A Walk Along The Ku'damm Quotes

“In 1933, the KadeKo was taken over by Hans Schindler and remained a successful, if aryanised cabaret. The majority of Jewish and left-leaning performers and cabaret artists had fled from the new regime. It remained a carefully controlled and regulated venue until the eventual closure of all theatres by law in 1944.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“Never known to shy away from political satire and parody in its earlier years, the KadeKo played host to some of the sharpest and wittiest comedians of the day, most regularly Paul Nikolaus. By 1929, trying to fill 900 seats a night caused owner-manager Kurt Robitschek to rethink the content of the programme at the KadeKo. While delivering the bulk of political material remained in the hands of the MC, the rest of the show comprised non-political songs, vaudeville acts and comical one-act plays. The inexorable rise of the Nazis, and the now ever-present threat of street violence, had a dramatic effect on the KadeKo when some patrons became afraid to venture out, especially onto the busy and often volatile Kurfürstendamm. By 1931, ticket prices had been dramatically reduced and the political content of the shows had almost vanished.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“The most adventurous and challenging cabaret of the Weimar years was the Kabarett der Komiker or KadeKo (Cabaret of Comedians). It was established in December 1924, by Paul Morgan, Kurt Robitschek and actor/singer Max Hansen at a venue called Rakete (the Rocket) in nearby Kantstraße. The venture was immediately successful and a year later moved to the 450-seat Theater am Kurfürstendamm, further down the street.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“From 1939 onwards, Ku’damm 140 was the headquarters of the office of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German Nation, one of the twelve principle administration offices of the SS. Here, between 1941 and 1942, Generalplan Ost was devised. It proposed resettling five million Germans into the annexed areas of Poland and the western Soviet Union. The indigenous Slav and Jewish populations of these regions were to be subjugated, driven out or imprisoned. The plan was most fully implemented in Lublin, Poland in 1942. In order to Germanise the district, 100,000 people, including 10,000 children, were driven out of 300 Polish villages and murdered in concentration camps.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“Mann’s outspoken writing and politics put him squarely at odds with the new regime. His books were among those burned by the Nazis on May 10th 1933, cited as being decadent and ‘against the decency of the family and the state’. He fled Germany and travelled through France, Spain and Portugal before settling in the US, where he died in Santa Monica, California, in 1950.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“Heinrich Mann had come to Berlin in his twenties. He was a staunch supporter of socialism and the new republic, and a habitué of the literary cafes lining the Ku’damm. He searched for – and found – inspiration for his writing in the slums and brothels of the less salubrious areas of the city.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“By 1898, the Café des Westens had been founded, and for more than a decade it was the spiritual home for artists, writers and publishers. As a hub of artistic and literary life, it is credited with being the birthplace of the idea of modern German cabaret.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“The first premises to open at Ku’damm 18 was the Klein Café in 1893, considered to have been the first-ever coffee house on the Kurfürstendamm. It featured a beautiful pavement terrace resembling a garden, surrounded by elegant wrought-iron railings.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“The young Marlene was to have a lengthy affiliation with the Auguste-Viktoria-Platz, as it was also home to the Gloria-Palast, a luxurious 1,200-seat cinema that hosted the premiere of Marlene’s breakthrough film, Der blaue Engel (The Blue Angel). After the premiere, on April 1st 1930, Marlene took to the stage to accept standing ovations and bouquets of flowers, and then took a taxi to the Lehrter Bahnhof to catch a train out of Berlin. She was heading to Hollywood, where she had a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“On May 14th 1923, the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche was the venue for the wedding of actress and singer Marlene Dietrich to her film-director husband Rudolf Sieber. This was not commonplace – Marlene was allowed to marry here because one of her uncles had donated a large sum towards the church bells. It was very much her local church, since she had spent six years living in an apartment directly opposite with her mother and elder sister.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“As early as May 1945, the newly appointed Commandant of Berlin, General Nikolai Berzarin, decreed that cinemas, theatres, cabarets and sports arenas, all closed by law a year earlier, should be reopened wherever possible, even with the 9pm curfew that had been imposed. By June, cabaret shows had resumed in Cafe Leon, at the site of the former KaDeKo club; The Theater des Westens had a ballet programme running in repertory, and movies were again being screened at the Marmorhaus and the Astor Kino. Restaurants had begun emerging from the rubble and pavement cafes flourished once again.