BERLIN'S NIGHT LIFE

Waipa Post, Volume 49, Issue 3504, 11 August 1934, Page 5

BERLIN'S NIGHT LIFE

BACK TO BEER. With a deeply regretful sigh, Berlin's night life prepares to stack some of its chairs, lock some of its wine and liquor closets, and otherwise yield to approaching summer, says the San Francisco Chronicle. The sigh is strictly financial. It begins with the cash register and runs up and down, like a discordant melody, from bartender to waiter to dance girl. It is a lament for the days that used to be. It is a reproach against the new "coffee and beer" night life of Berlin. Its causation includes both the depression and the various effects of the Nazi regime. In swanky West End bars, where the stools are well padded, and prices scaled accordingly high, the waiter has this emotional juggling of his breath down to a science. At the mere mention of tips his mouth droops, his shoulders fall lower into his coat, and he looks sadly at his interrogator.

"I lost twenty thousand marks in the inflation," he begins, this being, for him, what psychologists would call a fixation of some kind or other. "People don't spend the way they used to," whispers the mournful soul, confiding the obvious. "Not so many drinks —and they keep one eye on the price list. I suppose it's the depression; but listen, let me tell you about the twenty thousand marks I lost in the "

In a less hoitytoity club the bartender talks English out of a highly flexible vocabulary of some three hundred words, and every sentence begins and ends, like the cracking of a whip, with, "You see, sir." "You see, sir, they're mostly older men, see sir? The young fellows don't make enough money any more, you see, sir. Tips did you say, sir? Once upon a time! Why, I remember one fellow who used to come in and tip me five marks regularly. But it's, different now, see, sir?"

In a more popular restaurant cabaret, with plenty of red plush, squarecut lamps, and stainless steel deviations, the waiter inclines his head significantly towards the tables. "Beer or a pot of coffee! That's all. I haven't heard a champagne cork pop for weeks.

"But take the old days. I can remember where there were more people on the streets at midnight than there are now in the middle of the afternoon."

While the depression is given clue credit for the collapse in Berlin night life, especially as it has limited youthful spending, the Nazi programme also has played a part.

Not only have a number of night clubs and dance places been closed. and the whole of the night life brought into tighter restriction, but the new emphasis on sports and outdoor life has detracted from the lure of late night celebration. What with marching units and a wide range of sports programmes, modern German youth, and older persons as well, have less time for nocturnal adventuring.

The dance girl, an enticing product of bohemia, who talks with a husky exhalation of her breath, and who knows her men, put it very neatly, in literal translation:

"Business! Ach, business is not more good!"