Friedrich Hollaender

Biography

Friedrich Hollaender was born into the music and show-biz worlds. He was the son of a man who worked as musical director for the Barnum & Bailey Circus in the 1890s. That father, Victor Hollaender, took his family home to Germany in 1899 and began teaching at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin. The son, Friedrich, became a student there, and in the evenings would play the piano in movie theatres to accompany silent films. During the first world war, the government put Friedrich Hollander in charge of entertaining the troops of the western front. Between the wars, he became part of the Berlin cabaret scene. One of his sings, Munchhausen, first performed in 1931, ridiculed the rising Nazi party. The lyrics praise the Weimar Republic’s flag of “black and red and gold” and condemn flags with “that thing that zigs and zags” – that is, a swastika.