Café of the West
The Café des Westens , also known as Café megalomania , was a Berlin artist's pub that was located on Kurfürstendamm 18/19, corner of Joachimstaler Strasse, today's Kranzler-Eck , in Charlottenburg (now Berlin ) from 1898 to 1915 .
Buildings and beginnings
The building in which the Café des Westens was located was built between 1893 and 1895 as a representative house by the master carpenter Christoph Osten. The architect Max Welsch designed the facade, richly furnished and with a mighty attic in the form of an openwork balustrade with figures and acroteries .
In 1893 the “Small Café” opened there on the ground floor, which at the time was the first café on Kurfürstendamm. Since the autumn of 1896, a regular round table has been formed around Maximilian Bern and Fritz Stahl . Some artists had already rented studios in the surrounding residential buildings in the “ New West ” of Berlin, and instead of plunging into the hustle and bustle of the city for pleasure, they met in the “Small Café”, which was then renamed “Café des Westens” in 1898 . When Rocco, "the chef of all cooks", took over the management in 1898, the number of visitors increased. Now the artists came from the center of Berlin, and in certain middle-class circles it became fashionable to be able to tell about a visit to the crazy café. In 1904, the operator Ernst Pauly had the café expanded into the first floor, where, among other things, billiard tables were set up.
Meeting point for writers
The bar quickly developed into the most important meeting place for Berlin artists and journalists. In 1901 the idea for Ernst von Wolzogen's artist cabaret Überbrettl , which was to become the first German cabaret, arose here . The idea for the second Berlin cabaret, Schall und Rauch , which opened on January 23, 1901 on the stage of the Künstlerhaus at Potsdamer Platz , was also developed around Max Reinhardt , Friedrich Kayßler and Martin Zickel in the “Café Großeswahn”. With these two theaters the development of cabaret began in Germany. Both closed again after a relatively short time, but there were enough successors. From Berlin, the cabaret spread across Germany.
The coffee house took over the role of earlier bourgeois salons at the beginning of the 20th century. Two groups soon formed among the artists in the café, the so-called swimmer and non-swimmer pools . Anyone who already had a name came to the regular table of the painter Max Liebermann , writers and critics such as Alfred Kerr and Herbert Ihering were among them. At composers table, led by Paul Lincke , were Walter Kollo and Jean Gilbert found.
The up-and-coming bohemian joined the artist group Die Brille around Max Reinhardt and Christian Morgenstern . The idea for the Threepenny Opera was launched in the café. I'm set for love from head to toe ... Friedrich Hollaender composed here.
Richard Strauss , Alfred Kerr , Maximilian Harden , Ludwig Fulda , Paul Lindau , Frank Wedekind and Carl Sternheim also traveled here . The well-known painters Emil Orlik and Ernst Oppler , regular guests themselves, drew guests and the café.
The “Café megalomania” was a kind of home for many artists. The owner Ernst Pauly, who took over the café in 1904 , got his money's worth because the artists, some of whom were penniless, attracted the paying public. The “Café megalomania” was also famous for the women who showed themselves here and demonstrated the latest chic at the same time as their claim to emancipation.
In the last few years before the First World War , the “Café megalomania” became the center of the literary movement of German Expressionism . This is where the avant-garde writers - naturalism and impressionism seemed to have been overcome - met and discussed with their colleagues: Else Lasker-Schüler and her husband Herwarth Walden , Anna Ottonie Krigar-Menzel, René Schickele , Roda Roda , Johannes Schlaf , Benno Berneis , Erich Mühsam and John Henry Mackay , Peter Hille and Paul Scheerbart , Frank Wedekind , Artur Landsberger , Carl Sternheim and Leonhard Frank , Salomo Friedländer , John Höxter and Jakob van Hoddis were “at home” here - no one could avoid the Café megalomania who was part of the new expressionist movement wanted to have a say and take notes. Important literary magazines were also founded here: Herwarth Walden designed his magazine Der Sturm in the café in 1910, and Franz Pfemfert Die Aktion in 1911 .
Shortly before the First World War, the café was increasingly in the headlines of the conservative press. The artistic circles in the Café des Westens are rabble from the “Café megalomania”, they have turned the west of Berlin into a swamp.
Perhaps it was these attacks that moved the owner Ernst Pauly to move to the new “ Union Palast ” building at Kurfürstendamm 26 in 1913 . Here he founded the new Café des Westens as a concert café. The café continued to exist in the old location until 1915. However, the artists did not move to the new café, it was the end of the megalomania café as a literary meeting place. After the First World War, the Romanisches Café at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church became the new literary center of Berlin.
In 1920 the “Cabaret megalomania” was opened in the former premises of the café: It lasted until 1922. In 1932, Café Kranzler opened a branch here. In April 1945 the building was destroyed.
From the 1970s until the demolition of the building in 1998, there was a Café des Westens in the Kudamm-Eck, diagonally across from the Kranzler (architect: Werner Düttmann ).
literature
- Ernst Pauly (Ed.): 20 years of Café des Westens. Memories from the Kurfürstendamm . Berlin and Charlottenburg 1913/1914
- Reprint: Ed. & Nachw. Franz-Josef Weber. Series: Randfiguren der Moderne, Postscript, Hanover 1988, ISBN 3-922382-45-2
- Reprint: University of Siegen , series Forgotten Authors of Modernism # 13
- Hermann-Josef Fohsel: In the waiting room of poetry. Else Lasker-Schüler, Benn and others. Images of times and morals from the Café des Westens and the Romanisches Café . Das Arsenal, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-921810-31-0
- Erich Mühsam : Non-political memories . Nautilus, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 978-3-7466-1967-5 ( projekt-gutenberg.org ).
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 14.4 " N , 13 ° 19 ′ 51.6" E