Imperial Cabaret

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The Reich Cabaret was the satirical voice of the student movement in Berlin . It existed from 1965 to 1971 under the direction of Volker Ludwig and Günter Schäfer and was considered the most important political cabaret in West Berlin at that time . It was the forerunner of the Grips Theater . The venue was located at Ludwigkirchstrasse 6 in the Wilmersdorf district .

Volker Ludwig , 1968

Emergence

The Reich Cabaret was founded in 1965 as a reaction to the existing cabaret in West Berlin , such as B. The islanders , the voles or the porcupines . In the eyes of the founder of the Reich Cabaret, Volker Ludwig, a sought-after copywriter in the Berlin cabaret scene, these were apolitical. To remedy this situation, Volker Ludwig founded his own political cabaret and tried to get as many prominent authors as possible, such as his father Eckart Hachfeld , Rudolf Lorenzen , Wolfgang Neuss and others. a. The first ensemble consisted of former members of the Wühlmäuse ensemble such as Dieter Kursawe , Doris Bierett , Alexander Welbat and his wife Siegrid Hackenberg .

Surname

Rudolf Lorenzen came up with the idea of ​​the name Reich Cabaret as a warning of an impending Fourth Reich .

Venue

The first venue in 1965 was in the Tangente Theater on Hardenbergstrasse in Charlottenburg . In 1966, the Reich Cabaret in Wilmersdorf found its own venue in a former cinema at Ludwigkirchstrasse 6, the rodeo bar . The founders of the Imperial Cabaret pooled their savings and bought this bar. This location then became a cabaret with 130 seats.

Impact and conflicts

The first program in the Ludwigkirchstrasse venue, Bomb Mood, took place in the heated atmosphere in West Berlin as part of the first demonstrations against the Vietnam War in 1966. SDS leaflets were distributed before the performance . The theater critics were divided: some newspapers applauded, others wanted the Reich cabaret artists to go to East Berlin . The Reichskabarett criticized his program not only was more incompetent politicians or other abuses, but the social order the cause of these ills.

Günter Neumann , the head of the islanders , tried to formulate a counter position to the imperial cabaret. In a song about the student unrest around June 2, 1967, he wrote:

“The spirit should win, not the racket! [...] "

The Reichskabarett answered with the replica of an ironic self-incrimination :

“We hit each other on the chest because we have a lot to do well. How often have we been advised to go east! How many well-meaning critics have repeatedly pointed out our terrifying primitiveness, red-blindness, even stupidity and untruths! Stubborn and run-down, as we were, we still rushed to such infinitely primitive things as the emergency laws, napalm bombs, small shares and Ostpolitik - and, how could it be otherwise, also sided with those confused cracker, who scold students. Until - yes, until one day, at the beginning of July, we heard a comprehensive statement from Günter Neumann on the student riots of June 2nd in the RIAS "Rückblende", the cabaret show that has also fed us up to that point. His words were the impetus for our repentance [...] Since then we have written our heart formation on our banner, and - we have become happier again. "

As a reaction to the murder of Benno Ohnesorg and the first grand coalition, the Kiesinger cabinet , the third program We don't know any parties was created in 1967 . Those among the students who placed their hopes in the SPD were disappointed. The student movement became more radical, became increasingly militant and turned increasingly against the Springer press , namely the Bild newspaper , which was held responsible for the heated mood against the APO in the population.

Poster for the program Der Guerilla sends its regards

Less than a year after Benno Ohnesorg's death, one of the most prominent SDS spokesmen, Rudi Dutschke , was seriously injured in an assassination attempt in April 1968. After the attack, the protests reached their climax with the Easter riots from Good Friday to Easter Monday and the demonstration against the emergency laws on May 11 in Bonn . The Reich Cabaret dealt with the Vietnam War for the last time with the program Der Guerrilla lets greetings . The program became a general settlement with the CIA . The program was a huge success, cards were traded black. The program met with enthusiastic approval from theater reviews, even from those who panned the other programs.

In Tagesspiegel Sibylle Grack wrote:

“The breakneck joke and the verses were given a fixed intelligence and a considerable index of facts on the jumps. There was neither the place nor the time for casual invitations, the usual cabaret numbers to enjoy. In order to buy the honesty mask of global corruption, international hypocrisy and imperial presumption, the four text authors Volker Ludwig, Volker Kühn, Dieter Kursawe and Detlef Michel used every minute of the two-hour program and thus demonstrated their commitment credibly and not just with bad words "

Volker Ludwig preceded the program Everything has its limits with an explanation:

Poster for the program Everything has its limits

“Cabaret primarily attracts people who think they are like-minded people. As a result, it does not attack its audience: it flatters them [...] "

In doing so, he brought up the theme of the program: the behavior of the left-wing liberals who “speak left, but don't act left”.

With the program Hab Bildung im Herz , the Reich Cabaret showed that a Marxist can also argue against communist states and parodied “political Chinese”.

Unsure because of the success with the audience, the Reich Cabaret tried other ways with the piece Ex and hop . The authors gave up the cabaret on an experimental basis. They had not written a “program”, but a piece in which cabaret performances were no longer intended to distract from the socialist cause. The left should no longer be chic, but the audience should recognize the left position as the right one for itself, even through non-cabaret representations.

The Rettet Berlin program no longer had an international background as a topic, but the present day in Berlin was the content of the program; the mistakes of the police leadership, the grievances in the building industry and of the Berlin SPD as the "CSU of the entire party". It was the last program that was performed on Ludwigkirchstrasse.

