Salon Kitty
The Salon Kitty was a brothel in Berlin-Charlottenburg in Giesebrechtstraße 11, which in 1939 and 1942 on the third floor of the Sicherheitsdienst the and later the Reich Security Main Office to espionage was exploited.
time of the nationalsocialism
Kitty Schmidt (nee Katharina Schmidt , married Zammit ; 1882–1954) was a music teacher who had lived for many years in Bombay, southern France and Paris. In the late 1920s or early 1930s she founded the Freudenhaus on the third floor of Giesebrechtstrasse 11, not far from Kurfürstendamm . The clientele was well-heeled according to the exclusive location. Many well-known public figures, foreign diplomats and, last but not least, high-ranking officials of the National Socialist regime were among the customer base.
The following information on espionage in "Salon Kitty" comes from the semi-documentary book "Salon Kitty" by crime writer Peter Norden from 1974 and has not been scientifically proven to this day:
The idea of converting a brothel for espionage purposes originally came from Reinhard Heydrich and was probably inspired by lurid novels about the British Secret Service ; he delegated the planning to Walter Schellenberg .
Kitty Schmidt was initially an opponent of the regime and decided to flee on June 28, 1939. However, she was arrested by the Gestapo at the Dutch border . Under threat that she would otherwise be taken to a concentration camp, Schellenberg forced her to open up her amusement facility to the security service. The SD was absorbed into the Reich Security Main Office in September 1939.
Salon Kitty has been temporarily closed for "renovation"; the rooms were equipped with hidden microphones, and a monitoring center was set up in the basement of the house. The Berlin Police Directorate was instructed to select “women and girls who are intelligent, multilingual, nationalist-minded and, furthermore, manly” from among prostitutes known to the police . Twenty such ladies received espionage training, and in the spring the company reopened its doors.
The amusement ladies were instructed to loosen the tongues of their suitors with alcohol and physical exertion and thus elicit relevant information from them. The success was moderate, however, as it was an open secret among guests that all conversations were bugged and recorded. In the Kitty Salon, the loyalty of officials and allies to the regime should also be checked. Among those questioned were the Italian Foreign Minister and Mussolini's son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano, among others . SS-Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich is said to have wished for an orgy with all 20 pleasure girls at the same time, but even these sensual pleasures could not induce him to slip up critical of the regime ( "So, let's go, girl. I don't come here to talk." )
The British agent Roger Wilson succeeded in convincing one of the prostitutes to defecate, and so the British secret service was ultimately able to evaluate the conversations in the salon.
In 1942 the house was hit by an aerial bomb. The salon was moved to the ground floor, and the Reich Security Main Office soon gave up espionage there. Kitty Schmidt was sworn to secrecy. Until her death in 1954, she did not comment publicly on the events.
post war period
After the end of the war, Salon Kitty resumed operations. During the economic miracle , it became a popular address for gentlemen of the better. After Kitty Schmidt's death in 1954, her daughter Kathleen continued the business as "Pension Florian", later her grandson. In the early 1990s, however, business no longer went too well, and so the grandson Kitty Schmidts converted the brothel into a guesthouse for asylum seekers. However, after protests from residents, it soon had to close.
filming
In 1976, the rumors surrounding the Kitty Salon were turned into a controversial film. The directed Salon Kitty led Tinto Brass ; The main roles included Helmut Berger as Walter Schellenberg (in the film “Helmut Wallenberg”) and Ingrid Thulin as Kitty Schmidt (“Kitty Kellermann”). In Germany, only a heavily cut version was published, as almost all Nazi symbols had to be deleted in order not to violate German laws. Tinto Brass' film was only shown in abridged form in numerous other countries.
literature
- Peter Norden: Salon Kitty. Report of a secret Reich case . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden a. Munich 1976, ISBN 3-8090-2104-0 . (also published in: Deutsche Buchgemeinschaft, 1980).
- Peter Norden: Salon Kitty - The book for the film . Gustav Lübbe Verlag (Bastei-Lübbe), Bergisch Gladbach 1976, ISBN 3-404-00381-0 . (License edition).
- Maik Kopleck: PastFinder Berlin 1933–1945: City guide to the traces of the past . 4th, through Ed., Links Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-86153-326-X . (see there: page 51, point 11, “Salon Kitty” ).
- Robert Dassanowsky : "The Third Reich as Bordello and Pig Sty: Between Critical Neodecadence and Hyperbole of Degeneration in Tinto Brass's Salon Kitty." Nazi propaganda! The Nazi Image in Low-Brow Cinema and Culture. Pp. 115-133. Eds. Daniel Magilow, Elizabeth Bridges, Kris Vander Lugt. Continuum, New York 2011. ISBN 978-1441183590 .
Film and television productions
- Tinto Brass (Director): Salon Kitty . 1976
- Rosa von Praunheim (director): My grandma had a Nazi puff . 1994 (TV documentary, WDR, 45 min)
- Claus Räfle (director): Salon Kitty . 2004 (television documentary, 45 minutes)
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 3.5 ″ N , 13 ° 18 ′ 41.5 ″ E