Cabaret

Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel
Despite the growing attendance of mainstream members of
society, the performers and creators of cabarets continued to be
drawn from peripheral groups whose viewpoint remained ironic.
The proliferation of cabarets allowed minority concerns to
infiltrate popular entertainment. Throughout central and eastern
Europe, many performers, composers, authors, and impresarios
were Jews; and although there were only a few exclusively Jewish
cabarets, comedy and political commentary were permeated with
Yiddish rhythms, attitudes and words. Outside views on national
concerns were provided by Hungarians working in Austria,
Germans working in Czechoslovakia, and émigré Russians
working in Germany and France.
In general, the inter-war cabaret was less venturesome and formally experimental than its
precursors, but its slicker techniques enabled its messages to be more easily absorbed by the public.
As the pressures of Nazi involvement forced cabaret out of its usual venues, the irrepressible urge
to fight against the government and its rule thrived among émigrés, fugitives, resistance workers, and
even in concentration camps.
Weimar Berlin quickly gained the reputation of having the most conspicuous gay subculture in Europe.
Despite a law against homosexual activity between males, by the late 1920’s, a saunter through the gay clubs
was a standard item on the sightseer’s agenda. Many of these clubs hosted their own cabarets.
Lesbian clubs were slightly more exclusive.
The singer Claire Waldoff described the
Pyramide in Berlin’s West End in her
memoirs: “One had to go through three
house-doors before arriving at the clandestine
Eldorado of Women, admission 30
pfennings. Four brass musicians were playing
the proscribed Club anthem. A room
decorated with garlands, peopled with famous
painters and models. Famous male painters
from the Seine were to be seen; beautiful,
elegant women, who wanted to learn just a
little about Berlin’s seamy side, infamous
Berlin; and amorous little secretaries; and
there were petty jealousies and tears nonstop,
and the loving couples always had to
disappear to settle their conjugal differences
outside. Every so often in the course of the
evening, they would strike up the famous
‘Cognac Polonaise,’ which was celebrated by
kneeling on the dance floor with a full glass of
cognac in front of one. My pen quails before
the unparliamentary verses of this Polonaise.”
Bertolt Brecht and Karl Valentin (with tuba) and
friends at the Munich Oktoberfest
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