Tango and Berlin
Chapter 1 of 3 · 1900–1981
Tango fever
A thé-tango on the Kurfürstendamm, a silent film and the Kaiser's order.
Charlottenburg · Schöneberg
In late November 1913 a Dutch newspaper reported that the tango, the new Argentine dance, had become the greatest amusement in Berlin.1 The silent dance film Tangofieber, about how the tango washes over Germany and seizes every social circle of Berlin like a mania, passed the censor that month and premiered on 28 November 1913 at the U.T. in Berlin-Schöneberg.2 Scenes were shot in the ballroom Palais de Danse, which had opened in 1910.2
On the Kurfürstendamm the Cumberland Hotel, the former Boardingpalast, opened with a "thé-tango".3
The army was not amused. A notice of 19 November asked gentlemen of the army and navy to dance neither the tango nor the one- and two-step in uniform, and to avoid families where such dances were danced.4 The German Wikipedia says Kaiser Wilhelm II banned his soldiers from dancing the tango by decree on 20 November 1913,2 and that the King of Bavaria forbade it to his officers too.5
The music of these years, most danced first
What happened, and where
No placed, sourced line for these years yet.