Jewish Identities in German Popular Entertainment, 1890-1933

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Jewish Identities in German Popular Entertainment, 1890–1933

At the turn of the twentieth century, German popular entertainment wasa realm of unprecedented opportunity for Jewish performers. This studyexplores the terms of their engagement and pays homage to the manyways in which German Jews were instrumental in the birth of an incom-parably rich world of popular culture. It traces the kaleidoscope ofchallenges, opportunities, and paradoxes Jewish men and women facedin their interactions with predominantly Gentile audiences. ModernGermany was a society riddled by conflicts and contradictory impulses,continuously torn between desires to reject, control, or celebrate indi-vidual and collective difference. Otte’s book demonstrates that an anal-ysis of popular entertainment can be one of the most innovative ways totrace this complicated negotiation throughout a period of great socialand political turmoil.

Marline Otte is an assistant professor of history at Tulane University.She received her doctorate from the University of Toronto in 1999.Otte is the recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow-ship, and she is an active member of the German Studies Association.She specializes in modern European history, focusing on Germany andcultural history.

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Jewish Identities in German PopularEntertainment, 1890–1933

MARLINE OTTETulane University

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cambridge university pressCambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo

Cambridge University Press40 West 20th Street, New York, ny 10011-4211, usa

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C© Marline Otte 2006

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exceptionand to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,no reproduction of any part may take place withoutthe written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2006

Printed in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Otte, Marline.Jewish identities in German popular entertainment, 1890–1933 / Marline Otte.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.isbn-10: 0-521-85630-2isbn-13: 978-0-521-85630-01. Jewish theater – Germany – History. 2. Theater, Yiddish – Germany – History.3. Jews in the performing arts – Germany – History. 4. Circus – Germany – History.5. Germany – Ethnic relations – History. I. Title.pn3035.088 2006791′.089′924043–dc22 2005010003

isbn-13 978-0-521-85630-0 hardbackisbn-10 0-521-85630-2 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility forthe persistence or accuracy of urls for external orthird-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publicationand does not guarantee that any content on suchWeb sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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For my parents,

Michael and Maria Otte

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At length I bought a ticket for the Waterloo Panorama, housed in animmense domed rotunda, where from a raised platform in the middleone can view the battle – a favorite subject with panorama artists –in every direction. It is like being at the center of events. On a sortof landscaped proscenium, immediately below the wooden rail amidsttree stumps and undergrowth in the blood-stained sand, lie life-sizehorses, and cut-down infantrymen, hussars and chevaus-legers, eyesrolling in pain or already extinguished. Their faces are molded fromwax but the boots, the leather belts, the weapons, the cuirasses, and thesplendidly colored uniforms, probably stuffed with eelgrass, rags andthe like, are to all appearances authentic. Across this horrific three-dimensional scene, on which the cold dust of time has settled, one’sgaze is drawn to the horizon, to the enormous mural, one hundred andten yards by twelve, painted in 1912 by the French marine artist LouisDumontin on the inner wall of the circus-like structure. This then, Ithought, as I looked round about me, is the representation of history. Itrequires a falsification of perspective. We, the survivors, see everythingfrom above, see everything at once, and still we do not know how itwas. The desolate fields extend all around where once fifty thousandsoldiers and ten thousand horses met their end within a few hours.The night after the battle, the air must have been filled with deathrattles and groans. Now there is nothing but the brown silent soil.Whatever became of the corpses and mortal remains? Are they buriedunder the memorial? Are we standing on a mountain of death? Is thatour ultimate vantage point? Does one really have the much-vauntedhistorical overview from such a position?

W. G. Sebald, Rings of Saturn (translated from W. G. Sebald, DieRinge des Saturn. Eine englische Wallfahrt [Frankfurt a. M.,2001], 157–58).

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Contents

List of Illustrations page x

Preface xiii

Introduction: Past and Present 1

The Politics of Remembrance: When DeathOvershadows Life 2

Germans at Play 6Popular Culture and Jewish Identity 7The Art of History 9Approach 17Structure of the Study 18

i “ponim et circenses”: jewish identities in circusentertainment, 1870–1933

Introduction: A Conservative Utopia 23

1 The Circus in Time and Space 28The Rise of the Chapiteau 29The Cavalry Enters the Ring 31The “Golden Age” of German Circuses 35Stationary Circuses: Gentile Welttheater Take Root 37

2 Family Bonds 45Ancestors and Origins 45The Rise and Success of Family Networks 48Patterns of Reproduction 51Patronage and Widening Circles 54

3 Schein und Sein in the Circus 60Body Politics: Plunging Necklines and Cossack

Uniforms 62The Choreography of Chaos 67

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Ethics and the Business of Wonder 70Courting the Circus 75

4 Losing Common Ground 82Sattelzeit: The Magic of a Ring in Transition 84Postwar Circus: Death-Defying Acts 95A New Generation of Blumenfelds 97Epilogue 103

Conclusion to Part I 114

ii comic relief: jewish identities in jargon theater,1890 to the 1920s

Introduction: Different Varieties 125

5 Tongue in Cheek 128Jargon Theater as Volkskultur 132Canonizing Variety: The Birth of Jargon Theater 134Bildung and Jargon Theater Entertainment 138Policing the Sexual Innuendo 141

6 All in the Family 145The Gebruder Herrnfeld 146The Herrnfeld Theater: A Family Affair 151Source of the Laughter 154

7 A Limited Engagement 160Acid Rhymes 161The War to End All Laughter 165Aliens and the German Nation 170

8 The Gravity of Laughter 176The Loss of Jargon 183The Folies Caprice 189

Conclusion to Part II 196

iii the loneliness of the limelight: jewish identitiesin revue theater, 1898–1933

Introduction: Spectacular Berlin 201

9 The Metropol: Between Culture and Kapital 205Metropol Audiences: The Formation of Tout Berlin 206“Skandal im Metropol Theater!” Berlin, 1902 213The Firm 219Aesthetic Roots: The Long Shadows of Meiningen 223

10 Leading Characters 227The Team of Three 229The Diva, the Gentleman, and the “Little

Mister Cohn” 234


Contents ix

11 Stardom and Its Discontents 245The Golden Years of Revue Theater 247The Gilded Mirror That No Longer Sees 248The Rotter Brothers 251No Laughing Matter 255

12 The Art of Pleasing All 258

Conclusion to Part III 277

Conclusion 281

Appendix 289

Bibliography 301

Index 313


Illustrations

1 Sliding elephants at the Circus Busch, Berlin page 402 Director Paula Busch, portrait 653 Paula Busch as a snake charmer 664 Taking a break at the salon wagon, members of the

Blumenfeld family 765 Circus L. Blumenfeld, Ilong 776 Members of the Blumenfeld family en route to South America 797 Director Emanuel Blumenfeld striking a Wilhelmine pose 808 Jansly siblings 909 Blumenfeld Riesen 91

10 Blumenfeld volunteer, 1914 9411 Circus Blumenfeld, Magdeburg 9712 Alfred, Alex, and Arthur Blumenfeld 10013 The Blumenfeld siblings 10514 Arthur Blumenfeld, 1945/46 10515 Passport of Victoria Blumenfeld 10616 Arthur and Victoria Blumenfeld in 1949 10717 Children peeking into tent, 1946 10818 Newspaper article recalling the legacy of the Blumenfeld family 10919 Artists preparing in a moving van 11020 Artists preparing in a moving van 11121 Arthur Blumenfeld and his daughters, Rita and Eva 11222 Scene from Die Meyerheins, Herrnfeld Theater 13423 Herrnfeld Theater interior 13524 Scene from Der Fall Blumentopf, Herrnfeld Theater, 1902 14325 Anton and Donat Herrnfeld 14726 The Metropol Theater exterior 22027 The Metropol Theater interior 22128 Fritzi Massary at the beginning of her career 23429 Fritzi Massary at the height of her career 235

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Illustrations xi

30 Fritzi Massary and Joseph Giampietro in Donnerwetter –tadellos! at the Metropol Theater 237

31 Fritzi Massary and Guido Thielscher in Das muß man seh’nat the Metropol Theater 238

32 Guido Thielscher and Joseph Giampietro in Das muß manseh’n at the Metropol Theater 242


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Preface

Writing this book has been a rewarding challenge. Now it is my great pleasureto thank all those who have helped me over the past decade. My first debt is toJames Retallack, who supervised my dissertation on which this book is based.As he will know best, his unfailing confidence, mentoring, and friendshiphave helped me immeasurably in my fierce battles with languages, ideas, andacademic cultures. For all of that I would like to thank him with all my heart.I was equally fortunate to have worked with Jacques Kornberg and ModrisEksteins at the University of Toronto, who have been abiding listeners andreaders, always willing to share their insight and to provide moral support.All three of my advisors made my years as a graduate student at the Universityof Toronto a very enjoyable experience.

I am particularly indebted to my friends and roommates from WalmerRoad, Fong Ku, Rebecca Manley, Zorana Sadiq, and Rachel Simeon for theirlight-hearted companionship and kind patience throughout my graduateyears. They have listened to my long-winded exposes on trapeze artists andstand-up comedians, carefully negotiated their ways through my Teutonicprose, and prevented me from getting “lost in translation.” Similarly, JuliaBruggemann, Stefan Hoffmann, Glenn Penny, and Till van Rahden havesustained me in this long and at times trying journey with their generousand thoughtful suggestions in all matters of life, always being both inspiringfriends and scholars.

My work has been nurtured by scholarly conversations at professional andprivate meetings. I am particularly grateful to Ute Daniel, Lucian Holscher,David Lindenfeld, Jeanette Malkin, Sue Marchand, Freddy Rokim, and ScottSpector, as well as Steven Aschheim and Belinda Davis for allowing me topresent chapters of my work in their colloquia or for finding time in theirbusy schedules to carefully read and discuss sections of my work as I soughtthe right voice to talk about an elusive past. My friends and colleagues atthe history department of Tulane University have shared their enthusiasmfor a world of ideas and challenged me to think comparatively. Among them

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Larry Powell has given me generous support and guidance in the publish-ing process. Daniel Hurewitz, Tom Luongo, Steven Pierce, Linda Pollock,and Justin Wolfe kindly read and discussed sections of the manuscript andenriched me with their notions of how we can write history today.

I would furthermore like to thank Zeynep Gursel, who has read and editedthe entire manuscript with great care, giving me the benefit of her incisiveobservations and sound judgment in all matters of style and content, whichcertainly made this a better book. Similarly, Peter Jelavich went far beyondthe call of duty, when he revisited the page proofs at a moment in timewhen I was getting truly tired of doing so. In addition, I very much appre-ciated the suggestions of my two anonymous reviewers, who reviewed themanuscript for Cambridge University Press with my best interest in mind.At Cambridge University Press, Lew Bateman made sure that I would onlygive my best. Susan Greenberg’s sensible copyediting spared me consider-able embarrassment, while Camilla Knapp carefully steered this manuscriptthrough production, especially when Hurricane Katrina threatened to derailnot only my life, but also the completion of the manuscript.

This book would not have been possible without the terrific assistance ofnumerous archivists and librarians in Berlin, Magdeburg, Mainz, Marburg,Potsdam, and Jerusalem. I am especially grateful to the staff at the MarkischeMuseum in Berlin and Angelika Reed and Ines Hahn in particular, whosehelpfulness and sincerity have made research at the Markische Museum agreat pleasure. Not all my sources were derived from public archives, how-ever, and this book would have been impossible to write were it not for theastounding collections of Martin Schaaff and Gabriele Blumenfeld, who didnot hesitate to share memories and materials of the now foregone world ofthe circus with me.

I was very fortunate to have received generous funding for my work atdifferent moments in time. The University of Toronto unfailingly supportedme with a number of dissertation grants throughout my graduate years. Iwould have been unable to embark on this journey without the aid andconfidence of what has now become my Alma Mater. Furthermore, a one-year-long research fellowship granted by the Institute for European Historyin Mainz allowed me to devote all my time and energy to completing a firstdraft of the dissertation in the company of outstanding scholars and friends.Finally, a research grant by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)and several summer research stipends granted by Tulane University helpedme to revisit the archives and my assumptions over the past few years.

Finally, I could not have written this book without the encouragement,warmth, and good humor of my entire family. My sister Caroline’s friendshiphas touched me throughout my life, while my parents Michael and Maria’scuriosity and creativity remain a formidable challenge and inspiration to me.They have always been my greatest champions and I want to dedicate thisbook to them.


Jewish Identities in German Popular Entertainment, 1890–1933

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Introduction

Past and Present

A study of Jewish identities in German popular entertainment seems particu-larly timely given the recent attention paid to German artists and performersworking both in Germany and abroad. Berlin, Germany’s old and new capi-tal, has once again become a showcase for German intensity and innovation.Not only do the locals identify Berlin as one of Europe’s emerging culturalmetropolises; countless international travel guides second their claim. A richand colorful nightlife, a kaleidoscope of innovative artists, live performancesby the leading actors of our times – there is no doubt that Berlin attracts anextraordinary mixture of talent and voyeurs. The city’s eclectic architec-ture, its contested spaces, its relics and monuments – sites of kitsch andcreativity – are simultaneously experienced and reflected upon; the trueBerliner is a self-conscious stranger, drawn to a city of lights and construc-tion sites. Quite literally, Berlin is set on the border where the East meetsthe West, the past the present, and where the avant-garde coexists with aseemingly unfazed Berlin bourgeoisie. Today, as it had in the 1920s, Berlin’sunique energy stems in part from great social and political turmoil: a war,a revolution, the need to redefine Germany’s role within the European com-munity. Are we then experiencing the renaissance of the “Golden Twenties”in a unified Germany?

On second thought, however, today’s Berlin is nothing like the metropo-lis of the 1920s. The most noticeable difference is the almost completeabsence of an active and integrated Jewish community. During the Nazi era,German society underwent a devastating cultural self-amputation; its slowand painful recovery took a decidedly different course than in the interwarperiod. “Jewish Berlin,” despite the recent immigration of Jews from the for-mer Soviet Union, is largely a fading memory, historicized in museums andmemorial sites, visitable as a place but rarely habitable. Berlin’s latest cul-tural revival has unfolded with only marginal participation from Germany’spostwar Jewish community. Its creative energy results mainly from tension-filled dialogues between Ossis and Wessis, Turks and Germans, Berliners

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2 Introduction

and the rest of the world. At the turn of the last century, German Jewscarried a significant responsibility for Berlin’s extraordinary cultural diver-sity. Today, however, German-Jewish culture is a culture of remembrance,of nostalgia at times, but still too rarely one of live pleasure, excitement,and confident participation. This study thus is motivated by two primaryconcerns: a fascination with the colorful lives of performers working in anextraordinary sphere of German daily life, and a belief that rememberingGermany’s Jews also entails reflecting on the balance between the hopes andopportunities and the discrimination and disappointments that governedmany Jewish lives in Germany.

Though Jews have lived and worked in modern Germany in many fas-cinating ways, the multiplicity of their experiences is hardly accounted for.In particular, arenas outside classic tales of heroism have been left mostlyunexplored. While we find numerous references to extraordinary intellectu-als such as Moses Mendelssohn and Rahel Levin, to economic leaders suchas Gerson Bleichroder and Emil Rathenau, and to pathbreaking scientistssuch as Albert Einstein, we still lack studies of the less articulate. This bookattempts to rectify the imbalance by exploring the astonishing subtlety inthe humor and art of the barely literate, of those German Jews who spokein unfamiliar ways, turning their bodies into metaphors. Furthermore, thisbook was born out of an appreciation for the sharp wit of countless actorswhose jokes amused even those spectators who claimed to have already seenand heard everything. This then is a study of Jewish men and women whoperformed in a variety of entertainment venues – as circus ballerinas, vari-ety artists, theater directors, stage divas, popular composers. They all sawGermany’s entertainment industry as an effective way for them to engagewith the majority culture. This book explores the terms of this engagementand, more important, pays homage to the many ways in which German Jewswere instrumental in the birth of an incomparably rich popular culture. Atthe turn of the twentieth century, there was a colorful life beyond the well-tempered clavier for Germany’s Jewry that demands to be rediscovered.

the politics of remembrance: when death overshadows life

Few historiographies have been as intensely preoccupied with questions ofmemory and forgetting as have the writings on modern German-Jewish his-tory. For obvious reasons remembrance has become both a motivator anda subject for generations of historians. Time has only increased the inten-sity with which we try to process and commemorate the Holocaust as thequintessential modern genocide. In the shadow of such monstrous events,it is hardly surprising that most memory work has focused on the actsof persecution: the systematic isolation, concentration, and destruction ofEurope’s Jews. The extraordinary violence of these events, enabled by the dis-heartening indifference of Gentile bystanders, continues to trouble scholars.More recently, historians have shifted their attention from the perpetrators


Introduction 3

to the victims. To account for their voices is now identified as an essentialstep in the maturation of Western societies. Charles Taylor has reminded ushow the recognition of survivor testimonies has become a crucial test fordemocracies today: mutual recognition functions as the main path to civicequality, whereas forgetting results in the rejection of a “politics of differ-ence.”1 To recognize Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide means to reclaimtheir humanity, a status systematically denied them by their persecutors. Thishumanity, however, remains at the center of many recent controversies. Asthe writer Stan Nadolny has so aptly put it: “One can hardly cherish some-one’s memory solely by imagining him or her as a dead body in Auschwitz,thinking about what has been done to him or her. Instead one should see thehuman being they have been before: full of hope, love (evilness too, please!)and full of pleasure in activity, confidence in victory.”2 The question thusseems to be not only whether to remember, but what to remember of modernJewish life in Germany.

The notion of “normality” in Gentile–Jewish relations prior to the Holo-caust, no matter how fragile, remains for many today inconceivable. How-ever, if empathy is one principle objective for any historian, how can weaccept memory work that does not allow lively and confident voices toemerge from the past? We could, for example, react to the image of a Jewishstrong man performing before a largely Gentile audience by being over-whelmed with a sense of impending tragedy. Yet, isn’t it even more frivolousto implicitly endorse Jewish marginalization in modern German society bycommemorating only their victimization under the Nazis? What is it reallythat we do not wish to forget about Germany’s Jews? How can we prevent thecommemoration of their deaths from leading to a denial of the complexityand richness of their lives?

In light of the ultimate failure of Jewish integration into German society,historians of Imperial Germany have – maybe rightly so – focused on thelimitations of Gentile–Jewish relations, that is, on their unresolved conflictsand disappointments. Anti-Semitism looms large in many of these studiesof the pre-Holocaust era. Yet anti-Semitism alone rarely fully explains thesuccess or failure of Jewish entertainment enterprises. For example, politicaland social anti-Semitism were active during the heyday as well as during thedecline of Jargon theaters. Therefore this study suggests that anti-Semitismneeded to interact with other forces in society before it seriously harmed Jew-ish popular performers. It was only in combination with xenophobia, radical

1 Charles Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” in Amy Gutmann, ed., Multiculturalism: Exam-ining the Politics of Recognition (Princeton, NJ, 1999), 38.

2 Stan Nadolny, “Abstand vom Holocaust. Finkelsteins Mut und seine Fehler,” in PetraSteinberger, ed., Die Finkelstein-Debatte (Munich, 2001), 185; similarly, James E. Young,Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust (Bloomington, IN, 1988), 187, cited in Pamela Ballinger,“The Culture of Survivors: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Memory,” Historyand Memory, vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring 1998), 120.


4 Introduction

nationalism, and militarism, that anti-Semitism gained the new quality thatultimately closed these spaces for Gentile–Jewish encounters.

We have come to consider the nature of these encounters with great pes-simism. While Jewish integration into German society at the turn of thelast century was certainly not complete, there were areas, such as popularentertainment, in which German Jews demonstrated surprising ease in theirinteraction with the Gentile majority. Although German anti-Semitism wasclearly a force that Jewish performers reckoned with in the past, many did sowith zest and confidence. We thus have to remind ourselves that there was atime in which their confidence seemed justified and their future held promise.Whereas “normality” in the prewar days did not mean for Jews the absenceof open hostility, it did mean for many Jewish entertainers the possibilityof intimacy and friendship with Gentile colleagues, continuous and fruitfulwork relations, professional advancement, and potential economic success.

For too long the marginalization of Jewish life in postwar Germany hasallowed us to forget the important role German Jews played in establishingBerlin as one of the most vibrant entertainment centers in turn-of-the-centuryEurope. Even recent attempts to reconstruct Jewish life in Berlin reflect adecidedly selective public memory. Because of the renovation of its imposingSynagogue on Oranienburger Strasse, the Scheunenviertel, a working-class,ghetto-like quarter in East Berlin, has become the predominant site for apostwar engagement with Jewish history and culture in Berlin, a choice thatalso favors a popular historical narrative in which Jews are almost exclusivelyperceived as strangers. The life at the periphery, particularly the life of EasternEuropean immigrants, has increasingly become universalized as “the Jewishexperience” in Germany. But klezmer music, Middle Eastern food, religiousartifacts, and constant references to Israel are remnants of a past that washardly a lived reality for the majority of Germany’s Jewry before 1933. Whydo we identify the Scheunenviertel as the predominant site of remembrancefor Jewish life and culture in Berlin, instead of turning to the fashionablequarter of the Tiergarten or the upper-middle-class “Bavarian” neighbor-hood in Schoneberg? Which Jewish community do we wish to remember?

To date, the Holocaust and its aftermath have provided a pervasiveinterpretative framework within which we discuss and understand GermanJews in the early twentieth century mainly as future victims.3 This studyprobes the limits of this interpretative framework to recapture the life stories

3 Binjamin Wilkomirski, Fragments (Schocken, 1996); Philip Gourevitch, “The MemoryThief,” The New Yorker, June 14, 1999, 48–68; Peter Novick, The Holocaust in AmericanLife (Boston, 1999); Stefan Machler, Der Fall Wilkomirski. Uber die Wahrheit einer Biogra-phie (Zurich, 2000); Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on theExploitation of Jewish Suffering (London and New York, 2003); for the German and Swissreceptions, see Steinberger, Die Finkelstein-Debatte; Ernst Piper, ed., Gibt es wirklich eineHolocaust-Industrie? Zur Auseinandersetzung um Norman Finkelstein (Zurich, 2001).


Introduction 5

of German Jews that are often overshadowed by an exclusive focus onJewish victimhood. It aims to broaden our knowledge of Germany’s impor-tant Jewish communities and hopes to increase our understanding of thechallenges, opportunities, and paradoxes Jewish men and women faced priorto 1933. No easy answers will be provided for fascism’s rise in Germany andits relationship to preexisting German anti-Semitism. If anything, this studymay make ongoing controversies even more complex by adding diversityto the representation of the German-Jewish experience in the early twenti-eth century. This study suggests that at a certain place in time in Germanythere was room for and appreciation of public display of various ethnic, andespecially of Jewish, identities. We will explore both the significance and thefragility of this public engagement with Jewish lives and culture within asociety riddled by conflicts, continuously torn between contradictory desiresto reject, control, or celebrate individual and collective differences.

The decades prior to 1933 are too easily seen as merely a prelude to theHolocaust, with portentous signs of moral decay and social disintegration inabundance. It has once again become popular to equate assimilation with thefalse consciousness that is a symptom of self-denial among Germany’s Jews.4

Yet an analysis of popular entertainment demonstrates that German societywas characterized by astounding contradictions. While Jews experiencedglass ceilings and open hostility in the military and in politics, they enjoyedfreedom and open doors in other endeavors, most notably in popular culture.The evolution of German popular culture between 1890 and the late 1920swas initiated and facilitated by Jewish entertainers and entrepreneurs, somuch so that it makes sense to argue that the history of popular culturein Germany prior to 1933 cannot be separated from the history of Jewishentertainers.

There is, in fact, plenty of evidence that German-Jewish performers, direc-tors, and producers were never more in the limelight than they were in theearly twentieth century. This study intends to recall the nameless and thefamous, the brilliant and the mediocre, Jewish actors in German entertain-ment. On stage and off, these entertainers both shaped and reflected thedreams and aspirations of countless Germans, who seemed to find unabatedpleasure in the exhilarating amusement of live entertainment during thesedecades. As turn-of-the-century popular entertainment created new spheresof sociability and enterprise, it also created gray areas of Gentile–Jewish rela-tions, blurring and redrawing the boundaries between insiders and outsidersin a process that this study attempts to capture and explore. By analyzingthe aesthetics of performance and the social relations of entertainers, onegains insight into the complex relationships in Germany between Gentilesand Jews in the cultural realm as well as in the larger society.

4 Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (NewYork, 1996).


6 Introduction

germans at play

By the turn of the twentieth century, the boundaries of the bourgeois ideal ofBildung (self-formation) began to be openly challenged. An expanding urbanpopular culture, as reflected in films, tabloids, and sport events, fundamen-tally altered social reality for many Germans.5 Traditional forms of artisticexpression began to seem increasingly stale, elitist, and uninspiring. Yet film,radio, and television were not the first mass media to leave their mark onthe collective consciousness of the German population.6 Antecedents suchas the circus inspired the imagination of mass audiences around the turn ofthe century. By far the most popular form of mass entertainment, the circusannually drew millions of spectators, for whom it provided information aswell as amusement.7 To a significant degree, the circus influenced its specta-tors’ notions of foreign worlds, as well as their ideas about the relationshipbetween nature and mankind. In circus entertainment as elsewhere, “themedium was the message.”8 Moreover, the circus employed its own tech-nological apparatuses to convey its messages. Along with Jargon theatersand revue theaters, circuses formed part of an entertainment industry thatcatered to the growing urban population of Imperial and Weimar Germany,and their primacy as popular diversions remained unchallenged until thearrival of cinema.9

Live entertainment was an important element in the everyday life of manyGermans. As their leisure time increased, more and more Germans sought out

5 See, among others, Kaspar Maase, Grenzenloses Vergnugen: Der Aufstieg der Massenkultur,1850–1970 (Frankfurt a. M., 1997).

6 Pierre Sorlin, Mass Media: Key Ideas (London, 1994). Although an excellent introduction tothe vast literature on “mass culture,” Sorlin’s book is representative of that literature in itsneglect of popular entertainment forms prior to film.

7 The average circus could seat between 2,500 and 5,000 spectators at each show. Each circusperformed at least twice a day, and even the traveling circuses performed at least six monthsof the year. If we assume that a traveling circus performed 120 days in a year, it reachedapproximately 600,000 spectators during that time. A stationary circus, which performedthroughout the year, annually averaged more than two million spectators.

8 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (New York, 1964), 32.9 Bim Mason, Street Theatre and Other Outdoor Performance (London, 1992), 17. An excel-

lent introduction to the history of European circuses is also provided in Jewgeni Kusneszow,Der Zirkus der Welt (Berlin, 1970); on German circuses, see also Dietmar Winkler, Zirkus-geschichte (Berlin, 1986); Robert A. Jones, Art and Entertainment: German Literature and theCircus, 1890–1933 (Heidelberg, 1985); Joseph Halperson, Das Buch vom Zirkus, Beitrage zurGeschichte der Wanderkunstlerwelt (Dusseldorf, 1926); Gunter Bose and Erich Brinkmann,Circus. Geschichte und Asthetik einer niederen Kunst (Berlin, 1978); Wolfgang Carle, Dashat Berlin schon mal gesehn: Eine Historie des Friedrichstadt-Palastes (Berlin, 1982); G. B.Eberstaller and Paul Christian, Circus (Vienna, 1976); J. Merdert, ed., Zirkus, Circus, Cirque,28, Berliner Festwoche, Nationalgalerie (Berlin, 1978); a quite different approach to circusart is taken by Paul Bouissac, Circus and Culture: A Semiotic Approach (Bloomington, IN,1976).


Introduction 7

theaters, circuses, sports events, and trade fairs for distraction, excitement,and stimulation. In articles on the front pages of daily newspapers, a well-informed group of critics discussed the premieres of live productions. Thishigh profile in the press was crucial to the ability of these shows to attracta mass audience, since Berliners in particular relied heavily on newspapersto map out the imaginative landscape of their urban environment.10 Thisfascination with popular live entertainment was not confined to Berlin. Onthe contrary, every medium-sized city took pride in its circuses and theaters.City dwellers were well acquainted with the area’s stars and with their privatelives and public scandals. Provincial towns swelled with enthusiasm andpride at the occasional guest performance by a prominent entertainer fromBerlin. Local politicians found it indispensable to be seen at these events, andlocal elites made sure to frequent the latest shows, where they sought thefriendship of up-and-coming entertainers. Although Berlin celebrated itselfas the capital of live entertainment, most of the city’s larger theaters andcircuses believed that their success depended on their shows’ being discussedthroughout the country.

popular culture and jewish identity

Any exploration of the realm of circuses, Jargon theaters, and revue the-aters must consider how Jews were represented in German popular media,as well as how their representations were received by Gentile and Jewishaudiences. To provide a multifaceted view of Jewish identities in popularentertainment it is necessary to focus on both the production and the recep-tion of popular culture. We have to ask when did individual artists invoketheir ethnic identity over other dimensions of their lives, such as age, gender,or class, and why? How did Jewish performers use visual and verbal formsof language to express their need to belong or their sense of self? How didJewish artists balance their individual histories and traditions with the col-lective’s? Such questions move beyond an analysis of cultural organizations;they are an attempt to understand the fluid processes of identity forma-tion and self-representation that engaged a predominant ethnic minority inmodern Germany. This study illustrates the way in which popular entertain-ment in a particular time and place defined and expanded the boundariesof what was socially and culturally tolerated. It does so by evaluating thestage and the circus ring as public spaces that simultaneously informed andreflected the public’s view of “the other.”

Live popular entertainment is a particularly rich field for the study ofethnic identity. Its analysis provides insight into German society because it

10 Peter Fritzsche, Reading Berlin 1900 (Cambridge, MA, 1996).


8 Introduction

encourages extensive interaction between performers and their audiences.11

Long before postmodernism provoked heated debate among intellectualsabout the “location of culture” – about who could or should claim responsi-bility for the production of meaning – German performers in circuses, varietyshows, cabarets, and musical theaters understood that the success of theiraesthetic enterprises lay in how they were received by audiences.12 These newforms of popular entertainment fostered greater intimacy between audiencesand performers. Many acts were choreographed as a ritualized dialogue,offering ample opportunity for performer and audience to interact.

These entertainment genres transcended not only the traditional divisionbetween audience and performer but also that between author and performer.As more and more performers created their own acts, entertainment becamea function of the individual performer’s courage, imagination, and training.13

To audiences’ delight, spontaneity replaced what was scripted and staid in“legitimate theater.” The increasing attention paid to the performers dis-closed their specific messages as well as their public personas. Because theywrote, choreographed, and often managed their own work, German-Jewishperformers avoided the constraints of traditional stage roles.14 Traditionaltheater worked within clearly defined scripts that could not be altered bythe actors, and therefore it was much harder to determine the actors’ indi-vidual motivation, personal background, or cultural baggage. Popular enter-tainers, by contrast, both transformed and were transformed by the act oftransgressing social and cultural boundaries. Although not completely free intheir choice of content, style, or costume, these entertainers actively engagedand negotiated with audiences, stage owners, municipal and national gov-ernments, and the press on an individual basis.

Popular live entertainment offered a marketplace of meaning where a finebalance between the exotic and the familiar promised both fame and revenue.

11 For the concept of “ethnicity” and Jewish identity, see Shulamit Volkov, “Die Erfindungeiner Tradition. Zur Entstehung des modernen Judentums in Deutschland,” HistorischeZeitschrift 253 (1991), 603–28; Marion Berghahn, German-Jewish Refugees in England(London, 1984); Till van Rahden, “Weder Milieu noch Konfession: Die situative Ethnizitatder deutschen Juden im Kaiserreich in vergleichender Perspektive,” in Olaf Blaschke andFrank-Michael Kuhlemann, eds., Religion und Milieu im deutschen Kaiserreich (Gutersloh,1996).

12 Homi Bhabha employs this concept in The Location of Culture (London, 1994). On thesignificance of the interactive nature of modern popular theater, see Erika Fischer-Lichte,Die Entdeckung des Zuschauers. Paradigmenwechsel auf dem Theater des 20. Jahrhunderts(Tubingen, 1997); idem, The Show and the Gaze of the Theatre: A European Perspective(Iowa City, 1997).

13 On the interaction between actor and audience, see Mason, Street Theatre, 11.14 This was a remarkable freedom, particularly when compared to the limited choices Jews had

faced on the stage in previous centuries. For an insightful discussion of Jews in the traditionaltheater scene, see Hans-Joachim Neugebauer, Judenfiguren: Drama und Theater im fruhen19. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1994).


Introduction 9

This apparent commercialization, however, hindered its consideration aslegitimate “high” culture. Conceiving of art “as a touchstone of the high-est values of civilization,” most contemporary critics denied a place in theclassical cultural canon to popular entertainment because it played to thelowest common denominator.15 For those critics, “culture” was based ondistinction and was informed by specific notions of civilization and nature.This study, however, along with most scholars today in the field of cul-tural studies, assumes that “culture” is “ordinary” or “everyday” and that itreconstitutes itself in daily struggles and negotiations.16 Furthermore, normsand rules applying to society at large were often suspended or inverted in thearena of popular entertainment. As will be demonstrated, the circus, Jargontheater, and revue theater – distinguished by their wide-ranging repertoiresand socially diverse audiences – often eluded classification within either massor elite culture. They functioned instead as experimental stages for artisticinnovation, mediating between the different artistic worlds of the “popular”and the “legitimate” culture.

the art of history

Most German historians, unlike their Americanist colleagues, have yet to reg-ularly incorporate questions of ethnic identity into their research. Althoughthere have been notable attempts to insert ethnic or minority studies, as wellas issues of mass culture and mass communications, into the mainstreamof German history, these efforts have remained honorable but rather iso-lated trials by specialists in these fields. A conceptional divide continues toseparate the fields of German history and North American history, a phe-nomenon that Michael Geyer and Konrad Jarausch have described as the“belatedness” of German historiography.17

With few exceptions, neither German- nor English-speaking historians ofGermany have fully appreciated the significance of performances for his-torical interpretation.18 Recent revisions of such notions as “mainstream,”“homogeneity,” and “center and periphery” have resonated in the treatment

15 Among many, see Ludwig Seelig, Geschaftstheater oder Kulturtheater? (Berlin, 1914).16 Stuart Hall, “Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms,”in Nicholas B. Dirks, Geoff Eley, and Sherry

B. Ortner, eds., Culture/Power/History (Princeton, NJ, 1994), 522. Hall is referring to aconcept Raymond Williams puts forth in one of his earlier attempts to define culture.Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (London, 1973). Among many, see theapproach discussed in the informative introduction to Chandra Mukerji and MichaelSchudson, eds., Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies(Berkeley, CA, 1991).

17 Michael Geyer and Konrad H. Jarausch, “Great Men and Postmodern Ruptures: Over-coming the ‘Belatedness’ of German Historiography,” German Studies Review 18 (1995),253–73.

18 Peter Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret (Cambridge, MA, 1993).


10 Introduction

of popular cinema by American historians and by film specialists, but theyhave failed to leave a lasting imprint on works dealing with mainstreamGerman society. With an increasing interest in the complicated and manifoldprocesses of identity formation, American historians have breathed new lifeinto the study of art, by shifting the focus from styles of performance toagency, reception, and representation.19 Fueled by an interest in multicul-turalism generated by the feminist and civil rights movements in America,in the last decade the attention of scholars has been directed at issues ofethnic, racial, and sexual diversity, ambiguity, and difference. In addition,the challenges of new media technologies have led to a renewed interest inthe relationship between image and information and have initiated a debateabout the place of aesthetics in society.

Although questions of Jewish identity are an established topic within thestudy of minorities among Americanists, they have not figured prominently incultural studies until recently. Since the mid-1980s, important though contro-versial studies have changed the way we understand the role of ethnic identityin mass culture. The works of Michael Rogin, Neal Gabler, and J. Hobermanhave chronicled the American Jewish experience in the film industry and insociety at large.20 Central to these studies has been the question of whetherit was possible for Jews in America to enter mainstream society withoutshedding their own ethnic or cultural specificity. Thus Gabler highlights theways in which immigrant Jewish entrepreneurs sought to demonstrate theirAmericanness, yet by their actions altered the very definition of what it meantto be an American. Rogin argues that blackface minstrelsy allowed Europeanimmigrants to pass into the mainstream. Hoberman points to the functionof Yiddish films in the preservation and re-creation of a distinctly Jewishculture.21 These works direct our attention to the importance of mass mediaand the dynamics of cultural reaffirmation in the public sphere, a process thatneither reproduces the past nor allows for cultural separatism.22 It is clearthat Jews saw the realm of entertainment as a sphere that could be especiallyrewarding, both in economic and in emotional terms. The new film industrywas not characterized by the same prejudices against Jews that existed in

19 See among many, Miriam Hansen, Babel and Babylon. Spectatorship in American SilentFilm (Cambridge, MA, 1994).

20 Michael Rogin, Blackface, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in the Hollywood Melting Pot(Berkeley, CA, 1996); Neal Gabler, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews InventedHollywood (New York, 1988); J. Hoberman, Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between TwoWorld Wars (Philadelphia, 1991); S. B. Cohen, ed., From Hester Street to Hollywood: TheJewish-American Stage and Screen (Bloomington, IN, 1983).

21 J. Hoberman, “My Song Means as Much to My Audience as Yours to Your Congregation,”London Review of Books, July 18, 1996, 22.

22 Hoberman concludes that both the medium and the preservationist impulse were modern.Thus whereas the intention was oriented toward history and tradition, the product wassomething entirely new. Hoberman, Bridge of Light, 8.


Introduction 11

other fields of endeavor.23 In fact, through film, this formerly marginalizedand persecuted minority emerged as a highly visible and empowered groupin American society.

At the turn of the twentieth century, many entertainers in Germany, asin America, were of Jewish origin. Still, until today, few scholars have paidattention to the role of Jews in German popular culture.24 We still lack aserious study of why German Jews chose to engage in popular entertainmentto such a great extent, or of how ethnic identity shaped the professionaland private lives of these German-Jewish entertainers. Especially in light ofthe vibrant cultural life of Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany, it is puzzlingwhy the notable presence of Jews in German mass entertainment has notstimulated greater scholarly interest. Three possible reasons come to mind,each of which fundamentally distinguishes German historiography from itsAmerican counterpart.

First, the greatest obstacle to the analysis of ethnicity in German culturestems from Germany’s recent intellectual trajectory. Since the late 1960sGerman historical thinking has been heavily shaped by a Marxist paradigm.This reliance has led to an emphasis on the relationship between cultureand class. Other forms of differentiation, such as gender or ethnicity, havenot received as much consideration. Religion has remained the only othercategory to attract scholarly attention.25 In recent years, gender historiansin both Europe and North America have contested the primacy of classin determining social distinctions. Ann Taylor Allen has suggested that thedeficiency in German historiography in the 1960s and 1970s reflected theabsence of political movements in Germany, such as the Black Power move-ment in the United States, that could have offered theoretical alternatives tothe Marxist paradigm.26 This lack of alternative theories has been even morepronounced when it comes to ethnicity as a category of historical analysis.Unlike gender, ethnicity is only now beginning to find its advocates amongGerman historians.

23 Hans Feld, “Jews in the Development of the German Film Industry: Notes from the Recol-lections of a Berlin Film Critic,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 27 (1982), 337.

24 Hans Feld being a notable exception to the rule.25 Wolfgang Schieder, ed., Volksreligiositat in der modernen Sozialgeschichte (Gottingen, 1986);

idem, Religion und Gesellschaft im 19. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1994); David Blackbourn,Marpingen: Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Bismarckian Germany (Oxford, 1993);Margaret Lavinia Anderson, “Piety and Politics: Recent Work on German Catholicism,”Journal of Modern History 63 (1991), 681–716; Helmut Walser Smith, German Nationalismand Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology, Politics, 1870–1914 (Princeton, NJ, 1995); OlafBlaschke and Frank-Michael Kuhlemann, eds., Religion und Milieu im deutschen Kaiserreich(Gutersloh, 1996).

26 Ann Taylor Allen, “Women’s Studies as Cultural Movement and Academic Discipline inthe United States and West Germany: The Early Phase, 1966–1982,” Women in GermanYearbook 9 (1993), 5.


12 Introduction

Second, there has been a strong tendency among German historians toassume that sociological factors determined the reception as well as the pro-duction of cultural symbols in German society. Because memberships andattendance could be determined more easily for civil associations, for exam-ple, organizations involved in the production of cultural objects have receivedscholarly attention, whereas “unorganized” cultural production, outside therealm of associational life, has remained on the periphery of historical anal-ysis. Among historians of modern Germany, labor historians were the firstto conduct serious historical research on popular culture and mass media.Those historians came to view cultural expressions in terms of social con-flict between classes or as conflict between civil society and the state. Theirstudies focused on cultural organizations and the activities of the workers’movement.27 With the notable exception of Lynn Abrams, labor historiansoften neglected amusements such as the circus or the variety show becausethe audiences for these forms of entertainment defied clear-cut definitions ofclass and political orientation.28

Scholars concerned with Germany’s Burgertum (middle classes) havedemonstrated an even greater reluctance than have labor historians toconsider popular entertainment as a “serious” arena for public discourse.Although historians today agree that leisure-time activities played a majorrole in the formation of the public sphere, most research has focused onbourgeois associational life (Vereinswesen).29 Often relying heavily on the

27 Although Jurgen Kocka has pointed to the fluid nature of workers’ culture during the nine-teenth century, historical research has largely focused on organizational histories. JurgenKocka, “Arbeiterkultur im 19. Jahrhundert,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft, vol. 5, no. 1(1979). For the persistence of the “organizational approach,” see Gerhard A. Ritter and KlausTenfelde, Arbeiter im Deutschen Kaiserreich, 1871–1914 (Bonn, 1992), especially Ch. 9,“Das Milieu der Arbeiter”; Gerhard Ritter, ed., Arbeiterkultur (Konigstein, 1979); VernonL. Lidtke, The Alternative Culture: Socialist Labor in Imperial Germany (New York, 1986);Dieter Langewiesche, “Working-Class Culture and Working-Class Politics in the WeimarRepublic,” in Roger Fletcher, ed., Bernstein to Brandt (London, 1987).

28 Lynn Abrams was one of the first to break out of the constraints of the organizational life ofworkers’ culture. Lynn Abrams, Workers’ Culture in Imperial Germany: Leisure and Recre-ation in the Rhineland and Westphalia (London, 1992). See also idem, “Zur Entwicklungeiner kommerziellen Arbeiterkultur im Ruhrgebiet,” in Dagmar Kift, ed., Kirmes-Kneipen-Kino: Arbeiterkultur im Ruhrgebiet zwischen Kommerz und Kontrolle (1850–1914) (Pader-born, Germany, 1992), 33–59. For an informative synopsis of major trends and developmentsin the field of cultural studies, see Hall, “Cultural Studies,” 520–38.

29 The most prominent works on the German bourgeoisie stress the importance of associationallife for the formation of a bourgeois Selbstverstandnis. See Jurgen Kocka, ed., Burgertum im19. Jahrhundert, vols. 1–3 (Gottingen, 1995); David Blackbourn and Richard Evans, eds.,The German Bourgeoisie: Essays on the Social History of the German Middle Class from theLate Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Century (London, 1991); see also Thomas Nipperdey,“Verein als Soziale Struktur in Deutschland im spaten 18. und fruhen 19. Jahrhundert,”Gesellschaft, Kultur, Theorie: Gesammelte Aufsatze zur neueren Geschichte (Gottingen,1976), 174–205.


Introduction 13

ideas of Jurgen Habermas, they analyze how the dramatic increase in vol-untary associations created a new public sphere reserved for male citizens.Attention is drawn to the merits of a new found rational discourse amongmiddle-class men, eager to claim leadership inside and outside the home.30

But Germany’s urban culture after 1890 combined many new public spaces,including sites of popular amusement that were accessible to both womenand men, working classes and middle classes, society’s insiders and out-siders. It is these sites that remain so conspicuously undervalued by histori-ans who focus on the “ideal-type” public sphere exclusively. To be sure, ahighly developed associational life continued to serve as a forum for pub-lic debate and social networking. Nevertheless, popular entertainment con-tributed to a redefined public sphere in the first decade of the twentiethcentury.31 In fact, many middle-class associations came to be part of thisnew sphere as regular “collective” consumers of popular entertainment.Abrams has argued persuasively that “it was the urban bourgeoisie who,while decrying the drinking and dancing of the lower classes, began to taketheir own recreation into the public arena.” In amusement parks, zoos, andother recreational forums they fled the cities and their demanding lives.32

By challenging the boundaries of the bourgeois home, a division essentialto Habermas’s concept, the pursuit of such activities blurred the distinctionbetween the private and public spheres. Live entertainment was an essen-tial part of such “decentered publics.” Anything but apolitical, entertain-ment reflected and shaped the views on local and national politics held bymany Germans as well as their interpretation of national and internationalevents.33 As Mary Ryan, Geoff Eley, and Harry C. Boyte have argued, futureresearch must appreciate the diversity and changing contours of Germanpublics.34

30 Harry C. Boyte, “The Pragmatic Ends of Popular Politics,” in Craig Calhoun, ed., Habermasand the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA, 1992), 342–43.

31 See Ursula Frey, “Vom Kulturverein zur Vereinskultur. Organisierte Geselligkeit alspopulare Freizeitgestaltung nach 1850,” in Kift, Kirmes-Kneipe-Kino, 169–95; KonradDussel and Mathias Frese, “Von traditioneller Vereinskultur zu moderner Massenkultur?Vereins- und Freizeitangebote in einer sudwestdeutschen Kleinstadt 1920–1960,” Archiv furSozialgeschichte 33 (1993), 59–105.

32 Lynn Abrams, “From Control to Commercialization: The Triumph of Mass Entertainmentin Germany 1900–25?” German History, 8, no. 3 (1990), 278. See also Asa Briggs, MassEntertainment: The Origins of a Modern Industry (Adelaide, 1960).

33 For example, it was not only the press that informed Europeans of the seemingly unlimitedopportunities for riches during the years of the gold rush in the American West. Circusesall over Europe mounted spectacular shows, focusing on the Klondike experience, for thosewho dared to leave the familiar.

34 See their contributions to Calhoun, Habermas and the Public Sphere: Mary Ryan, “Genderand Public Access: Women’s Politics in 19th Century America,” 259–88; Geoff Eley,“Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures: Placing Habermas in the 19th Century,” 289–339; Boyte, “The Pragmatic Ends of Popular Politics,” 340–58.


14 Introduction

German historians’ tendency to focus on organizations and on institu-tional structures was heightened by their attempt to explain the rise ofanti-Semitism and the failure of Jewish emancipation in Germany result-ing in the Holocaust. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, historians searchedthe economic and political spheres of German society for the causes of the“German catastrophe,” concentrating on those areas where anti-Semitismfound a direct and institutionalized expression.35 Artistic and social expres-sions of ambivalence inherent in mass culture received almost no attentionfrom those scholars of modern German history in search of clarity and cul-prits. German Jews were examined as victims of exclusion and persecution;as such, they were treated as objects. Jews were deprived of any agency,and their cultural participation and creativity received only marginal recog-nition in German-Jewish historiography. Historians therefore continued topolarize German society into a majority and a minority culture, a center anda periphery; monolithic and mutually exclusive identities took precedenceover more fragile and fluid senses of self. This distinction between the major-ity and the minority perpetuated the marginalization of the German-Jewishcommunity.

The third obstacle to analysis is that historians both of German culture andof German–Jewish relations remain reluctant to consider primarily visual,often nonverbal, art as a historical source. Most studies of bourgeois cul-ture in the “long nineteenth century” have centered on high culture, such asparlor music, opera, or theater – art forms with a heavy verbal dimensionto their performance.36 For German cultural historians, live visual enter-tainment, unlike painting or sculpture, has not been part of the legitimatecultural canon. Although there is a long tradition of iconographic interpre-tation by medievalists, ethnographers, and art historians, historians writingon modern Germany have relied mainly on written sources. They often havedepicted visual mass culture as mindless and debased, despite the grow-ing emphasis on visual communication as a distinctive feature of modern

35 Norbert Kampe, Studententum und,“Judenfrage” im Kaiserreich (Gottingen, 1988); Shu-lamit Volkov, Judisches Leben und Antisemitismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Munich,1990); Peter Pulzer, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria, rev. ed.(Cambridge, MA, 1988); Peter Pulzer, Jews and the German State (London, 1992); ReinhardRurup, Emanzipation und Antisemitismus, Studien zur “Judenfrage” der burgerlichenGesellschaft (Frankfurt a. M., 1975); Helmut Berding, Moderner Antisemitismus in Deutsch-land (Frankfurt a. M., 1988); Jacob Katz, Vom Vorurteil zur Vernichtung (Munich, 1989).

36 Carl Dahlhaus, Die Musik des 19. Jahrhunderts (Wiesbaden, 1980); Marcel Beaufis, Com-ment l’Allemagne est devenue musicienne (Paris, 1983); H. Fladt, Musik im 19. Jahrhundert:Aspekte burgerlicher Musikkultur (Stuttgart, 1981); William Weber, “The Muddle of theMiddle Classes,” Nineteenth-Century Music 3 (1979), 175–85; idem, “Mass Culture andthe Reshaping of Musical Taste,” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology ofMusic 8 (1977), 5–21; idem, Music and the Middle Classes: The Social Structure of Con-cert Life in London, Paris and Vienna (New York, 1975); Ute Daniel, Hoftheater (Stuttgart,1995).


Introduction 15

life. They see popular culture as a lower-class imitation of high culture –a cheap, commercialized copy of the esteemed original – inarticulate andhardly worth considering.37 Although the middle classes constituted largesegments of the audience for low culture as well as for high, historians havecontinued to focus on their participation in high culture, overemphasizing thesocial segregation separating the various cultural spheres. Yet, as this studywill demonstrate, no cultural genre exercised a monopoly on its audience’sgaze.

Lawrence Levine has shown that the categories of culture employed byhistorians as well as by contemporary observers reflect specific ideologies.38

West German historians especially have continued to take for granted ahomogeneous German population with one cultural code, despite effortsby historians interested in Alltagsgeschichte (the history of everyday life)or in gender history to transcend these parameters.39 Most historians con-ceive of this cultural code as being dominated by middle-class tastes. Thisassumption has contributed to the continuing fixation of historians on ver-bal cultural expression, because self-formation and learning were centralto the moral economy of the middle class. Only recently has this hegemonicview of German culture been challenged. Today, the persisting cultural dividebetween eastern and western Germany even after legal unification, togetherwith a more general recognition of Germany as an immigrant society, has ledsome historians to challenge existing understandings of German culture andidentity.

As with works in German cultural history, the historiography of GermanJews has focused on expressions of bourgeois culture, primarily on theGerman-Jewish middle class and its achievements in science, philosophy, andthe liberal arts.40 German-Jewish involvement in mass culture, acclaimedneither for its aesthetic aspirations nor for its creative superiority, haslargely been ignored. Such concentration on Jewish involvement in highculture partly reflects a widespread belief in the existence of a specific“Jewish intelligence” that represents the mirror image of the traditional

37 See, among others, Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Burgerliche Kultur und kunstlerische Avantgarde:Kultur und Politik im deutschen Kaiserreich, 1870–1918 (Frankfurt a. M., 1994).

38 Lawrence Levine, High Brow /Low Brow: The Emergence of a Cultural Hierarchy in America(Cambridge, MA, 1988).

39 For a discussion of Alltagsgeschichte and its critics, see Jurgen Kocka, “Klassen oderKultur? Durchbruche und Sackgassen in der Alltagsgeschichte,” Merkur 36 (1986), 955–65;Martin Brozat, “Pladoyer fur Alltagsgeschichte,” Merkur 36 (1986), 1244–48; Franz-JosefBruggemeier and Jurgen Kocka, eds., “Geschichte von unten – Geschichte von innen.” Kon-troversen um die Alltagsgeschichte (Hagen, 1985). In general, see Lynn Hunt, ed., The NewCultural History (Berkeley, CA, 1989).

40 Julius Schoeps, ed., Juden als Trager burgerlicher Kultur in Deutschland (Stuttgart, 1989);Eszra Mendelsohn, “On the Jewish Presence in Nineteenth-Century European Musical Life,”Studies in Contemporary Jewry 9 (1993), 3–16.


16 Introduction

anti-Semitic stereotype of the “smart Jew.”41 Many studies of German Jewryhave echoed this inversion of the anti-Semitic stereotype. Afraid that the roleof Jews in German history would eventually be forgotten, they focused onGerman Jews’ contributions to high culture. Central to this “contributionist”paradigm were Jewish members of the cultural avant-garde as symbolsof German-Jewish achievements and “superiority.” Such a focus on elitesand elite culture necessarily neglected those Jews who participated in massculture, either as spectators or performers. The popular Jewish enter-tainer who aims his or her jokes at a mass audience had no place in thisequation.

Not all Jewish entertainers aspired to be part of the world of Goethe,Lessing, and Schiller. Concentrating on intellectual and economic elites, pre-vious research has tended to treat the Jewish community as monolithic.42

An analysis of German popular entertainment paints a more complex andheterogeneous picture. German Jews were drawn from all classes and par-ticipated in many different subcultures that were by no means exclusivelyJewish. Jews figured prominently in the creation of new realms of entertain-ment, and they had a major impact on tastes and aesthetics in all of Germanmass entertainment. In short, no preexisting, homogeneous German massculture into which Jews chose to assimilate existed. Instead, mass entertain-ment evolved in conjunction with the massive involvement of Jewish actors,artists, directors, screenwriters, and so on. All of these participants helped tocreate new techniques and styles of presentation. This does not mean, how-ever, that Jews qua Jews were at the forefront of a progressive and exper-imental avant-garde culture.43 Instead, they could be found in all spheresof entertainment, occupying various class positions from theater mogul tocircus acrobat. They staged old-fashioned, folksy mass productions, as wellas avant-garde shows. No single and unifying identity can be attributed toJews involved in the cultural sphere. This study explores this great variety ofJewish involvement by focusing on Jewish families and individuals who weremore representative of general developments in German mass entertainmentthan has been believed by historians until now.

41 Sander Gilman, Smart Jews: The Construction of the Image of Jewish Superior Intelligence(Lincoln, NE, 1996).

42 David Sorkin’s work is one example of this long-standing tradition in attempts to analyzeJewish culture by focusing on Jewish intellectuals. David Sorkin, The Transformation ofGerman Jewry, 1780–1840 (New York, 1987).

43 George L. Mosse made the influential argument that, during the Weimar period, “the polar-ization of politics was accompanied by a polarization of culture. Jews seemed to takesides – indeed, to play a visible and crucial role in encouraging the modern rather thanthe traditional.” This assumption needs reconsideration. Although Jews were involved inthe avant-garde movement, they could equally be found in the traditional camp. See GeorgeL. Mosse, German Jews Beyond Judaism (Bloomington, IN 1985), 22; for a similar view toMosse’s, see Walter Laqueur, Weimar Culture (New York, 1974).


Introduction 17

approach

This study speaks to one of the great ironies of German history, arguing thatit was not Weimar but was the politically more static Imperial period thatallowed Jewish performers a particular familiarity with their audiences. Atleast in principle, Weimar Germany was a far more pluralistic society in itspolitical culture than was the empire, which is often remembered for its chau-vinism and bigotry. Upon reflection, however, the empire was also a periodof curiosity, wealth, and rising bourgeois confidence. While political andethnic tolerance were certainly not programmatically promoted during theKaiserreich, they may have been by-products of relative social and economicstability. That this stability coexisted with, and to a degree depended upon,the suppression of political opponents and the ruthless exploitation of ruraland industrial workers must be remembered. Nonetheless, although politi-cally conservative, Imperial society was not a durchherrschte Gesellschaft.Whereas state, military, and traditional elites hardly advocated equal oppor-tunities for the empire’s marginalized citizens, they were not yet able todemand total transparency and obedience from its subjects in all realms oflife. Imperial society encouraged a division of politics and culture that brokedown in the Weimar era. Thus at certain times, popular live entertainmentcould suspend discriminatory practices in the political sphere by serving asan alternative public sphere. The following chapters will trace the nature ofthis process as well as its limitations.

Historians often focus on the boundaries of popular entertainment vis-a-vis legitimate culture and thus neglect to discriminate between popular genreswith distinct trajectories. Popular live entertainment in the early twentiethcentury was not, however, a monolithic microcosm, and to understand itsimportance as an alternative public sphere one must understand its varieties.This study looks at three distinct entertainment genres: the modern circus,the Jargon theater, and the revue theater. All three types enjoyed periodsof unprecedented popularity among Germans; each one, however, framedGentile–Jewish encounters in a different way. Each genre held out a distinctpromise for German Jews. To a degree, the histories of these genres alsoreflect the dynamics of an industry in transition: whereas circuses, Jargontheaters, and revue theaters coexisted, they experienced peak popularity atdifferent times. While the circus was clearly dominant in the late nineteenthcentury, Jargon theater flourished in the immediate prewar period, and revuetheater maintained its momentum into the postwar period, outlasting bothother popular entertainment forms.

While this study appreciates the idiosyncrasies of each popular medium,it also suggests that change, mobility, and interdependence are importantcharacteristics of German popular entertainment. Actors and acrobats notonly moved between cities but also, at times, between venues. Thus the fluidnature of the entertainment industry is apparent in the physical mobility of


18 Introduction

its participants, as well as in their performance styles and in the contentof their acts. A steady flow of entertainers from America, France, Poland,Russia, and Austria entered Germany, and a fairly constant stream ofAmerican and European performers and directors criss-crossed the Atlantic,leaving their imprints on the theatrical and musical worlds of their hostcountries.44 Many legitimate theaters originated as stages for variety enter-tainment. As variety theaters become more popular, they began to favorone-act shows and eventually to mount “serious” theater productions. Somedrama theaters experimented with literary cabaret performances for smalland large audiences. In 1910 the famous theater director Max Reinhardt useda circus to stage monumental drama.45 Because actors and directors oftenknew each other, they entertained friendships and business relations acrossartistic genres. Thus, although the three entertainment genres included inthis study can be read individually, in combination they enhance the under-standing of each and, more important, reflect both the internal divisions andthe fluidity of popular entertainment.

structure of the study

The three sections that make up this study – circuses, Jargon theaters, andrevue theaters – not only are distinct in their aesthetics but also representdifferent stages in the acculturation of Jewish artists. Thus the order in whichthey are discussed here is based on chronology and aesthetics as well as onhow the Jewish entertainers associated with each of them interacted withsociety at large. The specific enterprises to be examined in each genre werechosen because each in its prime set trends for others in the business. Thisstudy begins with a discussion of the Blumenfeld, Lorch, and Strassburgercircuses, which were run by prominent Jewish families in the late nineteenthand early twentieth centuries. A discussion of the Folies Caprice and the

44 This exchange was remarked upon by contemporaries; see, among many accounts, FritzGiese, Girlkultur, Vergleiche zwischen amerikanischem und europaischem Rhythmus undLebensgefuhl (Munich, 1925). The interdependence of artistic scenes has received consider-able attention in the realm of film; most historians remain unaware, however, that an equallyintense exchange occurred prior to the rise of the film industry. For a recent study, see ThomasJ. Saunders, Hollywood in Berlin: American Cinema and Weimar Germany (Berkeley, CA,1994).

45 Reinhardt staged the grand classical drama Odipus in a former circus arena, which he thencalled “the theater of the 5,000” (Theater der 5000). In 1919 the Circus Schumann wasredesigned by the famous architect Hans Polzig, a member of the Bauhaus movement, tohost the grand theater of Berlin (Großes Schauspielhaus). This theater existed until 1933,when it was closed by the Nazis. For the contemporary debates on this experiment, seeF. Baumgarten, Zirkus Reinhardt (Potsdam, 1920), and more recently, Eva Tilgner, DasHaus an der Spree: Von der Markthalle zum Friedrichstadtpalast (Berlin, 1974); Carle, Dashat Berlin schon mal gesehn; for an account of Reinhardt’s own ideas, see Hugo Fetting,ed., Max Reinhardt: Schriften, Briefe, Reden, Aufsatze, Interviews, Gesprache, Auszuge ausRegiebuchern (Berlin, 1974).


Introduction 19

Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater, two major Jargon theaters in Berlin, follows.The study concludes with an examination of the Metropol Theater, the mostsuccessful revue theater in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany.46 Whereas thefirst section examines circuses nationally rather than focusing on a singlelocality, the sections on Jargon theater and variety theater, are set mainly inBerlin. One could, however, find equivalent theaters in other German citiesas well. Revues and family farces, the respective staples of variety and Jargontheaters, regularly traveled from one city to another after opening in Berlin.In their successes and failures, the individual families and artistic enterprisesin all three sections exemplify larger developments within each artistic genre.

Each section shares an analytical progression that begins with an intro-duction to the history of one entertainment genre. These overviews providethe historical background necessary for a discussion of the Jewish performersand entrepreneurs within the genre, whose family lives and social milieus arecritical to the analysis. Thus each section begins with a social history of anentertainment type and then analyzes the self-perception and self-promotionof the genre’s most prominent Jewish artists. One learns how Jewish per-formers viewed themselves and how they interacted with Gentiles withinand outside the entertainment industry. Social factors such as language andreligion could deeply affect a performer’s sense of self. Reproductive patterns,intermarriage, gender relations, and questions of sexuality conditioned boththe performance’s aesthetic and the performer’s interactions with the worldoutside the circus or theater. In this context, the social history of familiesoffers insight into the long-term changes in Gentile–Jewish relations as wellas into the ways in which Jewish families reacted to contemporary politicaland economic crises. As performers, Jews tried to reconcile their sense ofself with a marketable image. This study will trace the autonomy in Jewishperformers’ engagement with a range of spectators as well as identify thetimes this sovereignty was probed or even vanished completely.

Questions and theoretical concepts from modern social history provide abasis for an analysis of cultural symbols. Until now, historians have rarely

46 The Metropol Theater has fascinated contemporaries and historians alike. For the best schol-arly discussion in English, see Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret; other treatments include WolfgangJansen, Das Variete: Die glanzvolle Geschichte einer unterhaltenden Kunst (Berlin, 1990);idem, Glanzrevuen der zwanziger Jahre (Berlin, 1987); Ingrid Heinrich-Jost, Sehn Sie, dasist ein Geschaft, Auf ins Metropol, Spezialitaten- und Unterhaltungstheater im ausgehen-den 19. Jahrhundert, Ein Kapitel Berliner Kulturgeschichte (Berlin, 1983); Ernst Gunther,Geschichte des Varietes (Berlin, 1981); Reinhardt Klooss and Thomas Reuter, Korperbilder:Menschenornamente in Revuetheater und Revuefilm (Frankfurt a. M., 1980); Franz-PeterKothes, Die theatraliche Revue in Berlin und Wien, 1900–1938: Typen, Inhalte, Funktionen(Wilhelmshaven, 1977); Walter Freund, “Aus der Fruhzeit des Berliner Metropoltheaters,”Kleine Schriften der Gesellschaft fur Theatergeschichte, no. 19 (Berlin, 1962); contemporaryaccounts of the fame of the Metropol Theater included D. Duncker, “Das Metropoltheaterund die Berliner Revue,” Buhne und Welt, vol. 10, p. 44.


20 Introduction

explored the relationship between the social realities affecting a performerand the performer’s particular aesthetic. The final layer of analysis thusinvolves examining the aesthetics that Jewish entertainers chose to presentto their audiences. A detailed discussion of styles and cultural symbolscomplements the analysis of social reality and reception, of the social and theimagined. Such a discussion of the aesthetics of and Jewish identity in massentertainment is about neither finding “Jewish” artifacts in mainstream artnor defining a Jewish form of art. It is about an analysis of what motivatedJewish performers and the meaning they attached to their acts. Why did Jew-ish entertainers favor certain stylistic elements and reject others? Did theysimply reproduce or alter mainstream repertoires? What did they themselvesperceive to be their signature qualities? These questions require considera-tion of political and social contexts beyond the realm of popular culture.

Popular entertainment reacted not only to its internal dynamics but also tothe general social and political climates in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany.Germany’s traumatic experience of the First World War led to a noticeablerise in radical anti-Semitism and nationalist rhetoric that especially chal-lenged Jewish performers and their relationship to spectators, shattering thethree entertainment genres profiled here. This study explores how Jewishartists adapted to this change in political climate and social tolerance, argu-ing that the particular experiences of these artists rephrase our understandingof the complicated relationship between culture and society. This study sug-gests that whereas at specific moments in time popular culture in generaland live entertainment in particular represented a sphere apart, one in whichcommon rules and regulations could be suspended, at other times popu-lar culture and live entertainment mirrored the darker undercurrents of atroubled collective consciousness. This study will explore this duality andtension using the experiences of German-Jewish popular performers, whohad to negotiate their lives with the confidence of tightrope walkers, exud-ing courage and enthusiasm even though their agency was fragile and therisks immeasurable. This book is written for them.

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i

“PONIM ET CIRCENSES”

Jewish Identities in Circus Entertainment, 1870–1933

21


22


Introduction

A Conservative Utopia

Jews played a significant role in the rise and success of circus entertainment inGermany. In fact, civic society, Jewish emancipation, and mass entertainmentdeveloped simultaneously and as will be shown, were not only parallel phe-nomena but also mutually dependent. After all, it was the circus that permit-ted the spectacular rise to respectability of many poor, largely rural, Jewishfamilies, who worked as peddlers, cattle traders, or even fairground per-formers in nineteenth-century Germany. Circuses stood at the nexus of pastand present. Clearly modern enterprises, they managed to harmonize demo-cratic and autocratic elements in their organization and, most importantly,in their aesthetics. Circuses also promised acceptance for and gave agency toJewish families who had not been at the forefront in modernizing Germany.These families were not protagonists of the “Jewish enlightenment”; theycould claim no far-reaching connections in banking or manufacturing andcould boast no academic distinction. They were, however, entrepreneurial,creators of a fascinating microcosm in which they hoped to find what Jewshad been systematically denied for centuries: tolerance and respect from adiverse German population. Hence, Jewish families contributed significantlyto the birth of the circus, a conservative utopia whose very ambiguity pro-vided them with their greatest opportunities.

Today circuses have become nostalgic events for audiences of small chil-dren and accompanying parents, but at the turn of the last century theystrongly influenced the press, the arts, and fashion.1 Today only throughcollections in museums and archives can we access this medium that is nolonger “organic to our mass-culture.” Circus showcases display the haunt-ing remains of a world once populated by an exceptional variety of artistsrepresenting vastly different racial, religious, and national identities.2 This

1 Paul Bouissac, Circus and Culture: A Semiotic Approach (Bloomington, IN, 1976), 8–9.2 Robert A. Jones, Art and Entertainment: German Literature and the Circus, 1890–1933

(Heidelberg, 1985), 9.

23


24 “Ponim et Circenses”

ethnic diversity, in addition to the genre’s singular aesthetic, makes the cir-cus a fascinating arena for the analysis of cultural encounters in modernsocieties. The lives, successes, and failures of the human protagonists of thecircus world can serve as a sensitive guage of the pulse of a society in tran-sition; a world outside the constraints of an encrusted legitimate culturalcanon can reveal much about contemporary curiosity and longings. Thecircus provided German Jews an opportunity to envision and control theirinteractions with other Germans. This study pays homage to these encoun-ters, by tracing their extraordinary dynamism but also addressing theirlimitations.

Circuses experienced a spectacular rise to popularity between the 1870sand the First World War. While the roots of circus entertainment certainlypredated this era, only this “golden age” truly qualified the circus as the firstmass medium. Not only traveling shows, circuses also established themselvesas permanent landmarks in most German cities, in arenas built of stone andlocated at the heart of historic city centers. By the turn of the century Berlinwas host to several stationary circuses, which performed in front of some fivethousand spectators every night. Larger cities such as Hamburg, Munich,Dresden, Magdeburg, and Breslau accommodated at least one permanentarena each. Other cities received traveling circuses several times a year forseveral weeks at a time. All circuses staged two or three shows a day, sixdays a week, fifty weeks a year, playing to a never-ending stream of urbanand rural visitors hungry for spectacle and delight.

Contrary to the general assumption, the circus did not exclusively serveto amuse the lower classes. Circus audiences included members of the court,the nobility, and the military, and men and women of the working and mid-dle classes, as well as the peasantry. In his description of the circus as a“sociological preserve,” a “(somewhat frightening) space of class harmony”(Klassenfriedens), the essayist and critic Walter Benjamin tried to encapsu-late the nature of this entertainment genre.3 Furthermore, the circus was thefirst form of popular entertainment to integrate aesthetic elements from bothelite and popular entertainment. Inspired by military parades, riding com-petitions, and the theater, the circus popularized images and values that hadpreviously been exclusively for the amusement of the nobility and court. Thecircus spectacle combined these elitist elements with acts originating as fair-ground amusements, such as acrobats, jugglers, magicians, animal trainers,and comedians. The Russian historian Jewgeni Kusneszow’s canonic char-acterization of the circus as a “unity in variety” thus has two meanings,referring as much to the makeup of the audiences as it does to the content

3 Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt a. M., 1972), review of Ramon Gomezde la Serra, Le Cirque.


Introduction 25

of the performances.4 It was this unique combination of aesthetic traditionsthat gave circuses their exceptional appeal in the modern age.

Circuses enjoyed unprecedented respectability because they broughttogether audiences that were broadly representative of society. This respect-ability attracted marginalized groups, such as women, but also Jews, tobecome a part of the circus, either as audiences or as performers. Circusestransformed the arena into a world of precision and beauty, “answering theneeds of a society that was committed to organizing itself around middle-class values such as punctuality, discipline and cleanliness.”5 Circus directorstook pride in the crystal chandeliers illuminating their stables, just as theycherished the heavy carpets that softened the footsteps of the admiring visitor,who in turn marveled at the beauty of the exquisite horses and the menagerieof exotic creatures. Circuses were run as modern capitalist enterprises, somewith annual budgets of several million marks. In their magnificence, circusbuildings could easily compete with, and even surpass, the leading theaters ofthe time. Their dome-shaped structures were often the largest public build-ings in a given German city. Just like an opera house, the circus had its ownorchestra staffed with first-rate musicians wearing tuxedos, white ties, andgloves. The directors of these enterprises were prominent public figures witheither a local or national reputation; their calling cards, which bore theirphotos, were sought after as collector’s items, just like those of later film andsports heroes. This was the exceptional public forum in which the circus’sdiverse ethnic groups socialized, the setting for how they saw themselves andhow they were seen by others.6

To stress only the pathbreaking success of Jews in circus entertainmentwould be to cut this story short. Thus the chapters that follow will be as con-cerned with the declining fortunes of German-Jewish families as with theirspectacular achievements. Here we can hardly overstate the disintegrative

4 “The circus is unity in variety. It merges performances that differ in origin, form, characterand content: acrobatics, clowns, horsemanship and animal training, technology and pan-tomimes.” Jewgeni Kusneszow, Der Zirkus der Welt (Berlin, 1970), 7.

5 Jones, Art and Entertainment, 13; similarly, the contemporary journalist Karl Doring in hisreview: “It shall be briefly mentioned that the great pioneers of circus art were the French LouisDejan and the German Altmeister Ernst Renz. Dejan was the first to break with the vagabondstyle and the miserable presentation, introducing a respectable organization of the entireenterprise. One of his very popular directions to the ticket vendors and inspectors was: ‘AMesseurs les billeteurs: Demain frac noir, cravatte blanche, gilet glane, pantalons noir au talond’or.’ His orchestra always performed in full evening dress. Renz observed these refinements.His accomplishments could compete with Dejan, and in addition he introduced the latter’sflawless presentation, and thus emerged victorious in Berlin and in Germany at large.” KarlDoring, “Zirkus Reform,” Das Programm, no. 1168, August 24, 1924, documenta artisticacollection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.

6 Tony Bennett described a similar development in museums. Tony Bennett, “The ExhibitionaryComplex,” in The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics (London, 1995), 59–88.



effect of the First World War on German society in general and popularentertainment in particular. The war altered all social relations and con-ventions; it brutalized Germany’s public sphere, forcefully collapsing enter-tainment into politics. In the wake of this devastating war, circuses run byJewish families fought against popular demands for an aesthetic that pro-moted violence within and tolerated violence outside of the ring. By 1926,rising anti-Semitism and the hate campaigns of a virulent but still small Nazimovement had ruined many Jewish circus families or left their businessesstruggling. In the process, Jewish performers suffered a considerable loss ofautonomy, and many reemerged only as employees, either working for aGentile circus enterprise or appearing as an independent act in one of thenumerous variety shows of the time. Some Jewish circus acrobats left circusentertainment altogether.

The National Socialist campaigns did not gain momentum in a vacuum.They were the result of powerful players in a new cultural climate that wasincreasingly hostile to the remnants of the Imperial era. By the mid-1920s theNazi movement still could not single-handedly shut down a thriving indus-try. But its influence was strong enough to bring down already vulnerableenterprises that were experiencing strained relationships with authorities andaudiences. Radical anti-Semitism was part of a larger cultural transforma-tion that successfully challenged core values that had previously ruled in theGerman-Jewish circus ring as well as in German society at large. These val-ues, which included ideas such as romance, chivalry, patriarchy, and commu-nity, had driven the acts of the tradition-conscious Jewish circus performers.They had favored an aesthetic that allowed the performers to choreographtheir own belonging in Imperial Germany. Once the monarchy had beenweakened, however, members of Jewish circus families experienced a “cul-tural revolution” that not only shortened the skirts of the flapper girls andpolarized politics, but also made all cultural spheres the battlefield for new-found ideological convictions. This cultural upheaval discredited a culture ofcompromise and ambiguity within the ring. With the Imperial canon under-mined, traditional circuses – dependent on the support of the masses – wereamong the cultural revolution’s first victims.

In the prewar period, Jewish circus families dominated and shaped cir-cus entertainment throughout Central Europe. To understand the families’rise in the late nineteenth century and decline in the 1920s, we must, there-fore, look beyond the boundaries of the circus ring. Spectators and perform-ers alike lived multiple lives in roles that appeared to be fixed: as mothersand fathers, husbands and wives, Christians and Jews. A rising new massmedium, however, challenged contemporary notions of the norm and aimedto change the status quo. Within the circus ring, laughter and the sublimetemporarily shifted those unspoken barriers that had defined Imperial soci-ety. In the course of the nineteenth century, Jewish circus families establishedthemselves as major players in a new and promising entertainment industry.


Introduction 27

They successfully balanced reality and spectacle, politics and aesthetics, intheir artistic lives. These forces converged in unprecedented ways in theworld of circus entertainment. The relationship between life and work wasfragile to be sure, but throughout the prewar period it was sufficiently sta-ble to allow circus performers unparalleled agency in their work and in theirinteractions with their audiences – an agency that, sadly, was to vanish in thewake of fascist aggression in the late 1920s. At the turn of the century, how-ever, the crisis of the interwar period was not apparent and forward-lookingJewish entertainers enthusiastically explored the long-awaited opportunityfor self-expression and, possibly, for material stability promised to them bythe modern circus.

Jewish circus families favored an aesthetic that matched their particularlifestyles as well as their individual aspirations. To understand their artisticchoices, however, one has to examine the history of circus entertainment in itsentirety. Thus Chapter 1 discusses the rise of the circus as a new mass mediumwithin the context of social and economic change in imperial Germany. Itwill begin to address how time and place conditioned the aesthetics of theacts as well as the performers’ interactions with mass audiences. Althoughnot focused on Jewish families per se, the chapter provides the historicalbackdrop against which the specific choices of Jewish circus families maybe evaluated as choices motivated by a number of factors such as ethnicidentity, professional memberships, and relationships to local and nationalcommunities. Chapter 2 examines the daily life of Jewish circus families,including the family social structure, and specific family practices. We willdiscuss, for example, whether the family strategies of Jewish circus familiesresembled either those of their Gentile competitors or those of the German-Jewish population at large. Chapter 3 analyzes both the ways Jewish circusfamilies presented themselves to their audiences and the ways their audiencesperceived the families. This chapter is particularly concerned with the sys-temic gap between the outside and inside perspectives, between mythologyand the everyday within a circus enterprise. It explores the need of circusesto choreograph and shape their popular image, and how the circuses playedwith contemporary notions of exoticism, eroticism, and transgression. Thefourth and last chapter in this part enters the ring of the circus to makepossible a deeper understanding of the magic of performance. This chaptertries to untangle the intricate process of decision-making at work in the ring:how did Jewish circus performers choreograph shows that they truly owned?Here again, no analysis of performance is complete without an equally care-ful reading of the audience’s reaction, potentially ranging from boundlessenthusiasm to utter apathy, to the act.

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1

The Circus in Time and Space

By the turn of the century, the circus was a spectacular phenomenon, bothin its aesthetics and in its popularity, and already provided much groundfor critical inquiry. In the wake of a larger conflict about the merits of andthreats posed by a rapidly expanding mass culture, contemporaries began tospeculate about the circus’s relationship to classical art forms. They debatedwhether the circus could be traced back to Roman circus plays or to the firstOlympic games, or whether the circus was in fact a product of modernity.1

The circus had become a force in a dynamic leisure-time culture and thusalso figured prominently in contemporary debates about the aesthetics andthe moral values of popular live entertainment. Advocates for the circusclaimed that it was deeply rooted in Roman civilization. Because the circuswas denied the status of “high” culture,2 they sought to establish its originsin the “classical age” in order to legitimate an entertainment genre thatfascinated thousands all over Europe.

Nineteenth-century European circuses differed considerably from Romancircuses, however, particularly in their size, function, and aesthetics, aswell as in how they were received by their audiences. Roman games wereheld in arenas in various localities before audiences that sometimes num-bered 100,000 spectators.3 Modern circuses performed in a ring that mightbe surrounded by a crowd of 2,000 to 5,000 individuals.4 Because they

1 It seems safest to take the concept “circus” literally, as the round form of the arena. The wordcircus has Greek origins describing a round- or oval-shaped arena, “a place where gamesare held.” Eduard Schmitt, Handbuch der Architektur. Vierter Teil. Entwerfen, Anlage undEinrichtung der Gebaude. 6. Halbband, Gebaude fur Erziehung, Wissenschaft und Kunst. 6.Heft, Zirkus- und Hippodromgebaude (Stuttgart, 1904), 4.

2 One expression of this desire is their frequent use of the Latin spelling, “circus,” instead of theGerman spelling, “Zirkus.” By the late eighteenth century the German spelling had come tobe the dominant one. In the nineteenth century, mainly academics retained the Latin spelling.

3 Schmitt, Handbuch, 6.4 Ibid., 15.

28


The Circus in Time and Space 29

were slaves, Roman artists were not part of a market economy in whichthey could freely promote their talents. Patrons sponsored their training andcontrolled most of their engagement with the outside world. Roman cir-cuses were financed and supported by the ruling oligarchy and were to somedegree attempts by the elite to gain a following among the masses. In con-trast, modern circuses were capitalistic enterprises and lacked the support ofstate authorities. The authorities did not recognize circuses as an art form,although they were willing to profit from such popular live entertainment bytaxing it four to five times higher than they taxed “legitimate” entertainment.Moreover, the modern circus did not promote deadly gladiator fights, horseraces, animal hunts, bullfights, or cultic sacrifices, although many circus per-formances had echoes of these elements.5 These “echoes” were intended tolegitimate the circus by proving that its roots lay in the highly esteemedclassic age, roots that neither theater, opera, nor cabaret could match.

Most historians today agree that the modern circus originated innineteenth–century England. Some scholars have argued that “the evolu-tion of the circus during the nineteenth century is a cultural metonym fornational expansion and infrastructural development.”6 Crucial conditionsrelated to the emergence of a market economy needed to be met for thecircus to develop its final form. These included the establishment of a rail-road network, an increase in leisure time, and technological advances suchas the mobile circus tent (chapiteau) and electricity. Most important for cir-cus entertainment in Central Europe, however, was the slow decline of tradefairs, a consequence of a comparatively late urbanization.

the rise of the chapiteau

Radical socioeconomic changes set the stage for the birth of the circus. Cir-cuses stood for both continuity and rupture. One dimension of modern circusentertainment had its roots in the sideshows at Europe’s regional fairs, a fea-ture of continental life since the sixteenth century. They remained importantin Central Europe well into the nineteenth century. Trade fairs supplied bothnecessities, such as salt, and luxury items, such as coffee, that were not avail-able in local markets. At the end of the eighteenth century, acrobats, animal

5 “As we all know, the Romans originally invented the circus. At first these circuses stagedraces, but slowly they became the sites of general amusement and spectacle, despite theirdiffering layout. More and more skills were in demand: Gladiator fights and animal hunts,fist fights and mock tournaments on horses, athletic games and much more. In conclusionwe want to point out that ancient Rome knew many types of circus-type skills and arts.”Dr. F. W. Bergen, “Zirkusleute . . . Ein kleiner Beitrag uber Zirkusleute durch Generationen,”Das Programm, no. 1315, June 19, 1927, 2, documenta artistica collection in the MarkischesMuseum, Berlin.

6 Janet M. Davis, The Circus Age: Culture and Society Under the American Big Top (ChapelHill, NC, 2002), 12.



trainers, and clowns, the essential elements of the circus, began to appear attrading fairs. Side shows with traveling jugglers, “wonder” doctors, puppetplayers, dancers, and tightrope walkers, with their tricks and illusions, jokesand tales, had long amused countless spectators, offering them a break fromtheir ordinary lives.7

Although animal trainers were common at these fairs, horse shows,another staple of modern circus entertainment, are rarely reported. In thisearly period, dressage and the demonstration of power over a horse were notcentral elements in fairground performances. Displays of freaks and exoticcuriosities were more likely to fascinate the public. A horse required sub-stantial capital for its acquisition and maintenance, more money than mostindividual artists could afford. More important, horse shows depended onthe skills rather than the exotic appearances of horse and rider. The horsefound its audience only once spectators began to appreciate discipline andprecision as an art form.

The decline and ultimate extinction of regional trading fairs were an out-growth of rapid urbanization in various European regions during the nine-teenth century.8 Traveling entertainers adjusted to the restructuring of theirmarket and moved into the expanding cities, where they hoped to find newand receptive audiences. In most German cities, this process was slow andirregular compared to its progress in French and British cities. Fairs con-tinued to flourish in many of the German states.9 For example, six hun-dred were held along the Rhine during the nineteenth century.10 But theintroduction of railway networks, besides lowering industrial productioncosts, increased mobility and eventually enabled the circus to reach morepeople in less time.11 The replacement of the horse and cart with the trainhelped to set the stage for the “golden age” of the German circus in thelate nineteenth century, which would last until the eve of the First WorldWar.12

7 See Enno Podehl, “Wandernde Puppenspieler und Bankelsanger,” in Fahrendes Volk:Spielleute, Schausteller, Artisten, Exposition Catalogue, May 2 to July 4, 1981, StadtischeKunsthalle, Recklinghausen.

8 See table 2–3 in Jurgen Reulecke, Geschichte der Urbanisierung in Deutschland (Frankfurta. M., 1985), 202–204.

9 James J. Sheehan, German History, 1770–1866 (Oxford, 1989), 485.10 Ibid., 107.11 Nuremberg and Furth were the first German cities to be connected by rail line in 1835.

As Sheehan has pointed out, many of the railway passengers were Jews who worked inNuremburg but could not live there. Sheehan, German History, 466; also Rainer Fremdling,Eisenbahnen und deutsches Wirtschaftswachstum, 1840–1979 (Dortmund, 1975); RainerFremdling, Ruth Federspiel, and Andreas Kunz, eds., Statistik der Eisenbahnen in Deutsch-land, 1835–1989 (St. Katharinen, 1995).

12 The term “golden age” (“Blutezeit des Zirkus”) was first used by Joseph Halperson, DasBuch vom Zirkus, Beitrage zur Geschichte der Wanderkunstlerwelt (Dusseldorf, 1926),127.



