Operation HEIL!Kräuter – Kabarett im Dritten Reich

Operation HEIL! Herbs
Cabaret in the Third Reich

“Sebastian Schlagenhaufer and Ramon Bessel put on an impressive evening. By the end, you don’t know what to praise more: the skillful singing, the compelling performance, or perhaps the clever selection of such diverse pieces?” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

“Mr. Hitler can count himself lucky that his name isn’t Kräuter. Otherwise, we’d always have to shout ‘Heil Kräuter,’” Karl Valentin is said to have remarked on stage in the 1940s. A joke that was not without risk during the Third Reich.

Yet despite all the pressure and danger, numerous cabaret artists managed to make the Nazi regime the subject of their satire—either openly or between the lines. Quite a few were banned from their profession as a result, though that was still the milder punishment. Some, on the other hand, ended up in concentration camps, and even there, many still tried to express their criticism through humor. Still other artists, mostly of Jewish background, left Germany—initially for Austria—though this was only a brief reprieve. Thus, from the late 1930s onward, German cabaret artists were scattered all over the world. Out of necessity and despite language barriers, German cabaret ensembles of outstanding quality emerged—even in New York!

In “Operation HEIL!Kräuter,” Sebastian Schlagenhaufer and Ramon Bessel present, in a dynamic medley, selected chansons, texts, and short scenes from stage programs by various courageous cabaret artists of that difficult era—from the Munich “Nachrichter” led by Helmut Käutner, to Werner Finck, the creative force behind the Berlin “Katakombe,” Fritz Grünbaum, and the “Wiener Werkel,” all the way to the exile cabaret in the U.S.
The program is complemented by background information on the lives, work, and fates of the performers, researched, compiled, and presented by Sebastian Schlagenhaufer and Ramon Bessel, who brings the 1930s to life musically at the piano.

With Sebastian Schlagenhaufer and Ramon Bessel