Berlin 1936 Read online

  * * *

  *

  Augsburger Strasse is one of Berlin’s many streets dedicated to nightlife. Restaurants, pubs and bars line its approximately 1-mile length. At the top of the street, where it gives out onto Joachimthaler Strasse, a stone’s throw from Wolfe’s hotel, is Aenne Maenz’s watering hole. The owner’s full name is Anna Maria Maenz (née Schneider), but patrons just call her Mother Maenz. Her other nickname is Maria Theresa because some of the regulars think that, with her oval face, towering hairstyle and corpulent physique, she’s the spitting imagine of the Austrian empress.

  Mother Maenz alias Maria Theresa’s place has been around for quite a while—since April 1913, to be exact. Back then there were very few automobiles on the streets and a correspondingly large number of horse-drawn carriages. Today it’s the other way round. All you see are cars, and very rarely a carriage. But if the outside world has changed dramatically, inside Augsburger Strasse 36 life is much as it was twenty-three years ago. There are no tablecloths. At Mother Maenz’s, people sit at plain wooden tables as they would in their own kitchens. Maenz serves fresh draft beer, various sorts of schnapps and liqueur, and decent wines as well as a small assortment of hearty foods: chicken soup, rollmops and fried herring, ham, sour gherkins and pickled eggs.

  The pub is the antithesis of the chic world of Kurfürstendamm just down the street, but it’s precisely the simplicity that has drawn in generations of artists and intellectuals. Over the years, film director Ernst Lubitsch, actors Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt, Alexander Granach, Werner Krauss, Jakob Tiedtke and the legendary Fritzi Massary, the writers Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Pinthus, and the painter Emil Orlik have all been regulars here. The unofficial motto of the pub is “Maenz agitat molem,” a variation on Virgil’s “mens agitat molem”—the spirit moves the material.

  People like Mother Maenz are beloved figures in the earthy parts of Berlin. For her patrons Aenne Maenz is bartender, adviser, psychologist, consoler and confidante all rolled into one. Three weeks ago, on 21 July, she celebrated her 57th birthday. Business is pretty good. Actually she doesn’t need to work behind the bar everyday anymore, but Maenz won’t hear of taking it easy. A mother doesn’t leave her family in the lurch, she says, any time anyone suggests anything of the sort.

  Since his Berlin visit last year, Thomas Wolfe has been part of her family. It doesn’t matter that the two can barely communicate. For Maenz, Wolfe is the giant guy from America, and whenever he comes into the bar, as he does tonight, she automatically pours him a beer. Wolfe has become interested in Maenz’s serving girl Elly, a buxom blonde who is barely contained by her blouse, a fact Wolfe finds very erotic. To him the waitress looks like a large, delicious ham on two legs. As he once remarked to Heinz Ledig, gesticulating with his knife and fork: “She is a fine piece, I’ll cut a slice of her.”

  Whatever Mildred Harnack may have told him about life in the Third Reich, in Wolfe’s eyes it can’t apply to Mother Maenz’s. For the American writer, it’s as if he’s entered a world where National Socialism doesn’t exist. But tonight Wolfe will be proven wrong. The great actress Fritzi Massary used to come here a lot, a fellow customer tells him, but now, like her colleague Alexander Granach, she lives abroad. For Jews, the man says, noticeably lowering his voice, Hitler’s state is a dangerous place. Another customer tells Wolfe about all the pubs and bars that had to shut after Hitler took power—the Auluka-Diele, for example, or the Geisha Bar on August Strasse, not far from Mother Maenz’s. Those were places for women only, he says, but Germany’s new masters don’t like lesbians. In Nazi doctrine, women are potential mothers whose duty is to deliver children for the Führer. Wolfe shakes his head in disbelief. Only a few years ago, Berlin had an extensive homosexual subculture, with around a hundred gay and lesbian bars. Some legendary establishments like the Eldorado on Motzstrasse in the Schöneberg district even made it into the tourist guides. The writer Emil Szittya remembers going to the transvestite bar Mikado: “At the piano sat Baron Sattlergrün, who referred to himself as ‘the baroness.’ He played pieces by Count Eulenburg.” Another famous location was Silhouette on nearby Geisbergstrasse. It was a small, smoky place that stayed open until the wee hours. If Wolfe had come to Berlin a few years earlier, he’s told tonight, he’d have been able to meet Marlene Dietrich and Friedrich Hollaender. But those days are long gone. Where once a pale young boy in women’s clothing sang melancholy songs to the accompaniment of a blind pianist, while customers ate chicken soup, there’s now a health-food shop.

