Cabaret in exile

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Cabaret in exile , cabaret during the Third Reich in other European countries, mostly founded by German exiles .

January 30, 1933: Reich President Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor. The democratic experiment had failed, the cabaret was, like the rest of public and cultural life also regulated and brought into line . The emigration appeared to many to be the only possible way out. Twelve dark years began in which cabaret moved between adaptation , resistance and the dance of death.

From the time the NSDAP came to power , this witty criticism of the times was fought and the actors persecuted, with serious consequences for cabaret in Germany. The fascist state granted cabarets a grace period of two years before sending a clear signal with the ban on the Katakombe , Tingel-Tangel-Theater and Die Vier Nachrichtener in 1935. From then on, criticism “between the lines” was no longer tolerated on stage. What remained for the cabarets under the dictatorship that had become everyday life was the evasion of apolitical amusement, masterfully presented in the Berlin cabaret of the comedians (KadeKo) under Willi Schaeffers , in Fred Endrikat's Kölner Die Arche or that by the parodist Werner Kroll . Anyone who tried anything else, like Werner Finck , was banned from the profession by order of the Reich Propaganda Minister, was arrested in 1935 and interned in the Esterwegen concentration camp .

Many of the German-speaking cabaret artists went into exile in Switzerland, France, Scandinavia or the USA. Expelled from Germany, the exile became the new home of political cabaret. The Pfeffermühle ensemble, who emigrated to Zurich, acted across Europe against National Socialist politics and for a different Germany, provided satirical explanations and warned against a misjudgment of the Nazi regime. In London after 1939 Das Laterndl and the Four and Twenty Black Sheep opposed Hitler, while Kurt Egon Wolff's ping-pong , Rudolf Nelson's cabaret La Gaité in the Tuschinski Theater and Willy Rosen's theater of celebrities in the Dutch emigration shone with rather apolitical revues .

After the start of the war in 1939, the Reich German entertainment cabaret continued in the cabaret troop support and specially set up front cabarets with names such as Knobelbecher or the Platzpatrone . For the majority of cabarets in exile, however, the occupation of large parts of Europe by the Wehrmacht meant the end. Unless they managed to escape, those involved were imprisoned in concentration camps. And there took place what seems unimaginable in retrospect: cabaret in the face of death, to distract from the deportations and to entertain the SS guards. Initially illegally, later organized by order of the camp management, there were cabaret evenings in the “Karussell” with Kurt Gerron in the Theresienstadt concentration camp . In 1943/44 , Max Ehrlich directed the mezzanine in the Westerbork transit camp . In these and other camp cabarets, the Jewish cabaret elite of the 1920s played one last time before they were murdered in Auschwitz .

literature

  • Daniela Chana: Erika Mann and the 'pepper mill'. Dadaism and the beginnings of cabaret in Switzerland. danzig & unfried, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-902752-10-9
  • Christian Jauslin: The pepper mill, Zurich ZH . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz . Volume 2, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , pp. 1404 f.
  • Helga Keizer-Hayne: Erika Mann and her political cabaret “Die Pfeffermühle” 1933–1937. Texts, images, backgrounds . Extended new edition. Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek 1995, ISBN 3-499-13656-2
  • Christian Klösch, Regina Thumser: From Vienna. Cabaret in exile in New York 1938 to 1950 , Picus, 2006, ISBN 3854524633
  • Lisa Appignanesi: The Cabaret. 1975, Yale University Press, 2004 (English), ISBN 0-300-105800 , p. 212 Four and Twenty Black Sheep
  • Karin Ploog: ... When the notes learned to run ... Volume 2 : Cabaret-Operetta-Revue-Film-Exile Popular music until 1945, Norderstedt, Books on Demand, 2015 ISBN 978-3-7347-5316-9
  • Katinka Dittrich, Hans Würzner: The Netherlands and German Exile 1933-1940 , Königstein 1982, ISBN 3-7610-8173-1
CD
  • Anatol Regnier: Why are we so cold: Die Pfeffermühle: Erika Mann's exile cabaret 1933-1937 Audio CD with: Anatol Reginier, Monika Sutil, Rosel Zech and Gert Heidenreich, AirPlay-Entertainment, 2006, ISBN 3935168551

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Die Arche Politische Revue - Cabaret - Varieté in Cologne 1928–1938 ( Memento of the original from July 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , NS Documentation Center Cologne, accessed May 25, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.museenkoeln.de
  2. ↑ Four and Twenty Black Sheep