Karl Kutschera (restaurateur)

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The Berlin restaurateur Karl Kutschera, pictured in the Nazi weekly newspaper Der Stürmer in October 1936 and commented anti-Semitically as “a so-called beautiful and decent Jew”

Karl Kutschera (born May 13, 1876 in Štvrtok , Kingdom of Hungary ; died May 19, 1950 in Berlin ) was a German restaurateur .

Life

Conditorei Wien and Café Wien on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm , defamed in April 1937 in the Nazi propaganda paper Der Stürmer as a “Judenkonditorei”
Interior partial view of the Café Wien on Kurfürstendamm in Berlin; Interior designer Paul Jakob Redelsheimer (1873–1942)
Front garden terrace of Café Wien in the early 1920s. The entrance to the Gypsy cellar , which was opened in 1930, was in the left side house (ergo in front of the fence in the foreground of the photo)
Access to the Zigeuner Keller - the Hungarian restaurant was completely below street level and was therefore a sensation from its opening in Berlin in 1930, as well as because of its size
Interior partial view of the Zigeuner Keller on a postcard from the Kutschera company, Kurfürstendamm 26
Today's view of the former home of the Josephine and Karl Kutschera family in Berlin-Kladow at Setheweg 9A
Memorial plaque on the Kurfürstendamm 26 building in Berlin-Charlottenburg

Karl Kutschera completed an apprenticeship in Vienna , where he was trained in all areas of gastronomy. Before moving to Berlin in 1900, he worked in Hamburg at the Hotel Hamburger Hof and as a ship waiter on the Hamburg - New York route. He tried several times to go ashore in America , but his efforts were in vain because he did not have the necessary visa.

In 1906 he opened Café Kutschera on Bismarckstrasse in Berlin. In 1907 he took over the management of the Tattersall on Kurfürstendamm 209. In 1918 he acquired the then Union-Palais on Kurfürstendamm 26, which was continued as Filmbühne Wien ( UFA ), and in 1919 opened the Conditorei Wien (pâtisserie and confectionery) with a café.

In 1926 Kutschera also acquired the property and had the building converted and expanded according to his plans by the interior designer Paul Jakob Redelsheimer (1873–1942). The Café Vienna included in its first floor a billiard room with fifteen tables, chess and bridge rooms and a chapel, which was set up on the rear gallery.

In 1929 Kutschera also had the cellar rooms expanded and in 1930 opened the Zigeuner Keller restaurant there with Hungarian cuisine and "Gypsy music". He commissioned the architect Max RB Abicht to expand the Gypsy cellar . The interior design was done by caricaturist Alexander Maximilian Cay (1887–1971) and Theo Matejko , one of the most famous German press draftsmen and illustrators. At that time, the Zigeuner Keller was the largest restaurant in Berlin in terms of area below street level and was therefore a sensation that attracted a corresponding number of guests out of curiosity.

Kutschera was one of the most famous restaurateurs in Berlin in the early 1930s. The Zigeuner Keller wine restaurant and Café Wien with its pâtisserie and confectionery gained an international reputation and were popular meeting places in fashionable Berlin.

From 1924 to 1937 Kutschera also ran the Kurhaus Cladow in Berlin-Kladow , where he lived himself. There Kutschera's possessions stretched from the Sakrower Landstrasse down to the Havel , including numerous greenhouses, fruit trees, asparagus fields, raspberry bushes, stables for horses and pigs.

Since the early 1930s, Kurfürstendamm has repeatedly been the scene of anti-Semitic attacks; In addition to their commercial success, which aroused resentment and envy, Kutschera's businesses were exposed in two ways. From 1935 he and his restaurants were victims of persecution by the National Socialists .