  Wolfe is silent and pensive, not because he’s such a great fan of gays and lesbians, but because he intuitively senses that something has been lost forever. “Then something happened,” he’ll remember. “It didn’t happen suddenly. It just happened as a cloud gathers, as fog settles, as rain begins to fall.” Wolfe realizes that the National Socialists hate everyone who’s not like them, and he sees that the Nazis want to poison and destroy the country he loves so much. “The poisonous emanations of suppression, persecution, and fear permeated the air like miasmic and pestilential vapors, tainting, sickening, and blighting the lives of everyone…” he’ll write. “It was a plague of the spirit—invisible, but as unmistakable as death.”

  The gourmet restaurant Horcher on Lutherstrasse is a culinary institution and is considered one of the leading places to eat in Europe. “Where is the footstool for the countess?” Credit 14

  Friday, 14 August 1936

  REICH WEATHER SERVICE FORECAST FOR BERLIN: Mostly cloudy, with scattered rain showers. Westerly winds. Temperatures constant. Highs of 20°C.

  The weather forecast was wrong when it predicted scattered showers. It’s positively pouring today. The heavens have opened, and there’s no let-up. Berlin’s drainage system can barely cope with the deluge, and huge puddles form everywhere on the city’s streets and squares. Artistic leaps are necessary if you want to get from point A to point B without getting your feet wet. The sheer mass of water is a headache for Joseph Goebbels. He has invited 2,700 guests to an Olympic party on his own private island tomorrow evening. Can the festivities take place as planned? Or will he have to cancel them?

  * * *

  *

  André François-Poncet stands in front of the mirror inspecting his mustache, whose curled ends have been primped so that they point straight upward. He clicks his tongue: tsk, tsk, tsk. That’s what he does when he’s not satisfied with something. François-Poncet still isn’t happy with his looks. He takes both ends of his mustache in his fingers and twirls them briefly between his thumb and index finger. “Bon!” he now says to his reflection. To an outside observer there’s no difference, but the French ambassador is utterly uncompromising when it comes to his appearance.

  François-Poncet is always perfectly attired—his elegance is only exceeded by his vanity. The look on his face is usually friendly, if a tad haughty. De haut en bas, as the French say. Once, when an underling accompanied his boss outside, bareheaded, François-Poncet asked with a sweet smile: “Where is your hat?” The man said he didn’t have one. “Then how do you know when you’re outside?” the ambassador retorted.

  François-Poncet and his wife, Jacqueline, regularly host afternoon teas, elaborate dinners, concerts and other genteel events in the French embassy on Pariser Platz. In high society, these are considered top invitations. In any case, as the French ambassador, François-Poncet represents the undisputed diplomatic center of the Third Reich’s capital—no festivity is complete without France’s highest foreign representative in attendance. On many occasions he’s seated directly next to Adolf Hitler. The Führer is crazy about the French diplomat, whom he calls simply Poncet, perhaps because he’s unable to pronounce the first half of the ambassador’s surname. The two men have formed a good, many-layered relationship. Hitler likes the fact that he can converse without an interpreter with François-Poncet, who has perfect German. As a parvenu, it also flatters him to be treated with respect by a grand seigneur of the French old school. François-
Poncet behaves with ironic subservience toward Hitler. On one occasion, the dictator shows the ambassador around an exhibition of Nazi art, and the two stop to admire a rather stout female nude, painted from the rear, by the artist Adolf Ziegler. Before Hitler can say a word, François-Poncet purrs: “Oh, my Führer, I see. It’s Madame de Berlichingen.” Hitler is amused by the reference to the portly German knight of yore and subject of an early play by Goethe.

