Kakadu (Berlin)
The Kakadu was a Berlin bar located on the corner of Kurfürstendamm , Joachimsthaler Strasse and Augsburger Strasse . Founded around 1919 or shortly before, it became an important meeting place for artists, stars and business leaders as well as the demi-world during the Weimar Republic . At times it claimed to be the "largest bar in Berlin". She was able to cultivate her good reputation for a long time, the last reports are from the beginning of 1937, then the bar closed.
Beginnings
Since the architect Adolf Hauffe had built an upper-class, richly decorated building in the manner of historicism on the corner of Kurfürstendamm, Joachimsthaler and Augsburger Strasse in 1891/1892, one of the five shops facing Augsburger Strasse has been a small wine shop that gradually expanded into a local through individual conversions and extensions.
The earliest known reports from the actual Kakadu come from the year 1919. At the beginning of 1920 an application was made to convert the bar, which mainly concerned a kitchen and toilets, it is therefore assumed that one was here before that time existing wine shop was expanded into a fully functional restaurant. In 1919 Mischa Spoliansky played the piano there and his friend Curt Bois described his impression of the audience during a visit as a mixture of melancholy entrepreneurs, animators and a "lonely state secretary". With the renovation in 1920, the bar expanded.
In the beginning, in the years 1919 and 1920, there was hardly any additional entertainment element, at that time the bar was probably just a cozy place. Apart from Spoliansky's piano playing, there were no concerts or even dancing - things like these were prohibited in the crisis years, and at the same time the cockatoo neither had the necessary concessions nor did it offer the space to do so. Only chanson evenings were possible, for example Trude Hesterberg made a guest appearance in the bar in 1920 .
Ascent
After presumably several changes of ownership, the company Georg Tichauer & Co. der Kakadu took over in 1923 . Tichauer also ran two other restaurants, namely the Ambassadeurs and the Barberina . The Kakadu remained in his possession until he handed the bar over to his brother Dagobert Tichauer in 1930 to concentrate on the other houses. In fact, the cockatoo managed to establish itself during the 1920s and become a well-known address in the city. In the complaint of a neighbor is reported by "by the Jazz chapel with screaming and yelling drunken guests wheel caused that continues to 3am, sometimes even longer."
In 1928 the cockatoo was rebuilt in a large form. It was directed by the architects Oskar Kaufmann and Richard Wolffenstein, who were previously responsible for the renovation of the Admiralspalast , while Max Ackermann took care of the artistic design .
wedding
The cockatoo now took up the entire front of Augsburger Strasse over five former shops. The facade was plastered in light yellow, the windows and doors were reddish brown, and the bar's characteristic illuminated lettering was large above the central windows. The main room was now around 400 m², with a large bar, supposedly the longest in town, at the back and a smaller one in the front. In addition to the bar, singing and prostitutes , the Kakadu now also offered space for gastronomy, dance accompanied by bands and orchestras and larger cabaret events . The main room was designed in a mixture of “moderate expressionism” with Tahitian or Samoan decorative elements, while the interior design remained clinging to ideas from the Wilhelminian era . A bar window with a representation of cockatoos by Puhl & Wagner served as an additional decoration . Thick curtains, carpets and armchairs had a sound-absorbing effect, the bar room was blue / gold, and there were log fires burning all the time in the lounge. Curt Moreck mentions “boxes and smooches” as well as an “atmosphere tailored to red light and sensuality”. The prostitutes present appeared in the manner of the American flappers .
At the end of the 1920s, beginning of the 1930s, at the latest with the last expansion in 1932, the Kakadu had completely transformed from a cozy pub into a fully expanded dance bar with numerous attractions. These were not least due to a business that had become tougher with the global economic crisis, more programming was necessary to attract enough audiences. Investments were also made in advertising and concessions made on prices.
According to a 1937 report, the cockatoo didn't close until 3 a.m. An exemplary program offers acrobatic dance, a humorist, a drawing artist, a female dance trio and a sailor dance, plus jazz music. Another program has four dance numbers and one acrobatic number, a tenor and a jazz singer sing alternately, accompanied by a band, and so “never let quiet minutes enter”. Guest appearances even at this time in Kakadu leading German jazz and swing sizes, so next to the chapel Max Herrnsdorf the chapels Joe Bund , Michael Jary and Teddy Stauffer .
The audience is portrayed as consisting of supervisory board chairmen, barmaids and actors, as well as stock market traders, types of artists, tourists and foreign journalists. The presence of entrepreneurs was so characteristic that the Berliner Herold wrote in 1934 “Tell me when your A.-G. Had a board meeting, and I want to tell you when you were at the Kakadu . ” Heinrich Mann is said to have met his second wife Nelly here (or in Bajadere ). The composer Nico Dostal also frequented the bar. A late testimony to the bar comes from Yamaguchi Seison , who described a visit there at the beginning of April 1937, including a - harmless - encounter with animation girls.
End of the cockatoo
1936 was the last year of the cockatoo . Perhaps in order to survive under National Socialism , Tichauer hired NSDAP party member Kowalinski as operations manager, but that was not enough. In 1937 the owner changed, the new owner Georg Jahns renamed it "Weinstube". This did not last long, in 1938 the Thier confectionery was established here, which moved away from Tiergarten because of initial work for the new capital " Germania " . Tichauer's further fate remained unknown, allegedly he emigrated to Australia .
In 1943 the building was confiscated and converted into accommodation for the Reich Labor Service . Allied bombs later destroyed it so badly that it had to be demolished. Today the Allianz high-rise stands there .
proof
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Carolin Stahrenberg: Hot Spots from Café to Cabaret: Musical Action Spaces in Berlin Mischa Spolianskys 1918–1933 , 2012, ISBN 978-3-8309-2520-0 , pp. 137–158
- ↑ Carolin Stahrenberg, article "Trude Hesterberg", in: Music education and gender research: Lexicon and multimedia presentations, ed. by Beatrix Borchard, University of Music and Theater Hamburg, 2003ff. As of September 22, 2011. URL: http://mugi.hfmt-hamburg.de/A_lexartikel/lexartikel.php?id=hest1892 (accessed on: April 3, 2013).
- ↑ a b c d e f g Knud Wolffram: Tanzdielen und amusement palaces , 2001, ISBN 978-3-89468-169-2 , pp. 170–179
- ↑ a b c d e Mel Gordon: Voluptuous Panic - The Erotic World Of Weimar Berlin , 2006, ISBN 978-0-922915-96-5 , p. 265
- ^ Curt Moreck: Guide through the "vicious" Berlin , Verlag Moderne Stadtführer, Leipzig 1931; Reprint 1996, Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, ISBN 3-87584-583-8 , p. 114
- ↑ a b Yamaguchi Seison: Berlin in the spring of 1937 - diary April 1 - June 9 , from the Japanese by Tanja Schwanhäuser, 2002, Mori-Ôgai-Gedenkstätte der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, p. 8, PDF online