Along with the railway network, the chapiteau was the technical innova-tion most responsible for the efficient movement of the traveling circus. Whenthe first American circus came to Europe in 1872, it introduced the chapiteau,the enormous canvas tent that we now consider a staple of traditional circusentertainment. The tents were lightweight and rain resistant, and in theirexotic flair reminiscent of the traditional tents used by nomads. Before usingchapiteaus, European circuses performed in wooden arenas built especiallyfor the occasion.13 Their construction was costly, and their appearance usu-ally unattractive. They were unheated and often uncomfortable. The largerGerman circus enterprises reacted to the American challenge within a rel-atively short period by professionalizing their organization and improvingtheir efficiency. The construction of the chapiteau demanded skilled work-ers, watchful supervision, and capital – three conditions that German circusentrepreneurs were able to meet by the turn of the century.14

Whereas the railway revolutionized the way that circus people vieweddimensions of space and distances, the chapiteau and electricity changed theway that they measured time. Electrific illumination of the circus tent wasanother important technical improvement.15 Because artificial light allowedperformances at night, a locality’s entire population could visit the circus,even on working nights during the week. This change affected both audiencesand performers, eliminating the division between weekdays and weekends,and prolonging the workdays of performers far into the night. While therest of society enjoyed more and more leisure time, circus entertainers toiledever longer hours. They now had to participate in three shows a day, as wellas ensure that their equipment was properly transported and maintained. Inshort, the appearance of circuses as mass media in Germany must be readas one of the most colorful signs that Germany had entered the modern age,in which technology, the rationalization of minds and bodies, and speed andprecision were all held in high esteem.

the cavalry enters the ring

Aesthetically, the modern circus was born when the horse entered the ring.“Horse” was every second word in circus entertainment, contemporary

13 Schmitt, Handbuch, 15.14 The tents of the larger traveling circuses (Pferdezirkus or Raubtierzirkus) were able to host

up to 4,000 spectators a show, two to three times a day, six to seven days a week. In 1930,Das Programm dedicated a whole article to these anonymous workers. “Von denen, dienicht im Zirkusprogramm genannt werden,” Das Programm, June 22, 1930, 28, documentaartistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.

15 The different ways to use light for special effects and to improve the shows of the variousacts were often discussed in the professional journals of the time. See, for example: “Elek-trische Scheinwerfer,” Das Programm, no. 517, 1917, documenta artistica collection in theMarkisches Museum, Berlin.



experts stated with conviction.16 The horse became the quintessential sym-bol of the circus. All other acts were influenced by the equestrian display ofbeauty, nobility, and vigor. The ring, the focus of the spectators’ attention,was the central physical element of the circus. The basic size and form of thering always remained the same, whether the circus was held indoors, under atent, or in the open air. The ring’s diameter was always thirteen and one-halfmeters. Only this measurement could guarantee a regular and steady move-ment of the horse, a crucial precondition for any acrobatic performanceon horseback.17 Any irregularity in the horse’s speed or rhythm inevitablyendangered the safety of the artist somersaulting, jumping through hoops,or juggling a partner through the air. The ring’s small circle caused the speed-ing horse to tilt slightly inward toward the center, a favorable position forthe artist trying to keep his or her balance. A ring of this size also gave theringmaster maximum control over the horse. The ringmaster could remainat the center of the ring yet not lose touch with the horse as he controlled allof its movements with his long whip. The whip also allowed the ringmasterto avoid running with the animal, a sight that might have undermined thedemonstrated command of humans over nature.

The centrality for the circus of equestrian performances was linked tothe rise of modern nationalism and the increasing militarization of Euro-pean societies. A common soldier, who neither the middle classes nor thenobility respected in the seventeenth century, gained stature in an era ofnational awakening.18 Among the military divisions, the cavalry in particu-lar experienced a rise in status. The early eighteenth century had witnesseda tremendous increase in the appreciation of the horse as a useful tool of themilitary.19 The central role of the light cavalry in the maneuvers of Euro-pean armies had led to German society’s growing esteem for skilled riding.

16 “Im Zirkus ist das Pferd von Anbeginn das zweite Wort gewesen.” M. Kloot, “Das ‘Pferd’ imZirkus,” Das Programm, June 20, 1926, documenta artistica collection in the MarkischesMuseum, Berlin.

17 See G. Strehly, L’Acrobatie et les Acrobates (Paris, 1901), 298. More recently, Gunter Boseand Erich Brinkmann, Circus. Geschichte und Asthetik einer niederen Kunst (Berlin, 1978),36.

18 Michael Jeismann and Rolf Westheider, “Wofur stirbt der Burger? Nationaler Totenkultund Staatsburgertum in Deutschland und Frankreich seit der Franzosischen Revolution,” inReinhard Koselleck and Michael Jeismann, eds., Der politische Totenkult: Kriegerdenkmalerin der Moderne (Munich, 1994), 24; Ute Frevert, ed., Militar und Gesellschaft im 19. und 20.Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1997); Jakob Vogel, Nation im Gleichschritt: Der Kult der “Nationin Waffen” in Deutschland und Frankreich, 1871–1914 (Gottingen, 1997).

19 Dennis Edwin Showalter, “The Prussian, Cavalry, 1806–1871: The Search for Roles,”Militargeschichtliche Mitteilungen, vol. 19, no. 1 (1976), 7; also Sheehan, German History,228; John A. Lynn, The Bayonnets of the Republic: Motivation and Tactics in the Army ofRevolutionary France, 1791–1794 (Urbana and Chicago, 1984), ch. 9; Michael Howard,War in European History (London, 1975).



For elites as well as for the general public, the military rider represented theincarnation of “the gentleman.” He rejuvenated the concept of the “chival-resque warrior,” supplying both a new legitimization for the nobility anda popular hero for the masses, hence integrating new and traditional ele-ments. The increase in the prestige of the light cavalry, a consequence ofthe structural modernization of most European armies, led to a reinventionof a military tradition, combining both premodern and nationalistic ideolo-gies. These acclaimed “Sir Lancelot types” were careful to portray them-selves as archetypal noble warriors, fighting for the crown and the people.Yet they were often “blue-blooded, waspwaisted, mustachioed” woman-izers as well.20 This new “old” image was fundamental for the later suc-cesses of military riders in the realm of entertainment. In times of peaceor retirement, numerous cavalrymen searched for and found a new occu-pation and new income displaying their equestrian skills in circuses. Theirparticipation in circuses brought with it elements of elitism and of hyper-masculinity, allowing the circus to broaden its appeal into elite Europeancircles.

Philip Astley (1742–1814), the founder in 1782 of the first circus inLondon, was one of these highly trained military riders. During the SevenYears’ War he had served in the light cavalry. In London in 1772, shortly afterhe left the army, he set up England’s first “Riding School.” To advertise hisnew enterprise, Astley organized riding competitions for the general public.The nobility and the military turned out to be particularly receptive audi-ences for these equestrian performances. Trick riders gained entry to courtsociety, and they were even awarded titles like “his Imperial majesty’s privi-leged horseman.” The army dominated the aesthetics of these amusements,thus this scene in Paris in 1775:

Mr. Hyam swings himself into and out of the saddle; he rides simultaneously on twohorses. While standing solid with both legs on the saddle, he shoots the pistol at a fullgallop. Standing on two horses, he loads the rifle, fixes the bayonet as if he preparesfor attack, just like the cavalry before battle. He is able to stand on two horses andstill keeps his balance, despite the jumping and galloping of the horse.21

These military riders eventually organized themselves into traveling ridingsocieties and began to perform in open fields and public arenas. By the endof the eighteenth century, such societies were part of the seasonal amusementin the bigger cities. The growth of the urban population in the nineteenthcentury allowed these riding societies to perform in one location for longer

20 Showalter, “Prussian Cavalry,” 7.21 Ernst Gunther and Dietmar Winkler, Zirkusgeschichte. Ein Abriß der Geschichte des

deutschen Zirkus (Berlin, 1986), 13, citing Emile Compardon, Les Spectacles de la Foire,vol. 1 (Paris, 1877), 404.



periods, sometimes for several months at a time. Eventually, the profession-alization of their management in the early nineteenth century led to theestablishment of permanent arenas in many of the larger European cities.The individual trick rider had become an entrepreneur.

Although the nobility and the military continued to exercise a strong influ-ence on public taste, their style did not monopolize circus performances. Tobe profitable, circuses had to cater to a wider public. Permanent residencyin a city arena forced circus directors to search for new attractions for theiraudiences, who had the opportunity to see many performances. For a time,the artists and acrobats from the dying regional fairs provided urban cir-cuses with a ready supply of fresh talent and new sensations. Moreover,the tightrope walker could exchange his rope for a horse and the militarytrick rider could begin to pay attention to the theatrical elements in hisact. Acrobatics on horses came to integrate music and dance. The formercavalrymen were now concerned with questions of aesthetic appearance,choreography, and expressive mimicry and arranged their equestrian actsaccording to a loose narrative. From their beginning these pantomimes com-bined fact with fiction. They appealed to the public’s desire for romance,tragedy, and chivalry. Indeed, in many ways these acts were a lavish mixtureof sensual fairy tale and explicit political propaganda. They were also aninnovative joining of gender stereotypes, by satisfying contemporary desiresfor both action and reaction, heart and brain, the masculine and the feminine.In an increasingly bipolar world, these early forms of circus entertainmentpromised a long-lost unity to its male and female audiences.

Finally, however, to bring about the circus as an independent entertain-ment genre, fundamental social change was necessary. The early enterprisesof Astley and others were called amphitheaters, not circuses. Their ownersdefined themselves as part of high society, and thus they aspired to preservethe exclusive nature of their establishments. That exclusivity was not nec-essarily reflected in the social class of their spectators, but primarily in thehabitus of their protagonists. This first generation of directors, however, wassucceeded by a “popularized” generation, which included, in Paris, “CitizenFranconi,” an apprentice of Philip Astley. Antoine Franconi (1737–1836)was less concerned with the entertainment only of elites and sought for hisestablishment to have the widest popular appeal. When in 1807 Napoleonforbade any artistic enterprise involving animals and acrobats to refer toitself as a theater, Franconi began to promote his establishment as a CirqueOlympique.22 His enterprise served as a prime example for other owners allover Europe.

22 Antonio Franconi was born August 5, 1737, in Undine, Italy. See Walter Ulrich, “Daten ausder Zirkuswelt,” Gesellschaft der Circusfreunde in Deutschland, ed., Manege: Eine Schriften-reihe fur Circusfreunde, vol. 4 (Berlin, n.d.), 21.



This change of name from theater to circus indicates two critical pointsin the history of the circus. First, although circus performers socialized withprinces, kings, and queens, the circus had not acquired the status of art.After allowing a brief period of relative artistic freedom during the earlyNapoleonic years, the French state, along with most other European states,turned to consolidating a cultural hierarchy that cast its shadow well intothe twentieth century. Second, in their opposition to such official attempts tomonopolize cultural norms and values, circus entertainers and entrepreneursexhibited a growing self-confidence, fueled and legitimated by the enthusi-astic responses of their audiences. These audiences helped to establish aconstantly growing market for mass entertainment, especially because suchentertainment reacted sensitively to changes in the political climate. Fran-coni’s choice of a name for his establishment reflected such a shift of valuesin public opinion. In the course of the French Revolution and its aftermath,an idealized recollection of Roman times became influential in the politi-cal arena, replacing the striving for social exclusivity of earlier years. ThisRoman theme carried strong connotations of democracy and liberty, and thecircus appeared to be its ultimate expression.

the “golden age” of german circuses

In nineteenth-century German cities, a large spectrum of the population hadnot yet embraced a distinctly urban mentality, but instead clung to an arrayof traditional, largely rural, customs and sensibilities. Especially during thistransitional phase of rapid urbanization, traveling circuses provided patronswith a unique form of relaxation. Circus shows catered to their audiences’need for the familiar and for cultural traditions. At the same time, they playedoff feelings of displacement and nostalgia among their audiences. During aperiod of tremendous urbanization, the circus profited from the increasingleisure time of its potential audiences.23 Especially for recent migrants to thecity, the circus had a special appeal. It presented an idealized vision of nature,which was no longer a part of their daily experiences, but which continuedto inform their memories and self-perceptions. A herd of geese pulling smallcarriages full of dogs or of apes in human dress, pigeons appearing out ofa magic hat, pigs in ridiculous clown costumes, counting horses, or racyjockey acts were variations on themes from a rural past. The affinity ofthe rural population for the circus had a long tradition. Horse shows did

23 “In the course of social migration and urbanization, these spectators’ financial resources con-siderably changed, both with regards to the income and to the priorities according to whichsuch income was used within the contexts that were becoming increasingly diversified.”Robert A. Jones, Art and Entertainment: German Literature and the Circus, 1890–1933(Heidelberg, 1985), 13.



especially well in rural areas. As late as 1930, Das Programm pointed outthat:24

The rural spectator who views the horse shows is particularly in his element. Hefeels competent, and enthusiastically draws comparisons between his own horsesand the well-presented dressages. He declares, “this is real, not such a humbug likethe Chinese or the traveling entertainer.” That is the reason why circuses that presentgood horse shows will always leave the region of Eastern Prussia with a tidy profit.25

While some spectators were enjoying their first encounter with the sensualworld of beauty and vitality in the circus, others were taking pride in theirrural past as they watched the presentation of domestic animals. For them,the circus was both reminder of their origins and affirmation of the advan-tages (free time and money to spend) of their new existence. The circus wasa familiar form of entertainment, and the rural elements in its acts madespectators feel “at home.”

However, as Paul Bouissac has pointed out in his pathbreaking study ofthe semiotics of circus performances, the circus did not intend simply to mir-ror individual situations or mimic daily lives. Circus performers questionedthe idealized vision of nature and pastoral life as much as they reproducedit. The typical circus act tried to include familiar elements from the culturalenvironment, but often ended up transforming and inverting these culturalelements. Familiar objects, costumes, music, animals, and even social rela-tionships were combined in unfamiliar ways. What Bouissac labeled culturalunits, such as the “compatibility or incompatibility of certain situations andcertain behavior . . . were presented in an original and unpredictable fash-ion.”26 Both domestic and wild animals appeared as partners in one act, andin some acts categories of styles such as “the primitive” and “the historical”were mixed in unprecedented fashion. As in the act featuring a tiger ridinga horse, the circus presented together animals known to be incompatible innature. Other inversions were also calculated to achieve maximum dramaticor comic effect, for example, when animals outsmarted their trainers, orwhen acrobats defeated the laws of gravity.27

As in other industries, market forces ruled the entertainment industry,which was increasingly differentiated into specialized sectors and concen-trated into larger units. At the same time, the number of traveling circusesplummeted. Whereas two hundred traveling circuses played for European

24 This weekly newspaper for professionals in mass entertainment such as circus, cabaret, andvariety had the widest distribution. It was founded at the turn of the century and continuedto publish until the Gleichschaltung by Nazi officials. Das Programm lost its importance asthe voice of unionized artists after 1933.

25 “Das Zirkusland Ostpreußen,” Das Programm, June 22, 1930, 28, documenta artisticacollection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.

26 Paul Bouissac, Circus and Culture: A Semiotic Approach (Bloomington, IN, 1976), 7.27 Ibid.



audiences in 1900, only seventy remained by 1912. In Germany, forty-threecircuses traveled in 1918 but only thirty in 1924.28 By 1900, a hierarchy hademerged among the German circuses along with specialization, and in thisnew situation the horse started to lose its dominance over the ring. Morecircus shows were presenting a greater variety of show elements, includingexotic animals, clowns, acrobats, and theatrical pantomimes. In the late nine-teenth century differentiation resulted in three main circus types: circuses thatstill centered their shows around horses (Pferdezirkus); circuses that shiftedtheir focus to the presentation of predators such as tigers, lions, and bears(Raubtierzirkus);29 and circuses that staged enormous productions of pop-ular pantomimes (Theaterzirkus). This division was not motivated solely bythe differing aesthetic senses of individual circus directors. These three typesof circuses also varied greatly in size, structure, and mobility of the enter-prise, as well as in the social and ethnic backgrounds of the entrepreneursand their families.

Without exception, traveling circuses were family-run enterprises.Because they relied to a much greater degree than stationary circuses on ani-mal acts, most of them were either Pferdezirkusse or Raubtierzirkusse. Ani-mal acts were cheaper than the elaborate circus pantomime; they demandedless staff and relied to a greater degree on individual skills. The family-oriented style of management was always calculated to minimize the costof personnel. Animal trainers and acrobats were recruited out of the samefamily pool. Family members held all the leading positions in the organi-zation and fulfilled multiple functions in performances. Traveling circusesseldom invested in unrelated performers. However, even under family man-agement the costs of running a circus could be high. Major expenses includedtransportation, supplies, food and water, sanitary facilities, electricity, andheating; taxes (especially the notorious “sin tax” or Lustbarkeitssteuer); andfees for the police, the building control department, and the fire brigade, aswell as the rent for the fairground, the costs of purchasing and maintainingthe menagerie, and the increasing expenses associated with advertisement.

stationary circuses: gentile welttheater take root

Few successful stationary circuses remained in Germany at the turn of thetwentieth century. Of those that did, most specialized in the production

28 Hermann Arnold, Fahrendes Volk: Randgruppen des Zigeunervolkes (Landau, Pfalz, 1983),165; see also G. Krause, Die Schonheit in der Zirkuskunst (Berlin, 1969).

29 The newspapers, writing against the influence of “theater in circuses,” stated that “today’scircus as always needs great attractions, now that horse shows have become less popular,and it will not be difficult to find these. That is true for the big cities at least. What kindof artistic productions shall we regard as such attractions? . . . First and foremost the displayof predators.” Karl Doring, “Zirkus-Reform,” Das Programm, no. 1161, July 6, 1924, 8,documenta artistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.



of theatrical circus pantomimes (Theaterzirkusse). Unlike the traveling cir-cuses, circuses that performed in stationary arenas could put on shows inthe summer as well as in the fall and spring, hosting up to eight thousandindividuals at once. Their buildings could easily compete in their display ofsplendor with the leading theaters of the time. The great majority of thesestationary circuses were run by Gentile directors who came from outsideof the circus milieu. Hans Stosch-Sarrasani (Dresden), Paul Busch (Berlin,Breslau, Vienna), Hans Krone (Munich), and Carl and Wilhelm Hagenbeck(Hamburg) were the five most prominent representatives of such bourgeoisentrepreneurs.30 These talented managers led their circuses to the heightsof popularity, outperforming prominent (mostly traveling) circuses run byJewish families whose roots in circus entertainment reached back severalgenerations.

Although there were fewer stationary circuses than traveling ones, theformer were dominant in the inner cities. Traveling circuses generally playedin the suburbs, partly because variety and classical theaters in the citiesfeared competition from these circuses and partly because stationary cir-cuses also did everything they could to suppress their traveling rivals. Underthe pretext of potential noise complaints, municipal administrations sup-ported the concerns of stationary circuses and made it difficult for travelingcircuses to gain access to inner city audiences. Stationary circuses, by con-trast, were prominently located in city centers. Circus Busch, for example,was located on the banks of the river Spree in Berlin, right between SchloßMontbijou and the stock exchange, across the Spree from the NationalGallery. Urban circus entertainment, or Theaterzirkus, had become bigbusiness.

To fully grasp the widening gap between traveling and stationary circuseswe shall turn to the circus entrepreneur who, for several decades, epito-mized stationary circus entertainment in Berlin: Paul Vincenz Theodor Busch(1850–1927), son of a wealthy wine dealer from Berlin and a pastor’s daugh-ter from Lussow. Busch opened his circus arena in Berlin on October 24,1892.31 By this time he already owned stationary circuses in Hamburg and

30 Hans Stosch-Sarrasani was born on April 2, 1873. He died on September 21, 1934, inSao Paulo, Brazil. His Circus Sarransani was founded on April 4, 1901, in Radebeul, nearDresden. His famous arena in Dresden opened on December 22, 1912. Carl Hagenbeckwas born on June 10, 1844, in Hamburg and died in that city on April 14, 1913. WilhelmHagenbeck was born on November 3, 1884, in Hamburg. He died on April 14, 1913. CarlKrone was born on October 21, 1870, in Osnabruck; he died on June 4, 1943.

31 “The opening ceremony fascinated the capital! It was an exquisite demonstration of newalmost unimaginable elegance and cultivated abundance, both because of the guests and thecircus palace itself. A new era in Berlin’s circus life began. The past was integrated into thepresent: The last circles framed artistic portraits of acrobats, clowns, circus riders, jockeys,and animal trainers, who – once famous – smiled towards the arena. Loud cheering welcomedthe directors’ couple and grew frenetic when Paul Busch greeted the people of Berlin, callingout: ‘I was born in Berlin, I want to live and I want to die here!’” Martin Schaaff, DieBuschens – 100 Jahre Circus Busch (Berlin, 1984), 12–13.



Vienna, and soon after his opening in Berlin he also “conquered” Breslau,investing all his resources in the production of elaborate circus pantomimes.Of course, the pantomime was not a new genre, but the size of these shows inthe Circus Busch was gigantic. With one of her early productions – Zscheus,das Waldmadchen (1895) – Constanze Busch, Paul Busch’s talented wife,created a spectacle that involved more than 440 individuals. Inspired bythe discovery of a “wild child” (Wolfskind) – the story of an exotic KasparHauser creature from the jungle which occupied the international as wellas the national press at the time – Busch created a fantasy world populatedby manly British officers, Indian gods, and exotic natives. A corps de balletdressed as colorful butterflies, real tropical birds, swimming elephants, wildhorses, other animals, and moving pictures overwhelmed an audience thatfor the most part had never left Berlin. Clearly, Constanze Busch was notonly a skilled performer; she also appealed to the zeitgeist with her theatricalpantomimes, a tradition that her daughter continued after her death.

After 1914, Paula Busch (1886–1973), the daughter of Paul and ConstanzeBusch, perfected the pantomime as a successful combination of tradition andprogress, adapting it to the accelerated rhythm of modernity: “Today’s publicwants to be offered more than just horses, clowns, and tightrope walkers,otherwise it will stay away. It enjoys the pantomime the most, because itunites all aspects of circus art, while presenting it in a way that bears only thefaintest resemblance to the old shows.”32 The search for new attractions andnew forms of entertainment within the realm of the stationary circus reflectedeconomic necessities as much as it did a quest for new aesthetic appeal. Thestationary circuses all had to deal with a fundamental dilemma: acrobaticand animal acts required long years of training, but the local spectatorscontinually demanded new sensations. Unlike the traveling circuses, whichcould leave a site once they had exhausted the curiosity of the local public,the stationary circuses tried to compensate for the shortage of new acts withdisplays of new technical elements.33 For example, to bring variety to hisshow, Busch flooded the arena and staged so-called water pantomimes. In1891, the high point of one show was a water fountain twenty-five meters

32 “Besinnungen auf Paula Busch. Von Oberregisseur Hans Kruger,” Das Programm, no. 8,1952, documenta artistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin. Paula Busch becamea queen of popular writing. Her books, newspaper articles, plays, and pantomimes were readand seen all over Germany; as the only female director of a circus during both the WeimarRepublic and the Third Reich, she was one of the most glamorous women of her time.

33 For reflection on the need for such constant innovation, see Wolfgang Jansen, Glanzrevuender Zwanziger Jahre (Berlin, 1987), 19. “In this ever faster changing panorama, the ownersof the big circuses were facing an increasingly demanding and critical audience. They builthuge circuses and decorated them luxuriously, surrounding them with stables for hundreds ofhorses, turning them into the vanguard of new technological possibilities and impossibilities.In the struggle for the audiences’ favor, in the fierce duel with competitors, they tried toachieve the non plus ultra with the centerpiece of their programs: with the circus pantomime.”Busch, Das Spiel meines Lebens: Erinnerunger (Berlin, 1992), 67.



figure 1. The elaborate shows of the Circus Busch routinely included stunts likesliding elephants, skating polar bears, or packs of wolves chasing horse-drawncarriages.

high, colorfully illuminated in the darkened arena. Into this fountain oflight, courageous nymphs dove from the height of the circus top, only tomiraculously reappear unharmed much later in the show. They survivedtheir stunt with the help of underwater tunnels and air pockets concealedunder the outlandish decoration of the flooded arena. Another time, the ringwas turned into a treacherous reef, ruled by a deadly shark with a cravingfor singing natives from Hawaii. The shark was fabricated, of course, and



hidden at its core was a small torpedo-shaped U-boat in which a fifteen-year-old stunt girl operated the “shark’s” maliciously flickering electric green eyes;the “native” was played by a black singer from the international staff of thecircus.34

The Sarrasani, Busch, and Krone circuses also staged so-called Volker-schauen, the exhibition of “authentic” foreign tribes from Africa, Asia, orSouth America. As the Western world scrambled for pieces of other conti-nents, stationary arenas became showcases for what these foreign worlds hadto offer. Already in the 1860s, animal traders had begun to import elephants,giraffes, and hippotami, as well as apes in great numbers, to be trained or dis-played in the ring. By the turn of the century, humans followed. German firmssuch as that of the Hagenbeck family dominated the international market,supplying not only circuses but also zoos and museums with artifacts fromother cultures.35 Tribes from the southern and northern hemispheres weredisplayed, and entire villages were built in which exotic “natives” greetedfascinated Europeans who came to see for themselves. These exhibits satis-fied an ever-growing European curiosity to explore the unknown, simultane-ously democratizing the experience and confirming contemporary Europeanideas about racial hierarchies. Hans Stosch-Sarrasani, for example, claimedto offer his spectators imaginary travel to fantastic places so as to satisfydesire for enlightenment of those who could not afford to travel themselves.“What a small guild of the enlightened did not dare to reveal during thedark Middle Ages,” explained Sarrasani, “is demonstrated by the massestoday: the hunger for knowledge, for natural science, for living illustra-tion. We grant them the right for that.”36 Just like the circus pantomimes,these human exhibitions were carefully choreographed, immensely costly,and thanks to their scale, glamour, and relentless exoticism, unfailinglyprofitable.

The directors of stationary circuses considered themselves members ofthe urban elites in their respective cities, and, as such, they participated inthe ongoing construction and renegotiation of a cultural canon that was anintegral part of upper-middle-class norms and values. Arguably, these direc-tors were living proof that the boundaries between the worlds of bourgeoisscience and of popular entertainment were much more fluid than is oftenassumed. The intellectual proximity of science and amusement was oftenmirrored by the spatial proximity of museums and concert halls, on the one

34 Busch, Spiel meines Lebens, 114.35 For insight into the contemporary perspective on such activities, see the account by one of the

main protagonists: Carl Hagenbeck, Von Menschen und Tieren: Erlebnisse und Erfahrun-gen (Leipzig, 1928); see also Hilke Thods-Arora, Fur 50 Pfennig um die Welt. Die Hagen-beckschen Volkerschauen (Frankfurt a. M., 1989).

36 See Sarrasani’s opening program for his permanent circus building in Dresden/Saxony:Arthur Vollrath, Circus, Kleine Plaudereien von Arthur Vollrath (Dresden, n.d.), 4, Circus,Variete- und Artistenarchiv, Marburg.



hand, and Volkerschauen, circuses, variety shows, show booths, and streetdealers, on the other.37 In fact, circus directors prided themselves on hav-ing broadened the horizons of their public in a way that no museum evercould. They often downplayed the voyeuristic nature of these displays andemphasized instead their educational value. Sarrasani, always keen to pro-mote his work and vision, saw himself offering a “world theater, . . . a newform of popular art for the masses, born directly from the spirit and longingof the times, satisfying in equal measure the irresistible desire for romanceand aesthetics as well as the Faustian striving for worldly education, forknowledge and understanding of the world.”38 Claiming to be motivated byhigher goals, these bourgeois circus entrepreneurs insisted that their displayof foreign artifacts and people could reach a large audience and thus makea real contribution to the education of the masses.

Despite their forceful self-promotion, stationary circus directors did notfind unanimous approval for their activities and business strategies. In par-ticular, circus acrobats showed themselves to be unimpressed by the self-proclaimed educational mission of circus entrepreneurs; the acrobats fearedthat the entrepreneurs’ activities would instead lead to a proletarization ofmost circus performers. On the eve of the First World War, members of theperformers union, the Internationale Artisten Loge (IAL), complained thatthe skills of individual actors had ceased to be the main focus of the station-ary circus. In their view, anonymous technological wizardry was replacingthe artists’ displays of sensuality and vagabond romance. They criticized thestationary circus shows for having become a direct reflection of the mecha-nized lives of the spectators and for having lost their capacity to transcendreality. These critics argued that the stationary circus was entangled in aprocess of increasing dehumanization – that it was selling its soul.39

This criticism indicates that mobility was not a single differentiating fac-tor, but that it had far-reaching consequences for the content of performancesas well as for social relations within the circuses. The stationary circus hadbecome an enterprise in which the employer faced the employee. A gap hadalways existed between the circus director and circus personnel because oftheir differing social standings and, in some cases, differing ethnic back-grounds. But in stationary circuses this gap was much wider. Managementand performers shared neither family bonds nor any deeply felt sense of

37 Discussed in Henning Berkfeld, ed., Hamburg in alten und neuen Reisebeschreibungen(Dusseldorf, 1990), 217–18.

38 Ernst Gunther, Sarrasani wie er wirklich war (Berlin, 1991), 153–54.39 “Technology is the empress of our days. And the borders of her empire are still expanding.

Romance, that fairy which once stood a the circus’ cradle and to whom it [the circus] owed itssweetest gifts, concealed itself like a pale and silent woman in the ruins of the past, ostracizedby rationality and prudence of this hasty present. Romance’s empire is over and a differentspirit rules the world.” Karl Doring, “Zirkus Patomimen,” Das Programm, no. 433, 1910,documenta artistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.



solidarity. Whereas performers in traveling circuses accepted that their tal-ents would be exploited for the good of the family and the good of the circus,the unrelated performers in stationary circuses were not satisfied with suchan arrangement. The concept of “the entire house” (das ganze Haus), whichremained viable in traveling circuses, became an anachronism in the station-ary circuses.40

Jewish circus families were often counted among the pillars of circus enter-tainment, upholding its best qualities by resisting the increasing emphasis onmaterial, technology, and theatric drama that was the rule in the Busch, Sar-rasani, and Krone circuses. These circus pioneers largely owned travelingenterprises with which they always returned to the same winter camps: theBlumenfeld family to Guhrau/Silesia, the Lorch family to Eschollbruckenclose to Darmstadt, and the Strassburger family to Strehlen/Silesia. Theircapital was their training and their large pool of talented family members.This familial spirit was likely also to result in paternalistic work relationswith their seasonal performers and workers. The position of the IAL demon-strates just how badly employers and employees were polarized in the sta-tionary circuses. The director’s way of life remained hidden behind a curtainof bourgeois privacy, a barrier impenetrable by his employees because theyno longer lived together. Members of the IAL were therefore much morecritical of the management of stationary circuses rather than of the travel-ing circuses. They idealized the traveling enterprises as bastions of humanityand responsibility, whereas they denounced stationary circuses for havingbroken the unwritten social contract of the circus world and for selling outto the darker forces of capitalism.

By the turn of the twentieth century the German circus had become pro-fessionalized. Significantly, there was a widening divide between stationaryand traveling circuses in their aesthetics, their social structures, and, at leastin part, their owners’ ethnic backgrounds. The differing ethos of the circusmanagements also mirrored the gulf between the two types of performancecircuses. On the one hand, bourgeois entrepreneurs such as Paul Busch rantheir circuses as capitalistic enterprises in accordance with the principles ofprofitability and public demand. They combined this business ethos with aconservative bourgeois worldview, balancing merit and birth. On the otherhand, traveling circuses retained a highly inclusive family structure, where

40 This concept was first promoted by the German historian Otto Brunner in his influential arti-cle, “Das ‘ganze Haus’ und die alteuropaische ‘Okonomik,’ ” in Otto Brunner, Neue Wege derSozialgeschichte (Gottingen, 1956), 33–61; see recent reflections on the usefulness of the con-cept in Winifried Freitag, “Haushalt und Familie in traditionalen Gesellschaften: Konzepte,Probleme und Perspektiven der Forschung,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 14 (1988), 5–37;Claudia Opitz, “Neue Weg der Sozialgeschichte? Ein kritischer Blick auf Otto BrunnersKonzept des ‘ganzen Hauses,’ ” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 20 (1994), 88–98; Hans Derk,“Uber die Faszination des ‘ganzen Hauses,’ ” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 22 (1996), 221–42.



solidarity was considered a moral (and financial) obligation for both circusmanagement and performers. Jewish families clearly dominated the worldof traveling entertainment; they seldom settled within a stationary arena.Although they brought with them the experience of several generations incircus entertainment, few adapted their businesses to play primarily in onecity. Against this backdrop, the spectacular history of the Blumenfeld circusdynasty, a family who set out to play both in a stationary arena and on theroad, demands particular attention.


2

Family Bonds

At the turn of the twentieth century, Jewish families could claim an impressivehistory in circus entertainment. Their trajectory was virtually unpredictableand their social transformation considerable: they had moved from the mar-gins of society to become local patrons; the penniless migrants had beentransformed into owners of large estates. Jewish families were pathbreakersin an industry that they stamped with their own distinct vision. No Jewishcircus family was more successful than the Blumenfelds. By the first decadeof the twentieth century, Blumenfeld directors presided over a circus dynastythat rightfully considered itself an integral part of an exclusive “circus nobil-ity.” The Blumenfeld family’s multiple traveling circuses figured among theten leading circus enterprises of the German Empire. The history of this fam-ily in many ways epitomizes the history of German-Jewish circus enterprises.To understand the family’s rise to national and international fame, a deeperunderstanding of its everyday relations within and beyond the circus milieuis needed.

ancestors and origins

The ancestors of nineteenth-century German-Jewish circus families, some ofwhom can be traced back as far as the Middle Ages, worked as magicians,jugglers, tightrope walkers, strong men, and other acrobats. They traveledin large family units, accompanying Jewish doctors or peddlers. In perfor-mances at markets and fairs,1 they entertained their clients with acrobaticstunts and sleight of hand. Most of these so-called Bankisten or Saltimbancos

1 Medical doctors seemed to have been inclined to employ fairground entertainers to attracttheir audiences. Some of the doctors themselves performed, amusing and curing their patients.In 1733 the chronicle of Memmingen, for example, took note of a popular doctor, travelingwith 30 musicians, acrobats, dwarfs, and dancers. Gunter Bose and Erich Brinkmann, Circus.Geschichte und Asthetik einer niederen Kunst (Berlin, 1978), 24.

45



demonstrated their dexterity while standing on an elevated wooden plat-form, a practice that fostered their particular names. In addition to theseperformers, who impressed their audiences with their physical skills, wereperformers who displayed trained animals such as dancing dogs or bears,talking birds, or horse-riding apes.

Fairground performers traditionally ranked low in German society. Thislack of respect for the Fahrenden, as they were called, was in part because ofthe restless nature of their occupation. The Fahrenden’s dubious social ori-gins led to their being excluded from contemporary honor codes, and theiropen sensuality resulted in their being rejected by the church. The status ofthe Fahrenden as de facto outlaws in German society did not greatly changeuntil well into the nineteenth century. Even in 1846, a police commissionerin Gotha was warning other police officials about these traveling artists,insisting that one could hardly distinguish such performers from Gypsies,especially because allegedly they conversed in the same underworld slang.2

The commissioner claimed not to be able to distinguish between travelingperformers and thieves. His reference to the performers’ slang is one of thefew that can be found about the language of these traveling entertainers.For him, the Fahrenden’s distinct language was the strongest indication oftheir suspect character. Their social isolation because of their constant trav-eling found its clearest expression in their use of an exclusive dialect, a phe-nomenon common to migrants at the time. This specific language also servedas an ethnic marker, a criterion by which membership in the social groupcould be determined.

Their Yiddish language set Jewish performers apart from the rest of thepopulation. At a time when even the inhabitants of the next village wereregarded with suspicion, pre-emancipation Jews and their peculiar languagetended to attract attention in a Gentile environment. In fact, to the earsof many contemporary Gentiles, Yiddish was identical to the language ofthieves – a view that can be traced back to the Renaissance. According toSander Gilman, contemporary Germans “saw in the language of the Jewsthe language of the most marginal elements of European society – beggars,thieves, and wandering murderers.”3 In all likelihood, the group of travelingperformers to which the police commissioner referred was in fact made up ofJewish entertainers, conspicuous because of both their occupation and theirethnicity.

An analysis of the language spoken by Jewish entertainers can provideinsight into the ethnic and regional roots of their families. The so-calledBlumenfeldsprache – a mixture of French, Yiddish, Romance (Gypsy dialect),

2 Hermann Arnold, Fahrendes Volk: Randgruppen des Zigeunervolkes (Landau, Pfalz, 1983),172.

3 Sander Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred: Antisemitism and the Hidden Language of the Jews(Baltimore and London, 1986), 68.


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and technical circus jargon – is one variation of these circulating dialects.This dialect was exceptionally popular among German-Jewish fairgroundentertainers. It was based on the dialect spoken by one of the most promi-nent families of Jewish circus artists, the Blumenfelds, who in 1811 was thefirst Jewish family to establish an independent circus enterprise.4 Beginningin the seventeenth century, the Blumenfeld name can be found in many citychronicles, where it is linked to acrobats and tightrope dancers.5 But it wasnot until two families of fairground performers were joined through mar-riage in the early nineteenth century that the first traveling German-Jewishcircus was founded. These families were the French-Alsatian Cerfs, headedby Maurice Levi Cerf (1783–1867),6 who owned a menagerie featuring birdsand apes, and the German Blumenfelds, from the Rhineland, who presentedacrobatic and strong man acts. The Cerf family introduced French intothe Blumenfeldsprache, though all Cerf family members were also fluent inYiddish.7 In addition to their similar occupations and mobility, both familiescame from rural regions with traditional Jewish communities and thus heldin common many beliefs and values.8 This may have facilitated their collabo-ration in all spheres of daily life.

Like other German-Jewish families of fairground performers, the Blumen-felds saw marriage as a way to realize material success. The marriage ofMaurice Levi Cerf to a Blumenfeld daughter was likely strategically

4 The first Circus Blumenfeld consisted of four horses, two bears, and several dogs and apes,as well as acrobats from the Blumenfeld and Cerf families.

5 According to the archivist Ernst Geller, one can trace the name Blumenfeld in chronicles ofFrankfurt and Leipzig back to the seventeenth century. See the “Blumenfeld” file, Circus,Variete- und Artistenarchiv, Marburg. See also Signor Saltarino, Das Artistentum und seineGeschichte (Leipzig, 1910), 26; Signor Saltarino was the pen name of the circus historianHermann Waldemar Otto. Otto published in contemporary professional journals such as DasProgramm, Der Artist, and Das Organ. He also authored two highly influential referencebooks, the Aristentum and the Artisten-Lexikon. Biographische Notizen uber Kunstreiter,Dompteure, Gymnastiker, Clowns, Akrobaten . . . aller Lander und Zeiten (Leipzig, 1895),reprinted in Roland Weise, Bibliotheca artistica. Die bunte Welt vom Variete, Zirkus undSchaustellerwesen, vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1987). Otto was born on April 14, 1863, in Hohenstein/Erzgebirge and died on January 11, 1941, in Dusseldorf. For information on Otto, see WalterUlrich, “Daten aus der Zirkuswelt,” in Manege: Eine Schriftenreihe fur Circustreunde, vol. 4(Berlin, n.d.), 10.

6 Touring Germany, Cerf called himself Moritz Hirsch. He died in Darmstadt in 1867 at the ageof eighty-five. An authenticated copy of the death certificate can be found in the “Blumenfeld”file, Circus, Variete- und Artistenarchiv, Marburg.

7 France had developed into the heartland of the circus world in the early nineteenth century.Therefore, the technical jargon of the circus was mainly French. This constituted anotherreason why the French element of Blumenfeldsprache did not fade away despite the ongoing“Germanization” of the Blumenfeld family.

8 Rural Alsatian Jews preserved their Judeo-Alsatian dialect throughout the nineteenth cen-tury despite the considerable effort made by educated elites in urban Jewish communities tointroduce French as the common language. Paula Hyman, The Emancipation of the Jews ofAlsace: Acculturation and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century (New Haven, CT, 1991), 65.



motivated, especially as the groom decided to adopt the bride’s last nameand become Moritz Blumenfeld. Although this was an unusual step for aman at the time, Cerf must have thought it avantageous to take on a familyname that was celebrated throughout the circus world.9 The strong bondsthat rural Alsatian Jews had to German-Yiddish culture might have easedCerf’s decision; it is probable too that the inevitable “Germanization” of hisfamily disturbed the Alsatian Cerf less than it might a Parisian Jew.

the rise and success of family networks

The rise of Jewish circus families coincided with the rise of circus entertain-ment as the primary mass medium in Central Europe, and there are sufficientgrounds to argue that the two were mutually dependent. The sustained suc-cess of key circus enterprises permanently established circus entertainmentas a staple among European leisure-time activities. Jewish circus families hadbeen among the pioneers in circus entertainment. They were able to main-tain their earlier successes through the nineteenth century in part becauseof their sociability and solidarity with each other. By the second half of thenineteenth century, the Circus Blumenfeld had established itself as a medium-sized circus enterprise in Central Europe. Emanuel Blumenfeld (1811–1885),the third son of Moritz Blumenfeld, inherited the circus in 1834. In July 1854,following his father’s example, he married Jeanette Stein (1831–1896), thedaughter of another Jewish circus director.10 This marriage led to a secondfusion of two family enterprises within two generations, and it provided thematerial foundation for the transformation of a family of fairground enter-tainers of only modest means into a dynasty of wealthy circus entrepreneurs.

Partnership between artistic families was commonplace among travelingartists. They pooled financial and artistic resources in order to develop newskills and expertise and collectively fend off competition in a new and riskyindustry. Unlike many partnerships of this kind, which might last only oneor two seasons, Jewish families consolidated their professional alliances withfamily bonds. Arranged marriages were frequent, and presupposed a socialand ethnic compatibility. Both families represented in such a marriage desired

9 The marriage is reported to have taken place at Beuel, near Bonn. The special permission ofthe community was needed to legalize this unusual name change. See the “Blumenfeld” file,Circus, Variete- und Artistenarchiv, Marburg.

10 Emanuel Blumenfeld was born on March 1, 1811. See Ulrich, “Daten,” 7. Jeannette Steinwas born in Landau, Bavaria. This was Emanuel Blumenfeld’s second marriage. His firstwife, Jette Hadoch, who was born in Cussfeld, had died. See Willi Janeck, “Erinnerungenan den Circus Blumenfeld,” Deutsche Circus-Zeitung, February 1957, 15. References to theearly history of the Blumenfeld circus are also found in “Circus E. Blumenfeld Wwe.,” DerArtist, no. 1500, November 9, 1913, Theaterhistorische Sammlung Unruh, Freie Universitat,Berlin (hereafter FU, Berlin).


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to conserve or to increase their social, financial, and artistic capital in atightening market.

Over four generations, Blumenfeld family members married into theGerman-Jewish Strassburger, Lorch, Konyot, and Goldkette circus fami-lies.11 This seemingly anachronistic practice actually ensured their survivaland future success by creating shared resources and a sense of solidaritybeyond the nuclear family.12 At times of crisis and economic hardship, theBlumenfeld and the Strassburger families demonstrated a solidarity that wentfar beyond what one might expect from potential competitors.13 When in1871 the Franco-Prussian War endangered the existence of the previouslyprospering Circus Blumenfeld because of the military conscription of theadult sons and the closure of traditional travel routes, these two familiestemporarily merged their circuses,14 enabling both families not only to sur-vive the war but also to return to their former glory.15 Although this tem-porary union was a particularly spectacular example of the collaboration ofGerman-Jewish families, it was by no means the only example. Even in pros-perous times, two circuses often worked together. For instances, the CircusStrassburger staged guest performances at the various winter domiciles inGuhrau and Magdeburg of the Blumenfeld family and frequently stoppedoff in Magdeburg before continuing on its annual tour.16

A deliberate exclusivity tended to be the rule within the circus world.At first glance, Gentile and Jewish circus families seem to have been equallytight-knit. No circus family, Gentile or Jewish, could afford to lose a memberthrough marriage to someone outside of the circus milieu. Such a marriagecould endanger the livelihood of the remaining family members, and indi-viduals were expected to give way to the communal good. Yet this overlooksthe fissures that ran through the circus milieu. Whereas Jewish circus fami-lies interacted with Gentile circus families professionally, they rarely shared

11 The related Konyot family formed a famous riding ensemble from Hungary. They performedequestrian stunts that included seven trick riders on one horse. Their progenitor was LeopoldKohn, a Jewish-Hungarian businessman. The Goldkette family derived from an ancient lineof traveling performers, who had presented their skills and tricks at the coronation of MariaTheresa. They altered their name in the course of the twentieth century, and four of themformed the world-famous artistic group The Four Bronnetts.

12 For further information on the Strassburger family, see Herbert Nissing, Strassburger:Geschichte eines judischer Circus (Dormagen, 1993).

13 The collaboration was not confined to the Strassburger family. In 1875, for example, the sonof Mayer Blumenfeld, a brother of Emanuel Blumenfeld, founded his own circus enterprisetogether with Francois Goldkette. See Saltarino, Das Artistentum, 26–29.

14 On the economic difficulties of the Blumenfeld family, see “Circus E. Blumenfeld Wwe.”15 In 1874, Emanuel Blumenfeld employed 35 women and men permanently and displayed 40

expensive horses. Janeck, “Erinnerungen an Circus Blumenfeld,” 15.16 Das Programm, no. 1082, 11, documenta artistica collection in the Markisches Museum,

Berlin.



their private lives. Although ethnic boundaries may have allowed for, andeven welcomed, their interaction with Gentile circuses on the level of the“market,” Jewish circus performers seem to have shied away from intimaterelationships that might have undermined their solidarity with other Jewishcircus families.

Family genealogies reveal that from the early nineteenth to the early twen-tieth centuries, marriage patterns among German-Jewish circus families mir-rored those of the German-Jewish economic elite.17 In both cases, one com-monly finds marriages between close relatives, such as an uncle to his nieceor between cousins of various grades. Multiple marriages between familiesalso occurred frequently, with pairs of brothers marrying pairs of sisters.18

Both the Jewish economic elite and the Jewish circus community cultivatedthe traditional marriage strategies of pre-emancipation German Jewry longafter most of Germany’s Jewish middle class had abandoned them. Theirlong-lasting family alliances allowed a united community of German-Jewishcircus families to fight off economic hardship; their particular sociability wasa key to their successes.

Whereas intimate relations with Gentile circus members remained limited,similar boundaries and reservations were clearly suspended for members ofthe same social circle. For Jewish circus families, residency in fixed winterquarters had particularly important emotional and social consequences. Incontrast to what was commonly assumed about circus life, circus personneldid not have much time for romantic entanglements or emotional affirmationduring their months on the road. The sentimental bonds necessary to endurethe demanding life of the circus, especially within the family, were thereforeestablished and nursed during the Winterquartier period. During the circus’spermanent residency between November and March, business and familyrelationships could be cemented and performers allowed to recover fromstress and exhaustion, facilitating the family’s preparations for the comingseason.

The winter season not only served the emotional needs within a singlefamily but also allowed the renewal of bonds of friendship and solidaritywithin the large German-Jewish circus community. The children from var-ious families played together and trained in the same arenas. These steadycontacts assured the continuation among German-Jewish circus families ofstrong emotional and professional ties from one generation to the next.19 For

17 Ernst Geller, the director of the Circus, Variete- und Artistenarchiv, Marburg, has drawnup family trees for various German-Jewish families. His findings have been completed byfamily documents. Gabriela Blumenfeld of Magdeburg was particularly helpful, contributingpreviously unknown Blumenfeld family material to the archives.

18 Werner E. Mosse, The German-Jewish Economic Elite, 1820–1935: A Socio-Cultural Profile(Oxford, 1989), 164.

19 As late as 1925, Das Programm pointed to the centrality of the Winterquartier. Again theBlumenfeld and the Strassburger families are paradigmatic: “Every traveling circus has its


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example, after 1885, the large Blumenfeld family invited the Strassburgersto their winter quarters in Guhrau/Silesia. The two families continued towinter together even after the Blumenfelds moved to Magdeburg in the firstdecade of the twentieth century. Salomon Strassburger, the founding fatherof the Strassburger dynasty, was even buried at Guhrau.20 Like the German-Jewish middle class, who exchanged visits and celebrated traditional holidaystogether, these circus families adjusted their emotional and social needs tothe particular calendar governing circus life.21

patterns of reproduction

Inclusive networks such as that of Jewish circus families could be truly suc-cessful only if they could draw from a large enough social group; thus theparticular demographics of Jewish circus families were a precondition for thesuccess of their inclusive sociability. Among Jewish circus families intimaterelations were not confined to a small circle of actors. To the contrary, fam-ily gatherings were elaborate affairs, as Jewish circus families were extensiveand usually spanned several generations. Unlike Germany’s general Jewishpopulation, German-Jewish circus families had not altered their reproduc-tion patterns by the second half of the nineteenth century. The birth rateof these families remained characteristic of the traditional pre-emancipatoryGerman-Jewish family. The Strassburger, Lorch, and Blumenfeld families allhad numerous children: Moritz Levi Blumenfeld, for example, had sevenchildren. Emanuel and Jeanette Blumenfeld had to provide for a family ofsixteen children, four of whom came from Emanuel’s first marriage to JetteHadoch. In turn, each of their sixteen had between eight and eleven chil-dren. By the late 1920s, Blumenfeld households alone counted more thantwo hundred family members.

Clearly, the fertility rate of the Blumenfeld family exceeded that ofeither the Gentile or the Jewish general population.22 In the first decades

winter quarters. They represent a point of rest among fleeting impressions [ruhenden Pol inder Erscheinung Flucht]. They are the source of strength for the activities in the summer;they are also experimental sites where through dedicated work everything is created thatamuses and educates thousands of people in the summer time. The city of Magdeburg,especially, has become a real circus city after the brothers Blumenfeld put up their mainquarters. Not only the Blumenfeld, but also the circus Strassburger spend the winter seasonthere.” Das Programm, March 8, 1925, 7; documenta artistica collection in the MarkischesMuseum, Berlin. “Salomon and Amalie Strassburger had seven children together. . . . All ofthem remain true to the circus and married into the old circus families Kossmeyer andBlumenfeld.” Nissing, Strassburger, 16.

20 Nissing, Strassburger, 16.21 See Marion A. Kaplan, The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family, and Identity

in Imperial Germany (New York, 1991).22 All of these families were either German-Jewish or Alsatian-Jewish families with independent,

medium-size circus enterprises.



of the nineteenth century, Jewish families characteristically had a higherproportion of births to marriages than did the society at large (5.2 birthscompared to 4.3), but by the 1870s this relationship had changed andJewish families had only 4.3 children compared to 4.6 for the general soci-ety. By 1900 the relationship between birth and marriage among the Jewishpopulation was down to 2.8, dramatically below the average of 4.4 annualbirths per marriage among Gentiles.23 But in contrast to this trend amongGerman Jews to decrease the size of their families – even before the Gentilepopulation followed their example – German-Jewish circus entertainers con-tinued to live in traditionally large family units until the twentieth century.Moreover, they did so in apparent disregard for fundamental changes intheir social status, their sense of security, their relative affluence, and theirincreasing concentration in urban communities.

A closer analysis of Jewish circus families reveals more of their demo-graphic differences from noncircus middle-class Jewish families. Manydemographic historians argue that modern city life necessarily inhibitedhigh fertility. In the modern city, their argument goes, children cost moreto raise and contributed less to production than they did in the countryside;moreover, in cities, as John Knodel insists, “secular values prevailed, socialmobility rose, and women found employment away from home.”24 Finally,education was costly. Since many German-Jewish families desired to providehigher education for their sons and their daughters, they could not afford tohave numerous children.25

The decline in the fertility rate of German Jews, the most urbanized minor-ity in Germany, preceded that for the general population by a generation ormore. The eagerness of German Jews to reduce the number of children theyhad has often been attributed to their desire to be assimilated into the Gentilebourgeoisie.26 Their attempts at assimilation paralleled their growing alert-ness to bourgeois tastes and sensibilities. For many German Jews, Bildungfunctioned not only as a key to molding the individual personality but, moreimportantly, as an entry ticket to bourgeois society.

Formal Bildung, however, did not hold the same importance for Jew-ish circus performers as it did for many other German Jews. The circusfamily itself provided the necessary instruction for the next generation and,in doing so, did not discriminate between girls and boys. In the circuses,children were the apprentices to their parents or older siblings. Traditional

23 Shulamit Volkov, Judisches Leben und Antisemitismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Munich,1990), 140.

24 John E. Knodel, The Decline of Fertility in Germany, 1871–1939 (Princeton, NJ, 1974), 89.25 Among many, see Shulamit Volkov, “Erfolgreiche Assimilation oder Erfolg und Assimilation.

Die deutsch-judische Familie im Kaiserreich,” in Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Jahrbuch1982/83 (Berlin, 1984), 374–87.

26 “Individuals with a strong desire to assimilate decided to reduce the size of their families,privileging ‘quality’ instead of ‘quantity.’” Volkov, Judisches Leben, 142.


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learning was handed down from generation to generation. For most children“apprenticeship” began at the age of four or five. The graceful appearanceof a light-footed acrobat was the result of hard and disciplined trainingover a period of many years. A childhood in the circus milieu supplied thenecessary stimulation, challenge, and instruction for a successful career asa circus performer. Continuous formal schooling or a university educationwas exceedingly rare among circus children. Many spoke several languages,but few knew how to write them formally. The children’s worldliness was aresult of personal experiences within their own family’s or related families’businesses and not mediated through institutions of higher education.

While the size and reproductive patterns of circus families were uncannilysimilar to those of Jewish families in pre-emancipatory times, their notionsof gender roles represented a distinct departure from the past. The lack ofdifferentiation between the training of sons and of daughters was unusual fortraditional Jewish families. Its general lack of formal instruction or canonicBildung might have facilitated the relative gender balance that existed withinthe circus. Both sons and daughters were considered valuable members of thefamily enterprise and were treated equally. Whereas in the preemancipationJewish community the obligation to educate children, primarily sons, restedupon the father, in the German-Jewish circus community both the motherand the father were responsible for the training of children.27 Although thetraditional German-Jewish family structure often resulted in a power imbal-ance between men and women within the family, the gender-specific butequally valued roles in circus work led to de facto equality in the daily life ofcircus families. The absence of a division of work and the need for a diversityof skills in the ring contributed to this habitual gender equality.

Against this background, it is appropriate to reappraise the equation his-torians have drawn between high fertility and a lack of formal Bildung onthe one hand, and a low degree of assimilation, on the other. Unfortunately,current concepts of acculturation and assimilation have focused on the rel-atively small and homogeneous German-Jewish educated elite. No one hasadequately demonstrated that these concepts are applicable to German Jewryat large. There are ample indications that this larger group was in fact muchmore heterogeneous than the Jewish educated middle class, varying not onlyin occupations, mobility, and religious beliefs but also in family structuresand social practices. Inclusive family networks, strong generational obli-gations, strategic marriages, and a lack of professional diversity and for-mal education are routinely interpreted as characteristics of unworldly andmarginalized ethnic communities. In the realm of the circus, however, thisassumption does not withstand more in-depth inquiries into the interactionsbetween circus people and their immediate environment.

27 On educational patterns in traditional Jewish families, see Paula E. Hyman, Gender andAssimilation in Modern Jewish History (Seattle and London, 1995), 47.



patronage and widening circles

Despite their commitment to their families and friends, members of all cir-cuses engaged with the outside world during certain periods of the year.Although circus people had few occasions to reach beyond the limelightwhile they were touring, the hardships of winter forced traveling circusesto pause and rest in designated quarters. Too little attention has been paidto these periods of rest during the winter months as historians and sociol-ogists remain fascinated with the lives of migrants. But circus performerswere more than glamorous, fleeting creatures populating fantasy worlds,they were also real neighbors, employers, voters, and consumers in smallerand larger German cities. The five months from November to March wereused for recreation since unpredictable weather made traveling with animalsand with a large amount of equipment impossible. The winter months alsooffered circus performers an opportunity to put new stunts together, to trainanimals, and to carry out necessary repairs of equipment. These prepara-tions encouraged, even demanded, that circus personnel interact with localartisans, farmers, cattle traders, and doctors. The winter season altered thecircus’s inner life as much as it changed the nature of its interactions withthe local public.

Their seasonal “homes” in the Winterquartier permitted a more intensiveexchange between the migrant circus people and the world that surroundedthem. Most circuses spent the winter months in the same location every yearand generally owned the facilities to which they returned.28 Usually, all of thecircus’s artists accompanied the director’s family to the winter quarters; theseasonal workers returned to their respective homes in villages in Bohemiaand the Palatinate. During the winter season, the circus families lived in regu-lar houses instead of the traditional travel wagons; thus their neighbors werenot necessarily their colleagues or family members. Their children attendedthe local schools; they had time to shop for their individual households; andthey frequented local bars and restaurants. Hence the insulated nature ofthe traveling circus was suspended at least structurally during these wintermonths.

The hundred-year jubilee celebration of the Circus E. Blumenfeld Wwe.in Guhrau/Silesia – a small town situated about eighty kilometers northwestof Breslau – provides a revealing view of the particular relationship of this

28 The diligence with which the Circus Blumenfeld adhered to this seasonal pattern inclined thecontemporary “Signor Saltarino” to label the directors of the Circus Blumenfeld as the most“settled” circus directors of the time (die “seßhaftesten” Zirkusdirektoren Deutschlands).Seßhaft has a double connotation in this context; it goes beyond the factual meaning ofresidency and implies a respectability that can be provided only by membership in a localcommunity. This double meaning suggests an exceptionally successful self-promotion byGerman-Jewish circus families: They seem to have become widely known for outstandingintegrity and conservatism, which, in turn, was their best publicity.


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family enterprise to the world outside the chapiteau.29 A close reading ofthis special event sheds light on the status of this renowned circus familyas it wintered within a community of farmers, artisans, and tradesmen. In1911 the Blumenfeld family had many reasons to celebrate themselves asone of the leading, and certainly as one of the oldest, dynasties in Germancircus entertainment. The festivities involved virtually the entire city. Localnotables hurried to pay their respects to the directors Hermann, Simon,and Adolf Blumenfeld.30 More than three hundred congratulatory messagesfrom all over Europe reached the press office of the circus. The municipalorchestra provided a festive atmosphere during the formal reception of themayor and the deputies of the city council at the house of the eldest brother,Simon. Because the private houses of the circus directors were unable toaccommodate the hundred invited guests, the gala dinner had to be held inthe town hall.31

Clearly, the jubilee celebration of the Blumenfeld circus was a caesurafor the entire community of Guhrau. The mayor and main speaker, Mr.Gotz, emphasized the importance of the Blumenfelds for the town’s life.He took pains to stress the symbiotic relationship between the town andthe circus, declaring that the people of Guhrau identified with and tookpride in “their circus.” Gotz stressed as well the centrality of the circus forthe business community of Guhrau, pointing out that the circus broughtthe town “a profit of several thousand marks annually” and put “an armyof countless locals to work.”32 With its continuous need for fodder, tools,building materials, and other services the circus was clearly essential to acommunity that otherwise would have to rely on textile manufacturing alone.In fact, the presence of the circus may have prevented Guhrau from losingits young and able citizens, who might otherwise have been tempted to seektheir fortunes in the nearby city of Breslau, the vibrant capital of Silesia.

The traveling Circus Blumenfeld had reached the zenith of its fame by1911. Its directors could proudly reflect on their family’s hundred years of

29 After the death of Emanuel Blumenfeld, his widow Jeanette assumed control of the enter-prise. The Circus Emanuel Blumenfeld Wwe. bought the former military barracks in Guhrau,and in 1885 designed it as the new winter domicile of the enterprise. Guhrau’s most impor-tant industry was textiles (Tuchmacherei). Hugo Weczerka, ed., Schlesien. Handbuch derhistorischen Statten (Stuttgart, 1977), 169–71.

30 They were the sons of Emanuel and Jeanette Blumenfeld. Simon, who was born on January29, 1861, died in December 1942 in the concentration camp Theresienstadt. He and his wifeRosa Strassburger (who died in 1944 in Theresienstadt) had twelve children: Therese, Willy,Betty, Jeanette, Alfred, Alex, Alfons, Arthur, Eugen, Erich, Fritz, and Alice; only Arthursurvived the Third Reich, and he committed suicide in 1951. Simon’s brother Adolf died onJanurary 14, 1913, and his brother Hermann died on August 17, 1933. See the “Blumenfeld”files Circus, Variete-und Artistenarchiv, Marburg.

31 “Die 100 jahrige Jubelfeier des Zirkus E. Blumenfeld Wwe.,” Das Programm, no. 406, 1911,documenta artistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.

32 Ibid.



continuous social advancement. At this point, they owned not only a largecircus enterprise but also estates in the Guhrau area and seasonal homes inBerlin and on the fashionable island of Norderney.33 Each generation hadbeen able to profit from the achievements of the previous one. The familyseemed to have catapulted itself from the periphery of society into the heartof a local community whose elite would have refused to accept them fiftyyears earlier. The marginalized fairground performers of the late eighteenthcentury had become bourgeois entrepreneurs.

The central act of this centennial celebration, the handing over of dona-tions from the circus management to a variety of community institutions,was clearly motivated by the Blumenfelds’ desire to make a statement abouttheir acceptance by the town as well as a demonstration of civic pride. TheBlumenfeld directors donated 7,500 marks for the construction of a publicpool and earmarked the interest of 1,000 marks to Protestant and Catholicwelfare institutions; they also decided that the interest generated by a fur-ther 1,000 marks should be given out annually to the destitute, in honor ofEmanuel Blumenfeld, the founding father of the circus.34

The Blumenfelds’ philanthopy reminds one of the self-help practicesthrough which traditional German-Jewish communities sustained themselvesfor centuries. Since 1885 the circus family saw it as its particular duty toengage in the social life of the community.35 By the first decade of the twen-tieth century the Blumenfelds had built up a special reputation for theircharitable endeavors – a reputation that resonated among a wide public aswell as among their peers far beyond the boundaries of the small city ofGuhrau. The press frequently commented on the extraordinary popularitythe Blumenfelds, enjoyed among locals, spectators, and colleagues alike:

And just as the respectable name Blumenfeld attracts masses of spectators in allregions of Germany, the sympathetic directors are known for their charity in theirHeimat. They are loved and admired by masses and elites. Director HermannBlumenfeld for example, is frequently offered honorary offices of all kinds.36

The directors of stationary circuses who, like Sarrasani or Busch, wereGentiles concentrated their efforts on police, military, local administration,

33 “During the summer they travel with an impressive tent and an excellent troupe. In the latefall they return to their winter quarters in Guhrau, Silesia, where they own large estates.”Saltarino, Das Artistentum, 28.

34 “Die 100 jahrige Jubelfeier des Zirkus E. Blumenfeld,” documenta artistica collection in theMarkisches Museum, Berlin.

35 “They belong to the wealthiest burghers of the district, paying the highest taxes. Apart fromthe massive arena, the stables etc., each of the three brothers owns a house in Guhrau. Inaddition, Hermann also owns a villa and several houses on the island of Norderney. Adolf,who spends his winters in Berlin – where he calls extensive property his own – has recentlyreentered the circus enterprise in the function of a manager.” Das Programm, no. 464, 1911,documenta artistica collection in the Markisches Museum Berlin.

36 Saltarino, Das Artistentum, 28–29.


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and other institutions that could further their enterprises. In contrast, theGerman-Jewish Blumenfelds gave money to local welfare services, schools,and hospitals, without regard to the denominational affiliation of the insti-tution. Whereas the Gentile management of stationary circuses sought togain entry into the exclusive bourgeois circles of their local communi-ties, German-Jewish circuses sought primarily a popular presence amongthe middle classes of their winter quarters. Whereas Gentile stationarycircus management attracted its audiences with the glamour and exoti-cism of its performances alone, German-Jewish circus management wasalso deeply concerned with preserving and enhancing the circus’s moralreputation.

The approach of German-Jewish circus management might be interpretedas an attempt to fend off potential anti-Semitic resentment among the localpopulation. This interpretation would, however, disregard the long-standingemphasis the German-Jewish community placed on charity for the poor andsick. This tradition was considered a religious obligation, moral command-ment, and focal point of the Jewish faith.37 In the post-emancipation period,the Blumenfelds seem to have extended older patterns of caretaking beyondthe boundaries of the Jewish community and applied them to the entire localcommunity. The family’s material success had made them into patrons oftheir small community. As such, they increasingly responded to local needsfor public projects without altering the nature of their charity. They didnot, however, develop a more organizational approach to making their con-tributions to community life. Instead, they continued to seek occasions tohold fund-raising events, using the proceeds to support a variety of chari-table ventures. Whereas traditional forms of Jewish welfare insisted on theanonymity of the donor, Imperial patronage was routinely a public affair.Although in light of their personal trajectory, the Blumenfeld directors mayhave identified more with the marginalized and impoverished, as Imperialsubjects they acted as confident patrons with no interest in keeping theirgood deeds a secret, knowing as entertainers that publicity was part of showbusiness.

Yet it would be short-sighted to see these activities solely as public relationsgestures and hence as unequivocally “modern.” Many German-Jewish circusfamilies observed Jewish laws and rituals, at least to the extent that theirmobility allowed them to. Indeed, Hermann Blumenfeld38 was famous in

37 Elisabeth Kraus, “Judische Stiftungstatigkeit: Das Beispiel der Familie Mosse in Berlin,”Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswissenschaft, vol. 45, no. 2 (1997), 104; see also Georg Heuberger,ed., Zedaka: Judische Sozialarbeit im Wandel der Zeit (Frankfurt a. M., 1992); AndreasReinke, Judentum und Wohlfahrtspflege: Das judische Krankenhaus in Breslau, 1744–1944(Hannover, 1998); Rainer Liedtke, Jewish Welfare in Hamburg and Manchester, 1850–1914(Oxford, 1998).

38 Hermann Blumenfeld was married to his niece Betty Blumenfeld, who was the daughter ofhis brother Simon.



Gentile and Jewish circus circles for his piety and for being a conscientiouscircus patriarch and a devoted son. Their practice of charity within the localcommunity of their Winterquartier reflects the self-confident religiosity ofGerman-Jewish circus families as much as it may have been a reaction tolocal expectations or to social pressures such as latent anti-Semitism or callsfor cultural assimilation. Judaism paid great attention to the ethics governingthe social dimensions of life.39 The philanthropy of the Blumenfelds thus wasby no means a rejection of, or evidence of alienation from, their ethnicity,but can be read as an expression of the family’s confident embrace of theirJewishness. In fact, for these German Jews, as it did for most other prosperousJewish citizens, “philanthropic activity did not merely affirm Jewish identity,but actually defined it.”40 Charity dispensed by the Blumenfeld family wasboth an expression of separateness from and a demonstration of belongingto a local community; it was rooted in a variety of cultural practices definedin equal shares by the family’s class, profession, and ethnicity.

Self-perception and reception are often less than congruent, however.Whether Guhrau’s Gentile population saw the Blumenfelds’ philanthropicactivities as expressions of a specific ethnic identity remains to be determined.A closer reading of the Circus Blumenfeld’s jubilee celebration certainlyreveals that the Blumenfelds were honored mainly for their economicsuccess. Guhrau’s political leaders did not engage with the circus as a cul-tural institution. The Blumenfelds were celebrated by the municipal del-egation not as a family of circus artists but as important employers inthe local economy. Only the representatives to the festivities from theartistic press and the performers union also praised the Blumenfelds’ artisticachievements.41

Both the ethnic background and the profession of the Blumenfeld familywere known to the entire population of Guhrau and were not an obsta-cle in business relationships between the circus people and the townspeoplein the prewar period. However, friendship and cultural recognition for theBlumenfelds could be found only within the realm of professional enter-tainers. Clearly, local respect and appreciation were not motivated by eitherprivate intimacy or a deep engagement with circus performance. The strongpublic presence of German-Jewish circus families converged with their struc-tural separateness as popular Jewish entertainers.

Theories about ethnicity have emphasized either ethnic pluralism or ethnicassimilation. According to these interpretations, ethnic groups either persistas separate entities or change and become less distinct from “mainstream”

39 Kraus, “Judische Stiftungstatigkeit,” 121.40 Derek Penslar, “Philanthrophy, the ‘Social Question’ and Jewish Identity in Imperial

Germany.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 38 (1993), 58.41 “Die 100 jahrige Jubelfeier des Zirkus E. Blumenfeld,” documenta artistica collection in the

Markisches Museum, Berlin.


Family Bonds 59

society.42 The example of the Blumenfelds in Guhrau, however, demonstratesthat sharing many similarities with the majority society does not precludestructural separateness. One aspect of this separateness is the maintenanceof a distinctive language, which, for German-Jewish circus families, pro-vided a sense of bonding. Intermarriage between Jewish circus families anda high fertility rate – both key social practices of these German-Jewish cir-cus families – constituted further elements of this cultural distinctiveness.Lastly, intensifying these families’ separate identities were strong emotionalbonds through friendships solidified by traditions such as the invocation ofthe names of the founding fathers.

Although in the nineteenth century German-Jewish circus families culti-vated a lifestyle that did not always betray an ethnic marker in its content,their particular social practices still set them apart from other circus fami-lies. This separateness was a consequence of their occupation, their mobility,and their social, ethnic, and regional origins. It did not result from a lack ofcontact with Gentiles in the circus industry. Rather, separateness and contactcoexisted, and Jewish circus entrepreneurs entertained friendly but reservedrelationships with their Gentile colleagues. Because German-Jewish circusfamilies identified with each other in a process of ascription, their separate-ness seemed self-generated rather than the result of being excluded by theGentile circus milieu.43 For German-Jewish circuses, ethnic solidarity mayhave been one key to their material success. Of course, also critical were aconscientious management and a consistently high aesthetic standard for thetraining of and the performances given by family members. Thus German-Jewish families ran three of the leading traveling circuses in prewar Germany.These families appeared well positioned to weather future storms in turn-of-the-century mass entertainment.

42 Frances E. Kobrin and Calvin Goldschneider, The Ethnic Factor in Family Structure andMobility (Cambridge, MA, 1978), 1.

43 In an influential essay, Frederik Barth was the first to point out that ethnic boundaries werenot due to the isolation of the particular group, but that groups were in fact in continuous con-tact with one another. Thus the persistent fact of cultural variation remains to be accountedfor. Frederik Barth, “Introduction,” in Barth, ed., Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: TheSocial Organization of Culture Difference (Bergen, 1969), 9–38; more recently, see ThomasHylland Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives (London, 1993),ch. 3.


3

Schein und Sein in the Circus

Unlike the actor, the acrobat is a man of Sein (being) and not of Schein(appearance).

Victor Happrich1

Only the utmost discipline can make the manifestations of discipline disap-pear. Or, to put it differently, a semblance of chaos, lightheartedness, andchance requires meticulous choreography and well-trained performers. Thespectator’s pleasure is thus based on a deception. In comparing the experienceof a member of the audience to the social realities of the circus performers,one can only marvel at the gap between the outside and the inside perspective.The circus projected an image of bohemianism, exoticism, and eroticism; itsinner workings, however, resembled a well-oiled machine: a clock tickingwith predictability and precision.

For their spectators, the colorful shows put on by circuses were a daz-zling experience. The quickly alternating acts kept the audience attentive,delighting in the show’s surprises. The spectators’ desire to leave their struc-tured lives behind resonated in the arrangement and movement of the per-formances. Each act seemed to be of equal importance, and each was full ofgrace and wonder. The biggest challenge for any circus entrepreneur was tomaintain the illusionary nature of the entertainers’ performances, to projecta world without pain, sweat, or conventional truth. To retain his audience,however, he had to prevent the transcendent quality of his show from beingseen as a challenge to the core assumptions of German society. The circuslacked revolutionary drive, and even its transgressions ultimately served asaffirmations of cultural norms and values. Its accomplishment was in har-monizing seemingly contradictory qualities; its utopian aura resulted fromsublimation not from revolution. Thus, while the circus presented a utopian

1 Victor Happrich, Der Artist, no. 1206, March 12, 1908.

60


Schein und Sein in the Circus 61

vision within the ring, there is no evidence that the performances aspired tocatalyze social change beyond the ring.

To keep in balance seemingly contradictory qualities, circuses closely mon-itored the image they projected to their audiences. This chapter will explorethis process by contrasting two of the most prominent debates within andaround circus entertainment: the debate over the delicate issues of genderroles and eroticism in the ring and that over the threat to mass entertain-ment posed by its “Americanization.” Each is an example of when and howmanagement intervened to circumvent either potential criticism or nega-tive publicity. Imperial society rarely tolerated ambiguity in the realms ofsexuality or commerce. True, mythmaking was part of all entertainment;there were certain myths, however, that circus directors especially felt theyneeded to control for the sake of public relations. This was not a simplequestion of pride or of bourgeois sensibility, but was a matter of existen-tial importance. The directors knew that the respectability of their entireenterprise was at risk in these debates. Its unquestioned morality set circusentertainment apart from other popular performance genres. Although neveraccepted as a part of “legitimate” culture, the circus nevertheless enjoyedsome of high culture’s privileges. For example, women could attend the cir-cus, as well as members of the army decked out in full military regalia. Theaura of respectability was constitutive for circus entertainment and guar-anteed the medium its mass appeal. Without an impeccable reputation nocircus could hope to play before thousands of spectators several times eachweek.

The preservation of the circus’s reputation was close to the heart ofall circus directors, but one can still observe variations in their manage-rial approach. As will be shown, policies differed widely among circusentrepreneurs, not only depending on the size and organizational structureof the enterprise, but also on the ethnicity of the owner. Not every issue wasaddressed equally by every circus director. The controversies involving bod-ies in the ring and the so-called Americanization of the circus are colorfulillustrations of the different attitudes among circus professionals. As will beshown, circus representatives openly addressed eroticism in performance,the philosophical Paula Busch being the most outspoken. Stationary circusowners were particularly keen to defend their body politics as being moti-vated by higher goals than simply to arouse their visitors. Their most sexuallydaring acts were the circus pantomimes, which routinely included scenes ofseduction, partial nudity, and demonstrative virility. They needed to care-fully calculate potential censorship by the authorities as well as the comfortlevel of their visitors, constantly walking a fine line between transgressionand reassurance.

The public’s perception of circus business practices was another issueclosely monitored by circus directors. Here, Jewish circus entrepreneurswere the most active in defusing accusations of harmful advertising or



dishonorable financial dealings. Clearly, they did not want to leave specu-lation of this kind to the self-regulating forces of the market, a precautionthey must have considered vital in light of the smoldering, century-oldprejudice against “Jewish greed” that had reemerged in “modernized” formas “Jewish manchesterism” in the business world of Imperial Germany.

body politics: plunging necklines and cossack uniforms

Dominating the contemporary discourse on the merits and shortcomingsof popular entertainment are debates related to sexuality and profitability.Circus performers proved to be masterful in the ways that they both evokedand controlled projections of dreams and desire. Debates on the body andbusiness policies loom large in this context and illustrate the complicatedrelationship that Gentile and Jewish circus performers and entrepreneurshad with their audiences. How entertainers presented themselves, that is,how they advertised themselves, dressed, and interacted with local elites –their fashions and their mannerisms, as well as their business habits – alldetermined whether they were perceived as alien or just exotic, as operatingoutside or within of society, or both. These dialogues unfolded in the localand national press, but also among the popular performers themselves, oftendominating their trade journals.

A look at popular entertainment at the time confirms that Imperial societydid not relegate all matters of sexuality to the private chambers of upstand-ing citizens. Germans were surprisingly unapologetic in their fascinationwith muscles and more. One of the great accomplishments of circus enter-tainment, and something that was crucial to its mass appeal, was its abilityto eroticize the human body without losing its female audience. Unlike vari-ety shows and strip bars (Amusierkneipen), attending the circus was nottaboo for respectable women. Instead, the modern circus provided a uniqueopportunity to view male and female bodies in a public setting. It was infact the only opportunity women had to see a scantily dressed body withoutcompromising themselves.

The enchantment of male spectators with female performers has been doc-umented in the writings of Gerhard Hauptmann, Gerhard Zuckmayer, andFrank Wedekind and in the paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec, Marc Chagall,and Edgar Degas.2 But little has been said about how female spectatorsviewed the scantily clad performers in circus acts. Since many spectators at

2 For a discussion of the circus in the fine arts, see La Grande Parade: Portrait de l’Artisteen Clown, Musee des Beaux-Arts du Canada, Exposition Catalogue (Paris, 2004); RolandBerger and Dietmar Winkler, Kunstler, Clowns und Akrobaten: Der Zirkus in der bildendenKunst (Berlin, 1983); Barbara Shapiro, The Pleasures of Paris, Damier to Picasso (Boston,1991); Marc Chagall, Le Cirque: Paintings 1969–1980, Exposition Catalogue (New York,1981); Henri Loyrette, Degas (Paris, 1991).



circuses were women, their perception has to be taken into account as well.3

In the eighteenth century, the possible reactions of women to seeing partialnudity seemed to threaten the social order because they were unpredictableand therefore were less controllable than the responses of male spectators.For example, the Empress Maria Theresa threatened to banish the attractivetrick rider Hyam if he did not refrain from arousing the Viennese women.4

By the turn of the nineteenth century, the effect on male spectators of pub-licly viewing women’s bodies was thought to endanger order and stability.Whereas in the eighteenth century the woman spectator needed protectionherself, in the nineteenth century Germans regarded women’s bodies as athreat from which society needed protection. Ironically, women were alsoconsidered the ones who could provide effective protection against the lureof their own sex. As the legendary circus director Paula Busch recalled, herfather’s acrobats had two sets of costumes during the Wilhelmine era – one,with a high collar, was for performances before the empress; the other, witha plunging neckline, was worn for all other performances:

Often the empress, her children and their friends attended a Sunday afternoon show.As everybody knows, the empress Auguste Victoria held strict moral views. My fatherknew that and at the rehearsal the night before the actual visit, Count von Mirbachnever found anything to complain: The female swimmers on the shining fountainwore closely knit veils over their “Venus”-costumes. The circus tailor had alteredthe ballet dancers’ necklines by five centimeters, the jockey girls had exchanged theirshort little jackets for Cossack uniforms. At the “special performances,” the audi-ence amicably overlooked these disguises, which made some acts in the water or onhorseback virtually impossible. It stood up enthusiastically when the empress enteredthe royal box, presenting an image of warm-hearted motherliness.5

It was perceived to be the function of first ladies, as “mothers of thenation,” to defend the moral standards of society and to watch over any“unruly” behavior by their female subjects, in the ring as well as in the audi-ence. Notably, the circus tent housed two seemingly conflicting visions ofwomanhood: in the audience, upper-class women whose public activity waslargely defined by their maternal authority or by their roles in charity orga-nizations, reform movements, and formal gatherings; and in the ring, femaleathletes in short skirts and stockings, who were decidedly not maternal and

3 Although recent scholarship on film has addressed the question of female spectatorship,little has been done for the genres preceding film and television. For an excellent overviewof literature and current debates, see Judith Mayne, Cinema and Spectatorship (London,1993). Also on female spectatorship, see Jackie Stacy, Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema andFemale Spectatorship (London, 1994); Miriam Hansen, Babel and Babylon: Spectatorship inAmerican Silent Film (Cambridge, MA, 1991); and Janet Bergstrom and Mary Ann Doane,eds., “The Spectatrix,” Camera Obscura (May–September 1989), 20–21.

4 Joseph Halperson, Das Buch zum Zirkus. Beitrage zur Geschichte der Wanderkunstlerwelt(Dusseldorf, 1926), 38.

5 Paula Busch, Das Spiel meines Lebens: Erinnerungen (Berlin, 1992), 48.



who closely resembled the daughters of Aphrodite and Eros. Such circuswomen rode horses without saddles, performed handstands atop a horse,and even appeared as exotic temple dancers with snakes wrapped sugges-tively around their necks and torsos. Steamy performances by well-chiseledfemale acrobats in scant costumes alternated with acts that highlighted thenobility of the female riders in their top hats, white gloves, and long skirts,chastely riding their elegant Arab stallions sidesaddle.

Just as the circus challenged prevailing notions about the separation ofmale and female spheres among its spectators, women’s athleticism in the ringconfounded traditional gender roles. The circus did not clearly divide menand women into subjects and objects, with men acting and women beingobserved. Women in the audience watched the performances of a muscu-lar Hercules with great attention. Male and female spectators alike viewedacrobats as objects of desire. Male and female circus performers catered toapparently contradictory gender stereotypes. Paula Busch reflected on thistension, occurring at a time when circus entertainment had reached, or per-haps just passed, its zenith.

The woman, who is able to appreciate beauty more purely and impersonally, isenthused by the nobly built body, the slender limbs of beautiful acrobats and hercu-lesses or the nymph-like figure of a horsewoman, just as she is by a beautiful picture.Yes, such a circus horsewoman, trained since her youth, combines female grace withmanly strength and courage.6

References to the androgynous nature of the circus artist can be found inabundance made by both contemporary performers and distant observers.No less than Thomas Mann, the doyen of German Bildung and high cultureand a frequent spectator at the circuses of his time, situated the central sceneof his popular novel Felix Krull in the circus ring, an environment especiallyrich in metaphoric power. While attending the circus, Mann’s protagonist,Felix Krull, observes a trapeze artist and imagines himself leading an equallychallenging life, constantly walking a fine line between Schein and Sein.He is especially enchanted by the female performers, whose androgynousappearance transcended traditional gender roles: “She was neither womannor man, and thus no human at all. A serious angel of daring courage, withopen lips and flared nostrils, an unapproachable Amazon of the circus dome,

6 Paula Busch’s essay about women in the circus, written in the first decades of the twentiethcentury, is an exceptional source. She discussed four reasons why a woman could enjoy thecircus. Her first point seemed to be a concession to the public’s expectation: a woman goesto the circus to see her children happy, since it is a unique place to see wild animals as wellas well-trained horses. But in Busch’s eyes the real reason for the presence of women waswomen’s superior sensitivity to the sexual undercurrents of most circus acts. Busch arguedthat the erotic tension in the circus act could be felt more strongly by a woman than by aman. “Die Frau im Zirkus,” Ms., Circus-Busch-Archiv, Berlin.



figure 2. Paula Busch was heir to one of the most successful and influential circusempires in twentieth-century Germany.



figure 3. Paula Busch regularly appeared in her own elaborate circus pantomimes.

high above the arena, high above the motionless masses, who were rivetedby their desire for her.”7

The female circus athlete was routinely considered a member of the ThirdSex, a judgment inspired less by her appearance – she did not hide her femaleattributes – than by her accomplishments in the ring. She clearly subvertedtraditional notions of female propriety and the female physique. She wasathletic and commanding like a man, strong and beautiful like a wild animal,seductive yet chaste, part angel and part Amazon. Most importantly, shewas a female in no need of a male to define her. According to Mann and hiscontemporaries, such a woman thus could not be truly human. She was not athreat to the male ego, but was a creature of the imagination, and ultimatelyits muse.

The circus arena became an exceptionally permissive space because itcould claim to be literally “out of this world.” Only here could one seebodies dressed in costumes of flesh-colored skin-tight tricot. The allusion tonakedness, not nakedness itself, was the desired effect. (Under no circum-stances was public nudity tolerated by the authorities.) In addition, one could

7 Thomas Mann, Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull (Frankfurt, 1975), 151.



watch a range of body movements, an uncommon sight in Victorian societies.Contemporary propriety recognized a significant difference between staticbodies and moving bodies. Despite increasing protests by physical educationreformers, women especially were required to keep their neurasthenic bodiesas immobile as the practical demands of their family lives allowed. However,the static body could still pass as an expression of art given that most of theclassical sculptures conspicuously gracing the salons and gardens of Europe’scontemplative bourgeoisie were nudes. The actual flexing of warm and puls-ing muscles was a quite different matter. A marble or bronze statue was acanonic piece of art, but a body in motion was pornography. The circus,however, was free to celebrate the living, strong, and graceful physiques ofmen and women. At a time in which chastity and modesty were core virtuesfor German women, and when even a glance at an ankle was a taboo brokenonly by a world war, the circus provided “pleasure in the bodily beauties,in the movement and the forms of men and women.”8 Circuses becameprominent players in a newly emerging heterosexual leisure culture in whichwomen and men of all classes and ages shared hours of distraction in eachother’s company.

