The story of the Comedian Harmonists begins with a young man, with a keen interest in music, who wants to form a singing group modeled after a famous American group, the Revelers. To find group members, he places an ad in a newspaper and gets about 70 responses. So far, not necessarily an unusual story.What makes this one different is that the young man, Harry Frommermann, was Jewish, the newspaper in which he placed the ad was the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger and the time was late 1927. There were many aspects to the Holocaust.The story of the Comedian Harmonists is one of the most prominent examples of what happened under the National Socialists' program to erase all traces of Jewish life and culture from German society.As one writer put it, "the slow smothering of Jewish life." The ad Frommermann placed on December 18, 1927, read as follows: Achtung. Selten. Tenor, Baß (Berufssänger, nicht über 25), sehr musikalisch, schönklingende Stimmen, für einzig dastehendes Ensemble unter Angabe der täglich verfügbaren Zeit gesucht. Ej. 25 Scherlfiliale, Friedrichstr. 136.This is translated as, "Attention. Rare opportunity.Tenor, Bass (professional singer not over 25), musically talented, nice sounding voices, for unique ensemble.Kindly give days and times when available."The cost of the ad was 12.50 marks.
There are nine people who can lay legitimate claim to having been members of the Comedian Harmonists, and six who were in the group during the bulk of its existence and who are universally considered to have been "the" members. They were:
Harry Frommermann was born in Berlin, Germany, on October 12, 1906. One of the Jewish members, his father was a cantor. The founder of the group and its creative genius, he was also its tenor buffo. He died in Bremen, Germany in 1975.
Robert Biberti, the bass, was born into a musical family on June 5, 1902 in Berlin. His father was an opera singer who lost his voice at an early age.His mother was a pianist who played in an ensemble that performed in movie theatres in the days of silent film. He died in Berlin in 1985.
Asparuch "Ari" Leschnikoff was born on July 16, 1897, in Haskovo, Bulgaria.He served in the Bulgarian army in WWI. In 1922, he went to Berlin to study music and became a chorus singer at the Grosse Schauspielhaus. He was in the same chorus as Biberti when Biberti recruited him for the group. He died in Sofia in 1978.
Roman Cycowski, the baritone and other non-German in the group, was born near Lodz, Poland on January 25, 1901, into a religious family that included many rabbis.His father owned a small spinning mill. He died in Palm Springs, California in 1998.
Erwin Bootz, pianist and youngest of the group, was born in Stettin, Germany on June 30, 1907.His family had a music store and were fairly well off.Leschnikoff introduced him to the group. Bootz' wife, Ursula, was Jewish, and her father was a famous sculptor, Benno Elkan, best known for creating the giant menorah that stands outside the Knesset building in Jerusalem. Bootz died in Hamburg in 1982.
Erich Collin was born in Berlin on August 26, 1899 in Berlin, the son of a prominent doctor.Although he had been baptized, as his sister, Annemarie, put it, "Erich and I were both full-blooded Jews."Apparently, their mother had converted and their father listed himself as unaffiliated. His parents got divorced and he took mother's last name - Collin.Erich studied medicine for a while but switched to music in 1924. Under the Nazi laws defining non-Aryans, he was considered Jewish. He died in Los Angeles in 1961.
In August 1928, the Melody Makers, as they first called themselves, got an audition with a well-known producer, Eric Charell, and a contract to appear in a revue calledCasanova resulted. It is Charell who changed their name to the Comedian Harmonists.
During the period 1930 to 1933, they had their biggest artistic and commercial success, giving 150 concerts a year. They appeared in all the bigger cities of Germany, made concert-tours through all of Europe, recorded over 100 titles, made radio appearances and films, and became wealthy.
When the Nazis came to power, things began to change. A decree was issued defining a non-Aryan as "anyone descended from non-Aryan, especially Jewish, parents or grandparents. One parent or grandparent classified the descendant as non-Aryan ... especially if one parent or grandparent was Jewish."
In September, the Reichsmusikkammer (RMK) (Federal Music Chamber) was created and the formal exclusion of Jews from the Arts began. The Nazis installed what turned out to be a Catch-22.Only members of the Federal Music Chamber were allowed to practice their musical occupation.The members of the Comedian Harmonists put in their applications for membership, but they were not acted on immediately.
Because the Jewish members did not belong to the RMK, new concerts were prohibited; they were only allowed to fulfill the contracts that were made previously. And when they gave concerts in Germany, there were disturbances and provocations. The radio stopped broadcasting their songs.
They had to stop performing in Germany.They knew they were going to be banned but they didn't want to split up.They accepted an invitation to go to the U.S. where they made about 30 radio appearances on NBC. Their only public appearance in the U.S. was in June 1934, on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Saratoga in New York harbor, together with the Boswell Sisters and the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, where they gave a memorable performance for a rare meeting of the Atlantic and Pacific fleets.They got a tremendous reception from the 85,000 sailors listening.
The final decision of the Reichsmusikkammer on their applications to become members arrived in a letter dated February 22, 1935. The applications of the Aryan members were accepted but were told that they could no longer perform with the Jewish members. This, effectively, spelled the end of the group.
They decided to separate into two entities.
Biberti formed a group called the Meistersextett, with all Aryan members. Leschnikoff and Bootz were also part of this group along with three others. There were major conflicts within the group.
The Jewish members went to Vienna and formed a group called the Comedy Harmonists.
Both groups disbanded in 1941.
None of the men met with any great financial success after the breakup.Of the Aryans, Bootz and Biberti drifted along and kept some connection with the world of music, especially Bootz.Leschnikoff led a life of desperate poverty.
Collin worked on the assembly line for Northrop in California. Frommermann drifted and could never reconcile himself to the fact that his music career was over. Cycowski became a prominent cantor in San Francisco and then in Palm Springs.
There have been two books written about them. Both are in German and have not been translated into English. They are:
lDie Comedian Harmonists: Sechs Lebensläufe (Six Lives) by Eberhard Fechner (1996)
lComedian Harmonists: Ein Vokalensemble erobert die Welt (A Vocal Group That Conquered The World) by Peter Czada and Günter Große (1998). Both can normally be purchased through www.abe.com.
There have been two films made about them:
The documentary by Eberhard Fechner, "Die Comedian Harmonists: Sechs Lebensläufe" (Six Lives). It is available in German (no English subtitles) and in PAL format from Amazon's German web site.
Joseph Vilsmaier's film, "The Harmonists," opened in 1997 in Germany. It is readily available in the U.S.
One thing to keep in mind if you see the theatrical release - it is not particularly accurate. The most glaring example is that the writer invented a love triangle among Frommermann, Biberti and a woman named Erna Eggstein.This never existed.Erna married Harry pretty early on and Biberti had a girlfriend whom he eventually married.
