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Erich Lowinsky

elow

Erich Lowinsky was a Weimar-era cabaret Conferencier who performed under the stage name of Elow.

He is perhaps most famous for his Kabarett De Namenlosen (Cabaret Of The Nameless) which debuted in 1926 at the Monbijou Cabaret – formally The Weisse Maus – in Berlin’s Friedrichstraße. The concept was simple and would be easily recognisable to a modern-day audience. Anyone who applied was accepted to perform for the public. Elow received over 180 replies to his first advertisement for acts and hosted 15 acts at a time on Monday nights in front of a paying audience.

Inevitably, the acts were dreadful. Some convinced that the night would give them their ‘big break’ and set them on the road to fame and fortune, others just deluded amateurs, some mentally ill or schizophrenic.

The performers were greeted with laughter and heckling from the audience and many left the stage distressed and in tears.

The performers were in fact actively briefed by Lowinsky beforehand that in the audience there would be music impresarios, Broadway talent scouts and the like.

The critics were outraged, describing the venture as “sadism” and “typical Berlin bad taste”.

Unlike its’ modern-day television equivalents, it was a relatively short-lived venture.

Elow is repeatedly, and incorrectly, referred to in books, journals and websites about the period as Erwin Lowinsky. His name was in fact Erich Lowinsky.

Cabaret Berlin is indebted to his grandchildren Miriam and Steve Alexander for supplying the above picture and correcting this oft-repeated mistake.