Romanisches Café

The Romance Café was a well-known local artists Berlin at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the district of Charlottenburg. Today Breitscheidplatz between Tauentzien and Budapest street, since 1965 is the Europa-Center.

History of the café

On the ground floor completed in 1899 Roman house were first the pastry shop of the Hotel Kaiserhof - in 1916 finally addressed the merchant Bruno Fiering in a cafe one. Due to the severity of the neo-Romanesque interior design, the restaurant seemed to many a visitor bleak.

After the much -maligned renovation of the cafes of the West on the Kurfürstendamm, the Romanesque Café quickly pulled the traffic there intellectuals and artists: renowned writers, painters, actors, film directors, journalists, critics. At the same time it was the meeting place for expectant artists who sought initial contacts. The already successful attempt to fend off too clumsy overtures. My area was the so-called " pool for swimmers ," the next room with about 20 tables. All the others were made ​​to the main room with about 70 tables, the " pool for non- swimmers ." The chess players met traditionally in the gallery, on the terrace, the cavorting " strangers ".

Regulars called it in the 1920s jokingly " Rachmonisches Café". When, towards the end of the Weimar Republic, the political struggles were violent, Roman Café gradually lost its role as a rallying point. Already on March 20, 1927 organized Nazis a riot on the Kurfürstendamm, where also the Romanesque Café was a target of vandalism. The "seizure of power " by the Nazis and the emigration of most of the regulars meant the final out as an artist café. In 1933 uniformed Gestapo at a separate table space.

Contemporary reception

Erich Kästner noted:

" Like a wave of admiration it goes through the room when it enters a lucky person. And whom he welcomes that feels ordained [ ... ] "

The publicist Walther Kiaulehn manifests itself ambivalent:

"The ' Romanesque ' was carelessly and without any mood, a particularly unsuccessful construction of the Wilhelmine period, only big, two big rooms, one with rank, daylight lit until morning, but always full of crack. It was nice just the terrace and particularly in the early morning, when the literature was still asleep. The tradition of, Romanesque ', over fifty years old, rooted in the old café of the West ' on the Kurfürstendamm, known by the citizens, Café Megalomania '. The owner had one day the nickname tired and announced her master painters and writers quarter, so they moved into, Roman 'around in the until then no man had gone. You [ ... ] appointed the front room to, non-swimmers pool ', which could also be used by ordinary audience [ ... ] "

The journalist Karl Ernst Werle rhymed pretty sarcastic:

"Place overheated thinking Geistbeschwerter Rendezvous ' Café mystical submergence Cradle iridescent Lulu. "

Wolfgang Koeppen about the decline of the café after 1933:

" [ ... ] We saw the terrace and the coffee blow away, disappear with his mental freight, dissolve into nothing [ ... ] and the guests of the cafes scattered all over the world or were captured or killed or brought by or crouched and sat still at the cafe with moderate reading and the tolerated press and the great betrayal ashamed [ ... ] "

Masha Kaléko wrote the poem At a café table scrawled on the Romanesque Café:

I 'm not used to the long wait, I can always wait for others. Now I crouched between empty coffee cups And wonder if all of this was worth it. It's so different than in previous days. As both feel dumb: this is the rest Do not ask that.? It can be many things to say, What can not yet be said basically. Halbeins. So late! Guests are to be counted. I pack up my optimism. In this city of four million souls Seems a soul to be quite rare.

In 1927, Friedrich Hollaender celebrated cabaret revue "For us at the Memorial Church rum " premiere. The Romance Café was one of the venues. Willi Schaeffer's singing as " Romanesque waiter " the title song. Anni Mewes sang the song of a ragged girl: Two dark eyes, Two eggs in glass.

Based on an idea by Moriz Seeler 1929, the movie people came on Sunday, a scene takes place in the café.

Regulars

Else Lasker-Schüler

Stefan Zweig

Erich Maria Remarque

Afterlife in the arts

By Gerhard Haase- Hindenberg comes Romanesque café. A theater revue, premiere, 1990, Freie Volksbühne Berlin / Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin.

Tom Peuckert wrote Artaud remembers Hitler and the Roman Café, drama, world premiere in 2000, the Berliner Ensemble. The monologue drama can be the French actor and playwright Antonin Artaud in madness fantasize about being in 1932 met with Hitler in Roman cafe. In fact, a visit to Hitler can not be detected.

Romanesque cafes Nos. 2 and 3

In 1965 opened the Europa Center was located at the same place in the 1970s, a new Romanesque café. Since 2012 is located on the west side of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Hardenberg Strasse 28, a café, whose name shall also continue the tradition of the original Romanesque cafes. It belongs to the newly built Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Zoofenster.

Hotel Kaiserhof (Berlin) Lesser Ury Sarcasm People on Sunday Egon Kisch Paul Morgan (actor) Maxim Gorki Theatre Adolf Hitler Yiddish language
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