Not all circus programs were alike, however. While stationary circusesseem to have pushed the erotic fantasies of their visitors to feverish heightswith their theatric circus pantomimes, traveling circuses largely limited them-selves to delicate and rather harmless allusions to the joys of forbidden plea-sures. Their emphasis remained on the skill and athleticism of their perform-ers, the occasional transgression of the Victorian dress code being justifiedas the athletic demands of the act. The different approaches of these twotypes of circuses were in part a function of differences in their organizations.Whereas stationary arenas had to shift their performances toward the evermore sensational so as to keep attracting audiences to their arenas, travelingcircuses could retain traditional aesthetics in their acts because these circuseshad the luxury of a new audience with every move.

the choreography of chaos

Ironically, the aesthetically more conservative traveling circus remained thefocal point of contemporary circus fantasies; life on the road was a never-ending source of wild speculation. However, the real world of the circuswas far from how its audience imagined it based on seeing a performance.The production of chaos and play in the ring required discipline, self-denial,and hard work from all members of the circus. A two- to three-hour showfeaturing a seemingly effortless and spontaneous interplay of fantastic crea-tures, clowns, and acrobats demanded far more coordination and planning

8 Halperson, Das Buch zum Zirkus, 1.



than most military maneuvers required. Discipline and order were the pil-lars of any circus show. The more mobile the enterprise, the more impera-tive that its routines and divisions of labor, space, and authority be clear.The circus’s social structure was organized in a hierarchical way, somewhatreminiscent of a caste system. The owner’s family constituted the inner cir-cle; it was headed by a director and the director’s eldest child, the “crownprince/princess” of the circus empire. The circus director was omnipotent,and his authority resembled that of an enlightened despot.9 Seasonal work-ers, the director’s servants so to speak, floated on the periphery and weremainly responsible for handling equipment. The larger enterprises had highlyorganized and well-outfitted crews, the so-called Pfalzer and Bohmen.10 Theacrobats and hired artists were the link between these two factions.

Although the circus upset the norms of gendered spheres for its specta-tors, it insisted on separating the spheres in its everyday life unless doingso interfered with putting on the show. Within the traveling circus socialcontrol was not exerted by the director alone, but in a sublimated form waswoven into the social fabric of the circus. This was a consequence of thecircus’s isolation from the rest of the population, and of its being constantlyon the move. In particular, young unmarried women were submitted to astrict regime. They had to sleep in a special wagon where they were chaper-oned by an older woman. Their daily routines were strictly regulated roundsof training sessions, communal meals, traveling preparations, performances,and sleep. They were forbidden to have either contact with the male publicor romantic involvement with men in the crew. Either situation potentiallyendangered a woman’s value to the circus, as well as the reputation of thecircus in the public eye.

Despite such precautions, circuses, whether they traveled or not, couldnever completely shed their Bohemian reputation. Even in 1931, when thecircus as popular entertainment was past its prime, professional artists stillhad to fight the image of the circus as a world of sexual pleasure and intrigue.In identifying pulp fiction as one culprit in the perpetuation of harmful

9 Karl Doring, “Zirkus Reform,” Das Programm, no. 1168, August 24, 1924, documentaartistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.

10 For decades these seasonal workers were recruited out of Bohemia and the Palatinate. Skillsand knowledge were handed down from father to son, from one generation to the next,providing the necessary stability and continuity in personnel for the circus enterprises. Theseworkers were segregated from the rest of the circus staff not only because of the lower statusof their work but also because of where they came from. Bohemian workers in particu-lar communicated only in their native language. When the well-known Circus Strassburgerin 1910 searched for a new equerry (Stallmeister) and Stallsprechmeister, one of the mainrequirements was knowledge of the Bohemian language. See Herbert Nissing, Strassburger:Geschichte eines judischen Circus (Dormagen, 1993), 28; and Hermann Arnold, FahrendesVolk: Randgruppen des Zigeunervolkes (Landau, Pfalz, 1983), 178. This system of recruit-ment collapsed for various reasons in the 1930s.



myths about the circus, these artists were inadvertently perpetuating thesame middle-class norms that were responsible for their own disqualifica-tion as an art form. They seemed oblivious to the fact that it was preciselythese myths that drew audiences into the circus tent in the first place.

The remarks of one contemporary performer reveal the circus’s eclecticcombination of (middle-class) work ethic and partnership of the sexes mainlyfound in working-class families:

He who knows the circus is also aware that the work of artists is much too seriousand responsible to allow for a life of disrepute and primitive eroticism. One simplydoes not pursue the wife of a colleague, firstly because she is not only a good wifeand industrious worker, bound to her husband not only in matrimony, but also as aprofessional partner. Secondly, one needs all of one’s collective physical and mentalfacilities to master such demanding work. One cannot afford to lose oneself in loveaffairs. It would cost too many nerves and pose a daily threat to life and limbs.11

Clearly, the circus folk’s control of their individual emotions was not just theresult of the despotism of a few ambitious circus directors. It was a necessaryprecondition for the survival of each member of the circus community andfor the successful development of a distinct circus aesthetic. A trapeze artisthanging by her hair from the cupola of the big top could hardly afford ajealous husband; throwing knives and axes at one’s partner in life requiredextraordinary mutual trust as well as a steady hand. Ironically, a mediumthat promised its audience temporary escape from their dreary quotidian lifeby opening a window on a fantastic world of spontaneity, erotic ambiguity,and unrestrained emotions was in many ways itself an idealized replica ofthe tightly wound society it performed for.

Calls such as the following, from the acrobat Erich Kloos, capture thegreat desire performers had to embody and not merely to mirror middle-class values and norms: “What I wish for these variety artists is that theycontinue with their enthusiasm to become educated and through hard workon themselves attain social recognition and thereby raise the social standingof the profession as a whole. . . . It is the spirit, which builds the body.”12

Circuses, and in this management and performers saw eye to eye, fought hardto establish respect for their professional ethos as popular entertainment.Although they were outsiders to middle-class norms and values, performersstill used all possible venues to emphasize the will, the strength and the skillrequired to lead a life in the circus. Their reputation never compared to thatof “ordinary” upstanding citizens in Imperial society, but they did manage

11 Sebastian Brand, “Der Circus und die Literatur.” Das Programm, no. 1524, June 21, 1931,documenta artistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.

12 Erich Kloos, Der Artist, no. 1206, March 12, 1908, documenta artistica collection in theMarkisches Museum, Berlin.



to claim a conspicuous space between the world of ill repute and the worldof the drawing room.

All circuses were permeated with an aura of autocratic rule that coex-isted and stood in odd opposition to the liberties taken in displaying theartists’ bodies. While each individual act could potentially transcend con-ventional norms in the ring, it was simultaneously framed by a strongauthoritative structure, generally represented by the family patriarch. Mostcircus families favored displays of such authoritative rule, and appearedeager that their audience take note of its existence and of order beyondthe demands of showmanship. In fact, it may have been the coexistence ofautocracy and transcendence that allowed most circuses to largely circum-vent the attention of the authorities and avoid censorship. Both ThomasMann’s and Paula Busch’s earlier observations hint of, although in dif-ferent ways, the subversive power of circus entertainment in its inher-ent challenge to male cultural authority in the eyes of circus spectators.Nonetheless, authorities and middle-class associations rarely saw the cir-cus as a location for serious sexual transgression; they worried far moreabout women spectators’ relationship to images on film than to those ofthe ring. Thus gender ambiguity and even androgyny in circuses did notupset contemporary philistines, but controlling the voyeuristic pleasures tobe found in dark movie theaters did become a concern shared by many (male)contemporaries.13

ethics and the business of wonder

Jewish circus families were particularly concerned with projecting an imageof credibility, quality, and irreproachable ethics. Unlike Gentile circus direc-tors, Jewish directors seemed to abstain from publicly contemplating eroti-cism, androgyny, or other potential transgressions in the ring. Their maingoal was to diffuse any suspicion of fraud or hypercapitalism involvingtheir enterprises. The Blumenfelds, as a typical German-Jewish circus fam-ily, desired to be a model of ingenuity and middle-class respectability, pittingthemselves against other, less noble figures in the circus milieu. They envi-sioned their public persona as three-dimensional, combining the images ofhonorable businessmen, romantic artists, and upright artisans. The Blumen-felds saw these different types as compatible, although they had not beenso in the past. In the Middle Ages, for example, in times of artisanal pro-duction, publicity and advertising were unnecessary. Under the honor codes

13 Patrice Petro, “Perception of Difference: Woman as Spectator and Spectacle,” in Katha-rina von Ankum, ed., Women in the Metropolis: Gender and Modernity in Weimar Culture(Berkeley, CA, 1997), 41–66; Andreas Huyssen, “Mass Culture as Woman: Modernism’sOther,” in Tania Modleski, ed., Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to MassCulture (Bloomington, IN, 1986), 188–207.



of the traditional guilds, these forms of self-promotion were not consideredrespectable. Only marginalized groups of society, such as fairground per-formers or Jews, who were not granted membership in these guilds, wereallowed to advertise their art and skills.14 Hence the images of the uprightartisan and the Jewish artist were by definition mutually exclusive, as wasthe image of the Jewish businessman and the artisan. The self-perceptionand self-promotion of German-Jewish circus families brought together his-torically incompatible concepts. The families’ appropriation of an artisanalhonor code belied their own past as outlawed German-Jewish fairground per-formers. The significant effort that German-Jewish circus families such as theBlumenfelds made to fashion tradition and custom in their favor, reinvent-ing their professional identities, constituted an attempt to forge a respectablepast after they had established themselves favorably in the present. As mem-bers of the German middle classes, they were aware that their future lay intheir past.

It is hardly surprising that bourgeois virtues constituted the commonlinks among the three identities: artisan, artist, and businessman. Each ofthese images drew its legitimization from an appreciation of individual meritand an idealization of hard work and discipline. A high respect for honestywas another common element binding together the three facets of this self-perception. This honesty was itself very much put “on show.” The traditionalcircus ring heightened the physical reality of the acts, for there were no cur-tains and double bottoms deceiving the public’s eye. The Marxist philosopherErnst Bloch in 1959 pointed to the irony that a popular form of entertain-ment could serve as a paradigm of the highest moral and aesthetic codes.He acknowledged the aspirations of classical circus entertainment and com-bined his analysis with the claim that the inherently bourgeois honesty ofcircus entertainment was exemplary of art’s highest ideal.15

Circus directors such as the Blumenfelds also aimed to attract specta-tors by the quality, craft, precision, and honesty of their companies’ per-formances. The Blumenfelds’ goal was to attract and cultivate an audienceof middle-class regulars. Gerda Blumenfeld, the wife of the circus directorAlfred Blumenfeld, recalled that in their endeavor to make a name for them-selves, they habitually included the same stops on their seasonal tours.16 Thecircus management hoped thereby to establish a crowd of regular customers

14 Karl Heinz Feuerstein, “Vom Ankundigungsplakat zum Schaustellerplakat,” in Carl-Albrecht Haenlein and Wolfgang Till, eds., Menschen, Tiere, Sensationen, Zirkusplakate,1880–1930, Exhibition Catalogue, May 5 to June 18, 1978, Hannover, 18; also,W. Danckert, Unehrliche Leute: Die verfehmten Berufe (Bern and Munich, 1963).

15 Ernst Bloch, Das Prinzip Hoffnung, in Gesamtausgabe, vol. 5 (Frankfurt a. M., 1959),422–23.

16 Gerda Blumenfeld’s memories, original manuscript in the possession of her granddaughterGabriele Blumenfeld in Magdeburg. See also Der Artist, no. 1500, November 9, 1913, The-aterhistorische Sammlung Unruh, FU, Berlin.



in various cities and thus minimize their economic risk. Because these reg-ulars were recruited mainly from the middle classes, the programs and self-promotion of the traveling circuses catered to both the normative and theaesthetic expectations of these social classes. By 1909 the German middleclasses were increasingly rejecting foreign economic competition. To stresstheir traditional work ethic and their patriotism, the directors of the Blu-menfeld circus emphasized their resistance to the so-called Americanization(Amerikanisierung) of circus entertainment.

Historians have examined the immense impact of American cultural andeconomic influences on the Weimar Republic. These studies rightly point tothe heated public debates in the mid-1920s about America’s influence onthe German economy, and they illustrate the German people’s ambivalenceabout America (as they understood it) – about its “advanced technology andunprecedented economic prosperity, its high wages and brisk work pace, itsdizzying consumption patterns and emergent mass culture, its new womenand disturbing family life.”17 Far less research has been done on Americaninfluences in the Imperial period, although many stereotypes existed priorto the First World War.18 Mass entertainment was one of the first socialspheres in Germany to deal with the challenges from across the ocean.Historians focused on the Weimar period because they failed to identifythe circus as the first mass medium, instead viewing film as the first andprimary mass vehicle of Americanization.19

In fact, beginning with the introduction of the chapiteau, American inno-vations in technology and management played an important role in the circusworld as well as in variety entertainment. For example, retrospectively, in1926, the head of the international variety theater directors’ organization(Internationaler Variete-Theater-Direktoren Verband) explicitly connectedtechnology and modern mass amusement: “The rise of the variety entertain-ment began in the 1890s and ran parallel to the rise of modern technology,upon which it relied heavily. Artists worked frantically on new and innova-tive machines. Every single one became a great or small entrepreneur, oper-ating all over the world.”20 The development of modern technology was

17 Mary Nolan, “Imagining America, Modernizing Germany,” in Thomas W. Kniesche andStephen Brockmann, eds., Dancing on the Volcano: Essays on the Culture of the WeimarRepublic (New York, 1996), 71. For a more extensive account of rationalization and Amer-icanization, see idem, Visions of Modernity: American Business and the Modernization ofGermany (Oxford, 1994).

18 Nolan, “Imagining America,” 78.19 For an insightful account of the American influences on German film, see Thomas J. Saunders,

Hollywood in Berlin: American Cinema and Weimar Germany (Berkeley, CA, 1994). Unfor-tunately, Saunders does not provide a detailed analysis of actual films, but focuses insteadon the discourse about film in Weimar Germany.

20 Josef Milos, “Zwischen Seil und Trapez. Deutsche Varietekunst im Ausland,” Berliner Tage-blatt, March 26, 1926, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



linked to an international orientation, whose negative equivalent becamethe ever-threatening so-called Americanization.

The debates about “Americanization” were not only about speed and effi-ciency, generally subsumed under the notion of rationalization. They werealso about mass consumption and the consequent standardization of con-sumer goods. German circus circles also harbored ambivalent feelings aboutAmerican influences on German popular culture. In particular, German-Jewish circus enterprises stressed that their public demanded quality insteadof quantity. As it did in every other sphere of consumption, German taste inmass entertainment changed slowly. The German middle classes continuedto deem tradition to be the best guarantor of quality and to look down onanonymous mass production. According to this rationale, mass productionand sensationalism went hand in hand. Germans and German-Jewish circusdirectors prided themselves on being able to strike the right tone at the righttime:

We do not practice advertising as it is imported from America, i.e., postings oflithographs in showcases, because among a thousand posters shown to the audi-ence, not a hundred of them reflect reality. Our advertisements will only presentwhat we really do offer. Along with other solid, sound enterprises, we are combatingthe excessive American advertisements that have become so popular in the past years,and we will announce our shows accordingly in proper fashion.21

Yet American traveling circuses were known to have perfected the art ofadvertising. In the United States, months before a circus could be expectedin a city, so-called advance men plastered any available surface will vivid col-ored lithographs of wild animals and half-naked performers, calling attentionto the upcoming show of wonders.22 In her fascinating study of the Americancircus scene, Janet M. Davis cites, for example, Adam Forepaugh’s circus,which in 1892 “announced its impending presence in Philadelphia by mum-mifying an eight-story building with 4,938 lithographs, in addition to pastingthousands of other posters around the city.”23 This practice was widespreadin turn-of-the-century American circus entertainment. But while they mayhave exaggerated the scale, danger, or size of the coming shows, rarely didthese posters allude to acts that bore no resemblance at all to what was per-formed in the ring. Clearly, German denunciations of American dishonestyand false advertising were also meant to discredit potential competitors, asthe ambitions of American circuses were known to extend to the Europeancontinent.

21 Published in a newspaper in 1909, this assessment is cited by Rudolf Geller, “Die FamilieBlumenfeld und ihre Circusse,” Die Zirkuszeitung, Kulturhistorische Gesellschaft fur Circusund Varietekunst, June 1992, 23, Circus, Variete- und Artistenarchiv, Marburg.

22 Janet M. Davis, The Circus Age: Culture and Society Under the American Big Top (ChapelHill, NC, 2002), 1.

23 Ibid., 2.



Aside from securing their market, Jewish circus entrepreneurs were eagerto engage in a dialogue with their audiences to emphasize their sharedvalues. The circus owners’ goal was to establish a rapport with the pub-lic that, as Jewish entertainers, they could not take for granted. Fearingto be stigmatized as a tasteless parvenu, the Blumenfeld family wantedto separate itself from the newcomers who were flooding the market forcircus entertainment. Just like any other middle-class business, the CircusBlumenfeld drew attention to its long presence in the field. Their demon-strated abhorrence of the new methods of self-promotion – catchy fly-ers, colorful posters, sensational journal articles – reveals as much aboutthe Blumenfelds’ own outlook as it does about their audiences’ sensi-bilities. One of the most pervasive anti-Semitic stereotypes of the nine-teenth century conflated Jews and “parvenus.” Small businessmen, shop-keepers, and artisans often equated Manchesterism and ruthless moderniza-tion with “Jewish” greed and capitalism.24 Because these groups constituteda large portion of the circus audience, most German-Jewish circuses care-fully avoided any form of sensationalism. Even when equipment or financialpractices had to be modernized, the necessary changes were hidden from thespectators.

Despite their public disclaimers, circus managements were not opposedto Amerikanisierung as a means of making their enterprises more efficient.The Circus E. Blumenfeld Wwe. was the first traveling circus to switch itstransportation of personnel and material from horse-drawn carts to specialtrains – a move that prompted contemporaries to describe it as the ideal typeof a German traveling circus.25 By 1900, the Blumenfeld circus could visit120 cities in one season and 24 locations in one month. These numbers wereall the more remarkable because at this time the circus traveled with 6 tentsin addition to the chapiteau, 28 wagons, 130 horses, a huge collection ofelectrical equipment, and its own string orchestra. It was common knowl-edge in professional circus circles that the Blumenfelds aspired to competewith the American model of Barnum & Bailey, and its proximity to Ameri-can standards accounted for the singular status of the Circus Blumenfeld inthe German circus scene. Thus, in 1913, Der Artist noted that “even beforeBarnum and Bailey toured Europe with their gigantic enterprise, the CircusE. Blumenfeld Wwe. already operated, although on a smaller scale, neverthe-less at a similar speed as the Barnum system. E. Blumenfeld Wwe. was able

24 See Shulamit Volkov, The Rise of Popular Antimodernism in Germany: Urban Artisan Mas-ters, 1873–1896 (Princeton, NJ, 1978).

25 “During this time the Circus Blumenfeld Wwe. developed into the most typical Germantraveling circus [Typus deutscher Wandercircusse].” Der Artist, no. 1500, November 6, 1913,Theaterhistorische Sammlung Unruh, FU, Berlin. In 1925 the Blumenfeld family had alreadyowned a stationary circus for five years; yet they were still counted among the travelingcircuses. Das Programm, April 26, 1925, documenta artistica collection in the MarkischesMuseum Berlin.



to accomplish what no other German circus could before.”26 The Blumen-felds’ heavy reliance on train transportation could easily be considered anexpression of exactly the kind of Americanization the family fiercely rejectedin their public announcements. But this specific form of “Americanization” –the use of new technology – did not carry any stigma because it aligned itselfwith the belief in technical and social progress shared by many Germans.The use of catchy advertisements, by contrast, was closely associated withcheating or fraud. Behind the battle against “unfair competition” (unlautererWettbewerb), a battle fought in the name of “good manners” (guten Sitten),one could sense the resentment of traditional small workshop owners againstbig business, with its extreme market orientation and commercial acumen(such as in publicity and sales).27

courting the circus

Whenever they arrived at a new location, the directors of the differentbranch circuses – there were always several Blumenfeld circuses travelingat the same time – were particularly eager to demonstrate their popular-ity among the local nobility.28 In 1896 the Blumenfeld management eventrumpeted its good relations with these elites on the circus’s official letter-head, promoting the circus as “Circus E. Blumenfeld Wwe., Europe’s largesttraveling circus, 80 horses, and 28 caravans. Distinguished by the visits ofroyal personages.”29 Circus management frequently organized charity per-formances to demonstrate their good relations with the old elites and to con-solidate their self-definition as respectable members of the middle classes. InMarch 1910, for example, the Blumenfelds managed to collaborate with thePrussian military in hosting a fundraising performance attended by KaiserWilhelm II and the crown prince.30 In this respect, however, the attitude ofthe Blumenfeld family differed considerably from that of the stationary cir-cus directors like the Gentile entrepreneur Paul Busch. For example, PaulaBusch has recalled that her father usually refused whenever he was asked tocollaborate in a charity performance to be sponsored by the old elites. Heknew that he would not gain from such cooperation; instead, these charity

26 In Der Artist, no. 1500, November 9, 1913, Theaterhistorische Sammlung Unruh, FU, Berlin.On the size of the circus, see Willi Janeck, “Erinnerungen an Circus Blumenfeld,” DeutscheCircus-Zeitung, February 1957, 15.

27 Jurgen Kocka, Klassengesellschaft im Krieg, 1914–1918 (Gottingen, 1973), 69.28 See, for example, the presence of the prince of Corevey at the guest performance of the

Blumenfeld circus in Ratibor, Das Programm, no. 589, 1913, documenta artistica collectionin the Markisches Museum, Berlin.

29 Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt, Magdeburg, Rep. C29, Tit. IV, l. 3, no. 15, Bd. II, 320.30 Das Programm, no. 413, 1910, documenta artistica collection in the Markisches Museum,

Berlin.



figure 4. Traveling circuses often included a salon wagon that was reserved for therecreation of the director’s family members.

events would be unwelcome interruptions of his enterprise.31 Jewish circusmanagers, however, wanted to ensure that both their loyalty to the crownand to their homeland and their respect for social hierarchy could in no waybe doubted. The following passage, published in Das Programm in 1911,illustrates the particular nature of the relationship between the nobility andthe circus:

Distinguished guests at the Circus E. Blumenfeld Wwe. On the 11th of this month, hisRoyal Highness the Grand Duke and the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerinhonored a performance of the Circus E. Blumenfeld Wwe. at Schwerin with theirpresence. The Highnesses stayed throughout the entire program; the following dayat 3:30 in the afternoon, the sovereign couple returned to the circus, this time topay full respect to the Blumenfeld brothers, and to visit the stables. The Blumenfeldbrothers guided this half-hour tour. During this time, the sovereigns affably conversed

31 “One day the privy councilor [Paul Busch] urgently asked Miss. stud. Phil. Paula to comeand see him. The Hofmarschallamt had called. The crown princess asked whether I [PaulaBusch] would join a group of other young ladies of society to perform at a charity festivity.A circus prank was particularly desired. . . .‘Sawade may give you his most dangerous tiger,who should then devour you on stage! That would be a funny prank for the people!’ Thiscaustic joke demonstrated my father’s great distaste for those charity events that were sopopular among the contemporary high class. He had a different concept of welfare and ofmeasures to do away with poverty and distress. Paul Busch had no patience for the fosteringof public relations in society.” Busch, Spiel meines Lebens, 133.



figure 5. The Blumenfeld directors routinely posed with their favorite stallions.

with the Blumenfeld brothers who will never forget the day on which these Germanprinces honored them. Finally the sovereigns departed, not without a handshake.(We congratulate the directors Blumenfeld on these illustrious visitors, who serve todemonstrate our previous claim that persons of highest rank show a lively interest invariety theaters and circuses. The editors.)32

The general tone of this report is a mixture of devotion and pride. German-Jewish circus directors imagined and styled themselves as subjects of a benev-olent ruler, whose appearances at their circuses set them apart from othercircuses and gave them an aura of distinction. The apparently informal andprivate setting in which the Blumenfelds exhibited their horses to visitingroyalty was meant to highlight the mutual respect and appreciation betweenthe circus directors and the noble elites.

The circus world greeted the frequent appearances of German nobil-ity at circus performances with great satisfaction. Reports on these visitswere immediately posted in professional journals and local daily newspa-pers to impress the public and to enhance the social status of the circus.They also lent clout to circus enterprises in their battles with state officials tobe regarded as cultural institutions equal to the great theaters of the age. Oneimportant benefit of such respect was exemption from the notorious sin tax(Lustbarkeitssteuer). Whereas “higher artistic” (kunstlerisch hochstehende)

32 Usually these kinds of notices were sent by the circus to the editorial staffs of the respectivejournals, which in most cases did not change the wording. The Blumenfeld circus’s pressofficer was probably responsible for this article; Das Programm, no. 476, 1911, documentaartistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.



cultural institutions were forced to pay only between 3.5 to 8 percent of theirdaily income, circuses were required to pay 25 percent of their income to thestate.33

Hence, as demonstrated by the outcomes of visits from traditional elites,the relationship of German-Jewish circus families to state authorities wasshaped less by modern nationalism than it was by premodern patriotism(Landespatriotismus). The frequent references by the circus management tothe popularity of the circus among the German nobility was an importantmaneuver meant to protect the circus, an international institution, from thegrowing nationalism of its audiences. Circuses were not limited by nationalboundaries, but toured all over Europe. Some even incorporated South Amer-ica and Russia into their travel routes. They hired international artists, andtheir employees spoke numerous languages and practiced different religions.Modern nationalism, which was based on the notion of a Kulturnation,defined by a shared language, thus posed a threat to the circus as a culturalinstitution.

In this context, traveling circuses needed to put much more effort intoproving their loyalty in times of crisis than did stationary circuses. Althoughtraveling circuses spent considerable time outside the German nation-state,their audiences still wanted them to “feel most German.”34 By revertingto the “outdated” concept of Landespatriotismus, German-Jewish circusdirectors tried to avoid shipwreck on the shoals of national sentiment. Theyimagined themselves to be a part of a community that defined itself throughpersonal allegiance to the emperor rather than one based on race, religion,language, or territory. In short, the managers of traveling circuses resortedto a demonstrative conservatism (Wertkonservatismus) in an era of nationalawakening.

The concept of a benign relationship between a ruler and his subjects wasan idealization of pre-emancipatory times. Because members of the German-Jewish community had been denied citizenship and civil rights in Germanyuntil 1869, they had been particularly dependent on a good relationshipwith the crown and its representatives. Only the king could protect themfrom mistreatment by local authorities. The Blumenfeld directors saw intheir personal contact with high-ranking nobles a public acknowledgmentof mutual respect. A symbiotic relationship existed, but the relationship hadchanged significantly since pre-emancipatory times. German-Jewish enter-tainers no longer performed for the court. At the turn of the century, notonly was the artist acceptable at court (hoffahig), but he had found his ownrealm of sovereignty: in the circus, he welcomed the nobility to join him.

33 See “Die kulturelle Bedeutung des Zirkus,” Das Programm, no. 1342, 1927, 13, documentaartistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.

34 Roger Chickering, We Men Who Feel Most German: A Cultural Study of the Pan-GermanLeague, 1894–1914 (Boston, 1984).

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figure 6. Especially in the early 1920s, the Blumenfeld families took their circuses as far as South America to escape the severeeconomic crisis that devastated many German family enterprises. Here, a family portrait is made on an Atlantic cruise shipshortly after the Blumenfelds’ departure from Germany.

79



figure 7. Emanuel Blumenfeld as a young man at the turn of the century, striking adistinctly Wilhelmine pose.

The self-promotion of the Blumenfeld family demonstrated their self-confidence and suggests parallels between the German Empire and thecircus empire. In 1924, after the demise of the German and Austrian monar-chies, Das Programm compared the all-powerful position of the circusdirector to that of an enlightened despot within the circus empire. DasProgramm praised the Blumenfeld family for its exercise of personal powerand sovereignty in promoting the communal good:

As far as the position of the director within the enterprise is concerned, there is nowell being without authority. Just as it is impossible to claim hegemony in politicsand government without exercising authority – Austria, for example, collapsed after



the hegemony of Habsburg came to an end – one cannot do without authority in therealm of the circus. There has to be authority. But authority should not degenerateinto tyranny. Violence is always a symptom of weakness, as is terror. . . . A goodpatriarchal relationship between directors and artists, demonstrated just recently atthe birthday of the director Alfons Blumenfeld, or as one can also see at the Corthy-Althoff circus – a relationship which has not degenerated into awkward familiarityon the one hand, and which does not diminish the rights of the artists on the other –is and will be the best and most beautiful [sort of relationship].35

The preceding passage suggests that because mistakes had been made in therealm of high politics, it fell to circus directors to communicate order andauthority to the masses. Once again, the Blumenfeld circus was portrayedby the professional press as a circus enterprise able to set an example thatcould radiate even beyond the boundaries of mass entertainment.

The wish of circus directors to be considered the friends of tradition andauthority was reciprocated by many (though not all) members of the upperand upper-middle classes. The nobility appreciated the Pferdezirkus as aform of entertainment that propagated their norms and values to a wideraudience. In this sense, the circus represented a vehicle for the communicationand legitimization of noble conceptions of chivalry, militarism, and glamour.These characteristics did not necessarily conform to middle-class tastes andsensibilities; nevertheless, by the nineteenth century, these values had alreadyentered the cultural canon of the middle classes via cultural institutions suchas the circus. Thus, concepts and worldviews that were originally identifiedwith the nobility were appropriated by the wider public and, to a significantdegree, ceased to be exclusive.

Jewish circus families were doubly motivated to strike this bond of middle-class norms and noble exclusivity. The Blumenfelds, Lorchs, and Strassburg-ers cultivated public exchanges with traditional elites because this relation-ship also could be considered a visible expression of their final acceptance inGerman society. These families’ particular identification with a small-townconservatism, which demonstratively abhorred the modernizing influence ofthe New World and romanticized a preindustrial past full of artisanal blissand harmonic order, is an indication of their extraordinary efforts to over-come what had isolated them when that past had been their grim present.As a realm with unique social and aesthetic possibilities, the circus promisedto be a most able forum for this transcendence.

35 Karl Doring, “Zirkus Reform,” Das Programm, no. 1168, August 24, 1924, documentaartistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.


4

Losing Common Ground

In the summer of 1914, the outbreak of war took the Circus E. BlumenfeldWwe. by surprise. The regular visit to Posnan was hastily ended in the middleof the season. Within days, seven sons of the family responded to the callto arms. The chapiteau and most of the horses were expropriated for armyuse. The rest of the company barely made it back to their home base. Thismoment seemed to mark the tragic death of a Jewish circus enterprise thatcould look back on a history of more than one hundred years. Indeed, whenthe Blumenfeld family temporarily went “off the ring,” it was more thandoubtful that they would ever be able to return to it.

The Blumenfelds were hardly alone in facing difficult circumstances, andin comparison, the situation of some related enterprises seemed even grim-mer. The Strassburger and the Lorch families, for example, struggled witheven more desperate problems in the first week of August. They had becometrapped abroad. When the battles began, the Strassburgers had been tour-ing Sweden, and the Lorch family was engaged in England. These circusfamilies were used to moving, albeit not without difficulty, certainly withdetermination, across national borders. Their seasonal staff was recruitedfrom all over the globe, a fact that almost sealed their fate in 1914. TheStrassburgers, for example, lost overnight all of their Austrian, German, andFrench personnel to the front lines, putting future shows in doubt. Evenworse, members of the Lorch family were arrested as hostile foreigners; theywere released only after they assured the authorities they would not leaveEngland without official permission. For months, they remained strandedwithout any means of employment in an increasingly hostile country.1 Butthe most unfortunate situation must have arisen for acrobats touring Russia,who were deported to Wologda, a town situated about 550 kilometerseast of St. Petersburg. Contemporary eyewitnesses claimed that this remote

1 Notice on the Lorch family in Das Programm, no. 648, September 6, 1914, documentaartistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.

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Losing Common Ground 83

Russian city teemed with German performers trying to escape in all possibledirections.2

In Germany, after the war, hyperinflation was so severe and mobilityso constrained as a result of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles that theexistence of many German circuses, Gentile and Jewish alike, hung by athread. This blow to their livelihoods hit all circus artists hard. In 1926, JosefMilos, the director of the Association of German Variety Employers, spokeof what it meant for performers to suddenly be stranded in a hostile foreigncountry:

The war, which naturally destroyed all international connections, had surprised manyartists on enemy territory and led to their internment. Even after the war one couldnot conceive of working abroad. England denied all artists of German and Austrian-Hungarian nationality to perform on British territory until 1924. In Russia, due tothe putsch, all variety theater disappeared over night, and with the exception of afew state circuses have not yet reemerged.3

Circuses that had rarely run into visa problems crossing borders in prewarCentral Europe were suddenly confined within the smaller postwar Germanterritory. The impoverished German population was hardly able to providea reliable audience for the numerous traveling and stationary circuses. Theheavy wartime losses of personnel and equipment were equally catastrophicfor all of these enterprises, and increasing competition from variety showsand moving pictures further endangered the market for circus entertainment.

The various Blumenfeld circuses, overcoming the initial shock of post-war conditions, reorganized and continued to perform in their largestWinterquartier in Magdeburg. But these circuses could not maintain thehigh standard they had established for their performances: their staffs weredrastically reduced, and their animals had either starved to death or beenrequisitioned for military use at the front. The war years brought extremehardship to the Blumenfeld family, which was certainly not exceptional forthose times. Many smaller circus enterprises lost their businesses entirely.Again, both Gentile and Jewish circuses were challenged by these changes.Jewish circuses, however, came to experience the postwar crisis particularlydramatically. First, as traveling circuses they could operate in only a fractionof their former territory. In the aftermath of the war it was clear that the con-flict not only had impoverished the entire German population and depletedthe last resources of circus managements, but that it also had finished off theexisting political order. The society that had served Jewish circus families astheir reference point, informing their aesthetics as well as their interactions

2 Notice on Russian situation in Das Programm, no. 648, September 6, 1914, documentaartistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.

3 Josef Milos, “Zwischen Seil und Trapez. Deutsche Varietekunst im Ausland,” BerlinerTageblatt, March 26, 1926.



with spectators, had been swept away. Although Imperial Germany washardly known for its warm embrace of ethnic minorities, Jewish circus fam-ilies had still been able to appropriate some of its core values in the ring andmake them their own. Their conservative worldview was compatible withthat of German society at large and was reflected in the circuses’ aestheticrepertoire. But this common bond between performers and spectators wassundered by the war. The massive crisis confronting Jewish circuses cannotbe explained by economic hardship alone, it must be examined as part ofa breakdown in the dialogue between performers and spectators inside andoutside the ring. By the end of the war, Jewish circus families were losing theiraudiences. Only a closer examination of their performances in the context ofthe larger political and social changes occurring within German society canfully explain the dramatic decline in the fortunes of these century-old cir-cus families. We must remember, however, that the onslaught of anti-Semiticcampaigns, beginning as early as 1926, renders futile any speculation aboutwhether Jewish families could have regained control over their own fortunesin the postwar decades.

sattelzeit: the magic of a ring in transition

To understand the complicated dynamics of the demise of Jewish circusenterprises during and after the First World War, one first has to under-stand what motivated these circuses to subscribe to specific aesthetic ele-ments in the prewar period. Equestrian acts had dominated the shows ofGerman-Jewish circuses as soon as those enterprises had been able to affordhorses, and continued to do so until well into the twentieth century. Thethree greatest German-Jewish circuses were particularly acclaimed for theirfree-ranging dressage, displaying up to one hundred stallions in a singleshow. Hohe Schule and Jockeyreiten were integral parts of these acts. A fas-cination with horses was shared by performers and audiences. In Imperialsociety, horses suggested socially exclusive values, such as quality and pros-perity. Until 1914 audience enthusiasm for horse shows was so high thatthe dancing horse “Puppchen” became the greatest celebrity on display inthe Blumenfeld circus, more popular than any human artist.4 Puppchen’sperformances were always announced individually in the programs. Thehigh point of its act was its pas de deux with a ballerina, and during this

4 “Puppchen” was named after a famous song in the operetta Puppchen, which was a hitin Berlin. The composer, Jean Gilbert (alias Max Winterfeld), had a multifaceted careerthat exemplified how popular entertainment genres were interconnected, exchanging motifs,styles, and performers. Gilbert conducted the orchestra of the Circus Hagenbeck and laterbecame a regular at the exclusive Metropol Theater, the leading popular revue and operettatheater of Berlin. Otto Schneidereit, Berlin wie es weint und lacht. Spaziergange durch BerlinsOperettengeschichte (Berlin, 1973), 161–62, 165.



dance Puppchen demonstrated its mastery of numerous steps. Moreover, thehorse could change rhythms without any apparent help from its trainer. Inthe pas de deux, the grace of the ballerina was matched by the elegance of thehorse. By having the horse perform the male part in the dance, the unwrittenlaws of compatibility were altered in a fascinating way. Two of the mostpopular elements of the circus aesthetic – the fragile ballet dancer and thevigorous horse – were combined to form an ensemble. In previous circusperformances, the ballerina danced on the horse, but now she danced withthe horse; the two were equal partners in an “unnatural” act that enthralleda prudish and horse-crazed society. These performances were carefully keptfrom being openly erotic; but their subtext reminded audiences of “beautyand the beast.” A horse, Puppchen, became “human” to a degree unknownin previous circus history. Countless spectators mourned Puppchen’s suddendeath from colic. The circus directors staged the horse’s cremation like astate funeral, complete with the participation and sympathy of the masses.

Whereas stationary circuses such as the Circus Busch introduced circuspantomimes into their shows, presenting extravaganzas that included slid-ing elephants, diving mermaids, and oriental snake charmers, the Blumen-felds subscribed to a quite different aesthetic with their widely acclaimedmock tournaments (Ritterspiele).5 These circus acts recalling the exploitsof medieval knights were in fact responses to heated contemporary debatesabout social status and honor in Imperial society. The tournaments evokedelements of the court societies of the Middle Ages, which had already beenmimicked by the riding societies in the early period of the circus. The agilityand riding skills of the acrobats were captured within a ritualized combatsituation that imitated the dueling tradition of the nobility. Of course, thesedisplays were themselves artificial, so art was imitating art. Having becomepopular in the twelfth century in Germany, tournaments had ceased to havea purely military function and developed into a means of self-portrayal fornoble knights. These duels were meant to demonstrate superior virtues suchas courage, loyalty, and self-control. Serious injuries were neither intendednor necessary to bestow honor and social distinction on the combatants.6

The tournaments were acts of friendship and peace in which combatantstreated each other with respect.7 The appropriation of these honor codesby circus performers popularized these values and combined them with aneducational purpose, rendering them even more entertaining (and less lethal)than the original tournaments. Thus circuses willfully ignored contemporary

5 “For every long-standing circus friend the name Blumenfeld is unforgettable. Especially inGermany, this name was known among horse lovers for over a century. The equestrian showsof the Blumenfelds especially the tournaments were always a special treat for the eye.” WilliJaneck, “Erinnerungen an Circus Blumenfeld,” Deutsche Circus-Zeitung, February 1957, 14.

6 Ute Frevert, Ehrenmanner: Das Duell in der burgerlichen Gesellschaft (Munich, 1991), 21.7 Ibid., 22.



dueling practices of the German Empire, which were decidedly more lethalthan duels fought in other countries.8 These acts promoted values such asliberty, self-determination, and manliness, but not the compulsive nature ofmany duels in military and academic circles.9

Imperial Germany’s military and its universities developed elaborate codesof conduct for the satisfaction of honor. These codes stipulated the exclusionof minorities and especially of Jews who were denied the ability to render“satisfaction” (Satisfaktionsfahigkeit).10 Jewish circus directors, however,refused to accept such discrimination. With their mock medieval tourna-ments, Jewish circus families asserted both their own and their audiences’inclusion in the traditional honor code. During the Middle Ages, the com-mon people had also been excluded from tournaments. But now popularentertainment compensated for this historical deficit. As a circus act thetournament was taken out of its traditional social context and ceased to bethe privilege of one elite group in society. As the following passage suggests,these acts conveyed the message of social peace and friendly competition,not vicious antagonism and mortal combat. Most importantly, they wereaddressed to all parts of society:

The achievements of this circus in other areas are outstanding as well; its perfor-mances in the arena prove this best. These are not pantomimes, but novelties thatco-director Mr. H. Blumenfeld himself created, and which the press acknowledgedas particular specialties. The Hannoversche Anzeiger and the Casseler Tageblatt evenaccredited the tournaments [Ritterspiele] at the Zirkus E. Blumenfeld Wwe. with ahigher educational value.11

Whereas stationary circuses used ever more dazzling modern technologyto stage their gigantic spectacles, often allowing set and scenery to over-power the actors, German-Jewish traveling circuses still perceived the indi-vidual performer as the central element of their shows. They turned to theroots of circus entertainment to gain new inspiration. German-Jewish cir-cuses attempted to meet the growing demand for a more theatrical chore-ography for individual acts without, however, losing the equestrian elementas the core component of their shows. Thus the Blumenfelds continued to

8 Kevin McAleer and Ute Frevert agree on this point, although their studies differ greatlyin interpretation. Frevert claims that the bourgeoisie appropriated a formerly noble honorcode and made it their own, whereas McAleer argues that dueling was one of the meansby which the German bourgeoisie attempted to imitate their betters. Frevert, Ehrenmanner;Kevin McAleer, The Cult of Honor in Fin-de-Siecle Germany (Princeton, NJ, 1994).

9 Frevert, Ehrenmanner, 235.10 See Norbert Kampe, Studenten und “Judenfrage” im Deutschen Kaiserreich (Gottingen,

1988). For the concept of anti-Semitism as a cultural code: Shulamit Volkov, “Antisemitismas Cultural Code: Reflections on the History and the Historiography of Antisemitism inImperial Germany,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 23 (1978), 25–46.

11 “Zirkus E. Blumenfeld Wwe. (Guhrau),” Das Programm, no. 500, 1911, documenta artisticacollection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.



promote quality over quantity, refusing to fall victim to Americanization.Their adherence to such middle-class norms as individual merit and skills,a sense of history, self-formation, and civic pride gained the Blumenfeld cir-cus the respect of middle-class newspapers. In 1920, one local newspaper,discussing the performance of the traveling Blumenfeld circus in Cologne,indicated that although they were well received, Blumenfeld shows wereconsidered atypical for their time. By the 1920s, the Blumenfeld circuses hadbecome the circuses of the “good old times”: that is, circuses in danger oflosing touch with the new trends in mass entertainment. In other words,at the same moment these circuses gained entry into the bourgeois culturalcanon, they were acutely in danger of losing their broad-based appeal. TheCircus Blumenfeld

does not attempt to be fashionable by simultaneously putting up two or three rings,whose respective acts would compete with additional stunts in the air, and whoconsequently push to the limit the audiences’ capacity to observe and absorb. [ . . . ]A magical act and a comical scene in which the beginning of Schiller’s “Rauber” wasperformed were the highlights of the clown’s act . . . It has to be acknowledged thatthis circus cares for its horses and the dressage lovingly; it is thereby attempting inan exemplary manner to conserve the original nature of the circus as a cultural andeducational institution [Zirkus als Kultur- und volksbildenden Faktors].12

Not surprisingly, the Blumenfelds chose Friedrich von Schiller, the quint-essential poet for Germany’s bourgeoisie, in their homage to GermanKultur. As Anat Feinberg, in her insightful study of Jewish attitudes aboutWilhelmine and Weimar theater, has reminded us, a visit to the Deutsche The-ater to see Tell or Die Rauber belonged to the “bon ton of the middle class,bourgeois upbringing” and was thus particularly revered by German-Jewishburghers.13

Nevertheless, the traditional horse shows, with their naive evocation ofan ideal world, their endorsement of a pseudomilitary honor code, and theirappropriation of a noble aesthetic, began to appear anachronistic and inad-equate in the reality of the First World War. Because of the change in theaesthetic desires of their fluctuating audiences, German-Jewish circuses wereunder increasing pressure to alter their programs.14 The increasing impov-erishment of their prewar middle-class clientele exacerbated the economic

12 “Blumenfeld” file, documenta artistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.13 Anat Feinberg, “Stagestruck: Jewish Attitudes toward the Theater in Wilhelmine and Weimar

Germany,” in Jeanette R. Malkin and Freddie Rokem, eds., Jews and the Emergence ofModern German Theatre (forthcoming).

14 Contemporary circus specialists like the journalist M. de Kloot (Das Programm) mourned thechanging aesthetic but accepted that it was irrevocable. “Shortly after the war the majorityof circus lovers ceased to appreciate the highest challenge of rider and horse [he is referringto Hohe Schule]. One may conclude that the critical audience for such distinguished showsseemed to be missing.” M. de Kloot, “Gluck auf den Weg,” Das Programm, no. 1624,May 24, 1933, documenta artistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.



troubles German-Jewish circuses had after the First World War, especiallybecause they refrained from following the widespread practices of advertis-ing with catchy announcements and producing sensational shows. Instead,they relied on the survival of their immaculate reputation among a regularclientele.

Studies of class formation and social mobility during the First World Warhave demonstrated that the lower middle classes in Germany were especiallyhard hit by the economic crises between 1916 and 1924. German-Jewish cir-cuses lost an important sector of their audiences as a result of the economicdepredations of the war. The savings of potential visitors melted away inthe wartime and postwar inflation. Shopkeepers and artisans saw their ownlivelihoods shrink because the purchasing power of their clientele droppeddramatically. The economic situation of white-collar workers was similarlycatastrophic; their salaries hardly covered their essential needs – droppingbetween 25 and 50 percent.15 Their losses were even greater than those ofthe working classes. Between 1916 and 1918, despite bonus payments andlimited salary increases, the income of white-collar workers remained farbelow the subsistence level and the income of industrial workers.16 Thusalthough the potential audience for circus entertainment increasingly had tobe recruited from the working classes, Jewish entrepreneurs did not targetthis social group specifically. Indeed, Jewish circus families could not con-ceive of their enterprises as providing entertainment solely for the workingclasses, even though this social strata was becoming the primary consumersfor their type of entertainment.

Although they reacted to changes in audience tastes before 1914, Blu-menfeld circus directors did not address audience disenchantment while thewar was being fought. The third generation of German-Jewish circus direc-tors continued to feature horse acts because they still perceived the horseto be integral to the social advancement they had experienced as Jews. InImperial Germany, the horse had been a central cultural symbol, capturingmany facets of German society. It was a familiar sight on the streets, har-nessed to streetcars and beer lorries or to the carriages of Germans from theupper reaches of society. Visiting Berlin’s fashionable park, the Tiergarten,on any morning in the week, one saw countless gentlemen parading theirthoroughbreds and women of distinction charming the occasional flaneuron horseback. Most Germans acknowledged the value and importance ofthe horse.

In Imperial society, the horse symbolized three social factions – thelandowners, the nobility, and the military – that had been off-limits toGerman Jews in pre-emancipatory times. For most members of the thirdgeneration of German-Jewish circus directors, who were born before 1869,

15 Jurgen Kocka, Klassengesellschaft im Krieg, 1914–1918 (Gottingen, 1973), 71.16 Ibid., 71.



that past was still recalled in the accounts of their fathers’ generation. Theygrew up as the first members of their families to enjoy legal equality, guaran-teed by their German citizenship. This generation was reluctant to displacethe horse because it represented their emancipatory successes. The horse wasa potent symbol of their pride in their achievements, hence their determina-tion to offer equestrian acts despite the acts’ unprofitability. They perceivedthese acts as part of their dialogue with the larger German society, and theysaw themselves as full citizens of the Second Empire, embracing its socialorder without, however, accepting its limitations and deficiencies for Jewishemancipation. Within their own “circus empires” they corrected society’s“faults” and displayed an ideal world of chivalry, honor, and courage totheir spectators. This vision, in turn, captured and informed the dreams andaspiration of the masses until the eve of the First World War.

The opening program for the Circus Blumenfeld’s 1920 season in Dessauindicates that horses continued to dominate circus performances:

Wander-Zirkus Gebr. Blumenfeld Jun. Magdeburg, formerly E. Blumenfeld Wwe.Guhrau (1811–1920)

Program

1.–3. Music, Conductor: Mr. Hubrich4. Der Rosenkavalier, four gentlemen riding on two horses each5. Humorous escapades by two comedians6. Miss Victoria, riding bare back7. Pia Coco-Trio, The Mysterious Melody and other Pieces8. Nero and Pluto, Breeding Bulls exquisitely trained to perform by Director

Arthur Blumenfeld and Mr. Enriko.9. Alfonso Castello and Company – Catapult acrobats (6 persons)

10. Pascal and Ervero Spanish foot jugglers10-minute intermission

11. Music – screening of commercials; new ads will be accepted any time in themain office

12. Triumphant wagon procession set in Nero’s time13. Gadbin Brons – guest appearance only14. Free dressage by Miss Amalie Lorch and Director Alfons Blumenfeld; includes

eight Pintos trained in only six weeks15. The indestructible Bogade Company – the newest act, the collapsing newspaper

stand16. Puppchen – world famous operetta horse of director Alex Blumenfeld17. A hilarious bet: The man with a ladder – performed by the original clowns

Coco and Alfonso18. The Jansly siblings: An equestrian act19. Eclair. The floating beam on a roaring motorbike20. Closing Procession17

17 Dessau, April 1920. A copy of the program can be found in the “Blumenfeld” file, documentaartistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.



figure 8. Professional portrait of the Jansly siblings, famous for their jockey act.

This program illuminates various dimensions of equestrian acts, but per-haps none more so than the role of the horse in rural life. The shows of theBlumenfelds imitated horse shows and horse races in the circus arena. Bothrepresented popular activities of large-estate owners, who could afford tobreed expensive horses. Thus act 14, “free dressage by Miss Amelia Lorchand Director Alfons Blumenfeld,” mimicked the horse show’s elegant displayof valuable steeds. Such an act had its particular attraction in the characterof the trainer, who acted as “the patriarchal land owner”: remaining almostmotionless and effusing dignity, he calmly observed his parading horses fromthe center of the ring. In another vein, Act 18, the jockey act of the Janslysiblings, emphasized the sporting and dynamic element of equestrian acts.Horse racing was a popular pastime for the rich and idle: the races were



figure 9. The traveling Circus Blumenfeld attempted to stem the increasing demandfor exotic animals by promoting their dressage of heavy work horses.

playfully combative, the jockeys were athletic and graceful, and most impor-tantly, the race track offered an informal space for romantic encounters. Allthe circus’s equestrian acts were performed either by a Blumenfeld familymember or by a member of a closely related German-Jewish circus family, asin the case of the Jansly siblings – another clear sign of the horse’s centralityto the show.

In pre-emancipation Germany, the owners of large estates constituted asocial group closed to Jews, who were forbidden to own and cultivate land.Even after the legal barriers had disappeared, Jews remained underrepre-sented among landowners in the German Empire. In light of the underrep-resentation of Jews in the rural elite, the Blumenfelds took particular pridein their role as aspiring landowners. As noted earlier, in the prewar period,the Blumenfeld family had become wealthy enough to buy not only theirown circus facilities and winter domicile but also enough land to providefor their large stables. In Guhrau/Silesia they were known to be among thewealthiest landowners in the area. In their self-promotional activies the Blu-menfeld and Strassburger circuses stressed pastoral elements. Thus amongtheir specialties were displays of strong Kaltbluter – horses used primarilyfor heavy farm work – and presentations of breeding bulls.18

18 See Act 8 in this context.



Rural elites were not the only traditional elites in Germany who appreci-ated horses as signifiers of wealth and status. The nobility also perceived Ara-bian stallions and fiery racing horses as ultimate luxury items. This dimensionof the horse, as a cultural symbol, emphasizing luxury and exclusivity, con-stituted another reason why the display of horses appealed to Jewish circusfamilies. Until the second half of the nineteenth century, German Jewry wasamong the poorer segments of society. In addition, although German Jewsexperienced considerable social and economic advancement during the nine-teenth century, they rarely were given noble titles; those few titles that weregranted Jews were often not hereditary ones. The horse enabled the German-Jewish circuses to imitate and appropriate a noble habitus, disregarding pastand contemporary social restrictions.

Yet another variation on the theme of wealth and distinction was theparticipation of traditional elites in high culture. By presenting an operettahorse to their audience, the Blumenfelds alluded to the practice of exclu-sivity in the realm of theater. The image of the operetta horse captured the“inside/outside” dichotomy of the circus genre. Operettas were originallymeant to be parodies of opera. During the nineteenth century, however,operettas ceased to be considered part of the counter culture. High societyembraced operettas, as did ordinary men and women who sang their tuneson city streets. Although the operetta might mock high culture for beingpompous and pretentious, it never questioned the opera as a cultural insti-tution. Regular visits to the operetta were an integral part of the theaterseason in every larger German city. In the Blumenfeld circus program dis-cussed earlier, the references to the opera Der Rosenkavalier in Act 4 as wellas to “Puppchen – world famous operetta horse of director Alex Blumenfeld”in Act 16 reflected the popularity of opera and operetta during the Imperialperiod. Finally, horses were a central feature of elite military culture. GermanJews could not hold the rank of an officer in the German army before1914. Only when the emperor proclaimed the Burgfrieden on August 4,1914, could Jewish noncommissioned officers in the German military bepromoted.19 For the third generation of German-Jewish circus directors, thehorse represented yet another forbidden sphere of society that they couldmimic in their horse shows.

The Blumenfelds had always had a special relationship to the military.German-Jewish circus families viewed military service as a fundamentaldimension of their German citizenship. In the Franco-Prussian War and inthe First World War, every adult male was required to serve in the armedforces, and most Jewish men volunteered with an enthusiasm equal to thatof any other German. In fact, many German Jews perceived the First WorldWar as a welcome opportunity to demonstrate their willingness to make

19 Werner T. Angress, “The German Army’s ‘Judenzahlung’ of 1916: Genesis-Consequences-Significance,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, 23 (1978), 118.



personal and material sacrifices for the homeland.20 In previous eras, suchsacrifices had been considered a question of honor. In 1870, according tothe family saga, the patriarch Emanuel Blumenfeld bid farewell to his sonsdeparting to serve in the Franco-Prussion War, telling them: “The king hascalled, go, do your duties, God will take care of me.”21 During the periodof economic hardship brought on by the war, a spectator is reported to havemade a passionate speech in front of the Blumenfeld circus tent, beseechingthe onlookers to attend the circus out of patriotic solidarity. He declared thatsince the patriarch had sacrificed his three eldest sons to fight against theenemy, the least people could do was support the man by attending hisshow.22 In 1914, the call to arms of the various Blumenfeld sons was madeknown in a special note posted in Das Programm.23 Again, the sons fromvarious Blumenfeld families were among the first volunteers. Within months,seven of the eight sons of Simon Blumenfeld had enlisted.24 One of them,Alex Blumenfeld, died in combat and was listed among the fallen soldiers inthe professional journal Das Organ der Varietewelt in October 1918. Twoothers, Arthur and Eugen Blumenfeld, received the Iron Cross (second class)for their special deeds at the front.25

As patriotic Germans, many Blumenfelds volunteered for wartime ser-vice as selflessly as did their Christian compatriots, if not more so. But asentrepreneurs in mass entertainment, the Blumenfelds also made sure that

20 Werner T. Angress, “Das deutsche Militar und die Juden im ersten Weltkrieg,”Militargeschichtliche Mitteilungen 19 (1976), 78.

21 Saltarino, Das Artistentum, 27; also, “Hunderjahriges Jubilaum des Zirkus E. BlumenfeldWwe,” Das Programm, no. 464, 1911, documenta artistica collection in the MarkischesMuseum, Berlin.

22 “Ladies and Gentlemen, I do not belong to the circus, I am a visitor of the fair just like your-self. I am sorry that the Blumenfeld circus does not make any business due to its competition.Ladies and Gentlemen, the three oldest sons of the old Blumenfeld – the mainstays of hisenterprise – are soldiers in the war against France. The father is deprived of the breadwinnersin the family, who sacrifice their blood for the fatherland. Ladies and Gentlemen, it is ourduty that we support the circus Blumenfeld with our visit!” Saltarino, Das Artistentum, 28;also, “Hunderjahriges Jubilaum des Zirkus E. Blumenfeld,” documenta artistica collectionin the Markisches Museum, Berlin.

23 “This ancient circus family probably provided the most members to be fighters for thefatherland. Not only the gentlemen Emil Scherra and Adolf Blumenfeld were called to arms,but also the grandsons of these gentlemen: Leo and Arthur – both sons of the enterpriseL. Blumenfeld-Menden – received the order.” Das Programm, no. 647, 1914, documentaartistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.

24 As Gerda Blumenfeld recalls: “And soon there were not only three but seven brothersBlumenfeld called to arms, five of which served at the front and two at the home front.” Copyof Gerda Blumenfeld’s unpublished memoir: “150 Jahre alter deutscher Circus in 12 JahrenHitler Tyrannei vollkommen ausgerottet!” The original manuscript is in the hands of Gerda’sgranddaughter, Gabriela Blumenfeld, Magdeburg. I am grateful to Gabriela Blumenfeld forher permission to consult this important source.

25 “Our Artists in the War,” Das Organ der Varietewelt, October 1918, documenta artisticacollection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.

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figure 10. A member of the Blumenfeld family volunteering to serve in the imperial army in 1914.

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potential audiences were made aware of the economic and personal sacri-fices their volunteering entailed. They sought to establish a high degree ofidentification with their audiences by appealing to either the patriotism orsense of honor of circus patrons. In the first months of the war, it seemedthat the imagined world of harmony and chivalry that they depicted in theirperformances had become a reality. However, the heated debate about theGerman army’s “Jewish census” (Judenzahlung) in 1916 led to a rude awak-ening.26 Moreover, the general disappointment that a war that was supposedto last only a few months was instead dragging on for years led to increasingdissatisfaction among the wider population, who began to search for some-one to blame for food shortages, costly battles ending in stalemates, and thewavering self-confidence of the political leadership.

postwar circus: death-defying acts

The First World War marked a watershed in the aesthetics of circus enter-tainment. Before 1914, equestrian acts had figured prominently in the showsof most traveling circuses. The trauma of total war not only affected theeconomic and social situations of all segments of the German populationbut also fundamentally transformed spectators’ tastes and sensibilities.27

The reality of violent death shaped everyday life and transformed innerlives. The nightmares of many Germans resonated in circus and varietyshows. Because collective dreams and theatrical illusion went hand in hand,the troubled consciousness of the populace informed the performances ofmass entertainers. “Berlin, your dance partner is death! howled the adver-tising columns,” recalled the composer and cabaret entertainer FriedrichHollaender.28 Death became the leitmotif in many circus performances andvariety shows, displacing former themes such as romance, chivalry, and naiveeroticism.

The demand for sensational Todesartistik threatened to marginalize thestaple of many circuses: the equestrian acts. Now almost every show had tofeature the newest thrill: the fight for life. Key to these acts was the possiblefailure of the individual performer to survive. Danger to life and limb in thecircus arena was real. The anticipation of potential catastrophe dominatedthe expectations of audiences, and more than occasionally such expecta-tions were fulfilled.29 A man catapulted himself out of a cannon and into

26 On the Judenzahlung, see Angress, “The German Army’s ‘Judenzahlung,’” 117–37.27 For the trauma of the First World War and its reflection in Germany’s cultural production, see

Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (Toronto,1989).

28 Friedrich Hollaender, Von Kopf bis Fuß. Mein Leben mit Text und Musik (Bonn, 1996), 68.29 The contemporary Walter Benjamin reduced this special thrill of potential death to the

following formula: “Im Zirkus hat die Wirklichkeit das Wort, nicht der Schein. Es ist immernoch eher denkbar, daß wahrend Hamlet den Polonius totsticht, ein Herr im Publikum um



the air, only to be swallowed by a gigantic funnel-shaped construction. Anacrobat peddled for his life on a conveyer belt, always in danger of runninginto sharp spears set up on both ends of the belt.30 The extensive use ofmodern equipment and elaborate machines mirrored wartime technologicaladvances. The outcome of these stunts always appeared uncertain, and theprevailing mood among the audience was morbid. Indeed, dangerous stuntswere such a frequent sight during the war that the police became concernedfor the safety of both artists and audiences. Municipal officials and policeadministrators tried to tighten security controls to provide a semblance ofsafety in the ring. However, their efforts failed to suppress the rising tide ofsensational stunts.

These new acts were remarkable both for their content and for their delib-erate attempt to create stars in the ring. Stardom was a new concept in circusentertainment. Previous centuries knew only successful types of artists: theclown, the horseback rider, the ballerina. Traveling circuses had begun toreact to the growing demand for identification with individual performersmainly by promoting their animals in a personalized manner (“the cleverHans,” “Puppchen”). In the nineteenth century, the circus artist was meantto be a member of a community, rather than an individual with a complexpersonality. Circus personnel understood the circus as collective subject thatdefined itself through its parts. But the anonymous mass graves of the FirstWorld War created a desire for singularity among the war’s survivors. Thusperformers whose acts involved life-threatening stunts began to be intro-duced by name to their audiences. They plucked their individuality, quiteliterally, from the jaws of death. After the decisive shift against Germany inthe second half of the war, this star cult only increased in importance intothe 1920s.

Death artistry (Todesartistik) introduced both a new aesthetic and newartistic self-definition to the ring. In promoting themselves, artists drewsimultaneously upon their similarity to other people and their singularity. Asthe literary critic Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht has pointed out, a star as an indi-vidual icon also functioned as an incarnation of collective identity. “Only abody in performance,” Gumbrecht argues, “can be seen by a collective as theincarnation of a specific type of individuality.”31 Such performances under-mined traditional concepts of culture and tradition. Only such elementary

das Programm bittet, als wahrend der Akrobat von der Kuppel den doppelten Salto macht.”Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt a. M., 1972), Rezension uber RamonGomez de la Serra, Le Cirque.

30 See photograph of man on the bicycle in Martin Schaaff, Die Buschens – 100 Jahre Cir-cus Busch (Berlin, 1984), 40, as well as of the man and the canon: “Cliff Aeros – VomTodesspringer zum Zirkusdirektor.” Gisela Winkler and Dietmar Winkler, Allez hopp durchdie Welt: Aus dem Leben beruhmter Akrobaten (Berlin, 1987), 75–98.

31 Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, In 1926: Living at the Edge of Time (Cambridge, MA, 1997),208–209.



figure 11. Exterior of the permanent Circus Blumenfeld building in the city centerof Magdeburg.

attributes as strength and speed – demonstrated particularly in combat withfire, gravity, or pressure – were consistently accommodated in the ring andappreciated by the spectators.

Death artistry also led to a revision of gender relations in the ring, sincemale performers carried out most of these sensational acts. These stuntscreated a gender imbalance in the realm of circus entertainment. Previously,men and women had performed on equal terms. But because the new actsmimicked physical and psychological distress expressed through violence,disorientation, helplessness, and isolation, they alluded to experiences thatwere specific to (male) soldiers during the First World War.32 The violence andpower of soldiers’ front-line experiences and the novelty of technical warfareheightened a desire for meaning. In an aesthetic framework, German massentertainment addressed this desire and gave it universal expression.

a new generation of blumenfelds

The Blumenfeld family faced substantial challenges in the aftermath of thewar. They had to pick up whatever had been left of their circuses by thestate authorities, and they had to reconsider their management and artis-tic program. In April 1920, the four brothers – Alfred, Alex, Arthur, andAlfons – established their new headquarters in Magdeburg. Their opening

32 Klaus Vondung, ed., Kriegserlebnis: Der Erste Weltkrieg in der literarischen Gestaltung undsymbolischen Deutung der Nationen (Gottingen, 1980), 25.



night, conceived of as the rise of the phoenix from the ashes, was the source ofconsiderable pride for the youngest Blumenfeld generation. It was a personalvictory, a victory that was hard to foresee at the begining of the war:

The year of our opening was incredibly difficult. Most of our horses had been confis-cated, 75 horses were recruited in the first weeks of the war alone. Since our fodderwas confiscated as well, our animals suffered from starvation. We lost most of ourexotic material as a consequence. No less then three elephants, two camels, threezebras . . . etc. died due to malnourishment. Losses occurred on the day-to-day basis.To not loose everything, we sold the rest and only kept “Puppchen” the operettahorse.33

This premiere marked not only the resurrection of the Blumenfeld circus,but also the installation of a traveling German-Jewish circus in a stationaryarena; it was an exceptional day for the Blumenfelds. They were the first Jewsto enter the Gentile realm of stationary circuses, pioneers among German-Jewish circus families in establishing a permanent arena in a medium-sizeGerman city.

Magdeburg was not a random choice for the location of such an enter-prise. Since 1878 traveling circuses had regularly visited Magdeburg, espe-cially during the autumn trade fairs.34 In 1893 the Magdeburg city councilapproved the construction of a permanent circus arena, seating 2,890 spec-tators.35 The building included a restaurant and a variety theater. A mobilestage facilitated the staging of concerts and large assemblies. Thus, from theoutset, the circus building had been intended for a variety of purposes. Giventhe experiences of stationary circuses in Hamburg, Berlin, and Vienna, thedevelopers wanted to minimize their risks by supplying a range of activi-ties and entertainments to their Magdeburg audiences. A limited partner-ship raised the remarkable sum of between 850,000 and 900,000 marks astheir starting capital for the enterprise.36 The invitation to buy shares in

33 “April 3 1920, the traveling circus Blumenfeld Jr. Magdeburg, [one of] the oldest existingcircus enterprises and family owned for more than 100 years, reopens its gates under a newdirectorship, after it stood still for six years. Immense successes in Dessau, Halle, Cassel,Erfurt, Plauen, Chemnitz, Breslau and now also Berlin have proven that the Circus Gebr.Blumenfeld Jr., Magdeburg is on top of the world, second to none in quantity and exceedingmany in quality.” See “Blumenfeld” file, documenta artistica collection in the MarkischesMuseum, Berlin.

34 In 1878 the Circus Althoff was the first larger circus to visit Magdeburg.35 There were 170 seats in the boxes, 260 Sperrsitze, 260 Tribune, 500 seats in first class, 700

seats in second class, and 1,000 seats in the gallery. See the address book of the city ofMagdeburg.

36 See Dagmar Bremer, “Theater fur eine Stadt – dargestellt am Beispiel der MagdeburgerStadtentwicklung von ihrer Auspragung zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts bis Anfang der 50erJahre,” unpublished Diplomprufung, Theaterhochschule “Hans Otto,” Leipzig, 1991; copyin Stadtarchiv Magdeburg.



the Magdeburger Circus-Variete-Aktiengesellschaft was posted in the localpapers on March 31, 1893.37

Like other major circuses, the Blumenfeld family sensed the poten-tial of having a brand new arena, whose central location in the GermanEmpire promised high revenues. In January 1896 – just two years after theMagdeburg building’s official openings which featured the Circus Renz –the Blumenfelds filed a request with the Magdeburg police asking permis-sion to give eight guest performances in the arena.38 By 1914 the Blumenfeldfamily had owned the circus building at the Konigsstraße 62/63 inMagdeburg for several years, although they did not own the land on whichthe building stood. The circus directors therefore negotiated further withcity officials: they wanted to be allowed to either buy the land outright orlease it for twenty-five years.39 Eventually, the municipal government agreedto lease the land to the circus. On January 11, 1914, Der Artist pointed outthe advantages of this arrangement for the municipality, emphasizing theeconomic gains to be had from an enterprise such as the Circus Blumenfeldat a time when local revenues from the tourism and entertainment industrieswere beginning to exceed those that could be derived from more traditionaleconomic sectors.40

The fourth generation of the Blumenfeld circus family was exceedinglyprosperous, as were their contemporaries in the Strassburger family. Moresignificantly, the nature of the families’ wealth had changed considerablysince the founding of their respective enterprises. Their forebears had beenable to run successful enterprises even without possessing large quantities ofcapital. Because the first three generations of German-Jewish circus entertain-ers were primarily concerned with providing for their numerous offspringby setting them up with their own family enterprises, profits were reinvestedimmediately. Furthermore, most circus families were distrustful of fluctuat-ing currencies, and they avoided inflation by exchanging their cash for gold,which they sometimes hid under their pillows or between false walls in theircaravans.41 The purchase of a building such as the arena in Magdeburg,

37 Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt, Magdeburg, Rep. C29, Tit. IV, l.3, no. 15, vol. 2, 230.38 Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt, Magdeburg, Rep. C29, Tit. IV, l.3, no. 15, vol. 2, 320.39 See the long report from Magdeburg in Der Artist, no. 1509, January 11, 1914, Theaterhis-

torische Sammlung Unruh, FU, Berlin.40 “Magdeburg’s advantages resulting from a relocation of the Circus Blumenfeld are quite

obvious. On the one hand that would lead to the addition of several families in the highertax brackets, and on the other hand enhance tourism due to frequent circus shows and similarperformances.” Der Artist, no. 1509, January 11, 1914, Theaterhistorische Sammlung Unruh,FU, Berlin.

41 Gypsy performers were known to have maintained this practice even longer. One story hasthe traveler Petermann hiding a half million Goldmark between fake walls of his wagon.When he was deported to a concentration camp during the Nazi regime, the Gestapo foundthe money by smashing his entire caravan. Hermann Arnold, Fahrendes Volk: Randgruppendes Zigeunervolkes (Landau, Pfalz, 1983), 185.



figure 12. Professional portrait of Alfred, Alex, and Arthur Blumenfeld.

however, demanded liquidity from its potential owners. This acquisitionmust therefore have been preceded by a fundamental change in businesspractices. Moreover, this change in strategy was by no means confined tofinancial transactions. Instead, it was symptomatic of a larger phenomenoninvolving a dramatic change in self-perception and life strategies.

One of the most visible indicators of such a shift was the fourth gen-eration’s altered attitude toward education. By the 1910s the disregard forBildung among most circus artists had given way to an appreciation of for-mal education. Unlike previous generations, the fourth generation of theBlumenfeld family left its offspring behind when the circus was on the roadso that the children could attend school and institutions of higher educa-tion. When Karl Doring, a journalist for Das Programm who specialized inreports about the circus world, tried to trace the different branches of theBlumenfeld family in 1929, he noted that Ruth Blumenfeld had graduatedfrom business school (Handelsschulabschluß) in Magdeburg, Arthur andVicki Blumenfeld’s children had attended school in Magdeburg, and WilliBlumenfeld had trained as a pharmacist.42 Clearly, German-Jewish circusfamilies no longer insisted that their children aspire only to circus careers.By the early 1920s these parents were aware that the circus as an industryhad lost its momentum and was now undergoing substantial restructuring.They no longer regarded a career as a trained entertainer to be the highest

42 Karl Doring, “Wo sind die Gebruder Blumenfeld?” Das Programm, September 15, 1929,documenta artistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.



ideal for their children and instead encouraged their children to get formaltraining as businesspeople. In opting for the free professions, they followeda traditional occupational pattern of German Jewry, which, to forestall dis-crimination in other economic sectors, placed special value on professionaland economic independence.

When the junior directors advertised on the occasion of the April 1920opening of the Blumenfeld circus in the Magdeburg arena they revealed howconscious they were of their circus’s new status within a city noted for itsclose-knit social relations and local patriotism. This awareness played animportant role in the ability of their circus to win acceptance from andintegration into the small world of this medium-size provincial city:

Merchants and artisans of Magdeburg have completed the first tasks needed for there-opening of our enterprise. They have supported us as much as they were able.Today we want to thank them for that. Our new hometown [Heimatstadt] can beassured that we will always try to show only state-of-the-art circus entertainment.43

It seems that the junior directors of the stationary Blumenfeld attemptedto continue on the path of earlier generations without, however, repeatingtheir mistakes. Although a traveling Blumenfeld circus continued to exist,the fourth generation directed the stationary circus in Magdeburg using aconsiderably altered program.

The older Blumenfeld generation considered the stationary circus inMagdeburg to be an experiment, and some family members continued torun traveling circuses featuring traditional shows from the prewar period.They realized that the only way they could avoid a radical aesthetic reinven-tion was to explore new markets, which they sought mainly in rural EasternEurope (East Prussia, Poland, and Russia), where circuses were known toadhere to traditional circus aesthetics.44 In 1922, the Blumenfelds startedtheir first tour of the Baltic states, visiting large cities such as Riga and Kovno.Between October 1924 and March 1925, they made guest performances inSoviet state circuses. By this time, traveling with a stable of forty-five horses,the Circus Blumenfeld once again matched in size the larger German travel-ing circus enterprises.45

While traveling, the Blumenfelds still relied on a display of equestrian acts,whereas in their stationary circus these acts had given way to grand circuspantomimes a la Busch. Night after night in the glamorous circus building in

43 “Mitteilung,” documenta artistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.44 Even in 1930 East Prussia lacked places for individual artists to perform in cabaret or variety

shows. Das Programm informed its readers that no artist liked to sign a contract in theseregions “because he feared to remain without subsequent employment in addition to thehigh traveling expenses. Both cabarets in Konigsberg are fighting a constant battle for sur-vival.” Das Programm, June 22, 1930, 28, documenta artistica collection in the MarkischesMuseum, Berlin.

45 They possessed forty-five horses, two elephants, six camels, three llamas, one guanaco, twobulls.



Magdeburg spectators could admire the water pantomimes with their highlycomplicated choreography and innovative technology. Colored electric lightsand hydraulic pumps ensured that these acts reflected the latest technologicaladvances. The Volkerschauen too came to the Blumenfelds’ venue in Magde-burg during their European tour. By this time, Volkerschauen had a longhistory in circus entertainment. They were the products of an Imperial erain which inventory-minded scientists and collectors tried to satisfy expand-ing markets for exotica. In the 1920s, however, such displays of the foreignwere giving way to the staging of sports events. These public games turnedworking-class athletics into mass spectacles. Whereas the Volkerschauen didnot gain notoriety in Magdeburg, the sports competitions did. Perhaps themost modern “ring” of all was the one that echoed from the shouts of audi-ences attending the wrestling competitions held regularly at the Magdeburgarena after 1922. Unlike the programs given by other stationary circuses,the Magdeburg circus now focused on displays of other worlds, worlds thatincluded the native working class; it still abstained from producing moreradically nationalistic circus shows such as had become the norm in theKrone and Busch circus empires, now increasingly used for political rallies aswell.

While the traveling enterprises encountered more and more difficulties insustaining their audiences’ interest, the Magdeburg circus seemed exceed-ingly successful. Nevertheless, the stationary circus’s fate was sealed whenthe National Socialists began to organize boycotts of Jewish enterprises in1927. These boycotts were supported by a number of middle-class organi-zations that could be easily mobilized against their Jewish competitors.46

As early as 1925, such boycotts, which mainly targeted well-known Jewishenterprises in the textile, cattle, and retail industries, were occurring in someof Germany’s smaller cities.47 A stationary circus in a medium-size city closeto the magnet Berlin involved a particularly high economic risk for its man-agement. More than ever, a good rapport with its audience was crucial forthe economic success of such an enterprise. The Blumenfeld circus, however,found this challenge an impossible one to meet. By 1927, the local popula-tion no longer identified with “their circus.” Magdeburg was an early centerfor the Nazis’ violent anti-Semitic propaganda. The wealthy Blumenfeldswere among the most “visible” Jews of Magdeburg, and thus it comes as nosurprise that they were singled out for abuse, as in the anti-Semitic brochureThe Jews of Magdeburg Introduce Themselves, which dates from the late1920s.48

46 Moshe Zimmermann, Die deutschen Juden, 1914–1945 (Munich, 1997), 43.47 Ibid., 44.48 The pamphlet Magdgeburger Juden stellen sich vor has no publication date. It lists prominent

Jewish families in Magdeburg, and includes their addresses and information about theiroccupations. Registration no. 805681n, Stadtarchiv Magdeburg.



Although the Circus Blumenfeld Jun., Magdeburg did very well between1925 and 1927, a committee of its creditors decided to go into liquidation onSeptember 23, 1927.49 By 1928 the Circus Blumenfeld Jun. was bankrupt.50

Alfred Blumenfeld’s wife Gerda interpreted this sudden economic failure asthe result of rising anti-Semitism in Magdeburg. Despite the concessions tothe changing times and tastes made by the family’s first stationary circus,it had to fail, she concluded bitterly, once its audiences began to accept theanti-Semitic propaganda against the circus family:

The first storm clouds and forebodings of Nazism were revealed in a foul press cam-paign. Although its devastating effects were still unknown to the general population,even in 1927 – in the course of a single season – Nazism knew how to undermine abusiness that had long struggled successfully through stormy times. To avoid heavydamage to its creditors, liquidation was unavoidable.51

By 1927 the Blumenfeld family had ceased to be among the most influ-ential families in the realm of circus entertainment. After the collapse ofthe family’s last promising circus enterprise in Magdeburg, the Blumenfeldsscattered across Europe and even as far as South America. Only the youngergeneration managed to find employment, either in Germany or abroad, inthe booming variety shows or in other Gentile circus enterprises. As Jewishperformers and entrepreneurs, the Blumenfelds suffered in the first waveof violent anti-Semitism in Germany. All generations were driven into totaldestitution only a few years later. The Blumenfeld family was not excep-tional among German-Jewish circus families in its rapid decline. The CircusGebruder Lorch, for example, facing similar anti-Semitic propaganda andlacking local support, went bankrupt in 1930.52

epilogue

In 1933 Jewish circus performers, unlike their actor colleagues, seemed rel-atively well positioned to escape the deadly grip of the Nazi regime and itsarmy of silent collaborators. Their profession could be exercised anywherein the world as it did not rely on the spoken word. The performers mayhave been ruined in Germany, but they were not yet trapped. Many fledthe country as soon as they were able. Their years on the road had giventhem the necessary contacts and language skills to move with relative ease

49 Das Programm, no. 1332, October 16, 1927, documenta artistica collection in the MarkischesMuseum, Berlin.

50 Arthur Blumenfeld found employment at the Circus Dunbar and Schweyer in South America;Alfons Blumenfeld went to the Merano circus in Poland; Alex Blumenfeld went to the Bech-Olsen circus in Denmark.

51 Blumenfeld, “150 Jahre alter deutscher Circus in 12 Jahren Hitler Tyrannei vollkommenausgerottet!” Unpublished memoir in possession of Gabriela Blumenfeld.

52 See Althoff file, no. 6433, Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem, Israel.



within international circles of popular entertainment. Still, jobs were hard tofind as the market tightened all over Europe in the 1930s. The entertainersalso faced increasing hostility abroad since relentless Nazi aggression soonmade Germans unpopular with other Europeans even before 1939. Ironically,German-Jewish performers were identified as Germans long after their coun-try of birth had rejected them; even stage names could not always adequatelydisguise their nationality. This would not be the end of their suffering, how-ever. As Germany’s troops marched into neighboring countries, many Jewishperformers who had thought themselves safe, if not well, in exile were cap-tured and deported by the relentless SS. Countless performers were internedand killed in Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, and Theresienstadt.

It is difficult to track the fading traces of the Blumenfeld, Lorch, andStrassburger families throughout this period of persecution and destruction.What we do know, however, is devastating testimony to the almost com-plete annihilation of Jewish circus families. Again, the Magdeburg branchof the Blumenfelds may serve as an example. Although its three directorsall left Germany, only one brother was not ultimately overrun by Germantroops. Their eighty-two-year-old mother, Rosa Blumenfeld, died after onlyfour days in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.53 Of Rosa and SimonBlumenfeld’s twelve children only Arthur survived the Third Reich. Mostwere either starved, gassed, or worked or beaten to death. Alice Blumen-feld killed herself after she witnessed her mother’s deportation. Few eyewit-nesses survived to tell remaining relatives of the last days of their loved ones.The following excerpt from a letter written in 1945 by Torenhajm SucherBeszynz, a former concentration camp inmate, to Gerda Blumenfeld is a rareexception. (Gerda Blumenfeld herself was not Jewish and was able to sur-vive the war, along with her son Horst, despite her being denounced to andintimidated by the ever-present Gestapo in Magdeburg.) Torenhajm vividlyrecalled Gerda’s husband Alfred (who had been captured in France) and herbrother-in-law Fritz Blumenfeld, both of whom survived internment in thecamps of Ottmuth and Blechhammer (a side camp of Auschwitz), not leastbecause of the food that Gerda managed to send them through the long yearsof their imprisonment. According to Torenhajm, the brothers were killed inthe death marches to and from the concentration camp Gross-Rosen (Silesia),dying in January 1945, literally with their liberation in sight:

Mr. Blumenfeld was well known and respected. In Ottmuth he gave many lecturesabout animals and other topics. In Blechhammer we slept side by side. Should all ourcomrades be dead that none reported back? On January 21, 1945, Sunday aroundnoon we (about 5,000 men) began the death march. The “SS” left and right, 14 daysin light clothing, in snow and ice minus 11–18 degrees or even lower. Without food,always marching, whoever fell behind was [shot]. Several times I fell unconscious,

53 Simon’s brothers Adolf and Herrmann both died of natural causes on Janurary 14, 1913,and March 17, 1933, respectively.



figure 13. One generation of Blumenfeld siblings.

figure 14. Arthur Blumenfeld, the sole survivor of a circus dynasty, in 1945/46 infront of the remnants of a once-thriving circus enterprise.

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figure 15. Passport of Victoria Blumenfeld.

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figure 16. Arthur and Victoria Blumenfeld in 1949, trying to rebuild their lives andbusiness.

friends helped me to continue marching – all the good friends are no more – Blumen-feld suffered from his feet, but he made it to Gross-Rosen, with Fritz. A few dayslater we were pressed into cattle cars and send to Buchenwald. Fritz told me that hisbrother stayed in Gross-Rosen . . . Fritz still looked healthy. Of the few hundred menwho reached Buchenwald from Blechhammer, only few, very few survived.54

54 “Herr Blumenfeld was sehr gut gekannt und geschatzt. In Ottmuth hatte er viel Vor-lesungen uber Tiere und anderes gehalten. In Blechhammer schliefen wir nebeneinander.Sollen denn all unsere Kameraden gestorben sein, dass niemand sich gemeldet hat? Den 21.Januar 1945, Sonntag gegen Mittag haben wir (etwa 5000 Mann) den Todesmarschbegonnen. Rechts u. links die ‘SS’, 14 Tage in leichten Kleider, in Schnee u. Kalte, 11–18Grad oder noch mehr. Ohne Nahrung, immer gehen, wer hinten bleibt wird erschossen.Mehrere Male bin ich gefallen in Ohnmacht, Freunde haben mir geholfen weiter gehen –all die guten Freunde sind nicht mehr – Blumenfeld hat auf den Fussen gelitten, doch ister bis Gross-Rosen durchgekommen, mit Fritz. Einige Tage spater sind wir in Viehwagengepresst nach Buchenwald geschickt worden. Fritz erzahlte mir da, dass sein Bruder ist inGross-Rosen geblieben. . . . Fritz sah noch gesund aus. Von den wenigen hundert Mann, dienoch von Blechhammer bis Buchenwald gelangt sind, sind leider nur sehr, sehr wenige amLeben geblieben.” Torenhejm, in a letter addressed to Gerda Blumenfeld, November 23,1946. The original is in the possession of Gabriele Blumenfeld, Magdeburg.



figure 17. German children in Berlin peeking through a hole of the Blumenfeldcircus tent in 1946.

Torenhajm knew that he had prevailed despite all odds: “I have seen deatha thousand times. Imagine 1,000 identical wagons. Only one will lead tolife. Without knowing I entered that wagon.”55 He remembered acting outof instinct and in a state of utter exhaustion: “We were all but dead. Therewere days in which I searched my head for the name of my daughter, and

55 “Ich habe Tausend Mal den Tod gesehen. Stellen sie sich 1000 ganz gleiche Wagen vor. Nureiner fuhrte zum Leben. Ohne zu wissen, bin ich in diesen Wagen gegangen.” Ibid.



figure 18. Newspaper article published in 1946 to commemorate the legacy andsuffering of the Blumenfeld circus families.



figure 19. In 1946 circus performers prepared for their acts in makeshift movingvans confiscated by the Allies for the Circus Blumenfeld.

did not find it.”56 The military offensive by the Red Army in January 1945had led to a rather chaotic evacuation of Auschwitz, and it must have beenthen that Alfred and Fritz were forced to march to Gross-Rosen, one ofthe larger concentration camps in Silesia, about 60 kilometers southwest of

56 “Wir waren ja alle wie tot. Es waren Tage, wo ich den Namen meiner Tochter in meinemKopf gesucht habe, und nicht gefunden.” Ibid.



figure 20. Artist preparing for the show at the Circus Blumenfeld in 1946.

Breslau. The Gross-Rosen camp could not absorb the exhausted thousandswho arrived daily from camps located further east. Most inmates were left todie from hunger or infectious diseases in the ever more crowded quarters ofthis former quarry. Others were transported to Buchenwald. Between 1941



figure 21. Arthur Blumenfeld with his two daughters, Rita and Eva, before the war.

and 1945 about one hundred twenty thousand inmates were interned inGross-Rosen, roughly half of whom were Jewish men and women from allcorners of Europe.57 Few lived to see their day of liberation.

