Berlin 1936 Read online

  Along with the moderate prices and comfortable rooms, guests appreciate the familial atmosphere. “Mrs. Director” and her three children live on the top floor. They mingle easily with the guests, and many of the regulars have come to know the Zellermayer family personally. Erna’s older son, Heinz, is 21 and wants to become a restaurateur. His mother knows restaurant owner Otto Horcher and has arranged for her son to do an apprenticeship at Horcher’s. His brother Achim, two years younger, is good at drawing and thinks he might like to become an artist. Daughter Ilse is 16. The baby of the family goes to a girls’ secondary school and loves music. After finishing school, Miss Zellermayer wants to take singing lessons: she dreams of becoming an opera diva. She’s very impressed by all the singers, male and female, who stay at the hotel. Whenever one of them warms up his or her voice before an evening engagement, she eavesdrops outside the door, imagining herself performing the great works of Wagner, Verdi and Puccini someday.

  Tonight the Zellermayers aren’t attending the opera. They’re going to the “Resi” near Jannowitzbrücke in the district of Mitte. The full name of this establishment is Residenz Casino, but that doesn’t reveal much about its true nature. The Resi is a famous ballroom and one of the main attractions of Berlin nightlife during the 1936 Olympics. Everything there seems bigger and more lavish than in other comparable dancehalls. Other places have a single band, whereas in the Resi three groups alternate with one another. More than 30,000 lightbulbs create spectacular lighting effects, and in a pond down below, fountains large and small rotate and rock back and forth in time to the music.

  People like the Zellermayers who live at elegant addresses like Steinplatz don’t usually frequent places near Jannowitzbrücke. But Erna and her children go to the Resi whenever they want to have a bit of fun. Ilse is particularly fascinated by the complex system of telephones and pneumatic message tubes in the establishment. Every table has a phone and a tube for sending sealed capsules with private messages to people at other tables. The pneumatic tube system can also transport small items: cigarettes and cigars, chocolate and perfume, matches for gentlemen and manicure kits for ladies. All you have to do is fill out an order slip, stick it in a capsule along with some money and send it on its way. A short time later, whatever you ordered arrives at your table. This is the only system of its kind in Berlin, and it’s a big attraction.

  It also provides ideal opportunities for pranksters to get up to all sorts of nonsense. Ilse amuses herself by ordering chocolates for lone women. “Excuse me, dear lady, I’m the gentleman at table 32,” she’ll write on the greeting card. “May I ask you for a dance?” The woman in question opens the capsule, reads the card with excitement and shoots surreptitious glances at table 32. The gentleman sitting there, of course, has no idea how lucky he is, and the resulting scenes are often quite embarrassing. But because Ilse has to pay up front for the chocolates, she can’t always afford this practical joke. A much cheaper variation involves the table telephones. She’ll call a man on his own and propose a rendezvous at the bar. At the same time, Heinz or Achim will call a lone woman and make the same proposal, agreeing on a secret signal. “Excuse me, dear lady, would you happen to be…” the man will ask, and that’s when the fun commences. Ilse and her brothers observe what’s happening from a safe distance, giggling. Tonight, with all the Olympic visitors, the Resi is packed. Ilse, Heinz and Achim have their hands full.

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  Erich Arendt doesn’t have fond memories of the Resi. In fact he can barely remember being there around two weeks ago. Now he’s sitting in investigative custody in a prison in Eberswalde and doesn’t know what to do. The judge, whose name was Krause, told him that he’s a man “of inferior character,” and the prison guards treat him like a common criminal. That’s tough to bear for a proud fellow like Arendt. He’s a master bricklayer who runs a thriving business, he says in his defense. He has achieved a modest level of prosperity with his own two hands, and what’s more, since January 1932 he has been a member of both the NSDAP and the SA. But that doesn’t help either. Erich Arendt has hit rock bottom.

