Edmund Edel, Berlin W. A few chapters from the surface
author: Edmund Edel
source date: 1906
language: eng
availability: This work has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.

Twenty-five years ago, there was no Berlin W. Twenty-five years ago, people still lived in the Oranienburgerstraße or in the Kraußnickstraße or you had a house in Friedrichstraße. In the “Große” Friedrichstraße, as the section of the Schiffbauerdamm to the Oranienburger Tor was called. Dad perhaps still had a “shop” back then, and Mum's hats were sold in the Annenstraße at a milliner according to her specifications. And the highest of feelings was a cloak from Gerson, which had to last six to eight seasons, every year tastefully modernised. For balls, weddings and “Kränzchen” (Oh the beautiful time of the club wreaths!) the white atlas wedding dress, which was worn with the utmost skill up to the blessing of the “eldest” all phases of every fashion. The daughters went to the „Höhere Töchterschule“ at Hausvogtei-Platz, made delightful handcrafts that required a lot of patience and had just as little purpose, were ice skating on Rousseau Island in the winter and their only summer sport was the Kremser Landpartien to Pankow and Charlottenburg - one must think as far as Charlottenburg - and when the going got tough as far as Schildhorn.

And in the evening, when the candles in protective leather started “dripping” from the dimly burning lanterns and Trudchen felt the arm of Mr Meyer around her waist, the poor Kremser horses toiling dragging the vehicle through the marshy sand, was the sporting desire of our young Berlin ladies satisfied to the greatest extent possible, and the handcrafts continued their useless existence the next day with renewed vigour.

But the gentlemen's sons were capable boys. Their tailcoats did not have any special, outstanding features. and it was a tradition to wear the father's wedding snippet at the Abiturium, shortened and turned inside out, this garment balanced through the period of study up to the state examination and to only produce one own new tailcoat at the time of their engagement. The boots were also still rough and solidly made, and the exterior man in general, has not yet made an overwhelming impression; but one studied diligently, went into business just as hard-working and thoughtfully and at the stock market and the individual talents did not yet grow mushrooming out of the bog. As music was still regarded as the only fully-fledged talent, that breaks up the family with evening entertainment and not necessarily consume the time of the usual activities. And poets created the family for domestic use only, for green, silver and golden weddings, not to issue incomprehensible, but printed books without buyers and with book decoration.

Of course, the sons were already strolling around like sons have strolled at all times, but one had at least done something during the day and not just played tennis. In the evenings one strolled around Puhlmann´s and Vauxhall, bawled the ragamuffins at Moores Academy of music, made a racket in Olbrichs Reichsadler and met at Kroll to the Bals parés. And the champagne bottles did not have a customs band around their belly and no note yet: “Bottled in Germany”. People still drank French sparkling wine, but all the rarer for it.

Dad was in the “shop” all day long, in the “business” or on the stock exchange. They rarely went out in the evening , perhaps on a Sunday afternoon in one of the new Viennese cafés, then through the park Linden to greet acquaintances, and in the evening one drank a “Echtes”, a real Munich beer for 30 Pfg., an outrageous price, that only the better-off could afford. Mum ate a fillet with mushrooms, the only thing that was ordered by her again and again, after close long examination of the menu. The “children” were shared one portion italian salad, and Dad tried something that was not cooked for him at home.

The novels from the “Romanbibliothek” and “Mein Leopold”, the folk play, provided the spiritual nourishment. They had cheaper season tickets to the opera house and theatre. and at most the Patti or the Lucca triggered a more intense artistic pulse. On Thursdays, however, they went to Bilse's concert house. The older ladies knitted stockings, the younger ones exceptionally left their handcrafts at home, in order to be able to flirt better, and between the ”Erwachen des Löwen” and the Liszt Rapsodie the preludes of some marriages were born.

But Dad went to Bendix the hilarious into the Americain with Mum once every winter and Trudchen´s dearest wish was, after the honeymoon, to be able to enjoy the harmless unambiguities of this last bard of the Berlin cobbler boy's joke as a “young woman”, who understands everything. and does not need to misunderstand anything.

Berlin W. had not yet been invented.

