Mel Gordon - Voluptuous Panic - The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin

Friedrichstrasse 124

1924-1933

Area:BERLIN NORTH. Near the ORANIENBURGER TOR.

Atmosphere:Merry. Biergarten mood.

Clientele:Working-class men and women mostly. Local gourmands and curious downtowners in the evening. Devoted Nuttes and female fans of Jolly in attention-getting blouses and dresses.

Decor:Typical Upper Friedrichstrasse restaurant.

Entertainment:An unshaven hunger-artist named Jolly sits in a glass booth with a water glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. While Hackepeter’s diners devour their carnivore delicacies, Jolly chain-smokes and sips seltzer water.

Food:Famous for its pig’s leg special (boiled, deep fried, and then covered with a sticky cream sauce) in addition to steak-with-fried-eggs and Hackepeter.

Unusual:At the top of the hour, a midget in a tuxedo bellows into a megaphone the exact units of time that Jolly has gone without food. Nearby a dark-suited attendant makes certain none of Jolly’s devotees disturb the artist’s concentration or that any morsel is secreted in the glass cage. At Jolly’s insistence, his lair is guarded around the clock by bonded observers.

Area:BERLIN WEST. A few steps from the Memorial Church.

Atmosphere:Packed chic bar and “intimate” nightclub. Cultivated and elegant. Friendly.

Clientele:Sex-obsessed artists, playboys, British journalists. Top-drawer German diplomats, monocled Ruhr industrialists, and foreign businessmen traveling incognito. Table-Ladies—mostly of the demonic German or Spanish aristocratic variety.

Decor:Simple, American-designed with dazzling panels in cream and gold. Entrance is through the long bar-foyer into a nightclub area surrounding an eight by ten-foot dance floor. Murals illustrating the life of the Spanish dancer, Rita, and soft tablelights (covered with dark glass spikes) break up the dance room, giving it a warm intimacy. Two private, plush V.I.P. rooms, scented in orange blossom, are located in the back.

Entertainment:Tangos begin at 9 p.m. Blind pianist heads the well-regarded jazz band. Beautiful and exotic-looking hostesses, dressed in the latest French fashions, sit at tables laughing at customers’ jokes and repeating obscene gossip. Their job as Table-Ladies, fetish-attired Geishas, is to make certain that bottles of overpriced champagne and plates of fresh peaches are in constant circulation.

Unusual:Much-in-demand Table-Ladies double as kinky Minettes . Clients pay the head-waiter for “their time off” so the playful ladies may leave the club for a few hours or retreat to one of the back private rooms. Excellent place for the purchase of high-grade opium and cocaine.

Area:BERLIN NORTH. Near the ORANIENBURGER TOR. (Formerly the CHANTANT SINGING HALL.)

Atmosphere:Sordid dive. Drunken, madhouse ambiance when the performance begins. (Said to be the model for the cabaret scenes in the 1930 film The Blue Angel .)

Clientele:Greatly mixed: working-class but conservative patrons, local students, soldiers, some colorful criminal types.

Decor:Outside is a marquee of yellow and red lights and a glass case displaying revealing photographs and boastful reviews of the evening’s attractions. Inside, the tables, chairs, wall fixtures, benches, and stage are all at least a generation old. On the stage is a semi-circle of chairs, facing the audience.

Entertainment:In sequence, each cabaret performer leaves her chair and moves downstage to replace the last entertainer just as she is completing her solo. Audience members traditionally send up steins of beer to the chanteuses when they have completed a number. Photographs of the performers are hawked after each act.

A normal evening consists of a few touring stars: Lola Niedlich, “the Prize-Winning Torch-Singer, Three Times Engaged at Marienbad” (in her photo the sexy Lola demurely holds a doll in her arms); a coquettish toe-dancer named Charlotte Corday, who feebly attempts to engage the audience in tête-à-têtes; a transvestite-ventriloquist Paul Schiephacke, who can’t get started—this trio is in addition to the half-dozen frumpy regular artistes in garter belts and lacy skirts hitched up to their crotches. The female singers specialize in prostitute songs, patriotic war ditties, and other standard cabaret fare.

Tourists:A few slummers from downtown, some of whom will exit sans billfolds, watches, and wedding rings.

Unusual:Customers can purchase seats on the stage during the performance or meet privately with the cabaret stars in a succession of side-rooms. There, after port or cognac, negotiations for sex, usually of the manual variety, take place.

Area:Center of FRIEDRICHSTADT.

Atmosphere:Wicked, often raucous. Expensive. Customers who wish to conceal their identities are given the choice of a black or white half-mask to wear.

Clientele:Traveling salesmen on expense accounts, elderly gentlemen from the provinces, underworld kings with small harems of Nuttes , lesbian groupies, and Berlin intellectuals.

Decor:Beautiful 98-seat cabaret space with a curtained dance stage.

Entertainment:Naked or “Beauty” dances are presented in close proximity to audience. Productions usually last about one hour and begin at midnight. A typical evening consists of a disingenuous—and hysterical—introduction by the director, disclaiming any pornographic intent: “We come here for Beauty alone.”

Unusual:Anita Berber, high priestess of the Inflation Era, performed here until she smashed an empty champagne bottle on a patron’s head. Berber had a devoted following because she enacted something other than Naked Dances; she recreated her disturbing sex and drug-induced fantasies. These nude dance-dreams were executed with a chilling realism and activated by dark, metatrophic impulses. When harangued by drunken spectators, Berber had been known to spit brandy on them or stand naked on their tables, dousing herself with wine while simultaneously urinating.

Area:BERLIN SOUTH. East of the HALLESCHES TOR.

Atmosphere:Sullen Boy-Bar. Often referred to as “the Pits.” Familiar down-and-out clubhouse mood. Quiet, desperate until Tree-Stumps or tourists appear, which create an eddy of excitement. Like Calcutta beggars, the Adonis urchins hustle around the newcomers’ tables and follow them into the street when they exit.