  Arendt’s fall from grace begins at 9 a.m. on 25 July. Arendt gets in his car in Eberswalde and drives the roughly 30 miles to Berlin, where he’s meeting people on business. By the early afternoon he’s finished with his appointments, but he doesn’t want to return home. His wife, Herta, may be waiting there for him, but here in the capital of the Third Reich, the world is his oyster. The Olympics won’t be underway for another week, but Berlin is already at a fever pitch. There are countless tourists in the festively decorated city, and the Games are all anyone can talk about. What is there to do in Eberswalde? he thinks. This is where the party is. He wants to join the celebrations, let his hair down and go a bit mad. He drives to Mitte, parks his car on a side street and goes into Café Welz on Friedrichstrasse. The café is neither as large nor as famous as the elegant Café Kranzler or the legendary Moka Efti, which are both close by, but Arendt likes the Welz. There’s always something going on here—and he wants to have a good time.

  Arendt orders champagne. After one or two piccolos, he is joined by a fellow who introduces himself as Assistant Secretary Wagner and asks if he may sit down. He may. Arendt is flattered. He has a weakness for titles, offices and dignitaries. He is just a humble bricklayer from Eberswalde, and now here he is talking to a flesh-and-blood assistant to a government minister. “More champagne,” Arendt calls out to the waitress, for simplicity’s sake ordering a whole bottle and not just piccolos. After the two men have finished it, another one appears to take its place. Arendt never wonders why an assistant government secretary would have the time and inclination to spend the afternoon drinking with a complete stranger. Nor does he get suspicious when a bit later a young woman with the tongue-twisting name Anna Beszezynski joins him and Assistant Secretary Wagner. What did the lady do for a living? Arendt is later asked, but he can’t remember. By the time Miss Beszezynski appears, he’s already visibly intoxicated. It’s gone 10 in the evening. Arendt has been drinking for seven hours, but he still hasn’t had enough. “Time for the Resi,” he tells the assistant secretary and the young lady. The suggestion is met with great enthusiasm. Arendt takes care of the entire bill. When they leave the café, he gives the waitress a huge tip. All of a sudden, he’s no longer Erich Arendt, humble bricklayer. He’s a man of the world. He’s pleased with himself. The three of them get in Arendt’s car, which, despite his inebriation, he manages to pilot to Jannowitzbrücke. The mood is grand. Assistant Wagner tells some dirty jokes, and Miss Beszezynski giggles as only a young woman can.

  Once they’ve settled into the Residenz Casino, the party goes on. Champagne continues to flow, and Arendt is feeling generous. Alcohol makes you hungry, and Arendt pays for his new friends’ food, hands the bandleader some bills and buys perfect strangers around him drinks. He enjoys being the center of attention. He puffs out his chest and raises his voice to the point that people at the neighboring tables can hear him too. At some point, the other guests feel that Arendt is becoming a nuisance. The head waiter asks him to be a bit quieter—without success. Arendt starts shouting so loudly that people can hear him throughout the ballroom. The manager, Fritz Sandau, approaches him and asks him to leave. Arendt resists, claiming to be a representative of the government. “My government car with diplomatic plates is parked right outside,” he bellows. “I drive to Gibraltar three times a week and earn 54,000 reichsmarks (135,000 dollars) per year from the government.” Fritz Sandau laughs. He is used to patrons’ drunken boasting. With the help of no fewer than four other men, he succeeds in pushing Arendt out of the ballroom. That’s that, he thinks, pleased that he made Arendt pay the bill beforehand. For a moment everything is calm, but then Arendt kicks open the door, walks a couple of yards into the club and shouts a sentence that will change his life: “Adolf Hitler is bankrupt, and I regret joining the party in 1929.” Unfortunately for him, the band is taking a break, so his words are clearly
audible. Patrons Hugo Brösecke, Willi Kazda, Paul Hirschle and Erich Schulz, in any case, have heard enough. They take to their feet to defend the honor of their Führer.

  There’s a scuffle, from which Arendt somehow manages to extract himself. He gets into his car and speeds away, but Brösecke and the other three set off in another vehicle in hot pursuit. Arendt knows his way around Berlin. In no time he’s made it onto the motorway heading north. He races toward Eberswalde doing 70 miles an hour, but the car with his pursuers is right on his heels. Arendt has to pull over at the outskirts of the city, whereupon the others jump him. A full-blown fistfight erupts. Blood flows. In the end, the five men go to the local police station to file charges against one another.

