Berlin Café Romanisches was razed by an allied bombing at the end of 1943. Located in the Breitscheidplatz, in the Charlottenburg neighborhood, the place occupied the bass of the Romanisches Haus, a monumental neorromanic style building built in 1899 by the architect … Franz Schwechten. Was The center of Berlin intellectual life since 1916the date of its opening, until 1933 when the Nazis came to power.
The photographs taken a century ago show a large rectangular room, illuminated with large windows, marble tables, ashtrays and wooden chairs with cloth cushions. I had two tickets. In the main one, which gave the tauentzienstrsse, there was a rotating door.
Coffee was the meeting point for writers, artists, politicians and intellectuals of the Berlin leftso he suffered numerous attacks by the Sa Hitlerians from 1927. Hitler’s victory allowed them to vandate with absolute impunity Romanisches, which lost its character until its total destruction during World War II.
Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister, wrote: «The Bolsheviks Jews sit in Café Romanisches to boast their sinister revolutionary plans. At night, the Kurfürstendamm recreational premises invade, they let themselves be encouraged to dance through black orchestras and laugh at the miseries of the time ».
The establishment’s clients list includes a large representation of the liberal and left intellectuality: Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Döblin, Elías Canetti, Albert Einstein, Marlene Dietrich, Thomas Mann, Erich Maria Remarque, Franz Werfel and Peter Lorre, to name a few names. The Catalan writer Josep Pla The premises frequented when it was a correspondent in Berlin in 1923.
One of the best descriptions of its environment is that of Géza von Czifffafilm director and screenwriter, habitual client. “There was no one in the right rights and of the various liberal, communist, anarchist and socialist trends.” Von Czifffa points out that on the left side of the main entrance the gatherings of the artists who aspired to be famous were celebrated. It was known as ‘the pool’ or the section of the swimmers. The right part was reserved for the wealthiest and those who enjoyed a social status, including celebrities.
Von Czifffa recounts how the writer Joseph Roth met in the coffee in the swimmers wing. He was at the entrance of the service when an unknown little man approached him and said: «Are you Mr. Czifffa? Delete 50 cents or urinate me in my pants. I owe so much to the guy inside that he doesn’t let me use the toilet ». He gave him a frame and disappeared behind the door.
Chopped by curiosity, Von Czifffa asked a friend if that stranger was crazy or a sparrow. «Neither one or another. He is a journalist named Roth and has just written a book. Has money fullit will waste it and stay two candles ». The book was ‘Hotel Savoy’, the misadventures of a soldier who returns after the war to Lodz.
Days later, Roth approached the table and asked his benefactor to use his contacts for journalists to make a favorable criticism of his work. Von Czifffa was surprised and replied that he was a known writer, with better contacts. Roth replied: «All those are evil and envious. They boycot me ». In a subsequent match, Roth greeted him and handed him a expensive crocodile leather wallet. When asked the reason, he argued that the editor had given him a fabulous advance for the book. Roth died at 45 in 1939, four years before the destruction of coffee.
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