Berlin

Like Berlin’s scientific establishment, the capital’s popular entertainment industry placed itself at the service of the nation; its goal was to help justify Germany’s cause and to provide diversion in a time of stress. The city’s theaters and cabarets had closed at the outbreak of hostilities to show respect for the gravity of the moment, but they soon reopened due to popular demand. As the author of a commentary on Berlin’s Wintergarten cabaret noted in November 1914:

Variety show treats in wartime are perhaps not to every person’s taste. God knows, there is much preaching about the seriousness of our times, that the carefree singsong of the dance troupes and the dizzying agility of the acrobats do not seem to fit in. On the other hand: many people believe that occasional diversion is needed precisely for nerves that have been stretched to their limits, that are hounded from one excitement to another.

The diversion was not without its patriotic message. Claire Waldoff, Berlin’s most popular cabaret singer, delighted audiences with her number “Immer feste druff!,” which contained the stirring refrain: “Der Soldate, der Soldate / ist der schönste Mann bei uns im Staate. / Darum schwärmen auch die Mädchen sehr / für das liebe, liebe, liebe Militär. (Soldier-man, Soldier-man / Prettiest fellow in the land / Thus all the girls go barmy / For the darling, darling army.)” Along with glorification of the home-side came a chorus of contempt for the enemy. An especially popular cabaret ditty, sung also in the schools, was the “Song of Hate against England.” It went: “We love as one, We hate as one, / We have one enemy alone: England!” Obviously England was not the only foe, but it was singled out as Enemy Number One because it was seen to be similar to Germany in ethnicity and culture but unwilling to accept the Reich as a peer. Decades of envy and unrequited admiration stood behind this song of hatred and the hundreds of “God Punish England” signs appearing all over Germany. As for France, Berlin’s cabaret artists dealt with the motherland of their art form by declaring their independence and wrapping themselves in exclusively national colors. Thus Berlin’s Chat noir rechristened itself Schwarzer Kater, and its announcer, previously a “Conférencier,” now called himself an “Ansager.” The Break-from-France theme was echoed in the fashion industry, which urged that French fashions be vanquished along with French troops, leaving “Berlin [to] take over from Paris the lead in fashion questions.”

Foreign influences were not the only taboo in popular theater: so were the traditional gibes at self-infatuated officials and dim-witted officers. Now cabaret skits and musicals, such as Rudolf Nelson’s The Kaiser Called and

At the Outskirts of Paris, lavished sycophantic praise on the monarch and his generals. Performers exhorted audiences to subscribe to war loans, send socks to the troops, and to observe the rationing regulations. In play after play the home front was depicted as a stronghold of patriotic resolve where occasional shortages of food and fuel were shrugged off as temporary inconveniences. In a musical called Berlin in the War

the chorus intoned the phrase “Laughter too is a civilian service obligation”—a variation on the old Prussian adage that “Quietude is the first duty of the citizen.” This suggested that making light of daily deprivations was now a duty almost as solemn as political quiescence. In addition to helping Berliners laugh their way to a stiff upper lip, cabaret and vaudeville performers offered some practical advice to the victims of war. For example, Carl Hermann Unthan, who played the violin with his feet because he had been born without arms, offered to teach soldiers whose hands had been blown off how to substitute the use of their feet for their arms, thereby helping them to regain “their self-confidence and prove to them that they will not be dependent upon the support of their fellow citizens.”

Claire Waldoff, Berlin’s favorite cabaret artist