  It’s more than two weeks later, and Arendt is still in investigative custody. The attorney general of Berlin has personally taken over the matter. The case is no longer about the fight and its consequences but something far worse. Arendt is suspected of violating paragraph 2 of the Law against Perfidious Attacks on the State and Party in conjunction with an act of treason, as well as insulting the Führer and the Reich chancellor. If Arendt is found guilty, he’ll be sent to prison for years.

  Erich Arendt is shaking his head. He can’t remember a thing, he keeps telling his solicitor Rudolf Habermann. And anyway, as a party member and an SA man, his true convictions couldn’t be further from the things he is being accused of saying. Mantra-like, Arendt repeats that all he wanted was to have a fun day out in Berlin. Assistant Secretary Wagner can confirm that. Has he been interviewed? Arendt wants to know. Habermann shrugs his shoulders. There’s no sign of the alleged government official or Miss Beszezynski.

  Erich Arendt has come a long way down in the world. The Eberswalde chapter of the NSDAP has kicked him out on 1 August, and some of his party comrades have testified that Arendt is a notorious drunk and a pompous ass. “We all knew that his mouth would get him in trouble one day,” one of them has said.

  The matter will be adjudicated by the Reich Ministry of Justice, Habermann tells Arendt. In six days, the Olympic Games will be over. There’s unlikely to be a decision before then. The authorities will want to wait until the Olympic guests have left Germany. That may be Arendt’s salvation—or his great misfortune.

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  In a few days, shooting will begin on the crime comedy Spiel an Bord (Game on Board). In the film, Hubert von Meyerinck plays the elegant Marquis de la Tours, who will turn out to be—what else?—a crook. The film is being shot mostly on board the steamship MS Bremen on its passage to New York. Before Hupsi heads off to the high seas, he’s celebrating one last time in the Quartier Latin.

  The club has been especially packed during the Olympic Games. Along with the regular faces, there are lots of international guests, and as is true of Berlin’s streets, you can hear a veritable babel of languages. Amidst all the activity, Leon Henri Dajou darts throughout the establishment, welcoming VIP guests and making sure they’re shown to good tables. On the face of it it’s business as usual, but there’s a strange mood in the air. Meyerinck senses that something’s not right. “With money and diamonds in my pockets—everything over the border, my dear Hupsi,” Dajou confides in his friend in his broken German. It takes a while for him to understand what Dajou is trying to say: that he wants to sell his club and leave Germany as soon as possible. But why? Dajou says that a number of things—trouble with his employees and the jealousy of his competitors—have upset him recently, and that after five years he’s sick of the job. An acquaintance named Eugen Nossek has introduced him to two gentlemen who are willing to pay 60,000 reichsmarks (150,000 dollars) in cash for the Quartier Latin. As far as Dajou is concerned, the quicker the better. With the money, he can resettle in London or Paris.

  Now that’s surprise news! Meyerinck is dumbfounded. He didn’t see this coming. He has no way of knowing that there’s little truth in Dajou’s explanation for why he suddenly wants to sell his business. What’s true is that the bar owner is in deep trouble. He’s never told his friend Hupsi that the police are watching him. For years Dajou has played fast and loose with the law, and his police file is correspondingly thick, containing examples of fraud, embezzlement, bribery of government officials, libel and other offenses. One time he was reported for the unhygienic state of the Quartier Latin’s kitchen; on another occasion he was caught selling cheap German sparkling wine at champagne prices to a group of Italian diplomats. During a party thrown by Universal Film AG (Ufa), he billed the revelers 12 reichsmarks (30 dollars) a bottle for Mosel wine while serving them his much cheaper house brand. Dajou is not above pouring alcohol into different bottles or swapping labels. It’s easy to turn an ordinary German brandy (1.75 marks [4 dollars] a glass) into a French Bisquit Dubouché Napoleon 1811 (6 marks [15 dollars] a glass). He tried to bribe a punctilious official 50 marks (125 dollars) and called a difficult employee a “German pig.” It’s no wonder that the police, customs officials, the trade office and authorities in charge of resident aliens all keep close tabs on the celebrity bar owner. Countless witnesses have been interviewed, and an equal number of reports written, but none of the cases have been brought to trial. Leon Henri Dajou seems beyond the reach of the law. It’s as if someone has been holding a protective hand over him.

