But life was hardly a walk in the park for Jewish émigrés, either, since they were seldom welcomed with open arms abroad. During the first great Jewish-German exodus, many intellectual Jews went to Austria, but despite the common language, few managed to establish themselves in the smaller, alpine nation. Austrian unemployment in the 1930s reached catastrophic levels. According to some estimates more than half a million people were out of work, and those in search of day labor could be found waiting on every street corner. The Austrian government, led by the anti-Nazi but fascist Engelbert Dollfuss, completely failed in its attempts to bring the economy under control. Jewish-German cabaret artists and comedians had it even harder than other émigré job-seekers, since Austria already had an established Jewish cabaret scene, led by Fritz Grünbaum, Karl Farkas, and Jura Soyfer. Those newcomers lucky enough to get an engagement often played to empty houses.
In short, many of these early refugees were forcing their way into a country that was already in desolate shape. Dollfuss was assassinated in 1934, and his successor, Kurt Schuschnigg, was spineless and unpopular. With the support of the German government, Austrian Nazis constantly tried to pour oil on these social flames, staging a series of garish propaganda events and engaging in an ever increasing number of anti-Semitic outrages. The situation was poisonous, but nonetheless, Austria remained the chosen destination for most Jewish-German émigrés of the early 1930s.
The popular character actor Kurt Gerron was one of those who sought refuge on the banks of the Danube. He moved there in 1934, six years after playing the street singer in “Mack the Knife” at the triumphant world premier of Brecht’s Threepenny Opera in Berlin. He had also acted alongside Marlene Dietrich in the film The Blue Angel and begun a successful career as a director of cinema comedies. Then, suddenly, he was on the outside looking in. On April 1, 1933, the day of the boycott, the production director had come on the set where Gerron was making a film and announced, “Those who don’t have pure Aryan blood must leave the studio immediately.” Magda Schneider, who played the female lead in the film, later recalled that the hulking Gerron went terribly pale and left the set with hunched shoulders. None of the other participants made any effort to defend him.
Otto Wallburg, Gerron’s colleague, the Jewish comedian who was known for his blubbering manner of speech, was allowed to stay on in German films because he promptly applied for a “temporary” work permit. There was still no law forbidding Jewish actors from practicing their trade, but protesting against company decisions was fruitless. Those complaints that were filed were summarily rejected. Gerron, recognizing the hopelessness of his situation in the new Nazi empire, decided not to take his former employer to court, and to leave Germany. “If things turn out okay here,” he remarked to Wallburg, “my name is Moritz.” Responsibility for the film he was directing was handed over to the Nazi loyalist Hans Steinhoff. Steinhoff’s star was to rise in the Third Reich, and he later directed one of the most popular Nazi films, Hitler Youth Quex. Gerron, in contrast, stood on the brink of a decade of abysmal suffering that would end in his death.
When he arrived in the overcrowded, politically explosive Austrian capital, Gerron pulled off a rare coup, for an émigré, by immediately landing a job. For Tobis Studios, he directed a romantic comedy entitled Boards that Mean the World. It starred Wallburg, who had followed Gerron into exile. But despite a famous cast, the film was a financial flop. Movies made by Jews could not be sold in Germany, and the Austrian market was too small to cover costs. Before long, Viennese studio bosses avoided Gerron and cut off his cash flow.
In the meantime, Gerron’s parents and wife had joined him in Austria, and that made his financial situation even more complicated, so after eighteen months, he decided to move on. Initially he went to The Hague in Holland, a country that took in émigrés with open arms. Jewish performers who chose to stay in Vienna were in for a rude awakening. Before long, Hitler began casting a greedy eye on the country of his birth.
The other Alpine nation, Switzerland, would remain a safe haven for the duration of the Third Reich—for those Jews who managed to get in. Swiss immigration policies were tough, and the country’s relationship with Nazi Germany was ambivalent. The Swiss government never took a clear stand against the inhuman practices of its much larger neighbor. Swiss official attitudes ranged from diplomatic caution to callous indifference when it came to the suffering of would-be émigrés. And against this background of official silence, the Swiss fascist movement became ever more vocal in its demands for political authority.
Pro-Nazi fascists in Zürich took especial umbrage at the political cabaret house Cornichon, and Walter Lesch, the founder of this cultural institution, became enemy number one for those on the far right. All of the issues on which the Swiss government chose to remain silent were paraded in front of a paying audience night after night in Lesch’s theater. The satire was so cutting that on numerous occasions Germany’s Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop filed official complaints with the Swiss government. But neither those complaints nor the whining of Swiss fascists had any effect. Despite calls for the theater to be censored or closed, Cornichon’s doors remained open.
The theater became a magnet for the German cabaret scene in exile, a venue where performers could heap scorn and ridicule on the Nazis without fear of retribution. Lesch himself ratcheted up the atmosphere with anti-German songs featuring lyrics far more uncompromising than to be found anywhere else in the Alpine countries. In 1938, he composed this song, with rhyming lyrics in the original, about a nation called Nazidonia and its favorite enemy:
“He’s to Blame for It All”
In Nazidonia, happy land
Where the original Aryans throng,
Reich of a thousand little years
And the racially pure marriage-band
Comes a leader, big and strong,
Promising butter, blood, and cream.
