Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm
('Käsebier Takes Berlin')
by Gabriele Tergit
'Wit, who wants wit?! People want a sensation.' – Gabriele Tergit
Court reporter Gabriele Tergit's literary debut Käsebier Takes Berlin was published in 1931. The vitriolic society farce instantly made the author famous, and is as topical today as it was then. It is a memorable description of sensationalism, and the tabloidisation of the media of her times. With a wittiness that equals that of Erich Kästner and Hans Fallada, Gabriele Tergit accurately shines a spotlight on various different milieus. Tergit describes confident, emancipated and quick-witted women: sophisticated urbanites who wear their hair bobbed, earn their own living – and charmingly, but firmly, put men in their place.
Tergit followed the first lawsuit against Hitler and Goebbels for a press offence in 1929 as a court reporter, and documented the judge's blatantly obvious bias. That is why an SA commando attempted to storm her apartment on 4 March 1933, which her husband was able to prevent. The next day, she fled to Prague. After an interim stop in Palestine, she settled in London in 1938, where she lived until her death in 1982.
Her exquisite, profound portraits of human motivations make Claudia Michelsen a performer who can truly bring women in borderline situations to life in an adult way. At the theatre, she has worked with directors such as Heiner Müller and Frank Castorf. She has also appeared in numerous film and TV productions, including Germany Year 90 Nine Zero by Jean-Luc Godard and The Tower by Christian Schwochow, a performance that won her an Adolf-Grimme-Preis television award. Since 2013, she has starred as a detective in the Magdeburg-based episodes of the popular long-running TV crime series Polizeiruf 110. In the past few years, she has also appeared in the TV series' Ku'damm 56, 59 and 63, and in Alrun Goette's film In a Land That No Longer Exists.