Then one day it was there. It was there, like a soap bubble, bloating shimmering, glistening, lascivious out of the bland, white, dignified foam of soap. Thousands upon thousands of twitching colours play in the air and form the ball and dance the fiery dance of the glistening glow.

Berlin W. out there, where the ostentatious castles of the Kurfürstendamm money, where the “Art Nouveau” architectures of the “Bavarian Quarter” have been out there with their excessive aberrations of taste, where the money rolls, the maids wear white bonnets and the “gentlemen” porters are taken on a noble keeping order, and where Berlin, actually Charlottenburg, Schöneberg or Wilmersdorf, lies out there. Berlin W.

“One” lives out there. One has eight to twelve rooms, one has a lift and an official certificate that you are allowed to use it yourself, were one would pay five Reichsmarks for and the insecure feeling of getting stuck from time to time. One has hot and cold water at its disposal, a built-in vacuum cleaner-motor in the house, and the servants no longer need to clean the lamps as they used to, smash the incandescent mantles and to heat the ovens. To fulfil the essential necessary bodily functions there are two to three silent, but decoratively furnished rooms, you have a “hallway” that depending on the taste and the summer travels of the owner is furnished in oriental, Frisian or “Markiewicz” style. When one has Family members with a higher flight, this hallway is in Biedermeyer style, white lacquered with Darmstädter wicker furniture. The rest of the flat is furnished stylishly. If, before the foundation of the final art movement, one has married, the forms of furniture vary between “Youth” and “Pfaff”, if already married in the last five years though, the buffets and the libraries, the salon arrangements and the marital beds bend in the witty wavy lines of van de Veldes or the Dresden and Munich art workshops. In the gentlemen's room you have club chairs for your own comfort and because there has to be a place somewhere to sit, and on the many shelves and tables there are French bronzes, Copenhagen porcelain, genuine Meißen, all of which have a real proveniency stamp on the back and usually are not wedding presents. Hanging in the parlour in splendid gold frames real oil paintings, which either at Lepke at the auction, at Cassierer or purchased in Italy while traveling, or which the madam painted “herself” before her marriage, and in the children's room hang in white mouldings englishdutch lithographs. On the desk lay books and magazines, as if accidentally forgotten, carefully cut open, and reveal the literary inclinations of the residents: “Neue Rundschau”, Maeterlinck, Skandinavien and Oskar Wilde and a little bit of german eroticism with a french touch. And the telephone stands in a smart, black box with a nickel earpiece next to the electric cigar lighter, next to the electric floor lamp with red and green iridescent glasses and next to the folder with the english silver fittings. The library contains the Dictionary of Conversations, Nietzsche, Heine's complete work and the „Engelhörner“ read by the “madam” during the last Heringsdorfer season.

[contour drawing of a chubby-cheeked man with a cigar]

Dad no longer has a “shop”, Dad has a “department store”, is on the supervisory board in an A.G. or G.m.b.H, has “terrains”, is a lawyer with the title of Councilor of Justice and with an Associé, is a specialist in gynaecological, intestinal, hearing or other diseases with a private clinic for necessary but expensive operations and a polyclinic for the impecunious and for the future “professor”. Or dad is even a lecturer, a private lecturer, which is however already categorised as a luxury dad. Dad has his club, dad goes to Hoppegarten, to Karlshorst and in the evening Dad has meetings - meetings that take place in winter in smokings and tailcoats and towards the morning bring unexpected surprises. Dad does not wear a wedding ring nor any other sign of his marital affiliation and is cavalier to a certain extent when there are no major changes in his temperament, of his habits and his wallet needed. Dad is even cavalier towards his own wife, whom he brings - especially on Sundays - a few roses, a brilliant ring bought secretly or a small ivory carving for [[contour drawing of a madam with glasses]] the salon. By the way Dad has his freedoms, like his own bedroom, is silent at the gentle admonitions from the marital half and shatters a plate or a chair leg only in extreme cases of irritation.

Mum is “chic”. Mum understands to get dressed and in Ostende or Monte Carlo real parisians have paid her the compliment that she was almost unrecognizable as a Berliner. Mum tailor made costs 350 Marks, and the diner robes and balltoilets of a season represent a prussian judge's salary. Mum's boots show the developed flavour of Raffinements and her fingers adorn rings with selected stones and of selected compositions.

