Leipzig pepper mill

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Leipziger Pfeffermühle in its second episode in the White Hall
Leipziger Pfeffermühle in its second episode in the White Hall

The Leipziger Pfeffermühle is a cabaret ensemble in Leipzig .

history

On the initiative of members of the Young World Theater , the cabaret was founded on March 22, 1954 with the performance of the nameless first program. In the same year it was turned into a municipal facility as the “Political-Satirical Cabaret of the City of Leipzig”. The similarity of the name to the former cabaret in exileDie Pfeffermühle ” was coincidental. The first problems with the SED arose in 1956 after the Hungarian uprising through the program entitled “Stir yourselves”, for which Erich Loest had also contributed texts. The manager of the pepper mill, Conrad Reinhold , went to the “ Distel ” and immediately left for West Berlin.

In the same year, the pepper mill moved from the White Hall of the zoo to the house of the Kulturbund . In 1959 Helga Hahnemann made her debut here. In 1961 the move to the Bose House at Thomaskirchhof followed , where the cabaret was located until the end of 2007. From 2008 the Pfeffermühle played in the interim at Gottschedstrasse 1. Since January 2011 there is a new address: The cabaret now has a permanent home in Kretschmanns Hof (Katharinenstrasse 17). In 1964 the state director Edgar Külow , who had been in office since 1962, was replaced by Horst Günther after the forced resignation of the program “Let's be honest” . Günther held office until the "We can congratulate ourselves" program was banned in 1979. In 1966, the Leipzig pepper mill received the city's art award.

Rainer Otto has worked as an author (and from 1981 also as director) since 1964 , who, together with Siegfried Mahler , wrote most of the texts for the regular ensemble Ursula Schmitter, Heiderose Seifert, Hanskarl Hoerning , Siegfried Mahler, Günter Schwarz and Manfred Stephan in the 1970s composed. As the flagship of the trade fair city of Leipzig, cabaret was able to allow itself a relatively large number of politically ambiguous allusions. However, the possibilities were limited by prior program acceptance and improvisation requiring approval. Because of the small space, a performance could only be attended by a maximum of 180 spectators. There have been no television broadcasts since 1964, although there were occasional radio broadcasts.

The Pfeffermühle had its first appearance in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1983 in Saarbrücken on the initiative of the then Lord Mayor of the city and later Saarland Prime Minister Oskar Lafontaine with the consent of the GDR State Council Chairman Erich Honecker . In the same year the first guest performances in Austria took place through personal commitment by Werner Schneyder and mediation by former Federal Chancellor Bruno Kreisky . From the beginning of 1989 the "Pfeffermühle" made guest appearances in numerous important theaters and cabaret venues in the Federal Republic of Germany and, until the fall of the Berlin Wall, was on tour almost continuously with part of the ensemble in Germany and West Berlin.

A highlight was the joint appearance of the Pfeffermühle with the Munich Lach- und Schießgesellschaft in the ZDF New Year's Eve broadcast in 1989 under the traditional title “Schimpf vor Zwölf”. After the fall of the Wall there were considerable financial, structural and content-related problems. In January 1993 the pepper mill was converted into a GmbH. In 1994 parts of the stage and the auditorium burned out, on June 4, 1995 the 73rd program reopened.

On March 21, 2004, on the eve of the anniversary of the founding, the Pfeffermühle celebrated its 50th anniversary with the participation of prominent guests such as Dieter Hildebrandt and Gerhard Polt . The current manager of the pepper mill is Dieter Richter .

The most famous in-house authors in the mid-2000s included the cabaret authors Cornelia Molle, Lothar Bölck , Klaus Dannegger and Robert Grieß .

Current members

  • Ute Loeck
  • Dieter Richter
  • Burkhard Damrau
  • Matthias Avemarg
  • Rainer Koschorz
  • Hans-Jürgen Silbermann
  • Hartmut Schwarze (piano)
  • Marcus Ludwig (piano)
  • Steffen Reichelt (drums)
  • Elisabeth Sunday
  • Rebekka Köbernik

Youth cabaret of the Leipziger Pfeffermühle

From 2005 to May 2013 the Leipziger Pfeffermühle also hosted a youth cabaret, which presented its first program “The hottest grains from the mill” at the 2006 Laughter Fair. The group last consisted of 4 young cabaret artists (2 women, 2 men), who were all between 18 and 25 years old, a pianist and a percussionist. Hansa Molle directed the last programs. It was founded by the manager of the house, Dieter Richter, who then handed it over to the directors Heiderose Seifert and Sonya Martin.

Members of the last programs of the youth cabaret

  • Annemarie Schmidt
  • Elisabeth Sunday
  • André Bautzmann
  • Robert Günschmann
  • Keti Warmuth (piano)
  • Hannes Petri (drums)

literature

  • Siegfried Mahler: Fantasies in the Pfeffermühlenklause . In: Ernst Günther, Heinz P. Hofmann, Walter Rösler (eds.): Cassette. An almanac for the stage, podium and ring (=  cassette ). No. 3 . Henschelverlag Art and Society, Berlin 1979, p. 64–72 (further chapters - text examples, about music, etc. - in the same volume).
  • Hanskarl Hoerning: Go where the pepper grows. Three decades of “Mühlen-Mahlerei” in Leipzig , Henschelverlag, Berlin 1984.
  • Hanskarl Hoerning: The Leipzig pepper mill , stories and pictures from five decades , Lehmstedt Verlag, Leipzig, 2004, ISBN 3-937146-11-3 .

Web links

Commons : Leipziger Pfeffermühle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files