About one hundred fifty members of the Blumenfeld family perished inthe Holocaust. They were hardly the only Jewish circus family to be nearlywiped out by the war. Although little is known about what happened to otherJewish relatives of the Blumenfelds – the Goldkette, Stein, Hirsch, Phiadel-phia, and Strassburger families – the Lorch family was equally decimated.

57 Alfred Konieczny, “Das KZ Gross-Rosen in Niederschlesien,” 104, paper presented atthe conference Die nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager 1933–45- Entwicklung undStruktur, Weimar, November 22–26, 1995.



The prominent performers Rudi and Arthur Lorch, for example, were cap-tured when the Germans occupied Belgium and were sent as slave laborersto the Camp de Cours quarry in France. They were both murdered in cap-tivity. Their father, Julius Lorch, head of the Lorch family circus and leaderof the world-famous acrobatic group the Ikarier, had been able to escapebut died from exhaustion and despair in Belgium in 1942. His wife, Jessy,was deported, and two months later Nazi officials offered her ashes to theremaining family members for a ransom of 2,000 marks.58 The prematuredeath of Julius Lorch is a reminder of how severely survivors were trauma-tized by the loss of their families and livelihoods during the war and by thememories, poverty, and loneliness they endured after the war.

For some the year 1945 marked only the beginning of a long end. Afteryears of hiding with friends and relatives, Arthur Blumenfeld was the solemember of the large Blumenfeld circus dynasty to return to circus enter-tainment in a war-ravaged Germany. In the winter of 1945 he and his wife,Victoria, once again opened the doors to a chapiteau, this time playing for anaudience of Allied troops and orphaned children. With the help of the Sovietmilitary, Arthur received materials confiscated from the former Brumbachcircus, whose directors had been compromised by their membership in theNazi party. The new tent was able to hold about fifteen hundred visitors. In1946, Arthur Blumenfeld celebrated the 135 years (1811–1946) of Blumen-feld circuses. Unlike the centennial, this celebration did not include a festivebanquet attended by city officials or congratulatory telegrams from all overthe globe. Now, the circus family lived in primitively altered moving vanswithout heat and running water. The last Blumenfeld circus was not evenable to move with ease within the city of Berlin. The circus had to dependon the black market for food for the few animals it still possessed. By 1949,Arthur Blumenfeld was forced to sell his circus to the Gentile competition,namely, to Paula Busch, who had stabilized her own enterprise by buying outcompetitors such as the Strassburger family in the 1930s. Arthur Blumenfelddied December 17, 1951, a broken man.

58 See file on Maria and Adolf Althoff, no. 6433, M31-6433, Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem.

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Conclusion to Part I

After 1933, and even before deadly threats made survival their primary task,Jewish circus families led lives marked by sadness, diminishing professionalopportunities, and humiliation. Yet there was one act of solidarity in par-ticular that is worth remembering, if not for its representativeness, then forits extraordinary nature. It is a tale of courage and circumstance, tragicallynot indicative of the experience of most Jewish circus performers, but nev-ertheless a story that reflects the special nature of one segment of the circusmilieu. In 1948, it is again Gerda Blumenfeld who points out that, duringthe war, she and her son survived mainly because of the help they receivedfrom Maria and Adolf Althoff, the formidable heads of an old and estab-lished Gentile circus family from Aachen. Before the Nazis seized power,the Althoff and Blumenfeld families knew and respected each other solely ascompetitors. After the collapse of his Magdeburg Blumenfeld circus in 1927,however, Alfred Blumenfeld found temporary employment as the technicaldirector and press agent at the Circus Althoff and, as a result, was even ableto support and shelter his brothers Willi and Fritz. According to Gerda, thethree brothers eventually emigrated to France, where they remained untilthey were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz in 1942.

Although the Althoffs were not able to rescue the Blumenfeld brothers,they did succeed in saving members of the Lorch family from deportationand certain death. Throughout the 1940s, the Althoffs continued to hide anumber of Jewish circus performers. For example, with the Althoffs’ help,Irene Danner escaped the searching eyes of Nazi spies. For two years (1943–45), she lived with her Gentile husband, the clown Peter Bento, and theirbaby son; her younger sister Gerda; and her mother, Alice Lorch, in a cir-cus wagon provided by the Althoffs. Danner had been one of those Jewishcircus performers who, after their own family enterprises went bankrupt inthe early 1930s, joined Gentile circuses in Germany and abroad. With herhusband, she continued to perform at the Circus Althoff. Her life in “hiding”was complicated indeed. The birth of her first child almost killed her. Even

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more dangerous to her than a last-minute cesarean section were threats ofdenunciation from her racist doctors. Suspicious and cruel, they botched thedifficult operation, deliberately risking the death of their patient. After theoperation, the hospital bunkers – at this point a lifesaving shelter for patientsand staff – remained closed to “die Judd.”1 Danner never recovered fromthe physical damage done in this operation; at the age of nineteen she sawher days as a trapeze artist come to an end.

Against all odds, Irene Danner and her family were not discovered andsurvived the Holocaust hidden amid the hustle and bustle of a large travelingcircus. Without the cooperation of their own staff and friends, the Althoffscould not have succeeded in sheltering the lives of these Jews when so manyothers perished. Irene Danner remembered how “Adolf Althoff allowed allof us to work without papers. He was very aware of the danger that layin providing food, shelter and protection to a Jewish family. This couldnot remain completely concealed from the large circle of artists and circusworkers.”2 Althoff even fired an employee who threatened to denounce theJewish performers. In most cases, however, he did not have to discipline hisstaff; to the contrary, he could generally rely on their warning him when theinevitable Nazi patrols approached to search the circus at every stop on theroad.3

On February 20, 1995, fifty years after the collapse of the Nazi regimeand the end of the Second World War, Israel’s ambassador to Germany, AviPrimor, honored Maria and Adolf Althoff as “Righteous of the Nations,”the highest honor granted to Gentiles by the State of Israel. The singularityof the Althoffs and their family is beyond doubt. But it was also no accidentthat it was an established family of circus pioneers, with deep roots in circus

1 See Ingeborg Prior, “Die Reiterin und ihr Retter,” Der Stern, September 1995, 42. The operat-ing doctor was a dedicated member of the National Socialist Party who had been “informed”by the mayor of Eschollsbrucken Kistinger. See the statutory testimony of Irene Storm/Danner.file on Maria and Adolf Althoff, no. 6433, M31-6433, Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem.

2 “Adolf Althoff ließ uns alle ohne Papiere arbeiten. Er war sich der Gefahr fur sich selbst wohlbewußt, eine judische Familie aufzunehmen, zu ernahren und zu beschutzen. Das konnte imgroßen Kreis der Artisten und Zirkusarbeiter nicht ganz verborgen bleiben.” See the statutorytestimony of Irene Storm/Danner, file on Maria and Adolf Althoff, Yad Vashem Archives.

3 “Because the Althoffs always tried to know ahead of time when they arrived, they were ableto warn us. We then had to hide. We would, for example, have a picnic in the forest or gofishing on the lake. Or we hid in one of the circus wagons further away. Adolf Althoff likedto involve the Gestapo agents in a conversation, show off his beautiful circus and invite themfor a glass of cognac. That way he successfully distracted them.” [Da die Althoffs sich immerbemuhten, rechtzeitig zu erfahren wann sie kamen, konnten sie uns warnen. Wir mußten unsdann verstecken. So gingen wir zum Beispiel wie eine ganz normale Familie zum Schein in denWald zu einem Picknick oder an einen See zum Angeln. Oder wir versteckten uns in einemder weiter entfernten Zirkuswagen. Adolf Althoff verwickelte die Gestapo-Beamten gern inein Gesprach, zeigte ihnen seinen schonen Zirkus, lud sie zu einem Cognac ein. Dadruchgelang es ihm haufig sie abzulenken.] See the statutory testimony of Irene Storm-Danner, fileon Maria and Adolf Althoff, Yad Vashem Archives.



entertainment, that found the courage to help Jewish colleagues in need.The strong ties between management, performers, and staff, the patriarchalstructures for which the Althoffs were already known throughout the nine-teenth century, along with the family’s cosmopolitanism, gave the Althoffsa worldview into which racism, and the politics of small humiliations andcheap concessions, could find no entry. Their gesture of solidarity was basedon individual courage, but also on a worldview that meshed familial withprofessional relations. Unlike so many of their Gentile contemporaries, theyknew by protecting the Lorch family, they were also protecting a fadingcircus culture to which they themselves belonged.4

Both Blumenfeld and the Althoff families came originally from Franco-German border regions in which notions of national homogeneity tradition-ally resonated differently than they did in other German regions. They hadbeen at the forefront of promoting the circus as a mass medium, alreadythe case in France, in German-speaking countries. Although Germany wasa latecomer to the realm of circus entertainment, Germans proved to beespecially devoted spectators. Throughout the nineteenth century, the citi-zens of a society in transition, torn between a rural past and an industrialpresent, between provincialism and urban growth, between romanticism andrationality, experienced contradictory needs. It is this tension that these cir-cus pioneers sublimated into a new art form. Thus, especially in ImperialGermany, circus shows were able to reach a far broader audience than anyother cultural institution, including theater, opera, and museums, and takeits spectator into foreign worlds in which the known and the imaginary werecombined.

Gentile and Jewish circus families of the first hour shared fundamentalhistorical experiences, despite structural differences. Most importantly, theyshared a respect for each other’s accomplishments. Although in previousdecades this latent affinity had not resulted in collaboration between theseGentile and Jewish families, the external threat from the Nazis, who wereso clearly interested in hijacking circus entertainment for their political pur-poses and thereby attacking it at its very core, must have paved the way forindividual acts of courage, trust, and resistance. Whereas in the late 1920santi-Semitism ruined many Jewish circus families, it also led to their greaterengagement with members of the Gentile circus milieu. Mixed marriageswere no longer as infrequent as they had been, especially between old cir-cus families; for some, these marriages represented not just emotional andprofessional fulfillment but also a guarantee of survival. An appreciationof cultural diversity, of ambiguity, and of the utopian quality of the ring

4 As Irene Danner laconically pointed out, “For the Althoffs it was a matter of course to helpus. They did not expect any gratitude.” [Fur die Althoffs war es selbstverstandlich, uns zuhelfen. Sie wollten dafur keinen Dank.] See the statutory testimony of Irene Storm-Danner,file on Maria and Adolf Althoff, Yad Vashem Archives.



informed not only the aesthetics of these distinguished circuses but also theminds of the circus pioneers.

This nature of circus entertainment fascinated contemporaries for manydecades. In the golden age of circus entertainment, discussion was not limitedto the circus milieu, but engaged artists and intellectuals from all walks oflife. For example, in 1908 the Zionist leader Max Nordau sought to identifythe essence of the circus’s attraction. He concluded that it was the dual natureof the performance that fueled the spectator’s imagination: “the artist’s skillis both primitive and refined.” Nordau’s personal interest stemmed fromhis hope that a marginalized culture could experience a renaissance throughits rediscovery of the body as a metaphor for its resurrection. Althoughamusement was not his primary objective, he nevertheless turned to thequintessential mass entertainment medium for inspiration, insisting that thecircus’s duality of primitivism and refinement guaranteed “the continuingpassionate interest of both the lower and the upper classes.”5 A highly cos-mopolitan art form, the circus was able to attract an exceedingly diverseaudience, without, however, achieving the cultural legitimacy bestowed ontheaters or museums. Its deliberate commercialization of art and entertain-ment and its physical mobility, as well as the inherent ambivalence of itsperformances, clashed with bourgeois understandings of “good” art. Thecircus combined a variety of contradictory impulses that constituted plea-sure. It was this ambivalence that guaranteed it mass audiences but that alsoprevented its inclusion in the classical canon.6

As Paul Bouissac has so aptly observed, the circus operated always bothwithin and outside of society.7 It integrated motifs drawn from past, present,and future in a unique way. Traditional social and aesthetic elements wereinterwoven with modern elements in a manner unlike that of any other formof entertainment. New techniques in stage production, circus management,and transportation coexisted with highly codified performance rituals exalt-ing an imaginary vagabond past. Gender stereotypes were reproduced asmuch as they were inverted. Images of nature were simultaneously idealizedand questioned.8 Whereas in many ways one may have situated the circus atthe margins of society, it also inhabited its very core. The circus was quite lit-erally in between worlds. It thus provided German-Jewish circus performerswith an entree to respectability and acknowledgement, an opportunity forcontact and autonomy. They trusted in the transformative power of the ringand found the circus to offer unprecedented advantages to former outsiders.In addition, circuses celebrated their tremendous internal diversity withinthe normative ideologies of a highly stratified society. In the ring, Jewish

5 Max Nordau in Der Artist, no. 1206, March 12, 1908.6 Paul Bouissac, Circus and Culture: A Semiotic Approach (Bloomington, IN, 1976), 7.7 Ibid.8 Ibid.



performers inscribed themselves into scenarios in which they became theagents of their own fate, and where their aspirations would not be frustratedby the disappointing realities of a latently prejudiced environment. Theybecame emperors, princesses, ladies, and gentlemen; they appropriated theirspectators’ dreams and took the leading roles. To many Jewish impresariosand performers, circus entertainment offered an opportunity to rise fromrags to riches – and, not incidentally, to finally leave the ghetto.

Circuses were embodiments of a society in transition, linking the ruralwith the urban, the national with the international, and the artisanal withthe technological. Despite its deep social stratification, its encrusted hierar-chies, and its moral conservatism, Imperial Germany was a dynamic soci-ety, full of contradictory tensions. Breathtaking urbanization, technologicaladvancements, and a hunger for spectacle, laughter, and bodily pleasuresstood side by side with a highly developed sense of propriety and position.Temporarily, the circus was able to unify these divergent impulses and givethem a unique expression. The circus act experimented with existing normsas much as it reconfirmed them. Until the First World War, the circus as amass medium managed to communicate to its audiences a vision of socialharmony, a harmony that extended from the “family of man” to the animalkingdom. The inherent ambivalence of circus acts contributed to the univer-sality of their appeal. These acts alluded simultaneously to bourgeois civicpride, to rural earthiness, and to aristocratic values of social exclusivity anddistinction. They reproduced the dominant norms and values yet simultane-ously challenged them by inscribing the latently marginalized, empoweredby extraordinary strength and commanding respect and dignity. The circusarena served as one type of public sphere differentiated by the participa-tion of Jewish families in shaping an ideal world of beauty and precision,of chivalrous men and courageous women, of humankind’s discovery ofnature.

The aesthetic, social, and economic achievements of German-Jewish cir-cus families thus coincided with the “golden age” of the circus, between1870 and the First World War. One key to their success was their traditionalfamily solidarity combined with modern managerial skills. For generationshierarchical family structures remained compatible with the demands of theentertainment industry, and Jewish circus families were able to define therealm of German circuses. Their traditionalism was reflected in the organi-zation of their enterprises as well as in the aesthetics of their shows – yetit did not prevent these families from succeeding in the modern entertain-ment industry. One may even argue that in many ways their apparent lackof assimilation enabled them to adapt to the demands of turn-of-the-centurymass entertainment.

It took the continuous success of several generations to allow German-Jewish families to contemplate settling into a permanent dome. As first,Jewish circus families had owned traveling enterprises in which they



maintained a remarkably stable program of horse-centered shows. For themto successfully play permanent arenas in historic city centers demanded con-siderable capital, local support, and a programmatic reorientation. Whereasprominent circus impresarios such as Busch, Krone, and Sarrasani all camefrom Gentile families with the financial and social capital to back them,Jewish circus directors had to do without such advantages. Gentile circusdirectors were the adventurous sons of merchants and factory owners; thefounding generation of the Blumenfeld, Lorch, and Strassburger familieshad been penniless fairground performers, without deep roots in any partic-ular region or neighborhood. Strapped for cash, they invested their creativeenergy into training their families and building far-reaching support net-works that established lasting ties with other Jewish circus families. Still, thefounders suffered from legal discrimination and institutional anti-Semitismin the pre-emancipatory era. Thus in the ring they favored acrobatic actsthat demonstrated their achievements, acts defined not by exoticism but bythe skill and grace of the performers.

The circus ring was a highly charged arena in which the experiences ofperformers and spectators played out in unexpected ways. Although Jewishperformers rarely openly referred to their ethnicity, the content and aestheticform of their performances can still be read as a meaningful reflection oftheir own sense of self. The one-ring European circus, despite its size, wasan intimate form of entertainment, one in which ringmasters and funnyclowns guided the audience through a show, whose main attraction was thecircus horse. Horses, potent symbols in Imperial society, were linked to threedifferent social factions, the landowners, the nobility, and the military. Thesepillars of imperial society categorically rejected the inclusion of German Jewsin pre-emancipatory times. In this context, one can also read the display ofhorses in the circus ring as a powerful expression of both a desire to belongand confidence in the transformative power of performance. One may readthe senior generation’s love affair with the classic, horse-centered circus as ametaphor for the ingenuity as well as for the tragedy ruling the lives of manyJewish circus performers.

Following the path of Jewish families in the circus industry illustrateshow much ethnicity and class intersected within the modern circus. Gentilemiddle-class entrepreneurs entered the circus scene in significant numbersonly after circus entertainment proved to be financially lucrative. They didnot need to build their careers on the experience and financial success of pre-vious generations; they entered an industry in which the rules had alreadybeen established. Jewish circus directors had come from the margins of soci-ety half a century earlier and were instrumental in building circus entertain-ment in its first hour, when the financial risk was still too high for mostcompetitors. The relationship of these Jewish directors with local popula-tions and provincial governments, tentative at the beginning of their careers,improved dramatically as generations passed. Only in the postwar era was



there a generation of Jewish circus entrepreneurs who had the formal edu-cation, class background, and financial clout to buy a permanent arena inthe heart of a provincial capital. Their promising departure into new terri-tory ended prematurely, however, brought down by the propaganda of theemerging National Socialist Party, and we are unable to determine whethertheir venture would have been successful in the long run.

Anti-Semitic propaganda in the late 1920s was propelled by a more gen-eral cultural upheaval and disillusionment in the postwar period, a disillu-sionment that extended into the circus ring. In their prime time before thewar, German-Jewish circuses had effectively presented themselves as a modelcommunity, governed by shared beliefs in self-respect, talent, hard work, dis-cipline, and, most important, unfractured happiness and harmony. But theexperiences of total war and of the revolution that swept away the monarchyin 1918/19 made the illusionary character of this vision blatantly obvious tothe majority of their audiences. Fewer and fewer spectators in a world nowhaunted by the ghosts of Verdun were interested in the artificial world of thecircus. The universal appeal of the traditional circus shows was transformedinto a particular appeal, limited to segments of an increasingly displacedmiddle class or to a similarly distressed rural population. High regard forthe traditional elites and their worldview gave way to skepticism and inse-curity among the majority of the circus spectatorship. Physical violence, theexperience of the trenches, and memories of civil war had shattered the col-lective consciousness of Germany’s population. Most traveling circuses didnot adapt well to the altered realities of life. Their traditional horse-centeredaesthetic failed to reach an audience whose deep-felt aggression sought anoutlet, whose ideas of nature had changed drastically, and whose belief inits own strength had been undermined by the “shameful” peace treaty ofVersailles.

The disintegrative thrust of the war drove a wedge between the parentsand the children of Jewish circus families. Most German-Jewish circus fam-ilies experienced a drastic change of mentality between the pre- and post-war generations, affecting their private as much as their professional lives.Whereas the fathers still remembered the continuous social advancement oftheir formative years, their sons were primarily concerned with preservingwhat was left of their heritage after a devastating defeat. Whereas the par-ents’ generation had spent its youth in a peaceful and prospering country,the younger generation had its worldview shaped by inflation and individ-ual and collective violence. As the everyday experiences of circus performerswere increasingly dictated by the fears and frustrations of a society in need, itbecame difficult to believe in the transformative power of the ring. Perform-ers began to rethink their relationship with their audience as much as theydid their personal choices. Amid such fundamental changes, the sons anddaughters of century-old circus dynasties also began to question the exclusivesocial structure and sociability of their families. Increasingly, they strove for



individual happiness, and many chose to marry outside of the small circleof German-Jewish circus families and, in some cases, also outside the Jewishcommunity altogether.

Among those committed to continue the work of their forebears, one cantrace a programmatic shift in the aesthetic and the organization of the cir-cuses run by Jewish families in the 1920s. Most importantly, some travelingcircuses made their first attempt to establish themselves in the Gentile realmof stationary circus (Pantomimenzirkusse). This often led to the coexistenceof two operating systems within one family enterprise. Here the Blumenfeldfamily is again exemplary. While one branch of the family continued tostage horse shows, relegated to touring Eastern Europe, where cultural tra-ditionalism, a rural lifestyle, and a lack of competition promised a continua-tion of past successes, a handful of junior circus entrepreneurs opened theirfirst stationary circus in Magdeburg with a drastically altered program. Butthis enterprise could not survive for long. Violent National Socialist propa-ganda began to corrupt Magdeburg politics in 1927, and the Blumenfeldcircus was among its first victims. Confronted with economic hardship, agenerational crisis, and Nazi hate campaigns, all Blumenfeld circuses wentbankrupt within a season. They did not suffer this fate alone. Anti-Semitismgained credibility among ever more Germans in the late years of the WeimarRepublic, and with this final blow to their personal and economic integrity,many circus families, who had barely survived the First World War, wereruined. After years of isolation and persecution, of loneliness in exile anddiminishing hope, countless members of German-Jewish circus families diedanonymously in the concentration camps of a murderous regime.


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COMIC RELIEF

Jewish Identities in Jargon Theater, 1890 to the 1920s

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Introduction

Different Varieties

Was ist paradox? Wenn sich zwei Menschen zusammensetzen um sichauseinanderzusetzen.

Anton and Donat Herrnfeld1

Prior to the First World War, countless Germans sought release from theirregulated and restrained lives in Jargon theaters. To date, however, the subjectof Jargon theaters has not received much scholarly attention. In this sectionthe spotlight thus falls on Berlin’s Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater, founded in1896, and on its rival, the Folies Caprice. Together they introduced a theatri-cal genre that came to impress Berlin’s theater world. The Herrnfeld and theFolies Caprice were the only theaters in which the majority of actors wereof Jewish descent and, through their performances, embraced, problemati-cized, and even satirized their own Jewishness. Unlike circuses, which soughtto transcend issues of ethnicity by inscribing performers into an imaginaryworld beyond the boundaries excluding them in the real world, Jargon the-aters addressed on center stage the desire to belong, the costs of assimilation,and the roles of religion and family in contemporary (urban) life. Hence theconversations between spectators and performers that unfolded in these the-aters differed considerably from those that took place in the circus tent orarena. Whereas circuses created ideal worlds in which equality was imag-ined through the disappearance of visible differences and the appropriationof formerly exclusive status symbols, Jargon theaters projected a vision inwhich these differences were acknowledged without necessarily entailing theautomatic exclusion of the minority. Jargon theaters represent yet anotherone of the multifold ways in which German-Jewish entertainers sought toshape the cultural canon of Imperial Germany. They provide a powerfuldemonstration that there was no one Jewish experience in Germany at thedawn of the twentieth century.

1 Anton Herrnfeld and Donat Herrnfeld, Was tut sich? (Berlin, 1914), 98.

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Some scholars, assuming that any preoccupation with “Jewish themes”must have led to Jewish marginalization, identify Jargon theaters as the lastrefuge of Germany’s unassimilated Jews, an assumption that precludes thetheaters’ inclusion in discussions of mainstream popular entertainment.2 Butthe Herrnfeld Theater, and its imitator, the Folies Caprice, were frequentedby Gentiles and Jews alike and were a favorite venue for middle-class clubsand associations seeking amusement and distraction. Gentile and JewishBerliners were captivated by the often crude one-act sketches that inevitablyrevolved around themes such as family disputes, adultery, and unrequitedlove. They were caricatures of “serious” theater. These plays mocked butdid not question the middle-class ethos and lifestyle, its hypocrisy and gen-der relations as well as its nationalism and politics. Jargon theaters were notexpressions of an unassimilated Jewish subculture, catering to the needs ofan orthodox Jewry in search of cultural reaffirmation. Nor did Jargon the-aters intend to feed anti-Semitic sentiments among the lower middle classes.Instead, Jargon theaters belonged to an urban middle-class amusement scenein which Jews constituted an important part.

This study argues that Herrnfeld Theater performances reflected a con-sensus among the German urban middle classes to view, at least temporarily,German Jews not exclusively as outsiders, but as one of the many “tribes”constituting the German nation. Just as Bavarians or Swabians were seen topossess a distinct, culturally defined “tribal” identity, mocked in the manyfolk theaters at the time, so too were Jews viewed as a close-knit group,whose membership did not per se conflict with their national allegiance. Thefolkloric depiction of the daily lives of Jewish families suggested that theywere very similar to those of other Germans: unfaithful husbands quarreledwith petty wives and self-righteous mothers-in-law; ambitious young mencourted unworldly young women. The particularity of the “Jewish milieu”held considerable appeal for the German middle classes. “Jewish accents”were parodied mostly in conjunction with similar jokes about Bavarian orBohemian accents, suggesting that they were on a like footing. The form andcontent of Jargon theaters imitated those of the many popular folk theatersof the time, emphasizing Jargon theater’s parallels with other expressions ofthe same Volkskultur. Humorous references to various regional and ethnicidentities were intended to reinforce a sense of community, and this inclu-siveness of Jargon theater contributed to its appeal.

The commercial success over several decades of the Herrnfeld Theaterand the Folies Caprice made their directors wealthy. These entrepreneurswere the epitome of the newly rich in Berlin’s entertainment scene. Thisimage, however, also became their greatest liability in the wake of mili-tary defeat and social unrest. As was true for circus entertainment, Berlin’s

2 Michael Brenner’s study, The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany (NewHaven, CT, 1996), is an example of this assessment.


Introduction 127

Jargon theaters did not have an unproblematic rise to popularity. Despitetheir contrasting approaches to public displays of difference, Jargon the-aters, like circuses, also fell prey to the fallout from the First World War. Themoment that cultural diversity and coexistence were renounced and replacedby a call for unity in a time of total warfare, the appeal of Jargon theaters dis-sipated. Once the kaiser told the nation that “I no longer recognize parties;I only recognize Germans,” Jewish performers found themselves outsidersonce again. This outside status was emphasized even more by the Germanarmy’s “Jewish census” (Judenzahlung) of November 1916, a census meantto determine whether Jews were shirking their military obligations or wereengaged in large-scale profiteering. This census, a turning point in Jewish–Gentile relations, also contributed greatly to the demise of Jargon theaterentertainment.3

The chapters in Part II will broadly move through the social history ofperformers and their art in Jargon theater toward a close reading of theaesthetic repertoire. Attention will be paid to how performers establishedfamiliarity with their spectators, how they reacted to the responses from theaudiences, and how they negotiated their relations with local and nationalauthorities. Chapter 5 discusses Jargon theater and its perception by his-torians. Chapter 6 introduces the historical protagonists of Jargon theater,including their private lives and formative experiences. This chapter willalso address the social composition of their audiences. Chapter 7 focuseson the limitations of the Gentile–Jewish dialogue within Jargon theaters.It will emphasize the consequences of the virulent anti-Semitism and risingxenophobic undercurrents that swept Imperial society during the First WorldWar. Finally, Chapter 8 explores the specific aesthetics employed by Jargontheaters, centering on the reading of texts and images.

3 Werner T. Angress, “The German Army’s ‘Judenzahlung’ of 1916: Genesis-Consequences-Significance,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 23 (1978), 117.

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5

Tongue in Cheek

The unique form of popular Jewish drama known as Jargon theater owesits name to the language employed by its actors. Not unlike today, the labelJargon had a normative, largely negative connotation in the past and carriedthe stigma of linguistic impurity. Originally, Jargon had a more universalmeaning, distinguishing any dialect from Hochdeutsch (High German), thelanguage of elite circles in German society. The distinction between Jargonand “High German” alluded to ethnic, geographic, and class differences.The often-amorphous term Jargon was meant to describe the multiplicityof its linguistic origins and point to its oral tradition and specificity to anidentifiable milieu. Contemporaries often used Jargon interchangeably withYiddish. While Berliners had their own local Jargon, in the world of theaterJargon came to be used almost exclusively for popular Jewish entertain-ment. It held two competing meanings: an ironic self-description employedby the performers, and a denigrating ascription of Jewish dialect theater byits middle-class audiences.

One may wonder why Jewish performers chose such a loaded labelfor their art. Why would they embrace a term that might hinder themin their quest for social acceptance and respect? Berliners had (and have)a particular love affair with dialects and idiomatic expressions. Numer-ous comedians built entire careers on the “authenticity” of their modula-tion and metaphors. Whereas Londoners seemed to punish any deviationfrom Oxford English as a breech of status boundaries, Berliners laudedfamiliarity with the local slang and intonation. No populist politician inGermany could expect to gain respect without having at least a rudimen-tary knowledge of Berlin Jargon. Knowledge of High German was stillrequired of ruling elites and intelligentsia, but to be a Berliner also meantembracing a certain verbal informality in public. Jargon theater, therefore,satisfied two needs of Berlin’s middle-class audiences: their modern fasci-nation with folk culture, and their appetite for no-nonsense laughter andentertainment.

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Tongue in Cheek 129

Between the 1890s and the 1920s, Jargon theaters flourished in Berlin,though not only there, and held a prominent place in the expanding enter-tainment industry. Despite their popularity in the past, these theaters haveremained a blind spot in the histories of German drama and German-Jewishculture.1 Drama studies have ignored them almost entirely, and studies ofGerman-Jewish culture have evaluated them solely in negative terms. PeterSprengel’s recent monograph is an exception in this regard.2 Sprengel takesan unprecedented interest in the medium. He carefully analyzes the perform-ers and performances, painting a compelling picture of the popular theaterscene in pre-1933 Berlin. Nevertheless, although he succeeds in establishingand legitimating scholarly interest in popular Jewish theater, his evaluationof the public’s reception of this popular Jewish theater is less convincing.Whereas he rightly points to the vitality of Jargon theater, he underestimatesthe theater’s impact on Gentile audiences, insisting that this form of popularJewish theater was mainly a theater “by Jews for Jews.”3

By contrast, this chapter argues that at the turn of the twentieth centuryBerlin Jargon theaters emerged as a part of a newly expanded public spherethat allowed Gentiles and Jews, women as well as men, to interact outsidethe constraints of the workplace and the limitations of domestic intimacy.These popular Jewish theaters became a staple of the theater scene in Berlinand elsewhere, catering to the urban middle class in pursuit of pleasureand distraction. Far from being a marginal phenomenon for a marginal-ized people, Berlin Jargon theaters provided a unique meeting ground forGentiles and Jews. More important still, these theaters moved the questionof a German-Jewish identity to the forefront of public attention. As mem-bers of the audience of Jargon theater, Jewish spectators experienced theirparticularity in the presence of Gentile spectators and thus reaffirmed theirethnicity outside the exclusive spheres of family. Indeed, both factions ofsociety, Gentiles and Jews, not only tolerated each other, but must haveappreciated each other’s presence in these theaters. Difference was not nec-essarily considered problematic in the realm of Jargon theater, but found itsresolution in the communal laughter of Gentiles and Jews. It is the partic-ular quality of Jargon theaters as sites of Gentile–Jewish encounters as wellas of continuous negotiations among competing visions of a German “Jew”that make these theaters so rewarding for an analysis of Jewish identities inGerman society.

Sprengel’s judgment that Jargon theater was confined to a Jewish milieureflects his neglect of the larger context of Gentile–Jewish relations in German

1 Ruth Freydank’s monograph Theater in Berlin: Von den Anfangen bis 1945 (Berlin, 1988)does not even mention the Herrnfeld Theater. The same is true of idem, ed., Theater alsGeschaft (Berlin, 1995).

2 Peter Sprengel, Populares judisches Theater in Berlin von 1877 bis 1933 (Berlin, 1997).3 Ibid., 7.


130 Comic Relief

society. As a literary scholar, Sprengel focused on theater manuscripts at twodifferent stages of production: as they were handed to the Prussian cen-sorship authorities before theater directors could mount their plays, andas they were evaluated by the theater police who actually attended per-formances. Sprengel’s concentration on texts represents simultaneously thegreatest strength and greatest weakness of his book. Whereas his analysis ofscripts is thought-provoking, one is often left to wonder what motivated thechanges in scripts, humor, and stage production, on the one hand, and thechanges in the scripts’ reception by the audience and the police, on the other.Sprengel gives a detailed inside view of popular Jewish theater in Berlin, buthe provides only a rough sketch of the general context of Gentile–Jewishrelations in Imperial and Weimar Germany. Thus, although Sprengel pro-files the daily lives of the contemporary theater directors Anton and DonatHerrnfeld, he leaves his reader to ponder the impact of the rise of anti-Semiticrhetoric and practice on Jargon theater entertainment during the First WorldWar. Equally neglected by Sprengel is the effect of a growing Zionist move-ment in Central Europe, one of the most critical Jewish voices against Jewishassimilation in Germany. Finally, Sprengel explores the complex and centralrelationship between Eastern European Jewish immigrants (Ostjuden) andassimilated German Jews but does so only tangentially. As will be shown,all of these issues significantly affected Berlin Jargon theater; all must be fac-tored into any reading of Jargon theater’s aesthetics and reception by Germanaudiences.

Michael Brenner’s study The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in WeimarGermany is one of the few works on Jewish identities in modern Germanythat makes reference to popular Jewish theater. In his book, Brenner devotessome attention to the Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater.4 Unlike Sprengel’saccount, Brenner does not explore the social reality or the inner lives ofJargon theaters, their protagonists or plays; his study does, however, discussGerman-Jewish identity in Imperial and Weimar Germany, contextualizingJewish culture in the wider framework of German society. Despite the largerscope of his book, Brenner based his brief evaluation of the Herrnfeld Theateralmost entirely on the testimony of Weimar intellectuals like the eminentJewish novelist and journalist Alfred Doblin (1878–1957). These intellec-tuals, retrospectively, accused the directors of the Gebruder Herrnfeld The-ater of exploiting Jewish themes in pursuit of commercial success. Brennerprovides a thoughtful analysis of this emerging German-Jewish avant-gardeculture, eager to respond to the unprecedented anti-Semitism of the earlyWeimar Republic.5 But by accepting their retrospective opinion, Brenner

4 Michael Brenner, The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany (New Haven, CT,1996).

5 Uwe Lohalm, Volkischer Radikalismus: Die Geschichte des Deutschvolkischen Schutz- undTrutzbundes, 1919–1923 (Hamburg, 1970); Dirk Walter, “Antisemitische Kriminalitat undGewalt in der Weimarer Republik” (Ph.D. diss., Universitat Freiburg, 1997); Saul Friedlander,


Tongue in Cheek 131

fails to grant Jargon theater its importance as middle-class entertainment inImperial Germany.

By the beginning of the Weimar period, Jargon theaters had already lostmuch of their popularity or had simply ceased to exist in their commonlyknown form. Doblin’s recollection of Jargon theaters was clearly informedby his sense that Jewish–Gentile relations had deteriorated dramatically inthe early years of the Weimar Republic. These concerns underlay Doblin’spraise of the Vilna Yiddish Theater, which toured Germany in the early1920s, but they did not lead him into a sensitive evaluation of prewar Jargontheater. Doblin considered the performances of the Vilna Yiddish Theaterto be “spontaneous cultural achievements of a vital people,” far superiorto the “self-prostituting scheming” of the Herrnfeld Theater.6 His aversionto the subjection of Jews to ridicule and laughter competed with his ani-mosity toward petit-bourgeois audiences. Doblin’s retrospective testimonyshould be read as a polemic against a specific concept of Jewish identity andassimilation in Germany in a period of mass consumption.

Doblin’s comparison of Jargon and Yiddish theater also points, however,to a distinction that has been lost since then. He rightly stressed the dissimi-larities between the two theater generes. To make these differences apparentwe can simply compare their aesthetic repertoires. Yiddish, the language ofthe Ashkenazim (Northern and Eastern European Jews), developed fromMiddle High German in the Middle Ages.7 As Jews migrated eastward, theyintegrated elements of Polish and Russian, in addition to Hebrew, into theirlanguage.8 Historians agree that Yiddish theater can trace its roots back tothe purimshpil (Purim play), which is based on the biblical account of Esther’svictory over Haman and which was first performed around a.d. 415.9 Origi-nally a spontaneous act, the purimshpil quickly developed its own script andeventually become a formal presentation. Yiddish theater began to advanceby the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as playwrights and intel-lectuals realized that they had to communicate in Yiddish to reach the masses.By the first half of the nineteenth century, uneducated Jewish workers andimpoverished town dwellers were enjoying Yiddish-language comedies, his-torical and biblical dramas, and musicals. The end of the nineteenth centuryfound Yiddish theater flourishing in many large German cities. Throughoutthe West, Yiddish theaters provided entertainment for the thousands of Jews

“Die politischen Veranderungen der Kriegszeit und ihre Auswirkungen auf die Judenfrage,” inWerner E. Mosse, ed., Deutsches Judentum in Krieg und Revolution, 1916–1923 (Tubingen,1971), 27–67; Anthony Kauders, German Politics and the Jews: Dusseldorf and Nuremberg,1910–1933 (Oxford, 1996).

6 Alfred Doblin, Kleine Schriften, ed. W. Riley, vol. 1 (Olten, 1985), 365–66.7 See David S. Lifson, The Yiddish Theater in America (New York, 1965).8 Lifson, “Yiddish Theatre,” in Maxine Schwartz Seller, ed., Ethnic Theatre in the United States

(Westport, CT, 1983), 550; see also N. Sandrow, Vagabond Stars: A World History of YiddishTheater (New York, 1986).

9 Lifson, “Yiddish Theatre,” 550.


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who had fled Russia to escape anti-Semitic persecution and violence.10 Thesedislocated refugees, stranded in a foreign world, tried to preserve their cul-tural heritage on the stages of Yiddish theaters and thereby foster a sense ofbelonging based on their shared history. For them, these theaters representeda safe haven from a potentially hostile environment, temporarily mitigatingthe hardships that the unassimilated emigre experienced.

Jargon theaters did not stem directly from this traditional form of enter-tainment, but often coexisted with Yiddish theaters. Jargon theaters in Berlin,such as the Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater and the Folies Caprice, were by nomeans mere continuations of a specific ghetto entertainment, as Brenner andothers have assumed. Instead, in their open adaptation of Western burlesquetheater, they represented more recent responses to Jewish emancipation andembourgeoisement in Germany. Jargon theaters did not stage dramas inYiddish for the simple reason that their audiences of Gentiles and assimilatedJews would have been unable to follow the dialogue. Borrowing heavily fromalready circulating one-act comedies popular among middle-class audiencesat the turn of the century, Jargon theaters invented a “Jargon” by mix-ing Yiddish, Rotwelsch, French, Bohemian, Russian, German, and whateverlocal dialects seemed “authentic.” Unlike Yiddish theaters, Jargon theaters,far from being sites of refuge from a hostile majority culture, were both anintegral part of an engaging popular culture and a homage to assimilatedJewish life in Central Europe – a life in which both the Jewish and the Gen-tile middle classes participated, and which certainly was heavily informed bya Western comedy tradition. Jargon theaters reflected the self-consciousnessand role of one ethnic minority in a modernizing, and increasingly mobile,society. Although Jargon theaters made reference to the aesthetics of tra-ditional Yiddish theaters, they differed starkly from those theaters in thenature of their humor, motivation, and audiences, and most important, intheir language.

jargon theater as volkskultur

The ethnologist Hermann Bausinger has described the nineteenth century asa period in which the Burgertum took an increasing interest in the aestheti-cization of folk culture (Volkskultur, as it was labeled then). Germany’s long-standing federal tradition had encouraged middle-class interest in regionaland local dialects and customs; but as Bausinger points out, “it was a filteredfolk culture, freed from all ballast.”11 This folk culture appropriated regional

10 After the assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1881, pogroms against Jews escalated in theRussian Empire, leading to massive migrations of Eastern European Jews to Western Europeand the United States. The successive crises eventually forced more than two million Jews toemigrate to the West.

11 Hermann Bausinger, “Burgerlichkeit und Kultur,” in Jurgen Kocka, ed., Burger undBurgerlichkeit im 19. Jahrhundert (Gottingen, 1987), 137.


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histories and local traditions and rejected most expressions of mass culture.12

Dialect theaters such as the Herrnfeld profited from this interest in local andethnic differences; and although not part of a bourgeois cultural canon inthe strictest sense, such theater was nevertheless sanctioned by the middleclasses. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Volkskultur wasintended to form one community, to encourage all segments of society toembrace a single cultural canon.13 It was its integrative nature that madeVolkskultur a venue for visibly Jewish entertainers to find appreciation inmainstream entertainment.

Jargon theater entertainment, and its humorous one-act plays in partic-ular, focused heavily on the daily quarrels that took place in average Jew-ish families. The plays managed temporarily to bring their heterogeneousaudiences together, sketching Jewish family life in Germany and Austria-Hungary as loving, often sentimental, at times crude, and always comical.The settings of these plays was not confined to Germany, but included otherGerman-speaking countries. Much like circus entertainment, Jargon theatersfostered a specific brand of nationalism that was based on the notion of ashared German culture and emphasized the bonds of a common conser-vative moral and political outlook. The rejection of volkisch nationalismis not surprising, for it guaranteed Jews inclusion in German society atlarge.

Jargon theaters as an integral part of middle-class folk culture openedup a new area in the dramatic representation of Jews. Unlike most classicaltheaters, which provided only the occasional Jewish character in a dramaby and for Gentiles, in Jargon theaters almost all of the stage charactersand the actors playing them were Jewish, so that a Jew did not stick outsimply by virtue of being Jewish. In addition, Jargon theaters provided Jewishcharacter roles beyond the traditional ones of Shylock, Nathan the Wise,Golem, or Dybbuk. Men’s Jewish roles were not confined to the hagglingJew (Schacherjuden) or to the money-grubbing father figure who inevitablydrove his daughter into prostitution. A male actor could also impersonate ayoung Jewish lover, for example – a role absent in the classical tradition inwhich the Jew always provides the negative contrast to the Gentile hero.14

In short, Jargon theater depicted Jews as many things, but never solely associal pariahs.

Jargon theaters such as the Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater and the FoliesCaprice were dialect theaters with a special flair. Marriages, adulteries, andgenerational and gender conflicts formed the core of their plays. None ofthese topics was a Jewish topic per se. However, the plays were all set inJewish families and homes, suggesting that such themes discussed in Jewish

12 Ibid., 137.13 Ibid., 139.14 See Hans-Joachim Neugebauer, Judenfiguren: Drama und Theater im fruhen 19. Jahrhundert

(Berlin, 1994).


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figure 22. Stage scene from Die Meyerheins at the Herrnfeld Theater.

families were simply a variation on the themes discussed in Gentile families.Jargon theaters were spheres in which difference could be articulated withoutbeing alienating. When regional identities were reinvented in many folksytheaters across Germany, Jews in Berlin claimed their own dialect theater,thereby suggesting that what they called Yiddish was simply another dialect –similar to and different from – the many German dialects in Central Europe.Until the First World War, Jargon theaters were part of a seemingly successfulemancipation of Jews in Imperial Germany. The extent and limitations of theintegrative forces at work in this new public sphere only became apparentduring the First World War.

canonizing variety: the birth of jargon theater

Jargon theaters were deeply rooted in the tradition of music hall and varietyentertainment. Through their immense success and flexibility, they man-aged to establish themselves permanently in Berlin’s popular theater scene.The rise of Jargon theaters was thus a by-product of the rise of varietyentertainment, and along with the latter, it experienced a phenomenal successat the turn of the century. In many ways Jargon theaters were indebted to bothvariety theater and classical theater. Although they originated in the glitteryworld of cheap mass amusement, by 1900 they had managed to establish


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figure 23. The interior of the Herrnfeld Theater on the Kommandantenstrasse,Berlin.

themselves as spaces of bourgeois sociability. Their physical location withinthe urban landscape, continuously moving westward to the fashionable dis-tricts of Berlin and into more and more upscale theater buildings, reflectsthis increase in their formality and status.

Next to circuses, variety theaters became the main form of affordablelive entertainment.15 By the first decade of the twentieth century, entertain-ers in Jargon and variety theaters believed that public acknowledgment oftheir sincerity and craft was long overdue. As one contemporary observernoted, just as circuses had become temples of amusement unmatched inelegance and splendor, variety theaters strove to provide their audienceswith an atmosphere of wealth and leisure. Not only had the interior decorimproved dramatically, but the architectural design now satisfied even themost demanding customer. Instead of being unruly sites for the infamousLumpenproletariat, theaters featuring variety entertainment became placesfor middle-class amusement:

What did our theaters look like only twenty years ago? Smoky bars, pubs, tavernsjust for coachmen. . . . [T]oday one builds palaces for the artistic world and erectsmagnificent buildings comparable to the most distinguished stages. Today, these

15 On variety entertainment in modern Germany, see Wolfgang Jansen, Das Variete: Dieglanzvolle Geschichte einer unterhaltenden Kunst (Berlin 1990); Ernst Gunther, Geschichtedes Varietes (Berlin, 1981); useful as a contemporary source is Eberhard Buchner, Varietesund Tingeltangel in Berlin (Berlin, 1905).


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theaters are visited by the most high-ranking and refined audience – in short, todaythe variety has gone to court! That is probably our greatest success: unlike fifteenyears ago, the artist has ceased to be a pariah! The former romanticism, about whichI myself have written so much, is over; the economic situation of the artist has becomemiddle-class, and the terms “employee – employer” make reference to the Realpoli-tik that has become common-place among the “traveling people.” A healthy andreasonable Realpolitik.16

Twentieth-century popular entertainment became increasingly dependenton mass audiences, on people from the vicinity of Berlin pouring into thecity to seek distraction from their increasingly regimented lives. Theatersboomed and expanded to satisfy the desires of spectators with free time andmoney to spend. Far from being isolated and bound to a specific milieu,Jargon and variety theaters profited from travelers who were making theoccasional visit to the metropolis.17 The Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater, forexample, was temporarily situated immediately next to one of Berlin’s maintrain stations and to attract tourists boasted that it had its own entranceto the station.18 Both genres, Jargon theaters and variety theaters, not onlyencouraged their visitors through well-organized advertising campaigns, spe-cial offers, and subscriptions, they also sent their seasonal shows on theroad to reach small-town audiences.19 These popular theaters were depen-dent on an uninterrupted stream of visitors to cover their high maintenancecosts. As a result, they often had to appeal to the most common aestheticdenominator.

Unlike circus entertainment, which encouraged the myth of its long historydating back to antiquity, variety entertainment presented itself as a modernform of live entertainment. Along with the department stores and ware-houses mushrooming in every major German city, variety theaters becamepotent symbols of the modern urban experience. Variety shows were seenas assembly line entertainment for an audience with a short attention span.Performers in these shows broke with the traditional self-representation ofpopular performers as members of the early-modern ganzes Haus, a visionthat had been carefully nurtured by circus entertainers. Instead, varietyshow entertainers made deliberate references to the worlds of industry andcommerce – modern worlds with which variety theaters were increasinglyassociated. As one theater director wrote in 1904:

16 Oscar Geller, “Die Reform des Varietes,” Das Programm, no. 434, 1910, documenta artisticacollection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.

17 On mass tourism in Germany, see Christine Keitz, Reisen als Leitbild: Die Entstehung desmodernen Massentourismus in Deutschland (Munich, 1997).

18 Egon Jameson, Mein lustiges Spree-Athen (Berlin, n.d.), 62.19 In 1911 the Folies Caprice-Ensemble, played in the Walhalla Theater in Magdeburg (January),

the Eden Theater in Hamburg (June–July), and the Central Theater in Liegnitz (August). 30Berlin C, Tit. 34, Th. 1469, Akt. 34, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.


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Just as the big bazaars and department stores – Louvres, Wertheim, Tietz – attract agreater clientele because they are able to offer big advantages due to their centralizedacquisition and redistribution of goods, I foresee a similarly great future for themodern smoke theater, because it does not pursue a one-sided course.20

To a greater degree than had circus entertainment, variety shows became thesite of a renewed debate about core values in German society. Their modern,openly commercial nature provoked a wide range of responses from their“respectable” observers. The professionalism of most performers shook acritical pillar of the fragile edifice that was middle-class respectability: theethos of the amateur. Amateurism was particularly valued in the world ofsports, where both middle-class and working-class associations resisted anyform of professionalization. The occasional athlete who dared to change“camps” and become a professional artist in variety entertainment risked thedisdain of former peers. Professionals were seen as symbolic representativesof a commercialization that threatened to penetrate all spheres of societyand that offended advocates of beauty and vitality.21 Contemporary cul-tural critics frequently viewed acrobats in variety entertainment as symbolsof increasing moral decay, because acrobats, unlike the amateur gymnasts,expected to be paid for their art. Contemporary entertainers deplored thesenotions, their words a mixture of anger and anxiety:

Law and order is handed down like an eternal illness, and in certain philistine andpetit bourgeois circles clinging stubbornly to old-fashioned views, one looks con-temptuously upon the variety theater, degrading it as a trade and profession or por-traying it as an immoral institution, catering to the debased instincts of the massesby prostituting art.22

This context of cultural criticism framed any discussion of Jargon theaterat the turn of the twentieth century. Moreover, the mixture of commerceand Jewish identity in Jargon theater led to official disrespect for Jargontheaters. This rhetoric, however, though shared by avant-garde intellectu-als and petit bourgeois philistines, should not lead us to underestimate the

20 “Zur Entwicklung des Varietes. Kulturhistorischer Ruckblick von Direktor E. Waldmann inBudapest,” Das Programm, no. 100, March 6, 1904, documenta artistica collection in theMarkisches Museum, Berlin.

21 Martin L. Muller, “Turnen und Sport im sozialen Wandel. Korperkultur in Frankfurt amMain wahrend des Kaiserreichs und der Weimarer Republik,” Archiv fur Sozialgeschichte33 (1993), 118; on the relationship of politics and the Turner associations: Dieter During,Organisierter gesellschaftlicher Nationalismus in Deutschland (1808–1847): Bedeutung undFunktion der Turner- und Sangervereine fur die deutsche Nationalbewegung (Munich, 1984);Svenja Goltermann, Der Korper der Nation (Gottingen, 1998).

22 Dr. Adolph Kohut, Der Artist, no. 1206, March 12, 1908, documenta artistica collection inthe Markisches Museum, Berlin.


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resonance that Jargon theater had among its middle-class audiences duringthe Wilhelmine era.

bildung and jargon theater entertainment

Variety artists and acrobats viewed their lack of formal education as a hand-icap in their attempt to win recognition from their middle-class audiences.Long after variety entertainment had established its mass appeal, acrobats,comedians, writers, and journalists all took part in an ongoing controversyabout how to improve its image. These debates began in the first decadeof the twentieth century and continued until the final years of the WeimarRepublic. Education and self-formation were meant to enhance the socialstatus of the performer and, by extension, that of variety entertainmentas a whole. In many ways, this debate was a symptom of the “grow-ing pains” of a young industry as it professionalized and sought socialacceptance.

The flourishing entertainment industry was eager to be recognized as alegitimate artistic endeavor. Directors, managers, and agents, as well as per-formers, argued that self-improvement would lead to the performers’ accep-tance in society. This belief is similar to appeals for assimilation made byGerman-Jewish elites in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuriesand directed at their respective communities. In both cases, emancipationin the widest sense was the ultimate goal of those who previously had beenmarginalized. Both communities – variety performers and German Jews –confronted demands that questioned their very existence. The spokespeoplefor both communities reacted with incessant appeals for self-improvementand for drastic changes in lifestyle and orientation. However, these demandswere exceedingly difficult ones to meet.23 Variety artists found it virtuallyimpossible to harmonize their constant traveling with the requirements ofa society that considered migration a threat. In the past, both groups, Jewsand performers, functioned as the ideal-typical stranger (a concept derivedfrom Georg Simmel); they were unable to break free of their assigned rolesbecause those roles defined the boundaries between insiders and outsiders.24

Nevertheless, at the turn of the twentieth century, variety entertainersbelieved that the time was ripe for fundamental changes in these traditionalpatterns.

23 See, for example, William Berol, Der Artist, no. 1206, March 12, 1908, documenta artisticacollection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin. For a discussion of Bildung as a vehicle foremancipation and integration, see George L. Mosse, Judische Intellektuelle in Deutschland(Frankfurt a. M., 1992); Aleida Assmann, Arbeit am nationalen Gedachtnis. Eine kurzeGeschichte der deutschen Bildungsidee (Frankfurt a. M., 1993); Shulamit Volkov, “TheAmbivalence of Building,” in Klaus L. Berghahn, ed., The German-Jewish Dialogue Recon-sidered: A Symposium in Honor of George L. Mosse (Frankfurt a. M., 1996), 81–97.

24 Georg Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms (Chicago, 1971), 144.


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Der Artist, the conservative journal of the profession, which was read bythe directors of circuses, revues, and cabaret theaters, as well as by nonunionacrobats and actors, assessed the situation. The passage casts light on thesincerity and earnestness with which professional entertainers deliberatedon ways to find inclusion into society at large:

These artists have to grow and develop in their profession [Stand]. This is, first of all,a matter of achieving a certain level of education. Education liberates, and knowledgeis power. Every artist should take this to heart. Not many heed this, though. I knowmany famous artists whose youngest offspring does not even receive elementaryeducation, despite government regulation and mandatory school attendance.25

Professional comedians and acrobats were aware that the commercial aspectof their profession was an essential feature of their existence but one that hadto be reconciled with “higher” goals like education. They were torn betweenaspiring to spiritual merit and responding to the demands of the market. Thistension is reflected in the following quote, in which a performer is asked tomaster one of life’s most demanding feats:

We should set ourselves great goals, like religion, poetry, philosophy, science, art,music, languages and work, altruism, but also focus on eliminating bad influences.We should educate ourselves as businessmen, because that is essential to our survival.He who works in the real world and lives in the ideal world has truly achievedperfection.26

Discussions about the nature of “higher interests of art” took place withinall forms of popular culture at the turn of the century. They were part ofa power struggle in which new types of popular culture like variety the-ater emerged and challenged the claim made by social elites that they alonedefined the content of culture. Performers continuously explored ways theymight improve their social standing by claiming to be artists and by seek-ing to educate themselves. Compared to other entertainers, performers inJargon theater rarely expressed concern about their cultural status in public.Nevertheless, these performers became the objects of frequent debate amongGermany’s leading theater critics.

Again, it was the lack of formal education among Jargon entertainersthat fueled the contempt of eminent theater critics such as Alfred Doblin,Siegfried Jacobsohn, and Alfred Kerr. These intellectuals believed that cultureshould aspire to aesthetic and spiritual excellence, encompassing the high-est achievements of society. Such an understanding of culture was, however,elitist by definition and tended to exclude popular culture from its canon.This understanding contrasts sharply with the definition of culture accepted

25 Victor Happrich, Der Artist, no. 1206, March 12, 1908, documenta artistica collection inthe Markisches Museum, Berlin.

26 J. Morie, “Gedanken eines Artisten zum Thema ‘Veredelung des Varietes,’” Das Programm,no. 459, 1911, documenta artistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.


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by most cultural anthropologists today, who conceive of culture as the sumof the symbols and practices common to the majority in a society. In theinterwar period, most intellectuals had an aversion to mass consumerismthat simply reflected a widespread disdain for mass and consumer cultureamong the educated middle classes, even though such disdain did not hin-der most German burghers from actively consuming the very culture theycondemned.27

The significance of this elitist critique of popular culture can hardly beoveremphasized. The First World War and its aftermath had heightenedthe self-consciousness among intellectuals on the left and on the right whobecame extremely hostile toward a perceived dominance of the “mob.” Themass consumption of cultural objects and practices endangered the social andeconomic standing of these intellectuals in German society. They bemoanedthe intellectual vacuum that supposedly had turned a society governed byrespect for learning into a society filled with manipulable consumers. Theysaw the intellectual being turned into a pariah, always on the verge of beingmarginalized and impoverished. The many writers and poets who had hopedthat the masses would turn to intellectuals for guidance in their daily strugglefor knowledge and stimulation were disappointed. The tension between theidealistic dream and the social reality of Weimar Germany tainted the viewsof many intellectuals with regard to popular Jewish theater; hence their cri-tique should be handled with caution as one being made by a segment ofsociety alarmed by the erosion of its own social status.

The obituary by Siegfried Jacobsohn (1881–1926) for Donat Herrnfeld,who died in 1916 after an illness, reflected the traditional bias of a bourgeoiscritic. Although Jacobsohn mourned Herrnfeld’s death as a great loss forthe theater in Berlin, he interpreted Herrnfeld’s dedication to Jargon theateras a tragic waste of talent. He was convinced that “whoever has heard him[Herrnfeld] speak High German for three scenes knows that he would havebeen a first-class addition to any first-rate theater.”28 Jacobsohn deploredHerrnfeld’s “lack of confidence in his own power,” and he criticized the the-ater director’s alleged belief that “his strength came from his genre [Jargon

27 It was this fear that made Alfred Doblin lament the role of the intellectual in the postwarperiod. His was a call for action in times of distress and disorientation: “There are voicesthat say the position of the intellectual is hopeless; he can achieve nothing of importancein the state; the great driving forces of industry, technology and commerce are omnipotent.Against these forces, no idea of consequence can thrive; the writer and the poet will soon belackeys, decor, ornaments for the festivals of the parvenus.” Alfred Doblin, “The Writer andthe State,” in Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimenberg, eds., The Weimar RepublicSourcebook (Berkeley, CA, 1995), 288–89. First published as “Der Schriftsteller und derStaat,” Die Glocke, vol. 7, no. 7 (March 16, 1921), 177–82, and no. 8 (May 23, 1921),207–11.

28 In this vein, the Deutsches Buhnen-Jahrbuch remembered Donat Herrnfeld in 1917 as amongthose whose “characters did not lack refinement. They were marked by real humor, andwould have held their own challenged with higher tasks.” Deutsches Buhnen-Jahrbuch 28(1917), in Landesarchiv, Berlin.


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theater].”29 Jacobsohn was convinced that it would have required only min-imal effort for Donat Herrnfeld to rise above a notorious role such as hisportrayal of Isidor Blumentopf to play the part of a “classical Jew” likeShylock or Nathan.

Rising tensions between East and West – between Eastern European immi-grants to Germany and the established Jewish community there – may haveinformed Jacobsohn’s assessment. During the war, assimilated German Jewswere increasingly considered disloyal or lacking in devotion to the nationalcause. When they saw their Eastern European coreligionists facing expulsionand public rejection, their unease over the projection of ethnic stereotypeswas not surprising. In this context, the crude, unheroic performances bythe former variety actor Donat Herrnfeld became all the more unsettling toGerman-Jewish intellectuals. As both a Jew and an intellectual, Jacobsohnbelieved that it was critical for Jewish performers to choose their roles care-fully. Traditionally, Jews identified themselves with the “classical” merits,partly because merit as a concept provided entry into German society, partlybecause many of these merits, such as an emphasis on learning, discipline,and respect for the words, conformed to some of the educational traditionsof Judaism. Jacobsohn deplored Donat Herrnfeld’s failure to stage an intel-lectualized version of the “tragic” Jew, as defined by the classical theatertradition. Herrnfeld, to his great dismay, found himself throughout his pro-fessional life an unheroic hybrid of modern times.

policing the sexual innuendo

Siegfried Jacobsohn was not alone in being irritated by the stage personaIsidor Blumentopf, one of Donat Herrnfeld’s most successful roles. WhereasJacobsohn was concerned that Blumentopf offered a dubious depiction of“a Jew,” other spectators found the Blumentopf character sexually offen-sive. More than a decade before Herrnfeld died, the Prussian theater policereceived a complaint about the content of the play Alone at Last! at theGebruder Herrnfeld Theater. The plot revolves around the ill-fated honey-moon of a young Jewish couple – of which Isidor Blumentopf is the groom –at a hotel in Germany. Time and again the couple is prevented from con-summating their marriage because of unforeseen interruptions. Bride andgroom live through a series of adventures and even arrests and court tri-als. The open eroticism and tactlessness of one scene that involved IsidorBlumentopf elicited immediate protest. In 1902, a spectator named GeorgFriedrich Dasbach, a former chaplain and a delegate of the Center Party(Zentrumspartei) in the Reichstag, wrote a letter complaining about the sceneto the president of the Berlin police.30 Evidently, this letter was preceded by

29 Siegfried Jacobsohn in Die Schaubuhne 1 (1916), 603.30 Dasbach (1846–1907) had been chaplain in Trier under Bishop Matthias Eberhard. See Olaf

Blaschke, Katholizismus und Antisemitismus im Deutschen Reich (Gottingen, 1997), 138.


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a conversation between Dasbach and von Jartzky. Dasbach took offense atthe suggestion in the play that the hotel maid, Babett, who had to appear asa witness in a court scene, also worked as a prostitute. More importantly,Dasbach resented that the “honorable” men present, including the judge,were potential clients of hers.31

Interestingly, Dasbach did not mention that Blumentopf addresses thesame maid as “Frau Ahlwardt” after she vents her distaste for Jews. This linewas a not-so-subtle slap in the face of a well-known anti-Semite, HermannAhlwardt, who had been a prominent member of the Reichstag in the early1890s:32

babett (enters the room): Good God, a Jew!blumentopf: Why so surprised – have you never seen a Jew before? Don’t worry.I will move again – Mrs. Ahlwardt – how mean – 33

Dasbach let this remark against anti-Semitism slip by and focused insteadon the transgression against sexual sensibilities. As a conservative Catholic,Dasbach claimed to be offended by such open allusions to the double stan-dard in middle-class morals. Dasbach could not have missed the jibe againsta well-known anti-Semite, but he must have decided against protesting inthis matter to the police authorities. Although his choice does not tell usanything about how he himself felt about anti-Semitism, it does tell us some-thing about the public acceptability of such sentiments. Whereas a breach ofsexual mores could spark wide public outrage, radical anti-Semitism was stilltoo marginal a position to be the basis for a successful protest against estab-lishments like the Herrnfeld Theater. In this context, it is noteworthy thatDasbach did not consider his own presence at the Herrnfeld Theater a sourceof embarrassment; he deemed his attendance to be necessary for his quest topreserve middle-class morals even on the stage of a popular theater. In hisview, eroticism, prostitution, and the sex lives of bourgeois couples were notto be ridiculed publicly.34 The sexual exploitation of working-class women

31 “In addition to the scenes already mentioned [wrote Dasbach], another scene requires cen-sure, namely where the former maid of the hotel appears in court as a witness and, whenasked about her vocation, is at loss for words, thereby insinuating that she is a prostitute.And then the plaintiff Blumentopf required her to state her address, and when she statesit, the judge, the jury, the court clerk and the plaintiff pointedly write it down. Such scenesshould be eradicated!” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 777, Akt. 120, Berlin, July 28, 1902, Bran-denburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Postdam.

32 Hermann Ahlwardt (1846–1914), a member of the Reform Party and the former directorof a gymnasium in Berlin, was known for his vitriolic speeches in the Reichstag, where hedid not refrain from calling German Jews “predators” and “cholera bacilli.” Ahlwardt wasarrested several times by the German police. He stood for Germany’s rowdy anti-Semitism.Herman Graml, Antisemitism in the Third Reich (Cambridge, 1992), 64.

33 Pr. Br. Rep. 30 C Berlin 348a, Landesarchiv, Berlin.34 For an introduction to the themes of gender and sexuality in modern European societies,

see Catherine Gallagher and Thomas Laqueur, eds., The Making of the Modern Body:


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figure 24. Scene from Der Fall Blumentopf at the Herrnfeld Theater, 1902.

who were servants in middle-class homes and institutions was no topic forleisure-time pursuits. The prominent Catholic did not express his rejectionof the Herrnfeld Theater in terms that allowed others to write him off as aradicalized anti-Semite. He claimed to have found the stage character IsidorBlumentopf distasteful for being indelicate, not for being Jewish. Apparently,the sensibilities of contemporary authorities were far more injured by sexualinnuendo than by ethnic humor.

The records of Berlin’s police support this conclusion. On several occa-sions the reporting police agent seems to have felt almost personally offendedby the crudeness of the play in question. It was most often the inversion ofgender roles that drew such attention. Even in 1921 one agent deplored

Sexuality and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley, CA, 1987). On middle-classmorals and attitudes toward sexuality and prostitution, see Joan W. Scott and Louise A. Tilly,“Woman’s Work and the Family in Nineteenth-Century Europe,” Comparative Studiesin Society and History 17 (1975), 36–64; Regina Schulte, Sperrbezirke. Tugendhaftigkeitund Prostitution in der burgerlichen Welt (Frankfurt a. M., 1979); Karin Walser, Dien-stmadchen. Frauenarbeit und Weiblichkeitsbilder um 1900 (Frankfurt a. M., 1985); PeterGay, Erziehung der Sinne. Sexualitat im burgerlichen Zeitalter (Munich, 1986); CorneliaUsborne, “The New Woman and Generational Conflict: Perceptions of Young Women’sSexual Mores in the Weimar Republic,” in Mark Roseman, ed., Generations in Conflict(Cambridge, MA, 1995), 1.


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his inability to condemn the Folies Caprice for presenting Die erste Nacht,another play that focuses on the inability of a newly wed husband to consum-mate the marriage in a steamy night of passion. In this play, the wedding nightpasses and nothing happens to the great disappointment of the bride. Aftershe complains loudly to her husband, he justifies his subpar performanceby blaming her lack of experience. In response, the bride makes up a fic-tive premarital sexual adventure. The husband, aroused by her report, sud-denly fulfills his marital duty in a satisfactory fashion. The curtain falls. Theaudience, according to the irritated police agent, reacted to the “presentedZweideutigkeiten [double entendre] with great joy.”35

35 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 849, Akt. 9, April 6, 1921, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv,Potsdam.


6

All in the Family

Rosenstock (to his son): Davidchen, what happy people we would be, if I hadn’tmarried your Mama!1

Jargon theaters were, in more ways than one, very typical of popular the-aters at the time. Appreciated as a welcome distraction for many Gentile andJewish middle-class families, they nevertheless were subjected to the commonburgerlichen biases. Jargon theaters could never deny their burlesque roots invariety theater. Their celebration of the grotesque and their open irreverencefor bourgeois proprieties drew large crowds but also fueled the acid commen-tary of critics. As folk theaters, they underwent a considerable transforma-tion and embourgeoisement; on stage, protagonists muted their shrill tonesin the hope that Jargon theater could be included within more “honorable”theater circles. Despite their “ordinary” flair, and their obsession with thetreacherous pitfalls of middle-class sociability, these theaters were also orig-inal and daring in their inscription of Jewish life into the domesticityof the German middle classes, the self-proclaimed pillars of civic society.2

Given the great contemporary demand for light entertainment, choosingto stage one-act comedies might not appear all that exceptional; choosing

1 “Rosenstock (zu seinem Sohne): Davidchen, was waren wir beide fur gluckliche Leut’, wennich dei Mama nicht geheiratet hatt’!” Anton Herrnfeld and Donat Herrnfeld, Was tut sich?(Berlin, 1914), 94.

2 On middle-class morals and attitudes toward sexuality and prostitution, see Joan W. Scott andLouise A. Tilly, “Woman’s Work and the Family in Nineteenth-Century Europe,” Compara-tive Studies in Society and History 17 (1975), 36–64; Regina Schulte, Sperrbezirke. Tugend-haftigkeit und Prostitution in der burgerlichen Welt (Frankfurt a. M., 1979); Karin Walser,Dienstmadchen. Frauenarbeit und Weiblichkeitsbilder um 1900 (Frankfurt a. M., 1985); PeterGay, Erziehung der Sinne. Sexualitat im burgerlichen Zeitalter (Munich, 1986); CorneliaUsborne, “The New Woman and Generational Conflict: Perceptions of Young Women’sSexual Mores in the Weimar Republic,” in Mark Roseman, ed., Generations in Conflict(Cambridge, MA, 1995), 1.

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to use German-Jewish family life as a setting, however, was extraordinary.This choice cannot be fully explained by the commercial or aesthetic consid-erations of the main actors. Folkloric comedy did cater most effectively tothe interpretative talents of the performers in Jargon theaters, to be true, butit was the combination of the performers’ individual aspirations as actorsand as German-speaking Jews that allowed them to find their own nitch inBerlin’s theater world. Very early in their careers, the directors of Jargontheaters realized that the centrality of family, marriage, love, and friendshipwithin the burgerliche Wertehimmel offered more than endless opportuni-ties for slapstick comedies.3 To control laughter was one of the greatestdemonstrations of individual sovereignty. To laugh about the core values ofbourgeois society was a sign of belonging. When Jewish actors founded atheater that dwelled on the comforts and discomforts of Jewish life betweenVienna and Berlin, they gave this theater an edge that demands furtherexploration.

Although there had always been a large number of Jews among the lead-ing actors in German drama, most had remained discreet about their eth-nic background. Their reservations stemmed from the open discriminationJews experienced in German society prior to 1869. For many Jewish actors,the common practice of taking on a stage name fulfilled a dual function: itenabled them to shed their ethnic origins and, in a related vein, it made themappear more marketable and exotic (in a “good” way). This practice con-tinued well into the twentieth century. Many actors and directors did notcare to appear Jewish in public. The most impressive Jewish protagonistsin German drama – such as the directors Max Reinhardt (originally, MaxGoldmann; 1873–1943) and Otto Brahm (originally, Abrahamsohn; 1856–1912), or the famous actors Elisabeth (Ella) Bergner (1897–1986) and FritzKortner (formerly, Nathan Kohn, 1892–1970) – saw themselves as Germanswho happened to be Jewish. Often enough, they did not observe Jewish tra-ditions in their private lives. They considered their ethnic origins to be apersonal matter and believed most passionately in their innovative role inGerman drama. The creativity and artistic energy that they brought to thisrole also exerted an enormous influence on European drama in general. Theirrespective name changes were a reflection of a widely shared belief in the uni-versality of German Kultur as much as they were a painful compromise tofurther their careers in German legitimate culture.

the gebruder herrnfeld

At first sight, the Herrnfeld brothers, Anton and Donat, could not appearmore different from other German Jews involved with Jargon German

3 For a discussion of the moral economy of the German bourgeoisie, see Manfred Hettling andStefan Hoffmann, eds., Der burgerliche Wertehimmel (Gottingen, 2000).


All in the Family 147

figure 25. Anton and Donat Herrnfeld at work.

theater. They did not change their names upon entering show business.They did not conceal their ethnic identity; instead, they allowed it to openlyinfluence the content and style of their work. The brothers founded theBudapester Possentheater at the turn of the twentieth century. This theaterbrought a new theatrical genre to Berlin, one that soon became a brand namefor ribald Jewish humor and slapstick comedy with strong sexual undercur-rents. This new form of entertainment, introduced by the Herrnfeld brothers,became the model for other Jargon theaters in Berlin and elsewhere. Its influ-ence can be felt even in the early silent slapstick movies of the 1920s.

The Herrnfeld brothers were born in Hungary and brought up in Bavariawhile their German-Jewish parents toured as comedians in Central Europe.4

Although their Hungarian roots existed merely on paper, the Herrnfeldbrothers carefully portrayed themselves as Hungarians in public, hoping thatthe reference to Budapest would grant their show just enough flair to appearexotic without, however, alienating their Berlin audiences. At the time,references to Austria-Hungary were as frequent as they were fashionable:Vienna still claimed to be the unrivaled capital of music and theater, whereasHungary was famous for its live entertainers. Many entertainers toured bothcountries; and a success in one was a strong recommendation in the other.

4 Anton was born on January 15, 1864, in Raab/Gyorsziget, Hungary; he died in 1930. Hisbrother David (Donat) was born on November 14, 1867, also in Raab/Gyorsziget, Hungary.Donat died in 1916 in Berlin.


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Little is known about the early years of the Herrnfeld siblings, but in alllikelihood they had only rudimentary formal schooling. Born into a familyof comedians, they were introduced to the necessary professional skills bytheir parents. Always traveling, they were exposed to constantly changingscenery and languages, which must have challenged and improved their socialskills, their keen sense of observation, and their aptitude for survival. TheHerrnfeld siblings were what contemporaries in the entertainment industrycalled Erbartisten, artists who were born into the business.5 Their careerswere in many ways typical of their generation of variety performers. It wasnot until the second decade of the twentieth century that the entertainmentindustry saw a considerable influx of performers who were not raised in thebusiness.

The unique circumstances of a childhood in variety entertainmentattracted the attention of many bourgeois novelists. By the early twentiethcentury, a wide readership devoured the countless “authentic” memoirs ofperformers. Colorful tales of a life in the limelight scandalized readers. Thesefantastic exposes seldom corresponded to the tiresome routines that charac-terized everyday life on and behind the stage. By contrast, Das Programmand the Internationale Artisten Almanach, both contemporary journals forprofessional performers, provide unique windows into the daily lives of pop-ular entertainers. An account like that of the variety performer C. H. Unthanis invaluable for its intimate portrayal of the artist’s social reality. Besidesproviding one of the most accurate descriptions of a childhood in varietyentertainment at this time, Unthan’s testimony captures the double-edgedexperience of child performers – the opportunities but also the constraintsthat set them apart from their peers:

Born on the road in one country or another, during performances they are left forsafekeeping at the coat check in a basket or on a bundle of costumes. As soon as theycan walk, they mimic everything and bounce from pillar to post until they are fouror five years old. Then the serious life begins: training of the body. By the time theyare school age they have passed through half a dozen countries, they have spokenand forgotten as many languages. They speak the language of the country they arein, and with their families they speak the language of their mother, which the fatherhas not always mastered. . . . What is a teacher to do with children who understandhim poorly or not at all, and for whom he can have no sympathy because they arefrom a social class that is totally alien to him? . . . In this way the children, of course,did not acquire much school knowledge. They, like their families, are content withbeing able to write a letter, which, despite all its mistakes, is intelligible. They makeup for it by attaining good manners through their contact with strangers, by learningto be keen observers, and by acquiring knowledge by eavesdropping, in areas thatare inaccessible to the sedentary good student. The latter also absorbs what he hears,but that information gets lost in the monotony of everyday life which rarely, or never,

5 The literal translation of Erbartist is “hereditary artist.”



allows him to develop his own thinking and opinion, whereas the hereditary artistswith all his achievements can stand on his own very solid ground.6

According to family legend, Anton Herrnfeld followed the example ofhis comedian ancestors and began his professional career when he was onlyeight years old. Three years later, he and his siblings Donat (nine years oldat the time), Kathe (seven), and Ella (five) started their first family produc-tion with a blackface masquerade (Neger-Quartett) in the popular ViennaRingtheater.7 From the outset, these entertainers created and reinvented theirethnic stage persona, be it black or Jewish, to please their respective audi-ences. They spoke several languages and were experienced entertainers withimpressive international exposure. The Herrnfelds were well acquainted withinternational trends and customs in the entertainment industry, and even aschild performers they had learned to pay particular attention to regional,national, and ethnic differences in speech and gesture. These experiencesprovided them with a rich and versatile array of dialects, postures, and eth-nic and religious stereotypes on which they could draw throughout theircareers. At the time, variety theaters were acclaimed for the internationalismof their performers and the exoticism of what they presented on stage. Para-doxically, it was this international world that provided a domestic haven forthe young Herrnfeld siblings.8

The professional training of the Herrnfeld brothers thus began long beforethey arrived in Berlin. Although they were only seventeen and eighteen yearsold when they started their careers in Jargon entertainment, they had alreadyundergone many years of training as variety entertainers. Anton and DonatHerrnfeld operated as a comedy team, which allowed them to form a com-munity, whose specific relations were at the core of every play they put onand thus ran like a red thread through most of their productions. AlthoughAnton and Donat Herrnfeld altered the setting and the personal backgroundsof their stage personas, they always related to each other’s characters in thesame way. Like the Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy in American film

6 The defensive undertone in Unthan’s article reflected not only the increasing fear of outsidecompetition but also the author’s need to justify the absence of formal education in the livesof most Erbartisten. In 1925 variety entertainment was far from marginal, and consequentlythe pressure had increased for it to conform to the hegemonic cultural canon. C. H. Unthan,“Der Artist als Weltwanderer,” Internationaler Artisten Almanach, vol. 35 (Berlin, 1925),documenta artistica collection in the Markisches Museum, Berlin.

7 Egon Jameson, Mein lustiges Spree-Athen (Berlin, n.d.), 63.8 The writer Hans Heinz Ewers captures the unique nature of variety entertainment as it pre-

sented itself to young performers such as Anton and Donat Herrnfeld: “Nothing makes usmore aware of the fact that all countries in the world are growing closer to each other dailythan the variety theater, where we see Japanese floor gymnasts, Indian magicians and Egyp-tian dancers. These are constantly new and gripping pictures.” Hans Heinz Ewers in DerArtist, no. 1206, March 12, 1908, documenta artistica collection in the Markisches Museum,Berlin.


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entertainment, the Herrnfeld brothers took on characters that remained sur-prisingly constant from play to play.9 These celebrated American stars werecertainly aware of and profited from the same long tradition of comedy teamsin live entertainment that the Herrnfeld brothers prominently represented infin-de-siecle Berlin. This tradition also informed Berlin’s cabaret entertain-ment in the 1920s, when comic dialogue became a staple of most shows.

The Herrnfeld brothers founded the Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater in 1906in Berlin. By that time, the two had lived in Berlin for almost a decade,performing in various variety theaters and hotels. They made their initialappearance on a Berlin stage in 1891, and started their first entertainmententerprise in 1897 with the Kaufmanns Variete, a popular Berlin variety the-ater.10 Even before the brothers could afford their own theater, they presentedthemselves as an independent entertainment unit wherever they could findemployment. They habitually rented a theater with a license to perform, andthey advertised their plays under their own name. This practice, althoughcontrary to the official stipulations of the Prussian theater police, allowed fora high degree of identification between audience and performers and helpedthe Herrnfeld Company to establish name recognition relatively quickly.These early years of appearing at different local theaters were key to thebrothers’ widespread popularity among locals and tourists alike. The Her-rnfelds could be found performing in the elegant Wintergarten, as well as inthe Reichshallen Theater or the Quargs Vaudeville in the Grand Hotel. Theynever forgot that they owed their initial success at least in part to suburbanaudiences. Throughout their careers, they sustained and reestablished thisrapport, regularly traveling with their seasonal plays into the suburbs andprovinces around Berlin.

As in the world of Jewish circus families, teamwork, family, and the col-lective were important themes in the realm of Jargon theaters. The GebruderHerrnfeld Theater was a family enterprise that included Anton and DonatHerrnfeld and their wives, as well as the brothers’ two acting sisters andtheir mother. Since their early childhood Anton and Donat had been part ofa family team; they never sought their fortunes as individual actors, outsideof the family milieu. Their strong sense of family responsibility resonatedthroughout their careers, and their family ethic informed the organization oftheir entertainment enterprise, the way they related to their audiences, andthe content of their plays.

Despite the central roles of the two director-actors as the front men fortheir shows, the solidarity among members of the family remained unques-tioned, representing one of their core beliefs. It is symptomatic of this

9 For an excellent study of ethnicity and humor in American entertainment, see Mark Winokur,American Laughter: Immigrants, Ethnicity, and 1930s Hollywood Film Comedy (New York,1996), 19.

10 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 777, Akt. 18; October 18, 1897, Brandenburgisches Lan-deshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



familial solidarity that even after the Herrnfelds’ spectacular rise from ragsto riches, the mother of Anton and Donat continued to work in the family-owned restaurant in their theater.11 Like the German-Jewish circus families,the Herrnfelds were reluctant to give up what they regarded as key posi-tions within the entertainment enterprise. Egon Jameson, a nephew of theHerrnfeld brothers, recalls how entrenched the family was in the daily oper-ation of their successful enterprise:

Really only the names Anton and Donat would catch one’s attention as directors,authors, producers and leading men. There were of course other actors and actressesemployed in the theater, but they were also Herrnfelds – as for example the sisterof A & D (my mother) and another sister of A & D. And the wives of A and D satinterchangeably at the advance ticket office and watched over the golden coins, whichthey transported to their home during inconspicuous moments to be stored in safes.12

Friendships were also critical to how the Herrnfelds positioned themselvesin the theater world. Many, but certainly not all, of the Herrnfeld fam-ily’s friends were Jews. In their personal relationships the Herrnfelds seemto have chosen their friends according to their personal liking and theirprofessional appreciation of talent. However, their professional ethos fac-tored more prominently in their social relations than did their ethnic iden-tity. For example, they maintained friendships with the well-known actorAlbert Bassermann and with the theater “wizard” Max Reinhardt, as wellas with the popular Gentile composer Paul Lincke, who was unchallengedas an author of fashionable Berlin operettas.13 Their friendship with MartinBendix (“Der Urkomische”), one of Berlin’s greatest Gentile comedians, isparticularly noteworthy. They met these individuals on private and publicoccasions, including their family vacations with Gentile and Jewish familyfriends. Unlike circus entertainers, who did not develop intimate relationswith their Gentile neighbors or colleagues, even when they had the opportu-nity, Jargon theater entertainers did not confine their social relations to onespecific milieu. Though they had also very strong family ties upon which theirprofessional lives were built, Jargon theater performers were well acquaintedwith Gentile and Jewish protagonists of the Berlin theater scene and werewelcome to move smoothly and confidently in a variety of artistic circles.

the herrnfeld theater: a family affair

Family was a recurring theme in the realm of Jargon entertainment and waslargely responsible for the particularly intimate relationship between Jargonentertainers and their spectators. The Herrnfeld Theater was not just afamily enterprise that presented family life on stage; the audiences and the

11 Jameson, Spree-Athen, 62.12 Ibid.13 Ibid., 63.


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performers-directors in the Herrnfeld Theater also related in a familial way.Berlin’s daily press continued to stress the unique nature of this relationshipbetween audiences and performers at the Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater. In1911, on the occasion of the twentieth jubilee of the Herrnfelds in Berlin,the Berliner Borsen-Courier, for example, compared the premieres at theHerrnfeld Theater with family gatherings, a comparison that casts new lighton established concepts of the public sphere. Although the theater was gener-ally considered to be a public area – visitors dressed to the hilt, as they wouldnot have done at home – its spectatorship, performance, and atmospherewere also highly predictable and in many ways familiar to everybody in theaudience. Spectators habitually met friends and acquaintances at the perfor-mances. Some in the audience were members of middle-class associations thatpaid regular visits to a theater that provided them a place in which to social-ize and relax. Despite the apparent skepticism of intellectuals that was men-tioned earlier, no spectators seem to have been embarrassed to be seen at theGebruder Herrnfeld Theater. Although its performances were not thoughtto have any artistic value, its social importance was considerable and openlyacknowledged; the theater was one of the most intimate forums for Gentile–Jewish encounters. Members of the Jewish middle class may have felt awk-ward upon entering the private homes and participating in the family gath-erings of their Gentile neighbors, as Marion Kaplan has argued, but they didnot shy away from a search for intimacy and amicable relations at the highlystylized, “invented” family gatherings of Jargon theaters. It is this familialatmosphere that permeates a critique in the Berliner Borsen-Courier in 1911:

A jubilee celebration at the Herrnfeld Theater can naturally be celebrated with quitea different verve than one at any other theater. Where plays of different genres,classical and modern works of many different poets are presented by many differentactors, actors and director rank second behind the task at hand. How different it isat the Herrnfeld Theater. Directors and audience form a family, a close unit, behindwhich the play fades in importance. For twenty years the authors have been thesame; since the very first day, they have also been the leading men. The types ofplays remain the same and the audience, the premiere audience, are regulars whoswear by their familiar authors. Actors and directors are one personality, or ratherone twin personality. Yesterday’s jubilee celebrating the past twenty years and theentry into the twenty-first theater year thus has been marked by a truly gay familyatmosphere. The old regulars of the house, associations, and business partners havesent large wreaths and bouquets with proud dedications . . . [T]he directors in turngave all members beautiful garlands with warm dedications, and for the stage veteransthey had arranged for splendid golden framed diplomas, which had an allegoricalfigure and silvery portraits of the directors above and, in the text in rich ornamentallettering, a heart-warming note for each individual.14

14 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 779, Akt. 105, Berliner Borsen-Courier, August 4, 1911, Branden-burgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



Neither on nor off the stage did the Herrnfeld brothers act according tothe rules of legitimate culture. By writing, directing, and performing in theirown plays, and by freely integrating material, concepts, jokes, and charactersfrom other plays and authors, they constantly transgressed the codes of con-duct that constituted the bourgeois work ethic. Their plagiarism and theiregocentrism conflicted with the classical theater tradition. Theater critics hadlong disapproved of a lack of division of labor between actors and author. In1913 the critic Theodor Tagger, writing for Die Schaubuhne, rejected the playSaul by the actor Josef Kainz because it was too focused on its main charac-ters. According to Tagger, Kainz was too concerned with the actor. Makinga more general argument, Tagger concluded, “the poet tries to invent a partof life or to delineate the history of fate. . . . The actor, in contrast, gives usa character and wants to center life around him.”15 This critique is symp-tomatic of the prevailing attitude among many of those involved in classicaltheater at the time. In the ethos of classical theater, the author’s intentionwas meant to dominate the production of a play; the actor was the mediumthrough which the author’s vision came to life. The actor’s interpretationof his or her role was circumscribed by the interpretative boundaries estab-lished by the poet. Thus the vision of Shakespeare, Schiller, and Lessing stilldominated and informed the acting of mimes such as Josef Kainz, AlexanderMoissi, and Alfred Bassermann. Although acclaimed for their interpretativeskills and stage presence, these famous actors performed within the con-straints laid down by the playwright. The Herrnfelds, because they wrote,directed, and performed their own plays exclusively, did not fit the profile of“serious” actors.

The Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater also ran under a form of managementthat was in part inspired by the brothers’ formative years in variety entertain-ment and in part by their ethnic identity. The Herrnfelds introduced a familyand business ethos found predominantly among Jewish live entertainers incircuses and variety theaters to the theater, a genre that usually demandedinclusion in the classical canon. The Herrnfelds transformed their particular-ity into a universal idea. For the middle classes in general and especially forthe Jewish community, the family was both a social reality and a symbol: onstage it may have been appearance, but in the theater it was experience.16 Inthis context, the “family” represented simultaneously a fixed star within the

15 Theodor Tagger, “Der Schauspieler als Autor,” Die Schaubuhne, vol. 9, no. 2 (1913), 806.16 The reference is to a prominent debate among contemporary actors and directors: the rela-

tionship between appearance and reality in modern acting. This debate can be traced as farback as Denis Diderot and his essay “Paradoxe sur le Comedien,” published posthumouslyin Denis Diderot, Memoires, correspondance et ouvrages inedits, vol. 4 (Paris, 1830). Diderotargued that to be a good actor it was imperative that one retain an emotional distance fromthe role’s character. Emotions had to appear authentic; they did not have to be authentic.Diderot’s highly influential essay resonated widely among modern drama theoreticians suchas Konstantin Stanislavski.


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bourgeois universe and an expression of ethnic difference. Both dimensionswere instrumental in the widespread appeal of Jargon theaters among Gentileand Jewish audiences.17

Jargon theaters could not distance themselves completely from their ori-gins in variety entertainment, despite their increasingly upscale locations andtheir middle-class audiences. Several factors were responsible for their con-tinuing exclusion from the legitimate cultural canon. First, the organizationof Jargon theaters did not conform to the expectations of classical drama,which celebrated individualism and artistic flexibility and encouraged a divi-sion of labor among actors, directors, authors, and management. Second, thespontaneous and interactive quality of Jargon entertainment emphasized anoral and not a written dramatic tradition. By contrast, the classical canonrespected the authenticity of the written word and the author’s intentions:any spontaneous alteration of script or performance in response to the audi-ence’s reaction was undesirable. As the Herrnfeld siblings incorporated theirchildhood experiences in variety entertainment into their own performances,those same experiences hindered them from working according to the con-ventions of classical theater. It was impossible for the Herrnfelds to gainthe status of “respectable” actors in the realm of “legitimate” culture. Theywere hampered by their lack of formal education and by their adherence tomanagement and acting practices more common to variety theater, whichwere reinforced by their family solidarity, their desire for economic inde-pendence, and their specific kind of humor. Jargon entertainment was, likevariety theater, stigmatized as uncultivated and profit oriented. Thus nodirector of Jargon theater in Berlin could cast off the reputation of a par-venu in the city’s established cultural scene. The gap between their nega-tive public image and simultaneous economic success represented a never-ending dilemma for most Jargon theater performers; although they aspiredto be acknowledged as actors, they were more likely to be seen as simplecomedians.

source of the laughter

It is important to supplement the preceding discussion of intra- and extra-family relations among Jargon theater performers with an analysis of thesocial composition of their audiences. Who exactly attended Jargon the-aters? Gauging the social composition of audiences for live entertainmenthas always been a difficult task. Surprisingly, Jargon theaters left an unusualquantity of information: the daily press provided informed reviews of the

17 On the bourgeois family ethos and its social reality, see Gunilla-Frederike Budde, Auf demWeg ins Burgerleben: Kindheit und Erziehung in deutschen und englischen Burgerfamilien(Gottingen, 1994); Reinhard Sieder, Sozialgeschichte der Familie (Frankfurt a. M., 1987).



theaters’ latest premieres and shows; the Prussian theater police regularlysupervised the theaters and kept files on every major and minor protagonistin this form of live entertainment; and Jargon theaters were targets of car-icature and ridicule recorded in the plays of rival theaters and in popularpoetry and songs. Such references in popular culture indicate the widespreadknowledge and popularity of Jargon theaters among contemporaries.

Until 1918, the Prussian theater police wanted to know exactly who vis-ited the capital’s theaters. Following the Polizei-Verordnung vom 10. Juni1851 (Police guideline from June 10, 1851), the theater police sent agentsto virtually each theater, circus, cabaret, and variety performance to makesure that scripts were not altered from the approved and censored version.18

Questionnaires also provided a separate rubric under which public responsescould be reported. Special investigations were conducted on such specificoccasions as jubilee celebration premieres. These accounts are invaluable foranalyzing how the public received German high culture and popular culture –and not only in the imperial period. During the Weimar years, when theproactive censorship of plays and press was officially abolished, the theaterpolice did not cease to collect data on individuals, and they continued to visitperformances at least sporadically. They did, however, stop systematicallycollecting scripts of theater and screen performances. The year 1919 was thetransition year for this attempt at deregulation. Nonetheless, the assumptionthat censorship simply ceased to exist after 1918 is too optimistic a view ofWeimar and its policing.19

A 1901 inquiry about the Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater by the KoniglichesLandesgericht II provides the first reliable information on the spectatorshipof Jargon theater entertainment in its formative years. Alarmed by the doublecontract of a clerk employed by the Landesgericht – the individual in questionalso worked as a musician in the orchestra of the Herrnfeld Theater – courtofficials requested detailed information about the social and moral standingof this apparently dubious site of popular amusement. The response of the

18 The first paragraph of this regulation stated that it was forbidden to mount any theaterproduction without the explicit consent of Berlin’s theater police. 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th.154, Akt. 1, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

19 Compare, for example, the secret letter of Berlin’s Police President von Glasenapp to theministers of the interior and for science, culture, and education, written on July 27, 1920:“The opinion of the Theater Council which underlies their response to the attached, thatthe police decree of June 27, 1919 was made with a view to turning the freedoms gainedby the lifting of the censorship laws into their contrary, is completely unacceptable. . . . Byremoving all stipulations which are no longer in force or antiquated from the original decree,especially those which provide for the examination of all performances, the new decree limitsitself to imposing an obligation to advertise for all events, except those which are licensedunder articles 32 and 33 of the G.O. and whose schedule is publicly displayed, and tomaking supervision of all spectacles possible through the dispatch of government officers.”30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 154, Akt. 31/32, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.


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theater police is surprising in light of their reputation as painstakingly strictand authoritarian executors of Prussian authority:

The theater of the brothers Herrnfeld ranks as second-class, but it has a good reputa-tion and is frequented by all segments of society. Mainly peaceful Jewish burghers visitit; and thus one cannot lodge any complaints about disturbances. No reservations.20

From this report one can determine that in 1902, although the Herrnfeldsdid not yet own their theater, and although their performances were still amixture of variety show and one-acts, they already attracted a predominantlymiddle-class audience. Not even the police viewed the performances at theHerrnfeld Theater as subversive.

Press coverage of the Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater at the turn of the cen-tury supports these conclusions. In August 1900, the daily Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger pointed out that the Herrnfeld Theater had become increasinglyelegant.21 The Herrnfelds seemed eager to adjust their theater’s interior decorto satisfy their more established audience. To cast off the casual ambiance socommon in variety entertainment, they did away with tables and chairs. Theyceased to serve beverages and drinks during the performance and made thestage the focus of their establishment. The new layout began to resemble aclassical theater in almost every detail. The Herrnfeld Theater underwent sev-eral further logistical and architectural changes before 1906 when it movedinto more fashionable premises at Kommandantenstrasse 57, a building ableto hold eight hundred spectators.22 Each time the Herrnfelds moved it wasto a more upscale neighborhood and larger and more lavish premises.

Yet another indication of the social composition of the Herrnfeld audi-ences is the content of the plays they watched. Herrnfeld productions amusedtheir audiences primarily by mimicking “serious” plays and ridiculing theirsincerity and didacticism. The success of these parodies relied heavily on theirtiming in coordination with other theater productions in Berlin and on howwell audiences were acquainted with the classical cultural canon. Althoughclassical German drama and Jargon theater ranked quite differently in offi-cial esteem, they still drew similar crowds. To understand many of the jokesat the Herrnfeld Theater, one had to be intimately familiar with the contentand protagonists of “legitimate” theater. This congruence in spectatorshipwas not a coincidence. Jargon theaters were part of a middle-class subculturethat continually imitated, challenged, and in turn informed the hegemoniccultural canon in Germany.

Only by taking into account major trends in mainstream drama at thetime can one fully understand the rapid rise in popularity of Jargon theaters

20 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Akt. 80, July 7, 1901, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.21 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 777, Akt. 65, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, August 8, 1900, Branden-

burgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.22 After 1933, this building hosted the performances of the Judischer Kulturbund.



after the turn of the twentieth century. It was not segregation from othertrends in the performing arts that led to the success of Jargon theater, but thetheater’s conscious willingness to embrace and integrate those trends. Natu-ralism, with its passionate search for “authenticity” and its fascination witheveryday life, particularly impressed protagonists in Jargon entertainment.Although lacking the same degree of pathos, Jargon theater neverthelessjoined the search for the heroic in the profane that was so typical of natu-ralistic drama. Jargon theater could establish its following only because anappreciation for local dialects and unheroic sets and motifs became accept-able to larger theater audiences as a result of their familiarity with natural-ism.23 Naturalistic drama’s claim to reflect reality and truth was a politicalmove against the hegemony and traditional aesthetics of court theaters. Itwas meant to give voice to the growing demand among the German mid-dle classes to have their own lives and concerns reflected on stage. Theirspokesperson Otto Brahm, one of the founding figures of Die freie Buhne,laid out the framework of naturalistic drama in his famous declaration “Atthe Beginning” (Zum Beginn):

Modern art, where it has developed its most vital shoots, has put down roots in theground of naturalism. It focuses on the recognition of the natural forces of existence,obeying a deeper calling of these days, and with reckless desire for truth shows usthe world as it is.24

Not surprisingly, however, neither Brahm’s productions in the DeutschesTheater nor the Herrnfelds’ in their theater directly mirrored social reality.Both staged highly stylized performances of their specific vision of Germansociety, and both attempted to cater to middle-class audiences. Yet even morethan the Deutsches Theater, the Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater approximatedthe Volkstheater ideal that reformers of German drama were calling for.Lacking an explicit educational agenda, however, the Herrnfeld Theaternever managed officially to gain this status.

In addition to naturalistic drama, the Herrnfelds turned to fashionableFrench comedies, which were the staple of many popular theaters at thetime. When Jargon theaters introduced an ethnic touch to the fast-pacedperformances of French comedies, they greatly enhanced their overall appeal.Even so, theater critics remarked ironically upon the Herrnfeld plagiarisms:

Goethe once said: “the hours, like sisters, are similar, but none equals the othercompletely.” Much the same is true of the farces of the Herrnfeld brothers andthe ones at the Residenztheater. It seems to us, however, that the latter has notremained without influence on the program of the former. The adultery farces of the

23 Ruth Freydank, Theater in Berlin: Von den Anfangen bis 1945 (Berlin, 1988), 326–40.24 Otto Brahm, “Zum Beginn,” in Jurgen Schutte und Peter Sprengel, eds., Die Berliner Mod-

erne, 1885–1914 (Stuttgart, 1993), 192.


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Blumenstraße that appear in the Kommandantenstraße seem almost to be translatedfrom a Parisian into [a] German- (or Austrian-) Jewish milieu.25

Until the First World War, Jargon theaters filled a gap in Berlin’s theaterscene. Drawing upon various dramatic traditions, they entertained thosemiddle-class audiences that appreciated “folksy” theater. But Jargon the-aters also catered to ethnically mixed audiences. The open coexistence ofGentiles and Jews in its audiences was a unique and recognized feature ofJargon entertainment. This partial integration of two factions of society – theone seeking familiarity with, the other more interested in proximity to, thissection of Jewish Berlin – is striking in light of the continuing discriminationJews encountered in other spheres, such as in the military, the bureaucracy,and politics.

The success of the Herrnfelds did not go unnoticed in the worlds oftheater and popular entertainment. Other popular theaters, such as the FoliesCaprice, tried to copy the brothers Herrnfeld in almost every detail of theirperformances, presentations, and publicity, and they drew roughly similarcrowds. Thus Felix Berg, a student of the famous theater director VictorBaranowsky, altered the artistic profile of the former Scala Theater at theLinienstraße 132 to stage “Budapester Possentheater.” Berg’s Folies Capriceoriginated in popular entertainment, as had the Herrnfeld theater, but it hadeven fewer roots in Yiddish Berlin. In 1905, Budapest theater a la Herrnfeldwas considered a safe investment in the business world, and Berg foundedthe Folies Caprice, with 135,000 marks. This sum is particularly impressivewhen one considers the risk to investors in the entertainment industry, anindustry in which theaters appeared out of nowhere only to collapse afterone or two seasons.26

Berlin’s theater police and local press both commented on the coexis-tence of Jewish and Gentile middle-class audiences in the Folies Caprice.The Folies Caprice attracted slightly less well-off audiences than did theHerrnfeld Theater. Patrons at the Folies Caprice were allowed to bring theirown food, and they enjoyed that theater’s cruder humor, sure signs that theFolies Caprice targeted a less exclusive segment of society.27 Even in 1921,

25 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 779, Akt. 141, Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, October 8, 1912,Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

26 Unlike the Herrnfeld Theater, however, the Folies Caprice did not remain in the hands of onedirector over its entire existence. In many cases, continuity among the actors was greater thanamong the directors. The directors even recruited former Herrnfeld actors to guarantee thecontinuation of their success. The leading man Ferdinand Grunecker, who began his careerat the Herrnfeld Theater and later switched to the Folies Caprice, was just one example ofthis trend.

27 “The whole Mischpoche [family] is assembled here. There is intimate contact of coursebetween stage and audience. Ham sandwiches, brought from home, are munched with greatdelight. Once the curtain rises, one takes delight in the knowledge of the Loschen ken-desch [the well-known language]. . . . The audience feels at home. Actors and audience share



when the Herrnfeld Theater had already closed its doors, the same lower-middle-class audiences stayed loyal to the Folies Caprice, as they had in theprime days of Jargon entertainment before the war:

The audience is mostly bourgeois. One cannot find anyone from the demimonde,any monocle gentry which commit burglaries at night, or those rotting Messalinesfrom the Kurfurstendamm sitting in the parquet of the theater boxes. Only honestburghers and their wives come to take their minds off the petty as well as the greaterworries of every day life.28

Historians have emphasized that Gentiles and Jews refrained from sharingintimate relations, even though they did interact professionally. It is gener-ally assumed that Jews experienced their Jewish identity only by retreatingto their specific milieu – a family gathering, a Jewish sports association,a Jewish educational institution. Even the cultural realm, often consideredthe only place where Gentiles and Jews could meet on equal terms, wascontested. The tighter the grip of the old elites on institutions involved incultural production, the more difficulties Jews faced. Against this backdrop,the coexistence of Gentiles and Jews in a theater whose main attraction wasthe presentation of Jewish identities in German everyday life is all the moresignificant. In Jargon theaters, the Jewish middle class negotiated their ethnicorigins in and through the presence of Gentiles.

the same speech habits, gestures and expressions. . . . The audience, which sometimes comesall the way from the West-end, gets its money’s worth. And it relishes the Jewish show.”Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 77 (1913), 286.

28 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 849, Akt. 2, Die Große Glocke, April 4, 1921, BrandenburgischesLandeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.


7

A Limited Engagement

Anti-Semitic polemics of sorts accompanied Jargon theaters from their begin-nings. Initially, anti-Semitism had only a marginal effect on the success ofthese theaters. Such polemics can, in fact, be read as involuntary testimoniesto the growing acceptance that Jargon theater found among a broad seg-ment of the population. The theaters would hardly have become the targetsof vicious rhymes, for example, if they were not also symbols of German-Jewish confidence in Wilhelmine Germany. This was a very public confi-dence, not a quiet or private satisfaction from intellectual achievement andadvancement. The reaction to Jargon theater from an anti-Semitic subcul-ture was acid and crude, a response that thought of itself as a response inkind. Clearly, Jargon theaters were not only actors in but also the subject ofpopular culture, a culture that was not per se progressive or tolerant.

Whereas coverage of Jargon theaters in the daily press generally refrainedfrom anti-Semitic commentary, the yellow press did not exercise the samerestraint. A particularly revealing example was a poem by A. O. Weber enti-tled “The Herrnfeld Theater” (1905). It reflects the thrust of anti-Semiticdefamations directed against the two directors Anton and Donat Herrnfeld.We are reminded that humor can be ambivalent in nature and can simultane-ously foster both the inclusion and the exclusion of minorities from society atlarge. Weber’s poem, despite its spiteful nature, was effectively inconsequen-tial in comparison to the far-reaching campaigns against all things “foreign”that were prompted by the First World War. These later campaigns gaveunprecedented support to a formerly self-contained group of rabid anti-Semites and self-proclaimed protectors of German folk and culture. Theyled to the identification of all things Jewish with the foreign enemy, an opin-ion that would hardly have found favor among mainstream middle-classGermans before. During the war, any true or imagined foreign cultural influ-ence ceased to be seen as picturesque or even as educational, but was regardedas harmful to the integrity of and, most importantly, to the unilateral victoryof the German nation.

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A Limited Engagement 161

acid rhymes

Weber’s poem deplored the success of the Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater, whichhe saw as undeservedly enjoying tremendous popularity. The reader is toldof the theater’s wide-ranging and allegedly aggressive publicity campaigns inthe daily local press and gets a warped view of the content of its plays. Twofamiliar themes reemerge with remarkable clarity in this grotesque depictionof Jargon theater: the rejection of parvenus in the cultural realm, and theuneasiness of some Germans about the rise of mass culture. Although thesethemes had been staples of a bildungsburgerliche critique of mass entertain-ment, they now reappear with a decidedly anti-Semitic slant. Formulated asa polemic against the growing number of immigrants from Eastern Europe,the poem mainly reflects virulent resentment of the success of Jewish popularperformers and of the all too relaxed relationship these performers had withtheir middle-class audiences:

The Herrnfeld TheaterTo be frank, just another theater;A fleapit in downtown Berlin!Two Jewish-German ClassicsImported by way of ViennaAre tenants there and directors;Two Yids they are down to the coreBut unfortunately no Jews.

The author identified the brothers Herrnfeld as “Two judisch-daitscheClassics / Imported by way of Vienna,” implying that their real originswere located much farther east than Vienna. “Judisch-daitsch” was a post-emancipatory expression for Yiddish, which was originally used by EasternEuropean Jews simultaneously to mark their allegiance with German cul-ture and to separate their language from such other languages as Polish orLithuanian.1 In the Judisches Lexikon of 1927–30 Judisch-Deutsch is iden-tified as a term employed by Gentiles to describe Yiddish.2 Over centuries,this self-description of Eastern European Jews had given way to a descriptionused by Gentiles.

As the poem continues, its author denies the Herrnfeld brothers any cre-ative intellect. Even while they were plagiarizing they allegedly needed thehelp of a Jewish clergyman, who, according to Weber, is the real culprit inthis pitiful tale. The poem’s tone is conspiratorial and consistent with theformulaic repertoire of contemporary anti-Semites: Jews meet in secret tobrew a poisonous fare; ignorant liberals – personified as the materialistic

1 Bettina Simon, Jiddische Sprachgeschichte: Versuch einer neuen Grundlegung (Frankfurta. M., 1988), 52.

2 G. Herlitz and B. Kirschner, eds., Judisches Lexikon, vol. 3 (Berlin, 1927–30), 462.


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press – as greedy as they are naıve, assist the Jews in their crime:

They write their own piecesBut Schammes is said to help themWell, where three such cooks are at workEvery mash must become unpalatable.The best materials can be pinched,Where there is no talent for writing,But when three people start patchingEvery piece must be ruined.And if enough fools can be foundTo watch this Jewish nonsense,And enough noble German newspapersCome begging for advertising,And praise those piggish managers for their insertsWell, no wonder, Herrnfelds pay cash!

Hostility toward the press, often identified as a “Jewish sphere” ofinfluence – the Mosse and Ullstein families being only the most promi-nent examples of Jewish publishers – permeates this poem. Vile material-ism and anxiety that German audiences were defenseless against an aggres-sor from within are the underlying themes of the preceding stanzas. Theauthor was aware that, unlike Yiddish theater from the Scheunenviertel, theHerrnfeld Theater was regularly featured in the same mainstream newspa-pers in which it was also advertised as part of the Herrnfelds’ elaboratepublicity campaigns. For Weber, the Herrnfelds’ coverage in the contempo-rary mainstream press was further proof of the subversive presence of Jewsin Germany’s cultural sphere. The Herrnfelds were perfect targets for such apolemic because their friendly relationships with many critics and reporterswere known throughout Berlin. They were also vulnerable to attack becausethey were unapologetically self-made. The Herrnfeld brothers were pleasedto display their success and wealth before all of Berlin, which must havemade enemies for them far beyond their immediate competitors. Under amantle of modesty and morality – those so very bourgeois virtues – Weber’scritique aimed to arouse the anger of disgruntled and upright burghers, who,in defense of culture, had an obligation to reject the Herrnfeld Theater as adangerous perversion. There can be no doubt that the Herrnfeld Theater’simportance in the urban landscape of Berlin scandalized certain factions ofBerlin’s intelligensia.

The audience, as obtuse as ever,believes the whole charadeAnd laughs in impish delight when YidsRidicule the Jews so meanly.When a Jew is made the villainWho makes his living with perjury,Every Christian reflects complacently:You Jews, you deserve each other.



But such a Herrnfeld is not even a Jew,Yid is he, to a T.The Yid is the greatest enemy of the Jew,Who undermines his honorDespite all this, even the children of IsraelCome to this temple of German cultureTo see how these two poetsRidicule the Jews.

In Weber’s opinion, the presence of Gentiles in the audience should haveprevented any Jewish performer from making reference to, let alone mak-ing fun of, his or her ethnic background. Their Jewishness was a shame-ful stigma that should remain concealed. Weber’s comments inadvertentlyintroduce one of the most interesting contemporary discussions about therelationship between humor and inclusion and exclusion in German soci-ety. In this context, it was Sigmund Freud who pointed out that jokes byJews about Jews were told with a different knowledge and intention thansimilar jokes told by Gentiles. According to Freud, jokes told by Jews oftenlinked their deficiencies with their talents, which did not allow listeners todistance themselves from the object of the joke.3 Thus a joke could be asmuch a means of distinction for, as it was of identification with, the objectof the joke. Along these lines, performances at the Herrnfeld Theater wenta step further, creating a space in which jokes about Jews and their relationswith Gentiles and other Jews were made in front of a mixed audience. Infact, what must have been insufferable for Weber was the ease with whichthe Herrnfeld performers harmonized differences and facilitated belongingthrough communal laughter. There is no indication that the Herrnfeld direc-tors felt compromised in front of their Gentile spectators, a fact not loston the poem’s enraged author. Even worse in his eyes, the Herrnfeld jokeswere made at the expense of Berlin’s assimilated Jewish community. Weberexpressed his disgust at this and insisted on his insidious distinction between“Jew” and “Yid.”4 He implied that it might be tolerable for Germany’s edu-cated and highly assimilated Jews to crack jokes about the Ostjuden, butthere was no way that Jews “imported through Vienna” could reverse thegaze. The principal demand of this piece is for the complete assimilation of allJews, in that the transition from “Yid” to “Jew” might soften the onslaughtof an alien and unwelcome Eastern European culture. Weber depicted theplayful nature of the Herrnfeld plays and their protagonists as despicable:

3 “These are stories created by Jews to address Jewish characteristics. Jokes about Jews crackedby strangers are often brutal farces depicting Jews as comical figures. Jewish jokes by Jewsdo the same, but they know that the real flaws are connected to their merits. The relationshipof oneself to the subject being criticized created the subjective condition necessary for thejoke to succeed.” Sigmund Freud, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unterbewußten: DerHumor (Frankfurt a. M., 1992), 14.

4 One may translate Jude and Jud as “Jew” and “Yid,” respectively.


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he viewed their tone as yet more proof that the Herrnfelds lacked honor,education, propriety and self-respect as defined by Western societies.

Resembling other anti-Semites at the time, Weber liberally combined con-temporary concepts of assimilation with vague notions of race. He tookpains to differentiate between “Yid” and “Jew” to establish a cultural hier-archy within the Jewish community. But this differentiation seems irrelevantagainst the sweeping judgment in the poem’s last stanza meant to establishthe moral inferiority of all German Jews: “But to prostitute your own race /for filthy money.” For Weber, the assimilated German Jude and the nonassim-ilated Jud belong to the same “race.” His polemic combines the traditionalanti-Semitism of the early nineteenth century with the racial theories of thetwentieth century, contradictory worldviews speaking with one voice as theOld World existed within the new.

If these wizards of advertisingconcerned themselves with shoe polish, or opalOr even old clothes or furniture,None of this would be of consequence.But to prostitute your own racefor filthy moneywith the aid of the press.What appeals to the most common circlesshould properly disgust the majority,be they Christian or Jewish; –– But everyone attends that theaterthat his mind deserves!5

By referring to “old clothes or furniture,” the poem evokes the “assidu-ous pant-selling youths” (hosenverkaufende Junglinge) that Heinrich vonTreitschke used in his notorious attack on the Jews as “Germany’s mis-fortune.”6 This popular anti-Semitic stereotype depicted Eastern Europeanimmigrants and pre-emancipatory Jewry as poor, wandering peddlers, hardlyable to make a living without cheating and corrupting their clients. In 1879,Treitschke considered every unassimilated Jew to be a source of danger tothe German Volk. During Berlin’s anti-Semitism controversy – the BerlinerAntisemitismusstreit – Treitschke’s characterization became common cur-rency among large segments of the German middle classes. Fifteen yearslater, although the anti-Semitic political parties had lost most of their voters,this rhetoric clearly continued to inform German popular discourse.

5 A. Weber, Berlin und die Berliner (Berlin, n.d.), 44–46. For the original, see App. 1.6 Walter Boehlich, ed., Der Berliner Antisemitismusstreit (Frankfurt a. M., 1965); Steven E.

Aschheim, “‘The Jew Within’: The Myth of ‘Judaization’ in Germany,” in Jehuda Reinharzand Walter Schatzberg, eds., The Jewish Response to German Culture: From the Enlighten-ment to the Second World War (Hanover, NH, 1985), 212–41; Hans Liebeschutz, “Treitschkeand Mommsen on Jewry and Judaism,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 7 (1962), 153–82.



Given the unparalled popularity the Herrnfeld Theater was enjoying justas it was published, Weber’s diatribe could have represented only a minorityopinion at the time. But it still must be taken seriously, given the reemergenceof the same kind of hostility with much more detrimental consequences onlya decade later. The segregation of political camps and milieus in Wilhem-ine Germany worked two ways. On the one hand, it prevented the socialadvancement of Jews in important sectors of imperial society, such as themilitary. On the other hand, it seemed to constrain radicalized anti-Semitesand deny them the wide credibility they sought. Being a new industry popularentertainment, in the form of circuses or Jargon theaters, had some protec-tion from their influence. Total war, however, with its fusion of home frontand battlefield, broke the dam protecting this space of relative tolerance andopportunity; during the First World War, radicalized nationalism and rabidxenophobia made anti-Semitism a force that popular entertainment had toreckon with.

the war to end all laughter

Variety and World War

Some say: the world warIs in fact a money warWhere richer peopleIn the endWill hold victory in their hands.This theory must be rejected.The world war is a war of nerves.Victory will fall to those who have the better nerves.And what strengthens our nerves?Serenity,Distraction, andEverything that gives us pleasure.The variety theater,without a doubt,is nerve-strengthening.Therefore we welcome itTo see the German countryhale and heartyAt homeand at the frontthe variety theater helps victory!7

7 “Variety and World War” was published by Gustav Hochstetter in October 1918 in the pro-fessional journal Das Organ der Varietwelt. “Variete und Weltkrieg”: “Manche behaupten:der Welt-Krieg / Sei uberhaupt nur ein Geld-Krieg, / Indem das Volk mit dem meisten / Geld /Zum Schluß den Sieg in den / Handen halt. / Die Theorie ist zu verwerfen!- / Der Weltkriegist ein Krieg der / Nerven: / Das Volk allein den Sieg gewinnt, / Des Nerven die besseren und /


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Published in 1918 when Germany was on the brink of total defeat, the pre-ceding poem reflects the relentless optimism, naıvete, and eagerness of popu-lar entertainment to further the nation’s, at this point desperate, cause. Audi-ences, whether at home or at the front, needed to be distracted and assured,but not challenged. This was no time to celebrate differences. Because atheater that focused on Jewish family life was not considered a unifier ina time of war, Jargon theaters recalled their aesthetic origins and returnedto presenting variety shows and patriotic popular dramas as their answerto the narrowing of minds. Whereas in 1906 the eminent theater criticWalter Turszinsky praised Jargon theaters as places of cultural encounters,ten years later he was lamenting that “a good part of our citizens can findtheir own manners, language expressions, gestures and expressive nuancesonly in the repertoire pieces of those immigrants.”8 Jargon theaters werenot the only entertainment venues to play upon the audience’s curiosityabout others. Nevertheless, they suffered greatly when impenetrable bound-aries between insiders and outsiders were erected in German society duringthe war.

With the death of his brother Donat in 1916, Anton Herrnfeld finallystopped presenting familiar themes on stage. Even a critic writing in theconservative agrarian newspaper the Deutsche Tageszeitung mourned thisdeviation from the usual program at the Herrnfeld Theater. He deploredthe loss of the “ethnic angle” of the Herrnfeld plays, which previously hadallowed Gentiles and Jews to reflect in relative freedom on the issue of Jewishidentities in German society:

The peculiarity of the Herrnfeld Theater, its comical effort of wanting to be theYiddish stage of Berlin, unfortunately appears to have moved to the background. Thisis at least a cultural loss; those who were more distanced from eastern culture wereable here, in the warped mirror of comfortable self-irony, to familiarize themselveswith it and take pleasure in a good confident kind of humor that doesn’t shy awayfrom self-criticism.9

But 1916 was not the true beginning of the end for Jargon theaters as they hadbeen. Already in 1914 the content of the Herrnfelds’ acts was being severelyrestricted, corresponding to the seriousness of the times.10 Immediately after

starkeren sind. / Was kraftigt die Nerven? / Heiterkeit, / Abwechslung und alles, was unserfreut! / Was uns das Variete heute bringt / Ist Nervenstarkung unbedingt. / Drum ist zuDeutschlands Nutz und / Frommen / Das Variete gar hochwillkommen. / Es hilft der Frontund im Reiche / drinnen./ Das Variete: den Sieg gewinnen.

8 Walter Turszinsky, Berliner Theater (Berlin, 1906), Großstadtdokumente, vol. 29, 93–99.9 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 780, Akt. 36, Deutsche Tageszeitung, September 16, 1916,

Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.10 Gary D. Stark, “All Quiet on the Home Front,” in Frans Coetzee and Marilyn Shevin-

Coetzee, eds., Authority, Identity and the Social History of the Great War (Providence, RI,1995), 62.



Germany’s declaration of war against France on August 4, 1914, mostpopular amusements, including music halls, cabarets, and Jargon theaters,were forced to close their doors. But Jargon theaters were the first theatersto reopen their doors after the initial shock and outrage in the Germanpress vis-a-vis the alleged foreign aggression had faded.11 Jargon theatersquickly adapted to the new public mood and began to stage patriotic one-act plays. These plays generally centered on the extraordinary effort madeby Jewish soldiers at the front and the anxiety and patriotic feelings of theirfamilies at home. The shows particularly emphasized the singular natureof the alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary; many of the playswere set on the German-Austrian border. This shift in content was as mucha reflection of the feelings of the theaters’ directors and audiences as itwas a product of the desire to obey the new regulations set down by thePrussian censors. During the war, Berlin’s theater police were very diligent;they did not let anything slip by that could be seen to mock the monar-chy or to ridicule the war effort. Adultery as a subject and most forms ofethnic humor also became undesirable, leaving little room for humorousentertainment.

In August 1914 the German emperor declared that he would no longerrecognize political parties, only Germans, united in Burgfrieden (domestictruce). Ironically, this very attempt to unify Germany made the country’scultural, religious, and political diversity painfully apparent. Humorous ref-erences to various regional and ethnic identities, originally intended to rein-force a sense of local community, now became markers of unacceptable dif-ference in the face of a nationalist consensus. One of the most visible signsof such a change in the acceptance of differences was the German army’sJewish “enumeration” (Judenzahlung) of November 1916. This effort todetermine whether Jews either were shirking their military obligations orwere engaged in profiteering can certainly be considered a turning point inJewish–Gentile relations.12 Jargon theaters chose to react to the new climateby downplaying the ethnic dimension of their performances. Because Jargontheater directors and performers did their best to adjust their plays and pro-grams to the altered situation, their genre as such became obsolete in thecourse of the war. Cosmetic adjustments and a change in emphasis couldnot halt the decline of Jargon entertainment. Once cultural diversity and co-existence were renounced and replaced by a call for conformity, the appealof Jargon theater as a popular Jewish theater was lost.

Whereas the Herrnfeld Theater gave up altogether in 1916, the FoliesCaprice made sexuality the dominant theme in its performances and was able

11 Otto Schneidereit, Berlin wie es weint und lacht. Spaziergange durch BerlinsOperettengeschichte (Berlin, 1973), 179.

12 Werner T. Angress, “The German Army’s ‘Judenzahlung,’ of 1916: Genesis-Consequences-Significance,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 23 (1978), 117.


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to preserve its popularity beyond 1921. This was a first step in its becoming“mainstream” and relinquishing its unique status in Berlin’s entertainmentscene. As in the founding years of Jargon theaters, complaints were raisedabout the obscene nature of the acts and their corrupting influence onaudiences. In particular, Berlin’s Verein zur Bekampfung der offentlichenUnsittlichkeit E.V. (Association to Combat Public Indecency) feared thatGermany’s youth would be corrupted by the sexually charged performancesof the Folies Caprice.13 Although the Berlin police received this associa-tion’s complaint with understanding, the authorities did not issue any officialsanctions. Neither the theater police nor most theater critics believed thatany discrimination against the Folies Caprice could be justified in light ofthe new liberties other performers were taking on Germany’s more estab-lished stages. For example, the daring and openly sexual production ofArthur Schnitzler’s Reigen at the Kleines Schauspielhaus especially offendedsome police officials. At first glance, this affair resembled the Dasbach inci-dent discussed earlier. Yet, unlike in previous years, at this time no com-ment by the press, police, or spectators referred to the Folies Caprice as apopular Jewish theater or, rather, as a theater focusing on Jewish themes.A contribution to the Neue Berliner Zeitung was typical in ignoring theJewish aspect of such drama. Neither the city’s press nor internal policecorrespondence had refrained from such comments in previous decades.We can assume then not only that the sensibilities of these witnesses hadchanged but also that the performances themselves had been altered tomatch these new sensibilities. The earlier quest to paint colorful, mocking,or endearing pictures of Jewish life in Germany had been replaced by rou-tine but mandatory references to common Jewish stereotypes, names, andcustoms.

In the early 1920s, it was mostly the open eroticism and sexually chargedhumor of its productions that attracted spectators to the Folies Caprice.The rise of anti-Semitism and a general discomfort with ethnic differencein postwar Germany politicized any ethnic humor depicted on the stage. Apublic eager to escape political tensions was not attracted to performancesthat could possibly antagonize the audience. In fact, political entertainmenthad never attracted large numbers in Germany. Sex became Jargon theaters’greatest attraction, as it was in most other forms of popular entertainmentduring the early Weimar Republic. Neither political humor nor ethnic humorcould be counted on to inspire communal laughter; sex, however, was alwaysa winning formula. This instrumentalization of sexual crudeness elicitedthe contempt of the conservative press just as it prompted the amusement

13 The author is F. Reuter; 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 849, Akt. 4, April 4, 1921, Brandenburgis-ches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



of liberal journals. In 1921 a writer for the conservative Die Tageszeitungnoted:

All those were mistaken who would have believed that even certain Berlin theaterowners could not stoop lower into the morass of depravity than they have over thelast few weeks. Yesterday I attended a theater performance – I don’t want to namethe theater company, well known and popular for its obscenities – which for anyonewith an ounce of decency dwarfed anything presented outside of the outright red-light milieu. . . . Truly, an incomparable flowering of the arts and culture. Anyone whodoubts it is a grumbler (Mucker)!!14

In a handwritten note, the author of this critique, Professor Dr. Brunner, iden-tified the Folies Caprice as one of the main sites of sexually offensive perfor-mances.15 Whereas Brunner and the conservatives he represented believedthat mainstream sexual sensibilities were constantly offended by populartheaters such as the Folies Caprice, other observers welcomed this taking ofliberties as a means to reform public discourse. A contribution to the NeueBerliner Zeitung, for example, did not find anything offensive in the showsat the Folies Caprice. On the contrary, this writer laughed at those philistineswho chastised the theater for its ribald sexual humor: “One can see winking,hear whispering, and laughter, open at times and sometimes embarrassed,but the German moralistic community does not have to jump out of its skin.Along with the eroticism the irresistible humor of the pieces and their inim-itable presentation appease any critic.”16 Conservative and liberal opinionsmostly confirm, however, that the Folies Caprice had evolved into a theaterfocusing on sexual humor.

Not just sex, but sex and death together also proved to be a winning themein postwar entertainment. Whereas circuses tried to attract their audiencesthrough Todesartistik, and some popular theaters introduced sex shows astheir main attraction, other theaters chose to combine sex and violence.Numerous contemporaries have remembered how death, humiliation, anddrugs fascinated Berliners and dominated the city’s popular entertainmentscene in the aftermath of the war.17 Even the family-oriented Jargon theaterssuccumbed to this general brutalization of the public sphere. For example,

14 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 849, Akt. 3, Deutsche Tageszeitung, March 4, 1921, Brandenbur-gisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

15 “The ‘Folies Caprice’ has long since developed into the special stage for obscenities, and byvirtue of this it possesses a particular attraction. The systematic manner in which indecencyorganizes its business here is an insult to the authorities, who even today ought to feel obligedto protect decent sexual mores as part of the public order.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 849,Akt. 1, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

16 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 849, Akt. 1, Neue Berliner Zeitung, February 19, 1921, Branden-burgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

17 See, for example, Friedrich Hollander, Von Kopf bis Fuß: Mein Leben mit Text und Musik(Bonn, 1996), 69.


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in a scene from a play at the Folies Caprice depicting a couple that wasseparating, one actor suggested to the other that their unwanted child bedisposed of at the knacker’s yard.18 Increasing poverty, hyperinflation, andthe trauma of a lost war had led to the breakdown of bourgeois moral codesthat sanctified family life and parental responsibility. Now, the Folies Capricenot only poked fun at those tottering moral codes, it seemed to endorse thingsquite the opposite.

aliens and the german nation

By the end of 1914, this new hostility toward ethnic and national differ-ences manifested itself in the realm of live entertainment. One obvious signof the times was the almost hysterical rejection of foreign names in showbusiness. This phobia was part of larger crusades against foreign artists andagainst foreign influences, real or imagined, in the style and content of shows.Germans came to sharply distinguish between exotic and alien. Such aggres-sive protectionism of German culture and society was not confined to showbusiness, but penetrated all spheres of life. German nationalists intuitivelyknew to home in on the connection between language and social reality.Along with achieving their stated aim of purifying the German languageof “foreign words,” they also hoped to purify German society of “foreigninfluences.” One of the most ardent advocates of such purification was theAllgemeiner Deutsche Sprachverein – an association that wanted to rid theGerman language of any foreign words. The influence of the Sprachvereinwas evident when, in September 1914, Berlin’s police chief urged his admin-istrators to erase any trace of foreign words (Fremdworter) in German.19 By1915, most Germans probably used the term Fremdwort in its most literalsense: foreign word.

In 1914/15, it was the Folies Caprice and not the more respectable Herrn-feld Theater that first became a thorn in the flesh of self-proclaimed nation-alists. The theater’s French name provided ammunition for members of theSprachverein. The Folies Caprice was singled out to become one of the firsttheaters to be accused of treason. The debates, however, were not confinedto the circles of hard-core fanatics. The presence and influence of foreigners,

18 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 849, Akt. 3, Deutsche Tageszeitung, March 4, 1921, Brandenbur-gisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

19 “Today more than ever there are good reasons to avoid unnecessary foreign words. EnclosedI am humbly sending Your Honor a part of the Germanization-edition of the Allgemeinerdeutscher Sprachverein Die Amtssprache, with the request to supply a copy to all civil ser-vants in your department who are drafting official documents; the required number of copiescan be ordered from the central bureau. Additional ones can be obtained for returning civilservants at any time, especially after peace has been established.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74,Th. 3750, Akt. 43, Berlin, September 25, 1914, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Pots-dam.



their culture and language, also made the front pages of daily newspapersand professional journals.20 On September 27, 1915, the director of theSprachverein called the police’s attention to the continuing internationalismin Berlin’s entertainment scene and demanded that the Folies Caprice changeits name:

Monuments of shame – that’s what one almost also wants to call those French namesof various entertainment establishments that are even today proliferating on Berlinadvertising columns. For years Berlin has had a comical theater company, the FoliesCaprice. In light of the Auslanderei prevalent in the past this is not much of a surprise,except perhaps that an enterprise aiming at fun and humor exhibits such intellectualpoverty in the choice of its name. Talmi! Now it has probably dawned on them thatthis Francophilia is no longer in fashion, and therefore they print their announcementswith both words crossed through.21

The war provided an opportunity for extreme nationalists to gain unprece-dented influence over culture and entertainment. Police authorities, whoin prewar Berlin had not been particularly inclined to suppress the city’sexpanding entertainment industry, found themselves confronted by demandsthat they could not ignore. Entertainers and theaters were seriously endan-gered by these changes in public sensibilities. Director Schreiber of the FoliesCaprice rightly feared becoming a target, and he went out of his way toprove his “innocence” by trying both to cooperate and to demonstrate hisgood taste.22

The discussion about foreign names in live entertainment was only oneelement. The war was fought in all spheres of popular culture. Foreignerswho had lived in Germany for decades or who were married to Germancitizens faced persecution and possible expulsion. The combination of thewidespread paranoia about a fifth column, a sense of cultural superiority,and a need to identify scapegoats to blame for economic hardship made thepersonal situations of many foreign artists unbearable. Some German enter-tainers manipulated contemporary fears for personal gain, turning privateenvy into a national affair. Performers who in previous years had not beenable to deal with unwelcome foreign competition believed that their timehad come to plot against former colleagues and even friends on the pretextof serving the national cause. This discrimination was encouraged and facil-itated by different institutions and in the end, even sanctioned by the IAL,the circus, variety, and cabaret performers’ union. The union stipulated, for

20 See, for example: “Die Auslanderei auf der deutschen Buhne, zweite Folge, was die Dichtersagen,” Berliner Borsen-Courier, January 27, 1915, or “Die Verdeutschung der Artisten-sprache,” Das Programm, no. 661, December 6, 1914, documenta artistica collection in theMarkisches Museum, Berlin.

21 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 3750, Akt. 35 and 40, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Pots-dam.

22 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 3750, Akt. 43, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.


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example, that directors could summarily lay off performers who refused toreveal their citizenship.23

Many surviving denunciations testify to how the First World War couldbring out the worst in Germany’s citizens. In November 1914, for example,the Berliner Ensemble Musiker Bund, originally founded as an institutionalplatform to represent the interests of individual musicians, asked the militaryauthorities in Brandenburg (Oberkommando in den Marken) to removeunwelcome foreign competitors:24

Despite the treatment of our compatriots in the enemy countries, a treatment thatis an insult to all cultural decency, in our own country foreigners not only enjoythe greatest liberties, but also work very busily and are sometimes preferred in ouroccupation, because they substantially undercut prices. For example, the Russianvon Spannowsky works in the orchestra at the “Deutsches Theater,” the Russiandirector of music Leiserowitsch at the “Central Hotel,” the Russian Lewitsch atthe “Rollkrug Kino” in Neukolln, the pianist Robert (Belgian) at the “LichtspieleWittelsbach” cinema in Wilmersdorf, Berlinerstrasse 166, the Cellist Liebenbaum(Russian) at the “Amor-Lichtspiele” cinema in Wilmersdorf, Uhlandstrasse 81, andthe pianist and harmonium player Melzak (Russian) at the Cafe A.B.G. Schoneberg,Bambergerstrasse 21.25

Complaints to Berlin’s police from associations or individuals reveal thatthe Russians far more than the French or the British seem to have offendedGerman artists’ national pride. A closer look reveals that these “Russians”were mostly Jews who had emigrated from Czarist Russia to Germany atthe turn of the century. These Jews had successfully lived in Germany fordecades, never becoming a burden to Germany’s welfare system. The case ofMax Widetzky is representative. Born in Riga, Widetzky came from the paleof settlement, the area with the highest concentration of Russian Jews. Mar-ried to a German woman, he had lived in Berlin since 1902 and supportedhimself and his wife by working as a singer and composer. Feeling pressureto demonstrate his gratitude toward his second home, Widetzky petitionedfor permission to entertain wounded German soldiers with his choir forfree.26 Foreigners, and especially foreign-born Jews, felt compelled to volun-teer their services for the German war effort, hoping that their contributionwould prevent their being deported to their birth country.

It is difficult to determine whether the German idea of Russia as anAsian, a foreign, and an uncivilized country made Russia’s citizens more

23 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 3748, Akt. 40, Brandeburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.24 Subsequent investigations by the police usually revealed that accusations of discrimination

on the basis of unwelcome competition was unfounded.25 The author was K. Schiementz. 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 3748, Akt. 3, Berlin, November 17,

1914, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.26 “To demonstrate my patriotic conviction I have founded a choir which has given several

concerts at field hospitals for injured warriors.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 3748, Akt. 114,March 3, 1917, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



unacceptable, or whether it was chiefly anti-Semitism finding an outlet inthe persecution of Russian Jews. For many Germans, the concept of theEastern Jew (Ostjude) combined these two aspects in a particularly threat-ening way.27 Before the war, Germans viewed shtetl culture as an intriguingand amicable form of rural life, and this allowed it to function as an theobject of amusement in Jargon theater. But the way Germans saw shtetlculture changed during the war. To be sure, some Jewish intellectuals wereabout to discover and romanticize their shtetl roots, leading to what cameto be called “the renaissance of Jewish culture” in the Weimar Republic.Nevertheless, as early as the second year of the war, the German public wasbecoming less generous in its judgment.28

The general antipathy toward “enemy aliens” (feindliche Auslander) soonfocused on Jewish immigrants. Jargon theaters as a genre had no place ina society that was in the process of turning inward. The former interest incultural exchange with neighboring countries gave way to fierce protection-ism and to open acts of violence against “aliens.” These trends accelerateddramatically in the half decade after the November revolution of 1918. Themixture of unemployment, inflation, and racial discrimination proved to bean explosive one. It culminated in 1923 in mob violence and anti-Jewishpogroms in the Berliner Scheunenviertel.29 Such radicalized anti-Semitismmade it particularly difficult for Jewish artists to eke out an existence inGermany’s orchestras, theaters, and cabarets. But it was not only social dis-crimination that made it harder for the average Jewish performer to work inthe postwar entertainment industry. Germany’s entertainment scene was eco-nomically and artistically impoverished by the war, and employment oppor-tunities were drastically reduced, not least because Jewish enterprises hadcollapsed in great numbers.

27 For a discussion of the concept of the Ostjude, see Jack Wertheimer, Unwelcome Stranger:East European Jews in Imperial Germany (Oxford, 1987); Steven Aschheim, Brothers andStrangers: East European Jews in German and German-Jewish Consciousness, 1800–1923(Madison, WI, 1982); Trude Maurer, Ostjuden in Deutschland, 1918–1933 (Hamburg,1986).

28 The Wintergarten, for example, was under rising pressure to lay off Russian Jews, whoconstituted a large proportion of its staff. 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 3748, Akt. 25, Branden-burgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

29 R. Scholz, “Ein unruhiges Jahrzehnt: Lebensmittelunruhen, Massenstreiks und Arbeits-losenkrawalle in Berlin, 1914–1923.” In M. Gailus, ed., Pobelexzesse und Volkstumulte inBerlin. Zur Sozialgeschichte der Straße, 1830–1980 (Berlin, 1984), 116; cited in Detlev J. K.Peukert, The Weimar Republic: The Crisis of Classical Modernity (New York, 1992), 160; foranti-Semitic violence in postwar Germany, see Donald L. Niewyk, The Jews in Weimar Ger-many (Baton Rouge, LA, 1980); Till van Rahden, “Ideologie und Gewalt. Neuerscheinungenuber den Antisemitismus in der deutschen Geschichte des 19. und fruhen 20. Jahrhunderts,”Neue Politische Literatur 41 (1996), 11–29; Richard Bessel, Germany After the First WorldWar (Oxford, 1993); Dirk Schumann, “Der aufgeschobene Burgerkrieg: Sozialer Protestund Politische Gewalt in Deutschland,” Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswissenschaft 44 (1996),526–44.


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It is symptomatic of the increasing ethnicization of the public sphere thatthe right-wing Deutsche Zeitung, a newspaper known for its anti-Semitictendencies, celebrated the Palestinian Theater on its 1924 Berlin tour but atthe same time castigated Jewish actors for claiming to be German actors firstand foremost:

Appearing soon, a Palestinian theater company will give a guest performance inBerlin. They perform in Hebrew, thus confessing to their ethnic peculiarity. It is to bewelcomed that any pretence is avoided and the artists are aware of their home culture.If Jeßner, Kortner, Elisabeth Bergner, Maria Orska etc., etc., also remembered theirSemitic origins, their artistic expression would be purer and more powerful than now,when with carefully calculated misrepresentation they appear as German artists. Atthe very most they are German citizens of Judaic faith. The more Berlin’s Jewishstage artists profess their allegiance to their race openly, the more valuable theirperformances become as a contrast to Germanic acting art.30

By the 1920s, the extreme right was not the only group advocating the sepa-ration of German and Jewish drama. The attraction of Jargon entertainmentfaded the moment both Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans began to ques-tion assimilation as a goal. Hybrids such as the Jargon theaters, with theirroots in various dramatic traditions and their depictions of Jewish assimi-lated life, lost much of their appeal among the general public.

Jargon theaters were doubly affected by this development: as Jewish the-aters and as theaters rooted in a variety tradition. Jargon theaters never trulyshed their roots in variety entertainment. In turn, variety theaters bemoanedthe increase in intolerance of foreigners on stage; these theaters ceased toexist in their prewar form. It is thus no surprise that by 1918 Peter Panter(alias Kurt Tucholsky) was deploring the death of an entire entertainmentculture, a culture whose driving force had been a playful approach to ethnicand national diversity:

The international Variety Theater is dead. Seemingly dead? We would hope so, despitethat overeager zealots seem to believe that one could wake up the already buried withartificial folk theater and “country dances,” replacing what is irreplaceable.

How has it been in the past?In smoke-filled halls – every variety theater should be a theater that allows

smoking – the now banned foreigners have displayed their colorful art. No, theyhave done more than that. Without the English, the Negroes and the Roman peoplesa good variety program is missing its spices – it is missing its true content.31

30 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 3748, Akt. 179, Deutsche Zeitung, May 4, 1924, BrandenburgischesLandeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

31 “Das internationale Variete ist tot. Scheintot? Wir hoffen das, obgleich alldeutsche Eifererglauben, man konne mit kunstlich arrangierten ‘Volksspielen’ und ‘Landestanzen’ wiederaufwecken, was nun einmal begraben ist, und ersetzen was unersetzbar ist. ‘Wie war esdenn?’ In den rauchgeschwangerten, hohen Saale – jedes Variete mußte Rauchtheater sein –fuhrten die Auslander, heute fern gehalten, ihre bunten Kunste vor. Nein. Sie taten viel mehr.



In the newly chauvinistic German environment after 1916, in whichanything “foreign” was suspicious, Jewish assimilated life became moretenuous and problematic among both Gentiles and Jews, and Jargon theatersappeared to be remnants of a lost world. Ironically, this impoverishment ofBerlin’s theater scene occurred in an era – “the golden twenties” – acclaimedfor its creativity, vibrancy, and freedom of expression.

Einem guten Varieteprogramm fehlte nicht nur die Wurze ohne die Englander und Niggerund Romanen – es fehlt ihm sein eigentlicher Inhalt . . .” Peter Panter, “Schwarz=Weiß=Rot,”Das Organ der Varietwelt, October 1918, documenta artistica collection in the MarkischesMuseum, Berlin.


8

The Gravity of Laughter

Before the outbreak of the First World War almost all plays at the HerrnfeldTheater and the Folies Caprice centered around one single leitmotif: theassimilation of German Jews. Subjects such as mixed marriages, religiousdevotion, dietary laws, Jewish names, economic success, education, thestigma of the parvenu, and relations to Germany’s traditional elites wereexplored in these plays. The Jewish family and its immediate environmentprovided the setting in which these issues were negotiated, ridiculed orcontested. Although plays at the Folies Caprice were more direct in theirlanguage and humor than plays at the more refined Herrnfeld Theater,their general thrust was similar. Plays produced in these theaters beforethe war assumed that Jews represented a religious denomination united byshared beliefs and practices that did not conflict with their allegiance to theGerman nation. The Jews who were depicted on the stages of Jargon theaterswere German citizens of the Jewish faith (deutsche Staatsburger judischenGlaubens). Just like Jewish circus families, Jewish performers in Jargon the-aters took pride in their Germanness, but they did not ignore the continuingdiscrimination against Jews in many areas of public life. Jargon theaters prob-lematized the ability and willingness of German Jews to assimilate middle-class norms and expectations as well as the difficulties experienced by themajority in accepting the Jewish minority unconditionally. Jargon theaterswere sensitive to debates in the German press and streets. They reacted tothese debates by poking fun at all parties involved: Jews and anti-Semites,orthodox Jews and reform Jews, men and women, young and old, rich andpoor, rural residents and urban residents. By making no exceptions, Jargontheaters stressed equality as the ruling principle among the ordinary citizensin society, without, however, questioning the authority of the ruling regimeand its elites.

The Herrnfelds’ play Nachtdienst (1902) can serve as an example of thecomplex web of relations that the brothers conveyed so masterfully to their

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The Gravity of Laughter 177

audiences. This play was the first of its kind on several counts. For the firsttime Berlin became the setting for a play at the Herrnfeld Theater. Equallyimportant was the depiction on stage of intimate Gentile–Jewish relations,going beyond ordinary business relations. At a time when neither religiouscommunity accepted mixed marriages, spectators witnessed the dilemma ofa young Jewish husband confronted with the supposedly immoral behaviorof his Gentile bride. Unlike the allegorical plots of plays produced in classicaltheaters, Nachtdienst presented its audience with a real-life situation. TheHerrnfeld play capitalized on the spectators’ familiarity with its dialects,location, and milieu.

The plot line is simple: The Gentile girl Else lives with her widowedfather, Gottlieb Knolle; she is engaged to a poor Jewish student named Max.Max finds out that Else is a waitress in one of Berlin’s many hostess bars(Animierkneipen) in the Friedrichstraße, a well-known amusement district.Before, Max and Else’s father thought she was working night shifts as aphone operator. Everybody is shocked because the wedding is imminent andthe fathers of the groom and the bride are long-standing friends. To com-plicate matters, these two fathers had decided to move in together, partlyout of economic necessity and partly as an expression of their mutual affec-tion. Indeed, they had hoped that their camaraderie would lead to the unionof their children, who had been dear friends during childhood. Prior to thescandal, Knolle, the Gentile, overcomes his friend Sussel Holzer’s reserva-tions about a marriage mixing religious backgrounds. Knolle welcomes thelove match; he stresses to Max’s father the importance of religious toleranceand the merits of a middle-class work ethic: “Let the children do what theywant, it’s all destiny anyway! It’s all right, he’ll get an honest girl, and whocares that they have a different faith, so they’ll have a civil wedding; andit also has happened before, that he has nothing and she hasn’t either andthey have achieved something anyway.”1 It turns out that Else has lied abouther job because she wanted to earn money for her fiance’s education and sothat she and Max can move out of their restricted circumstances. The playappeals to its audiences not to pass judgment without first asking questionsbecause nothing is as clear as it may seem at first.

In a conversation between Else’s father and a family friend, Rudersberg,Knolle expresses his outrage and disappointment after he discovers hisdaughter’s alleged transgressions. He vents his anger to Rudersberg, who, in

1 “Denn las doch die Johren machen wat se wollen, det is allens Bestimmung! Dat is ja richtig,er kriegt ja nen braves Madchen, und von wegen, des se beede verschiedenen Glauben haben,nan, da gibts ja ne civile Ehe, und solche Falle waren ooch schon da, dat er nichts hat undsie nichts hatte, und sind doch zu wat gekommen.” Nachtdienst, Schauspiel aus dem BerlinerLeben, Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil 2320, Landesarchiv,Berlin.


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the course of the conversation, points to the hastiness of Knolle’s reaction(scene 13):

rudersberg: [ . . . ] . . . do you know at all what motives tempted her to do this?knolle: I didn’t make her do it!rudersberg: I believe that, but just have a look [turning around] at the splendidmisery in this house – young blood, – hedonism, keeping company with others whomay have a bit more – good female friends – here a flounce on the skirt, silk petticoats,there another little lace – embroidered stockings; well, we can’t even empathize withthese things, that is exactly our social question – the spice of life, factory girl – hasthe desire to be someone at least once . . .

knolle: But the girl has nothing, she really has nothing!rudersberg: You know, Gottlieb, at least you could have asked her why she hasdone it. . . . 2

In the aftermath of this conversation, Knolle confronts his daughter and asksher what drove her into the scandalous milieu of the Friedrichstraße. He andMax are shocked when Else reveals her altruistic motive. Her unconditionallove is meant to touch both the men on the stage and the sympathetic spec-tators in the audience:

knolle: Do you wanna tell me now, what possessed you / there she stands now –the Missus with the obdurate face! I would have done anything for your mother –I would have stolen – if she had been wanting anything – I would have become aburglar – to help her!else: I haven’t done anything worse! (Pointing at Max) to help him – that money isfrom me!3

This final twist to the drama left a deep impression on the audience, andwas the subject of thoughtful comments in Berlin’s daily newspapers. TheBerliner Lokal-Anzeiger, for example, asked who is more immoral – thegirls who try to make a living in Berlin’s amusement centers, or their clients“who drag the honor of their families through the mud”: “Else’s mistakewas committed out of love for the poor student whose career she hoped tosupport.”4 This commentary was even more significant because, at the time,prostitution was much on the mind of the German public and was regardedas a major assault on the institutions of family and marriage. By examiningthese issues and giving them a particular spin, the Herrnfelds secured theapproval of their heterogeneous audiences.

Nachtdienst not only appealed to its audiences to accept marriagesbetween Jews and Gentiles; it also pointed to the many achievements of Jews

2 Ibid.; for the original, see App. 2.3 Ibid.; for the original, see App. 3.4 “Very nice is the scene posing the question: who is more corrupt – those girls or the ‘gentlemen’

who drag the honor of their families through the mud?” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 777, Akt.124, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, November 21, 1902, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv,Potsdam.



and to their merits as good citizens. The implicit argument was that the Jews’loyal service in the army was proof of their devotion to the nation. Hencethe playwrights took pains to establish Knolle’s and Holzer’s common expe-rience as Prussian soldiers in the Franco-Prussian War. The fathers’ sharedfront line experiences at Gravelotte, the site of a German victory over theFrench army, was the foundation of their friendship as equals.5 Against thisbackdrop, the anti-Semitism that costs the Jew, Sussel Holzer, his job leavesboth veterans speechless with anger. In the following scene, Sussel feels com-pelled to remind the audience of the unfairness he has suffered. Whereasthe main story supposedly focuses on the complicated love affair of theirchildren, here the fathers turn out to be the real protagonists of the play(scene 5).

knolle: Yes – that’s true, Sussel, your Max is a decent fellow!sussel: If all people were like this, like you, who look at everyone the same way,no matter whether they are Jew or Christian, – I would not have needed anythingfrom Tuchel, but as it is – an uproar [so – e Gewalt!] ! Suddenly Tuchel goes crazy –doesn’t want Sussel Holzer any more! Seen – Tuchel of all people. Now, did I doanything to anyone? Did not enough people live off me? Didn’t I stand with you atGravelotte? Would I not have just as willingly sacrificed my life for the fatherland, –didn’t I, just as you, have parents at home who wept for their child? Suddenly theychange [Strohmung] – Tuchel goes crazy!knolle: Yes, yes, pal, you won’t change that, that’s always a matter of perspective;one has to stay above that! Look, for example: today the Staatsburger runs an article,a big story, well then, good God, I’ll have a good day and the paper will sell; tomorrowthe Freisinnige serves up a new sensation and I’ll make a bundle again, everythinghas its audience, and the beauty of it is that those who buy the Staatsburger also buythe Freisinnige – that’s the kind of craziness we’re dealing with! We are talking aboutdelusions here, but because of it, old boy, the world stands, and both of us won’tchange it!6

At no point should it be forgotten that this dialogue was part of a farce.It poked fun at the relativity of political leanings and sensationalism in theage of mass politics, and it appealed to the audience to display toleranceand acceptance of the “other.” Forbearance, moderation, and pride werethe principle attributes the two fathers would convey to their spectators. Asmembers of the older generation, the fathers had experienced the passage oftime and the transitory nature of political opinions. Politics was representedin this play as “theater” in which the actors could perform interchange-ably, according to daily events and opportunities. Knolle and Holzer thusagree that it is best not to get involved. The Jew Holzer was portrayed by

5 This was the victory of German troops in the battles of Gravelotte-Rezonsville (August 16,1870) and Gravelotte-Saint Privat (August 18, 1870) in the Franco-Prussian War.

6 Nachtdienst, Schauspiel aus dem Berliner Leben, Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater, Rep. 30 c/a,Theater Z, Neuer Teil 2320, Landesarchiv, Berlin; for the original see App. 4.


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Donat Herrnfeld “full of warm sensitivity, strictness and tenderness.” Herepresented a timeless and caring version of humanity in an age of hardship,injustice, and hasty judgments.7

Both fathers conversed in strong accents. Whereas Gottlieb Knollesounded like what contemporaries might have called a Berliner Schnauze,Sussel Holzer spoke with a strong Yiddish intonation, injecting into a con-versation an occasional Yiddish word (many of which had already enteredBerlin jargon). Instead of talking in Yiddish, Holzer inverted his German sen-tences to appear “authentic.” By using verbs mostly as infinitives, separatedfrom their subjects only by a negation, the actor imitated Yiddish grammat-ical structure.8 In describing past events, he never used the simple past butalways the present perfect, which requires the auxiliary verbs haben or sein –also a grammatical feature typical of Yiddish. At the same time, however,he did not use the Yiddish translations of these auxiliaries, hobn or sain.In addition, most of the verbs were used as reflexives, preferably in passiveconstructions. Knolle, in comparison, rambled more or less consistently inthe well-known local dialect. He exchanged Koofen for Kaufen, eenen foreinen, det for das, and Jott for Gott. He insulted friends and enemies as dieOlle or der olle Kerl, belittling both in an agitated but amicable way. Afterall, this play was for Berliners, and Berliners had a reputation for being wittyand direct. Hence Knolle, with his quick temper and soft heart, succeededin thoroughly captivating his audience.

This play, in short, combined universal themes with attention to Jewishissues. The “fallen” daughter’s relationship to her father, sexual impropriety,and moral corruption were discussed in the context of mixed marriages andreligious tolerance. The issue of poverty and the social questions were intro-duced in connection to anti-Semitism. The Herrnfeld Theater thus appealedto its audiences on many levels. The spectator was interpolated as father,daughter, or lover; as burgher, soldier, or citizen; and as Gentile or Jew. Theplay explored the intersection of these identities. No identity was singled outas a mark of marginality. Even the daughter, at first sight a victim of her owndesires, humbles the other characters. Her love for her Jewish fiance is aspure as her desire to marry a learned man.

Nachtdienst was moderate in its tone and humor, not the least in order toestablish the Herrnfeld Theater as a respectable playhouse suitable for theentire family. The drama Salomonisches Urteil (1908), however, was morerepresentative of the classical Herrnfeld play, not just because of its vervebut because of its crass depiction of conflicting factions within the Jewish

7 “. . . voller warmen Empfindens, voll Strenge und Zartsinn.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 777, Akt.124, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, November 21, 1902, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv,Potsdam.

8 See, for example: “Wenn alle Menschen so waren, wie du, dem jeder Mensch gleich is ob erJud oder Christ, – hatt ich nicht brauchen von Tuchel was . . .”



community. The plot centers on the search for the father of an illegitimatechild. Thus the main theme of Salomonisches Urteil is in keeping with theusual themes in contemporary bourgeois comedies (burgerliche Lustspiele).The real attraction of this play, however, lies in its many humorous disputesbetween two fathers who disagree in their views on Jewish assimilation. Cohnis a reputable businessman; Abarbanell is a former butcher who has becomewealthy from his “invention” of white Blutwurst. These two men fight abouthow best to support their son, or son-in-law, whom they both suspect is infinancial difficulties due to his and his wife’s lavish lifestyle. Cohn is outragedand feels estranged from his son and from his in-laws, whom he accuses ofhaving ceased to respect Jewish traditions (including Jewish dietary laws).The following dialogue between Brunhilde, Abarbanell’s wife, and Cohnestablishes the play’s leitmotif (act 1, scene 3):

brunhilde: But you must have received my invitation?cohn: Why must I have? I know of nothing!brunhilde: You are only saying that to avoid at all cost having to eat something inyour son’s home!cohn: Here we go again! I certainly won’t eat something that’s not kosher!brunhilde: How can anyone hold such old-fashioned views?cohn: A cleverer man than me – the great King Frederick – once remarked quitefittingly: “Let all find happiness in their own fashion.”brunhilde: Well, does it really make a difference whether the meat is purchasedfrom Hefter or from Rosenthal?cohn: Of course, it doesn’t make a difference – why not buy from Rosenthal then!brunhilde: Odd person.9

The woman’s Wagnerian name is a symbol of her clumsy overassimilation.“Brunhilde” is too pompous for a woman who has had little formal schoolingor exposure to high culture; it is meant to ridicule her desire to become“teutonic.” Brunhilde, the tragic heroine of Wagner’s Ring, is the lovingwife of Siegfried, the archetypal German hero. Because Wagner’s anti-Semitictendencies were well known among contemporary Gentiles and Jews, a namesuch as Brunhilde might well have signaled self-hatred. “Cohn,” by contrast,is the ideal typical name for a Jew. Although often experienced as a stigmaby German Jews, the name ”Cohn” is carried with pride in this play. Indeed,the character Cohn bemoans his son’s attempt to shed his Jewish identity bybuying a noble name. In quoting Frederick the Great, who was known forhis religious tolerance, Cohn insists on his right to be different and to obeyJewish dietary laws, a position Brunhilde cannot grasp. Frederick’s famouswords “Lass Jeden selig werden nach seiner Facon” become the play’s motto,one that encapsulates the defensive position of the Enlightenment in timesof romantic passions and delusions.

9 Salomonisches Urteil, Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil 4030,Landesarchiv, Berlin. For the original, see App. 5.


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The Herrnfelds spoke out against unconditional assimilation, whichwould inevitably lead to the disappearance of a shared heritage. By makingCohn the most sympathetic character in the play, they gave their audiencesa clear message. They appealed for the acceptance of private difference,secured by the rights of the individual, in a society governed by a sharedhumanitarian consensus. They ridiculed those Jews who tried to hide theirethnic identity behind antiquated titles and noble names by portraying mostnobles as snobbish and corrupt, living off the glory of their past and stifledby mindless rituals, such as five o’clock teas. The following dialogue betweenthe two fathers underscores the two antagonistic positions (scene 10):

cohn: I always knew it was going to end like this, – the thousand mark bills werejust flying around! Why was it necessary for him to get a different name?abarbanell: You don’t understand that!cohn: Well that is quite the nasty trick by a healthy man, where the father will stilllive to be a hundred years old – to get himself adopted by a baron! – This adoptioncosts a fortune, you know!abarbanell: It wasn’t that bad!cohn: He has to be called Klamm-Cohn! Cohn by itself wasn’t good enough foryou!abarbanell: Cohn by itself is no longer a real name these days!cohn (angry): There are millions of Cohns!abarbanell: That’s not enough!cohn: Well, there you are!abarbanell: You are forgetting that your son has already attained an establishedposition in society!cohn: This established position has broken his neck! He had to arrange Fife deGlockes – Fife de Glockes! I can’t even pronounce it!abarbanell: Well, you are agitated now!cohn: And balloons rose up! Confetti thrown down on the people! Everywhere themother-in-law was present – the old butcher’s wife!10

In the course of their conversations, Cohn incessantly appealed to his son“to stay true to himself” and not deny his past.11

The play concludes by revealing in a court case the identity of the fatherof the illegitimate child. The Herrnfelds often included court scenes in theirdramas, for the setting allowed characters to explain themselves and theirmotives directly to the spectator. Cultural differences, most apparent in thecolorful accents of the individual performers, can clash in a way that isdifficult to present in a scene drawn from daily life, where the different partiesmight not share the same milieu. A court scene can bring the most unlikely

10 Salomonisches Urteil, Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil 4030,Landesarchiv, Berlin; for the original, see App. 6.

11 Salomonisches Urteil, Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil 4030,Landesarchiv, Berlin.



combinations of individuals together, often in the dramatic resolution of along and complicated plot.

the loss of jargon

The outbreak of the First World War fundamentally altered the censor-ship policy of the Prussian authorities. Anton and Donat Herrnfeld quicklyreacted to new censorship rules that required the theater police to ban musi-cal comedies, operettas, farces, and variety shows. Whereas these genres hadpassed the censors without difficulty in the prewar period, they were nowconsidered too frivolous or trashy.12 In August 1914 the Herrnfelds were pre-senting the play Mandelbaums Hochzeitsreise, a burlesque comedy about aJew, Mandelbaum, who marries because of greed and then desperately triesto escape his marriage after the “deal” does not turn out as he had hoped.13

To prevent the possible closure of their establishment the Herrnfelds volun-teered to change the style of their performances completely. On August 24,1914, they filed a request with Berlin’s theater police. Compared to earlierrequests, this letter has a strikingly different tone. A cheerful assertivenesshas given way to diplomacy and submissiveness:

Since in the present serious times we do not deem it appropriate to put on stageour merry comedy Mandelbaums Hochzeitsreise [Mandelbaum’s Honeymoon], wehave adapted a patriotic play, Er kommt wieder [He Comes Again], a war episodeby Anton and Donat Herrnfeld. Enclosed we are submitting a copy in duplicate foryour obliging censorship and approval, with the request kindly to grant the latterimmediately.14

Er kommt wieder was the first Herrnfeld play after the declaration of warin August 1914. The new play captured the anxious desire of the Jewishcommunity to belong to the “true” Germany, as well as Anton and DonatHerrnfeld’s interest in meeting the new censorship requirements, whichdemanded that plays demonstrate sincerity and national devotion – two veryhumorless mandates. The play also reflected the spirit of the first weeks of thefall of 1914, when enthusiasm for the war and indignation against the enemywere widespread among German citizens. Er kommt wieder was greeted by

12 Gary D. Stark, “All Quiet on the Home Front,” in Frans Coetzee and Marilyn Shevin-Coetzee, eds., Authority, Identity and the Social History of the Great War (Providence, RI,1995), 62–63.

13 “The farce Mandelbaums Hochzeitsreise allows the author-actors Anton and DonatHerrnfeld to really develop their abilities as actors. The desperate struggle of Mr. Man-delbaum to escape a marriage into which he has entered out of financial greed, without,however, to endanger the success of his ‘deal,’ provokes scenes of earth-shattering comiceffects. Storms of laughter and loud demonstrations of approval rewarded the excellent per-formance.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 779, Akt. 219, Berliner Borsen-Courier, August 2, 1914,Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



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the censors with an unusual degree of enthusiasm because it refrained fromthe facetiousness that had attracted the Herrnfelds’ audiences in previousdecades. The Herrnfelds followed the new directives and were approved bythe theater police.15 Nevertheless, Berlin’s theater police subjected each newplay to increasingly close scrutiny:

There are no principled reservations against public performance of the one-act playEr kommt wieder. It deals with the familiar events resulting in the Great War of1914, stresses particularly the settlement that was suddenly reached between Czechsand Austrians on one hand and the various confessions in Austria on the other hand,and at the center of which is the emergency wedding [Nottrauung] of the conscriptedMoses with the Christian Rosl, daughter of the mayor.16

In Er kommt wieder, a mixed marriage between a Jewish man and Chris-tian woman is again central to the plot. In a departure from previous Herrn-feld plays, the children do not consult their parents before exchanging vows.Whereas the character Moses, a horse dealer and the father of the groom, isunderstanding and supportive of the young couple’s choice, Joseph Grieshu-ber, a bailiff and the father of the bride, feels betrayed. Moses appeals toJoseph to sanction the hurried wedding: “Gemeindevorsteher think aboutwhat you are saying. If two young people find and love each other, if theybelong to each other – then they should get married, this is my position –so give me a hand and you will make two people happy in these wantingtimes.”17 In contrast to the fathers in previous dramas, the Gentile Josephreacts violently; he rejects not only his son-in-law but also his daughter: “Itremains as I say [ . . . ] My child is dead for me –.”18 Much of the first halfof the play is a heated dialogue between the two fathers. Moses repeatedlybeseeches Joseph to give his blessing to his daughter’s choice:

moses: Joseph, I beg you once more, not for me, but for my son. – Look – myonly son takes to the field today – and, and – with him thousands of our sons of allconfessions, and they march side by side, shoulder to shoulder, without asking whatis your religion? They are going to war together in order to free their co-religionistsfrom the Russian yoke, and the Jew will not ask: is that not a Catholic whom youhave liberated? The Catholic won’t ask: is that a Muslim you have freed? – No –they know not the difference in religion, because it’s called justice to stand up forhumanity. And you who stay home, you want to think otherwise? That is meanof you.

15 The war brought a change in the proceedings for any form of censorship. “Although civilianadministrators and communal officers continued performing their normal functions, theywere now obligated to follow orders and special ordinances of the commanders, who in turnwere answerable only to the Emperor.” Stark, “All Quiet on the Home Front,” 60.

16 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Akt. 227, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.17 Er kommt wieder, Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil 6015a,

Landesarchiv, Berlin.18 Ibid.



grieshuber (excitedly): You will never change my mind, despite all your smoothtalking. If my daughter has acted against her father’s will, then let her go on her ownpath alone –moses: Why has she acted against her father’s will? Because she wants to let the war-rior take to the field with an easier heart. She has sacrificed herself for the fatherland:For the most sacred duty in war is – first your fatherland, then your family – and inthe last place your faith –.19

In this scene, Moses – the voice of the reason – tries to illuminate the cloudedjudgment of his friend and fellow citizen, Joseph. Moses places universalhumanitarian concepts such as “human love,” “justice” and religious toler-ance in an uneasy juxtaposition with concepts such as “fatherland,” “duty,”“battle,” and “war.” The defensive undertone of Moses’ plea, and the con-tradictory values in his system of morals, reveals the helplessness of liberaland humanitarian thinkers, who were confronted with a war that they didnot want but had not helped to prevent either. The Herrnfelds tried to pre-serve their own voice without losing their foothold in the entertainmentmarket. They felt compelled to follow the directives of the new order, whichonly tolerated whatever furthered the war effort; thus they presented theiraudience with what they thought was a suggestive combination of outdatedrationalism and contemporary emotionality. This strategy seemed to work,at least as long as the Burgfrieden lasted.

After Jacob, the groom in Er kommt wieder, proves himself to be a virtu-ous man, Joseph accepts him as his son-in-law, although not without mak-ing the inevitable reference to the Holy Scriptures. He accepts Jacob as thenew guardian of his daughter.20 The spirit of the times demanded clear-cutgender roles; men were warriors and providers of women. This order wasordained and sanctified by the Almighty. In earlier years of Jargon enter-tainment, as in so many of Shakespeare’s dramas, men were often portrayedas the intellectual inferiors of their wives. Driven by desire into extramaritalaffairs, the men were inevitably caught by their suspicious, strong-willed, andclever wives. Audiences wanted and expected to see this pattern of unfaith-ful husbands and domineering wives because it partly reflected, and partlyinverted, gender stereotypes. Such a dramatic scheme allowed for many com-ical effects. In 1912, two years before Er kommt wieder was performed, thenewspaper Vossische Zeitung identified this pattern with mixed feelings asa leitmotif at the Herrnfeld Theater:

Not that the playwrights digressed from their usual theme of husbands whoopingit up and their wives unerringly catching them, but they know how to present the

19 Ibid.; for the original, see App. 7.20 “The woman shall leave father and mother behind and follow the man – love each other

and pray to God that he will return safely.” Er kommt wieder, Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater,Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil 6015a, Landesarchiv, Berlin.


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well-worn subject in constantly new ways, often using surprising puns and indis-putably hilarious situations to give the audience’s laughing muscles a workout.21

After August 1914, however, the Herrnfeld Theater gave up its highly suc-cessful depictions of marital conflict in order to secure the theater’s continuedexistence. Er kommt wieder was a decisive break with the stylistic elementsof past Herrnfeld Theater productions. Berlin’s local press commented onthis sudden conversion. The play’s demonstration of national sentiment waswelcomed as a genuine patriotic gesture, appropriate to building a new senseof community:

This too is a piece of Berlin: that the Herrnfeld brothers belong to the first oneswho have the courage to open their theater again. They cannot cling to “purityof style” but have to take into account the general mood. In particular, they dothis with the patriotic-sentimental one-act play “Er kommt wieder,” in which theplaywrights, Anton and Donat Herrnfeld, effectively dramatize an incident at theGerman-Austrian border that occurred on the day of the declaration of war. The clos-ing scene, when the “Wacht am Rhein” [“The Guard on the Rhine”] is played onstage, turned into powerful patriotic demonstration, as the entire audience joined in.22

Moreover, whereas the Herrnfelds had traditionally chosen humorous andgrotesque names for their main characters, the names in Er kommt wiederwere serious ones. In previous years, the Herrnfelds had named their Jewishstage characters Blumentopf, Rosenblatt, Goldstucker, Morgenstern, orPerlmutter, and, unlike other writers, they found equally profane namesfor their Gentile characters, such as Wisskotschil, Knolle, Grieshuber, vonKlamm, Neuendorf, Hansa, Bohmer, and Nepomuk.23 In classical theater,the “Jewish” name singled out one individual in a potentially hostile envi-ronment. Jews so named were meant to represent alien souls living on thefringes of society. In Jargon theater, however, preposterous names were usedon stage to unify individuals from divergent social backgrounds into a com-munity. In doing so, these theaters suggested normality in Gentile–Jewishrelations that for at least some audience members corresponded to livedreality. The name of each Jargon theater character, although colorful andoften ridiculous, was not intended to stigmatize that individual; the nameshad lost their singularity.

21 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 779, Akt. 140, Vossische Zeitung, October 6, 1912, Brandenbur-gisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

22 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 779, Akt. 229, Deutsche Monatszeitung, August 31, 1914, Bran-denburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

23 The origins of Jewish surnames in their great majority fell into four categories: “1. Namesof origin (e.g. ‘Berliner’), 2. Patronymics (‘Davidsohn’), 3. occupational names, attribu-tive names, nicknames (‘Perlmann’), arbitrary names (‘Goldberg’).” It is interesting that thenames employed by the Herrnfeld brothers prior to 1914 always fell into the last two cate-gories. Dietz Berding, The Stigma of Names: Antisemitism in German Daily Life, 1812–1933(Ann Arbor, MI, 1992), 17.



Prior to the war the traditional division of character roles between the twoHerrnfeld directors had also permitted a more balanced view of Germany’sethnic groups. Anton and Donat Herrnfeld operated as a comedy team witha similar relationship in each of their plays: Donat would impersonate aJew, and Anton would play a Gentile. This division allowed them to pokeequal fun at both sections of society without offending either of them. It alsomeant that they did not focus exclusively on Jewish types. Anton Herrnfeldspecialized in characters with Slavic names and traits – shrewd and canny,with an eye to personal advantage – and Donat Herrnfeld, as the leadingJewish character, was soft, agitated, and warmhearted. Their types werewell summarized in the following description by W. Fred, published in DieSchaubuhne in 1912:

Donat Herrnfeld shows the specifically Jewish manner of passing from controlledagitation into a fit of rage; Anton Herrnfeld portrays a naıve cleverness behind a maskof idiocy. The instruments of both actors are more gestures – something rhythmical,so to speak – than words per se. Both make you laugh because one gets less thefeeling of “theatre” than the recollection of having met people like that. And theamazement about the fact that there are such people among us, combined with theconviction that despite all external changes the essence of these archetypes is, if noteternal, at least persistent “for up to a hundred years,” results in a powerful comicaleffect. Therefore, one feels closer to the Jew than to the Bohemian. One would liketo see a master play with the Herrnfelds, Vienna’s and Pest’s Eisenback and Rott whoare really great character actors, with Schildkraut and a Jewish Nestroy who writesa play for them: without superiority vis-a-vis the milieu and the jargon, robust andmoving like the Jewish songs that unfortunately cannot be heard in these parts.24

After August 1914, the lightness, ease, and “normality” of Gentile–Jewishrelations among actors and in the audience suddenly became more com-plex. No careless or ambiguous jokes were cracked; sensibilities were nolonger challenged, but instead were carefully respected. In place of IsidorBlumentopf, the protagonist was now named after Abraham, Moses, Jacob,or some other biblical figure. By contrast, the protagonist’s Gentile coun-terpart became Joseph Grieshuber instead of Gottlieb Knolle, a much lessconspicuous “improvement.” Their biblical names put the Jewish stage char-acters beyond reproach and ridicule, transforming them into heroes whosedeclarations were prophecies directed at the audiences. These biblical namesironically enhanced the separateness of these Jews and their Gentile coun-terparts. Once again they were Jews in the Diaspora, a community boundtogether by the threat from “the other.” There were no intrafamily con-flicts between fathers and sons; the conflict now separated the Jew from theGentile. Full of conventional wisdom and very little humor, these new plays

24 W. Fred in Die Schaubuhne 2 (1912), 420.


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could compensate for these deficiencies only by incorporating into scriptswhat today appears to be relentless sentimentality.