Mum is “chic”. Mum is still chic when the daughters are already out of the dance class and start to become a mum themselves. But then mum wears slightly more matt colours in her toilets and no white Boa more. Mum Chic becomes reputable.

Mum is highly educated, Mum is intellectual, misunderstood by her husband, misunderstood by the “society”, understood by “him”. Mum has principles and suffers from her good education at her parents home at Monbijouplatz, an upbringing that not allowed her to develop passions. Her not being understood, dissolves into platonic sighs, into philharmonic concerts, literary lectures and the board work at a baby care centre. Mum enthuses about the latest ideas of the Intimate Theatre and forces Dad to attend the premieres with her. Mum is strict with the servants, but feared and loved in the tenants office at the “Heuer”, leaves the pantry open and gives special supper allowance.

The daughters play tennis. When they are between twelve and fourteen years of age, they are caught up by their destiny and they use the young boys already as match balls for their racket. With sixteen years, they are preparing for a liaison and are socially active. The daughters listen to lectures on obstetrics and the origin of the sexes. They read Nietzsche and Bölsche and digest the Simplizissimus and the Sezession. Do they have no talent to practising arts, which is an extremely rare experience, they cook once a week at the home for fallen girls or help out washing the nappies in a nursery roost in the north.

But most of them study. They [[contour drawing of a woman with a hat, a suitcase and a canvas in her hands]] study painting in one of the painting schools of the fashion impressionists, they paint flesh like Corinth, trees like Leistikow, portraits like Slevogt and pointillize like Curt Hermann and Paul Baum. If they have less talent they erase and ruin the Solenhofen stones with their “original lithographs” and discredit the areal art. They study painting and interior art and decorate their virgin chamber with nude studies without swimming trunks, like a real painter.

If a daughter is not pretty, she studies medicine or philosophy and gives lectures at the Lyceum Club on art and about the independence of women and defends the “illegitimate child and its right to exist”. The daughters do not wear corsets. Their figure is slim, busty, and her walk sways in a rhythmical beat. The right wrist and the right forearm are strong and firm from playing tennis, and their muscles promise the future husband sturdy hugs. They understand to give their stimuli provided by nature the necessary relief through tight, plump skirts, and some contender, in the search for “forms”, overlooks the not always classically beautiful features of the face.

[contour drawing of a woman with umbrella]

The daughters are already “informed”. They know “everything”, smile at the old wives tales of her grandparents, about storks, about Uncle's admonitions and are fully “modern”. They talk about the French two-child system and already know long before they are authorized by the registry office how to best implement this system, and achieve despite all the perils, the harbour of marriage safely like their mothers, grandmothers and ancestors.

The daughters walk in summer on the beach at Heringsdorf, Norderney, on the mountain promenades of St. Moritz [[contour drawing of a woman with a handbag]]and the Wengern-Alp and in the Lästerallee of the Zoo and dance on the house balls of the Kurfürstendamm, the Augsburgerstrasse, the Viktoria Luise-Platz and at the charity festivals in the Philharmonie in winter.

The daughters are given dowry by a hundred thousand upwards and downwards, their life entitlements are based on the capital and are in inverse proportion to the interest rate on the same.

The daughters are usually good mothers with a nurse (Spreewäldercostume), housemaid, cook and “Miss”.

The sons are well dressed. A lot of sons are “sons of their father”. The “son of his father” usually studies law or archaeology or some other expensive degree. He postpones the exam from racing season to racing season and achieves significant knowledge in poker, automobiles, Karlshorst and differentiating between the various Henckell sparkling wine brands, dry to Irroy goût americain. The son has his abiturium done at the right time, although tennis and bike rides and the flirts at the Zoo and in the Tauentzienstraße caused him some unpleasant disturbance of his school work, but Doctor Müller, the tutor, helped with his private knowledge, his perseverance and his good relationships to the French or the Wilhelms-Gymnasium. At the age of twelve the son already knows all the coolers of all automobile factories and can drive a car like an old chauffeur with fifteen. The son is technically gifted or literary or artistic.. Mercantile only if the other sons are already studying and one does not just want famous professors, engineers and architects in the family and, for a change, a bank director or an industrial magnate can also cut a fine figure. Many sons still become lawyers. Lawyer is still prestigious in the family and finally, it has enough processes, marriage divorces and inheritance settlements during the year that the lawyer has a decent practice on it. Doctors are not so sought after. A general practitioner is boring and disturbs the young woman's sleep. And the foundation of a sanatorium is, after all, costly and, with the high competition extremely daring.

