A Berlin novel by Gabriele Tergit

"Käsebier takes the Kurfürstendamm"

A Literary city symphony

In 1931, the literary debut of Berlin court reporter Gabriele Tergit was published under the title "Käsebier takes the Kurfürstendamm". The book immediately made the author famous. With the story of an unexpected ascent Tergit also delivers a rousing epochal image that has lost none of its resilience to this day.

Berlin is vibrating. It is 1929, the city has over four million inhabitants, new buildings everywhere, dance halls, cafes and revues at Nollendorfplatz are crowded, the ladies are learning boxing, they drive cars, take doctor grades. The gentlemen do business. In case they are not ruined by the economic crisis.

Rush hour at the newspaper Berliner Rundschau (fictitious name). Editor Miermann, solidly educated and old-fashioned, has commissioned his young colleague Emil Gohlisch, an esthete inclined to boxing, a feature piece on the popular singer Käsebier.

Käsebier (beer cheese in German) becomes, in the hands of the press, a new icon of popular culture, from which everyone can profit.

He becomes a brand, even cigarettes bear his name. Presumably, Tergit knew the media circus surrounding Josephine Baker in Paris: there were dolls, costumes, perfumes and cosmetics called Josephine Baker.

The novel was published the same year as Erich Kästner's "Fabian", another critical view of Weimar Berlin.

NOT by Gabriele Tergit