Er kommt wieder had sufficient success among audiences and censors forthe Herrnfelds to produce a sequel, So leben wir! (This Is How We Live!).25

The same little village an Germany’s border with its ally Austria-Hungaryprovided the setting for this play.26 Taking up where Er kommt wieder ended,this sequel describes its characters’ experiences of the first year of war onthe home front, which are conveyed to the audience largely through pressreleases and occasional messages from soldiers. Jacob’s letter home from thetrenches is a key example of Jargon theater’s new tone during the war. Onthe surface, it describes how trench experiences a la Ernst Junger shatteredthe comfort, security, and harmony of bourgeois homes. The letter arriveswhen everyone thinks Jacob has died. Therefore, his family reads his linesas the farewell of a heroic warrior:

[I]ndeed all seems lost for us – I can see how everyone is withdrawing – ; the onlychance is to act quickly: “People, we must not abandon our comrades, if it must belike that, we’ll all die!” With these words I storm to the front, my rifle high in theair. – We hold out for a long time in the murderous fire – but no help arrives. – Howshall this end?! . . . [D]on’t be afraid, give my best to my Rosel, and let me embraceall of you affectionately, – and should I die – I’m dying for you – for my wife – andmy fatherland – Yours, Jacob!27

The Herrnfelds were trying to bond with their audiences over the communalexperience of a letter from a loved one. Because many families had sonsat the front, spectators could identify with the anxieties and uncertaintiespresented on stage. The Herrnfelds did not, however, subscribe to the notionthat war was a chivalrous game fought by gentlemen distinguished by theirposture and composure. Their war was dirty and frenetic, and had to besurvived day to day. By presenting this kind of war, the Herrnfelds offereda double tribute: to naturalistic drama and to an important aspect of theirJewish heritage. Although they singled out Jacob as someone whose couragein the end rescues others, it was not only what he does but his ability tomotivate others to work together that constitutes his heroism. He is not asolitary fighter on a mission, but a responsible young man who does notwant to abandon his comrades (and who is then rescued by them). In the

25 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 779, Akt. 232, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.26 “The new play that Anton and Donat Herrnfeld wrote for their stage deals again with issues

that deeply move all of us. It is set in a normally quiet little village at the German-Bohemianborder that is deeply affected by the waves of enthusiasm in the wake of the war and in whichnational and religious antagonisms are set aside for the national cause!” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74,Th. 779, Akt. 236, Berliner Neueste Nachrichten, November 1, 1914, BrandenburgischesLandeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

27 Er kommt wieder, Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil 6015a,Landesarchiv, Berlin.



end, Jacob does not die, and the spectators are left to wonder whether hissurvival was due to destiny or simply to chance.

One of the more striking aesthetic departures in these plays was theabsence of ethnic or local dialects. Neither Jews nor Gentiles spoke withheavy accents. In effect, Jargon theaters ceased to present jargon of any kind.Whereas every intonation was indicated in the scripts of earlier plays, thereis no sign that the actors were asked to use specific dialects or accents in Erkommt wieder or So leben wir!. Such linguistic differences would have auto-matically set the individual actors apart and destroyed the fragile sense of anational community. This was precisely what Jargon theater directors nowwanted to avoid. Apparently, the virtuoso display of “authentic” accentsand dialects was a feature of public performance that neither the Herrnfeldsnor their audiences could think appropriate or could welcome in a time ofnational crisis.

The patriotic sequel was not a great hit for the Herrnfeld Theater. Thelonger the war lasted, the more German audiences’ enthusiasm for patrioticplays dissipated. Spectators wanted to be entertained and distracted, nottutored. Sensing this, the Herrnfeld brothers tried to introduce situationalhumor in So leben wir! whenever it was politically opportune. In November1914, the press, especially the Berliner Morgenpost, was positively impressedwith their delicate balancing of humor and patriotism:

At the Herrnfelds’ one does not only laugh, a considerable stream of tears also flowsfrom beautiful eyes every evening. The two playwright-directors Anton and DonatHerrnfeld have adopted a new tone for their new work – So leben wir [Thus welive], premiering last Saturday before a full house – that is unusual for this temple.And one must acknowledge that the playwrights have molded with a sure eye forwhat’s effective on stage, for a work that rises significantly above other more orless skillfully jumbled casual plays. Without any obtrusive jingoism, without kitschysensationalism, they have shaped material that reveals that they have followed theevents of these great times with open eyes and ears. Their characters are drawn inminutest, life-like detail; they are all the more gripping, because without exceptionthey are splendidly portrayed. . . . It’s superfluous to mention that humor comes intoplay quite abundantly.28

the folies caprice

The Folies Caprice was an uncouth version of the Gebruder Herrnfeld The-ater. Whereas the Folies Caprice imitated and parodied classical theater inthe same manner as the Herrnfelds, it also exploited the successes of otherpopular theaters, such as the Metropol. In the first decade of the new cen-tury, revue theater had become immensely popular among the masses and



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elites alike and had begun to replace more traditional variety and cabarettheater. Revues habitually made reference to current scandals and eventsand caricatured famous personalities in politics and high society. Whereasthe Metropol Theater was known for its lavish, and fine-tuned revues, theFolies Caprice often presented a cruder, more sexual version of the samematerial. Provocative Jargon jokes (Anruchige Jargon-Witze) were the cen-terpiece of every performance, and they often risked censorship on account oftheir indecency. Moreover, whereas the Herrnfeld Theater presented playswith reasonably strong plot lines, the Folies Caprice typically presented aseries of loosely connected sketches.29

In the early years of its existence, the Folies Caprice appeared to offeran even more “authentic” depiction of a specific Jewish milieu than didthe Herrnfeld Theater.30 By 1911, however, it seems to have lost most ofits artistic ambitions. III. Klasse (third Class), for example, a play by MaxErnst and a spin-off of a famous satire by Ludwig Thoma, did not capti-vate its audience with its differentiated portrait of Jewish life in Germany.Without being particularly original, it nevertheless opened a window on con-temporary Witzkultur.31 Like many farces at the Folies Caprice, the entireaction of III. Klasse was confined to one location – a train car on its waythrough Posnan. As passengers board and leave the train, their conversa-tions carry the plot. For example, the main Gentile character, Wallowitzer,is a witty, sharp-tongued married man who is always ready for a roman-tic encounter. Having managed to engage a young, attractive woman in

29 “Yesterday night, the Folies Caprice presented the premier of the revue Mal was anderes. Justlike the Metropol Theater, this farce, full of crude jokes and contemporary allusions, dealswith today’s personalities and events. The funny play, full of effective Verwandlungsrollen,was greatly appreciated; many couplets, songs and dance scenes had to be repeated. Thisglorious sensation was prefaced by a humorous one-act play by Blitz and a comedy byDrosky, who portrays so well the situation in Pest [die Pester Zustande]. The gentlemenMertens, Fleischmann, Grunecker, and Schreiner did not fail to present their anruchigenJargonwitze.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 845, Akt. 241, Vossische Zeitung, December 21,1907, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

30 In 1906, the critic Walter Turszinsky praised the shows at the Folies Caprice as “echt, wieSabbathfische in Buttersauce.” Walter Turszinsky, “Judisch Theater,” Die Schaubuhne 1(1906), 446.

31 “Yesterday (Friday) two comedies by Max Ernst premiered at the Theater Folies Caprice;both had everyone laughing. . . . The other one, ‘Dritter Klasse’ (‘In third class’), is a railwayskit entirely in the tradition of the well-known farce a la Thoma, except that it was trans-planted from the first into the third railway class and from the Bavarian highlands into thefields of the province of Posen. Although the idea was not new, the execution of the satire wasnevertheless exceptionally funny. The best actors, above all Messrs Berisch and Muller, onceagain took the opportunity to showcase their performing abilities and dialect talents. As theentire show was also rich in jokes and baffling, hilarious situations, the audience couldn’tstop laughing and at the end applauded enthusiastically. Mr. Ignaz Wallowitzer’s railwaycompartment adventures will likely dominate the program of the Theater Folies Caprice forsome time.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 847, Akt. 19, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, April 22, 1911,Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



flirtatious conversation, he finds his plans are upset by the arrival of a Jewishcouple in his compartment. Their presence threatens to disturb his little tete-a-tete. Wallowitzer tries to discourage the couple from staying by insultingthem:

wallowitzer: Since we’re sitting together so comfortably, allow me: Wallowitzeris my name.eichkutz: There you go! Isedor Eichkutz, and my wife Sara.wallowitzer (makes a bow): Ah, Sara, the ancient biblical mother.eichkutz: Well, my wife isn’t that old.wallowitzer: Ah, what’s a few days.sara (to Eichkutz): Isedor, you let me be insulted like this?eichkutz (flying at Wallowitzer threateningly): You! (Suddenly, with a look toSara, in a calm voice.) Ah, what the heck, I guess you are right.32

In the course of the scene, the Jew Eichkutz and his perspectives on lifebecome an endless source of conversation for Wallowitzer. A stream ofloosely connected dialogues such as the following, crowned by a more-or-less well-placed punch line at the end, was the typical format of most playsat the Folies Caprice:

wallowitzer (to Eichkutz): What’s the matter, Mr. Eichkutz, why are you wearinga black tie? Are you grieving?eichkutz: Sure, after all, Rothschild has died.wallowitzer: Well, were you related to him?eichkutz: No, that’s exactly why I am grieving.33

Jokes about the Rothschilds and their extraordinary wealth were very com-mon, especially among Germany’s anti-Semites. Unlike most other jokes ofthis kind, however, in this one the author presents the Jewish perspective:it is Eichkutz who completes the punch line, not Wallowitzer. Nor is Roth-schild an object of ridicule here or portrayed as the head of a Jewish worldconspiracy – a common theme in German anti-Semitic discourse. The fool isnot a greedy Jewish banker but the petit bourgeois Eichkutz, who envies arich man his wealth.34 This joke addressed one of the most sensitive arenas

32 III. Klasse, Max Ernst, Folies Caprice, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil 5049, Landesarchiv,Berlin. For the original, see App. 8.

33 Ibid.34 This joke was well known at the time and reemerged in various collections of Jewish humor.

For example, more than ten years later, in 1922, Alexander Moszkowski (1851–1934),a famous humorist and journalist at the time, included a slightly altered variation inDer judische Witz und seine Philosophie: “When the old Bleichroder had passed away, astranger was noticed among the mourning, shedding bitter tears. He was asked: ‘But areyou a relative of the deceased?’ ‘Unfortunately I am not at all related to Bleichroder; that’swhy I am crying!’” Moszkowski merely exchanged Bleichroder for Rothschild. Alexan-der Moszkowski, Der judische Witz und seine Philosophie. 399 Juwelen echt gefaßt vonAlexander Moszkowski (Berlin, 1922), 74. Gerson Bleichroder died in 1893. Baron Jamesde Rothschild died in 1868.


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of Gentile–Jewish encounters, politics and money, and took the edge off byfocusing on the envious common man instead of on the banker. The jokesuggested to listeners that one might share interests even when one does notshare identities.

The Jewish parvenu and his problematic encounters with Germany’s aris-tocratic society played a central role in the Folies Caprice.35 Unlike theHerrnfeld Theater, which focused mostly on the bourgeois family, the FoliesCaprice subjected to ridicule and laughter the parvenu’s quest for respectabil-ity and for distinctions, honors, and titles. In retrospect, it is often unclearwhether the audiences were laughing with or at the actors. Although familiarstereotypes were often reproduced at the Folies Caprice, its actors softenedthe effect by treating Gentiles and Jews equally to heavy doses of acid humor.Their jokes were as much a reflection of a specifically Jewish type of humoras they were a reflection of how jokes in general at the time were made. TheImperial public was by no means as disturbed by ethnic stereotypes as thepublic is today. In German comedy, as in German folklore, sly Bohemianscoexisted with stiff Prussians and with dumb Bavarians. Jewish stereotypeswere in good company.

It is doubtful that the majority of Jewish and Gentile contemporariesconsidered the jokes at the Herrnfeld Theater and the Folies Caprice tobe anti-Semitic. Even so, especially when the Folies Caprice repeated someimages of Eastern European Jews that were already in circulation, they didso in unprecedented ways. The play Die feine Familie (A distinguished fam-ily) is an example. Die feine Familie was staged in October 1908. It is setin Vienna, and the main protagonists are from an Eastern European family:father, mother, and daughter. The latter supports her parents through a vari-ety of affairs that she has with wealthy, mostly married men. Everythingdevelops according to the familiar story line. This time, the daughter meetsa wealthy factory owner whom she hopes to marry. A watchful bookkeeper,however, notifies the family of the already married capitalist, and his wifeand her parents, instead of fighting the competition, strike an alliance withthe elderly Jewish couple and their daughter. The pivotal scene in the playshows a completely confused and humiliated husband on the edge of a ner-vous breakdown because every time he enters a room a different family issitting around the table pretending that nothing has happened. The adulter-ous husband is the character who is truly duped in this play, and most jokesare made at his expense. The “fine family,” and here it is unclear which fam-ily is being referred to in the title, has laughter on its side. The audience of theFolies Caprice, an audience of ”business men, other persons of the middleclasses, often of Jewish descent, often also young people and their partners,”

35 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 847, Akt. 176, 1912, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv,Potsdam.



appreciate this variation on ethnic stereotypes and the play’s mocking ofbourgeois propriety.36

As did other theaters, the Folies Caprice altered the content of its playsdramatically after the outbreak of the war. One drama – Fest steht undtreu . . . oder sei stolz, daß Du ein Deutscher bist (Stand firm and faithful . . . orbe proud to be a German) – offered everything its title promised. It was one ofthree new plays staged in 1914 that explicitly dealt with the war. Accordingto the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, the tone of this play struck a responsive chordamong the populace, which was fascinated by the challenges introduced bythe war. Even more than did the Herrnfeld Theater, the Folies Caprice tried toblend its typical slapstick humor into its new patriotic sketches.37 Whereasthe Herrnfeld Theater tried to preserve and to integrate into its patrioticplays its philosophy on Jewish assimilation, the Folies Caprice tended not toreflect on what the war would mean for Germany’s Jews. Like the HerrnfeldTheater, the Folies Caprice used conversations between members of differentgenerations to explain contemporary events and outlooks. In Fest steht undtreu, the landowner Bohnke, while observing the marching troops, explainsto his enthusiastic daughter Anna what the war is all about.38 Althoughthere is no identifiable Jewish character in this play, community and thenation remain key concepts. Exclamations such as “a folk that it united,that is glowing, living, working for its fatherland, such a folk will not bedefeated” and “We are German brothers, and our Kaiser has said he nolonger recognizes any parties” are woven into the play at every suitableoccasion.39 At its outset, the play is not clear about who is actually to beconsidered part of the German nation. As the story unfolds, however, it turnsout that being German is a matter not of birth, but of self-perception.

To make this message easily accessible to a wider audience, the FoliesCaprice chose a “classic” scenario. Two young men, Hermann and Charle,are competing for Anna’s love. Hermann, a farm laborer who was amongthe first recruits to volunteer for service at the front, is at first outdone bythe slick Charle, whose charms have blinded both father and daughter. Thepurifying effect of the military mobilization, however, brings the real natureof both rivals to light. Charle, the son of French citizens, has lived as aGerman in Germany his entire life yet he turns out to be a deceitful Frenchnationalist, capitalizing on the German fascination with French manners,fashion, and refinement. Hermann, by contrast, is a ponderous, uneducated

36 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 846, Akt. 45, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.37 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 848, Akt. 54 RS, September 22, 1914; 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74,

Th. 848, Akt. 58, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, December 28, 1914, Brandenburgisches Lan-deshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

38 Fest steht und treu . . . oder sei stolz, daß Du ein Deutscher bist, L. Haskel, Folies Caprice,Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil 6043, Landesarchiv, Berlin.

39 Ibid.


194 Comic Relief

farmer with upright morals, enflamed by his loyalty for Germany and histrue love for Anna. The situation is resolved when Anna decides that sheprefers the simple man, whose “right education” encompasses a sense ofmorality, to the man of refinement and deceit. Her infatuation with Charlefades in favor of Hermann, paralleling Germany’s actual mobilization.

With a name echoing his national pathos, Hermann is presented asCharle’s alter ego, as German culture’s answer to French civilization. In ashouting match, Hermann accuses Charle of being a traitor:

charle (scandalized): What? Me a traitor of the fatherland?hermann: Precisely, that’s what you are, when you as a German are taking pleasurein fake news. Do you really believe I haven’t heard what you whispered joyfully toold Marianne: this time the Germans will likely have a bit of a tougher stand than in1870. But one often miscalculates, even the Grande Nation. However, we are at leastconsiderate to the French gentlemen, and because we know they also like chocolates,we have presented them with a few 42 cm chocolate truffles. Those things are hard todigest and you can easily upset your stomach on them. The Frenchmen who alwaysmarch at the forefront of civilization. Yes, old Zeppelin with his airships, that’s aninvention, isn’t it? And we are merrily applauding at the sight of such a mightyliverwurst and shout: All that’s good comes from above. And no matter whetherwe’ll have more trouble this time than in 1870, I probably won’t be able to discuss itwith you, Mr. Charle, after the Great War. My doctor has advised me that in order tostay healthy I have to forget anything disagreeable, and you know, where I’ll beginto forget first – with you, Mr. Charle.40

In the end, it is how they were socialized and not birth that makes Hermannfeel German and Charle feel French. Hermann’s family history is a compli-cated one: he was born a French citizen to French parents but lost contactwith his birth family through a fateful circumstance. He was adopted andraised by a Prussian officer. Faced with the calamity of war, he choosesGermany as his homeland, even though he knows about his French origins.Hermann feels German, and thus thinks himself to be German, a case thatwas not foreseen in Germany’s citizenship law. Thus in the context of citi-zenship and national identity, the Folies Caprice went against the law despiteneeding to take a rather conformist stand on most political issues. It deliber-ately did not subscribe to the racial thinking that was increasingly commonamong Germans.

With the Zeppelin the Folies Caprice employed a symbol that had orig-inally carried two conflicting hopes: the desire to transcend borders andboundaries, and the desire for military and cultural superiority. In 1909/10,aviation still gave some Germans hope that the Zeppelin could “bind nationstogether, and unify diverse people.”41 Just as in 1914 the humanitarian

40 Ibid. For the original, see App. 9.41 John H. Morrow, Jr., “Knights of the Sky: The Rise of Military Aviation,” in Coetzee and

Shevin-Coetzee, Authority, 307.



and international notions of “justice” and ”human love” were used inthe Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater as a means to bestow legitimization onGermany’s wartime struggle against foreign enemies, a symbol of interna-tionalism was transformed by the Folies Caprice into a vehicle to arousechauvinistic sentiments.

In his monologue, Hermann reveals himself to be a middle-class national-ist, identical in outlook and sentiments to the audiences of the Folies Caprice.The reference to Zeppelin and his airships is not accidental. Despite the vainhope of pacifists, the Zeppelin was widely seen as a symbol of Germany’scultural and technological superiority.42 Although Hermann is neither elo-quent nor insightful, the audience is asked to accept his implicit identificationof himself with the Zeppelin, the “mighty liver sausage” that Germans con-sidered slow but effective in warfare.43 Even the food metaphor attacks theFrench, whose cuisine was considered by gourmands to be superior to therather pedestrian German fare. Hence, even though he was not born to Ger-man parents in Germany, Hermann turns out to be a true German patriot atheart. As such, he was a character with whom Gentile and Jewish audiencescould identify entirely – head, heart, and stomach.

42 Morrow, “Knights of the Sky,” 306. See also Peter Fritzsche, A Nation of Fliers: GermanAviation and the Popular Imagination (Cambridge, MA, 1992), 6–43.

43 “French accounts often depicted German aviators as fat, florid types in large slow planes,while claiming that the energy and initiative necessary to use airplanes accorded marvelouslywith Gaelic audacity.” Morrow, “Knights of the Sky,” 310.

P1: KAE0521856302con2 CUNY222B/Otte 0 521 85630 2 April 7, 2006 14:10

Conclusion to Part II

Artistically rooted in many different entertainment genres, including varietytheater, Yiddish theater, and classical theater, Jargon theaters were by defini-tion a hybrid form of entertainment. They purposely blurred the boundarybetween the private and public spheres, allowing Gentile and Jewish specta-tors to share a circumscribed intimacy in a society generally defined by rigiddistinctions of class, gender, and ethnicity. Whereas scholars such as DavidSorkin, Marion Kaplan, Shulamit Volkov, and Gershom Scholem agree thata “private Jewish culture” continued to exist in Imperial Germany, theyemphasize how Jews generally aspired to follow the formula of the JewishEnlightenment, or Haskala: “be a human being out of doors and a Jew athome.”1 Popular entertainment permitted Jews to transcend this essentialdistinction. By focusing on the family, the most intimate sphere in whichJews experienced and defined themselves as Jews, Jargon theaters turned theprivate into a public affair. On stage, where they were watched by hundredsof Jews and Gentiles every night, Jews appeared to reaffirm their Jewishnessin the context of family life, doing so in the most public way imaginable.In this private/public setting, they were simultaneously human beings andGerman Jews. It was precisely this dual quality that made Jargon theatersattractive to audiences, who must have sensed the more universal meaningin this endless stream of family farces.

The First World War represented as great a watershed for Jargon the-ater as it did for circus entertainment. It demanded changes in style, con-tent, and, most importantly, type of humor. It is uncertain whether one canreally speak of a continuation of Jargon theater entertainment after 1916.As nationalist sentiments rose, it became too difficult to maintain a leitmotifof Jargon theater: community in diversity did not resonate with an audi-ence that, by 1915, was confronted with chauvinistic war propaganda on all

1 Dietz Bering, The Stigma of Names: Antisemitism in German Daily Life, 1812–1933 (AnnArbor, MI, 1992), 21.

196


Conclusion to Part II 197

levels. Racist thinking pushed German Jews into a defensive mode. Jokesabout Jews became intolerable for a community that was under siege andfelt abandoned by its leaders. The rise of the Zionist movement – a productof the encounter that German-Jewish soldiers had with Polish- and Russian-Jewish communities in the First World War and with the disillusionment withJewish emancipation and assimilation in Central Europe – introduced one ofthe most critical voices within Judaism against a theater that had embracedand envisioned a future for an assimilated Jewish community in Germany.

The early 1920s thus saw the end of a genre that reflected the confidenceand optimism of the German-Jewish community earlier in the century. TheHerrnfeld Theater, whose comedies and farces had remained in many wayscelebrations of Jewish emancipation, offered plays that appeared more andmore deluded in scope and tone by the end of the war. Both its aesthetic andits content were surpassed by the sea change of time. Most German Jewsceased to define themselves as one of the German “tribes,” distinct fromand just as accepted as the Bavarian or Bohemian “tribe.” Although Jewsmoved into prominent positions in the realms of politics, administration,and the military – spheres from which they had largely been excluded priorto 1914 – their confidence in their prospects for unquestioned assimilationwas shaken. Assimilation had not been rewarded with the benefits of socialintegration and acceptance. To the contrary, it seemed to make Jews evenmore vulnerable to the nationalist rhetoric of the postwar era. Expressedin a form of street violence that recalled specters from a turbulent past, theanti-Jewish pogrom in Berlin’s Scheunenviertel in 1923 represented a firstclimax in an ongoing process of social disintegration. As the Weimar yearsbecame conditioned by new sensibilities on every front, Jewish performersincreasingly turned to other genres of entertainment.


198


iii

THE LONELINESS OF THE LIMELIGHT

Jewish Identities in Revue Theater, 1898–1933

199


200


Introduction

Spectacular Berlin

In Berlin, the theater was part of the city’s respiratory organs, it was part of itsself, necessary like the streets, subways, apartments, and restaurants, necessarylike the Spree, the Wannsee, and the Grunewald; necessary like work, factoriesand Potsdam; just as self-evident.

Herbert Ihering1

By the first decade of the twentieth century, Berlin had finally awakenedand developed self-consciously into a metropolis.2 Its streets ceased to bedeserted after dark, and cafes and bars teemed with countless revelers who,after returning from their visits to Berlin’s theaters and fairs, refused to call ita night. Not even the First World War could put a damper on this unsurpassedexpansion of Berlin’s nightlife, and by the middle of the 1920s, four millionBerliners found amusement and distraction in 49 theaters, 3 opera houses,3 large variety theaters, and 75 cabarets. In addition, live entertainmentincreasingly competed with 363 movie theaters for which 37 film companiesproduced 250 movies annually. This abundance of entertainment venues wascomplemented by an equally impressive expansion of Berlin’s gastronomy.Some 16,000 restaurants, including 550 cafes, and 220 bars and dancehallsmade certain that in Berlin the live performances were not limited to theofficial stages.3

In light of the glamour, the morbid decadence, and the iconoclasm ofavant-garde Weimar culture, researchers today often forget that Berlin’s“entertainment revolution” was initiated by the much lighter sentiments

1 Herbert Ihering, Berliner Dramaturgie (Berlin, 1947), 10–11.2 In the late nineteenth century Berlin experienced exceptional demographic growth. In 1871,

932,000 people lived in Berlin; by 1900 there were 2.7 million, and by 1919 about 3.8 million.Wolfgang Ribbe, ed., Geschichte Berlins: Von der Marzrevolution bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 2(Munich, 1987), 693.

3 For comprehensive data on Berlin’s entertainment scene, see Ute Scheub, Verruckt nach Leben(Hamburg, 2002).

201


202 The Loneliness of the Limelight

of libertine optimism and growing confidence of middle-class Berliners twodecades earlier. Although Berlin was a latecomer as an urban metropoliscompared to other Western capitals such as London and Paris, its spectacu-lar population growth at the end of the nineteenth century made it a hotbedfor new departures in urban entertainment. In particular, popular theatersamused and distracted those Berliners who sought rest from their increas-ingly complex lives, ironically by introducing the city itself as one of themain protagonists on stage. Weimar’s “golden years” of spectacular high-and lowbrow entertainment remains thus unthinkable without its deep rootsin the imperial era.

At the fin-de-siecle, no other entertainment genre so aptly captured thenew spirit of mobility, curiosity, and frivolity as revue theater, which gavevoice to the seemingly boundless optimism and pride of Berlin’s upper middleclasses. Just as they contributed to Germany’s circuses and Jargon theaters,Jews were also instrumental in the genesis and the continuing success ofBerlin’s revue entertainment. Jewish artists played a major part in most revueproductions. They wrote, composed, and performed scripts and tunes thatwere presented to a partly Jewish audience. Although this massive engage-ment of Jewish artists and performers might suggest similarities with circusand Jargon theater entertainment, a closer reading of individual lives onand off stage quickly reveals that Gentile–Jewish relations in Berlin’s revuetheaters played out quite differently from such relations in other forms ofpopular entertainment.

Unlike Jewish circus performers, Jewish entertainers who engaged in revueentertainment ceased to identify themselves with traditional Jewry. Theseactors and artists were neither explicitly religious nor particularly familyoriented. In any case, they conspicuously refrained from public statementsabout their religion. Jewish actors at the Metropol Theater, Berlin’s mostimportant revue theater, did not care to play Jewish characters on stage. Nev-ertheless, as we will see, Jewish jokes and references to Jewish stereotypesremained staples of revue entertainment; however, they were mainly deliv-ered by Gentile comedians. Thus one can argue that when they reached themost advanced stages of acculturation, Jewish performers seemed to lose aconsiderable degree of sovereignty over the representation of their ethnicity.We will pay particular attention to the ways in which Jewish performersand spectators nevertheless found ways to control or influence the presenta-tion of Jewish characters on stage. The shortcomings of these attempts arenumerous and make this genre the most problematic one in our discussionof Jewish autonomy and integration in German popular culture.

Part III focuses on the most lavish of all revue theaters in ImperialGermany, Berlin’s Metropol Theater, whose own spectacular productionsvisited most larger German cities and whose theatrical style and music werecopied by other theaters all over the country. The Metropol was the birth-place of the German revue. It was the first theater to introduce to a German


Introduction 203

audience the Jahresrevue, an import from Paris that focused on the past year’ssocial, cultural, and political events. Ten revue productions, starting withNeuestes – Allerneuestes in 1903 and ending in 1912 with Chauffeur – in’sMetropol!! affirmed both the leading role of the Metropol in the theatricalscene of Berlin and the importance of Berlin’s entertainment industry for therest of the Reich. These revues were not meant to teach, provoke, or polarizeits audiences, but to amuse and distract demanding spectators. Berliners –Gentiles and Jews alike – were eager to celebrate themselves and their city.The Metropol accommodated this desire. We will trace how the idealizationof the capital potentially bridged political and ethnic gulfs among a diversespectatorship. Local pride and national patriotism, lightly presented withBerlin wit and in the Metropol’s sentimental spirit, aimed to gloss over reli-gious and political antagonisms. Part of this newfound consensus was alsobased on the perpetuation of a set of shared cultural prejudices and crudeethnic stereotypes circulating prominently in upper-class circles.

Revue theaters such as the Metropol made popular entertainment anattractive and a useful sociopolitical forum for Berlin’s traditional elites,largely the military, the court, and the nobility. By the turn of the twentiethcentury, these elites needed the affirmation of society at large, especially sup-port from powerful business circles. The Metropol provided a new forum forupper-class sociability that allowed traditional elites to mingle with membersof the economic bourgeoisie (Wirtschaftsburgertum), the administration,the arts, and the press. Wealth and merit became the distinctive qualifi-cations for social status in this new sphere of sociability, overshadowing, ifnot replacing, former qualifications such as birth. The greater transparencyof this new arena in Berlin’s nightlife opened up ways for successful mem-bers of Berlin’s established Jewish community to find partial inclusion in thecapital’s elite circles.

The following chapters analyze how the Metropol allowed these elite cir-cles to exercise exclusivity on special occasions such as seasonal premieresand annual balls, as well as how the Metropol was able to enlarge its appealto middle-class audiences with its more mundane (and less costly) regularshows. By catering to two audiences, the elite and the middle class, at once,the Metropol seems not only to have secured financial success through itswide clientele but also to have preserved its aura of glamour and exclusivity.As will be shown, Jews could be found among both the upscale audience andthe regulars. Thus theaters such as the Metropol were instrumental in the for-mation of a new public arena that allowed well-off Jews to gain admission toWilhelmine society, either by attending premieres, or celebrating themselvesat masked balls, or being a regular visitor, eager to rub elbows with membersof the elite, to one of the weekly Metropol shows.

As had been the case with the circuses and Jargon theaters, the First WorldWar also affected the lives and work of performers engaged in revue theater.Although it certainly did not deny them their fame, it did increasingly shape



their interactions with their audiences within and outside the theater. Anti-Semitism, latent in upper-class live entertainment throughout its history, nowbecame the defining force. Thus Part III also looks at the alterations in styleand content of performances at the Metropol Theater and changes in audi-ence reactions and press reviews because of external events such as the war.The Metropol Theater – despite being a microcosm in and of itself – wasalso an indicator of larger trends in the way Gentile Germans and JewishGermans related to each other throughout the early twentieth century. In thefinal years of the Weimar Republic, an unprecedented process of social disin-tegration distanced performers and audiences, spectators and entrepreneurs,Gentiles and Jews, and could be experienced in and through the theater. Thefollowing part will thus be as concerned with the rise of one of Berlin’s mostextraordinary stages as it will with that theater’s inability to transcend thedivisive parameters of an increasingly polarized society.


9

The Metropol

Between Culture and Kapital

Despite the general stasis of class relations in Imperial society, by the endof the nineteenth century popular entertainment evolved into an importantvenue for a mixing of social circles. This was true not only for the lower mid-dle classes but also for a whole range of previously separate elites. Germanelites were not a homogenous group. The tensions between the military andwealthy businessmen, for example, were proverbial and often caricaturedby the satirical magazine Simplicissimus. Whereas both factions agreed ontheir rejection of the poor and the petty, they did not see eye to eye on manyother issues concerning the future of German society. Increasing pressuresfrom below, a growing socialist movement, the proletarization of the urbanpoor, and the demands of industrial production, however, all called for thecooperation of capital and birth. Although the emperor may have preferredto play admiral in the company of a few good men, even the court knewthat autocracy had its limitations. While German Jews were largely deniedcareers in the military and the diplomatic corps even after Jews were legallyemancipated, they had long established themselves in banking and the newindustries such as the retail, chemical, and electronics industries. These pro-vided German Jews with a welcome new forum for an informal sociabilitythat could bring together social factions that tradition and prejudice hadkept apart.

The Metropol Theater was instrumental in the formation of a new elite inimperial Berlin, an elite that included the upper echelons of Berlin’s Jewishcommunity. The formation of this elite, however, was not uncontested. Threeyears after its opening, the Metropol itself became the venue for one of thegreatest scandals in Imperial Berlin. On the night of January 4, 1902, anexceptionally violent fight broke out among visitors to the annual maskedball held at the Metropol. This fight was not a simple case of rowdy drunken-ness. It was part of an ongoing negotiation about who should or should nottake the lead in Berlin’s social sphere. Whether to include or exclude wealthyGerman Jews was a central issue in this negotiation, and this episode also

205



illuminates how Gentile–Jewish relations were overlaid and conditioned bythe rivalries between the aristocracy and the new business elites, regardless ofreligious affiliation. Representatives of the old Bismarckian elites socializedwith wealthy entrepreneurs, agrarians, artists, bureaucrats, and profession-als. All of these factions of society competed to appear on the polished dancefloor of the Metropol. In 1902 these groups found themselves in unfamiliarproximity to each other at the Metropol, a situation that, as the scandaldemonstrates, seemed to some to be too close for comfort. Although thesudden eruption into physical hostility was certainly alarming for contem-poraries, it is equally noteworthy that the Metropol was one of the few sitesin which such an encounter could have occurred in the first place.

Revue theater was designed to facilitate human interaction, among actorsand audiences certainly but also among the spectators themselves. The genrecreated its own audience in ways that set it apart from other theaters at thetime. It did not cater to an already circumscribed audience whose taste andpreferences were well known in theater circles. Instead, revue theater gaveshape to social changes that had not yet found a space or visual expression.The history of the revue theater thus affords a window into the formationof a new social elite that included “everybody who was anybody,” an elitedefined by rumors and conspicuous consumption, familial distinction andindividual talent, sex and style, but most importantly, by an appreciation formoney, power, and the city.

metropol audiences: the formation of tout berlin

Here one could find the most famous men, together with the most beautiful womenfrom Berlin, one created fashions, lifted dances out of the cradle, and did not lookpast the ladies of the demi-monde, who belonged to the teaming shining metropol –just like the Metropol-Theater belonged to the theater city Berlin.1

“Yesterday’s premier at the Metropol Theater – i.e., in other words: a wildpushing and pulling of curious bystanders and a crowd of cars and carriages,once in the auditorium one finds ladies clad in fashionable outfits and jewelsunusual for any other premier at Berlin’s regular theaters, . . . ”2 In 1906, theBerliner Lokal-Anzeiger continued its report of the excitement and antici-pation generated by the premiere of the revue Der Teufel lacht dazu. The

1 “Man fand hier die beruhmtesten Manner, die schonsten Frauen Berlins beisammen, mankreierte Moden, man hob Tanze aus der Taufe und sah auch nicht an den Damen der Halb-welt vorbei, die zum Bilde der dampfenden, strahlenden Großstadt gehorten, wie eben – dasMetropol-Theater zum Bilde der Theaterstadt Berlin.” Berlin, 1927, Alois Munk, 30 BerlinC, Tit. 74, Th. 2375, Akt. 74, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, August 6, 1927, BrandenburgischesLandeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

2 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, no. 447, Vossische Zeitung, September 27, 1906, BrandenburgischesLandeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.


The Metropol: Between Culture and Kapital 207

paper described how the curious crowds in front of the Metropol Theaterbrought foot and automobile traffic to a nearly complete standstill. Readingthe numerous press reports of Metropol premieres one is struck by the atten-tion paid to the theater’s spectators. Clearly, the formation of “tout Berlin”could not take place hidden from the public’s eye; the semipublic nature ofsuch exclusive gatherings was a necessary condition for their success. It wasthus no accident that a large crowd of onlookers regularly observed everysuch event at the Metropol. A certain degree of chaos at the premiere ofa new revue was intended and was part of the revue’s “choreography,” anecessary step on its road to success. As much as Metropol performers weredefined through their interaction with the audience, the theater’s audiencewas defined by the street onlookers. The show at the Metropol began longbefore the curtain went up; through the delicate interplay of press, street,audience, and performers, the Metropol choreographed a truly total pieceof art (Gesamtkunstwerk), seen on many stages, on the street and in thetheater, before and behind the curtain.

The theater director Richard Schultz and his collaborators managed togather the genuinely rich and successful at the Metropol, as well as anybodywho wanted to appear so. In their venture to define themselves, the new elitesmade Berlin the focal point of their identities. By celebrating the metropolison stage Berlin’s new elites gained a new self-consciousness in a rapidlychanging environment. Schultz sensed the need of German urbanites forsuch specificity when he named his new enterprise the “Metropol Theater.”By making the city the centerpiece of every production, he helped to createan image for his upscale audience. At the shows, spectators were reminded ofmajor and minor events in Berlin circles, and of what to wear for the season;moreover, they could observe who was part of the in-crowd in ImperialBerlin and who was not. The Metropol helped these new elites define theirboundaries, promoting an unprecedented degree of self-awareness amongits audiences. Because these boundaries were fragile and in constant flux, theMetropol created a continuing need for the consolidation of this highly con-tested group. One day’s celebrated Jahresrevue already legitimated the next.

The self-conscious attempt to remain up-to-date resonated through theMetropol Theater’s frequently self-referential performances. For example,one of the main songs in the revue Das muß man sehn! mildly satirized whatone member of Berlin’s in-crowd might look like. This song amicably listedthe attributes of a Metropol spectator, who, as the title reveals, should alsobe a stroller on the Kurfurstendamm, the grand boulevard in fashionablewestern Berlin:

The People of KurfurstendammThere is in Berlin a small circle,Which calls itself Tout Berlin,Where everybody knows something about the other;



Where everybody knows everybody else,Whoever has, whoever can,Who calls himself, comme il faut,From the Tiergarten district,from around the Zoo,And the people from Kurfurstendamm,All together, all together!3

This first stanza of this song describes where a representative of tout Berlinshould live. The Zoo, the Tiergarten, and the Kurfurstendamm were fashion-able recreation areas situated in the prosperous districts of West Berlin. Theseareas shared a unique social makeup that set them apart from other city dis-tricts. They were all residential areas with an exceptionally high concentra-tion of upper-middle-class Jewish families.4 Whereas poor Jewish newcomerstended to settle close to Jewish institutions in the eastern parts of Berlin, theestablished Jewish community concentrated in the city’s western and south-western neighborhoods.5 This trend started as soon as Berlin’s Jewish com-munity began to prosper in the late eighteenth century, and it continued untilthe 1930s.6 Contemporaries remembered that it was difficult to find a housethat did not have a Jewish family living in it in the exclusive Hansaviertel,in the Tiergarten district, and in the “Bavarian” quarter.7 The demographicdistribution by city district shows that even in 1925, when Jews representedapproximately 4.5% of Berlin’s total population, 13% of the population inWilmersdorf was Jewish, 10% in Berlin-Mitte, 9% in Charlottenburg, and6% in Tiergarten.8

The presence of established Jewish families left its mark on the street lifeand ambiance of these quarters, without, however, giving them a ghetto

3 Metropol Theater, Das muß man sehn! 1907, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil, Lan-desarchiv, Berlin. For original see App. 10.

4 In 1905, 21.4% of German Jews lived in Berlin (130,487 individuals). The Jews were 4.8%of Berlin’s total population. The Jewish community was not distributed evenly across the city.In 1933, the greatest density of Jewish residents was found in Charlottenburg with 27,013,then, in descending order, Wilmersdorf with 25,607, Mitte, 24,425, Prenzlauer, Berg, 18,051,Schoneberg, 16,261, and Tiergarten, 12,286. Reinhard Rurup, ed., Judische Geschichte inBerlin (Berlin, 1995), 308.

5 Rurup, Judische Geschichte in Berlin, 192.6 Gabriel Alexander, “Die judische Bevolkerung Berlins in den ersten Jahrzehnten des 20.

Jahrhunderts: Demographische und wirtschaftliche Entwicklungen,” in Rurup, JudischeGeschichte in Berlin, 122.

7 “There are no statistics for the actual number of Jews living in the Hansaviertel and theirpercentage of the population at large. One can conclude, however, that their number musthave been high, since every house accommodated at least several Jewish families,” recalledWerner Rosenstock, a lawyer and member of the Zentralverein der deutschen Staatsburgerjudischen Glaubens, who was born in Berlin in 1908. Quoted in Rurup, Judische Geschichtein Berlin, 193.

8 Gabriel Alexander, “Die Entwicklung der judischen Bevolkerung in Berlin zwischen 1871 und1945,” Tel Aviver Jahrbuch fur deutsche Geschichte 20 (1991), 287–314.



character.9 On the Jewish High Holidays, Jews could be seen on theKurfurstendamm in great numbers, streaming toward the grand synagogueon the Fasanenstraße, walking in close proximity to other Berliners, andadmiring the displays in the windows of West Berlin’s exclusive shops. Asthe song implies, these neighborhoods – Wilmersdorf, Charlottenburg, andthe Tiergartenviertel – were not characterized by the usual anonymity of abig city. Instead, their inhabitants were integrated into rich social networks.Residents of these districts identified strongly with their neighborhoods. Butit was a certain kind of identification, stressing the quarters’ particular flair,wealth, and social mobility, as captured in the first stanza of the song. Thusthe Metropol celebrated those neighborhoods in which rich Gentiles andJews lived together, forming what contemporaries called tout Berlin.

Who is at dinners, at soupers,One meets again and again?Who shines in all committeesWith their signatures?Who can be found at the TatternsaalAnd at the five o’clocks?Who can one greet at the ball of the press,At Nikisch, at Siegfried Ochs?And who promenades cozy and happyAt a summer’s evening out at the “Zoo”In the gossip-avenue with hullabaloo and tantara?Yes, all all all all all are there!10

The song’s second stanza defines the leisure activities of the residents of WestBerlin. The spectators were advised where to socialize if they wanted to bepart of tout Berlin. All the locations and activities – the popular concerts(“Nikisch, at Siegfried Ochs”), grand hotels (“five o’clocks”), the prome-nades (Lasterallee; “gossip-avenue”) – were well known, though recentlyestablished, areas of Gentile–Jewish encounters. These encounters were thusfacilitated through the opening of such “contact zones” outside the classicalcultural canon. In addition, the song includes references to Berlin’s politicsand to the city’s countless local organizations and committees. Berlin’s Jewswere noted for their active participation in charity organization, educationalcommittees, and other associations that fostered the interests of all Berlin-ers. This strong involvement was at least in part an outcome of Berlin’sJews’ specific professional profile; they were active in commerce and in the

9 For the residential concentration of Jews in Berlin, see Udo Christoffel, ed., Berlin Wilmers-dorf. Die Juden. Leben und Leid (Berlin, 1987).

10 Metropol Theater, Das muß man sehn! 1907, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil, Lan-desarchiv, Berlin. For the original, see App. 10.



free professions as doctors, lawyers, and journalists, occupational sectorsthat demanded a high degree of public involvement.11

By 1907 the term “tout Berlin” had permanently established itself inBerlin’s public discourse. The Vossische Zeitung, for example, was confidentthat its readers would be so familiar with the social profile of the “Berlinerpremiere audience” that the paper did not have to mention exactly whoappeared in tuxedos and evening gowns. In the early years of the Metropol’sexistence, most reports about its performances or balls included a detaileddescription of the attendees’ professions, ages, ethnic origins, and social sta-tuses. Only five years later, journalists could confidently refer to Ganz Berlinwithout feeling the need to go into greater detail.12

Despite its upscale aura, the Metropol Theater could not afford to rely onthe support of elite circles alone. In fact, this elite could establish itself onlyby playing the role of the “taste audience.” The resonance of the Jahresre-vuen among a larger crowd was dependent on the endorsement of its elitestatus. The Metropol also had to attract a middle-class audience, anxious toimitate and mingle with tout Berlin. Although the masses could not affordthe premieres and the annual masked balls – ticket prices rose steadily, reach-ing 300 marks by 1910 – they certainly could afford the subsequent 250 to300 performances of the Jahresrevuen, with prices ranging from 1.50 markfor a standing-room ticket to 10 marks for a theater box.13 The last sec-tor to enjoy the revues were the provinces. German tourists visited Berlinwith the explicit plan of seeing one of the fabulous shows they read aboutin the boulevard press.14 To be sure, attendance at the annual masked balland at the premieres of the revues determined who belonged to the in-groupof Berlin’s elites. Nevertheless, the hundreds of subsequent showings of therespective Jahresrevuen served to tout the ins and outs of a new elite to awider public. Tourists attended glamorous shows, eager to claim their rightto a few hours of vicarious fame.

11 For the occupational patterns of Berlin’s Jewish community, see Alexander, “JudischeBevolkerung Berlins,” 130–36.

12 “Yesterday was a big day for the Metropol Theater, and by implication for Berlin’s premiertheater audience. Yet another annual revue by Freund was staged – an event which mobilized‘Ganz-Berlin.’ The entire auditorium was filled with ladies in precious evening gowns andgentlemen in the equivalent suits.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 714, Akt. 313, Vossische Zeitung,September 15, 1907, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

13 For a discussion of price inflation at the Metropol Theater, see the Berliner Morgenpost,September 7, 1910.

14 “Hatte sich Berlin an der neuen Revue satt gesehen, so kam erst die Provinz an die Reihe, mitihrem unerschopflichen Menschenreservoir, das sich alljahrlich in die Metropole und in dasMetropol-Theater ergoß. Mit dem Zimmer wurden zugleich die Sitze telephonisch bestellet,und kam man heim, galt eine der ersten Fragen nach den Eindrucken dieses einen, dieses einzi-gartigen Abends, der als der Gipfelpunkt alles Erlebens in der Reichshauptstadt angesehenwurde.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Berliner Lokal-anzeiger, August 6, 1927, BrandenburgischesLandeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



Besides catering to specific social groups in imperial society, the MetropolTheater also had a gendered agenda. To a far greater degree than did circusesor Jargon theaters, the Metropol attracted a male clientele. Men ran theshow at the Metropol, and men in the audience determined its success. TheMetropol Theater was a male bastion, wedding power and pleasure, designedto entertain the young and adventurous gentlemen of Berlin’s high society.Although women participated on stage and as spectators, they remainedconfined to the roles of sexual objects and willing consumers of the latestfashion.15 In the meanings it attached to the presence of male and femalespectators at the revues, the conservative press especially exhibited this bias.

In 1904, for example, the right-wing journal Deutsche Warte included adescription of how male and female visitors to the annual masked ball at theMetropol presented themselves. Although the author conceded that the menwere all drawn from the “highest social circles,” including army officers,artists, lawyers, judges, and bureaucrats, he doubted the same could be saidof the women. Obviously, a woman risked her reputation when she enteredthe realm of revue entertainment in fin-de-siecle Berlin. Taking a conservativeperspective, the author was particularly startled by the indiscriminate mixingof individuals at this festive occasion. Men old and young, married andunmarried, Jewish and Gentile, representative of the army, the navy, the stockmarket, the court, the arts and the press – all of these types mingled withwomen whom the author identified as thinly disguised prostitutes. Whereasthe author argued that the presence of gentlemen guaranteed the genteelcharacter of the merry event, he remarked upon the lack of embarrassmentexhibited by some of their wives who showed themselves in such company:16

One cannot claim that these ladies belong to the highest circles of society. Rather,as some insiders have confirmed, the majority of them are frequent visitors of ourelegant ballrooms. Numerous respectable wives mingle among them with no signof embarrassment. They insist on accompanying their husbands into the seductivemerriness – be it out of curiosity or out of prudent caution.17

Unlike circuses or Jargon theaters, the Metropol Theater not only toleratedbut also actively encouraged prostitutes to seek out clients in the theater. The

15 In 1898 the Vossische Zeitung symptomatically considered “the main attraction of theMetropol” to be the spectator’s opportunity to make “not uninteresting anatomical studies.”30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 714, Akt. 18, Vossische Zeitung, September 4, 1898, Brandenbur-gisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

16 “The balls at the Metropol Theater are always a high point because the male visitors aredrawn without exception from the highest social circles. Their presence guarantees thatdespite all the gaiety and merriness, and despite the consumption of streams of champagne,the distinguished character of the festivities does not suffer.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th.708, Akt. 213, Deutsche Warte, January 4, 1904, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv,Potsdam.

17 Ibid.



Metropol management went out of its way to facilitate the “amorous adven-tures” of the visiting Kavaliere; it even adjusted the architectural design of itsfacilities to that end. Not surprisingly, the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger retrospec-tively considered the presence of beautiful women of Berlin’s demimonde aninseparable element of the Metropol Theater.18 The promenoir, for exam-ple, gained some notoriety, because it allowed potential clients discreetly toapproach prostitutes in the theater. Salons, chambres separees, and an Ameri-can bar provided even more private settings for intimate encounters. DirectorSchultz knew that he would lose much of his male clientele if he were to denyprostitutes access to his establishment. Hence, they were allowed to enter thetheater after nine o’clock for a token cover charge of one mark. The presenceof prostitutes was part of the overall appeal of the Metropol. Astute financialanalysts, the management was aware that the purchase and consumption ofhard liquor and champagne depended on the creation and nurturing of sucha scene. It was this demimonde that the respectable Berliner Borsen Zeitungsnubbed ever so slightly by questioning the Metropol’s artistic interest andappeal. Although acknowledging the social importance of a premiere at theMetropol Theater, one author remarked that a spectator in search of morerefined food for thought might have come in vain. He concluded that someof the female visitors were all too well known as regulars of the nightclubsArcadia and Moulin Rouge.19

Most press critiques of the Metropol Theater, and here the Berliner BorsenZeitung is no exception, commented more or less discreetly on the doubtfulsexual integrity of the theater’s female audience. Even the Deutsche Warte’snegative assessment of the Metropol’s female visitors was far more forcefulthat its reference to Berlin’s wealthy Jewish youth, which it mentioned only inpassing. Although the anti-Semitic Deutsche Warte referred to the so-calledjeunesse isidoree, the anti-Semitic label for the Jewish segment of Berlin’sLebewelt, it did not take the opportunity to further sneer at the Jewishvisitors of the Metropol. Using the term jeunesse isidoree, the author half-heartedly warned his reader that all that glistens is not gold; but then he

18 “Man fand hier die beruhmtesten Manner, die schonsten Frauen Berlins beisammen, mankreierte Moden, man hob Tanze aus der Taufe und sah auch nicht an den Damen der Halbweltvorbei, die zum Bilde der dampfenden, strahlenden Großstadt gehorten, wie eben – dasMetropol-Theater zum Bilde der Theaterstadt Berlin.” Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, August 6,1927. Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

19 “Eine Premiere in Metropol-Theater gilt immer als ein großes Ereignis. Allerdings gilt siedas weniger den literarisches Feinschmeckern – die versprechen sich vom Metropoltheaternicht allzu viel – sondern den Glucklichen, die das Recht haben, sich die Jeunesse doreevon Berlin zu nennen. Die erfullen einen solchen Metropol-Premiereabend mit ihrem Glanzeund waren auch gestern wieder vollzahlig zur Stelle. Alle Habitues der Rennbahnen warenda, und unter den Damen in schonem Kranz entdeckte das prufende Kennerauge manchealte Bekanntschaft aus der Arcadia und dem Moulin Rouge.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, BerlinerBorsen-Courier, September 10, 1905, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



quickly proceeded to offer a positive assessment of the theater’s decor andthe extravagance of the visitors’ costumes. Apparently, even this conservativeand anti-Semitic critic felt helpless to prevent the mingling of upper-classJews and Gentiles. By 1905 Berlin’s Jewish upper middle class seems to havepermanently established itself among the Metropol regulars.

One should not, however, think that the formation of tout Berlin wasfree of tension and occasional outbursts of animosity and resentment. Inthis context, the 1902 scandal is instructive about the many ways in whichclass and ethnic prejudice intersected in Berlin society. This scandal allows formany readings; the one that follows takes a multifaceted approach, analyzingthis event through the often-contradictory testimonies of a diverse group ofcontempory observers and participants. The discussion of the incident andits subsequent depiction in the press illuminate larger dimensions of theMetropol Theater’s place in Berlin’s social sphere. It proves the theater tohave been far more than just a place for distraction and frivolity for thosewith means and aspirations.

To appreciate the importance of this singular event we must understandthe role of the gathering in the first place. The annual balls at the MetropolTheater provided a veritable stage for the up and coming. Although themasked ball at the Metropol was an exclusive social event, it was far moreopen to “deserving” newcomers than were most other events organized bythe traditional elites of Imperial society. New social boundaries were drawnand old ones reconsidered. The outcome of this negotiation process wassignificant not only for the internal dynamics among members of Germany’selite but also for society at large. The Metropol was not a theater reserved fora small elite only. It was both exclusive and popular, visited by thousands ofordinary citizens who flowed into the daily shows after the premiere audiencehad given its stamp of approval. Simply by the fact that it offered a spacepopulated by both elites and others, thereby breaking down barriers betweenelite culture and popular culture, any scandal at the Metropol resonatedloudly in middle-class Berlin.

“skandal im metropol theater!” berlin, 1902

During the night of January 4/5, 1902, three men – James von Bleichroder,the Count von Schonborn, and Count Konigsmark – convivially welcomedthe New Year with streams of champagne, enjoying the splendid eveningfrom their private box at the Metropol’s annual masked ball. By two o’clockin the morning, they must have been as drunk as they were cheerful, and theirmotor skills had suffered accordingly. While opening yet another champagnebottle, James von Bleichroder, the youngest son of Bismarck’s Jewish bankerGerson von Bleichroder, spilled some champagne on the sleeve of a nearbycelebrant, whose identity he did not know. Enraged by this act of carelessness,the young man’s neighbor bellowed an anti-Semitic insult, which infuriated



Bleichroder and his company. Schonborn, the Hungarian-Austrian attache,came to von Bleichroder’s defense and demanded the stranger’s card, thusfollowing the usual protocol among gentlemen seeking to settle their disputesthrough a duel. The stranger, later identified by the police as the mine ownerOtto Siegmann, refused. Instead, he proceeded to insult von Schonborn aswell. The attache, in turn, lost his self-control and in the ensuing wrestleknocked the mine owner unconscious. Siegmann collapsed on the dance floorof the Metropol Theater, bleeding profusely from the face. Von Schonbornhad smashed Siegmann’s monocle into countless pieces, cutting his eye inthe process. The turmoil and the sight of blood led to general confusionand even panic among the other guests at the ball; even the intervention ofdirector Schultz could not quiet the tumult. The joyous gathering of the richand the famous quickly turned into a mob scene, featuring two evenly splitand irreconcilable camps: supporters of Bleichroder and his party, and rev-elers backing the bleeding Siegmann. Only the intervention of police officersreestablished law and a semblance of order.

In the coverage of this event by the Berliner Zeitung, the bourgeois Sieg-mann is the unquestioned aggressor and von Bleichroder the righteouslyinfuriated victim. It is striking how vehemently the reporter defines the anti-Semitic insult as ungentlemanly behavior, emphasizing that even earlier com-ments by Siegmann also merited reprimand.20 Although the report rings withdisapproval of the extravagant lifestyle of the wealthy, with all of its excesses,it also reflects a reverence for wealth and status. Bleichroder’s carelessness ispresented as that of a youth, which ought to be excused, especially amongrich and distinguished young men.21 Siegmann’s transgression, in contrast,is unforgivable because he, a bourgeois nobody, has insulted the status andhonor of his noble adversary by refusing to reveal his own identity or agreeto a duel.

It is significant that it was the noble attache, von Schonborn, who came tothe defense of James von Bleichroder. The old elites did not leave Siegmann’stransgression unanswered. Schonbron called upon Siegmann to defend him-self and, after being insulted, did not shy away from beating Siegmann. Byaiming at Siegmann’s eye, Schonborn shattered not only his opponent’s mon-ocle but also his honor. In an era in which a gentleman counted the monocleamong his essential status markers – together with his top hat, his tailcoat,and his gloves – Schonborn’s act was symbolic as well as violent. He effec-tively punched Siegmann out of the community of tout Berlin. Taking note

20 “It seems as if the stranger has already made remarks that deserved reprimand.” 30 BerlinC, Tit. 74, Th. 708, Akt. 138, Berliner Zeitung, January 6, 1902, Brandenburgisches Lan-deshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

21 “Personalities are involved in this affair who cannot be denied the right to amuse themselvesaccording to their taste and means, . . . to drink champagne and to let loose – as long as theydo not cause any disturbance.” Ibid.



at this symbolism, the Berliner Zeitung rushed to declare Siegmann to be anindividual of dubious social standing, someone “who is known to entertaindirect relations with the less distinguished part of Berlin’s demimonde.” Thereporter could not verify this information, but he obviously deemed it likelyenough and sufficiently discriminatory to put it before his readers.

The account published in the Berliner Zeitung was confirmed in its essen-tials by the police authorities.22 The testifying police officer, however, enteredthe site only after the fight between von Schonborn and Siegmann had alreadyescalated; therefore, he identified these two individuals as the main oppo-nents without mentioning James von Bleichroder. His report did, however,stress the intensity of the confrontation. The officer highlighted the inabilityof theater personnel to control the situation and the rancor of the polarizedmob. It was a “regular brawl, fought with rare fierceness.” Eyewitnessesfelt compelled to join in the fight, and the combatants fought using walkingsticks and broken champagne glasses as weapons. Even Siegmann’s seri-ous injury could not calm his enemies, who continued to pursue him asthe police officers rushed him from the building so he could get medicaltreatment.

Clearly, this fight was more than a gentlemen’s disagreement. More wasat stake than champagne stains on a sleeve. James von Bleichroder stoodfor a generation of young Jews who had attained almost everything theirfathers and grandfathers had dreamed of. He was young, wealthy, andnoble. But instead of embracing an ethos of discipline, hard work, andreason, he pursued the extravagant lifestyle his family fortune affordedhim. He was not like the “founding generation” (Grundervatergeneration)who still remembered their treatment before legal emancipation and whobelieved that their social advancement depended on their usefulness to Gen-tile society. Raised amid luxury, he sought to move smoothly among newand old elites – an option few Jewish families had.23 Although Gerson vonBleichroder had not managed to pass on his financial instincts and manage-rial abilities to his heirs, he had been able to instill in them his desire to“belong.” All three sons of Gerson von Bleichroder were known to com-pensate for their ambivalent standing among the rich, noble, and power-ful with extravagant escapades in Berlin’s growing amusement scene. The

22 “This was the signal for a regular brawl, fought with rare fierceness. Two parties emergedimmediately, one supported the Count, and the other fought for Siegmann. They used sticksand threw champagne glasses at each other. Siegmann was punched below the right eye, andthe right half of his face swell immensely. The director of the Metropol Theater, Schultz, triedeverything to separate the combatants. . . . While the injured party was led outside, protectedby his friends, his antagonists kept trying to hit him. . . . Director Schultz ended the turmoilby blocking the doorway after Siegmann had safely left the building.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74,Th. 708, Akt. 139, January 5, 1902, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

23 Fritz Stern, Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichroder, and the Building of the German Empire(New York, 1977), 492–93.



Metropol was one of the first public arenas in which Jewish men could exhibittheir wealth as gentlemen and still maintain their status in Berlin’s highsociety.

The mere presence at the Metropol Theater of James von Bleichroder –the quintessential representative of the anti-Semites’ jeunesse doree – pro-voked Siegmann on that fateful night in 1902. Bleichroder was resented allat once as a member of Imperial Germany’s Bismarckian elites, a pariah, alord of the manor (Rittergutsbesitzer), and a Jew. Besides reflecting his anti-Semitism, Siegmann’s response to Bleichroder can also be read as the reac-tion of a disgruntled member of a “productive” industry, mining, toward thedespised figure of the “unproductive” and immodest Jewish banker. With theexpansion of Berlin’s entertainment industry, a social arena emerged outsideof the military and court society that provided a meeting ground for wealthymembers of the old and new elites. Without having to socialize with themasses, the jeunesse doree staked out its own territory at the gala dinnersand masked balls of the upscale hotels and theaters such as the Metropol.These social gatherings were opportunities for some members of the old elitesto witness and participate in the continuous reformulation of the tastes andsensibilities of Berlin’s high society. Bankers, officers, commercial councilors(Commerzienrathe), Junkers, sports heroes, and entertainment stars met eachother at the Metropol and formed a new elite.

The dress code at the Metropol’s seasonal ball suggests that this societyoperated within different codes of distinction than did court society. In 1902a new fashionable outfit – consisting of a tailcoat, top hat, and gloves – hadlargely replaced such other status symbols as military uniforms and nobleaccoutrements. It was the social diversity, as well as the new codes of honor,that attracted journalists’ attention. As the following excerpt from Daskleine Journal reveals, some journalists were astonished by this new socialdiversity:

One witnesses a mixing and mingling of all elements of society – those who belong tothe respectable society, those who strive to belong, or those who have long abandonedsuch ambitions, because they have long lost their civic rights. First the men. White tieand tails level all social differences; top hat and walking stick have replaced helmetsand sables and conceal whether the portepee and weapon have already started to rust.Aristocrat and carpet-dealer [Teppichnepper], plutocrat and profiteer, gentleman andpimp, sportsman and marketer, artist and con man, commercial councilor and thief,all gallop peaceably together in search of the game that is called “woman.”24

The absence of traditional status symbols such as the portepee (a lit-tle sword) is remarkable when one considers the pains that Gerson vonBleichroder exerted in 1878 to secure military commissions for his sons.

24 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 708, Akt. 141, Das kleine Journal, January 6, 1902, Brandenbur-gisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



Bismarck had commented on his efforts on behalf of his eldest son,Hans.25 In 1878, military rank was still considered the best entry ticket intoImperial society. By 1902 a larger public sphere had emerged, holding out thepromise of partial integration, that did not require military distinctions. Pop-ular entertainment provided an arena of sociability that blurred differencesbetween old and new elites. Entrance seemed to be based on merit, and per-formers and artists mingled with officers, Junkers, and politicians. Wealth –old, or recently acquired – and beauty and fame were the decisive factors inthe rivalry for attention and celebrity in this new crowd.

According to the quotation cited earlier, the uniformity of the male dresscode was enhanced by the uniformity of the men’s main objective, eroticadventure. In fact, the manner of dress had one primary purpose: to establishthe manliness of the dresser.26 The metaphor of the hunt reflected the functionof the New Year’s ball as an occasion that blended the differences in status,self-perception, and economic wealth of the men who attended. Thus themasked ball had a liberating effect for those who could afford its hefty price;it was exclusive enough to make being there desirable, yet it catered to themost “common” sexual desires and the hedonism of those in attendance.Siegmann’s transgression, his use of a “vulgar word with a denominationalbias,” broke the social contract at the Metropol Theater. Siegmann had, ineffect, introduced an ideologically charged rhetoric where it did not belong;he had defined the “other” in an arena that consciously advocated socialambiguity. For this reason, Siegmann’s action was interpreted not only as apersonal assault but also as an assault on the fundamental claim of popularentertainment to being an inclusive new sphere of sociability for Berlin’s richand famous. The Berliner Morgenpost, tellingly, introduced Siegmann to itsreaders as the “gentleman with the inevitable monocle.”27 Like the writer in

25 “Bleichroder, who had endured all manner of abuse and denigration, could not envisionlife in Germany with his son dishonored, deprived of the right to wear a uniform.” Hanshad previously incensed the crown and jeopardized his chances through his “indecent”behavior. According to Bismarck, Gerson von Bleichroder “would have given his dearestpossession – his first ten million – for a silver portepee.” Stern, Gold and Iron, 487; onthe importance of the reserve officer in Wilhelmine culture, see Eckart Kehr, “Zur Genesisdes Koniglich Preußischen Reserveoffiziers,” in Das Primat der Innenpolitik: GesammelteAufsatze zur preußisch-deutschen Sozialgeschichte im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1965),53–63; Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, vol. 3: Von der “DeutschenDoppelrevolution” bis zum Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges, 1849–1914 (Munich, 1995),881–82.

26 “. . . verstandnisvoll jauchzten die dichtgedrangten Schaaren, kennen sie es doch allzu gut,diese stilgerechten verfrackten und weißkrawatierten Kavaliere, mit dem Monocle und demGehrock, der hier lediglich ein Attribut der Mannlickeit und hochstens auf Maskenballen zurWaffe wird.” Freisinnige Zeitung, 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, August, 26, 1902, BrandenburgischesLandeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

27 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 708, Akt. 138, Berliner Morgenpost, January 7, 1902, Brandenbur-gisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



the Berliner Zeitung, one contributor to the Berliner Morgenpost believedthat Siegmann’s manners were at fault.28 Both newspapers mentioned theacademic and noble titles of von Bleichroder and his status as an estateowner.29 Siegmann, by contrast, was cast as “the stranger” in the reports,without poise, title, or status.

Only a few openly anti-Semitic papers defended Siegmann’s behavior. TheTagliche Rundschau thought that Siegmann had some right to be annoyedat von Bleichroder. After all, it had been von Bleichroder who stainedSiegmann’s sleeve.30 Moreover, the Tagliche Rundschau declared that eventhe “philosemitic [judenfreundlich gefarbte]” Berliner Zeitung had to admitthat “a member of Jewish high finance [eine judische Finanzgroße] had actedprovocatively.”31 Under the pretext of taking an “objective” stand, this news-paper did not miss the opportunity to sneer at Jewish members of Berlin’selite circles. The Staatsburgerzeitung could not agree more. Remaining trueto its anti-Semitic agenda, it saw in the victimized Siegmann the honor ofa German gentleman sullied with his own blood by hordes of threateningJews:

Yesterday morning at about 4 o’clock, scandalous scenes occurred at the mas-querade ball at the Metropol Theater. A few gentlemen, among them a countknown as an amateur jockey, were provoked by the behavior of several Jewishfinanciers, one of whom was the heir of a well-known local bank. A quarrel startedand turned violent. One officer was wounded badly in the eye with a walkingstick.32

In its attempt to defame von Bleichroder, the Staatsburgerzeitung got itsfacts so mixed up that it had to officially disclaim its first report. The firstreport had described the assault of a distinguished officer and gentleman bya Jew. Unfortunately, this did not concur with the actual events, since theofficer had injured the “businessman S.” – an apparently far less outrageoustransgression. To retain its shock value, the article exaggerated the incidenteven further in its second report: now “forty Jews and their helpers” hadinjured one upright German citizen. The desperation evident in this newlyconcocted account demonstrates just how much effort was required by the

28 “He directed a swear word with a denominational bias at the neighboring box, showing alack of upbringing.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 708, Akt. 138, Berliner Morgenpost, January 7,1902, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

29 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 708, Akt. 138, Berliner Morgenpost, January 7, 1902, Brandenbur-gisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

30 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 708, Akt. 138, Tagliche Rundschau, January 7, 1902, Brandenbur-gisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

31 Ibid.32 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 708, Akt. 138, Staatsburgerzeitung, January 6, 1902, Brandenbur-

gisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



Staatsburgerzeitung to call into question the status of Jews in Berlin’s highsociety – eloquent testimony to the inroads Jewish citizens had made inthe city’s new elites.33 The following discussion of the Metropol Theater’smanagement, performers, and shows and their reception will focus on thestability and costs of this fragile inclusion of Jews into mainstream Berlinsociety.

the firm

One can safely assume that had the Metropol’s director been of Jewishdescent his career would have ended in 1902. Scandals like the one justdescribed were appreciated only as fodder for the press. For visitors attractedby extravagance and glamour, escalations into physical violence left a vulgaraftertaste. This incident could have meant the premature death of a theaterwhose promise had excited Berliners only a few weeks earlier. Who then wasthe impresario of Berlin’s new stage who could keep the balance between oldand new? The Metropol Theater was run by a Gentile director-entrepreneurnamed Richard Schultz (1863–1928), who founded the theater in 1898. WithRichard Schultz, a new spirit entered the dusty world of well-tempered cham-ber music and upper-class gala dinners.

Schultz was equipped with an acute sense of drama and ritual, and heknew that only the most extravagant setting would attract Berlin’s socialelite. To lift popular entertainment to these heights of glamour, an exquisitearena had to be found. It soon became clear to Schultz that the monumen-tal building of the former Theater unter den Linden at the Behrensstrasse53/54 could provide the setting for the venture he had in mind for Berlin.The building had been erected in 1872 in grand style and was located ina fashionable neighborhood close to the upper-class boulevards Unter denLinden and Friedrichstrasse. During a period known as the Grunderjahre(founding years), the construction of the theater and supporting buildingshad cost more than 2.3 million marks. The building was spread over a totalof 6,384 square meters and housed a grand cafe, with a capacity of 1,000seats, and a hotel with 120 rooms. These were connected to the theater by acrystal passageway that allowed audiences and customers to move betweenthe buildings without ever setting foot outside the amusement complex. The

33 “We have to correct our report on the fist fight at the Metropol Theater-ball. It was notthe officer whose eye was injured with a walking stick. Instead, it was the businessman S.who was injured by an officer, the Attache of the Austro-Hungarian embassy. The injuredbusinessman [along with two friends] was originally involved in a fight with the son of aprominent banking house. Forty Jews and their helpers fought against the three gentlemen,one of which was then seriously wounded in the eye by the officer and needed furthertreatment by ambulance.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 708, Akt. 138, Staatsburgerzeitung,January 7, 1902, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



figure 26. The exterior of the Metropol Theater in the Behrenstrasse.

theater itself seated 2,500 spectators; it was one of Berlin’s most precioussemipublic spaces.34

The theater’s architecture and prominent location provided the perfectstage for Schulz’s theatrical enterprise. Upon the completion of the theater’svery costly and involved renovations, visitors unanimously praised the mag-nificence of this new entertainment site. They enjoyed the spacious comfortand the tasteful arrangement of colors and forms, not the least because suchaesthetics framed and reflected their own wardrobes in the most flatteringway. The new promenoir, in particular – a foyer behind the seats of the firstcircle – allowed the audiences to move about and mingle freely, just as theymight on one of the many grand boulevards of Berlin.

The maintenance cost alone for such an enterprise could have ruined a lessable manager than Richard Schultz, who directed the Metropol for over twodecades as one might run a large corporation. In contrast to the prevailingpractice in Jewish circuses or Jargon theaters, neither family bonds nor eth-nic solidarity played any visible role in the operation of this theater. Schultzand his business associate, Paul Jentz, both Gentiles, were designated man-aging directors with renewable five-year contracts. They were guaranteed an

34 Ines Hahn, “Das Metropol-Theater. Theater als sichere Geldanlage,” in Ruth Freydank, ed.,Theater als Geschaft (Berlin, 1995), 89–90.

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annual income of 50,000 marks plus 1,000 marks for expenses and 15 per-cent of the total profits.35 Their main goal was to consolidate their financialsuccess and preserve it into the future. These directors’ dealings with staffand audiences reflected this objective. In 1901, for example, Schultz wasinstrumental in founding one of the first organizations to represent employ-ers’ interests in variety entertainment: the Internationaler Variete-DirektorenVerband (IVDV).36

Schultz was most concerned with limiting his personal risk as much aspossible and finding additional sources of income to complement the dailyrevenues from the box office. On October 19, 1897, he founded a limited-liability corporation (Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, GmbH) witha basic capital of 400,000 marks. Twenty-one shareholders were recruitedfrom Berlin’s leading financial circles – bankers, lawyers, and entrepreneurs –and each purchased shares worth between 10,000 and 40,000 marks.37 In1909, after a decade of success, Schultz and Jentz converted the Metropolinto a joint-stock company (Metropol Theater Aktiengesellschaft Berlin)with a base capital of 1 million marks, divided into shares of 1,000 markseach.38 Unlike the original arrangement, the stocks in the Metropol corpora-tion could now be bought and sold publicly on the stock exchange. Becausethe average dividend was over twenty percent in the prewar period, theirinvestment in the Metropol Theater Aktiengesellschaft was lucrative for itsshareholders.

Some shareholders even had a double interest in the Metropol’s success.The Jewish clothing manufacturer Hugo Baruch (1848–1905), for exam-ple, sought a business affiliation with the Metropol Theater to secure forhimself exclusive rights to supply the theater’s decor and costumes. As ashareholder and a business partner, Baruch encouraged the most extrava-gant productions, considerably influencing the theater’s aesthetics. In 1900the Baruch studios was an international fashion imperium, with branches inLondon, Brussels, and New York.39 A contemporary journalist working forDer Artist, Oscar Geller, marveled at the exceptional professionalism of this

35 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 3061, Akt. 224–25, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv,Potsdam.

36 The Metropol Theater could not shed this legacy of variety theater. Until 1925, after morethan two decades of revue entertainment in Berlin, revue theater was still legally defined asjust one form of variety entertainment, § 33a of the RGO. Fritz Steidl, “Revue ist Variete,”Das Programm, March 15, 1925; furthermore, Konorah, “Revue ist Variete. Eine folgen-schwere Entscheidung,” Das Programm, March 1, 1925, documenta artistica collection atMarkisches Museum, Berlin.

37 Richard Schultz’s personal share was 40,000 marks. As a regular shareholder of a GmbHhis liability did not exceed his shares. Hahn, “Das Metropol-Theater,” 89.

38 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 709, Akt. 80, Vossische Zeitung, December 1, 1909, Brandenbur-gisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

39 Christine Schmitt, Artistenkostume. Zur Entwicklung der Zirkus und Varietegarderobe im19. Jahrhundert (Tubingen, 1993), 33.



enterprise, which ran like clockwork. He was fascinated by how the carefulchoice of fabrics, colors, and texture maximized the theatrical effect of eachcreation:

Thousands of designs for costumes, envisioned and executed by leading artists arestored here. Next door one can find the dressing rooms, which could be completelydarkened, so as to test how the color of each respective costume would fare in adiversity of lights, ranging from regular light bulbs to neon lights.40

Clearly, Germany’s fashion industry saw in the Metropol a major venue forpresenting its latest collections and thus made sure that the costumers wouldbe staged in, quite literally, the most favorable light. Fashion had becomeperformance and vice versa.

aesthetic roots: the long shadows of meiningen

Richard Schultz’s managerial talents were matched by his astounding lackof aesthetic orthodoxy. Only a combination of economic and aesthetic sensi-bilities could lead to the phenomenal rise of the Metropol Theater. Schultz’ssense of decor and presentation gave him an edge over other entrepreneurs,and his previous acting career also paid off in many ways. Schultz had trainedat the famous Meiningener court theater, where German drama had under-gone experimentation and renewal. Meiningen was known to be the first“democratic theater,” intended to challenge the established theater center-ing on the individual virtuoso. At Meiningen, each actor was required to playlarge and small roles, the successful completion of the final product beingdependent upon the collaboration of director, actors, poet, and manager.Spectacular scenes with unprecedented large crowds were the centerpiecesof most productions, a shift from the individual to the masses that at thetime was not greeted with unanimous approval. As a disappointed contem-porary once remarked: “the crowd gradually becomes of superior instead ofsubordinate importance. We are looking at the citizens instead of listening toBrutus, Cassius, and Casca.”41 A new idea of manhood found its expressionin a new democratic theater; as one enthusiastic Belgian contemporary criticproclaimed, “tout hierarchie est bannie.”42

With Georg II Duke of Saxe-Meiningen as its patron, the theater spe-cialized in historic tragedies and in the staging of total pieces of art(Gesamtkunstwerke).43 In tours across Germany and even Europe, a new

40 Oscar Geller, “Ein Rundgang durch das Etablissement Hugo Baruch & Co. in Berlin,” DerArtist, no. 788, vol. 18 (1900), cited in Schmitt, Artistenkostume, 34.

41 Clement Scott in John Osborne, ed., Die Meininger. Texte zur Rezeption (Munich, 1980),121.

42 “All hierarchies are banned.” Erika Fischer-Lichte, Kurze Geschichte des deutschen Theaters(Tubinger, 1993), 229.

43 Rob Burns, ed., German Cultural Studies: An Introduction (Oxford, 1995), 12.



form of director’s theater was introduced in most European capitals.It proved formative for an entire generation of directors and theoreti-cians, ranging from Otto Brahm (1856–1912) in Germany to the influen-tial Moscow director Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863–1938). Musicians andorchestras were equally influenced by these reforms, popularized by suchwell-known conductors and composers as Hans von Bulow (1830–1894),Gustav Mahler (1860–1911), and Richard Strauss (1864–1949).44 Schultz’sacting experience at Meiningen, his activity as an organizer of touring com-panies, and his managerial expertise acquired at Berlin’s Central-Theaterprovided him with the range of skills he needed to become one of the mostsuccessful theater directors in Imperial Germany.45

Schultz imported techniques and aesthetic forms from “serious” dramaand applied them to popular entertainment. He thus catered to both massand elite entertainment. It was Meiningen after all, that, like Wagnerianoperas, insisted on an unprecedented degree of historical realism in its pro-ductions. Historical stage sets, costumes, and sounds were meant to enrap-ture the audience and take them to the forgotten lands of the past. The idealMeiningen actor was the translator of a specific historic consciousness forthe spectator.46 This concern with “authentic” settings and behavior needsto be understood against the backdrop of the poorly equipped court theaters,which endlessly recycled costumes and stage props and were unconcernedwith the dramatist’s intentions or with contemporary customs and technol-ogy. The new, almost pedantic adherence to original materials and naturalmovements at the Meiningen theater led to instant national and internationalsuccess for the company and had a lasting impact on Germany’s theater scene.Even though Meiningen was criticized at times for shifting the emphasis fromthe acting to the production, for allowing the material to rule the human, thetheater was exceptionally well received. As will be shown, Meiningen’s suc-cesses and shortcomings would have resonance in the reception of RichardSchultz as well.47

The Metropol Theater perfected a type of performance with many artisticroots. Over the years, newspaper critiques commented on the diversity ofdramatic effects and artistic traditions in Metropol revues. According to theFreisinnge Zeitung, the Metropol revue choreographed variety entertainmentlike classical theater, leading to a never-ending stream of surprises.48 Evenas late as 1909, the Vossische Zeitung still expressed astonishment at the

44 Burns, German Cultural Studies, 14–15.45 Peter Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret (Cambridge, MA, 1993), 105.46 Fischer-Lichte, Kurze Geschichte des deutschen Theaters, 224.47 Ibid., 225.48 “So ergibt sich denn von selbst das Bedurfnis nach einer Mischgattung, welche die mehr

oder weniger verhullten Reize des Varietes mit der Kunstform des Theaters umkleidet unddie Einzelheiten in einen gewissen Zusammenhang bringt.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, FreisinnigeZeitung, August 26, 1902, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



novelty of this genre: “gregors and noisemakers, with cow bells and caps,artificial bird voices and horns, every trick and device is acceptable.49 Butdespite its literary or musical focus, the revue never completely severed itscarnival roots; and versatility, but also physical skill and endurance, was anecessary condition for the success and survival of its actors. The frequentchanges of costume off stage and the exhausting acrobatic demands on stagewere more reminiscent of variety and circus shows than of classical theater.In 1909, a bewildered Vossische Zeitung noted that “every one jumps in thisoperetta; squats alternate with somersaults, wild leaps and lanky gestures,the feet develop an agility one can normally observe from Negroes and iceskaters.”50 The lack of artistic orthodoxy was the secret to the revue’s success.

Whereas the Meiningener company was concerned with the glory of thenation, Richard Schultz tended to celebrate the glory of Berlin.51 He envi-sioned his establishment as a showcase for the nation’s capital. In the pro-gram for his opening operetta production, Das Paradies der Frauen (Sept. 3,1898), Schultz boasted that his whole enterprise stood “as proud as its mag-nificent building. In its dimensions, in the grandeur of its interior decora-tion, it is a house that is truly worthy of the German Empire’s capital. It is ametropolitan establishment in the true sense of the word.”52

Schultz wanted audiences to gasp as they entered the Metropol Theaterand became aware of the colors and sounds of the metropolis; by and large, hesucceeded. His productions truly stimulated all the senses. Even the bourgeoisdaily paper the Berliner Tageblatt credited the Metropol Theater revue withhaving an educational effect on its audiences, yet softening any didacticedge with visual pleasures and humorous distractions. The Tageblatt creditedthe Metropol of with finally surpassing the notorious Berliner comedy: “Bylaying the finger on social problems and the weaknesses of distinguishedpersonalities, [the revue] is in fact educational in nature. With notably greatermeans, with her visual and verbal power, she continues the work especiallyof the satirical press.”53

This delightfully cushioned style of social critique, along with theunabashed celebration of the city of Berlin, accounted for the excellent rela-tions the Metropol management maintained with Berlin’s censors. Imperialpolice presidents such as Trautgott von Jagow and Curt von Glasenapp werepersonally acquainted with Schultz and his collaborators. In 1909, after his

49 “Huppen und Knarren, mit Kuhglocken und Knallerbsen, mit kunstlichen Vogelstimmenund Geißlerischen Rohren; jeder Kniff and jedes Mittelchen ist ihr recht; . . .” 30 Berlin C,Tit. 74, Vossische Zeitung, April 25, 1909, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

50 Ibid.51 Alfred Klaar, “Herzog Georg von Meiningen: Ein Nekrolog,” Shakespeare Jahrbuch 51

(1915), 93, cited in Burns, German Cultural Studies, 15.52 Hahn,“Das Metropol-Theater,” 93.53 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Berliner Tageblatt, September 10, 1906, Brandenburgisches Lan-

deshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



nomination as Berlin chief of police, Jagow even made a point of summoningthe Metropol scriptwriter Julius Freund into his office, to reassure Freundof his support.54 No doubt Berlin’s authorities took pride in the flatteringrepresentation of their capital. More than a decade after the last Jahresrevuehad been staged, Berlin’s Chief of Police von Glasenapp fondly rememberedhis collaboration with Freund and Schultz, stressing the exceptional libertiesthe Metropol had enjoyed.55 But censorship still factored strongly in the dailylife of the Metropol. Julius Freund repeatedly complained about the ominouspresence of Berlin’s censorship authorities despite the fact that he enjoyedgreater freedom than most of his colleagues at less well-connected institu-tions.56 Although the Metropol was granted an astounding degree of creativelicense, it never operated outside the parameters set by the omnipresent cen-sors, a fact that was publically known and repeatedly discussed. In 1905,the Berliner Morgenpost, for example, remarked on the benevolent moodthe local censors must have been in when they reviewed the revue Auf, insMetropol!! They “thanked,” the otherwise overly zealous censors for allow-ing the numerous political jokes and punch lines to be uttered on stage.57

Just a few years after the Metropol Theater had mastered its Urerlebnis ona fateful night in 1902, it had become one of Berlin’s most important stages,both behind and in front of the curtain. No other theater enjoyed the pro-tection and appreciation of such a diverse group of distinguished spectators.Richard Schultz’s investments had paid off handily. Conflicts between seem-ingly irreconcilable groups seemed permanently sublimated in a celebrationof abundance, glamour, and style.

54 See Walter Freund, “Aus der Fruhzeit des Berliner Metropoltheaters,” Kleine Schriften derGesellschaft fur Theatergeschichte, no. 19 (Berlin, 1962), 62–63, cited in Jelavich, BerlinCabaret, 110.

55 “I would like to mention for example, the revues at the Metropol Theater, which weremounted in utmost harmony between myself, the entrepreneur Richard Schultz and theauthor Freund, even though at the time it was rather difficult to present political wit andsatires – both of which [were] included in those revues – on stage.” Von Glasenapp in DasOrgan, January 21, 1928, quoted in Hahn, “Das Metropol Theater,” 102.

56 “It is hard to work for an author who, unlike the Parisian caricaturist, cannot simply drawfrom the chronicle of the year, to fill both of his hands with funny events and grotesquefigures. Instead, supervised by the police and pedantic state authorities, he has to work hardto cut the occasional capers!” Ernst Gunther, Geschichte des Varietes (Berlin, 1981), 151,quoting Hermann Kaubisch, Operette (Berlin, 1955).

57 “Die hochmogende Zensur muß als sie die Revue ‘Auf, ins Metropol!’ unter ihrer Lupe hatte,bei unfaßbar guter Laune gewesen sein. Dieser sonst so ubereifrige Instanz gebuhrt nicht nurder Dank des Autors, sondern auch des Publikums, das an der Unmenge der politisch scharfgewurzten Effekte seine helle Freude hatte.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Berliner Morgenpost,September 10, 1905, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.


10

Leading Characters

Every discussion of the ambitions and infrastructure of a theater ultimatelyleads to a discussion of the theater’s performers and staff. Only they couldtranslate the management’s vision into an unforgettable experience for hun-dreds of spectators every night. The most elaborate building, the most extrav-agant costumes, or the greatest budget could only facilitate, not create, aconvincing narrative on stage. This chapter traces the lives and decisionsof those who once populated the Metropol Theater both in front of andbehind the curtain. To create a night of magic at the Metropol decisions hadto be made: actors had to be selected, and roles defined. An analysis of thesocial relations and demographic backgrounds of the protagonists is vitalfor understanding such decisions. Our sense of the personal histories, pro-fessional training, and ethnic origins of actors or composers, for example,allows us to enter this complicated arena in which illusion became profes-sion.

