BERLIN’S “FESTIVAL OF LIGHT”

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 54, 27 November 1928, Page 12

BERLIN’S “FESTIVAL OF LIGHT”

SHOP-GAZING IN THE SMALL HOURS

“NIGHT LIFE FOR FAMILIES”

“Night-Life for Families” is the new watchword of Berlin (says a correspondent of the “Observer”). Blazing like a jewel during the “Festival of Light,” the great city is now a fairyland whose magic increases, as daylight wanes. The highly specialised electrical industry has concentrated its forces and taken a whole, metropolis for its exhibition ground, turned public buildings, from the Reichstag downwards, into enchanted castles, long boulevards into rivers of light, and every-autum-nal plane and linden into a. shining Christmas tree.. . Shopkeepers, who here illuminate their windows, as a matter of course,, long after those in. other cities are shuttered down for the night, have joined in the movement by special exhibitions of window-dressing, and shopgazing at midnight has become a popu-. lar recreation. Laying claim with justification to be the most American town of Europe, Berlin, after a feverish review of its . pre-war places of amusement, can now offer the most varied assortment. of “night-life” on the Continent. Not all attempts have been successful. Berlin is laid out on the grand plan devoted to the spectacular and magnificent, and the intimate little cabaret cannot flourish in the pretentious atmosphere, nor can the hotel ballroom or expensive dancing establishment show anything approaching the elegance of Paris. Paris, being still the haunt of the fashionable, business men have seen that Berlin’s forte lies in catering for the bourgeois family-gathering, on the one hand, and for the student of postwar pathology, and the “ultra-mod-erns” themselves, on the other.-

Her night life has been competently organised into three distinct classes. Besides the legitimate evening business of countless popularly-priced restaurants and cafes, there are vast pleasure haunts for the middle class, bent on family rejoicings, showing country cousins the sights.-or entertaining business friends from the provinces. There are the expensively decorated, and ex-quisitely-lighted dancing establishments, serving bad food and worse wine, which the hotel concierges Immediately recommend to young Americans “doing” the night life of Europe. One can also gain access to the third category of pleasure resorts, recommended not by concierges, but by taxidrivers. These are carefully shuttered windows, provided with a notice, “open to members only.” Admittance to these “private clubs” can always be obtained through a door at the side after careful scrutiny from within. Prices are higher, surroundings more sordid, the air more furtive, and the stranger disappointed of thrills, honestly comforted by the thought that the police can find him if "anything happens.” .... The great bulk of the middle-class populace knows nothing of that kind. It has been admirably catered for of late by the rebuilding of the pre-war cafe. "Piccadilly,” rechristened "Vat-, terland.” on the outbreak, of war. An Ingenious system of. scenic effect on. the diorama plan provides under one roof’an almost , complete illusion of a Rhineland terrace, a Bavarian beergarden, and the special attractions of several other countries as well. To gain a very fair idea of Germany and the Germans at their best and most natural at close upon two o’clock in the morning, it is only necessary to see a table full of home-sick Bavarians solemnly ordering in turn quart tankards of the genuine home-brew for the large wind orchestra, each generous act being acknowledged by a flourish of trumpets.

The exceptionally effective diorama of Vienna, viewed at midnight from a very creditable imitation of one of her own green hill-side gardens, where the light wine of the country is drunk at its headiest, is doing-far more to further the “Anschluss” idea than any political gathering ever sponsored by two Governments.