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Authors: Ronald C. Rosbottom
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was a sensation in Berlin, where the freedom of the Weimar Republic art scene was at its height. Baker and the show had visibly influenced German musicians and artists, who livened up their own productions in efforts to catch her energy and style. But on her return to Berlin in 1928, when she was the featured artist, not just part of a show, Baker found a new, less tolerant city. She had always brushed off hysterical newspaper reviews, but now the audiences were themselves belligerent. The Depression had made Europe tenser, less tolerant, and more ready to look for scapegoats. Eastern Europe welcomed her with an aggressive, almost palpable hatred, where, in Germany especially, blacks were looked on with unmitigated scorn.
When she appeared in Berlin, after having been to Budapest, Basel, Belgrade, Lucerne, Amsterdam, and Oslo, trouble began. In some cities, proper critics expressed their distaste of her performances, but only on “artistic” grounds. In Berlin, Nazi brownshirts in the audience whistled and hooted at the show (this was the period when the Nazis were seen primarily as a nuisance, certainly not a major political party). Baker represented what the Nazis most despised and most feared about the influence of Paris: the “degeneration” of racial and moral standards, the loosening of ethical certainties, and the freedom of expression, both artistic and political. Blackness and Frenchness—racial mixing that caused degeneration—became firmly connected in the German mind, this despite the fact that there were fewer blacks in Europe than there were Romanies or Jews. Hitler had reserved his most heinous comments for the “subhumans” that had slipped into European culture; the fact that black musicians, artists, and performers were immensely popular drove him to inarticulate fury. And it was Paris where this suggestive dancer, who threatened the “white race” with her blatant sexuality, became popular. One of the world’s best-known and most photographed women, she was like a traveling billboard, advertising her lifestyle throughout Europe, performing in a way that threatened to ruin centuries of dogmatic tradition. She may have been American-born, but she was now Parisian, and Paris in the 1920s and 1930s began to become, in the eyes of fascists, a prime site of hedonism and political threat. Just a decade later, when the Germans would arrivein Paris, they had Baker in mind, for she represented, in many ways, the “other”; she was the forbidden, the dangerous, the diseased, and the profligate. She had even married a Jew.
Nazi ideology sought to destroy the Bakers of Europe, yet the Nazis also wanted some of them to remain in Paris to keep up the image of that city as being just as gay under Nazi control as it had been before. But by June of 1940, the most famous Baker of them all was no longer in Paris. It appears that the advent of the war caught her by surprise. Though still popular, her shows had come to seem somewhat passé. * Still, she knew that, given her race and her husband’s ethnicity, she would not be able to perform in Paris under German Occupation, despite their program to “keep Paris Paris.” Baker’s last show in Paris was a small revue in the fall of 1939 costarring the popular song-and-dance man Maurice Chevalier (who would stay and perform in the city until 1943, when he became nervous about appearing to support the Vichy regime). Like Picasso, Baker thought the Germans would depart in a few months, but it would be years before she appeared again on a Parisian stage. She would not perform again on French soil until the Germans had left. Volunteering for the Red Cross, and doing a little intelligence work, she was soon moving throughout North Africa and the Middle East, entertaining the Free French and eventually catching the attention of Charles de Gaulle. (After the war, he awarded her France’s highest honor for members of the Resistance.) She had left Paris, but only to serve
When she appeared in Berlin, after having been to Budapest, Basel, Belgrade, Lucerne, Amsterdam, and Oslo, trouble began. In some cities, proper critics expressed their distaste of her performances, but only on “artistic” grounds. In Berlin, Nazi brownshirts in the audience whistled and hooted at the show (this was the period when the Nazis were seen primarily as a nuisance, certainly not a major political party). Baker represented what the Nazis most despised and most feared about the influence of Paris: the “degeneration” of racial and moral standards, the loosening of ethical certainties, and the freedom of expression, both artistic and political. Blackness and Frenchness—racial mixing that caused degeneration—became firmly connected in the German mind, this despite the fact that there were fewer blacks in Europe than there were Romanies or Jews. Hitler had reserved his most heinous comments for the “subhumans” that had slipped into European culture; the fact that black musicians, artists, and performers were immensely popular drove him to inarticulate fury. And it was Paris where this suggestive dancer, who threatened the “white race” with her blatant sexuality, became popular. One of the world’s best-known and most photographed women, she was like a traveling billboard, advertising her lifestyle throughout Europe, performing in a way that threatened to ruin centuries of dogmatic tradition. She may have been American-born, but she was now Parisian, and Paris in the 1920s and 1930s began to become, in the eyes of fascists, a prime site of hedonism and political threat. Just a decade later, when the Germans would arrivein Paris, they had Baker in mind, for she represented, in many ways, the “other”; she was the forbidden, the dangerous, the diseased, and the profligate. She had even married a Jew.
Nazi ideology sought to destroy the Bakers of Europe, yet the Nazis also wanted some of them to remain in Paris to keep up the image of that city as being just as gay under Nazi control as it had been before. But by June of 1940, the most famous Baker of them all was no longer in Paris. It appears that the advent of the war caught her by surprise. Though still popular, her shows had come to seem somewhat passé. * Still, she knew that, given her race and her husband’s ethnicity, she would not be able to perform in Paris under German Occupation, despite their program to “keep Paris Paris.” Baker’s last show in Paris was a small revue in the fall of 1939 costarring the popular song-and-dance man Maurice Chevalier (who would stay and perform in the city until 1943, when he became nervous about appearing to support the Vichy regime). Like Picasso, Baker thought the Germans would depart in a few months, but it would be years before she appeared again on a Parisian stage. She would not perform again on French soil until the Germans had left. Volunteering for the Red Cross, and doing a little intelligence work, she was soon moving throughout North Africa and the Middle East, entertaining the Free French and eventually catching the attention of Charles de Gaulle. (After the war, he awarded her France’s highest honor for members of the Resistance.) She had left Paris, but only to serve
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