#GermanLitMonth: Gabriele Tergit and Weimar Berlin

Gabriele Tergit: Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm (Käsebier Conquers the Kurfürstendamm), 1931. Available in English from NYRB in US and Pushkin Press in UK, translated by Sophie Duvernoy as ‘Käsebier Takes Berlin’.

Gabriele Tergit was a journalist and the first female court reporter during the 1920s in Berlin. She wrote this debut novel informed by her experiences of working for a newspaper in just six weeks and it catapulted her to instant fame. It is a wicked satirical snapshot of the late Weimar Republic but it covers perennial topics such as media manipulation, celebrity culture, corruption in city planning and building, the widening gap between rich and poor.

Although there are some snide references to the National Socialists in this book, this was not what got Tergit into trouble with them, but reporting unfavourably on several court cases which involved the Nazis (and probably her Jewish origins) meant that the SA forced their way into her apartment in March 1933 and she realised she had to leave the country. She fled first to Palestine and in 1938 moved to London, where she died in 1983. Because she spent the rest of her life in exile (although she continued writing in German), she was largely forgotten in her home country. This changed in 2016 when her debut novel was reissued, as was her later novel Effingers, described as the Jewish Buddenbrook saga, a selection of articles and her memoir. She still remains a more shadowy figure than her other rediscovered contemporaries Irmgard Keun or Vicki Baum.

Having now read the novel that made her name, I can perhaps see why her contemporaries are more popular. I admired rather than loved this book, stuffed to the gills as it is with names and characters, some of them slightly stereotypical, others bordering on the absurd. This is a Dickensian Weimar world and it takes a while to settle into the main story, as there are too many parallel scenes and secondary stories unfolding.

This is the cover of the audio version of the book, and I wonder if that makes the book more or less accessible.

It is basically the story of a slow news day at the Berliner Rundschau newspaper. One of the journalists writes a filler article about a nothing-but-average singer of popular tunes Käsebier (whose name seems farcical in German – Cheesebeer). To everyone’s surprise, Käsebier becomes the next big sensation. Everyone wants to see him or produce some merchandise associated with him: from records to dolls to shoes. Soon, estate magnates are planning to build a whole complex on the main commercial street in Berlin, the Ku’damm, with luxury apartments and a Käsebier theatre. It appears that everyone is determined to make their fortune on the basis of the well-meaning but rather dim singer – but fashions change and fade, and soon he and several others around him are left ruined or forgotten. All against a backdrop of rising Fascism, constant economic and political crises, and the effects of the 1929 stock market crash in the US on a German government that had been largely propped up by American loans.

This is all told in a quick-paced, impressionistic style, as if we were eavesdropping on a series of conversations at a party, or perhaps imitating the film technique of a camera hovering above the crowds and then zooming in on specific scenes and characters. There were many throwaway brilliant sentences but the staccato delivery, the points of view changing with dizzying speed, did make my head spin at times.

Here are some examples which stayed with me:

1. Two journalists discuss a doctor who doesn’t seem to have too many clients, perhaps because he is too honest about not being sure about the diagnosis or the treatment. ‘Surely you are not of that primitive opinion that if I’m going to the doctor, he must prescribe something? It hurts me that you don’t appreciate it when someone isn’t trying to trick you.’ ‘No, I do appreciate it, I just wanted to give you an explanation as to why he’s not got a lot of work. Success is a matter of persuasion, not of performance.’ ‘Miermann would say that this sentence alone explains the whole principle of Fascism: you are fearful slaves, you need authority.’
2. Discussions on how to revitalise a newspaper and make it sell more: ‘Who cares about intelligence? Speed, headline, sensation, that’s what people want. Entertainment. A new sensation every day, in all caps!… You have to reward the most beautiful Berliner leg… a swim contest with prizes, the most loyal dog… the fifty most elegant typists in Berlin, the oldest cooks, the best automobile drivers…’
3. The investors who refuse to listen to the architect about their white elephant of a project. The architect keeps telling them there is no demand for 5-6 room apartments, that they’d be better off building 1.5-2.5 room apartments – ‘but we’re not going to suddenly build flats for proletarians on the Ku’Damm, are we?’
4. The experienced old-school journalist Miermann tries to ask for a raise, but is told that the paper needs new blood and is made to feel completely disposable. ‘But don’t you care about your readership?’ ‘No need, the readership doesn’t know any different and every year there are 200000 graduates who’ve learnt to write essays to order for 10 Pfennigs per line. There’s no stardom in journalism. It’s all about the paper’s position, not about the individual.’

In conclusion, this book required a bit of effort to remember all the names and personal stories, but it was quite rewarding, full of wit and the kind of humour that I’m beginning to recognise as typically Berlin. I have no doubt it will stand me in good stead as I translate a book set in 1960s Berlin.

For my next #GermanLitMonth, I take a trip to another favourite city, Vienna, and although the book has another bumper crop cast of characters, it is proving to be a much easier, page-turning read, even a bit soapy.