germany, often with the ceiling overhead and “ Goebbels ' nose ” . During the course of World War II, producers discovered satire as an effective weapon to expose the lies and perversions of Nazi propaganda. The fear of this "subversive gossip" (Uwe Naumann in: Adler, p. 159) and the inability to master this counter-propaganda was evident not least in the establishment of jammers and the brutal prosecution of so-called " radio crimes ".

Annemarie Hase lent her voice to the radio art figure Frau Wernicke . In this way she took up the existing displeasure of her German compatriots about the Third Reich and was able to provoke or strengthen defensive stances against the Hitler regime. In doing so, she targeted the “little people”, brought up supply bottlenecks and war victims, made the “Führer” and other Nazi greats ridiculous - and thus gave their opponents courage in a subtle way. Your text writer was Bruno Adler , an art and literature professor from Bohemia who had also been driven into exile in London by the Nazis. He had taught at the Weimar Bauhaus , fled in 1936 and then worked for the BBC's German Service. In addition to some German-language news programs, there were a total of three successful satirical series of the BBC in the ether war, which according to British estimates had a regular around 10 million listeners in the last year of the war. Until the end of January 1944, Ms. Wernicke put her anti-fascist displeasure into the microphone, during the course of the war the verbal attacks became more and more direct and offensive. After a tumor operation in 1944, which from then on disfigured her right eye, she abruptly stopped broadcasting on the BBC and disappeared completely from the stage for a few months.

Back in Berlin

After the Second World War, Annemarie Hase was one of the very first to return to Berlin (1947). In contrast to numerous other returning artist colleagues, she managed to find her place in the cultural scene in post-war Germany . She continued her stage career as a theater actress and also discovered film as a new medium. They were particularly often seen in DEFA film productions, e.g. B. in 1-2-3 Corona (1948) and Pole Poppenspäler (1954). At the theater she played important supporting roles, for example the cook in the play Herr Puntila and his servant Matti at Bertolt Brecht's Berliner Ensemble or the farmer's wife in Mother Courage in West Berlin, including at the Theater am Kurfürstendamm and the Freie Volksbühne . She was also actively involved in setting up the Schaubühne on Halleschen Ufer , where she also appeared in some of the first productions.

According to her niece, the painter Sarah Haffner , Annemarie Hase was “ not a communist, but certainly a socialist. “(2007) This ideological sympathy initially collided with her experiences on West German theaters. In an interview she said: “ Seven years of artistic work with Brecht is not a good recommendation in West Germany today. There is [...] a sacred blood community of those who were in the Third Reich and who see Brecht not as a great poet, but as an undesirable politician. "(P. 65, exhibition catalog)

The old hand

Annemarie Hase knew that her great stage time was over. But that by no means made her a lonely, complaining woman, on the contrary. She lived with her landlady, Fräulein Wippermann, on Kastanienallee in Charlottenburg in a funny shared apartment. She had an intensive acquaintance with Ernst Deutsch and her East Berlin colleague Willi Schwabe . The English actor Trevor Howard , whom she knew from the time of emigration, was one of her circle of friends. In a letter to Erich Lowinsky , better known as Elow in the cabaret scene of the 1920s, shortly after her 70th birthday, she described her retirement: “I'm healthy - not called! - quite good, even if, as with all of us, the signs of age are noticeable. But I drive z. B. still passionate about the car, make nice trips - the biggest experience lately has been a trip across Finland from the south to Lapland and back on another route, with a detour to Leningrad; and I indulged my hobby extensively: photography and filming. Unfortunately, professionally, nothing has happened for a long time, except for a few unimportant TV rolls, and I am now slowly taking the point of view: It serves people quite right if I don't play the theater! So I lead the life of a reasonably well-off and still very brisk pensioner, but by no means bored, I have a lot of interests and distractions. "(ADK, Berlin, Collection Theater im Exil 1933-45, Collection Elow No. 1.57.143 )

With the lack of offers, the now almost 70-year-old became increasingly emptied. Out of sheer necessity, it seems, she accepted an engagement at the Stadttheater Krefeld at the end of the 1960s . She died almost forgotten as an artist.

meaning

Their main meaning lies in the political-satirical cabaret of the 20s. Otto Reutter , a comedian by trade, said at the time: “In cabaret everything is personality” (CD booklet, p. 25). She had no role models and established herself “as an unmistakable individual”. The cabaret of the 60s offered her few points of contact: “[Political cabaret] is different from that before the outbreak of the millennial empire. It's grosser and more direct. I, from the generation of Tucholsky, Klabund and Ringelnatz, don't belong there at all. ”(P. 65, exhibition catalog) The story of Annemarie Hase also testifies to the irrevocable loss of cultural diversity in Germany as a result of the dictatorship of the National Socialists.

Filmography

theatre

Radio plays

literature

  • Bruno Adler: Ms. Wernicke's comments from a people's hero . persona, Mannheim 1990, ISBN 3-924652-16-3 .
  • Archive of the Akademie der Künste Berlin (AdK), From the holdings: Ferdinand Bruckner, Annemarie Hase, Rolf Herricht, Wieland Herzfelde, Monty Jacobs, Alfred Kurella, Erwin Piscator, Collection Theater im Exil 1933-45 / Collection Elow.
  • CD: "Sawing up a living lady", from the CD edition: "Displaced German / Jewish actors", published - in cooperation with Volker Kühn, Peter Stein, Klaus Völker and the Foundation Archive of the Academy of Arts - by Wolfgang Schwiedrzik, Mnemosyne - publishing house for old hats and new media, Neckargemünd, 2001, ISBN 3-934012-02-7 .
  • Catalog for the exhibition “1945: Now where? Exile and return ... to Berlin? ”, Active Museum Association at Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, 1995, p. 64 f. DNB 94462703X .
  • Interview with Sarah Haffner on July 12, 2007
  • Klaus Budzinski and Reinhard Hippen: Metzler Cabaret Lexicon . JB Metzler, Stuttgart and Weimar, 1996, ISBN 3-476-01448-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Annemarie Hase's 100th birthday , Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv (with audio samples).
personal data
SURNAME Bunny, Annemarie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hirsch, Annita Maria (maiden name); Hirsch, Annemarie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Jewish cabaret artist, theater and film actress
DATE OF BIRTH June 14, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH February 22, 1971
Place of death West Berlin