When Richard Schultz began with 200,000 marks earmarked per show(the royal opera house’s [Konigliche Oper] budget was 30,000 marks a show)he did not have any trouble recruiting collaborators for his theater.1 He easilyattracted many of the greatest talents in popular entertainment. Religiousand ethnic prejudices did not interfere with his choice of partners. Schultzsaw himself as the head of a creative team that functioned well only if eachmember felt at ease and uninhibited. He continued to envision his enterpriseas an ensemble of almost equal partners, a principle he had taken to heartat the Meiningen theater.

Schultz’s formative years in Meiningen influenced his collaborative styleat the Metropol, which colleagues remembered as demanding, but egali-tarian. Working under constant time pressure, Schultz’s team seemed to

1 Ingrid Heinrich-Jost, Auf ins Metropol. Specialitaten- und Unterhaltungstheater im ausge-henden 19. Jahrhundert: Ein Kapitel Berliner Kulturgeschichte (Berlin, 1986), 107.

227



lack the airs often associated with theater enterprises. The production ofeach revue followed a set routine in which every team member knew hisor her place, a perfect example of the professionalization of the creativeprocess:

After author and director, in intense meetings, have decided which events and peopleof the past year will still be remembered even six months after the premiere has passed,they try to frame these people and events in various milieus. While the author retreatsto his quiet desk, the offices are turned into a kind of art gallery and hundreds offigures gather. . . . Once the work of author and director has progressed so far thatthe structure of the evening is established, the composer joins in.2

The process worked to everyone’s advantage. Unlike the Meiningen model,however, the Metropol always encouraged the idea of stardom. Whereasmass scenes and lavish productions were standard elements in every show,the promotion of individual performers also became an essential element ofRichard Schultz’s choreography. In this sense, he was closer to the Viennafolk theater than to his Meiningen roots.

Schultz followed the rationale of a market that punished mismanage-ment or stagnation quickly and severely. Discriminating against Jewishperformers, writers, or composers would have endangered the continu-ing success of his company. Because Schultz was a clever businessmanand more than anything else was interested in his revenues and profes-sional status, he remained true to the practices of popular entertainmentthat welcomed the collaboration of ethnic minorities. Schultz’s “liberal”attitude toward his Jewish associates, however, was not part of a morecomprehensive liberal outlook. To the contrary, he was known for hissexist behavior and his conservative politics.3 For example, he contin-uously referred to female dancers and to chorus girls as “Menschern,”who should be quietly satisfied with their low wages and generally low sta-tus in his enterprise. Numerous complaints by members of the Metropolstaff, filed in the archive of the theater police in Berlin, testify to the dis-satisfaction among female employees at the Metropol.4 Although Schultzcertainly welcomed women to his audiences and celebrated individualfemale stars, his worldview was framed by his extraordinary managerial

2 Otto Schneidereit, Berlin wie es weint und lacht: Spatziergange durch Berlins Operet-tengeschichte (Berlin, 1973), 120.

3 A discriminatory attitude toward women was not uncommon in variety and revue theaters,even though it offended the occasional critic. In 1905 the contemporary writer EberhardBuchner, for example, denounced such tendencies in Berlin’s entertainment industry: “Inci-dentally, the verses have, at times, a quite misogynist character. It seems as if the man, drivenout of his home by domestic quarrels, finds refuge here, and is provided with grist for hismills.” Eberhard Buchner, Varietes und Tingeltangel in Berlin (Berlin, 1905).

4 Schneidereit, Berlin wie es weint, 115.


Leading Characters 229

talents and by a rather ordinary concept of masculinity. Talent and prof-itability were fixed stars in his universe; they made him a conservativeinnovator.

the team of three

The main protagonists at the Metropol were generally worldly and experi-enced in their profession. Only occasionally did the Metropol help launchthe career of a previously unknown performer, composer, or writer. Instead,Richard Schultz could afford to hire employees who had already passedthe litmus test of popular approval. All of them had won their first laurelsat other music and variety theaters, at circuses, or at cabarets before theyentered the Metropol. In his hiring policy, director Schultz was neither par-ticularly daring nor experimental. His personal contribution was to redirectthese preapproved talents in unexpected artistic directions. Their transferfrom classical theater to popular theater, from tragedy to comedy, and viceversa made Schultz an unorthodox impresario. Thus Schultz chose writersand composers whose versatile experiences in other genres or entertainmentscenes provided them with a seemingly endless stream of new ideas. Unliketheir colleagues in classical music, they were not wedded to a single aestheticlanguage. Their experiences in different entertainment genres made themflexible as creators and collaborators.

Composers and writers stood at the center of all activities at the Metropol.Richard Schultz was choosing his closest collaborators very carefully whenhe hired the Jewish composers Victor Hollaender (1866–1940), RudolfNelson (Rudolf Lewysohn; 1878–1960), and Jean Gilbert (Max Winterfeld;1879–1942) to arrange full-scale revues. He made certain that their catchysongs reached a broad audience, partly by facilitating the songs’ publicationand distribution the moment they became a success on stage. The engage-ment of Julius Freund (1862–1914) complemented this illustrious groupof composers. Schultz rightfully trusted Freund to write the rhymes thatBerlin would remember. For more than a decade, Freund scripted verses ofcompelling wit and lascivious timbre, which he combined with mild polit-ical satire, ethnic humor, or relentless chauvinism.5 His work proved sosuccessful that he wrote the texts for all of the revues at the MetropolTheater.6 Hollaender, Nelson, Gilbert, and Freund were an extraordinary

5 In 1915, after Freund’s premature death, the Deutsches Buhnenjahrbuch commemoratedhim as someone who “possessed the rare ability to present certain contemporary eventshumorously on stage; to furnish them with funny verses, captivating bon mots, and songs ofall kinds.” Das Deutsches Buhnenjahrbuch (1915), 168.

6 “Julius Freund, Schriftsteller und Hausdichter des Metropoltheaters zu Berlin gest.Patenkirchen, geb. 8. Dezember 1862 in Breslau. In Patenkirchen, wo er Heilung von einemSchweren Leiden suchte.” Ibid.



team of colleagues that collaborated under the direction of RichardSchultz for almost two decades. Freund, Schultz, and Hollaender presentedthemselves as a triumvirate reigning over the realm of high-class popularentertainment.

These three gifted men could not have been more diverse. Their regionalorigins reached from Berlin’s pulsing heart, the Alexanderplatz, to theprovince of Silesia; their religious backgrounds from traditional Jewishhouseholds to indifference about religion. Julius Freund, for example, inher-ited his talent for rhymes and verses from his father, Jacob (1827–1877),who taught religion at the Jewish community’s religious school in Breslau.Freund’s career is illuminating because he stood for many other Jewish artists,whose fathers had been cantors, rabbis, or religious teachers, and who them-selves had turned to entertainment for personal fulfillment. In effect theseartists exchanged the congregations of their fathers for theater audiencesof their own.7 In many ways, their departure into the world of popularentertainment was less a break with their pasts than it first appeared. Forexample, in addition to songs Jacob Freund wrote numerous poems andwas a member of the Breslau Association of Poets (Verein Breslauer Dichter-schule).8 Despite his humble economic status, Freund senior was a prominentmember of Breslau’s Jewish community, well known as a prolific writer ofreligious literature, including a reform-oriented prayer book for girls andwomen, which saw many editions. Occasionally, Jacob Freund even mixedhis artistic and religious talents, as in his farce Haman oder die Rechnungohne Wirth: Posse mit Gesang in funf Akten.9 Julius, inspired by his father,who died when Julius was only fifteen years old, decided to make his careerin the artistic world. At age nineteen he left for Vienna to become an actor.After getting some training, he found employment as an actor at the VienneseBurgtheater. However, he soon realized that he was more gifted as a writerthan as an actor, and he relocated to Berlin to start his collaboration withRichard Schultz.

7 This phenomena is often discussed in the American context, referring to the exceptionalcareers of Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, and Irving Berlin, all three the sons of cantors. SeeHasia Diner’s review of Michael Rogin’s book Blackface, White Noise. Hasia Diner, “Trad-ing Faces,” Common Quest: The Magazine of Black-Jewish Relations, vol. 2, no. 1 (summer1997), 40–44.

8 For his poems, see Verein Breslauer Dichterschule, ed., Album Schlesischer Dichterfreunde,vol. 7 (Breslau, 1874), 37–55.

9 Jacob Freund, Gebets- und Andachtsbuch fur israelische Madchen und Frauen (Breslau, 1867),6th ed. (Breslau, 1890); idem, Haman oder die Rechnung ohne Wirth: Posse mit Gesang infunf Akten (Breslau, n.d.) (a copy is in the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem).In 1876, just a year before he died, Freund had an annual income of 2,100 marks; see histax records, Archiwum Panstwowe we Wroclawiu, Acta miasta Wroclawia, K 150, Bezirk 5,no. 2725. Generally, see Freund’s obituary in Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums 41 (1877),552–53.



Whereas Freund left “serious” drama to enter the arena of revue theater,the Metropol’s principal composer Victor Hollaender crossed artistic bordersfrom a different direction. A true cosmopolitan, he had traveled exten-sively and worked for several years in England and the United States, wherehe conducted and where he socialized with artists such as Al Jolson andIrving Berlin – two of the most prominent Jewish show business stars inAmerica.10 Whereas Schultz was impressed by the Meininger Gesamtkunst-werke, Hollaender familiarized himself with the tunes and harmonies of cir-cus shows and music hall entertainment. For example, in 1896 Hollaenderwas engaged as a conductor at the world-famous Barnum & Bailey circusduring one of its first appearances in London.11 Hollaender was only one ofmany artists at the Metropol who were influenced by circus entertainment.Jean Gilbert pursued a similar career before he worked for the Metropol,conducting the orchestra of the Hagenbeck circus.

Like the Herrnfeld siblings, Victor Hollaender was born into a family ofartists. His two brothers, Felix and Gustav, were equally important figures inGermany’s music scene. Felix worked as Max Reinhardt’s dramaturge andas an independent writer of prose and drama. Gustav Hollaender headedthe Sternsche Konservatorium, Berlin’s most prestigious conservatory at thetime.12 Victor Hollaender’s wife, Rosa Perl, was a soprano. The Hollaen-ders belonged to a cosmopolitan artistic world, in which not much attentionwas paid to the religious or ethnic background of its participants. RichardLichtheim (1885–1963), who later became a Zionist politician, rememberedhow performers were uniquely unmindful of religious and ethnic boundaries:“This division was suspended only in artistic and literary circles as well asamong the people involved in theater. A cosmopolitan society of Christiansand Jews socialized at the houses of the painter Max Liebermann, the pub-lisher S. Fischer and Max Reinhardt.”13 Although these artists often reliedon their strong family ties to help promote each other, they also socialized

10 Friedrich Hollaender, Von Kopf bis Fuß. Mein Leben mit Text und Musik (Bonn, 1996),44–45.

11 Volker Kuhn, Spotterdammerung: Vom langen Sterben des grossen kleinen FriedrichHollaender (Frankfurt a. M., 1988), 9.

12 The musical tradition did not end in this generation. Victor Hollaender’s son, Friedrich(1896–1976), a musician and composer himself, became one of Weimar Germany’s mosttalented cabaret entertainers. Among his many accomplishments was the founding of one ofthe first jazz bands in Weimar Berlin, the Weintraub Syncopators, whose special sound couldbe heard in music theaters and cabarets all over the city. The Syncopators were exemplaryof many young Jewish musicians at the time, moving seamlessly among what appearedto be incompatible spheres of life. They played at the festivities of Berlin’s Zionist youthorganizations, at the jubilees of department stores, at Erwin Piscator’s revolutionary theater,and at the annual press ball in the Scala. Hollaender, Kopf bis Fuß, 15.

13 Richard Lichtheim, quoted in Reinhard Rurup, ed., Judische Geschichte in Berlin (Berlin,1995), 198.



outside their own family circles. They knew that professional and privaterelations worked hand in hand, and that reconciling both spheres was indis-pensable for continuing success.

As true participants in Berlin’s cultural elite, the members of the innercircle at the Metropol Theater disregarded ethnic milieus and family back-grounds in their personal affairs. The Gentile Richard Schultz, for example,routinely visited the homes of his Jewish associates. He even demonstratedinterest in their children, and occasionally intervened to help resolve familycrises. For example, Schultz once consoled Victor Hollaender’s son Friedrichafter the latter had had a passionate fight with his father about musicalmatters. This altercation had been sparked when Victor had modified andintegrated one of the first melodies the young Friedrich had ever composedinto one of his own songs for the Metropol. Four-year-old Friedrich was out-raged at his father’s betrayal, and found comfort only after Schultz treatedhim to a golden coin that, as Schultz did not fail to point out, carried theprofile of Wilhelm II.14

Friedrich Hollaender’s recollections remind us how much the Metropolmicrocosm was not only socially but also politically diverse. Some protago-nists subscribed to a liberal worldview; others were outspoken monarchists.For a period of time, however, their divergent political orientations seemnot to have hindered or harmed their artistic collaboration. Many Metropolartists, including the director, exhibited their loyalty to the emperor, evenwhen in a private setting; yet others were known to have entertained per-sonal relations with the liberal avant-garde as well. As an institution, theMetropol enjoyed the patronage of the court, despite some of the theater’ssatirical sketches criticizing the crown and the fatherland. This patronageapplied also to its most prominent Jewish members, such as Victor Hollaen-der. In fact, Hollaender was well acquainted with the crown prince, whowith his entourage was a regular at the Metropol Theater until the FirstWorld War. This royal connection turned out to be instrumental in 1914 inHollaender’s attempt to spare his son Friedrich from service at the front.Thanks to the crown prince’s intervention, Friedrich was able to fulfill hismilitary duties by serving as the conductor at a small military theater in theFrench town of Montmedy, thereby escaping the deadly trench warfare onthe western front.15

This incident is representative of the general lack of enthusiasm amonghighbrow Jewish performers to rush to the front lines. Unlike Jewish circusperformers, they did not show any desire to profess their loyalty by servingas battlefield soldiers. To the contrary, most were satisfied to do only whatwas absolutely necessary, and many sought a military exemption in order to

14 Hollaender, Kopf bis Fuß, 15.15 Ibid., 65–66.



work on the home front. Generally, the more famous the entertainer was, themore likely he was to win such an exemption. Those entertainers who werewell acquainted with high-ranking officials among Berlin’s old and new eliteshad the necessary contacts to achieve this goal. Also, they seem to have feltmore secure than their circus peers in their overall standing in society and didnot see the need to make any uncalled-for sacrifices. Instead of making their“Jewish contribution” to the military war effort, they sought other meansto express their loyalty to king and country.

Whereas Hollaender enjoyed the patronage of the crown prince, RudolfNelson, another of the eminent composers at the Metropol, managed toestablish a personal rapport with the emperor himself. Born to a poor Jewishfamily in eastern Berlin, Nelson demonstrated his musical talent at an earlyage and performed as a “child prodigy” in the ballrooms on the Alexan-derplatz. His parents, however, feared the uncertainties of the artistic lifeand forced their son to take a position in the textile trade. After a numberof unhappy years there, Nelson left for the Sternsche Konservatorium inBerlin. He eventually became a student of Gustav Hollaender, a relationshipthat soon extended to the entire Hollaender clan. Through the interventionof Gustav, Nelson won the financial support of three Berlin bankers, whichallowed him to shift his focus from serious music and drama to popular enter-tainment. Nelson became known as a versatile impresario, composer, andpianist. Through the mediation of his actor-friend Maria Sulzer, he was intro-duced to Prince Joachim Albrecht, an art fanatic and ardent fan of popularmusic.16 This acquaintance was Nelson’s entry ticket into Potsdam’s courtsociety and Berlin’s elite circles.17 An outstanding performer and a giftedbusinessman, Nelson introduced Berlin high society to its first glamorouscabaret, the Roland von Berlin, which catered exclusively to the carefreeand wealthy. In 1908 the kaiser was so taken with one of Nelson’s songs,which inevitably focused on “indecencies” in one of the chambres separees,that he summoned Nelson to produce a private show at his hunting quartersat the castle of Prince Egon zu Fuerstenberg in Donaueschingen.18 As PeterJelavich has pointed out, this incident incensed the public because it occurredwhile the kaiser was facing one of the greatest crises of his regime, the DailyTelegraph Affair.19 Wilhelm II seems to have been oblivious to the fact thathis public image was being further diminished by his search for frivolousdistraction when a distinguished and statesmanlike appearance was calledfor. Like Victor Hollaender, Nelson was also in close contact with the crown

16 Klaus Budzinski, Die Muse mit der scharfen Zunge: Vom Cabaret zum Kabarett (Munich,1961), 87; also Peter Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret (Cambridge, MA, 1993), 95.

17 Egon Jameson, Am Flugel: Rudolf Nelson (Berlin, 1967), 58.18 Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret, 99.19 Ibid., 99–100.



figure 28. Fritzi Massary at the beginning of her career.

prince, who was one of his Dutzfreunde (intimate friends). Despite his greatsuccess with the Kabarettrevuen (cabaret revues) in the Weimar years, Nelsoncontinued to be a monarchist at heart.20

the diva, the gentleman, and the “little mister cohn”

A defining element of the Metropol Theater was its troop of star actors,the most important being Fritzi Massary (Friederike Massaryk; 1882–1969), Joseph Giampietro (1866–1915), and Guido Thielscher (1859–1941).

20 Budzinski, Muse mit der scharfen Zunge, 91–92.



figure 29. Fritzi Massay at the height of her career.

Massary was one of the greatest operetta divas of the day. As happened toother Austrian stars who chose to perform at the Metropol, this Jewish singerand actress became one of Germany’s most celebrated entertainers, univer-sally acclaimed and often imitated. Even in 1927, twenty-three years afterher debut in Berlin, tourist guides and intellectuals were unanimous in theirjudgment of Fritzi Massary’s exceptional presence on stage.21

Massary was the subject of numerous contemporary essays and biogra-phies. Her elegant presence and timeless charm caught everyone’s eye. Thedaughter of a Viennese businessman, she was known for her work ethic and

21 Eugen Szatmari, Das Buch von Berlin (Munich, 1927), 112.



managerial qualities, and she became one of the first self-made women togain fame in Germany. Celebrated as both the queen of German operetta andan innovative performer in popular entertainment, she elevated revue andoperetta to previously unknown artistic heights. She was among Germany’sfirst international stars. A Massary premiere was the unquestioned high pointof the season, and as the contemporary writer Eugen Szatmari advised thereader of his alternative guidebook through Berlin, “one had to petition inorder to buy tickets.”22 Fritzi Massary was famous for her delivery, whichgave even the most profane line an ironic depth. This talent allowed herto be more daring than most actors without being harassed by the censor-ship authorities. Her allure and professionalism made her a role model forlater stars such as Marlene Dietrich. Oscar Blumenthal’s 1932 review ofFritzi Massary in Oscar Straus’s Eine Frau, die weiss, was sie will, her lastappearance on a German stage, reveals what she meant for her German audi-ence. Blumenthal praises her for being the ideal to which all women in hergeneration aspired; indeed, she was the personification of exquisite taste.23

According to Blumenthal:

Nobody who ever saw Fritzi Massary on stage will deny her the right to be countedamong the first ladies of this epoch. She has ceased to be an individual. She is thedream of the cultivated sisters of her generation; the personification of good tastein a time which seems to have lost it in so many other areas. Massary does not justplay a role, she does not appear and leave again, she is not just a good actress oroperetta diva. No, Massary is omnipresent, she is the artistic consciousness, the livingmemory, the image of regeneration, and youthful hope. In short: she is a symbol ofart itself.24

Fritzi Massary was able to master any accent demanded of her, andsome say that she adopted and discarded dialects as she might differentsets of clothes. A versatile actor, she was able to play several charactersin one evening, a crucial talent in revue theater. Unlike her male counter-parts Giampietro and Thielscher, Massary was not cast in only one typeof role. She could impersonate an empress or “sin”; she could be comicalor dramatic, as the scene demanded. Whereas Giampietro always played asnobbish gentleman and Thielscher was always the clumsy commoner, FritziMassary had many faces.25 She became whomever her audiences wantedher to be, and this talent to embody her public’s dreams guaranteed her

22 Ibid., 90.23 Oscar Blumenthal was an eminent theater critic and writer in Berlin.24 Oscar Blumenthal wrote his review of the September 1, 1932, premiere of Eine Frau, die

weiss, was sie will for the Berliner Tageblatt.25 “Director Schultz recognized the uniqueness of the actor who was able to satirize elegance

as well as to represent the funny bon vivant in any Metropol Theater revue.” Das DeutscheBuhnenjahrbuch (1915).



figure 30. Fritzi Massary and Joseph Giampietro in Donnerwetter – tadellos! at theMetropol Theater.

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figure 31. Fritzi Massary and Guido Thielscher in Das muß man seh’n, at the Metropol Theater.

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success throughout her long career, which continued even after she fledGermany in 1933.26 She was the only female star at the Metropol to achievesuch a status.27

It is significant that despite her acclaimed flexibility as an actor, FritziMassary rarely played a Jewish role during her career at the Metropol. Inthis choice she was not an exception. Most Jewish actors did not imper-sonate Jewish characters at the Metropol Theater. They might have feared,or possibly identified with, the prejudices of their upper-class audiences ifthey were to appear as Jewish characters drawn from the lower echelons ofsociety. Because the Metropol used Jewish stage characters to enforce classboundaries, Jewish actors clearly did not care to find themselves in thoseroles. Stage characters at the Metropol Theater were usually caricatures ofspecific social types. Not surprisingly, Frizi Massary found it more attractiveto play a diva rather than a dowdy fool. In addition to feeding into her poten-tial status anxieties, playing an unattractive role might mean a considerableloss of agency for her as an actor. How could she be certain that spectatorswere differentiating between cultural stereotypes and her role? Jewish actorsat the Metropol rejected typecasting, preferring a self-generated behavioralascription, such as the diva or the gentleman, to an ethnic description suchas the “Jew.”

Massary’s Jewish origins were publicly known. Her famous actor-colleague Fritz Kortner retrospectively credited Massary for introducingJewish women as objects of public reverence on and off stage. Massary’sadmirers ranged from Imperial officers, to Eastelbian Junkers, to Prussianaristocrats, and from the world of culture to the world of commerce:

We have to credit the rise of the Jewess as a romantic partner at least in part toFritzi Massary. A two decade long love affair existed between her, who came stillvery young to Wilhelmine Berlin, and who enchanted the post-revolutionary era asa woman, and her German audience. ( . . . ) There are many types of applause: theencouraging, the approving, and the habitual, the excited and the brainless one; thereis also the thunderous one for demagogues in state and film. Fritzi Massary enjoyed

26 Fritzi Massary left Germany for Switzerland in 1933. She continued to perform in Londonand Vienna until 1938, when she left Europe to join her daughter Elisabeth Frank (1903–1979), who was living in Hollywood, California, with her husband, the author Bruno Frank.Fritzi’s husband, the famous actor Max Pallenberg, had perished in an airplane crash in 1934.Bruno Frank was a good friend of Thomas Mann and Lion Feuchtwanger. He had had thegood fortune both to be translated into English and to find employment as a scriptwriter forMetro-Golden-Mayer. In 1937, shortly after they arrived in America, the Franks organizedthe European Film Fund to help exiled German writers find employment as scriptwriters inHollywood.

27 She could be matched in popularity only by Elisabeth Bergner, another young Jewish actresswhose star began to rise in the Weimar period and whose acting career continued even aftershe went into British exile in 1933.



the most love struck applause. She became a model for all women. Even those ofPotsdam wanted to imitate her.28

Kortner’s testimony reminds us how rarely Jewish women in previousdecades could be found in roles in which they were the adored subjects.Although the “beautiful Jewess” was certainly a widely circulated stereotype,her beauty was feverish and fatal. Fritzi Massary was never viewed in thismanner, however. She impersonated a universal female ideal that inspired thefantasies of middle-class patriarchs as well as of noble gentlemen, of culturalcritics as well as of military officers.

It was the Gentile comedian Guido Thielscher who specialized in Jewishroles; only he could be sure that spectators could separate Thielscher theperson from his stage character “Mr. Cohn,” a role that showed off his dra-matic skills to the Metropol audience. That Thielscher, a Gentile, could soably imitate a “typical Jew” was, in the eyes of his audience, a testamentto his superior talent as a comedian. So that an audience could recognizehis virtuosity, the performer exaggerated well-known cultural stereotypes.He thus strove to be extraordinarily ordinary; nor was it accidental that itwas Thielscher who first delivered the popular, as well as infamous, song“Haven’t You Seen the Little Cohn?” when he was still performing at theThalia Theater in Berlin.29 The song revolved around the amorous adven-tures of a Jewish husband whose tete-a-tete with a younger woman wereinevitably frustrated by the sudden appearance of his wife.

To amuse himself went with a girlMr. Cohn,to see the fireworks

And more than all the fires aroundthe girl glows full of passion

Accordingly is great her painTo noticethat Mr. Cohn has disappeared

He had to flee, his wife was passing by

28 “Der Aufstieg der Judin als Liebespartnerin ist – . . . – zum Teil Fritzi Massary zuzuschreiben.Zwischen ihr, die blutjung im wilhelminischen Berlin auftauchte und als Frau die nachrev-olutionare Ara bezauberte, und dem deutschen Publikum bestand eine zwei Jahrzehntelange Liebesaffare. ( . . . ) Es gibt allerhand Applause: ermunternde, anerkennende, gewohn-heitsmaßige, begeisterte und hirnlose; orkanartige fur Volksverderber in Staat und Film. Der,welcher ihr, der Fritzi Massary, entgegenjauchzte, war der verliebteste. Den Frauen wurde sieVorbild und Modell. Sogar bei den Potsdamerinnen machte sie Schule.” See Fritz Kortner’sautobiography Aller Tage Abend (Munich, 1959).

29 For a brief discussion of the notorious song, see Fritz Backhaus, “Hab’n sie nicht den kleinenCohn geseh’n?” in Helmut Gold and Georg Heuberger, eds., Abgestempelt. JudenfeindlichePostkarten (Frankfurt a. M., 1999), 235–40.



Heartbroken the girl imploresPolice officer, Sir,

(Refrain)

Have you not seen the little Mr. Cohn?Have you not seen him passing by?

He got lost amidst the crowd

And there you have itThe little Mr. Cohn, is gone!30

In many ways this song also summarizes Thielscher’s Jewish roles at theMetropol Theater. On stage Thielscher was sometimes explicitly, sometimesimplicitly, the incarnation of the “little Cohn”: a comically unattractiveJewish man who, through a mixture of brave cleverness and naıve igno-rance, surmounted the trials and tribulations of his attempt to assimilateinto middle-class Berlin. “Cohn” was simultaneously mischievous and ami-cable, and he lacked manners and composure. These attributes made him theperfect sidekick for his actor-friend Giampietro, who had rather too much ofthose qualities that Thielscher lacked. Giampietro thus routinely dismissedThielscher with exclamations such as “Donnerwetter – adellos” (a play onthe words of Willhelm II’s favorite expression, “Donnerwetter – tadellos,”and also the title of a Metropol revue). Thielscher remained unfazed by suchand amused his audience with his endless monologues (schnodderige Bered-samkeit).31 Thielscher, the Hanswurst, provided the perfect foil for the snob,Giampietro.32 When Giampietro was bored, Thielscher got excited. WhenThielscher talked too much, Giampietro limited himself to fashionable andpointed exclamations of authority. When Giampietro posed as the sophisti-cated gentleman or the dashing officer – a favorite of women – Thielscher’sefforts at courtship failed miserably. To appear superior, however, Giampi-etro’s character needed Thielscher’s. In some ways, Thielscher had the moreindependent role; he could appear alone and still draw a crowd, whereasGiampietro lost much of his charm for the audience without the presence ofthe “funny little man.”

30 “Zu einer Illumination”: “Geht auch mit einer Maid Herr Cohn/Die Maid gluht furHerrn Cohn gar sehr/Fast mehr als rings das Flammenmeer,/Deshalb ist doppelt großder Schreck/Als plotzlich Cohn war von ihr weg/Das kam daher, weil er gesehn’n/Dieliebe Ehehalfte gehen!/Die Maid ist trostlos ganz verzagt/Und geht zum Schutzmann hinund fragt:/(Refrain)/Hab’n Sie nicht den kleine Cohn gesehn’n?/Sah’n Sie ihn denn nichtvorubergehen?/In der Volksmenge kam er in’s Gedrange/Da hab’n Sie nun den Schreck, derkleine Cohn ist weg!” Ibid., 235.

31 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Vossische Zeitung, September 18, 1910, BrandenburgischesLandeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

32 An informative discussion of the Hanswurst character in German theater is provided byErika Fischer-Lichte, Kurze Geschichte des deutschen Theaters (Tubingen, 1993), 170.



figure 32. Guido Thielscher and Joseph Giampietro in Das muß man seh’n, at theMetropol Theater.



While many Jewish Berliners named Cohn sought a name change tounburden themselves from potential ridicule and discrimination, Thielscher’sversion was a theatrical expression of upper-class Gentile condescension.He was the “little confection king from the East” whose punch lines eventhe Vossische Zeitung accorded an honorable place in the prewar “bookof Jewish jokes.”33 Thielscher was never more adored than in this role,which looked down on recent Jewish immigrants and was celebrated bysnobbish Gentile and Jewish Berliners alike. His performance remained pur-posely ambiguous. It was never completely clear whether his “street smarts,”his lack of culture or a moral compass, his unfiltered sexual desires, and hispolitical naıvete could be explained either by his class background or by hisethnicity.

Thielscher’s interpretation of the “little Mister Cohn” was also successfulbecause it had its artistic roots in the universal figure of the Hanswurst, orKasperle – the clown character with which the audience, both Gentile andJewish, was familiar and that it considered good humored and harmless.Thielscher was quite familiar with the Hanswurst character from his timeat the circus. As a young man, he had worked as a clown in the travelingcircus before achieving his breakthrough on stage.34 Indeed, his comic skillas a clown was the basis for his great national popularity. In many waysThielscher was the most noticeable example of the simultaneous continuityand discontinuity in aesthetics of Metropol performances. Whereas his activ-ities in the circus gave him great physical flexibility, which, in combinationwith his rather hefty build, predisposed him to physical humor on stage, hisparticular brand of wit, which was deeply rooted in Berlin Jargon, meanthe needed the spoken word to truly reach his audience. He drew heavily ona variety of older stage characters and gave them a “Jewish touch.” Thisadaptation made him a star.

For a time, Jewish and Gentile spectators at the Metropol seem to haveappreciated Thielscher’s character mainly as a joker, a sort of unruly sub-conscious, whose main purpose was to amuse a refined and more restrainedaudience. Within a decade of his debut, however, nationalism and grow-ing xenophobia made Thielscher’s performance increasingly difficult for hisaudience to take. By 1911, in the wake of rising public anti-Semitism, theBerliner Tageblatt suggested, in a critique of the revue The Night of Berlin(Die Nacht von Berlin), that one might have heard enough from “little MisterCohn.” The author began the review by expressing his relief that the formerlyinevitable fool was absent in this work. He described how the revue openedwith a scene in which the word Mohn (poppy) was uttered rather frequently,

33 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Vossische Zeitung, September 18, 1910, Brandenburgischs Lan-deshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

34 Berthold Leimbach, Tondokumente der Kleinkunst und ihre Interpreten, 1898–1945(Gotingen, 1991), no pages; see article on Thielscher.



throwing him into a state of anxious anticipation as he awaited the inevitablerhyme with “Cohn.” Thus he declared himself to be all the more thankfulthat this moment never did arise and that “one could breathe freely again.”35

Clearly, by this time, not every spectator at the Metropol was charmed bylittle Mister Cohn.

With the Metropol Theater, Jewish performers and artists had entered theworld and imagination of a Gentile majority. It was a world of professionalopportunities but also of possibly painful compromises. At the Metropol,ethnic identity played out in very different ways on stage and off stage.Although the centrality of Jewish composers, writers, and actors would sug-gest that the Metropol Theater, as an institution, was not defined by prejudiceand discrimination, its shows were mainly informed by the imagination ofthe majority of its spectators and thus did not necessarily exhibit the toler-ance, cosmopolitanism, and professionalism the theater world with the restof the entertainment industry. Jewish actors reacted to these dynamics bydissociating themselves from any public displays of or references to theirown ethnic background.

Jewish actors and artists at the Metropol functioned as individuals anddo not appear to have shared a sense of community with other Jews sim-ply because of their Judaism. Whereas Jewish Jargon theater performers andcircus artists still felt part of a community, Jewish artists at the Metropol The-ater did not. They were individualists whose loyalty to a milieu or an enter-prise, especially during financial negotiations, was mostly motivated by pro-fessional considerations. Jewish performers employed at the Metropol wereamong the most assimilated Jews in popular entertainment. They conversedin High German, were generally secular, often were in a mixed marriage,and moved with relative ease within Berlin’s high society. These entertainerscould not retreat to the comfort of a predominantly Jewish community inthe same way that circus entertainers or even actors in Jargon theaters could.Upon entering the realm of revue theaters, they seem to have left the com-munity behind, and lived as Jews in a predominantly Gentile environment.Each day, these performers had to determine whether their ethnic identityshould inform their private and professional lives and if so, how; most ofthem chose never to confront their Jewishness publicly.

35 “Die neue Revue beginnt mit einem Bild, in dem sehr viel von Mohn die Rede ist. Mit bangerErwartung sah man dem Augenblick entgegen, in dem uber kurz oder lang das Reimwort –Cohn fallen wurde. Aber dieser Moment kam nicht, und man atmete auf. Der ganze Abendstand dann unter einem freundlichen Stern, denn er brachte in all seiner Farbenbuntheitnichts, was man als eine Konzession an den Geschmack der benachtbarten Friedrichstraßehatte auffassen konnen.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Berliner Tageblatt, September 17, 1911, Bran-denburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.


11

Stardom and Its Discontents

At the turn of the last century, Berlin’s local press did not have to be encour-aged to take note of an upcoming star on the horizon of the city’s enter-tainment scene. At a time in which theater performances were regularlydiscussed on the front pages of the local and national press, the cometlikeascendance of the Metropol Theater, Berlin’s most modern stage, becamealmost instantaneously a privileged subject of the daily papers.1 As RichardSchultz pulled out all the stops for his versatile dramatic repertoire, con-temporary reporters and cultural critics quickly identified the uniquenessof this enterprise, including its ambition, complexity, and ability to appealsimultaneously to mass and elite audiences. Not all were convinced of theMetropol’s innovative qualities; some saw the theater as compromised by itsinfatuation with large-scale productions that threatened to overpower indi-vidual actors. But few voiced their critiques in terms harmful to the theater.In the prewar period, the press implicitly seemed to work to promote thetheater’s mission to direct the gaze of Berliners upon themselves. One mayeven argue that the press, consciously or otherwise, served as an extensionof this grand enterprise, as it continuously fueled the curiosity of spectatorsand helped to create stars and fashions.

In the postwar period Metropol revues were no longer featured as promi-nently as they once had been in the Berlin press. The wardrobes of the the-ater’s stars and starlets continued to be reviewed, but the theater itself seems

1 Anat Feinberg reminds us how much theater influenced social discourse, citing the mem-oirs of Ludwig Marcuse, who stated: “The prime position of theater within the domainof literature ( . . . ) corresponded with the role granted it by the press.” According toFeinberg, Marcuse points out “that more space was given to theater ‘politics’ and the-ater reviews than to political or topical events.” Anat Feinberg, “Stagestruck: JewishAttitudes in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany,” in Jeanette R. Malkin and FreddieRokem, eds., Jews and the Emergence of Modern German Theatre (Wisconsin Press andFranz Rosenzweig Research Center for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History)(forthcoming).

245



to have lost much of its uniqueness. Revues – a novelty at the turn of thecentury – were now a staple on many stages in Berlin. A war, a change in thetheater’s leadership, and a subsequent programmatic reorientation on stageled to the decline of a theater that had enjoyed unprecedented popularity inprevious decades. Berlin’s local press, which had in so many ways served theinterests of the Metropol, became increasingly critical of its former favoredchild. Even worse, in the last years of the Weimar Republic the Metropol, asthe flagship of a new theater trust, found itself in the eye of a political stormand buffeted by conflicting ideologies. Once again, the Metropol stood forall of Berlin; this time, however, it served not as a flattering mirror reflectingthe rich and famous, but as a warped screen upon which Berliners couldproject their animosities and fears.

When the Jewish entrepreneurs Alfred and Fritz Rotter bought theMetropol Theater in 1927 as the centerpiece of their large assembly of pop-ular theaters in Berlin, they acted within an entertainment industry that hadundergone dramatic changes during the Weimar era. Ironically, as the perfor-mances on stage became more apolitical and further removed from contem-porary daily life, their reception by the press and by their audiences becamemore politicized. The deterioration in the working conditions of actors andartists – decried by their powerless unions – was only one aspect of thelarge-scale decline in the Germany economy. Many Berliners understood thecrisis in the realm of theater as visible proof that their economic distress wasaccompanied by, and in the view of some, even conditioned by, a deep moralcrisis hitting Germans where they felt most vulnerable, in their temples ofKultur. Radical nationalists and National Socialists exploited these ratherill-defined feelings of disorientation and dissatisfaction in their vicious andincreasingly successful press campaigns against Jews in the entertainmentindustry. They were not alone in honing in on the activities of the Rotterbrothers, who for many came to symbolize all that had gone wrong withGerman culture. As will be shown, by the late 1920s the local press wasmobilized by the mere suspicion that theater could become a commodity oran object of financial speculation, an allegation sure to provoke Berliners ofevery political stripe.

Berlin’s Jewish population did not remain silent vis-a-vis such radicalchanges in the cultural climate. They tried to fend off the spread of anti-Semitic sentiments among theater audiences by pressing for a modificationof performances. As Germany’s Jewish middle class found itself increasinglythe object of discrimination and unfounded accusations, many argued thatthis was no time for ethnic humor in public, either at the Metropol or anyplace else. This chapter thus will conclude its discussion of the MetropolTheater with an analysis of the unprecedented petition by one of Germany’smost vocal Jewish organizations, the Zentralverein deutscher Staatsburgerjudischen Glaubens, to suspend the telling of any Jewish jokes in Berlin’spopular entertainment venues.


Stardom and Its Discontents 247

the golden years of revue theater

In 1898 the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger greeted the transformation of theLinden Theater into the Metropol Theater as a move away from an ill-fated classical theater to a “site ready to host gaiety and superficiality.” Thereport described Richard Schultz as a thoroughly modern theater directorwho “instead of turning art into pleasure, turned pleasure into art.” Thereport continued its double-edged praise by offering an assessment of theMetropol staff’s creative potential. The Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger acknowl-edged the competence and originality of the director and his scriptwriter,pointing out that their talents would have been recognized even in the realmof “serious drama”: “This man [Schultz], who through dogged energy andrestless work knows how to translate his imaginative ideas into sparklingreality, could also prove his extraordinary director’s talent solving real artis-tic tasks.” The author continued by deploring the misguided talent of thescriptwriter Julius Freund, emphasizing that Freund too would have beenable to hold his own in a “higher form of art.” Giving voice to the more con-servative factions in Berlin society, the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, althoughimpressed by the pomp of the Metropol’s opening, still eyed the theater withreservations.2

Only five years later, by 1903, the Metropol Theater had managed togain broad public approval. Through their work at the Metropol, Jewishentertainers, writers, and composers found a degree of public esteem thatperformers at Jargon theaters could not. Credit for this success did notgo to the director alone; the Metropol’s principal composer, Victor Hol-laender, and its librettist, Julius Freund, also became celebrated public fig-ures. Even the Staatsburgerzeitung pointed to the exceptional support thatSchultz’s enterprise enjoyed among an array of newspaper critics, confirm-ing that Schultz could hope for the “benevolence of Berlin papers of themost diverse political orientations.”3 Despite its anti-Semitic orientation,the Staatsburgerzeitung did not mention that both Hollaender and Freundwere of Jewish descent, as was a considerable part of the Metropol Theater’saudiences.

Even avant-garde critics credited the Metropol with a unique ability tocapture the spirit of the time. The influential left-wing critic Herbert Ihering,for example, who began his career at the Schaubuhne and in later yearswrote for the Vossische Zeitung and the Berliner Borsen-Courier, embracedthe Metropol Theater as an indispensable part of the “Big City.” Ihering wasbetter known for his critiques of modern drama and radical writers such as

2 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 714, Akt. 16, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, September 4, 1898, Branden-burgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

3 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 714, Akt. 205, Staatsburgerzeitung, January 7, 1903, Brandenbur-gisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



Brecht than for his support of mainstream popular entertainment. Takingstock of Berlin’s rich cultural scene, however, he did not fail to highlightthe Metropol Theater as a crucial component of Berlin’s unique atmospherein the prewar period. According to Ihering, two qualities of the Metropolparticularly tied it to the Berlin metropolis, the theater’s worldliness andits optimism:

Besides the leading, representative stages, there were others, which did not belongany less to Berlin and its lively, optimistic power. [Among those others,] the MetropolTheater staged those satirical-musical revues, which summarized last year’s political,literary, fashion, societal and folksy sensations in a worldly manner.4

In the prewar period, the Metropol, the local press, and Berlin’s newelites were bound together in a symbiotic relationship from which all partiesprofited. Its unquestioned centrality in the urban landscape of Berlin madethe Metropol a meeting place for the city’s prominent citizens. The Metropoldid not merely transmit the values that authorities and old elites wantedto have communicated to society at large. Nor were the friendly relationsbetween police authorities and the Metropol Theater symptoms of a slavishrelationship between popular entertainment and social elites. It was an honorto be mocked in a Metropol revue, and even the crown prince was flatteredby such public attention. The local press, omnipresent at opening nights andcountless glamorous balls, guaranteed public appraisal and exposure beyondthe limitations of time and space. Press coverage allowed the visitors to theMetropol to be exclusive and popular at the same time. Elaborate reviewsin effect sustained and increased the leadership of Berlin’s elite, while eachreview prepared the ground for a sequel.

the gilded mirror that no longer sees

During the war, the Metropol lost its dominant position in Berlin’s enter-tainment scene. Revue entertainment ceased to be a specialty of theMetropol Theater alone. It became the most common form of amusementin Berlin, enjoyed by thousands of spectators in countless theaters. TheseAusstattungsrevuen exceeded the already lavish prewar Jahresrevuen at theMetropol in length, personnel, and decor. Although the Metropol was knownfor its optimistic and future-oriented revues in the prewar period, it offeredescape into a past dream world in the postwar period. While some direc-tors sought to attract spectators to their shows by presenting the famousrevue girls marching in step onto the stage like a perfect human machine,the Metropol also specialized in saccharine Viennese operettas and in revuescalculated to recall the “good old times.” The local press, previously socharmed by the theater, did not applaud this programmatic shift. The Berliner

4 Herbert Ihering, Berliner Dramaturgie (Berlin, 1947), 13.



Tageblatt, for example, in 1924 laconically stated that at the Metropol thepunch line had been replaced by the kick line. The journalist concluded thatmediocrity had found its way into revue entertainment in the form of everlarger chorus lines: “remembering the only theater that staged revues fif-teen or twenty years ago, one has to conclude that the dance choir playsa significantly larger role in modern revues today.”5 With the disappear-ance of self-conscious wit and urban humor, Jewish identities and relationsbetween Jews and Gentiles ceased to figure prominently in postwar revuesand operettas; the script faded into the background as the visual becamemore and more dominant on stage.

By the end of the war, the Metropol Theater had experienced an almostcomplete turnover in its management and personnel. During the war years,the Metropol suffered from the same economic conditions that devastated allof Germany. Like most theaters, it closed down in August 1914. It reopenedfour months later with a patriotic show, Woran wir denken – Bilder ausgroßer Zeit. This production still nourished hope that a quick German vic-tory would occur, though it might require more sacrifices than previouslyanticipated. Offering rhymes such as “the flag shall fly, the black-white-red flag/we give home and life/we’re not afraid of death!” (Hoch soll dieFahne schweben, die Fahne schwarz-weiß-rot!/Wir geben Gut und Leben,wir furchten nicht den Tod!”), the Metropol contributed its share to the warpropaganda effort. This message, however, did not find the resonance withaudiences that director Schultz had hoped for.6 Whereas there may have beeninitial public enthusiasm for the war, such sentiments were slowly giving wayto a rather gloomy determination to survive. Food shortages, labor unrest,and the absence of family breadwinners from what was now called the homefront increasingly dampened the morale of the entire population.7

The war confronted the management of the Metropol Theater with analmost unresolvable dilemma. On the one hand, the intense supervision ofall theaters by the military authorities made a return to the prewar style ofrevue untenable because it would provoke immediate censorship, as wellas the pathetic denunciations of outraged philistines and self-proclaimedpatriots. On the other hand, most Berliners were growing visibly tired ofbeing fed clumsy productions featuring a grinding and relentless national-ism. Attempts to find a compromise that provided some continuity with theprewar years were immediately attacked. In 1916, for example, the show

5 “Die Tanzchore der Revuetheater. Tanzmadchen von heute,” Berliner Tageblatt, October 10,1924, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

6 Otto Schneidereit, Berlin wie es weint und lacht: Spaziergange durch BerlinsOperettengeschichte (Berlin, 1973), 186.

7 For an insightful discussion of the deterioration of daily life in Berlin because of food shortagesand street riots, see Belinda Davis, Home Fires Burning: Food, Politics and Everyday Life inWorld War I Berlin (Chapel Hill, NC, 2000), as well as Ute Daniel, Arbeiterfrauen in derKriegsgesellschaft (Gottingen, 1997).



Wenn die Nacht beginnt . . . , quickly got caught in crossfire from the church,the military and other nationalists. The Kriegs-Korrespondenz of the Germanevangelical press club, a voice of the conservative right, vehemently accusedaudiences at the Metropol Theater of lacking patriotic sentiment and rev-eling in untimely debaucheries. The author of the medieval-sounding battlecry An den Presse-Pranger demanded stricter censorship and punishment forthe frolicking culprits, who should be publicly shamed and ostracized: “Thedecent Berlin distances itself from such a pervert audience draped around‘champagne-overflowing tables,’ while thousands and thousands of our hon-orable men and boys are asked to shed their precious blood also for the lat-ter.” Once the champagne drinkers came to the attention of the ever-watchfulphilistines, it was only a short step before some of these critics voiced theirprivate suspicions publicly.

Signs of cosmopolitanism and urban wealth and diversity were nowdeclared distasteful at best and “too Jewish at worst.” The public denunci-ation mentioned earlier, for example, was accompanied by an anonymousletter to the police in which the author was not satisfied with a vague accu-sation of alleged transgressions against piety and modesty, but also knewwhom to blame – the Jewish war profiteers:

It is a shame for the mighty and powerful to allow the disgrace of the German nameby those honorless war profiteers who have become wealthy overnight, protected byBallin, Rathenau, Anhalt, Mendelssohn, Bleichroder, and Rothschild, while millionsremain hungry and mothers, observed by the police, line up in the freezing night infront of some stores . . . 8

The anonymous author did not speak for himself alone. Once again, as inthis letter, Berlin’s wealthy Jewish elite found themselves publicly attacked.This time, however, there were no Gentile officers responding to the attacksby challenging these voices to a duel. After the scandal at the masked ball in1902, readers overwhelmingly supported Berlin’s liberal press in its sympathyfor the Bleichroder heir; now, however, there was no public outcry againstanti-Semitic behavior and hate speeches. Whereas in 1902 the majority ofBerlin’s local papers interpreted anti-Semitic insults as a breach of the socialcontract, during the First World War, the Jewish economic elite became ascapegoat for a disgruntled middle class, whose prewar optimism had inmany ways turned into xenophobic hysteria.

The year of the Jewish census, 1916, was marked by ceaseless accusationnot only against Jewish soldiers for their supposed lack of patriotism, butalso against the Jewish elite in politics and the economy who were the loyalclientele of the Metropol Theater. This time, anti-Semitism did not halt at theclass line, and it was just not “little Mister Cohn” who was its victim. The

8 Berlin, anonymous letter, September 27, 1916, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv,Potsdam.



wealth and political power achieved by a few Jews, formerly signs of theirsocial integration, were reinterpreted as “perverse” features of an internalenemy. Two years before the end of the war, the German right was alreadyworking hard to shed the responsibility for the foreseeable military defeatby blaming German liberals and socialists. The Jewish upper class was oneof its first targets.

Given such hostile circumstances, and despite continuing resonanceamong larger audiences, Richard Schultz decided to close the Metropol The-ater for an indefinite time. The Metropol did not mount a production againuntil 1918, the same year that Schultz left the theater. He had decided toretreat to his estate in Bavaria, where he died shortly afterward. Schultz haddirected the Metropol for almost twenty years, but he grew tired of it onlyafter his successful team of collaborators vanished. Julius Freund and JosephGiampietro had already passed away, in 1914 and 1915, respectively. Otherseither retired or were lured away by the expanding cabaret scene or by com-peting revue theaters. With the war, the Metropol Theater lost a significantpart of its clientele, and with Schultz’s departure, it lost its nerve center.

In 1927 Schultz’s silent partner, Paul Jentz, declared bankruptcy. Postwarinflation had hit the Metropol corporation particularly hard, and its shareslost much of their value. Moreover, the general impoverishment of Berlin’sspectators had prevented the Metropol from regaining a sound financialfooting. The Viennese operetta entertainment introduced by the theater’snew director, Fritz Friedmann-Friedrich, never enjoyed the same unanimouspublic approval that earlier offerings had. The loss of local topicality on stageled to a loss of support from even the metropol’s most devoted fans. Thetheater’s decline was extensively covered in Berlin’s press, which interpretedits demise as yet another symptom of the general malaise in German society.In 1927, writing for the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, the journalist Alois Munksuggested that Berliners’ diminished sense of local pride had much to do withthe decline of the Metropol: “The Metropol Theater, instead of dictatingnow is dictated itself. Dictated by a far away market, which took its ordersfrom different people.” Monk described the prewar Metropol revue’s lostglory: “The Metropol Theater had long been the quintessential Berlin theater,upholding a gold-framed mirror in front of the city, capturing its intoxicatingrhythm.”9 This exalted past was a faint memory in 1927 when two Jewishentrepreneurs, the Rotter brothers, entered the scene.

the rotter brothers

When Fritz and Alfred Rotter (born Fritz and Alfred Schaie) purchased theMetropol Theater, adding it to the many theaters in Berlin that they already

9 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 2375, Akt. 74, Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, August 6, 1927, Branden-burgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



owned, this transaction was unanimously interpreted by critics as markingthe final bankruptcy of the city’s theater scene. Creative ambition had lost outto economic considerations. Disenchanted journalists summed up this devel-opment with the slogan, “In today’s Berlin art is dominated by bread” (InBerlin geht die Kunst heute nach Brot).10 Postwar economic crises had causedthe collapse of numerous theaters in the capital. The Metropol’s purchasecompleted the trend toward concentrating theater enterprises in the hands ofa few entrepreneurs. The Rotter brothers’ many theater acquisitions in Berlinand its vicinity alarmed the city’s press and police. By 1924 they owned theResidenz, the Trianon, the Zentral, and the Kleine theaters. Later, they com-pleted this concentration of theaters under one direction by adding the Less-ing Theater and the Theater des Westens. The Berliner Borsen-Courier, oneof the most important voices in the city’s cultural sphere, complained that“businessmen and outsiders, carpet dealers, theater agents, and clerks” hadentered the cultural realm in search of a quick profit.11 The Rotter brothersand their rational business practices were blamed for this development. Thepaper called for a “war” against the brothers, whom it believed to be “primeculprits in the decline of the theater scene.”12 The anticapitalistic rhetoric ofthe Berliner Borsen-Courier had a familiar ring by 1927, reminiscent of thepopulist agitation of German anti-Semites in their crusade against “JewishManchesterism” during Germany’s first industrial boom in the nineteenthcentury. Three years earlier, even the Deutsche Buhnengenossenschaft hadcalled the Rotters on their “profit-oriented Manchesterism” (profitmaßigesManchestertum).13

In stark contrast to their predecessor Schultz, the Rotters were consideredoutsiders in the realm of culture and refinement; even liberal critics andperformers deplored the brothers’ idiosyncratic style and dubious ambitions.The cabaret entertainer Paul Morgan (originally Georg Paul Morgenstern;1886–1938), for example, in a column in the 8-Uhr-Abendblatt, criticizedhow the Rotter family ran their theaters.14 In his satirical article Morganmade no secret of his disapproval of their tight-knit family management,

10 Das kleine Journal, December 18, 1927.11 “Besorgnisse und Vorgange im Theaterbezirk. Kampfe gegen die Rotter-Konzession,”

Berliner Borsen-Courier, July 17, 1924.12 Ibid.13 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 2959, Akt. 37, “Der Fall Rotter vor der Buhnen-Genossenschaft,”

Der Tag, July 20, 1924, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.14 Paul Morgan was born in Vienna, of Jewish decent but baptized a Catholic, and became

a well-known entertainer and lecturer in Vienna, Munich, and finally, Berlin. In 1924, heand Kurt Robitchek founded the famous cabaret Das Kabarett der Komiker, whose manage-ment Morgan left to search for opportunities in Hollywood. Tragically, Morgan returnedto Germany and, later, failed to leave the country despite threats against his life. In 1938 hewas arrested and send to the Dachau concentration camp. Allegedly suffering from a lunginfection, he died on December 10, 1938, in Buchenwald.



which, allegedly, allowed no one outside the family to assume a key positionin the business:

The numerous family members of the two Rotter gentlemen can be found in anypart of the trust. At the Residenz, Trianon-, Zentral- and kleinen Theater the brothercontrols the sister, and uncle Rendant screams when the brother-in-law at the boxoffice wants to cut a deal with the cousin secretary. 15

Morgan’s wording and imagery call up contemporary cultural stereotypes.His depiction of the business practices of the Rotters, for example, is akin tothe image of the “haggling Jew.” He distanced himself, however, by imply-ing that the Rotters were unable to tell the difference between horse-tradingand theater. For Morgan, the brothers lacked refinement and culture, whichcertainly discredited them as potential theater directors. Theater had ceasedto be a space in which the highest goods of society were shared amongequal minds to become a simple business in which the performances cateredto the most common denominator to generate revenues for an indiscrimi-nate management. According to Morgan, theater a la Rotter had become acommodity whose price was dictated by the market and not by its inherentcultural value.

Just a few months ago everybody laughed at the customer service at the box office ofthe Residenz Theater. When someone approached the ticket counter, looked disgrun-tled at the prices, and turned away grumpily – Daddy’s clever head would immediatelyappear in the window, asking the undecided customer: “How much do you want toinvest?” No one could resist such mischievous conduct, for everyone engaged innegotiations.16

Morgan may even have intended to characterize the Rotter family as a clanof good-natured schlemiels. He did not explicitly attribute ill intent to theirbehavior, but believed that their mercenary actions simply reflected theiralleged origins as Ostjuden. This, however, made his satire even worse, as itsuggested that Eastern European Jews by definition lacked cultural ambitionsor sensibility, and thus Morgan perpetuated prejudices that were poisoningthe existence of Eastern European immigrants at the time.

In any case, Morgan’s allegations were as dangerous as they were false.Fritz and Alfred Rotter did not come to Germany from Eastern Europe.They were born in Leipzig in 1888 and 1886, respectively. They studied lawin Leipzig before they discovered their taste for the theater. A well-informedparticipant in Berlin’s theater scene such as Paul Morgan should have knownthat they were not immigrants from the shtetl, but aspiring sons of a wealthy(assimilated) business family from Germany’s industrial heartland. Morganseems not to have cared that his depiction of the Rotters fed anti-Semitic

15 Paul Morgan, “Wissen Sie schon . . . ?” 8-Uhr-Abendblatt, July 19, 1924.16 Ibid.



stereotypes decrying the increase in “foreign influences” on German culture.Although it may have been his intention to vent against the rising commer-cialization of Berlin’s theaters, he implicitly contributed to creating a hostileclimate in which the Rotter brothers functioned as a lightning rod, accused of“economic exploitation” and “the prostitution of German art and culture.”In the minds of most German spectators, the brothers were now inseparablylinked to all that had gone wrong in Weimar theater, and their name becamesynonymous with the decay of Weimar’s cultural scene.

Paul Morgan’s piece was only one among many articles in the contempo-rary press that dealt with the crisis of German theaters in general and theactivities of the Rotter brothers in particular. But it was by far not the mosthostile. As a left-leaning liberal and a theater professional, Morgan had notbeen able to remain silent as he watched the world he cherished disappear.Ceaseless strikes at German stages, low wages or epidemic unemploymentamong actors and musicians, and management corruption were the order ofthe day in a cultural sphere that had once been one of the motors of Weimarmodernism, innovation, and hope. It is striking, however, how much evenan individual like Morgan, who was certainly not predisposed to perpetuateanti-Semitism or prejudice, employed divisive language, entertained crudenotions of cultural superiority, and fed the unreflected hostility toward thosewho did not seem to fit the Western cultural paradigm. Anti-Semitic ideol-ogy clearly had entered the salons even of middle-class intellectuals and wasframing the discourse of crisis, informing the rhetoric of a widely sharedanticapitalism.

Not surprisingly, the financial situation of the Rotter enterprises deteri-orated deplorably by 1931. At this point, their every attempt to save theirbusiness had failed. Not even offering the operettas and lightweight musicalsthat had previously secured them a regular audience could save them frombankruptcy. Just like other Jewish entertainment businesses, and maybe evenmore so, they had become a prime target of the National Socialist movement’sunprecedented campaign to make significant inroads in Germany’s culturalsphere. Shortly before the Nazis seized power, the National Socialist presslaunched an offensive with the aim of felling a wounded giant. No day couldpass without the Rotter brothers and their latest “crime” making headlinenews. Nazi agents violently discouraged potential visitors to the Rotter the-aters, whose owners they incessantly painted as corrupt and low characters.In addition, they physically threatened the two brothers and their families,who rightly began to fear for their lives in the tumultuous final year of therepublic. In response to this campaign, Fritz and Alfred Rotter decided toleave Berlin and their theaters behind. In 1933 they fled with their wives toLiechenstein. Although the details remain dark, we do know that the Rot-ters did not escape the grasp of the Nazis. In a dramatic attempt to kidnapthe brothers, Nazis forced the car carrying Alfred Rotter and his wife into adeadly accident. Their long public exposure in the cultural realm, but, more



importantly, their early identification as “Jewish capitalists,” condemnedAlfred and Fritz Rotter to be among the Nazis’ first prominent Jewish vic-tims in the entertainment industry.

no laughing matter

The destruction of the Rotter theater trust marked the end of an era inpopular entertainment. Facing a new and radicalized anti-Semitism in manyspheres of their lives, Jewish performers and their audiences even more sohad become increasingly uneasy about public displays of Jewish identitiesthroughout the later years of the Weimar Republic. Often Jewish spectatorsreacted more sensitively to the changing climate than did the Jewish per-formers, as the spectators’ lives were affected in many cases more directly bythe increasing anti-Semitic hostility. Jewish audiences were already sensitiveto the portrayal of Jews on stage by the mid-1920s. In 1926, for exam-ple, the Zentralverein deutscher Staatsburger judischen Glaubens (CentralOrganization of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith), the single most impor-tant organization representing the interest of Jews in Germany, called uponits members to protest against certain Jewish jokes that were being told incabarets and theaters. The Zentralverein contended that these jokes poseda threat to the integrity of all Jews. In rhetoric true to the old liberals, theZentralverein decried anti-Semitic depictions of Jews and Jewish traditionson Berlin’s stages, calling for the support of “all righteous people irrespectiveof social standing and religion.”

We protest against the vicious ridiculing and mindless distortion of the Jewish char-acter and Jewish institutions in a series of Berlin’s theaters and cabarets. No Jews withhonor and dignity shall support such dubious art. The assembly requests from theZentralverein to engage with all its might in a battle against degeneration at cabaretand theater. The Zentralverein can be assured of the help of all righteous thinkersregardless of their social standing and religion!17

This declaration was circulated widely in the German press and was alsocommented upon in the professional journals read by cabaret, circus, andvariety performers. Das Programm, for example, devoted its front page toattempting to respond to the Zentralverein’s allegations. The author of thisresponse, a Dr. Allos, agreed that Germany’s present hard times demandedthat humorous entertainment not fuel racial hatred, but instead that it dif-fuse social tensions.18 The author also pointed out that most comedianswho specialized in Jewish jokes were themseleves Jewish. Furthermore, heinsisted that those members of the audience who were most enchanted by

17 Quoted in Dr. Allos, “Der Protest gegen judische Witze im Kabarett,” Das Programm,no. 1260, May 30, 1926.

18 Ibid.



such performances were Jews as well. But there, in his eyes, lay the prob-lem. Allos was convinced that “Gentiles were not able to understand themany “Jargonausdrucke” that often represented the punch line of thesejokes. Allos concluded that the continued telling of such jokes was unde-sirable for both Jews and Gentiles: “such incomprehensible expressions –partly laughed at as jokes – lead to the erection of invisible barriers betweenJews and Gentiles, barriers which are particularly unappreciated in thecabaret.”19

Although it is doubtful whether only Jewish comedians presented Jewishjokes, Jewish performers certainly did not refrain from telling such jokes. Liv-ing in a social environment that was not markedly receptive to anti-Semitism,Jewish performers often seemed less sensitized than their Jewish audiencesto the jokes’ pitfalls. Although they were not oblivious to social tensions,Jewish entertainers seem to have processed these tensions mainly by sharplydistinguishing between the assimilated Jewish community in Germany andEastern European Jews. Their jokes generally attributed most forms of mis-behavior to the Eastern European segment of Berlin’s Jewish community.After the disappointment of the war and in light of radicalized political bat-tles in the Weimar era, however, Berlin’s Jewish audiences clearly felt moreand more uneasy with the depictions of East European Jews on stage, fearingand resenting their own association with the negative image of the Ostju-den. In the midst of the first campaigns of the National Socialist movement,and as ridicule was translated into violence in the final years of the republic,ethnicity was no longer grounds for communal laughter.

Only in the last years of the republic did popular entertainers take signsof discomfort among their spectators seriously – they realized that failingto do so would end promising careers. The time lag in their response canpartly be explained by their own life stories. Because most Jewish performersgenerally enjoyed the respect of colleagues and employers, their daily lifehad not yet deteriorated as far as it had for their audiences. Relations amongentertainers had mostly remained cordial. Although the internationalism andoverall tolerance that had characterized popular entertainment for decadeshad taken a serious blow in the aftermath of the war, a few optimists evenbelieved that popular entertainment might serve as a starting point for anew open-mindedness. Most Jewish performers, however, became convincedthat entertainment’s main obligation now was to soothe the pain ratherthan address it head on. Dr. Allos summarized this position, suggesting:“Especially today, at a time poisoned with hate, we have to avoid any poisonthat instead of healing, may provoke yet greater crisis. A good joke shallrelax hate and human passion, instead of adding to them.”20 By the endof the Weimar Republic, popular performers had become intimidated by

19 Ibid.20 Ibid.



the abundant signs of disintegration in both the cultural and the politicalrealms. Those with the means and connections often left Germany, fleeingthe debilitating limitations being placed on their artistic repertoires; othersfled because they rightly feared physical harm. Many of those who wentabroad expected it to be a temporary solution, and too often they returnedonly to face denunciation and blackmail by those very people who may haveenjoyed one of their shows just a few years earlier.


12

The Art of Pleasing All

What is a revue? A revue is . . . when there is no plot . . . and decor and costumescost a million. . . . What should a revue be? A witty series of disconnected scenesthat satisfy the eye, the ear and the mind. These scenes should mock our every-day life, and, on the side, provide racy singers, cute dancers, clever Don Juansand quick-witted comedians the opportunity to blow away the gloom of ourdays with good humor, guts, rhythm and dashing nonsense.

Fritz Grunbaum1

The lavish revues at the Metropol Theater revolutionized the German enter-tainment industry. They were upbeat and fast-paced, seductive and quick-witted, urbane and playful. Spectators at the theater’s revues were presentedwith an endless display of fashion, sex, and sports, with a little bit of politicsand some local gossip thrown in for good measure. To date, Peter Jelavich’sstudy Berlin Cabaret has provided the best overview of the content andstyle of these revues. As Jelavich points out, the Metropol revue “considereditself an up-to-the-minute chronicle of metropolitan life, a sort of BerlinerIllustrierte Zeitung brought to life on stage.”2 From his theater’s inception,the Metropol’s director sensed variety entertainment’s enormous potential.Even while some contemporaries were still deliberating the merits of varietyentertainment, the Metropol had already adopted its winning formula. In itsshort and loosely connected scenes, or skits, lined up like the products in oneof Berlin’s modern department stores, a Metropol revue touted the qualitiesof Warenhaus Gross-Berlin to a highly attentive audience.3

1 Fritz Grunbaum (1880–1941) in program, “Die Holle,” Revue “Rund um den Mittelpunkt”(Vienna, 1925), quoted in Franz Peter Kothes, Die theatralische Revue in Berlin und Wien,1900–1938 (Wilhelmshaven, 1977), 14. The Nazis murdered Grunbaum in the Dachau con-centration camp in 1941.

2 Peter Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret (Cambridge, MA, 1993), 106.3 Ibid., 116.

258


The Art of Pleasing All 259

The art of pleasing all and offending none was among the greateststrengths of the Metropol. The press never tired of calling attention to theMetropol’s capacity to unify a diverse audience with its Jahresrevuen. As onereviewer wrote in the local boulevard journal Die Nacht auf Montag (1907):

The challenge of offering something for the tireless revelers of all ranks, classes andraces, for the lieutenants and for the brokers, for the agrarians and for the Jews,for the teenage girls [Backfische] and the aunts, for the respectable world and thedemimonde, is a task on whose successful execution the interest of a huge capital[Anlagekapital] depends – the box office sales of an entire year. This challenge hasbeen met once again.4

The Metropol revue Das muß man sehn!, staged in 1907, was typical of thegenre. Two characters, Commere and Compere, took the audience throughvarious scenes and provided a loose plot line for the show. Such characterswere archetypes rather than specific individuals, approximating allegoricalfigures such as Morpheus, “Sin,” or Lucifer or serving as representatives of aparticular event or social group. In Das muß man sehn! Compere representeda conservative Junker from East Elbia, whereas Commere, or “FrauleinFreisinn,” was a character drawn from the liberal camp. Their antagonis-tic political and ethical views spiced their dialogue and were a continuingthread in the show. Nevertheless, their romantic involvement as newlywedsprevented any one group in the audience from feeling rejected. The spec-tator was reassured that despite the continual quarrels between Commereand Compere, their disagreements remained “all in the family.” Even suchantagonistic groups as agrarians and Jews could enjoy the Metropol revuestogether.

To mediate between ideological camps and social groups was a majorobjective of Das muß man sehn! The scriptwriter, Julius Freund, juxtaposedtwo groups – Jews and anti-Semites – that he believed to be, and his audienceknew to be, irreconcilably hostile. To defuse this touchy subject, Freund des-ignated two child characters to represent the anti-Semitic and Jewish milieus:one played the son of a well-known anti-Semite, Count Puckler; the otherplayed the daughter of one of the Herrnfeld brothers. In the course of con-versations among Compere, Commere, and the children, the spectator learnsthat the children were exchanged for six months, each living with the other’sparents. Thus Freund conducted a kind of “scientific experiment” using twochildren from very different ethnic, political, and social backgrounds. In thisrevue, the rural, traditional, elitist Gentile meets the urban, Jewish, liberalparvenu. This exchange and its wider implications illuminate a key idea ofthis revue: socialization, and not biological predisposition, determines atti-tudes and behaviors.

4 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 714, Akt. 314, Die Nacht auf Montag, September 16, 1907, Bran-denburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



In the following scene, the two children meet for the first time since theirexchange. Their different impressions and experiences constitute the sub-stance of the play’s message. While strolling through Berlin, Commere andCompere stumble upon the young Puckler. Not shy, the boy surprises themwith his uninhibited attitude toward adult strangers, as well as with hisnoticeable “Jewish” accent, syntax, and behavior:

boy: Who’s that [ jenne]?compere: What does ‘that’[ jenne] mean?boy: Well – there – that little schickse [Schickselchen], you Gannew!compere: That is my wife, you rascal.boy: Oi! Oi! Oi! How lucky some people are! You tell all Jewish children! You! Youhave to take good, good care of that, there are nibblers out for that!commere: We are on our honeymoon.boy: I know! I know everything! We children are taught about everything in pre-school already! That is the modern way!compere: You interest me mostly, because you are an exchanged child.boy: That’s right, that’s right. The way you have just met me, for example, you willbe very surprised when you hear who I am.compere: Well, my lad, who are you?boy: I am the son of Count Puckler.5

The boy’s speech patterns, vocabulary, and attitude were meant to evoke theimage of a “typical” Berlin Jew. Throughout this brief exchange, the boyintersperses various Yiddish terms, all of which had become part of Berlinjargon. This was a practice also employed by Jargon theaters a la Herrnfeld.By mockingly calling Compere a gannew, the Yiddish term for “thief,” theboy immediately creates an inappropriate intimacy with the adults. Theirunease is heightened by his reference to Commere as a Schickselchen, theYiddish label for a non-Jewish girl, which had acquired a derogative con-notation in Berlin jargon. Both transgressions prove him oblivious to thesensibilities of respectable Berlin society, which he further provokes by pre-cociously emphasizing his familiarity with sex education. Within a few sen-tences, the boy with a “slight Jewish accent” has revealed himself as an unrulymember of Berlin’s Jewish subculture. Every Jewish stereotype is employedto convince the spectator of the authenticity of this young man. He is loud,he lacks the most rudimentary social graces, and he is sexually mature, allof which were considered common attributes of Jews in Imperial society –but he is not Jewish.

Scene 8 further emphasizes the incongruity between the behavior andsocial origins of the boy. He acts like the very caricature of a Jew. He isinterested in the price and quality of an article of clothing (Berlin Jews weresupposed to “control” Berlin’s garment industry). He is also cheap, trying tocut a deal wherever an opportunity arises (haggling over prices was another

5 Metropol Theater, Das muß man sehn! 1907, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil, Lan-desarchiv, Berlin. For the original, see App. 11.



trait commonly attributed to Jews). He lies, and instead of being ashamed, hemakes a virtue out of his vices. He is excitable and talks incessantly and ran-domly, mixing crucial with unimportant information. Finally, he denounceshis biological father for uttering anti-Semitic Schmonzes (the Yiddish wordfor rubbish), and praises his “stepparents,” the Herrnfelds, for their contri-bution to German folk culture or, as he calls it, Heimatkunst:

the little puckler (a funny boy in a sailor’s suit, slight Jewish accent): That wentwell! I told the man at the box office that I am still under ten years old and he gaveme a children’s ticket. No, no! Why should I be embarrassed! What does the manneed to know that I already celebrated bar mitzvah?compere: That fellow interests me. Good day, kid.puckler: Why kid? Who are calling kid? How can I help you?compere: You interest me, because I have been told that you are an exchanged child.puckler: That’s right, that’s right. I am an exchanged child! For a few months, wechildren are nowa’ days always exposed to a totally new environment, completelydifferent from our own, so that our Ponimkreis [outlook] is broadened.compere: What circle?puckler: Well – Ponimkreis! Horizon, if you understand that better.compere: May I ask how old you are?puckler (touches Compere’s suit): Great fabric that you have there. What did youpay per meter?compere: I would like to know how old you are.puckler: Ten years – to a hundred!compere: That is a vague answer – a little more precise please.puckler: Well I told you – ten to a hundred.commere: You have to ask differently. How old towards a hundred years are you?puckler: Ten years. You see, that’s how it’s asked.compere: And where are you off to?puckler: Where am I going?compere: Strange, that you always answer a question with another question!puckler: Why, am I asking? By the way, if you are really interested, I am going toKlein-Tschirne!compere: Whaat? Klein-Tschirne??puckler: Yes, I have been luckily boarded for a healthy six months as an exchangedchild by the brothers Herrnfeld.compere: Boy, boy, I believe your daddy will burst with anger when he sees youagain like this.puckler: So what! He bursts – he bursts! I don’t believe in those antisemiticSchmonzes anymore anyway. I even met the red Manasse and he is a very nice anddecent man, let me tell you. And every evening I went to my foster parent’s theater!There I was introduced to – what is known as – Heimatkunst!!compere: And in the meantime – if I understand correctly – the little Herrnfeld girlwas sent for further education to Klein-Tschirne?puckler: A very modest gal indeed! I am very curious how she has broadened herhorizons.6

6 Metropol Theater, Das muß man sehn! 1907, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil, Landesarchiv,Berlin. For the original, see App. 12.



Julius Freund was confident not only that audiences would understand theoccasional Yiddish word woven into the idiosyncratic speech of the youngPuckler but also that they would be familiar with Jewish rituals and tra-ditions. Bar mitzvah, for instance, the rite of passage for Jewish boys, wasmentioned without further explanation. To understand the discussion aboutthe boy’s age in the scene, the spectator had to be aware that this ritualwas celebrated at each boy’s thirteenth birthday. Clearly, Freund believedthat familiarity with the rituals of Jewish life in Germany was part of thecommon cultural canon and therefore needed no further explanation.

The reference to the red Manasse in the preceding scene was furtherproof of German-Jewish culture’s fluidity, its being part of a defined sub-culture as well as of the mainstream. Manasse was a play written in 1900 byAaron Blumenfeld, a left-wing Rumanian Jew. It was translated into Yiddish,German, and English, but more importantly, it was made into a popularmovie. As the film historian J. Hoberman has argued, this movie was notstrictly speaking a Yiddish film, although it included common Yiddish termsto appear authentic.7 Although taking a sympathetic stand toward tradi-tional Jewish life, Manasse asserted that Jewish assimilation was inevitable.Both the play and the movie dealt with themes of mixed marriage and reli-gious conversion, depicting the costs of both for European Jewry. Manassebecame a reference point in popular culture, addressing the question ofJewish identity and integration in the Diaspora. Obviously, Blumenfeld’splay was well known among assimilated Berlin Jews.8 The Metropol audi-ence must have been sufficiently acquainted with the content of the pieceto understand Count Puckler’s vexation over his son’s socialization with acharacter that stood for mixed marriages and Jewish integration.

Freund was convinced that the majority of the spectators would besufficiently familiar with Jargon theater to appreciate the allusions to theHerrnfeld brothers, two icons of popular Jewish theater. In this dialogue heimitated one of the staples of Jewish humor as presented in the GebruderHerrnfeld Theater, assuming that it would be recognized beyond the bound-aries of Berlin’s Jewish subculture. When asked a specific question, the“Jewish” character always replied with a question, considerably complicat-ing what might have been uncontentious issues. Even in seemingly seriousconversations, the Jewish hero would inject random observations into theconversation, as if an inner voice were speaking aloud. Herrnfeld characters,too, loved to play with the meaning of words and images, and “Jewish wit”stemmed from these linguistic origins. When asked a question, the char-acter often responded to the literal meaning of a word in a context thatdemanded its abstract meaning. Of course, the mixture of Yiddish jargon

7 J. Hoberman, Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two World Wars (Philadelphia, 1991),83.

8 Ibid., 84.



and High German proved to be a winning combination. The “little Puckler,”for example, confronted Compere with the word Ponimkreis (outlook; fieldof vision). Not only was Compere unfamiliar with the word Ponim, Yiddishfor “face” (ponem), but its use in connection with the German word Kreis(circle) complicated things even further. The educated German middle classesdespised such creative mixing of languages and dialects. It was, however, thesource of much amusement in Jargon theater.

Although its revues relied on Jewish stereotypes that were common amongthe upper classes, the Metropol’s intention was not to ridicule all Jews.This would have alienated a large segment of its audiences and many ofits performers. Thus it was the anti-Semite’s son who epitomized the half-assimilated, hand-waving Jew. By overstating the image of a “Jew,” Freund’splay ridiculed the image itself. Moreover, in order to evenhandedly mock theentire social spectrum, Freund not only harped on Jewish stereotypes, buthe also painted satirical pictures of German anti-Semites. Hence RosalieHerrnfeld, the Jewish daughter of one of the Herrnfeld brothers, experi-ences a change of heart equal in magnitude to that of the young Puckler.Having spent the last six months in Klein-Tschirne, at the estate of CountPuckler, she has developed a taste for horseback riding, one of the mostpopular pastimes of the landed nobility. She loves the excitement of thehunt and despises the “sickening” city. Rosalie uses health metaphors in herdenunciations of the physical and social ills of the city. She has acquired theantimodernist rhetoric of the ultraconservatives, who compared society toan organism constantly fighting against the corrupting influence of foreign“germs.” Rosalie walks and talks in a military style, demonstratively wavingher whip; her answers are concise, articulated in a commanding, supposedlymasculine diction. In such exclamations as “Donnerwetter” or “skandalos,”she captures the manner of an agrarian lord (or the emperor) as neatly aswhen she uses the whip. Thus in scene 8 the playwright manages to presenta second stereotype that is no less persuasive than the Jewish one:

herrnfeld (enters very smart, with riding whip, etc., etc.):Donnerwetter noch mal, what luck that I finally arrived in Berlin! Throughout theentire trip I was crammed in with a bunch of salesmen and sales representatives! Ascandal, how these strangers flirted with me.puckler: That’s her, that’s her!compere: If I am not entirely wrong, I have the pleasure –herrnfeld: Miss Herrnfeld, Rosalie Herrnfeld, daughter of the brothers Herrnfeld,as exchanged child for six months at Puckler’s at Klein-Tschirne (towards the boy)Good day Teut! German handshake!puckler: Hello Salchen, you really look very good.herrnfeld: I did not miss a thing out there with your old man, in the fresh andbeautiful country air. I positively envy you! Now you can go hunting again!puckler: Why me? Sharks go hunting!herrnfeld: You can ride attacks again!



puckler: No! No! I was at the Herrnfelds for six months – I’ll never mount a horseagain!herrnfeld: And I will miss all those nice and funny evenings, where your daddythundered down from the podium until the man in blue put on his hat and dispersedus.puckler: You won’t miss anything, your people also speak from podiums (and arepretty fine comedians too) [censored in the text].compere: I see with pleasure that the system works splendidly and that the youngladies and gentlemen have filled the gaps in their characters in a truly wonderfulway.9

After spending only six months on the Puckler estate, Rosalie Herrnfeldhas become imbued with a violent prejudice against foreigners and com-mercial travelers, all of whom she suspects of being Jewish. She automati-cally assumes that they approach her with “bad intentions,” that they seekerotic adventures wherever they go. She talks in the inflated language of ahypernationalist, greeting Puckler’s son with a “German handshake.” Shehas also developed a taste for the cavalry, envying the boy for his opportu-nity to hunt game on the estate of his father. Rosalie, in short, has taken onthe airs that supposedly come with a noble birth and looks down on com-moners who must work to survive. Her concerns are those of an estate ownerwho has nothing but leisure activities to occupy himself or herself with. Inaddition, Rosalie has fond memories of anti-Semitic rallies at which CountPuckler has given violent speeches. As she herself points out, these speecheswere so outrageous that the Imperial police were forced to intervene andend the meetings. Freund’s depiction of Rosalie Herrnfeld is thus no moreflattering than his characterization of the “Semitic” young Puckler. Yet inmany ways, these two children are surprisingly similar: they are each other’salter ego. The amicable way in which they relate to each other suggests thatthey find themselves at opposite ends of a line, which bent full circle wouldmeet in the end.

To fully appreciate the content and meaning of this revue, one must lookbeyond the boundaries of popular entertainment. In 1907 an extraordinarycoalition was conceived between the liberal and conservative camps. Afterserious disagreements over colonial and military issues arose between theReichstag and the government, Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow dissolved theReichstag and called for new elections. These elections, held in January 1907,dramatically altered Imperial Germany’s political climate. Bulow orches-trated a coalition of all national parties, including the left-liberals, to forma patriotic, anticlerical, and antisocialist bloc.10 This tactic turned out tobe successful in the short run: the bloc parties won 220 out of 397 seats in

9 Metropol Theater, Das muß man sehn!, 1907, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil, Lan-desarchiv, Berlin. For the original, see App. 13.

10 Thomas Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte, 1866–1918 (Munich, 1992), 730.



the Reichstag.11 Bulow took great pride in this new coalition of formerlyantagonistic parties, celebrating the bloc as “the merging [Paarung] of theconservative with the liberal spirit.” To those Germans inclined to wishfulthinking, the bloc seemed to promise an end to the exclusion of the middleclasses from political power.12

Thus we see that the spirit of reconciliation and cooperation dominatingthe revue Das muß man sehn! was no accident. Rather, it was an explicit andfaithful reflection of the contemporary political climate. Taking Bulow’s callquite literally, and playing with the double meaning of Paarung, the Metropolmarried the conservative with the liberal spirit by presenting the agrarian(Compere) and Fraulein Freisinn (Commere) as newlyweds. Political strug-gles were thus transformed into domestic quarrels between husband andwife. In the process, the ideological antagonism between liberal Jews andconservative anti-Semites was minimized and ridiculed. In Freund’s script,the sympathetic Compere asserts that the exchange of children had led tomutual understanding. He seems confident that a mere exchange of positionswill bring fulfillment for each individual. Freund does not take sides in hisdepiction of the social groups the children represent, however. His play fullyridicules both children; their officious righteousness is even touching. As wesee in the following dialogue between Compere and Commere in scene 11,the play ends with an appeal for harmony and world peace:

commere: Well what do you say about these two fine specimens?compere: I don’t find it all that silly? If the exchange continues as it is – betweencountries and estates – little by little, many prejudices and many barriers have to falland soon it will be just a step towards general understanding, towards world peace!13

In this final dialogue, the Metropol Theater implicitly articulated its own rolein bringing about harmony and peace. Compere calls for the disappearanceof all prejudices – between countries, and between estates. Keeping avenuesof communication open would lead to a new understanding in national andinternational politics. To facilitate the exchange of ideas was one of theobjectives of Das muß man sehn! Thus not only was it politically opportuneand economically rewarding to please everyone, it was also the theater’sprogrammatic objective. Freund and Schultz consciously downplayed thegravity of political and cultural conflicts by using actors playing childrenfor their skits. Education of the whole person and their exposure to newenvironments led to the transformation of these impressionable children.The suggestion was clear: no antagonism in German society was too great toovercome.

11 Ibid., 731.12 Ibid., 732.13 Metropol Theater, Das muß man sehn!, 1907, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil,

Landesarchiv, Berlin.



At this time, prior to the First World War, performers and entrepreneursin theaters and cabarets were conspicuous in their belief that internationalcultural exchange worked to everyone’s advantage. Many representatives ofthe cultural sphere believed that with the expansion of the entertainmentscene, new roles and responsibilities had arisen for all cultural institutions.For example, in 1909 actors and directors joined with businessmen and sci-entists to raise funds and public support for an English-American theaterin Germany. The Vossische Zeitung reported on February 27 that this the-ater was destined to enhance the cultural exchange between nations. As thetheater’s promotional material stated, “the bridging of national differencesand the peaceful convergence of people was the aspiration of all civilizednations [Kulturstaaten].”14 The organizer of this initiative hoped to providean example. Theater would once again become “the school of the nation.”This philosophy simultaneously legitimated the desire of the modern enter-tainment industry to expand its sphere of influence. With the revue Das mußman sehn! the Metropol Theater, as one of the leading theaters in Germany,asserted its own claim to be part of this new movement.

Das muß man sehn! was not the only revue in which Julius Freund placedJewish characters on stage. In fact, virtually every Jahresrevue included atleast one scene with Jewish characters. In 1909, for example, in Hallo!!Die große Revue, the already familiar Compere and Commere encounteredanother caricature of the “modern” Jew. In this piece the couple takes a touraround the city, eager to explore how much Berlin has acquired the flair ofa true metropolis. Among other sites of amusement, they visit Berlin’s fash-ionable racetracks. Soon, a “funny little man” attracts their attention. Hehastily introduces himself as an employee of the so-called rental-company-for-human-beings (Menschenverleihungsgesellschaft GmbH). In the follow-ing dialogue, the stranger, who later refers to himself as the “elegant Isidor,”explains to the bewildered couple the nature of his services:

the gentleman: I am a rented gentleman! Outstanding employee of the newlyfounded rental-company-for-human-beings Ltd., Berlin. Tasch-Tasch (wants to leave)compere: One moment! That’s extraordinarily interesting! You are for rent then?the gentleman: Just like a noble title, the title of a Kommerzienrat, like the redOrder of the Eagle! Do you find anything wrong with that? Tasch-Tasch! A verydistinguished profession! I’ve just returned from my morning shift in Moabit whereI am always rented as a witness.compere: What do you do there then?gentleman: I swear.commere: Swear? What exactly?gentleman: Whatever is necessary! Anything wrong with that?15

14 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 1469, Vossische Zeitung, Akt. 1, February 27, 1909, Brandenbur-gisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

15 Metropol Theater, 18.10.1909, Hallo!! Die große Revue, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil4559, Landesarchiv, Berlin.