  But suddenly, and surprisingly, just before the start of the Olympic Games, the Gestapo is ordered to investigate him. The focus is no longer on fraud or bribery, but on Dajou’s background. Gestapo officials are convinced that he is not who he claims to be. What’s clear is that Dajou arrived in Berlin in 1925, where, after buying a couple of elegant suits, he began working as a gigolo. But where did he come from? What did he do in his days before Berlin? Dajou has Nicaraguan citizenship, which he claims he enjoys as a result of his father having died in South America. Investigations, however, reveal that he purchased his passport for 1,400 reichsmarks (3,500 dollars) in 1927. The Gestapo smells blood and unearths more and more details about Dajou’s past. In reality, the charming bar owner was born on 1 September 1903 in Galati, Romania. There’s no family by the name of Dajou living there, though. The man the Gestapo are investigating is actually named Leib Moritz Kohn and is the son of Moritz Kohn and his wife, Jeannette (née Cohn). He only adopted the pseudonym Leon Henri Dajou in 1929, four years after moving to Berlin. “With that in mind,” writes the Gestapo investigator, “we can certainly assume that Dajou is a Jew.”

  So that’s his big secret. A Romanian Jew is running the most fashionable club in the capital of the Third Reich and has played host to influential Nazi officials, captains of industry and famous artists. For a long time, his disguise worked to a tee. Dajou donated money to the NSDAP and raised the swastika flag on holidays. But now he’s been unmasked. He needs to get out of Berlin—and quickly.

  Dajou has planned his escape with military precision, running through his flight from Germany over and over in his mind. In under a week’s time, on 16 August, the sale of the Quartier Latin will be completed. Together with the notary, the two purchasers—insurance company director Max Apelt and restaurateur Bruno Limburg—will come to the club, and after a bit of small talk, they will all retreat to Dajou’s office. The notary will read out the contract of sale in a notary’s typical monotone. Dajou, Apelt, Limburg and the notary will sign the document. Dajou will receive a briefcase containing 60,000 reichsmarks (150,000 dollars) in cash, count the money and give the buyers a receipt. In conclusion the men may drink a cognac or a glass of champagne to celebrate the transaction. Dajou will briefly lock the briefcase in his office safe, where he has already stashed 40,000 marks (100,000 dollars) that he managed to siphon off club revenues over the past year. The money has been illegally stashed away, but that’s the least of Dajou’s worries. He needs every pfennig of the 100,000 marks to start over in life. Before 16 August is over, Dajou will clear out his office, leave the keys with one of his employees and board a train for Paris with two proverbial briefcases full of cash. On the last day of the Olympi
cs, amidst the hustle and bustle of departing international guests—so he thinks—border police and customs officials won’t check people too closely. His girlfriend, Charlotte Schmidtke, will take care of the rest—liquidate his flat and sell his Cadillac—and then join him a couple of weeks later. That’s the plan, anyway. In six days, he’ll find out whether it works.

  The roof terrace of the cosmopolitan Eden Hotel is one of Berlin’s main attractions in the Olympic summer of 1936. Credit 11

  Tuesday, 11 August 1936

  REICH WEATHER SERVICE FORECAST FOR BERLIN: Pleasant to cloudy, isolated heat thunderstorms in the evening. Temperatures rising during the day, with winds from the southwest. Highs of 27°C.

  REICH AND PRUSSIAN TRANSPORT MINISTRY ANNOUNCEMENT: “149 people were killed and 3,793 people injured in road accidents in the German Reich last week.”

  Anyone walking up Kantstrasse from the Memorial Church these days will see one name repeated over and over on advertising pillars, in display cases and on the sides of buildings: Teddy Stauffer. The gentleman in question is one Ernst Heinrich Stauffer, known to his fans as Teddy. Seven years ago he came to Berlin but ended up a nobody, residing in impoverished circumstances and living from hand to mouth. Now, in August 1936, the 27-year-old is a star. Stauffer is neither an athlete nor an actor, nor a fearless Atlantic-crossing pilot like Charles Lindbergh, nor a race driver like Manfred von Brauchitsch in his Mercedes Silver Arrow. He’s not even German. Teddy Stauffer is a bandleader and saxophonist from Switzerland.