  * * *

  *

  Sauerkraut with pork belly and a glass of beer—the very thought of it makes Ernst Rowohlt’s mouth water. It’s shortly after noon, and Rowohlt takes his umbrella and leaves the publishing house. He walks through the rainy streets to Olivaer Platz, where Ludwig Mehlgarten runs his eponymous restaurant. Rowohlt could have taken the number 12 bus, which stops directly in front of Mehlgarten’s place, but he’d rather stretch his legs, even though it’s pouring. Rowohlt covers the short distance in around ten minutes. Once he’s arrived, he takes off his thin summer coat, puts his umbrella in the stand and sits down at one of the rustic wooden tables. Ludwig Mehlgarten welcomes him and takes his order. It’s a quarter of an hour until the food arrives. In the meantime, Rowohlt removes his jacket, hangs it over the back of his chair and rolls up his sleeves. All in all, it’s around thirty minutes from when he left Eislebener Strasse to the time when he starts eating his lunch. Today, as he hoped, sauerkraut with pork belly is on the menu. He’ll also drink a glass or two of beer.

  This has been Rowohlt’s lunchtime routine for several weeks now. He recently discovered Mehlgarten’s when his wife was out of town and he didn’t know what to do with himself on his own. Rowohlt was delighted to learn that the Mehlgartens are originally from the town of Vegesack near the northern German city of Bremen, just as he is. Mrs. Mehlgarten, who is in charge of the kitchen, does good, old-fashioned Bremen homecooking: corned-beef hash, broad beans with bacon, baked smelt, Madeira cake, pears and bacon, and eel soup. Naturally Rowohlt can also appreciate a filet steak with Béarnaise sauce and pommes soufflés, but simple dishes remain his favorites. He especially likes Pluckte Finken, a stew made of white beans, beef, carrots, potatoes, apples and pears. It needs to be served directly from the stove to the table—only then does it develop its special aroma. Mrs. Mehlgarten is a good cook and serves her Pluckte Finken piping hot, the way it should be. On occasions, Rowohlt enjoys taking unsuspecting authors to Mehlgarten’s and watching them struggle with the unfamiliar names of the dishes—as well as Mrs. Mehlgarten’s more than filling creations.

  For people who enjoy well-prepared heavy food in great quantities, Mehlgarten’s is paradise. Along with literary types, and the bus and taxi drivers who take their breaks here or stop in after work on Olivaer Platz, a stout young blond woman of around 20 has also begun frequenting the restaurant. She always sits alone, and once she’s placed her order, she only opens her mouth to shovel food in. The writer Ernst von Salomon, another regular, is astonished by the sheer amount the woman can eat. “She devoured a bowl of Pluckte Finken,” he writes, “then kale with smoked sausage, then a knuckle of pork with sauerkraut and pease pudding, and finally a butcher’s plate with tongue, heart, blood and liver sausage.” She also drank five steins of beer. The woman’s name is Ellinor Hamsun. She’s the daughter of the Norwegian writer, Nobel laureate and Hitler admirer Knut Hamsun, and she’s recently moved to Berlin. After her extensive lunch, she leaves Mehlgarten’s without a word and proceeds next door to Robert Heil’s confectionery. It’s said that there Ellinor Hamsun has an extra-large piece of pyramid cake for dessert.

  * * *

  *

  Someone like André François-Poncet would never be caught dead in a place like Mehlgarten’s. The mere idea of Pluckte Finken or a plate of fatty pork belly would no doubt draw a disapproving “tsk, tsk.” His Excellency prefers the haute cuisine of his native land, and the place to go for that in Berlin is Horcher. Those who want to dine in the gourmet restaurant at Lutherstrasse 21 need bulging wallets. Horcher is very, very expensive, but it’s a real experience. The cuisine is superb. Many connoisseurs consider it the finest restaurant in Europe.

  The establishment takes up the entire ground floor of a block of flats and consists of a main dining room with twelve tables and a number of small salons, where four to ten people can be served. The interiors of the rooms are first-rate. One of the private rooms, for example, has walls covered entirely in fine green silk, while the main dining room is all done up in leather. Thick Persian carpets muffle every sound. There’s a lot of space between the tables, but on request wood and glass dividers can be put up so that diners enjoy additional privacy. Naturally, only silver cutlery and handblown glasses are allowed to grace the damask tablecloths.