The conversation reveals that the stranger operates like a human chameleon.He makes his living by facilitating modern urban life, appearing in courtcases if a witness is needed. He is oblivious to the fact that his actionstransgress both ethical codes and civil law. Playing with the double mean-ing of verleihen, either “to lend” or “to award,” he compares his activityto receiving both one of the highest decorations in Imperial society, the redOrder of the Eagle (Adlerorden), and a noble title. Implicitly the specta-tor is reminded of the meaninglessness of such distinctions, whose valuehad been diminished by Wilhelm II’s excessive patronage practice.16 Initiallydisenchanted by the stranger’s corruption, the spectator is reminded of thehollowness of Imperial Germany’s honor code. In the ensuing dialogue, itbecomes clear that the stranger is actually the incarnation of other people’ssham existences – their guilty consciences, their imperfect lives – and that infact the stranger does not have a criminal mind. Being asked to elaborate onhis occupation, he hesitates, then continues:

the gentleman: [ . . . ] For dinners and soirees, when a fourteenth person is neededor a dancer. . . . The Leysohns on Stralauer Street engage me for every reception merelyto show that they have elegant Christian acquaintances. Do you mind that? . . .

commere: It is understood that you must possess the most sophisticated aristocraticmanners.the gentleman: What a joke! The elegant Isidor is the adornment of every salon. Ido not spit on the floor, I do not burp at the table and I only pinch my table neighborin the calf when it is explicitly required.17

As his elaboration demonstrates, the stranger has refined his area of spe-cialization to serve the needs of Berlin’s Jewish upper middle class, whosemembers are concerned with its integration into the larger society. He empha-sizes his social skills to assure the listener that his assimilation into bourgeoissociety has been successfully completed. He understands that it is his job tobring about the same integration for his clients.

In the ensuing exposition, it turns out that the stranger has not accom-plished his task with unqualified success. Encouraged to talk about his past,he admits to having received rather mixed reviews from his employer. In fact,he has failed utterly in his attempts to become an impeccable gentleman. Hismemories begin to tumble over each other like an endless series of mishaps,rather like a slapstick comedy. As the scenes he describes gain their ownmomentum, they finally reach a climax in physical humor clearly designedby the librettist Julius Freund to leave the audience in stitches of laughter:

the gentleman: That damned ass of a hired servant poured the entire sauce downmy dinner partner’s neckline and since I didn’t have any sauce left myself, I dipped my

16 Alastair Thompson, “Honours Uneven: Decorations, the State and Bourgeois Society inImperial Germany,” Past and Present 144 (1994), 171–204.

17 Metropol Theater, 18.10.1909, Hallo!! Die große Revue, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil4559, Landesarchiv, Berlin.



asparagus in it. Tantara! Anything wrong with that? And I will never forget that dis-astrous evening at the Kohns just recently. When I came in, Mrs. Kohn told me thatI had been hired to dance, but only with the Missniks, so they would not be peeved.“Very well” I said, and headed straight for the biggest Menubbl in sight, whereuponMrs. Kohn almost fainted – that was the bride! Tata! To calm my agitation, I hur-ried to the buffets and ate six portions of ice-cream. Then Mr. Kohn yelled: “Takemore care and less ice-cream, I hired you to be a dancing bear, not a polar bear!”This rudeness affected my stomach and made the ice-cream rebel, I weakened andunfortunately in front of the entire party I went. . . .commere: Good Lord!compere: You went where??the gentleman: Let me finish, let me finish. I went and sat down on a woman’s hatthat I had not noticed in my stupor. Anything wrong with that? Tata!18

Freund’s take on Jewish identities does not lie far beneath the surface inthis scene. The more excited the stranger becomes, the more he lapses intoa “Yiddish jargon.” Many contemporaries believed Jews to have a particu-larly excitable and nervous nature, a stereotype that is played up again andagain in Metropol revues. This idea was often combined with the convic-tion that assimilated Jews would involuntarily reveal their “real” origins onoccasions of excitement, waving their hands and reverting to their “own”slang. This process was caricatured in the scene just quoted. Yet Freund alsogave this scene an ironic spin by mocking both the Jewish stereotypes and theinsecurities of the Jewish community that led to overcompensation. In thisway, he was able to appeal to his Gentile and his Jewish audiences with thesame scene. This dual approach could be found in other revues too, wherethe playwright would caricature not only the Jews who tried but failed toassimilate but also those upper-class Gentiles who fostered ridiculous Jewishstereotypes.

The struggle of Germany’s Jews to belong was a regular theme in Metropolrevues. One last example demonstrates yet another variation on this theme.In this revue, the fashion industry is the arena in which German Jews aremeant to prove they belong. A scene set in a fashion salon is central to therevue Die Nacht von Berlin. Produced in 1911, and scripted yet again byJulius Freund to the music of Victor Hollaender, this was one of the lastMetropol revues to be staged.

Fashion was a frequent concern in Metropol productions. In 1898, thecritical Berliner Borsen-Courier even expressed pity for Julius Freund forranking second to the art designer in the theater’s hierarchy. By 1911 therole of fashion on stage had been heavily politicized.19 The importance of

18 Ibid. For the original, see App. 14.19 “It must be devastating for a talented scriptwriter such as Julius Freund to be interrupted

by decor designers, and having to avoid everything that could potentially overshadow thetechnicians.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 714, Akt. 18, Berliner Borsen-Courier, September 4,1898, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



fashion in a society in search of social distinctions was the main theme inDie Nacht von Berlin.20 The almost religious belief of some of Berlin’s Jewsin the elevating powers of French fashion is satirized in a scene involving aFrench designer. Like the Sun King, the designer, Poiret, enters with pomp.He is humbly greeted by an assembly of women and their devoted hus-bands. A Jewish couple is among this group, who could hardly wait for hisappearance. Mister Cohn and his ugly, overweight wife eagerly anticipatePoiret’s arrival, hoping that the “healing” powers of the fashion god will“cure” Mrs. Cohn’s malaise. They are first-generation Jewish immigrantsfrom Poland who have “made it” in Germany. They lack, however, man-ners and reserve, the essence of elegance and refinement. But they are notthe only characters without inside knowledge of French haute couture. Mr.and Mrs. Lehmann, two “Berliner originals,” are equally unprepared forthe rituals unfolding before them, although their obliviousness has a differ-ent ring than does the Cohns’ ignorance. They represent the voice of thepeople, bewildered by Poiret’s French decadence, grounded in their matter-of-factness and intended to provide a refreshing contrast to the generalexaltation.

To appreciate this scene, one should be aware that the fashion designerPaul Poiret actually existed and was not a figure born of Julius Freund’simagination. In 1911 – the year the revue was staged – the real Poiretgained fame for successfully promoting so-called reform clothes (Reform-kleidung) for women. Together with the fashion houses Hermann Gersonand V. Mannheimer – both established Jewish clothing manufacturers inBerlin – Poiret caused a sensation at one of the big fashion shows of the sea-son by displaying his models without the usual straps, buckles, and corsets.This was a daring move in a society in which prominent German feministshad just been arrested for wearing reform clothes, then perceived as provoca-tive and offensive to the German public.21

Some contemporaries saw Poiret as a great liberator of Wilhelminewomen; others, however, saw him as a corrupting influence on the femalemind. For some, he signified modernity and progress; for others, he was an

20 In his production-number spectacular Berlin bleibt Berlin, Richard Schultz declared his closeties to Berlin’s fashion industry by explicitly promoting their products on stage, going so faras to display the logos of well-known department stores on the costumes of the actors anddancers and on the sets. The press rejected this advertising campaign and pointed to theindignation shown by the hissing and whistling audiences. Yet despite the unanimous con-demnation of such blatant advertising on stage, the overall reception of Berlin bleibt Berlinwas sufficiently positive to guarantee the production’s financial success. Visitors, althoughskeptical of commercialization, remained interested in the display of fashionable costumes.Schultz and his collaborators, in turn, moderated their explicit advertising slightly in therevues that followed, without, however, giving it up altogether.

21 Uwe Westphal, Berliner Konfektion und Mode, 1836–1939. Die Zerstorung einer Tradition(Berlin, 1992), 39–40.



apostle of foreign influence in imperial society. Julius Freund integrated allthese conflicting dimensions into his play. In scene 4:

the directrice (excited, followed by the audience): “Eleven o’clock – the greatmoment has come! I am feverish from excitement – Ladies and Gentlemen – pleasebe seated; the middle aisle has to stay empty.the master: Eleven o’clock! He has arrived! He has arrived! (To the Directrice)I hope you have made sure that all the entrances are blocked and only the mostintimate customers of the house are led in after showing their tickets.directrice: Certainly!mr. cohn (to his wife): Rosalie – relax! Don’t get so excited! He will look at you;he will take your measurements – but after all – he is no magician!the master: Silence! Silence, Ladies and Gentlemen! The historic moment hasarrived! (a stroke of the gong) The gong has sounded!mr. cohn: Heisst e Gegonkel wegen dem Onkel! (Mannequins wiggle down thestairs and through the curtains, accompanied by music. They make their rounds andeverybody stares at them [begafft und longnettiert].)the teenager: What beautiful girls.mr. cohn: Besicheinte Schickses! Just look at how they wiggle.mrs. cohn: Look away Isidor!the master: These are the mannequins.mr. lehmann: Wat heest Manekens? Ik hab det fur Weiberkens gehalten! (The gongsounds twice.)themaster:Silence! Silence! Ambiance! Ambiance! Fast, fast the censer! The curtainis rising! Now! Now!(The curtain parts accompanied by ceremonial singing, while the mannequins arewaving the censers. On a throne, surrounded by kneeling clothing manufacturers,Poiret presides, while ladies are holding a golden laurel wreath above his head.)22

This scene does not ridicule just any fashion frenzy, but rather the continuingreverence for French haute couture specifically. La Grande Nation is paro-died in order to reclaim these virtues for Berlin. It is not fashion as a conceptthat is at stake in this scene, but the uncritical reverence for French fash-ion by Germany’s parvenus in search of taste and respectability. AlthoughMr. and Mrs. Cohn are wealthy enough to pay the outrageous sums Poiretprides himself on being able to charge his German clients, they are not secureenough in their own judgment to develop style and countenance by them-selves. The Cohns try to disguise their humble origins with French hautecouture. Their sensibilities do not conform to those of others in their envi-ronment, however, and their reading of the situation isolates them from theother characters as well as from the audience. Unknowingly, they are objectsof ridicule and laughter because they lack the sophistication to match theirwealth.

22 Die Nacht von Berlin, Metropol Theater, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil 5140, Lan-desarchiv, Berlin. For the original, see App. 15.



In his depiction of Poiret and his art, Freund mocks the simple lookof reform clothes, the look that so excited the fashion-conscious circles ofBerlin’s society. Thus the scene continues with a demonstration of Poiret’stalents. Mrs. Cohn’s rather imposing exterior presents the designer with hisgreatest challenge. Her transformation thus serves as the ultimate proof ofhis ingenuity. In liberating Mrs. Cohn from all her superfluous clothes, Poiretdemonstrates to the Metropol audience how, in the realm of fashion, “less ismore.” Despite the satirical tone of this scene, Mrs. Cohn does look slimmerand more pleasing to the spectators after Poiret unwraps her. Poiret succeedsin his venture and makes Mrs. Cohn’s dreams come true, leaving Mr. andMrs. Cohn overjoyed. But Mrs. Cohn does not realize that the means forher transformation were quite basic. Instead of exquisite accessories, Poiretused any item that came into his hands, such as a wastepaper basket for ahat and a stray cord to gather up loose cloth:

poiret: You will see now, how Poiret, the genius can transform en cinq minute lafemme la plus laide – the ugliest woman – la femme la plus terrible – the most horrificwoman – (Looks around)mr. cohn: Rosalie – Volunteer!poiret (grabs Mrs. Cohn and pulls her towards him): Madame!mrs. cohn: Quel bonheur!poiret: Ce costume! Quel blamage! Quel desastre! Desagreable! Away with it!Away! Away! Away!(Tears away down the dress made out of paper and leaves her standing in her funnyundergarments)mr. cohn: Poiret! Why do you make my misfortune public!poiret: Silence! Silence! Do not disturb my inspiration!Ah! La portiere! (Runs for the curtain. Pulls it down and ties it around Mrs. Cohn,whose costume is designed so that after she looks slimmer than before.)Amandine – les Cheveux (an assistant passes him a high wig, which he puts on her)un chapeau! Un chapeau! Ah – Voila – (takes a small paper basket)Superb, ravissement! Mais la corde, la corde! Where is the cord, the cord?[ . . . ]all: Bravo!mr. cohn: Rosalie – You look like the crown princess of Posnan!poiret: And in one week from now, when the revue is over – I will return to Paris!23

In the this scene, the scriptwriter Freund reproduced well-known prejudicesthat were particularly widespread among upper-class Berliners eager to solid-ify their monopoly on culture and refinement. The Cohns exemplified thosesegments of society for whom fashion was an entry ticket into bourgeoissociety. Insecure in their own judgment, they become the devotees of a char-latan. The spectator was meant to feel superior to these two characters,who struggle to make a life for themselves in an unfamiliar social milieu.

23 Ibid. For the original, see App. 16.



In contrast to his previous handling of a similar scenario, this time Freundleaves his Jewish characters vulnerable to the scorn of the audience.

In 1911 international comparisons were treated differently than in pre-vious years. The continuing fascination of Berliners with French fashionand design was caught in a wave of increasingly nationalistic rhetoric andcriticized more than ever. The city’s important fashion industry began to pro-mote its own collections and deliberately compete with Paris.24 Instead ofcelebrating Berlin’s equal status with London or Paris in fashion design, theMetropol now celebrated Berlin’s superiority over French couture. Freundflattered the spectator’s ego by pointing out that although Poiret extolledFrench hegemony in the realm of fashion, he nevertheless envied Germany’senergy and prosperity, albeit with a heavy French accent:

En revenant de la revueI will return then to ParisFrom my grande gloire sein plein“Figaro,” “Temps,” “Journal,” “Matin”The pockets full with German money,Both a tailor and a hero,I will tell on the boulevard –How I worked for our revenge!In the year one and seventy,In the shine of glory,Germany has had its chance,Has got millions from la France,But if from dawn to dusk,My business continues like this,Then I will soon returnAll of the reparations!No BoulangerAnd neither DelcasseHave fooled Germany as muchOnly Poiret emptied its porte-monnaie!C’est la revancheDe la nation francaise25

Julius Freund was aware that after its defeat of 1870–71, France had under-gone a trauma that still resonated in the French consciousness. French travel

24 In 1914, only three years after the revue Berlin bleibt Berlin, the presence of French fashionwas even violently attacked by the press. “In the first days of August 1914, the newspapersbegan to complain about the inappropriate clothes of our women, promenading in skirts withslits and high heals, while their husbands and brothers defended our soil with their blood atthe front lines.” Sandra Clara, Die Mode im Spiegel des Krieges (Essen and Cologne, 1915),4, quoted in Westphal, Berliner Konfektion, 45.

25 Metropol Theater, Die Nacht von Berlin, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil 5140, Lan-desarchiv, Berlin. For the original, see App. 17.



accounts reveal that although Berlin was dismissed as a sleepy garrison townbefore unification, by the turn of the twentieth century its boomtown qual-ities were either admired, feared, or still dismissed by French contempo-raries.26 Berliners enjoyed this new attention and respect, satisfied that theirown long-standing admiration for Paris was at last being reciprocated (how-ever grudgingly).

Fashion functioned as both an expression of and the vehicle of socialadvancement and distinction in Metropol revues, simultaneously satisfyinga person’s need to blend in with the majority and yet to find an outlet forindividuality.27 Although fashion promised temporary empowerment andequality – a message embodied in the Metropol’s slogan “clothes make theperson” (Kleider machen Leute) – Jews were often ridiculed for their ill-conceived attempts to use fashion as a tool for social advancement.28 TheMetropol Theater’s focus on the fashion industry fostered local and nationalpride, allowing Berliners to celebrate their design achievements and theircompetitiveness with Paris and London. But the theater made fun of Jewishentrepreneurs in Berlin’s fashion industry. Although these Jewish manufac-turers helped Berlin’s fashion industry in its rise to international fame, Jewishcharacters on stage often lacked the finishing touch of haute couture. Unlikethe Herrnfeld Theater, the Metropol Theater portrayed its Jewish charactersas individuals apart, who, however, belonged to the daily life of the capi-tal. The Metropol reproduced traditional Jewish stereotypes held by Berlin’shigh society and linked Jews to both the vices and the virtues of modernurban life. In Paradies der Frauen (1898), the Jewish character (yet anotherschoner Isidor) is a Confektions-Commis who courts a fashion-crazed diva.In the revue Berlin bei Nacht, the Jewish characters (the Cohns) are ridiculedas naıve consumers of haute couture.29

26 Cecile Chombard-Gaudin, “Frankreich blickt auf Berlin, 1900–1939,” in Gerhard Brunnand Jurgen Reulecke, eds., Metropolis Berlin. Berlin als deutsche Hauptstadt im Vergleicheuropaischer Hauptstadte, 1871–1939 (Bonn, 1992), 367.

27 “Classes and individuals who demand constant change, because the rapidity of their devel-opment gives them the advantage over others, find in fashion something that keeps pace withtheir own soul-movement. Social advancement above all is favorable to the rapid change offashion, for its capacitates lower classes so much for imitation of upper ones, and thus theprocess characterized above, according to which every higher set throws aside a fashion themoment a lower set adopts it, has acquired a breadth and activity never dreamed of before.”Georg Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms (Chicago, 1971), 318.

28 Originally “Leute machen Kleider – Kleider machen Leute,” this expression gained greatpopularity through Gottfried Keller’s novel Kleider machen Leute, a humorous allegory onthe double standards of middle-class morality, which was published in 1874 as part of thecycle “Die Leute von Seldwyla.”

29 Even the openly anti-Semitic paper the Staatsburger Zeitung approved Guido Thielscher’sendearing performance as the “schoner Isidor”: “The irresistibly funny Guido Thielscherconquered the hearts of Berliners as the ‘beautiful Isidor,’ the revered Konfektions-Commis.His amicable, fun-loving humor provoked a more and more cheerful atmosphere in the



The Metropol Theater and its revues faithfully mirrored the aspira-tions and prejudices of upper-class Berliners. Depending on current politicalevents, its Jewish characters were painted in a more or less positive light,sometimes sarcastically and sometimes affectionately. There are consistentpatterns in the Metropol’s depiction of Jews. For example, most Jewish char-acters revealed their Eastern European origins in the course of a scene. Theestablished, assimilated Jewish community of Berlin was rarely ridiculed; thejokes were at the expense of the recent Jewish immigrants who could not shedtheir roots in Berlin’s “Jewish milieu.” Staying true to Gentile upper-classhumor, the “little Mister Cohn” was the “ideal-type Jew” at the MetropolTheater.30 The Jewish stockbroker who talks with his hands; the business-man who fails to tell the truth, even when he tries to; the Jewish motherwho dreams of beauty and cultivation: these types and more were drawnfrom upper-class discourse and were part of the Metropol repertoire. TheMetropol’s message remained ambiguous and at times was even contradic-tory. Although the theater touted the superiority of Berlin’s garment industry,it ridiculed the Confektions-Commis Isidor. Although the famous Ausstat-tungshaus Baruch provided the outlandish costumes and magnificent robesworn by the actors at the Metropol, and the department stores Wertheim,Jandorf, and Tietz made exclusive fashion available to a wide audience, Jew-ish clothing manufacturers were nevertheless subjected to mockery.

In short, these depictions of Jewish characters were unflattering, ridicu-lous, and often vulgar, but they were hardly meant to stir up racial hatred.They were part of the metropolitan mosaic, and, as such, considered inte-gral to the theme of modern life in the city. The choice of Guido Thielscherto play most of the Jewish roles at the Metropol was a clear indication thatthese roles were not meant to be despicable for Thielscher was one of Berlin’smost acclaimed comic actors, adored as few actors were before him. He wasone of the few Metropol stars who was not imported from Vienna, and hebrought identifiable local flair to the stage. In the role of the schoner Isidor,Thielscher demonstrated a naıve enthusiasm for Berlin, exclaiming, on theMetropol’s opening night in 1898, that “the slogan was neither north norsouth pole, but Metropole.”31 Thielscher’s adaptation of a Jewish characterdid not allow spectators to distance themselves; instead, watching Thielscher

auditorium with every minute.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 714, Akt. 19, Staatsburger Zeitung,September 7, 1898, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.

30 The Metropol Theater made the popular song “Der kleine Herr Cohn” a staple at one of itsballs. While describing his evening at the Metropol, one reporter laconically remarked: “Onelast glance over Berlin’s carnival, before – being a solid man – I leave the site. Through thedense cigar smoke resounds the song of the little Mister Cohn.” 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 708,Akt. 214, Berliner Borsen Zeitung, January 12, 1904, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv,Potsdam.

31 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 714, Akt. 17, Das kleine Journal, September 4, 1898, Brandenbur-gisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.



perform provided an opportunity for Berlin’s high society to take a vacationfrom their complex lives, leaving the merits and constraints of the juste-milieu behind. He functioned rather like the classic dramatic fool: he flat-tered his audiences while he regularly exposed himself and others to ridiculeand laughter.

Although Julius Freund’s jokes and verses were often just reproductionsof contemporary Herrenwitze (male humor) circulating in Berlin’s casinos,he did try to break the pattern whenever it seemed opportune. When thepairing of rivals was part of governmental policy, Julius Freund appealedto his audience to tolerate each other. In the revue Das muß man sehn!the Metropol tried to defuse social and cultural antagonisms in WilhelmineGermany’s social fabric by promoting the relativity of political opinions andthe transparency of social boundaries. The Metropol revue did not, however,legitimate difference or embrace a plurality of ethnic groups. Social conflictswere not meant to be negotiated on stage, but merely temporarily laughedaway.

The rise in nationalistic rhetoric in theaters shortly before the outbreakof the war led to ever-cruder portrayal of Berlin’s Jews on various stages.Both the Metropol Theater and the Metropol Cabaret, two independententerprises targeting similar audiences, presented an increasingly negativeimage of the city’s Jews. Hence the strategy of using the Herrnfelds as stagecharacters became transparent. Whereas in 1907 Rosalie Herrnfeld was anamicable figure, by 1911 the brothers Herrnfeld had become the incarnationof new money paired with bad taste. In the same year that Die Nacht vonBerlin was staged at the Metropol Theater, the Metropol Cabaret presented asketch that, according to police reports, imitated a number of Berlin’s “mostwell-known performers.”32 The Herrnfelds were among those caricatured.They were introduced with the following line: “Anton and Donat Herrnfeld,of course Brillianten on all ten fingers, diamonds on the collar, brilliantinein the hair, diamonds all over the place.”33 Spoken by Martin Kettner, acomedian who also worked at the Metropol, these lines had been writtenin collaboration with Rudolf Nelson, the director of the Metropol Cabaret.The brothers Herrnfeld felt insulted by this depiction and complained tothe police. They were obviously sensitive to the implications of these linesand felt confident enough to press for charges against a competitor. Berlin’spolice, however, could see nothing insulting in the script, and did not censorKettner’s performance in any way.34

Jewish librettists such as Julius Freund, Fritz Grunbaum, and RudolfNelson were instrumental in the citation of Jewish characters on Berlin’s

32 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 718, Akt. 15, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.33 “Anton und Donat Herrnfeld, Naturlich an allen zwolf Fingern Brillianten, im Kragen Bril-

lianten, im Haar Brilliantine, uberall Brillianten.” Ibid.34 Ibid.



revue stages. Jewish writers wrote the verses that Jewish comedians deliv-ered and composed the music that Jewish musicians played. Although someof these depictions were crude and unflattering, they did not cause a negativeresponse from Jewish spectators in the first decade of the twentieth century.There is also no indication that Jewish artists at the time resented these jokesand verses. During the war, however, German Jews began to fear identifica-tion with such “Cohn-characters.” Members of Berlin’s middle-class Jewishcommunity criticized Rudolf Nelson for delivering indecent and denigratingJewish jokes on stage. In an anonymous letter to Berlin’s police authorities,dated 1915, a Jewish woman asked whether it was appropriate, that “ata time when hundreds of Jewish soldiers are earning the Iron Cross, is itfitting that filthy Jewish tales [Judische Unflatigkeiten] are told – unfortu-nately by a person who himself is Jewish? Words like tineff, chuzpe, ponim,as well as repulsive Jewish jokes may well please the well-dressed JewishKurfurstendamm plebeians, but are severe insults for decent Jewish womenwho have husbands on the field of battle.”35 As the complaint reveals, bythis time Yiddish carried a stigma in German society, and it was offensive tothe sensitized ears of Berlin’s Jewish burghers. At a time when Jargon the-aters struggled to survive, even such relatively high-class entertainment asthe Metropol Theater and Metropol Cabaret experienced a setback in pub-lic approval. The tolerance for “Jewish humor” fell off precipitously amongthe Jewish audience during the war and in its immediate aftermath. Jewishartists reacted slowly to this change in climate. A key reason – although notthe only one – was that anti-Semitism did not play anywhere near as large arole in their sheltered lives as members of Berlin’s entertainment scene as itdid in the lives of most other Jews in Germany.

35 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 1514, Akt. 1–3, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam.The anonymous letter is dated January 15, 1915; quoted in Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret, 123–24.


Conclusion to Part III

The Metropol Theater was instrumental in the formation of a new elite inImperial Berlin. By the turn of the last century, that elite included the upperechelons of Berlin’s Jewish community. Revue theater proved itself to be aperfect stage for rejuvenation. The celebration of the big city and modernurban life at the Metropol Theater allowed affluent Berliners to inscribethemselves in a rapidly changing environment. By stylizing the experienceof living in the capital, Richard Schultz helped to create a dynamic imageof Wilhelmine society. The Metropol and its revues were instrumental fornew and old elites seeking to redefine their boundaries. It was an exclusiveestablishment to be sure, but by marrying merit and birth it was far more het-erogeneous than other leading circles in Imperial Germany. To integrate itsrelatively wider spectrum of spectators, the Metropol revue did not provokeor polarize its audiences. More typically, it played upon common denomi-nators such as wealth, class, and style. By idealizing the capital’s traditionaland newly emerging leadership, the Metropol Theater glossed over exist-ing political, social, and ethnic gulfs among its spectators. The Metropolcould not, however, bridge those gulfs. Religious and political antagonismswere rarely formulated or explored; to call them irreconcilable, however,was considered ungentlemanly.

By focusing on Berlin as a metaphor for modern times, the Metropolrevue also reflected on Gentile–Jewish relations in the German city withthe largest Jewish population. Jewish characters were commonplace in theprewar Metropol Jahresrevue. Depending on Germany’s social and politicalclimate, its highly stylized Jewish characters were often depicted as endearingand always as ridiculous, mischievous, and street smart, utterly unsuccess-ful but still optimistic. Jews rarely were represented as figures of authorityor charisma. To be depicted as Jewish on the stage of the Metropol almostinevitably meant to be shown as having Eastern European origins. The estab-lished Jewish community of Berlin did not appear on the Metropol stage. Itneeded the provincial figure, epitomized by “little Mister Cohn,” to provide

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the final proof for Berliners that the province was elsewhere, that their cityhad finally become a cosmopolitan metropolis not unlike Paris or London.Although the Metropol did not lack self-irony, it still solidified the dominanceof the up and coming through ridicule of the less privledged.

Even though Jewish artists did not develop a visible collective identityat the Metropol Theater, many of them were involved in the creation ofJewish stage characters. Jewish librettists, including Freund, Grunbaum, andNelson, invented the numerous Jewish characters found on Berlin’s stages.Jewish writers scripted the verses that were accompanied by Jewish musi-cians. Although these depictions were not always flattering, they did not seemto have caused discomfort among Jews in the Metropol audiences before theFirst World War. The Witzkultur of upper-class Berlin accommodated suchcaricatures on stage, and there are few indications in the prewar periodthat these jokes and verses were resented. Facing a sharp rise in anti-Semiticpolemics after 1916, however, Jewish middle-class audiences found its tol-erance for “Jewish humor” fading markedly. But because of their generallysheltered lives in the entertainment scene, Jewish entertainers reacted slowlyto this change in the political and social climate. Although they were notcompletely oblivious to social tensions, they hoped to deflect them by stress-ing the distinction between the assimilated Jewish community in Germanyand the Jews from Eastern Europe. Berlin’s established Jewish community, inturn, felt increasingly uneasy about the grotesque depictions of Jewish char-acters on stage, fearing the negative consequences of their being publiclyassociated with the Ostjuden, a population that had experienced particu-larly hard times and persecution in the course of the war.

With the decline of the Jahresrevue, Jewish characters ceased to be acommonplace of revue entertainment. In the postwar years the Metropolfocused on operettas instead, offering its audiences escape into a dream worldof the past.1 The earlier fascination with a stylized urban life, accompanied byan equally stylized discussion of class, birth, and ethnicity, gave way to flightsinto a fantasy world. Any such differences had no significance in predictabledramas about love and dreams. Jewish identity and relations between Jewsand Gentiles did not figure prominently in the postwar revues and operettas,not the least because Berlin as a site of experience and imagination no longerpublicly inspired local pride and nightly excitement. The past was not acountry to which German Jews held a key.

The questions of Jewish integration and the rise of anti-Semitism playedvital roles in the perception of the Metropol as a cultural institution. Theconcentration of some of Germany’s most important stages, including theMetropol, in the hands of Alfred and Fritz Rotter, turned out to be as fatefulfor the brothers as it was for Jewish entrepreneurs in general. The financial

1 Franz-Peter Kothes, Die theatralische Revue in Berlin und Wien, 1900–1938 (Wilhelmshaven,1977), 29.


Conclusion to Part III 279

scandals around the Rotter brothers and their alleged lack of aesthetic ambi-tions shifted the Metropol into the center of a vicious debate about alleged“Jewish dominance” in, and the ensuing commercialization of, German liveentertainment. The Metropol Theater became one of the most visible exam-ples of the dangers of intertwining class and ethnic prejudices in a timeof heightened material and cultural anxiety. Popular entertainment, often aplayground for progressive thought experiments – occasionally even at theupper-class Metropol Theater – now offered an immense screen on whichto project radicalized right-wing propaganda. Anticapitalism, a general mis-trust of everything “foreign,” and a hysterical notion of a cultural emer-gency (kultureller Notstand) all fed into a widespread and deep-seated Angstamong the German middle classes that sealed the end of an era of exception-ally active and creative work by Jewish entertainers. By the late 1920s theircreative autonomy was severely compromised. Many paid dearly for theirpast public exposure and successes, as they become easy targets for Nazimobs.


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Conclusion

Exploring circuses, Jargon theaters, and revue theaters has led us to appre-ciate the variety of Jewish identities in German public spheres. The mer-itocratic nature of popular entertainment and the relative absence of ethnicdiscrimination before the First World War attracted formerly marginalizedgroups such as German Jews to all forms of show business. Here they hopedto find an opening into a German society that had remained more thanreserved toward these new German citizens even after legal emancipationhad stipulated their civic rights in the course of national unification in 1871.Jewish men and women worked as actors, directors, sponsors, managers,and agents. Many Jewish entrepreneurs could also be found in the support-ing industries, such as garment-making and publishing. In addition, GermanJews not only were involved on the production side but also were avid con-sumers of popular live entertainment. As popular entertainment developedinto a booming industry, distinct genres began to satisfy the specific needs ofa range of spectators. Within these genres, Jewish artists sought to take con-trol of their own voices, claiming an agency they were denied in other arenas.In front of and behind the curtain, popular entertainment offered a spacefor relatively unrestricted interactions among an unprecedented diversity ofsocial groups. In this arena, as in few others, Jewish actors and acrobats hadthe opportunity to display and affirm their ethnic identities in the presence ofGentiles and other Jews. The stage in all its variations held a utopian qualityin the prewar era. Although suffocating boundaries were not broken downcompletely, they were temporarily suspended, leaving ample opportunity tosatisfy curiosity, longing, and pride among performers and spectators alike.

Such acceptance and affirmation of Jewish artists in prewar popularentertainment does not necessarily reflect a seamless integration of GermanJews into Imperial society. As recent studies of Gentile–Jewish relationshave demonstrated, one has to pay scrupulous attention to the context ofinteraction when examining the question of Jewish integration and identi-ties in modern German society. German Jews were known to invoke their

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Jewishness in different ways depending on their social environment.1 Sim-ilarly, Gentile neighbors, colleagues, superiors, or employees were more orless welcoming to Jews depending on the place, time, and setting. Althoughtheir ethnic background may not always have disadvantaged German Jews inprofessional situations, they were often not invited to private clubs or associ-ations. The lack of evidence of systemic discrimination within the entertain-ment industry does not permit us to conclude that Jewish entertainers enjoyedunquestioned acceptance and integration into German society at large. Inturn, the difficulties they did encounter were not necessarily the result of theirethnic background alone. Especially in the prewar period, it is difficult to dis-tinguish whether Jewish performers in popular entertainment encountereddiscrimination outside the realm of popular entertainment because they wereJewish artists or because they were popular artists. Although Jewish artistsprofited from the opportunities that popular entertainment offered, theysimultaneously suffered from the limitations they faced as artists active out-side of the realm of legitimate culture in a country and during a period whenthe notion of (high) Kultur was emphasized.

Depending on a number of factors, ethnic identities in circuses, Jargon the-aters, and revue theaters manifested themselves in distinctive ways and theartists’ degree of assimilation into society was certainly the most importantfactor in their engagement with society at large. The social profile of theseartists – their language and family ethos – influenced the way they perceivedthemselves and how they were perceived by others. For example, whereasJewish circus families conversed in a dialect that defined them as a group,Jewish revue artists spoke High German, which was generally not consideredto carry a specific ethnic marker. In addition, Jewish entertainers enjoyed dif-ferent degrees of artistic freedom depending on whether they owned theirentertainment enterprises or whether they were simply employed in a pre-dominantly Gentile business. Circuses and Jargon theaters run by Jewishfamilies could choose independently what they wanted to communicate totheir audiences. Jewish artists in revue theaters, by contrast, were part of ateam; hence they had to harmonize their individual agendas with the man-agement and other staff members. Lastly, the social composition of eachgenre’s audience was crucial in shaping the dialogue between Jewish per-formers and spectators. Mass audiences that included all segments of societyhad different expectations than elite audiences; and their reactions to popularperformances were equally distinct.

How Jewish entertainers imagined their own belonging was informed byhow they imagined the nation, their artistic milieu, and the family. Jewishcircus families, for example, tried to create a world that responded to theirparticular vision, in which they could transcend former discrimination to

1 Marion Kaplan, The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family, and Identity inImperial Germany (New York, 1991).


Conclusion 283

move freely and unrestrictedly. In the prewar period, the circus provideda realm for equestrian dreams that seemed to facilitate this transcendence.Jewish circus families embraced the social order and the moral ethos ofImperial society, and their conservatism was not the least reflected in theirtraditional aesthetics. However, Jewish circus acrobats quite literally defiedthe laws of probability by challenging not only gravity but also history.They did not accept the shortcomings of Jewish emancipation in Germanyand the continuing discrimination against Jews in public life. Within theirown “circus empire” they staged what they thought was an ideal world ofhumanity, governed by dignity, honor, and chivalry. It was impossible topreserve that ideal world once it ceased to correspond to the imagination ofthe surrounding population. By 1916 it had become abundantly clear thatthe community of images had not translated into a community of lives.

Whereas circuses chose to present an idealized version of the Germanempire without offering Jewish entertainment per se, Jargon theaters, bycomparison, directly addressed pressing issues of Jewish assimilation andintegration on stage. Both, circuses and Jargon theaters, focused on core val-ues of Imperial society to establish intimacy with their respective audiences.Yet whereas circuses alluded to heroism, authority, and beauty – overarchingvalues that appealed to all segments of society – Jargon theaters identifieda middle-class family ethos as the common bond with their audiences. Onstage, performers reaffirmed their Jewishness within the “private” setting ofmiddle-class family life. The plays of Jargon theaters revolved around vari-ations of daily quarrels in Jewish families, and their universal quality madethem attractive for an audience of Gentiles and Jews alike. The family hadbecome a metaphor, a signifier for national, regional, and ethnic commu-nity in diversity. In this most intimate setting, Jargon theaters addressed thedifficulties of Jewish emancipation in Imperial Germany. Mixed marriages,Jewish religious customs, Jewish self-hate, and anti-Semitism were themesJargon theaters raised consistently. While amusing their Gentile audienceswith family farces, Jargon theaters tried to assure their Jewish audiences thatthey were not alone in dealing with such difficulties. Jargon theater humorinvested the mundane with an emphatic truth. It provided comic relief toethnically diverse audiences by allowing them to address issues they did notcommonly address in public.

Lastly, prewar revue theater operated differently from both circuses andJargon theaters. Revue theater was directed at the most affluent segments ofsociety. To appeal to its elite audience, it projected exclusivity, elegance, andmodernity framed by the spectacular setting of the city of Berlin. AlthoughJewish artists were involved in the production of revues, they were employ-ees, not managers or directors, in the enterprise. The portrayal of Jewishcharacters – a commonplace in prewar revues – was as much the productof the Jewish librettist’s imagination as it was an effort to cater to a specifictarget audience. Because revue theater helped to determine who was part of


284 Conclusion

the in-crowd and who was not, Jewish characters on stage often functionedas the outsider, whose physical presence established the limitations of inclu-sion. Berlin’s elites tended to defined themselves vis-a-vis the metropolis. Toavoid alienating upper-class Jews among the audience who were increasinglypart of Berlin’s new elite, Jewish characters were often portrayed as recentimmigrants who still lacked the refinement and composure of the establishedJewish middle class. Unlike circuses and Jargon theater, which did not seek toreplicate the insider–outsider dichotomy on stage, revue theater complicatedits performances by intertwining contemporary ethnic and class stereotypes.

For all three genres, the First World War constituted a great watershedin their aesthetics. The collective trauma of total war not only affected theeconomic and social well-being of all segments of the German population,but it fundamentally changed the tastes and sensibilities of the spectatorship.Violent death became a haunting reality: it was present in everyday life, andit irreversibly transformed the inner lives of the audiences. In circus perfor-mances, death became the leitmotif of the increasingly popular Todesartistik,displacing earlier themes such as romance, chivalry, beauty, and eroticism.Traditional horse shows, a staple of the shows of Jewish circus families, founddiminishing resonance. Formally, these acts had endorsed a pseudomilitaryhonor code and re-created memories of noble composure and grace. After theadvent of total war, they suddenly appeared anachronistic and inadequate.In the aftermath of the war, very few Jewish enterprises were in a positionto react to these changing expectations. But even those who did so initiallycollapsed once they were confronted with violent anti-Semitic propagandain the late 1920s.

Jargon theaters experienced the steepest decline in popularity. As anexplicitly Jewish genre of entertainment, they were hit hardest by the changein the political climate during and after the First World War. Their agenda,presenting a world in which a diversity of social groups could live in har-mony, did not appeal to an audience that had become all too aware of thedivisions of worldviews, milieus, and classes in a war-shattered Germany.Jewish audiences in particular had become disillusioned with the courseof Jewish emancipation and assimilation in Central Europe. Jewish jokesbecame intolerable for a community that increasingly felt under siege. In aneffort to survive, Jargon theaters were required to change the style, content,and humor of their performances. In the process they ceased to be popularJewish theaters altogether. Sex and death became the common denomina-tors in the early years of Weimar Germany’s entertainment. A division oflabor became apparent as circuses began to specialize in death, and varietytheaters, including the former Jargon theaters, focused on sex.

Whereas circuses and variety shows addressed the nightmares of totalwar, revue theaters helped to suppress them. Although in the prewar erarevues had focused on what Berlin’s imagined future would bring to therich and famous, saccharine operetta entertainment in the postwar period


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reflected on the longing for the lost glory of an (equally imagined) past.Jewish characters did not figure prominently in the latter, because the presentlife in Berlin was no longer the muse for local pride and optimism. Jewishcharacters who fit comfortably within the metropolitan mosaic of the prewarrevue had no place in the realm of mythical, allegorical formulas preferred byscriptwriters, directors, and audiences after 1918. Instead, the managementof the Metropol Theater, that is, the Rotter brothers, became the focus ofanti-Semitic propaganda in the late 1920s. The Metropol’s Jewish ownerswere the targets of vicious polemics against a “Jewish brand of capitalism”that was conveniently blamed for the larger crisis in Berlin’s theater scene inthe late 1920s. This defamatory campaign against the Rotters demonstratedjust how much Germans searched for scapegoats for the general malaise inGerman society; the price for prominence was often fatal for German-Jewishentrepreneurs in the late republic.

The First World War triggered a paradigmatic shift in Gentile–Jewish rela-tions in Germany. The war proved convulsive in the social, economic, andpolitical realms and also led to an equally fundamental shift of norms andvalues in the cultural sphere. Total war collapsed formerly upheld boundariesbetween politics and culture. Unprecedented artistic license along with a cer-tain marginalization had sheltered popular culture from the most reactionarypolitical trends. Before 1914, Jewish performers, librettists, and acrobatshad established a realm in which they could suspend or overcome discrimi-nation based exclusively on ethnic difference. The war meshed politics andculture in ways that fundamentally threatened this suspension. When eco-nomic hardship and the humiliation of defeat brought social tensions andantagonisms to the fore, the brutalization qua politicization of popular enter-tainment irreversibly disrupted the dialogue between Jewish performers andtheir audiences. In the end, Jewish entertainers stood no chance to adjust tosuch a challenge, as it was a reflection of a much larger transformation atwork in German society that closed most spaces of ambiguity, transgression,and empowerment for the potentially marginalized.

The importance of the First World War has shown that the rise and declineof Jewish involvement in popular entertainment must be placed squarelywithin the context of larger cultural change within German society. To fullyunderstand the decline of Jewish agency in popular entertainment and theincreasingly limited engagement of their largely Gentile audiences, one hasalso to trace the decline of the culture that had created opportunities forthem in the first place. Even before the open hostility rendered all theirefforts futile in the late 1920s, Jewish performers could not be assured of thesurvival of the prewar theatric forms and all that they represented, becauseprewar popular entertainment did not correspond with the worldviews ofpostwar audiences. Although the changed sensibilities of the audiences werecertainly shaped by the rise of anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism was part ofa whole set of challenges brought forth by the war. Romance, pluralism,


286 Conclusion

regionalism, compromise, and patriarchy were all concepts challenged asmuch in the realm of entertainment as in the rest of German society. Theirdecline proved as detrimental to Jewish enterprises as did the radicalizedanti-Semitism in the postwar period. While German Jews in many respectsremained the “motor” of popular performances, they now had a distinctlymore limited repertoire at their disposal. A diversity of ethnic references onstage was neither tolerated nor encouraged, and Jewish performers ceased tocontrol every aspect of their performance. It is no accident that this periodof increasing exclusion coincided with the birth of the Jewish renaissance, acultural movement of formerly assimilated German-Jewish artists striving tofind a distinctive Jewish voice in Western culture. By the second half of theWeimar Republic, there was very little creative agency left for Jewish per-formers and entrepreneurs outside of a circumscribed German-Jewish sub-culture. For many, the republic had lost its promise years before it officiallyended in 1933.

There is no doubt that anti-Semitism was alive and well in Imperial, aswell as in Weimar Germany. We have to ask, however, whether the senti-ment and social practices associated with it were equally pervasive in allspheres of German society at all times. This study argues that for as long asGermany remained a rather static society, popular entertainment was ableto establish itself as a separate social space that did not necessarily followthe rules and limitations of the political or economic spheres. Assuming oth-erwise, we would be hard-pressed to explain the overwhelming and at timepathbreaking engagement of German Jews in the entertainment industry, aswell as the diversity of Jewish identities on and off the stage. Before the warthe cultural realm did not function according to the same set of rules andconventions as the political sphere, whose rules and customs were reflected,transgressed, or appropriated within the realm of popular culture. It is oneof the great ironies of German history that it was not necessarily the morepolitically democratic Weimar regime that offered the greatest opportunitiesto German-Jewish entertainers for self-expression, but the politically muchmore stagnant Imperial period. A clear segregation of public spheres did defacto allow for greater opportunities for Jewish performers to publicly engagea diversity of Jewish identities within the realm of popular entertainment.At a certain moment in time popular entertainment provided ample oppor-tunities for a unique engagement of Gentile and Jewish voices in Germanhistory, a story that, in the light of Germany’s recent past, remains largelyuntold.

Reading the history of Jewish engagement in German popular enter-tainment in retrospect, one must be overcome with disillusionment andgrief. Circuses were bullied into bankruptcies; Jargon theaters dissolved intogrotesque shadows of their former selves; revue theaters traded cosmopoli-tanism for provincialism and prejudice. Even worse, in the 1930s and 1940sthe history of popular entertainment also became the history of relentless


Conclusion 287

persecution, callous greed, and mass murder. Few survived to remind con-temporaries of those who had once been celebrated by thousands of specta-tors. Too many German-Jewish popular performers have faded from publicmemory, even as Holocaust remembrance has become a priority in the newGermany. It appears as if remembering their deaths without their lives hasbecome the first step toward forgetting. This book is thus dedicated to thestruggles and disappointments, but also the achievements and dreams ofGerman-Jewish popular entertainers; it is about the experiences and deci-sions popular performers made in the late nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies. After all, they were entrepreneurs, actors, acrobats, songwriters,and composers before they became victims of a murderous German govern-ment and its willing collaborators within and outside of Germany. Their lifestories reveal that the history of Germany’s Jewish community is inseparablyintertwined with the history of German popular entertainment. One cannotbe told without the other.


288

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Appendix

appendix 1

Das Herrnfeld Theater

Ihnen gesagt, auch e’ Theater;’ne Schmiere mitten in Berlin!Zwei judisch-daitsche Klassiker,Die importiert sind uber Wien,Sind Pachter dort und Direktoren,Sie spielen taglich selber sich,Zwei Juden sind’s vom reinsten WasserUnd leider keine Juden nich.Sie schreiben sich die Stucke selber,Zwar sagt man, Schammes hilft dabei,Na, wo drei solche Koche kochen,Wird ungenießbar jeder Brei.Man kann die besten Stoffe stehlen,Hat man zum Schreiben kein Geschick,Und dreie fangen an zu flicken,Verhunzen sie ein jedes Stuck.

Und finden sich genugend dumme,Den Judenschmarrn sich anzuseh’n,Und edle deutsche Preßorgane,Die um Annoncen betteln geh’nUnd diese Schweinchen = Direktoren,Fur ihre Inserate loben;“Nu, Kunstuck, Herrnfelds zahlen bar!”

Das Publikum, so blod’ wie immer,Fallt auf den faulen Zauber ‘reinUnd freut sich diebisch, wenn auf JudenDie Juden schimpfen hundsgemein;Wenn man den Juden macht zum Schurken,

289


290 Appendix

Der sich vom falschen Eide nahrt,Und jeder Christ sich sagt behaglich:“Ihr Juden seid einander wert!”Doch ist solch’ Herrnfeld gar kein Jude,Jud ist er, wie er leibt und spielt,

Der Jud, der großten Feind des Juden,Der dessen Ehre unterwuhlt.Und dennoch geh’n selbst IsraelitenIn diesen Tempel daitscher Kunst,Um dort zu sehen, wie die JudenDies Dichterfursten-Paar verhunzt.

Wenn diese Inserat-ArtistenIn Wichse machten, in Opal,In alten Hosen oder Mobeln,So ware dieses hochst egal,Doch an der eig’nen Rasse treibenProstitution fur schnodes GeldMit Hilfe feiler Preßorgane,Was nied’ren Kreisen zwar gefallt,Das mußte doch die meisten ekeln,Sei man nun Jude oder Christ; –– Doch jeder geht in das Theater,Das seines Geistes wurdig ist!”1

appendix 2

rudersberg:[ . . . ] . . . weißt du denn, welche Motive sie dazu verleitet haben?knolle:Ich hab se nicht dazu veranlaßt!rudersberg:Das glaube ich, aber sieh mal [sich drehend] das glanzende Elend hier im Hause –junges Blut, – Genußsucht, Umgang mit Anderen, die vielleicht ein bisschen mehrhaben – gute Freundinnen – hier ein Volant am Rock, seidene Unterrocke, dortein Spitzenchen mehr – tambourierte Strumpfchen, ja wir konnen uns da garnicht reindenken, das ist eben unsere sociale Frage – der Reiz des Lebens, jedesFabrikmadchen – hat den Wunsch einmal sich zu fuhlen . . .

knolle:Aber det Madchen hat doch nischt, se hat doch nischt!rudersberg:Weisst du Gottlieb, du hattest sie doch wenigsten fragen sollen, warum sie esgetan. . . .”2

1 A. Weber, Berlin und die Berliner (Berlin, n.d.), 44–46.2 Nachtdienst, Schauspiel aus dem Berliner Leben, Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater, Rep. 30c/a,

Theater Z, Neuer Teil 2320, Landesarchiv, Berlin.


Appendix 291

appendix 3

knolle:Willst du mir nu sagen, wat dir bewogen hat /da steht se nun – de Olle mit det ver-stockte Gesicht! Ich hatte fur dein Mutter allens gethan – ich ware Stehlen gegangen –wenn ihr wat gefehlt hatte – ich hatte eingebrochen, ich ware zum Verbrechergeworden – um ihr zu helfen!else:Mehr hab ich ja auch nicht gethan! (Auf Max deutend) ihm zu helfen – dat Geld istvon mir!3

appendix 4

knolle:Ja – das ist wahr Sussel, dein Max ist een anstandiger Mensch!sussel:Wenn alle Menschen so waren, wie du, dem jeder Mensch gleich is ob er Jud oderChrist, – hatt ich nicht brauchen von Tuchel was aber so – e Gewalt! Mit e mal wirdTuchel verruckt – se woll’s ka Sussel Holzer mehr! Gesehn – ausgerechnet Tuchel! Nuhab ich jemand was gethan? Haben nicht genug Menschen von mir gelebt? Bin ichnicht mit dir gestanden vor Gravelotte? Hatt ich nicht mein Leben ebenso gern fursVaterland geopfert, – hab ich nicht ebenso gut wie du Eltern zu Hause gehabt, O diegeweint haben um ihr Kind? Mit e mal kriegen se e Strohmung – Tuchel wird verruckt!knolle:Ja ja det, Mensch, wirst du nicht andern, det is allens Ansichtssache, da muss maneben daruber erhaben sein! Sieh mal, bringt zum Beispiel heut de Staatsburger eenenArtikel, so’ne grosse Sache, lieber Jott, denn habe ich nen guten Tag und das Blatt wirdgekooft, morgen bringt de Freisinnige eene neue Sensation denn mach ick detselbeBombengeschaft, es hat alles ein Publikum, und das Schonste, die die de StaatsburgerZeitung koofen – koofen auch de Freisinnige, dat is nu mal so’n Theater! Des sindEinbildungen, aber deswegen oller Junge, die Welt steht und wir beede werden senicht andern!4

appendix 5

brunhilde:Sie mussen doch meine Einladung bekommen haben?cohn:Warum muss ich? Ich weiss von nichts!brunhilde:Das sagen Sie blos, um ja nicht im Hause ihres Sohnes etwas essen zu mussen!cohn:Schon wieder die alte Leier! Ich ess doch kein Treifes!

3 Ibid.4 Ibid.


292 Appendix

brunhilde:Wie kann man nur solch veraltete Ansicht haben?cohn:E klugerer Mann wie ich – der grosse Konig Friedrich – hat mal ganz treffend bemerkt:“Lass Jeden selig werden nach seiner Facon.”brunhilde:Bleibt sich das jetzt nicht gleich, ob das Fleisch von Hefter oder von Rosenthal gekauftwird?cohn:Gewiss bleibt es sich gleich – warum kauft man da nicht von Rosenthal!brunhilde:Komischer Mensch.5

appendix 6

cohn:Das Ende hab ich vorausgesehen, – die Tausender sind nur so rumgeflogen! Zu washat er notig gehabt, sich e anderen Namen beizulegen?abarbanell:Das verstehn Sie nicht!cohn:Ja das e Streich von e gesunden Menschen, wo der Vater noch bis hundert Jahr lebt –sich von e Baron als Sohn adoptieren zu lassen! – diese Adoption hat doch e Vermogengekostet!abarbanell:Das war nicht so schlimm!cohn:Er muss von Klamm-Cohn heissen! Cohn allein war euch nicht gut genug!abarbanell:Cuhn allen ist heut kein Name mehr!cohn (wutend):Millionen Cohns gibt’s!abarbanell:Das reicht nicht!cohn:Na also!abarbanell:Sie vergessen, dass Ihr Sohn in der G’sellschaft schon eine feste Position eingenommenhat!cohn:Die feste Postition hat’n es Genick gebrochen! Fife de Glockes hat er arrangierenmussen – Fife de Glockes! Nicht mal ausprechen kann ich’s!abarbanell: Na ja – Sie sind’s jetzt aufgeregt!

5 Salomonisches Urteil, Gebruder Herrnfeld Theater, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil 4030,Landesarchiv, Berlin.


Appendix 293

cohn:In de Luftbalons sind e hochgesteigen! auf de Leut Papierschnitzel runtergeschmissen!Uberall war die Schwiegermama dabei – die alte Metzgerin!6

appendix 7

moses:Joseph ich bitte Dich noch einmal, nicht fur mich, sondern fur meinen Sohn. – Sieh –mein einziger Sohn geht heute ins Feld – und und – mit ihm tausende unserer Sohnealler Confessionen, und sie ziehen Seite and Seite, Schulter an Schulter in den Kampf,ohne zu fragen wie ist Deine Religion? Sie ziehen gemeinschaftlich in den Krieg umihre Glaubensgenossen aus dem russischen Joch zu befreien, und der Jude wird nichtfragen, ist das nicht ein Katholik – den Du befreist? Der Katholik wird nicht fragenist das nicht ein Mohamedaner, den Du befreist. – Nein – alle sie kennen keinenUnterschied in der Religion, weil es heisst fur die Gerechtigkeit, fur die Menschlichkeiteinzutreten. Und Du der Du in der Stube hockst, Du willst anders denken? Das istgemein von Dir –grieshuber (aufbrausend):Du kannst mich nicht durch Deine schon gefarbten Reden ja doch nicht umstimmen.Hat meine Tochter gegen den Willen Ihres Vaters gehandelt, so mag sie ihren Wegallein gehn –moses:Warum hat sie gegen den Willen des Vaters gehandelt? Weil sie den Krieger leichterenHerzens in den Kampf ziehen lassen will. Sie hat sich fur das Vaterland geopfert: Denndie heiligste Pflicht im Kriege gilt – zuerst Dein Vaterland, dann Deine Familie – undzuletzt erst Dein Glauben –7

appendix 8

wallowitzer:Weil wir grad’ so gemutlich beisammen sitzen, gestatten Sie, mein Name istWallowitzer.eichkutz:Na also! Isedor Eichkutz, meine Frau Sara.wallowitzer (macht ein Kompliment):Ah, Sara, die biblische Stammmutter.eichkutz:Na gar so alt ist meine Frau noch nicht.wallowitzer:Na wegen die paar Tage.sara (zu Eichkutz):Isedor, Du lasst mich hier so beleidigen.

6 Ibid.7 Er kommt wieder, Herrnfeld Theater, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil 6015a, Landesarchiv,

Berlin.


294 Appendix

eichkutz (fahrt drohend auf Wallowitzer los):Sie! (Plotzlich mit einem Blick auf Sara in einem ruhigen Ton.) Sie haben doch nebbichrecht.8

appendix 9

charle (emport):Was? Ich ein Vaterlandsverrater?hermann:Jawohl, das sind Sie, wenn Sie sich als Deutscher noch uber falsche Nachrichtenerfreuen. Glauben Sie denn, ich habe nicht gehort, wie Sie der alten Marianne fastgluckstrahlend zugeflustert haben, ja diesmal werden’s die Deutschen wohl ’n bis-chen schwerer haben wie 1870. Aber oft verrechnet man sich, vielleicht auch diegrosse Nation. Wir sind aber immerhin aufmerksam gegen die Herren Franzosen,und da wissen wir, dass sie auch gern Konfekt essen, haben wir ihnen ein paar 42cm-Pralines offeriert. Die Dinger sind schwer zu verdauen und da kann man sich denMagen ein wenig daran verderben. Die Herren Franzosen, die immer an der Spitze derZivilisation marschieren und glauben, alle Vorzuge nur in der Einbildung vergrossertund in der Wirklichkeit verringert. Ja, ja der alte Zeppelin mit seinen Luftequipagenist eine Erfindung, nicht? Und wir klatschen vergnugt in die Hande beim Anblickeiner so machtigen Leberwurst und rufen: Aller Segen kommt von oben. Und ob esuns diesmal schwerer fallen wird als wie 1870, daruber werde ich mit Ihnen, HerrCharle, nach dem grossen Krieg wohl nicht mehr sprechen konnen. Mir hat manein Doktor gesagt, wenn ich gesund bleiben will, dann muss ich alles unangenehmevergessen, und wissen sie, wo ich anfangen werde zu vergessen, bei Ihnen, HerrCharle.9

appendix 10

Die Leute vom Kurfurstendamm’S gibt in Berlin nen kleinen Kreis,Der “Tout Berlin” sich nennt,Wo jeder was vom anderen weiss,Wo sich ein jeder kennt;Wer was hat, wer was kann,Wer sich nennt comme il faut,Aus dem TiergartenviertelAus der Gegend vom Zoo,Und die Leute vom Kurfurstendamm –Alle zusamm’, alle zusamm’!

Wer ist bei den Diners, Soupers,Man immer wieder trifft?Wer glanzt bei allen Comitees

8 III. Klasse, Folies Caprice, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil 5049, Landesarchiv, Berlin.9 Fest steht und treu . . . oder sein froh daß du ein Deutscher bist, Folies Caprice, Rep. 30 c/a,

Theater Z, Neuer Teil 6043, Landesarchiv, Berlin.


Appendix 295

Durch Namensunterschrift?Wen findet man im TatternsaalUnd bei den five o clocks?Wen grußt man auf dem Presseball,Bei Nikisch, Siegfried Ochs?Und wer geht spazieren behaglich und frohIm Sommer des abends da draussen im “Zoo”In der Lasterallee bei Thinbumm und Trara?Ja alle alle alle alle alle sind sie da.10

appendix 11

junge: . . . Wer ist jenne?compere: Was heißt jenne?junge: Nu – dort – das Schickselchen, sie Gannew!compere: Das ist meine Frau du Bengel.junge: Oi! Oi! Oi! Was manche Menschen fur Gluck haben! Allen judischen Kindergesagt! Sie! Darauf mussen Sie gut gut aufpassen, auf sowas giebt’s Nascher.commere: Wir sind auf der Hochzeitsreise.junge: Ich weiss! Ich weiss Alles! Wir Kinder werden jetzt schon in der Vorschuleuber Alles aufgeklart! Das ist die moderne Richtung!compere: Mich interessierst Du hauptsachlich, weil Du ein ausgetauschtes Kind bist.junge: Stimmt, stimmt. Wie Sie mich zum Beispiel jetzt kennen gelernt haben, werdenSie ganz erstaunt sein, wenn Sie horen, wer ich bin.compere: Nun also mein Junge, wer bist du?junge: Ich bin der Sohn vom Grafen Puckler.11

appendix 12

der kleine puckler (komischer Junge in Matrosenanzug; leicht judischer Accent):Das ist mir großartig gelungen! Ich habe dem Mann an der Kasse gesagt, dass ich nochnicht zehn Jahre alt bin, da hat er mir ein Kinderbillet gegeben! Nu nein! Genierenwerd’ ich mich! Was braucht der Mann zu wissen, das ich schon Barmizwah gemachthabe?compere: Der Bursche interessiert mich. Guten Tag, Kleiner.puckler: Wieso Kleiner? Was heißt hier Kleiner? Was belieben Sie von mir zuwunschen?compere: Du interessierst mich, Junge, weil man mir gesagt hat, dass Du ein ausge-tauschtes Kind bist.puckler: Stimmt, stimmt. Ich bin ein ausgetauschtes Kind! Wir Kinder werden jetztimmer fur ein paar Monate in ganz neue, ganz von unseren Gewohnheiten ver-schiedene Umgebungen gebracht, damit sich unser Ponimkreis erweitert.compere: Was fur ein Kreis?puckler: Nu – Ponimkreis! Gesichtskreis, wenn Sie das besser versteh’n.

10 Das muß man sehn! Metropol Theater, 1907, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil,Landesarchiv, Berlin.

11 Ibid.


296 Appendix

compere: Darf man fragen wie alt Du bist?puckler (befuhlt seine Anzug): Grossartiger Stoff, was Sie da haben? Was haben Siebezahlt fur den Meter?compere: Ich wunsche zu wissen, wie alt du bist.puckler: Zehn Jahr – bis hundert!compere: Das ist eine etwas ungenaue Zeitangabe – ich bitte etwas praciser.puckler: Nu ich sag doch – zehn bis hundert.commere: Da mussen Sie anders fragen. Wie alt bis hundert Jahr bist Du?puckler: Zehn Jahr, Seh’n Sie so fragt man.compere: Und wohin geht die Reise?puckler: Wo werd’ ich hinreisen?compere: Merkwurdig, dass Ihr immer eine Frage mit einer Gegenfrage beantwortet!puckler: Wieso frag ich? Ubrigens, wenn es Sie gar zu sehr interessiert, ich fahr nachKlein-Tschirne!compere: Waas? Klein-Tschirne??puckler: Ja, aber ich bin unberufen zu gesund sechs Monate als ausgetauschtes Kindbei die Gebruder Herrnfeld in Pension gewesen.compere: Junge Junge, ich glaube, Dein Papa wird vor Wut platzen, wenn er dich sowiedersieht.puckler: Nu wenn schon! Platzt er – platzt er! An die antisemitischen Schmonzesglaub ich sowieso nicht mehr. Den roten Manasse habe ich sogar personlich kennengelernt und er ist ein sehr netter, gediegener Mensch kann ich Ihnen sagen. Ja! Und alleAbend bin ich bei meine Pflegeeltern im Theater gewesen! Da hab ich noch kennengelernt – was man so nennt – Heimatkunst!!compere: Und inzwischen – wenn ich recht verstehe – war die kleine Herrnfeld zuihrer Fortbildung auf Klein-Tschirne?puckler: Ein sehr bescheidenes Madel sogar! Ich bin sehr neugierig, wie die ihrenGesichtskreis erweitert hat.12

appendix 13

Die Vorigen, die kleine Herrnfeld:herrnfeld (sehr flott herein, mit Reitpeitsche etc., etc.):Donnerwetter noch mal, Gluck, dass endlich in Berlin angelangt bin! War wahrendganzer Fahrtdauer zusammengepfercht mit lauter Kommis und Handelsbeflissenen!Skandalos, wie diese Fremdlinge mit mir kokettiert haben.puckler: Das is se, das is se!compere: Wenn mich nicht Alles tauscht, hab ich das Vergnugen mit –herrnfeld: Fraulein Herrnfeld, Rosalie Herrnfeld, Tochter der Gebruder Herrnfeld,als ausgetauschtes Kind 6 Monate bei Puckler auf Klein-Tschirne (Auf den Buben zu)Tag Teut! Deutschen Handedruck!puckler: Gruss Gott, Salchen, Du siehst unberufen sehr gut aus.herrnfeld: Ist mir auch nichts abgegangen da draussen bei Deinem alten Herrn, inder frischen schonen Landluft. Ich beneide Dich formlich! Jetzt wirst Du bald wiederauf die Jagd gehen!

12 Ibid.


Appendix 297

puckler: Wieso ich? Hayfisch geht zur Jagd!herrnfeld: Wirst wieder flotte Attacken reiten!puckler: Nein! Nein! Ich bin sechs Monate bei den Herrnfelds gewesen – ich steigauf kein Pferd mehr!herrnfeld: Und ich werde all die netten, ulkigen Abende nicht mehr miterleben,wenn Dein Papa so vom Podium heruntergedonnert hat, bis der Blaue die Mutzeaufsetzte und uns aufloste.puckler: Es wird Dir nichts abgehen, Deine Leute reden auch von Podium herunter(und sind auch ganz gute Komiker). [von der Zensur gestrichen]compere: Ich sehe mit Vergnugen, dass das System vortrefflich ist, dass die jungenHerrschaften durch den Austausch die Lucken ihres Wesens in wahrhaft wunderbarerWeise ausgefullt haben.13

appendix 14

der herr:Der verdammte Esel von Lohndiener goss meiner Tischdame die ganze Mousselin-sauce in den Ausschnitt und weil ich selbst keine Sauce mehr hatte, hab ich meinenStangenspargel da rein gestippt. Tata! Finden sie was dabei? Und den Unglucksabendbei Kohns neulich werde ich in meinem ganzen Leben nicht vergessen. Es war Polter-abend. Beim Eintreten sagte mir Frau Kohn, dass ich zum Courmachen engagiert bin,aber ausschliesslich fur die Missniks, damit die sich nicht mopsen. “Sehr wohl” sagich und steure sofort auf das grosste Menubbl im ganzen Sall los, da fallt Frau Kohnbeinahe in Ohnmacht – es war die Braut! Tata! Um meine Aufregung zu beschwichti-gen eilte ich zum Buffet und as sechs Portionen Eis. Da schreit Kohn: “Nehmen Sieetwas mehr Rucksicht und weniger Eis, ich habe Sie als Tanzbar engagiert und nichtals Eisbar!” Diese Roheit schlug mir auf den Magen, daß Eis rebellierte in mir, ichwurde schwach und setzte mich unvorsichtiger Weise vor der ganzen Gesellschaft aufden Topf –commere:Um Gotteswillen!compere:Worauf haben Sie sich gesetzt??der herr:Ausreden lassen. Ausreden lassen. Auf den Topfhut einer Dame, den ich in meinerDusseligkeit gar nicht bemerkt habe. Finden Sie was dabei? Tata!14

appendix 15

die direktrice (Aufgeregt, vom großen Publikum gefolgt):Elf Uhr – der grosse Moment ist gekommen! Ich fiebrige vor Aufregung – Treten Sieein, meine Damen – Bitte Platz zu nehmen, die Mitte muß frei bleiben.

13 Ibid.14 Hallo!! Die große Revue, Metropol Theater, 18.10.1909, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil

4559, Landesarchiv, Berlin.


298 Appendix

der chef:Elf Uhr! Er ist da! Er ist da! (zur Direktrice) Sie haben doch dafur gesorgt, dass alleEingange gesperrt und nur die Intimsten des Hauses mit Einlasskarten zugelassenwerden.direktrice:Selbstverstandlich!herr cohn (zu seiner frau):Rosalie – Beruhige Dich! Sei nicht so aufgerogen! Er wird Dich ansehen, er wird Dirmassnehmen – aber schliesslich – Zauberer ist er auch nich!der chef:Ruhe, Ruhe, meine Herrschaften! Der historische Augenblick ist da! (einGongschlag). Schon tont der Gong!herr cohn:Heisst e Gegonkel wegen dem Onkel!(Probierdamen schlangeln sich bei leiser Musik uber die Treppen herunter durch dieVorhange und machen ihre Promenade von allen begafft und longnettiert.)der backfisch:Was fur entzuckende Madchen.herr cohn:Besicheinte Schickses! Seh’ Dir nur, wie se sich schlangeln.frau cohn:Seh’ weg, Isisdor!der chef:Das sind die Mannequins.herr lehmann:Wat heest Manekens? Ik hab det fur Weiberkens gehalten!(wieder zwei Gongschlage)der chef:Ruhe! Ruhe! Stimmung! Stimmung! Schnell, schnell die Weihrauchfasschen! DerVorhang geht auf! Jetzt! Jetzt!(Der Vorhang teilt sich unter feierlichen Gesang, wahrend die MannequinsWeihrauchfasschen schwingen. Auf einem Thron, von den knieenden Konfektionarenumgeben – sitzt Poiret, uber den mehrere Probierdamen einem goldenen Lor-beerkranz halten)15

appendix 16

poiret:Jetzt werden sie sehen, was das Genie von eine Poiret kann verwandeln en cinqminute la femme la plus laide – die hasslichste Frau – la femme la plus terrible – dieschauerlichste Frau – (Sucht im Kreise)herr cohn:Rosalie – Stell’ dich vor!poiret (Frau Cohn erfassend und mit einem Ruck zu sich ziehend): Madame!

15 Die Nacht von Berlin, Metropol Theater, Rep. 30 c/a, Theater Z, Neuer Teil 5140,Landesarchiv, Berlin.


Appendix 299

frau cohn:Quel bonheur!poiret:Ce costume! Quel blamage! Quel desastre! Desagreable! Weg damit! Weg! Weg!Weg!(Reisst ihr das aus Papier gefertigte Kleid in Fetzen herunter, so dass sie in drolligerUntertoilette dasteht)herr cohn:Poiret! Was machen Sie mein Ungluck so offentlich!poiret:Silence! Silence! Storen Sie nicht mein Inspiration!Ah! La portiere! (Sturzt auf die Portiere zu, reisst sie herunter und umwickelt damitFrau Cohn, deren Constum so eingerichtet ist, dass sie sich beim Umwickeln aus einerKorpulenten in eine magere Figur verwandelt.)Amandine – les Cheveux (ein Manequin reicht ihn die hohe Frisur, die er ihr aufstulpt)un chapeau! Un chapeau! Ah – Voila –(nimmt einen kleine Papierkorb)Superb, ravissement! Mais la corde, la corde! Wo sein einer Schnur, einer Schnur?[ . . . ]alle:Bravo!herr cohn:Rosalie – Du siehst aus, wie die Kronprinzessin von Posen!poiret:Und in einer Woche, wann werden sein voruber der Revue – kehr ich zuruck nachParis!16

appendix 17

En revenant de la revueKehr ick retour dann nach ParisVon meine grande gloire sein plein“Figaro,” “Temps,” “Journal,” “Matin”der Taschen voll mit deutsse Geld,zugleich ein Schneider und ein Held,erzahl ik auf die Boulevard –Wie fur revanche ik tatik war!Im Jahre Siebssig ein,Im Glanz des Glorienscheins,Da hat Allemagne gehabt la chance,Gekriegt Milliarden von la France,Dok wenn von fruh bis spat,Geschaft so weiter geht,Dann bring ik bald zuruck mit SchwungDer ganze Kriegsentschadigung!

16 Ibid.


300 Appendix

Kein BoulangerUnd auch kein DelcasseHat Deutschland so gefuhret en der NeeseNur Poiret leert ihm das porte-monnaie!C’est la revancheDe la nation francaise17

17 Ibid.

P1: KAE0521856302ref CUNY222B/Otte 0 521 85630 2 April 7, 2006 15:23

Bibliography

This study relies on three principal types of sources – private, press, and police. Thearchives of the former German Democratic Republic contain a surprisingly largeand rich array of materials, including newsletters, legal documents, photos, pro-grams, and directories of workers in the field of entertainment. Pertinent materialson performers’ personal lives were often dispersed in private hands. Decendants ofperformers supplied me with unpublished diaries and letters offering insights intothe family relations and traditions, friendships, humor, and political views of Jewishentertainers, both prominent and obscure.

These documents are supplemented by reports published in national daily newspa-pers such as the Vossische Zeitung, the Berliner Tageblatt, and the Berliner Borsen-Courier. Their treatment of the entertainment industry allowed me to explore whetherpopular culture is independent of society or its direct reflection. The many contem-porary artistic journals, such as Der Artist, Das Organ, and Das Programm, pro-vided information on the professional lives of German entertainers, including theirmembership in artists’ unions, working conditions, wages, travels, work ethic, andself-promotional activities. Finally, this study looks at police records from the period.These include the censored texts of plays, comments by police agents, and decisionsby the president of the police.

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Index

advertisement: circus, 61, 73–75Ahlwardt, Hermann, 142Allgemeiner Deutscher Sprachverein,

170, 171Alltagsgeschichte, 15Althoff, Adolf, 114, 115Althoff, Maria, 114, 115Americanization: circus, 61, 72–75, 87androgyny: circus, 64–66, 70anti-Semitism, 3–4, 14, 16, 20, 119,

121, 130, 132, 142, 160–65, 168,173, 174, 181, 204, 212, 213, 216,218, 243, 250, 253, 254, 255, 264,278, 286

Nazi propaganda, 26, 102–3, 116,254, 279

Jewish response to, 57, 74, 103, 142,191, 246, 255, 256, 276

audiences, 8circus audiences, 24, 25, 27, 34–36,

60, 61Jargon theater, 119, 156, 158, 159,

163, 178, 196Metropol Theater, 203, 205–13, 239,

254female spectators, 62–67, 211, 212,

240Astley, Philip, 33, 34Auschwitz, 104, 110, 114

Barnum & Bailey (circus), 74, 231Baruch, Hugo, 222, 274

Bassermann, Albert, 151, 153Bendix, Martin, 151Benjamin, Walter, 24Bento, Peter, 114Bergner, Elisabeth (Ella), 146Berlin, Irving, 231Berliner Antisemitismusstreit, 164Berlin’s Central Theater, 224Berlin’s Verein zur Bekampfung der

offentlichen Unsittlichkeit E.V., 168Bismarck, Otto von, 217birthrate: circus families, 52Bleichroder, Gerson von, 2, 191, 213,

215, 216Bleichroder, James von, 213, 214, 216,

218, 250Bloch, Ernst, 71Blumenfeld, Aaron, 262Blumenfeld, Adolf, 55Blumenfeld, Alex, 89, 93, 97, 100Blumenfeld, Alice, 104Blumenfeld, Alfons, 81, 89, 90, 97Blumenfeld, Alfred, 71, 97, 100, 103,

104, 110, 114Blumenfeld, Arthur, 93, 97, 100, 105,

107, 112, 113Blumenfeld, Emanuel, 48Blumenfeld, Eugen, 93Blumenfeld, Eva, 112Blumenfeld, Fritz, 104, 107, 110, 114Blumenfeld, Gerda, 71, 103, 104, 107,

114

313


314 Index

Blumenfeld, Hermann, 55, 56Blumenfeld, Moritz, 48Blumenfeld, Rita, 112Blumenfeld, Rosa, 104Blumenfeld, Ruth, 100Blumenfeld, Simon, 55, 95Blumenfeld, Vicki, 100,Blumenfeld, Victoria, 106, 107, 113Blumenfeld, Willi, 100, 114,Blumenfeldsprache 46, 47Blumenthal, Oscar, 236Bouissac, Paul, 36, 56, 117Brahm, Otto, 146, 157, 224Brecht, Bertholt, 248Brumbach circus, 113Buchenwald (concentration camp), 107,

111Budapester Possentheater, 147, 158Bulow, Hans von, 224Bulow, Bernhard von, 264, 265Burgfrieden, 92, 167, 185Busch, Constanze, 39Busch, Paul, 38, 75, 76, 119Busch, Paula, 39, 61, 63, 64, 70, 75,

76, 113

censorship, 155Jargon theater, 156, 171, 184, 188,

190Metropol Theater, 225–226, 249, 250

Cerf, Maurice Levi, 47Chagall, Marc, 62childhood, 52–53, 148–51circus: definition, 24, 28, 29Circus Blumenfeld E. Blumenfeld Wwe.,

54, 75, 76, 82, 86, 97circus pantomimes, 37, 39, 41commercialization, 9, 15, 72–75,

137–38, 140, 154

Dachau (concentration camp), 104Danner, Irene, 114, 115,Dasbach, Georg Friedrich, 141, 168Degas, Edgar, 62Deutsches Theater, 157Die freie Buhne, 157Dietrich, Marlene, 236

Doblin, Alfred, 130, 131, 139Doring, Karl, 100duels: Circus, 85, 86; Metropol Theater,

214Dybbuk, 133

education (Bildung), 6, 265–66circus 6, 52–53, 69, 100–01variety theater, 138–39, 148

Empress Auguste Victoria, 63Empress Maria Theresa, 63Ernst, Max, 190eroticism: circus, 19, 60, 61, 62, 67, 69,

85Jargon theater, 141–44, 168–69

fairground performers (Fahrende), 30,45, 46

family: Jargon Theater, 133–34, 150–54,283

fashion, 216, 217, 220, 222, 223, 245,258, 268–274

Folies Caprice, 18, 125, 126, 132, 143,158, 159, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171,189–95,

foreigners: discrimination, 170–75Forepaugh, Adam: circus, 73Franconi, Antoine, 34Frederick the Great, 181Friedmann-Friedrich, Fritz, 251Freud, Sigmund, 163Freund, Jacob, 230Freund, Julius, 226, 229, 230, 247, 259,

262, 263, 265, 266, 267, 268, 270,271, 272, 275, 278

Geller, Oskar, 222gender, 11

gender stereotypes, 33, 34, 117, 185,240

gender roles, 53, 61, 63–67, 97, 126,211, 228, 236, 239, 240

Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, 223Gerson, Hermann, 269Giampietro, Joseph, 234, 236, 241Gilbert, Jean, 229, 231Glasenapp, Curt von, 225, 226


Index 315

Goethe, Wolfgang, 16Goldkette (circus family), 49, 112golem, 133Gross-Rosen (concentration camp),

104, 107, 110, 111, 112Grunbaum, Fritz, 258, 275, 278

Hagenbeck, Carl, 38Hagenbeck circus, 231Hagenbeck, Wilhem, 38Hauptmann, Gerhard, 62Hebrew, 131Herrnfeld, Anton, 130, 146, 148, 150,

151, 160, 183, 187, 275Herrnfeld, Donat, 130, 140, 141, 146,

150, 151, 160, 166, 180, 183, 187,275

Herrnfeld, Ella, 149Herrnfeld, Kathe, 149Hirsch (circus family), 112Hollaender, Felix, 231Hollaender, Friedrich, 95, 232, 233Hollaender, Gustav, 231, 233,Hollaender, Victor, 229, 231, 232, 233,

247, 268honor, 70–71, 85–86, 87, 214–16

Ihering, Herbert, 201, 247, 248intermarriage, 19, 59, 116, 121, 176,

177, 178, 184, 185, 244, 283Internationale Artisten Loge (IAL), 42,

43, 171, 172Internationaler Variete-Theater-

Direktoren Verband, 72, 222

Jacobsohn, Siegfried, 139, 140,141

Jagow, Trautgott von, 225, 226Jameson, Egon, 151Jentz, Paul, 220, 222, 251Jewish emancipation, 23“Jewish census”, 95, 127, 167, 250,jokes, 246, 255–256, 276, 284

Herrnfeld Theater, 156, 163,187

Folies Caprice, 190, 191, 192Jolsen, Al, 231

Kainz, Josef, 153Kaufmanns Variete, 150Kettner, Martin, 275Kerr, Alfred, 139Kleines Schauspielhaus, 168Kleines Theater, 252Kloos, Erich, 69Konigliche Oper, 227Kortner, Fritz, 146, 239, 240Krone, Hans, 38, 119Kuzneszow, Jewgeni, 24

Lessing Theater, 252Lessing, Theodor, 16, 153Levin, Rachel, 2Lichtheim, Richard, 231Liebermann, Max, 231Linke, Paul, 151Lorch (circus family), 18, 43, 49, 81, 82,

103, 104, 112, 119Lorch, Alice, 114Lorch, Amalie, 89, 90Lorch, Arthur, 113Lorch, Gerda, 114Lorch, Jessy, 113Lorch, Julius, 113Lorch, Rudi, 113Lustbarkeitssteuer (sin tax), 29, 37, 77,

78

Mahler, Gustav, 224Mann, Thomas, 64, 70marriage, 133, 178

arranged, 48–50Massary, Fritzi, 234, 235, 236, 239,

240masculinity: 217, hypermasculinity, 33Meiningener Court Theater, 223, 224,

225, 227, 228, 229Mendelssohn, Moses, 2military, 5, 92–95, 232, 241

parades, 24cavalry, 32, 33, 34,

Milos, Josef, 83Morgan, Paul, 252, 253, 254Mosse family, 162Munk, Alois, 251


316 Index

Nathan the Wise, 133, 141naturalistic drama, 157, 188Napoleon Bonaparte, 34Nazi movement, 3, 5, 26, 27, 102–13,

115, 120, 121, 246, 254, 255, 279Nelson, Rudolf, 229, 233, 234, 275,

278nobility: relationship to the circus,

75–81, 92Nordau, Max, 117nudity: partial, 62, 66, 67

Ostjuden (Eastern European Jewishimmigrants), 4, 130, 141, 161, 163,172–73, 192, 243, 253, 256, 277,278

patriotism, 203, 275German-Jewish, 72, 76, 78, 93–95,

101, 133, 179, 183, 186–89,193–95, 232, 233, 249

Perl, Rosa, 231Phiadelphia (circus family), 112philantrophy: German-Jewish, 56–58,

75pogrom, anti-Jewish, 173, 197Poiret, Paul, 269, 270, 271, 272press, daily, 7, 62, 154, 156, 158,

206–207, 245, 246, 247, 248, 252,258

Primor, Avi, 115Prinz Egon zu Fuerstenberg in

Donaueschingen, 233Prinz Joachim Albrecht, 233prostitution, 211–12

Quargs Vaudeville, 150

Rathenau, Emil, 2Reinhardt, Max, 18, 146, 151, 231Reichshallen Theater, 150reproductive pattern: circus families,

19, 51–52respectability

circus, 23, 25, 61, 70, 117Jargon Theater, 137, 154

Roland von Berlin, 233

Rothschild, Baron James de, 191Rotter, Alfred, 246, 251, 252, 253, 255,

278, 285Rotter, Fritz, 246, 251, 252, 253, 255,

278, 285

Scala Theater, 158Schiller, Friedrich von, 16, 87, 153Schnitzler, Arthur, 168Schultz, Richard, 207, 219, 220, 222,

223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 230, 232,245, 247, 249, 251, 252, 265

Shakespeare, 153, 185Shylock, 133, 141Simmel, Georg, 138Simplicissimus, 205Stein (circus family), 112Stein, Jeanette, 48Stosch-Sarrasani, Hans, 38, 41, 42, 56,

119Strassburger (circus family), 18, 43, 49,

81, 82, 99, 104, 112, 119Straus, Oscar, 236Strauss, Richard, 224Sucher, Torenhajm, 104, 107, 108Sulzer, Maria, 233Szatmaris, Eugen, 236

Theresienstadt (concentration camp),104

Theater des Westens, 252,Theater unter den Linden, 219Thielscher, Guido, 234, 236, 240, 241,

243Thoma, Ludwig, 190Todesartistik (death artistry), 95–97,

169, 284Trianon Theater, 252Treitschke, Heinrich von, 164Tucholsky, Kurt, 174Turszinsky, Walter, 166

Ullstein family, 162

Variety Theater, 134–38, 148, 149, 150,153, 154, 156, 165, 174, 225, 229

Vilna Yiddish Theater, 131


Index 317

Volkerschauen, 41, 42, 102Volkskultur (folk culture), 126, 128,

131–33, 261Volkstheater, 146, 157, 158, 228

Wagner, Richard, 181Weber, A. O., 160–165Wedekind, Frank, 62Willhelm II., 75, 232, 233, 241, 267Wintergarten, 150World War I, 20, 24, 284, 285

consequences for circusentertainment, 26, 82–84, 87, 88,95–97

consequences for Jargon theater,165–67, 170–75, 183–89, 196, 197

Folies Caprice, 193–95Metropol Theater, 203, 248–51

Yiddish, 46, 47, 128, 131–32, 134, 158,161, 166, 180, 260–63, 268, 276

Yiddish film, 10

Zentral Theater, 252Zentralverein deutscher Staatsburger

judischen Glaubens, 246, 255Zionism, 197, 231,Zuckmeyer, Gerhard, 62

Documents

Jewish Identities in German Popular Entertainment, 1890-1933