Through its programs Bomb Mood , Have Education in the Heart and many other contributions, the Reich Cabaret developed a new form of cabaret: the documentary cabaret. The aim was to provide the audience, who were often not or only insufficiently informed, with precise information about certain facts before these facts could be worked out in cabaret.

The Reich Cabaret played a total of eight programs. In 1971 the Reich Cabaret disbanded with the end of the student movement.

Programs

Detlef Michel , around 1967
No. Surname premiere Authors Director image
1 Not a beautiful country October 1965 Eckart Hachfeld, Rudolf Lorenzen, Volker Ludwig, Marcus Scholz, Thierry Marcus Scholz Peter Krukenberg
2 Bomb atmosphere February 1966 Eckart Hachfeld, Dieter Kursawe , Volker Ludwig, Detlef Michel , E. A. Rauter, Frank-Patrick Steckel , Thierry Frank-Patrick Steckel Wolf-R. Redl
3 We don't know any parties anymore March 1967 Eckart Hachfeld, Dieter Kursawe, Volker Ludwig, Detlef Michel Walter Ohm Rainer Hachfeld
4th Have education in your heart September 1967 Volker Ludwig, Volker Kühn, Eckart Hachfeld, Wolfgang Neuss Volker Kühn Rainer Hachfeld
5 The guerrilla sends its regards May 1968 Volker Ludwig, Volker Kühn , Dieter Kursawe, Detlef Michel Volker Kühn Rainer Hachfeld
6th Everything has its limits March 1969 Volker Ludwig, Dieter Kursawe, Detlef Michel Klaus Hentschel Rainer Hachfeld, Hans-Jörg Schmollack
7th Ex and hopp March 1970 Volker Ludwig, Detlef Michel, Dieter Kursawe, Volker Kühn Volker Kühn Karl-Heinz Buller
8th Save Berlin November 1970 Volker Ludwig, Dieter Kursawe, Holger Franke , Jörg Friedrich, Horst Tomayer Authors and ensemble Karl-Heinz Buller

Children's theater

From 1966 to 1969 some actors from the Reichskabarett played in the children's theater, but were independent of the cabaret. In 1969 they moved to the grandstand and Volker Ludwig and his brother Rainer Hachfeld decided to make their own socially critical children's theater. This resulted in the first socially critical children's play Stokkerlok and Millipilli , by Rainer Hachfeld and Volker Ludwig. It was the first children's play of the Ur-Grips-Theater. Stokkerlok and Millipilli became a huge success. Many stages in Germany performed it and it was also staged abroad. In 1970 the piece received the Brothers Grimm Prize of the State of Berlin .

The concept of “modern children's theater with a socially critical background”, which was still quite new at the time, was not viewed positively by everyone. In the beginning, the theater had to face great criticism. It was often pointed out that the children in the plays of the Reichskabarett-Theater for children were cheeky and disrespectful towards adults. But the emancipation of children and also the reference to their rights was conceptually intended. This did not always meet with approval, especially in the conservative camp.

The children's theater ensemble often asked its audience (i.e. the children and young people) to find out what is currently bothering them. The role of the sexes (e.g. girls' typical career choice: housewife) in society was a major issue. The troop took up this increasingly in the 1970s. The result was pieces that dealt with the problems of gender roles.

Imperial cabaret becomes theater

In 1971, Volker Ludwig and Uwe Friesel decided to expand the work of the Reich Cabaret into the theater sector. They justified this step with the fact that contemporary politically progressive theater increasingly shows elements of agitational cabaret. The theater in the Reichskabarett was expanded in several areas . The theater for children was continued and significantly expanded in terms of content and form. The first evening programs consisted of the pieces Sandbox Games by the Swede Kent Andersson, a staged realization of political poetry under the title Still Germany is not lost by Uwe Friesel and Walter Grab and Eisenwichser by Heinrich Henkel .

actor

music

literature

  • Detlef Michel: The Reich Cabaret in West Berlin. Looking for the audience. In: Andreas Beitin / Eckhart J. Gillen (eds.): Flashes of the Future. The art of the 68s or the power of the powerless. Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 2018, ISBN 978-3-8389-7172-8 , pp. 246–247.
  • Georg Zivier, Hellmut Kotschenreuther, Volker Ludwig: Cabaret with K. Fifty years of great cabaret. Berlin Verlag, Berlin 1974, 1977, ISBN 3-87061-130-5 , Das Reichskabarett. Pp. 95-105.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Telegraf , April 22, 1971, p. 13.
  2. ↑ a b c Volker Ludwig in conversation with Oliver Kranz, Deutschlandfunk June 18, 2017
  3. ↑ Joachim M. Goldstein: "Yes" to a cabaret program. In: Berliner Allgemeine , October 7, 1966.
  4. ↑ Sibylle Grack: terrific atmosphere. The new program of the West Berliners "Reich Cabaret". In: Stuttgarter Zeitung , September 22, 1966.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h Georg Zivier, Hellmut Kotschenreuther, Volker Ludwig: Cabaret with K. Fifty years of great cabaret. Berlin Verlag, Berlin 1974, 1977, ISBN 3-87061-130-5 , Das Reichskabarett. Pp. 95-105.
  6. ↑ Volker Ludwig: “Good theater is always left”. In: Der Tagesspiegel , June 13, 2007
  7. ↑ Der Abend , Der Tagesspiegel and Telegraf , each from April 22, 1971.