1936 On the Continent

Friedrichstrasse still means to some the centre of the world, especially to German provincials. The best shopping street, however, is the Leipziger Strasse, going right and left from the Friedrichstrasse, which perhaps may be best compared with our Oxford Street.
    I shall not attempt to describe Berlin. The enumeration of the most important streets and sights would spread over many pages, and I am no competitor of Mr. Baedeker. But I must certainly mention the striking contrast which I experienced under the Lindens, when one suddenly comes from the feverish activity of the Friedrichsstrasse neighbourhood and, in the quiet distinguished world of the Kaiserschloss—in the huge Lustgarten—discovers the university and the museums. A worthier setting for the tomb of the Unknown Soldier could not have been found. The well-proportioned little hall, with the soft light shimmering through, made an unforgettable impression on me.
    Berlin traffic is thickest in the Potsdamer Platz, where nearly a dozen busy streets converge. The traffic tower in the midst of the turmoil is a landmark in Berlin. There are many hotels here, and amongst them the Haus Vaterland, a huge hostelry with a character of its own, where there is a large cinema and coffee-house. I do not knowwhether all this activity is to everyone’s taste, but to us strangers these evening excursions in the different cities, with their appropriate food and drink, are certainly a pleasure. The Haus Vaterland belongs to the Kempinsky concern, which not only possesses the most famous German wine cellars, but is the proprietor of the favourite wine restaurants in Berlin in the Leipziger Strasse and the Kurfürstendamm, where to-day it is not essential to drink wine, but comparatively cheap and very good food can be had.
    Further east one comes to the Alexanderplatz, also a big traffic centre, where the atmosphere is more that of the suburbs, and in the inns of which the most genuine Berlin types are to be found. It is no chance that the headquarters of the police have been established here. From the roof terraces of the buildings here one gets a good view of the unending bustle of Berlin life.
    On two evenings Tom took me through the side streets off the Friedrichsstrasse which during the day are devoted to commerce but after dark change into one of Berlin’s entertainment centres. Cabarets, bars, dance-halls jostle each other, to suit every taste, but especially that of the German provincial. Formerly the famous nude performances were to be seen here, but one seeks them in vain to-day. The wine shops too have been adapted to suit the political changes.
Berlin: Cafés and Bars
    I enjoyed myself better in the coffee-houses, restaurants, and entertainment places of the West End. At the Wittenbergplatz begins this endless chain of resorts, and it continues through the Tauentzienstrasse with its side streets as far as the Kurfürstendamm. Most of them are grouped about the Gedächtniskirche, which stands in a peculiar position in the midst of the busiest streets and looks almost like a watch tower guarding Berlin’s night life. Here may be seen also the illuminated advertisements of the great film palaces, of which the largest belong to the Ufa concern of Herr Hugenberg, once so well known politically. The Ufa Palast is the most artistic of these, and leads to the Zoo.
    I was enjoying myself so much everywhere that I should have liked to spend the whole evening strolling about. We visited the most varied collection of bars, and I noted the Kakadu in the Kurfürstendamm, also an elegant dance palace in the Martin Luther Strasse, suitably called Casanova. In the same building as this, in the great Scala variety theatre, we saw a performance. We drank cocktails in the Eden Bar in the beautiful Eden Hotel, which reminded us of our youth together in London; and in the Delphi-Palast in the Hardenbergstrasse I saw that in the West End also it is possible to amuse oneself cheaply. I noticed how good-looking even the more unassuming Berliners are. I had always been told in England that the German women are rather plump, even, to be exact, over-sized. Perhaps this was once true, but now, Tom says, you cannot find even in Paris slimmer or better dressed women than in the Kurfürstendamm.
    If in the afternoon you take a walk along in front of the terraces of the innumerable cafés that line this street, you will see a good selection of them, as in a well-arranged shop window. Café