Claire Waldoff, Berlin's own Edith Piaf

 

In episode 1 of the third season of the TV series Babylon Berlin, Charlotte Ritter listens to a record. It is by Claire Waldoff (1884-1957), a popular Berlin singer of the 1920s. The song has a feminist message, it's all about men being useless and about kicking them out of the Reichstag. Out with men, in with women!

Es weht durch die ganze Historie
Ein Zug der Emanzipation
Vom Menschen bis zur Infusorie
Überall will das Weib auf den Thron
Von den Amazonen bis zur Berliner Range
Braust ein Ruf wie Donnerhall daher:
"Wat die Männer können, können wir schon lange
Und vielleicht 'ne janze Ecke mehr.

"All through History, an emancipation storm is blowing. From men to microbes, everywhere the female wants to ascend the throne. Whatever men can do, we can do too since long ago, and a lot better maybe." (my own very free English version of Raus mit den Männern aus dem Reichstag).   

Click to hear the song!

 

The recording is probably from 1926 and the lyrics are by the great Friedrich Hollaender, who composed music for productions by Max Reinhardt end was involved in Berlin's Kabarett scene.He was the author of the music in The Blue Angel, including the main theme, in English called Falling in love again.

But back to the singer:  Claire Waldoff. Though born far from the capital, he became the quintessential Berlin singer.

 

Waldoff (right) with Margo Lion

 

What follows are excerpts from Peter Jelavich's "Berlin cabaret", from 1993.

Like all "true Berliners," she came from elsewhere. The daughter of a former miner who opened a pub, Waldoff grew up in Gelsenkirchen, in the Rhine-Ruhr industrial basin.

Her account of her arrival in the capital: "Then I saw the giant city Berlin and was overwhelmed. I immediately sensed the special character of this city, its unheard-of tempo, its temperament, its incredible brio ... I fell passionately in love with Berlin. Not because the city was beautiful or the Imperialcapital, but because it was Berlin, with its special atmosphere, its vivacious and curt character." In the ensuing months Waldoff became a keen observer of the city's manners, and she gained perfect mastery of its brash dialect.

Describing her employment of the local dialect and mannerisms, she noted: "I began to become the Berliner, a prototype of the Berliner, a representative of modern Berlin." By the 1920s Tucholsky was equating her with the statue of Berolina on the Alexanderplatz.

The audience was surprised and delighted by the totally novel manner of Waldoff's perform ance. Unlike cabaret's other chanteuses and soubrettes, she was anything but mondaine: her short, stocky build, bushy red hair, and simple dress were in marked contrast to the corseted figures, stylish coiffures, and haute couture sported by the other cabaret divas. While these women utilized a conventional repertory of hand, arm, and body gestures while singing, Waldoff stood absolutely still; at most she would move her head, roll her eyes, and use her rather harsh, guttural voice for expressive purposes. Only between the stanzas of the marsh-reed song did she perform a little dance, in which she waddled in a circle like a duck.

Other chanteuses employed double-entendres and similar indirect means of expression to evoke amorous affairs, in which the men were invariably wealthy bons vivants, while the women ranged across all strata of society, from the seemingly proper upper-class wife to the loose shopgirl. Waldoff, in contrast, employed straightforward expressions to describe relations exclusively among the lower classes. She would employ a thick Berlin dialect, and take on the role of either the "boy" or the "girl" (it was well-known that she was a lesbian in private life).