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“The desperate need for housing and food following the end of the war was matched by a voracious hunger for entertainment, culture and some sense of a return to normality in the shattered city.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“Like so much of the city, the Kurfürstendamm was left in rubble by the bombing and subsequent fires of World War II. From the now-destroyed Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche to the remains of Halensee, only 43 of the 235 buildings were habitable by 1945, the other 192 were completely destroyed. By the end of the conflict the Ku’damm had been used as a runway for fighter aircraft and had been one of the last lines of defence of the city, as Russian army tanks rolled up the boulevard from the bridge at Halensee, heading for bunkers in the Tiergarten, and onwards to the Reichstag.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“On the night of November 9th 1938, the homes, shops and businesses of Jewish people on the Ku’damm and throughout the country were targeted and systematically destroyed: 100 people were killed and 30,000 imprisoned. It would come to be known as Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), and signalled the beginning of a pogrom against certain sections of society considered undesirable in a National Socialist Germany.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“Many of the stars of its theatres and cabarets had already fled the country and their venues had been ‘aryanised’. Some writers and artists managed to flee to other European countries and the United States, but where could the ordinary Berliners go, and what would happen to their homes and businesses if they fled?”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“The ominous presence of this new far right government lifted slightly as the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games neared. The Nazis wanted the city to be seen to be welcoming to visitors attending the Games, to appear modern, cosmopolitan, European and inclusive. It was an illusion. Beggars and the homeless had been removed from the streets and interned in work camps on the outskirts of the city. That summer there were as many Olympic flags as swastikas flying from buildings on the Ku’damm. For a while, the facade of peace and enjoyment returned to the street and some flavour of the mid-1920s re-surfaced. It was not to last. The Nazis hated the Ku’damm and everything it represented.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“In April 1933, with the Nazi Party in power and Adolf Hitler the Chancellor, a boycott of Berlin’s Jewish businesses began, focused on the shops and department stores of the Ku’damm.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“The loudest voices to be heard were those of the increasingly popular far right. In March 1927, the rising National Socialist (Nazi) party, under its local leader Joseph Goebbels, sent 600 men to the Ku’damm in a show of strength. The Romanisches Café was attacked and ransacked, and guests and passers-by were beaten. Another attack, in 1931, saw 1,500 Nazi party supporters take to the Ku’damm at Jewish New Year, shouting anti-semitic slogans and attacking people as they left a synagogue. Jewish-run businesses were targeted and their customers assaulted.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“As the 1920s roared on, resentment and hatred toward the new republican society grew. The catastrophic hyper-inflation of 1922 had wiped out the incomes and life savings of ordinary Berliners and left hundreds of thousands in poverty. In the west of the city, the decadent Ku’damm, accused of being ‘too American’, and of promoting ‘un-German’ values, was often the target for this rage. Demonstrations, rallies and even riots were more frequent, as successive governments foundered and fragile coalitions failed.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“To have a residential address on the Ku’damm – even a fourth-floor walk-up in a rear block or ‘Hinterhaus’ – was to be seen to have succeeded.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“By 1920, Berlin was the third largest city in the world and the largest in Europe. The Greater Berlin Act had encompassed all the surrounding neighbourhoods and suburbs, and overnight the population more than doubled, to 4.5 million – the most populous the city has ever been. This exciting, bustling city boasted 120 newspapers, 40 theatres, and a wealth of cinemas and cabarets. The abolition of censorship enabled anything – and everything – to thrive.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin

“By November 1918, everything had changed. Imperial Germany had been defeated in a long and devastating conflict, resulting in the abdication of the Kaiser and the declaration of a new Republic. The early months of this new Republic saw Berlin streets turned into battlegrounds; whilst political leaders jostled for power, a communist revolution was under way and by the time of democratic elections in January of 1919, 2,000 Berliners had been killed. The fledgling government was forced to flee the city and assemble 280 kilometres south-east, in the historic town of Weimar, to draft the new constitution that bore its name and changed the lives of the people of Germany.”
― Brendan Nash, A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin