Moka Efti

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Under the name Moka Efti , the Greek businessman with an Italian passport Giánnis “Giovanni” Eftimiades ran two restaurants in Berlin , the first Moka Efti and later the Moka Efti at the Tiergarten . The name was derived from the words 'Moka' for Greek coffee and the first two syllables of the operator's surname, Eftimiades.

Moka Efti

Coming from Italy, Eftimiades had settled in Berlin and opened Moka Efti in March 1926 on Leipziger Strasse at the corner of Friedrichstrasse . With the help of British investors, he acquired later the opposing 1887-1889 by Carl Schaefer built Equitable Palace and opened there in April 1929 on 2,800 m², the Moka Efti new. There was a cafe and dance hall offers a seafood restaurant, housed where other shops, such as a hairdressing salon, a billiards salon, a stenography service and a chess room, that of Rudolf Elstner was headed. An escalator was installed to provide better access to the upper floors .

The Moka Efti quickly developed into the most successful café in Berlin, serving 25,000 cups a day, while at night it became the city's most popular dance hall. In 1933 Eftimiades sold his shares in the company. On February 4, 1934, the NSDAP booked it for an exclusive propaganda event. In the root orchestra played at that time James Kok and Kurt ways .

Since 1938 , signs had been placed around the building in which Erhard Bauschke's orchestra played, warning that swing dancing was prohibited. “Waiters acted politely but decisively against offenders.” These bans came “in any case with the express support of the Berlin regime”; In 1939 the Wehrmacht and Nazi party organs followed suit .

Moka Efti at the zoo

In 1933, Eftimiades took over the former Café Schottenhaml on Kemperplatz (1933–1945: Skagerrakplatz ), in the so-called Haus am Tiergarten , Viktoriastrasse 37 and Bellevuestrasse 11. He converted the café into a 1550 m² Moka Efti dance hall at the Tiergarten . The decor included lots of metal surfaces, waterfalls and exotic birds. A historical photo shows a sulky with billboards in front of the Roland fountain , which was pulled by a bouquet . Tango and swing were part of the standard musical program.

End and afterlife

Both restaurants were destroyed in an Allied air raid in 1943 . After 1945 Eftimiades moved to Frankfurt am Main , where he died impoverished after an economically unsuccessful attempt to gain a foothold as a publisher. The 'Moka Efti' brand was later revived as an Italian coffee brand, also used as a band name.

In the television series Babylon Berlin , the auditorium of the Delphi cinema in Berlin-Weißensee represents the interior of the Moka Efti. However, the Moka Efti from the series differs from the real in its architecture and fictional use as a brothel and forerunner of a kind of “in- disco ” Coffee and dance house Moka Efti. Uli Hanisch built his glass facade in the Babelsberg studio in the backdrop of Neue Berliner Strasse .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael H. Kater : Daring game. Jazz under National Socialism. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1995, p. 203 f.
  2. ^ Entry of the two Moka Efti companies in the Berlin address book 1935, business directory . At: digital.zlb.de , accessed on July 12, 2019
  3. ^ Advertisement for the Moka Efti at the Tiergarten with an exotic covered sulky. At: clasebcn.com , accessed July 12, 2019
  4. ^ Babylon Berlin. Location: Silent Film Cinema Delphi. On: rbb24 , accessed July 12, 2019
  5. ^ Location of the film: The Moka Efti. Take the escalator to coffee and dance. On: rbb24 , August 31, 2018, accessed July 12, 2019
  6. ↑ Babelsberg is building a new old Berlin. In: Berliner Zeitung , May 20, 2016, accessed on July 12, 2019