Yet though he like a Wotan stand
Bellowing out his glorious songs
Ruling the land at the top of his lungs,
Cooking fat’s still an impossible dream.
And the Führer keeps a sharp eye out
For the insidious assassin
Since it stands beyond a doubt
That someone’s to blame for the mess we’re in.
And lo and behold, look at that.
The villain’s already been found,
Isidore, ever degenerate,
Is guilty of this too, the hound!
And to punish his malice, vile and depraved,
He’s stripped of money and passport for that,
And though they still have no cooking fat,
The people think they have been saved.
And the moral of the story
To make it short and sweet
If it weren’t for the evil Jew
How could we rule the state?
In Italy, in Italy
The land of musicality
Hateful crows now call their song
From the roofs of palaces,
The lira barely limps along,
And Il Duce’s terribly concerned,
That in far Abyssinia
Where the palms and pine trees sway
No one can rule as he please
Or stroll the sands unburned.
But the leader cannot err, and thus
There’s no possible conclusion
But that known traitors, foes to us,
O’er the Po spread their confusion
Just as everywhere they do.
And the culprit we already know.
Signor Cohen, so it seems,
And his usual traitor’s schemes.
If someone breaks his neck in two,
The people, though they still get fleeced,
Think their suffering is eased.
And the moral of the case
Remains the same in every place:
If it weren’t for the evil Jew,
What would scapegoat-seeke
rs do?
In Romania, Romania
(Yes, why not in Romania?)
Even the little children there
Have to have their evil Jew.
How else could their rulers dare
To hoodwink them the way they do?
They had to do whatever they could
To pull the wool over their eyes
They’ll always need a good scapegoat
To smear with muddy lies.
German, Roman, and Japanese,
Fresh and chaste, and Franco-Spanish,
One can only destroy a people’s right
By giving them something to execute,
Communist or evil Jew,
But Bible scholar or Catholic, too,
Any one of them will do
To keep us from hating the ones we should.
But soon as all the scapegoats vanish
We’re the ones whose throats get slit
And the people are victims of the crime,
And still they simply don’t get it.
And the moral of the rhyme
Until the very end of time?
If there were no evil Jew
We would miss him, me and you.
Another Zürich cabaret house, Pfeffermühle (“Pepper Mill”) was somewhat more discreet, packaging political criticism in allusion and metaphors. This troupe was formed in 1933 by Klaus and Erika Mann, the children of Thomas Mann. Klaus Mann later described the project as “a literary cabaret with a strong political focus and a playful but deeply serious and impassioned protest against the shame of fascism.” He added: “The texts for most of the numbers—chansons, recitations, sketches—were by Erika, although I wrote some. Erika was the emcee, director, and main organizer. She sang, whipped up enthusiasm, hired the employees, inspired the performers—and in short she was the heart and soul of the whole theater.”
The original Pfeffermühle had been in Munich, but the audience there was full of Nazi spies, and the fascist press waged a constant campaign to stir up public animosity against the small house. After the Reichstag fire, the political atmosphere became too dangerous for left-wing cabaret. But the troupe found that even in Switzerland political humor was a risky enterprise, and most of the Swiss public were turned off by satire disguised as allegory.
A good example of the Pfeffermühle’s style is the following text by Erika Mann, which was transparently about Hitler:
I am the prince of the land of lies
I can lie to shake the trees
Good lord, am I a skillful liar!
No one lies so brilliantly.
I lie so inventively
That the blue falls from the sky
See lies flying through the air
That lying gale’s source am I.
Now summer is a-comin’ in
And the trees are all in bud
The field are full of violets
And war does not shed blood.
Ha, ha. You fell for it.
In your faces I can read it.
Although it was completely false,
Every one of you believed it.
Lying is nice
Lying is fine
Lying brings luck
Lying bucks you up.
Lying has lovely long legs.
Lies make you rich
Lies are well-stitched
Seem like they’re true
Wash sin from you
And follow on a leash like dogs.
Back in my home, the land of lies,
The truth must remain unspoken.
A colorful web of lying strands
Keeps our great Empire unbroken.
We have it good, we have it nice
We kill all our enemies
And award ourselves the highest device
Of honor for our false glories.
Once a liar, nevermore trusted;
Always a liar, always believed!
That he speaks anything but truth
Is an utterly intolerable idea.
Lying is easy
Everything’s grand
If you can do it,
False means to our end.
To the land of lies
Lying brings fame
Lies are colorful and elegant
While gray truth looks always the same.
In order to protect my land
I mix the poison and set the fires
If you doubt me, I’ll shut you up,
I, the prince of the land of lies.
