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Café des Westens. The world outside called it “Café Größenwahn” (Café Megalomania), the world inside referred to itself as “German Literature”.

Here sat all the genres: from the survivors of Naturalism to Expressionist youths; from Esoteric Mystics to tattlers writing for three different dailies under three different names.

Quote from from Egon Erwin #Kisch’s 1914 text “Literatur in Berlin”.

Café des Westens on Kurfürstendamm Boulevard at No. 18-19: later it would move to a new location at the Union-Palast, at Ku’damm 26 but the artists, disappointed at the changes and not exactly welcome among the new fine – and conservative – clientele, abandoned it for “Romanisches Café“.
Newspaper clipping from “Der Weltspiegel”, 21 May 1905.

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Today’s mood in Berlin – it must have been April, too, when Lesser Ury made sketches for this painting in 1910 on Kurfürstendamm. Back in the days when Charlottenburg was an independent city said to have been the wealthiest municipality in Prussia.

Ury himself lived at Nollendorfplatz 1 in Berlin W30 (the old postal code for Schöneberg). At the time his biggest “enemy” (it was more of a bitter competition but not one marked by malice) had his studio almost exactly 3.3 km north-east of Ury’s, in the very heart of fine Berlin. Professor Max Liebermann, the heavy-weight of Berlin art-world, and his family resided on the second floor of the house Pariser Platz No. 7.

The anecdote has it that when Lesser Ury allegedly began to spread a rumour that it was him and not Liebermann who created the exquisite light-effects in the master’s famous 1887 painting, “Flax Scourers in Laren”, Liebermann – famous for his direct ways and sense of humour – responded: “I can’t be bothered to sue Herr Ury – unless he starts telling people that it was I who painted his paintings.”

Lesser Ury “Am Kurfürstendamm”, 1910 (image PD via Wikipedia, original painting in a private collection )

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Last night #RBB (Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg) – for obvious reasons our favourite German TV station – treated its viewers to another episode of its highly appreciated documentary series Geheimnisvolle Orte (Secret, or Mysterious, Places).

This time it is all about the KaDeWe: since its opening in 1907 Berlin´s Kaufhaus des Westens (the Department Store of the West) remains an elegant temple of shopping, the Mecca of jet-setting keen buyers.

Adolf Jandorf and family in their villa in Tiergartenstraße, 1908 Berlin (image by R. Siebert).

Its story is a rich tapestry of anecdotes and historically significant moments. Its fate reflects that of Berlin itself almost one-to-one: the Wilhelminian show-off opulence, braggadocio and drama, the Weimar Republic “wild & wasteful” craze and sudden financial slump, the Nazi-era tragedy of the Jewish management and staff, followed by the Second World War wreckage and the resurrection; division of Berlin and the 1960s anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian, anti-government student movement for whom the KaDeWe became a symbolic enemy (also because the man behind the store´s post-war resurrection, its post-war manager, held his post thanks to the 1933 Nazi process of “aryanisation” of Jewish enterprises). In 1989 the Kaufhaus des Westens was also among the most important destinations for many awe-struck East Berliners.

The RBB documentary captures all of those moments and the experts as well as the store´s management do their best to elucidate the special, almost royal, status of Schöneberg´s old shopping temple. In our humble opinion, they succeed.

The documentary is in German only, however, the precious historical film material it contains makes it worth watching even if you do not understand a word. Please click the image to enter.

KaDeWe in its opening year, 1907 (photographer unknown).

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Heinrich Zille’s photo of Berlin’s working-class children playing in the streets, taken between 1900 and 1910.

It is only one of many wonderful Zille images decorating the walls of the U-Bahnhof “Fehrbelliner Platz” on U3 Line, opened in 1913.

The other part of that station, for the extended U7 Line, was not built until the 1960s. Hence its futuristic aesthetics, especially of the overground section with its red hue and organic, rounded edges. The building is sometimes referred to in Berlin as “Bohrinsel”, ” Drilling Rig”.