  At Horcher, one speaks and dines en français. A brigade consisting of a chef de rang, three demi-chefs de rang and four commis de rang waits on tables. Otto Horcher, the maître d’hôtel, obsequiously pampers every individual guest, personally welcoming VIPs and showing them to their tables. One of the restaurant’s trademarks are the small footstools covered in pink silk that are discreetly positioned under female diners’ feet. If one is forgotten, the boss will hiss: “Where is the footstool for the countess?” The forgetful waiter then has to pay Horcher a fine of one mark. When François-Poncet reserves a table, the master of the house brings out silver candlesticks and twelve figurines of Meissner porcelain depicting Napoleon’s twelve marshals. Horcher has elevated subservience into an art form.

  Otto Horcher knows the culinary likes and dislikes of all his regular guests and unobtrusively tries to honor them, be they for turtle parfait, Rhine salmon, rolled veal on a bed of artichokes, flambéed kidneys or chamois venison steaks. Horcher is famous for its beef tournedos. A 1-inch-thick piece of meat is cut from the middle of the fillet, sautéed in butter until pink and then placed on a bed of heated pastry filled with liver mousse. The chef smothers the whole thing in Béarnaise sauce and tops it with a mushroom cap. Horcher’s canard à la rouennaise is also world famous. It involves strangling a duck so that the blood stays in the body, making the meat redder and more tender than usual. The bones are crushed in a silver poultry press, and the juice is mixed with puréed raw duck liver, pepper, salt, herbs, a little lemon juice, a glass of port wine, some Madeira and a splash of champagne, and then reduced to form a dark-brown sauce. The lightly seared duck meat is cooked in the sauce until ready. Almost all the dishes are prepared at the table. There’s not a poulard, pheasant or back of venison that isn’t carved in front of the diners’ eyes. Even the side dishes like spinach à la crème are whipped up sur place in a chafing dish.

  Along with actors like Heinz Rühmann and Gustaf Gründgens, Horcher’s regular clientele includes politicians, diplomats and captains of industry. Otto Horcher doesn’t care much about the political views of his customers, invariably siding with whoever is in power at the moment. In the Weimar Republic, his restaurant was visited by Jewish artists and intellectuals like Charlie Chaplin, Franz Werfel and Max Reinhardt, and former German chancellors Gustav Stresemann and Heinrich Brüning. Nowadays it’s frequented by high-ranking Nazis like Göring, NSDAP Reich Director Robert Ley and Luftwaffe General Quartermaster Ernst Udet. Rumors swirl around the restaurant. People whisper that the Gestapo has bugged several of the tables so that they can listen in on diplomats’ conversations. It’s difficult to say whether there’s any truth to this. According to another anecdote, Otto’s father, Gustav Horcher, once showed German President Paul von Hindenburg the door after an argument about wine. But it’s doubtful that the former general, who was socialized in military mess tents, ever set foot in Berlin’s number-one temple of gourmet food. And anyway, the Horchers don’t distinguish between good and bad customers. Anyone with enough cash to spare is welcome. The restaurant is booked out for the duration of the Olympic Games.

  DAILY REPORT OF THE STATE POLICE OFFICE, BERLIN: “Yesterday an American woman, who is visiting the city for the Olympics, noticed during a train trip from Munic
h to Berlin that foreign passengers were repeatedly asked about their impressions of Germany by German-speaking persons. While the foreign visitors praised the new Germany in every respect, the Germans (apparently provocateurs) sought to denigrate Germany and present it in a negative light. The American woman, who can be reached via City Inspector Meier, has declared herself willing to provide more details about the incident.”

  * * *

  *

  Today is a difficult day for Eleanor Holm Jarrett. This afternoon will see the final of the women’s 4 × 100 meter relay. Jarrett was supposed to be swimming in the race, and she would probably have won a medal, had Avery Brundage not thrown her off the team. Jarrett feels as though one of her own countrymen has cheated her of a near-certain triumph. Didn’t Adolf Hitler himself say how stupid Brundage’s decision was? And all because of a trifle—a couple of glasses of champagne and a few cigarettes. To put it mildly: Jarrett doesn’t have too many kind words for Brundage. Yet she tries not to let it show how much she hates him. Her revenge is much more subtle and effective. Wherever possible, she steals his limelight. At Göring’s garden party yesterday, she was the center of attention, whereas no one paid any mind to America’s top Olympic official. Today as well, Jarrett cuts a good figure in the stands of the swimming arena and does her best to be recognized by the spectators. But the real focus on this rain-drenched Friday afternoon is someone else.