By 1934 the fascist Swiss National Front was staging violent protests inside the theater. Glasses and chairs were thrown, while the fascists chanted “Jews get out” and “We don’t need Jews in Switzerland.” Instead of receiving help from Swiss authorities, the Manns had to publicly defend their political project. Before long, representatives of the Third Reich began flexing their muscles at the Swiss government, which responded by passing a law forbidding foreign residents of Switzerland from making political statements. Appeasement was the policy of choice in Europe, and Germany’s smaller neighbors hoped that compromise would pacify Hitler.
When Switzerland’s political leaders caved to Nazi bullying, it was the end for Klaus and Erika Mann’s cabaret. In response to the new law, Erika Mann sent an open letter to the most influential Swiss newspaper, justifying her work:
The Pfeffermühle is not a stage for inciting the masses or promoting a political party, nor is it an émigré theater. It’s an association of young people of various nationalities (Swiss, German, Russian, Austrian) who are trying to offer respectable entertainment and amuse people in a way that makes them think. “The Pfeffermühle would like you to think about …” could be the slogan on our programs and invitations. We are trying, in a consciously light-hearted manner, to say serious things that need to be said today. And we’d have every reason to be ashamed, if we stopped doing that now.
In 1937, after the Manns had emigrated to the United States, Erika and Klaus made a brief attempt at reviving their theater in New York, but people there weren’t particularly interested in either cabaret or the problems of continental Europeans. Despite its ultimate demise, however, the Pfeffermühle was certainly the most successful and influential émigré cabaret troupe of the period.
Its fate was symptomatic of the situation faced by politically active exiles in the years prior to World War II. Many host countries issued gag orders, but the status of political refugees in Switzerland was particularly precarious. The Swiss were quite xenophobic and constantly feared being overrun by foreigners. Because she was married to the poet W.H. Auden, who carried a British passport, Erika Mann was not affected by the country’s strict visa regulations. But for Jewish émigrés, whom Switzerland did not acknowledge as political refugees, a German-Swiss border crossing was too often merely a detour on the way to the concentration camp. “Escort out” was what the Swiss called the deportations, and in many cases it was an escort to the grave.
THE SITUATION of Jews in Germany was getting worse and worse. Jews were constantly being hassled in a variety of ways, and the public insults and government-supported attacks were augmented by the hateful scorn meted out by newspapers like Der Stürmer, the organ of Julius Streicher, which published caricatures of Jews that could hardly have been more primitive, and plastered its front pages with every sort of anti-Semitic cliché.
The paper was conspicuously and perhaps revealingly obsessed with the idea that Jews wanted to sexually defile young Aryan women. The repressed pornography and homoeroticism of the illustrations that accompanied articles on this topic were also a grotesque reflection of the era’s fascination with physiognomy. The crooked nose, Der Stürmer proclaimed, was the most significant and prominent external sign of Jewishness. Lascivious Jewish “race defilers” were depicted with hair slicked back in the manner of Latin lovers; Jewish bankers, who supposedly lusted for Aryans’ money, were caricatured as repulsively obese creatures with shifty eyes. One such figure was shown trying to break open stro
ngboxes; another was depicted squatting atop a globe and shitting on it. The world as seen in the Der Stürmer was full of perversion, and the sick minds that conceived it were ruling Germany on behalf of the German people.
Above all, those Nazi cartoons were frighteningly perfect visual mirror images of the worldview of the supreme Nazi leader, one he had laid out himself, in Mein Kampf:
The black-haired Jewish youth loiters around for hours, with Satanic glee on his face, for an innocent girl whose blood he defiles and thus takes away from her own people.
The letters to the editor published in Der Stürmer were full of similar expressions of adolescent sexual envy. The same was true of the anti-Semitic humor they contributed. Another popular theme was Jewish rapacity and greed, and Der Stürmer’s readership came up with endless variations on it in the jokes they invented:
Pinkus and a Gentile are attacked in the forest, and as the highwaymen are about to frisk them, Pinkus takes out his wallet and says to his fellow victim: “Ah, I just remembered. I owe you 500 schillings.”
Jokes of this sort were in constant circulation and reinforced and confirmed popular anti-Jewish stereotypes. And though the readership of the Stürmer may have collected and passed them on, anti-Jewish jokes were also told by apolitical Germans. They were a symptom of the latent anti-Semitism that had survived beneath the surface of German society and long before the Nazis took power had laid the groundwork for the persecution of Jews in the Third Reich. The line between harmless kidding and defamatory jokes full of resentment was blurry, and not every joke-teller may have been aware of when he crossed the border from mere bad taste to injuriousness.
Nonetheless, even naively repeated clichés helped ostracize the once completely integrated Jewish minority. Once Jews were seen by the public as outsiders or intruders, the authorities could do with them what they wanted. In this sense, no anti-Jewish joke, however mild, was harmless. Moreover, making light of Jews against the backdrop of their persecution, disappropriation, and forced exile was heartless and cyclical, and it gave a gloss of legitimacy to those acts of injustice. The difference between Nazi-era jokes about money-mad Jews and the jokes about tightwad Scotsmen that were popular after the war (many of the latter were adaptations of the former), was that the Scots were not a persecuted minority in Germany, nor was there widespread resentment against them.
Dead Funny: Humor in Hitler’s Germany Page 8