Oppositional Cabaret In Nazi Germany
Oppositional Cabaret In Nazi Germany

Summary/Abstract: The fame and success of Weimar cabaret were founded predominantly on its socially critical and culturally opositional quality. Most of this work was produced by left-wing authors, who after Hitler’s seizure of power had to flee into exile in order to save their skins. After 1933, cabaret did not die out in Germany, but it was only the innocuous entertainment version that was allowed to flourish, interspersed here and there with a few tits-and-bums shows. Despite the system of repression that was erected by the Nazis in both the political and the cultural spheres, pockets of resistance continued to exist right up until the Second World war. One of the most notorious Nazi butchers, Julius Streicher, issued a warning: ‘Should it happen again that a cabarettist makes fun of a political leader, we shall close the shop on him. I shall annihilate any such impertinent prattler. If I again hear reports of people circumventing the rules which the Fuhrer does not want ignored, I shall take them to task and there will be serious consequences’.

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