In July 1935, in front of Café Wien , members of the Nazi party attacked alleged Jews or there were riots because of the Swedish film Pettersson & Bendel shown in the Filmbühne Wien ( UFA ) , which the National Socialists interpreted as anti-Semitic. The following day the Berlin Nazi newspaper The Attack ran the headline “ Jews demonstrate in Berlin” and was of the opinion that they should finally “feel a hard hand” again.

A hate campaign by the Nazi weekly newspaper Der Stürmer described Café Wien and the Zigeuner Keller in September 1936 as the “Jew Eldorado of the Kurfürstendamm” and allegedly criticized the “scandalous” hygienic conditions in the “Jewish pastry shop” and unworthy working conditions of the employees. Under the pretext that the Zigeuner Keller was “no longer suitable for people to stay permanently”, the building police threatened to close and withdraw Kutschera's concession. On the part of the National Socialists, the Gestapo and SD man Heinrich Hamann was responsible for the persecution.

Kutschera was therefore forced to give up. In order to avert the withdrawal of his license , he decided in 1937 to lease both companies to his “ Aryan ” co-partners Ernst Krüger and Josef Stüber. In this way the " Aryanization " took place. At that time Stüber was the Gaufach sub-group leader of the coffee house owner; whether he had initiated the striker campaign to benefit from it remains open. Soon afterwards, the discriminatory and marginalizing sign "Jews undesirable" hung over the entrances to the former Kutschera factories.

A short time later, Kutschera had his operating company Kutschera-Betriebe deleted from the commercial register . No boycott of his restaurants forced him to give up - compared to the lucrative previous year of the 1936 Summer Olympics , his company had even recorded an increase in sales to 1.5 million Reichsmarks - but rather the pressure exerted by the striker on city authorities, which was responsible for Kutschera's displacement from Berlin's economic life was decisive. His endeavors last (1937) employed 154 employees, including 13 musicians, and were among the most successful restaurants in Berlin.

Kutschera withdrew to Kladow. According to the Gestapo transport lists, his family was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp on May 19, 1943 . While Karl Kutschera and his second wife Josephine (born November 8, 1901 in Vienna) survived the concentration camp, their two children, Klaus Gerhard (born December 16, 1926 in Berlin) and Karin Gertrud (born November 17, 1927 in Berlin) , murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp .

The Kutschera couple returned to Berlin in June 1945. Karl Kutschera got his property back as part of reparation , but in the post-war state. In 1946 he was able to reopen his Café Wien , while the Zigeuner Keller had been under water since 1945. This could not be reopened until Christmas 1954.

Karl Kutschera died as honorary chairman of the Berlin Innkeeper's Guild on May 19, 1950. After his death, his wife Josephine continued to run the company until the early 1970s.

reception

From April 7 to May 3, 2013, the installation by the artist Alexander Jöchl "Café Vienna - a family portrait" was on view in the showcase of the Deutsche Bank branch at Kurfürstendamm 28 . This installation was the first in a series of eight artistic installations of the project “Traces, Hollow Spaces, Empty Spaces - Jewish Life on Kurfürstendamm”. The project of the Institute for Art at the Berlin University of the Arts is running in cooperation with the archive of the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Museum as part of the theme year "Diversity Destroyed - Berlin 1933–1938–1945".

literature

  • Irmgard Wirth: The buildings and art monuments of Berlin , Volume 2, Edition 2, Gebr. Mann, Berlin 1961, p. 331.
  • Beate Binder, Dominik Bartmann : Berlin in the Light , Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Märkisches Museum, Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin (ed.), Berlin 2008, p. 179.
  • Elisabeth Weber: The Kutschera businesses. "Cafe Wien" and "Zigeunerkeller". In: Christoph Kreutzmüller, Kaspar Nürnberg (ed.): Betrayed and sold - Jewish companies in Berlin 1933–1945. Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-00-026811-3 , pp. 44-47.
  • Christoph Kreutzmüller: Sale. The destruction of Jewish business activity in Berlin 1930–1945. Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-080-6 , p. 152.
  • Pascale Hugues: Quiet street in a good residential area - The story of my neighbors , Rowohlt, Reinbek 2013, ISBN 978-3-498-03021-6 .

