The Isherwood Walking tour

BERLIN ISHERWOOD WALK.

Julie has asked me to write about the Isherwood walk, and the late Christopher Isherwood.

Why do we need to know about him? Well, as Julie mentioned without his novels and dairies, we wouldn't have this

Or along with the writing of one of his gay lovers, Stephen Spender, such a detailed and graphic account of Berlin life in the 1920's and 30's. I'm pretty sure you have seen the film Cabaret, so I'll just fill it out a bit.

Berlin or this particular area of Berlin,

was a pretty wild and open place. As the guide put it, there was not an itch that couldn't be scratched, and as I learnt from my studies, anything and almost everybody could be bought for a price. For the gay Isherwood, that "itch" was the company of other gay males. Paris was dead as the European "sin city," Berlin had taken over. You can get a pretty good idea of what Berlin was like then, by seeing the Cabaret movie, then looking at the photos taken at the time, and at the paintings of Otto Dix. Dix is sometimes referred to as the Toulouse Letrec of Berlin, because like Letrec, Dix painted, the night life, sometimes sordid, of the red light district of the city. In Otto Dix's case, that city was Berlin.

Christopher Isherwood lived in this house, and walked along these streets.

As he did, he would pass endless bars, brothels, and cabaret clubs. One of the most famous was The Eldorado cabaret club. A place where many entertainers got their big break, one being Marlene Deitrich. A club which was owned by a Jewish couple. The Eldorado, like all the other cabaret clubs, was a place that poked fun and satirised the views and actions of the establishment in particular, and sometimes the attitudes of the "straight" society from which the gays, Jews, etc were excluded.

Things were going O.K for the people who lived here until the National Socialists (The Nazis) rose to power in the 1930's. Among the people the Nazis didn't like (and they didn't like many people!) were Jews, Gays, and People who criticised and satirised them, that is, the people of the Nollendorf area, including the people involved in the cabaret world.  As time passed, the Nazis passed laws which gradually imprisoned then exterminated the people living, performing, or frequenting the clubs, bars, cabarets, and brothels here. Often the implementation of the various laws, was capricious and fickle, opening and  closing cabaret clubs at will, then arresting and releasing people on a whim. I remember reading the opening lines of a cabaret club compere:

"Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we are open (for business) we will be probably be so open (sexually explicit and satirical acts and songs) that by tomorrow we will be closed (for business) again!"

Well, as you know and to cut a long story short, the imprisonment and extermination policies of the Nazis, drained the Nollendorf area of its population. For example, the Jewish couple that owned The Eldorado, at first went into temporary exile because they thought the Nazis and their policies would blow over. When they didn't the couple remained in exile and ended up in Sydney where they remained and raised their family.

It was while talking about this couple, that the guide brought our attention to the little "markers which Julie wrote about in her blog. The markers have the nickname of "stumblestoppers." I found the presence of these little plaques to be one of the most poignant and moving things I saw in Berlin, and remember this city has poignant and moving sites by the truckload.

Even though those times have passed the Nollendorf area remains today. Julie has written about it in her blog. The old Eldorado club still remains but now it is a shop and a cafe. I can now say I had a coffee where Marlene Dietrich had hers.

 The guide said the station still has the "proud" reputation of being the gayest metro station in Europe! 

and the Bull club, still caters for people with an itch (like Isherwood)   ..... 24/7!!