Werner Finck - Life

Life

Born in Görlitz, he began his career as an itinerant storyteller of fairy tales in the 1920s. He took acting lessons and began a mediocre career in the theater. However, it was when he met a friend who had contacts in the Berlin cabaret that he found his true calling.

He founded the cabaret "Die Katakombe" (The Catacombs") with some friends in 1929. He, and the cabaret, became successful because of his critical and subtly impudent remarks against the Nazis, proving to be an early thorn in their side. Finck had an ability to be seemingly lost for words when saying something and the audience, playing along, finished his sentences. He often defied authority by daring police informers in the audience to write down every word he said; as to whether they could keep along (writing down his jokes) or whether he could come along (with them). According to one anecdote, Finck once noticed an officer from the Gestapo taking notes. He confronted the informer asking with seeming innocence, "Am I talking too fast? Do you want me to slow down so you can follow?" The way Finck presented his jokes made it very difficult for authorities to nail him down. His exploits made him a legend in his lifetime, to an extent that when he introduced himself to British and American journalists after the war, he was met with disbelief, for they believed that "Werner Finck" who joked against the Nazis was a fairy-tale figure.

However, the Katakombe was closed on 10 May 1935 upon the order of Joseph Goebbels; Finck and his colleagues were interned for six weeks in KZ Esterwegen. They took this in good stride, because they still performed despite their imprisonment. They reasoned that before the cabaret closed down they performed with uneasiness due of the fear of incarceration; now they did not fear performing because they were already in prison! It was due to the intervention of his friend, the actress Käthe Dorsch, who talked to Hermann Göring that he was released with the condition that he not work in public for a year.

Despite this he continued performing before live audiences, as well as in film, where he had a successful, if mediocre, career beginning in 1931. However, when he was threatened with arrest again, he joined the Wehrmacht as a common soldier to avert imprisonment. He later used his wartime exploits for a cabaret programme: Der brave Soldat schweigt (The Good Soldier Shuts Up - also in reference to Jaroslav Hasek's The Good Soldier Svejk).

After the war he resumed his career in cabaret, founding the Nebelhorn in Zurich and the Mausefalle in Stuttgart. He continued his film career as well until 1972. He remained active in live performances, notably with a tour in the United States in 1968. He died in Munich.