It is very distinguished and honourable for the family, if the son has been abroad for several years in England and America, when he is a technician or an architect and with a clean-shaved face and mutilated Germanness returns to Berlin. In this case, he no longer calls through the telephone: “Who is there?” but briefly: “Hello!”

Is the son a writer, an artist or a gentleman bohemian - a new but extremely [[contour drawing of a man with hat and walking stick]]aristocratic species of families - and collects ex-libris, posters, original drawings of the Simplizissimus and youth people, then he disappears for a few years to Paris, Rome, Madrid and Japan. After his return he now only consorts in the Café des Westens with the disciples of art who, although not from Berlin and also not from the “families”, but sometimes do a living of the products of their talent. In the café, the son admires all the day and night celebrities and at home he reports, in a dismissive tone, about his friend the painter X from the Secession or the poet Y, whose play is performed at Reinhardt.

[contour drawing of a man in a tailcoat with flowers]

The sons are “well-dressed”. They stick to the crease, good boots and discreet underwear, and their cuffs roll up due to the movements of the arms, not down to the hands, but attached to the shirt. The sons already wear an impeccable dinner jacket in the Prima, for the abitur a even more impeccable tailcoat and call this furniture from then on an evening dress, which is renewed twice in the season. They have a stock of ties, of coloured waistcoats and of cigarette pockets and have a special overskirt for every weather, a special outfit for every sport. [[contour drawing of a man with a top hat and walking stick]]They will not wear a grey waistcoat to a lighter-coloured sacco and dark trousers, but know exactly the harmony of the tie, of the waistcoat, even the waistcoat buttons. The sons are cavaliers. More cavaliers than the fathers and are appreciated and valued by the ladies of the Arkardia, loved by the ladies of Hausvogtei-Platz and respected by the ladies of those stages, whose boards do not mean the whole world.

The sons are, like the fathers, members of the clubs and wear, mounted on the straps and the cases of the racing glasses the club badges, in Wannsee or on Helgoland the blue cap with the K.Y.C, on the car the one with the K.A.C.

The sons swear by an [[contour drawing of a man with monocle and folded arms]] other God like the fathers and mothers, and often have the hope of becoming a reserve officer of the cavalry. The sons serve in a dragoon regiment and do their exercises on the train. The sons marry very late or very early, which depends entirely on their practice or on the economic situation of the dad. About their future wife, they make themselves no great illusions and are satisfied, if the dowry pension is serving the domestic budget and the small incidental expenses.

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Grandpa and grandma are rich or very wealthy, stick to tradition, have been going to Marienbad for thirty years and to Switzerland for a follow-up cure give each grandchild 100 Mark in cash for their birthday, have invested in a dowry insurance for the granddaughters and shake their heads over the sports needs of their children and grandchildren. Grandad still drinks red wine and has no understanding for the sparkling wine and the imports of his male family and finds his daughters-in-law's perfume disgusting.

Granddad and grandma stick to tradition and family reunion. Sunday lunchtime or friday evening, all the family members eat at the grandparents, and granddad does a joke from time to time, that in the end, everyone longs for the Egypt saucepots. On Sunday evenings Grandad plays his half-penny skat with his sons and sons-in-law, the female members of the family talk about the maids, the fashion, the scandals and interfere with their husbands' game, when they get official feelings of tenderness. Grandpa and grandma try to understand today's world, but they are content to simply spoil the grandchildren and give the children allowances for rent, the household and summer holidays.

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The “family” of Berlin W. Once upon a time, their cradle has been in Eastpommerania, in Silesia, in Gnesen or West Prussia, and the family tree of these from Berlin W. was rooted in the labour field of the small provincial man.

Now Berlin W. has its “families”, its “lineage” and its “history”. From the useful, calm, shimmering soap spumed the iridescent glistening foam into the breezy heights of the frolicking life. [[End symbol]]