Plaque

A plaque today reminds of the past of the building at Kurfürstendamm 26.

Web links

Commons : Karl Kutschera  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jewish businesses in Berlin . Humboldt University Berlin, at: hu-berlin.de
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Christian van Lessen: The story behind the shards . In: Der Tagesspiegel from November 17, 2008, on: tagesspiegel.de
  3. ↑ a b c d Gay and lesbian meeting places in Berlin-Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf , on: kulturring.org. Quote: Café Vienna, Zigeunerkeller Charlottenburg, Kurfürstendamm 26, founded in 1919 by Karl Kutschera, 1929 expansion of the Zigeunerkeller, after agitation in the "Stürmer" 1938 "Aryanized", owner Stüber & Krüger, 1940 permission to dance for SS uniforms (Café Vienna), 1942 Local ban for SS leaders in uniform (Zigeunerkeller), 1945 transferred back to Kutschera, he had survived the deportation.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Nina Apin: Bloodletting on the Boulevard des Westens . In: taz of January 30, 2010, at: taz.de
  5. ↑ a b Jewish businesses in Berlin . Humboldt University Berlin, at: hu-berlin.de
  6. ↑ a b Irmgard Wirth: The buildings and art monuments of Berlin , Volume 2, Issue 2, Gebr. Mann, Berlin 1961, p. 331.
  7. ^ A b Pascale Hugues: Quiet street in a good residential area - The story of my neighbors . Rowohlt, Reinbek 2013, ISBN 978-3-498-03021-6 , p.?.
  8. ↑ a b c d Cay Dobberke: Neighborhood . In: The Tagesspiegel -Newsletter Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf from February 23, 2018, on: tagesspiegel.de
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g Elisabeth Weber: The Kutschera businesses - “Cafe Vienna” and “Zigeuner Keller” . In: Christoph Kreutzmüller, Kaspar Nürnberg (ed.): Betrayed and sold - Jewish companies in Berlin 1933–1945 . Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-00-026811-3 , pp. 44-47.
  10. ↑ a b c d Betrayed and sold . In: Vorwärts from October 23, 2008, on: vorwaerts.de
  11. ^ Pettersson & Bendel . In: German Historical Museum, on: dhm.de
  12. ↑ See decision of the Bochum Regional Court against Hamann u. a. (16 Ks 1/65) of July 22, 1966, printed in Christiaan F. Rüter, Dick W. de Mildt (Ed.): Justiz und NS-Verbrechen. Collection of (West) German criminal convictions for Nazi homicide crimes, 1945–2012. 49 volumes. Amsterdam / Munich 1968–2012, online as JuNSV under [1] Procedure 635, p. 275. A short summary of the procedure is freely accessible - ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still Not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . A representation of the entire process must be purchased as a PDF file. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www1.jur.uva.nl
  13. ^ Sven Felix Kellerhoff: How envy and greed destroyed Jewish shops in Berlin . In: Berliner Morgenpost of October 24, 2008, on: morgenpost.de
  14. ↑ a b c Sven Kuhrau: In the beginning there was pleasure . In: Der Tagesspiegel from May 5, 2011, on: tagesspiegel.de
  15. ↑ Wolfgang Paul: Nocturnal pleasure in and in Berlin . In: Die Zeit , No. 15/1963 of April 12, 1963, on: zeit.de
  16. ↑ Café Wien - A family portrait , on: raumschale.com
  17. ↑ Memorial plaque on the Vienna House , Kurfürstendamm 26, Berlin, on: Gedenkafeln-in-berlin.de
personal data
SURNAME Kutschera, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German restaurateur
DATE OF BIRTH May 13, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Štvrtok , Kingdom of Hungary
DATE OF DEATH May 19, 1950
Place of death Berlin