Kroll Opera 1933: the Enabling Act vote, 444 to 94

03Königsplatz, later Platz der Republik

The room where the Reichstag gave up its power had been built for pleasure, then for opera

The Kroll stood on the west side of the Königsplatz, facing the Reichstag, for more than a century. Two time axes follow it as you read: the whole life above, the years from 1925 to 1960 enlarged below.

The Kroll, 1840s to todayOne building, many uses

OperaKlempererNazi ReichstagRuin

A steel engraving of a long two-storey hall with two square towers behind a lawn, with riders, a carriage and strolling families in the foreground. — Kroll’s Etablissement on the edge of the Tiergarten, around 1850: halls, towers and a garden for Berlin’s pleasure-seekers.A. Carse and T. Heawood, c. 1850. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

1843/44

A pleasure venue in the Tiergarten

Joseph Kroll opens his Etablissement on the edge of the Tiergarten as a pleasure venue. It had halls, towers and a garden, just outside the Brandenburg Gate.

A black-and-white photograph of an ornate iron archway lettered KROLL over a garden walk lit by globe lamps, with a guard and a man in a straw hat at the gate. — The garden entrance under the KROLL sign, 1885, with a street sign for the Königsplatz.Unknown author, 1885. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

1852 · 1895–98

Rebuilt, then made an opera house

A new building replaces the first. In 1895–98 it was converted into an opera theatre.

A black-and-white portrait of a man with round glasses, a high forehead and dark curly hair, in a tweed jacket and bow tie. — Otto Klemperer.Library of Congress (Bain collection), between 1920 and 1940. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

A stage design in grey, violet and white: stacked cubic blocks and low steps under a pale blue sky, framed by a dark border. — Dülberg’s Fidelio, 1927.Ewald Dülberg, 1927. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

autumn 1927 – July 1931

Otto Klemperer’s house

Otto Klemperer, born in Breslau in 1885, came from Wiesbaden in 1927 to take the musical direction of the Kroll. His Kroll staged the classics in stripped modern settings and the newest music beside them.

A dark grey stage design of a workshop interior: a wooden gallery with a staircase on the left, tall many-paned windows and low cabinets. — Dülberg’s design for Hindemith’s Cardillac, second act, Kroll Opera 1928.Ewald Dülberg, 1928. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

The repertoire

Stravinsky came, Hindemith premiered

Stravinsky came to Berlin for the Kroll's staging of Oedipus Rex under Klemperer, on an evening with Petrushka and Mavra. The house gave the world premiere of Hindemith’s Neues vom Tage on 8 June 1929, and staged Schoenberg’s Die glückliche Hand in 1930.

A black-and-white photograph of a long, low neoclassical theatre with a portico, seen across an open square. — The Kroll Opera in 1930, a year before it closed.Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-09067 / Unknown / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

July 1931

Closed

The Kroll Opera has to close for financial reasons. Its musical director moved to the Staatsoper Unter den Linden; in 1933 he was driven out of Germany. The building stood empty.

A black-and-white photograph of a charred box in the debating chamber: burned furniture in the foreground, two men standing by a gutted window. — A burned-out box in the Reichstag after the fire of February 1933 (archive caption: “ausgebrannte Loge”).Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-14367 / Unknown author / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

March 1933

The Reichstag burns; the opera becomes a parliament

With the Reichstag's chamber burned out, the opera's Großer Theatersaal is converted into a provisional chamber from the second week of March. The ceiling is lowered and covered with fabric; stage and orchestra pit are built over for the presidium, the government benches and the stenographers.

A black-and-white photograph of a crowded hall: tiers of seated men in suits and uniforms, a raised presidium and a speaker’s desk on the former stage, under a large swastika banner. — The Reichstag in the Kroll Opera, 23 March 1933.Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-14439 / Georg Pahl / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

21 March 1933

The first sitting, then the vote

After the state ceremony in Potsdam, the first sitting in the Kroll opens at 17:00. Its only business is to elect the presidium. Two days later, on this stage, the Enabling Act passed by 444 votes to 94.

A black-and-white photograph of a hall packed with men in uniform below a huge eagle relief, with a speaker at a desk on the raised platform. — A Reichstag sitting in the Kroll Opera, 1939. The deputies, many in uniform, sit where the opera’s stalls had been.Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-E10402 / Unknown author / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

1933–1942

A parliament that met to listen

The Reichstag met only 18 times up to 1942, mostly to hear the government. The last sitting, on 26 April 1942, gave Hitler supreme judicial power.

A black-and-white photograph of a gutted theatre building behind bare trees, with a large damaged gun in the foreground. — The destroyed Kroll Opera on the Platz der Republik, 1945, with a wrecked gun in the foreground (archive caption: “zerstörte Krolloper am Platz der Republik”).Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-M1015-322 / Donath, Otto / CC-BY-SA 3.0

22 November 1943

Bombed

The building is badly hit in a night air raid, and damaged again in the fighting of April 1945.

A black-and-white photograph of the burned Reichstag with its bare dome frame, soldiers and vehicles in the square in front. — The burned-out Reichstag across the square, 12 July 1945. The Kroll’s ruin stood until 1951.Malindine E G (Capt), No 5 Army Film Photographic Unit, 1945. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

March 1951 – autumn 1957

Blown up and cleared

Large parts of the main building are blown up and removed. By autumn 1957 the last ruins and rubble were gone. The Reichstag across the square was rebuilt; the Kroll was not.

A colour photograph of a long glass-fronted information panel on two posts in a park, headed Krolls Etablissement vor dem Brandenburger Tor, 1842–1931, with columns of text and small pictures. — The information panel on the Große Querallee, photographed in 2016. Nothing else of the building remains.Photo: OTFW, Berlin, 2016. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.

31 August 2007

A panel on a park path

A two-sided information panel on the Kroll Opera is unveiled on the Große Querallee. A memorial stone also marks the building where parliamentary democracy in Germany ended in 1933.

04The Reichstag in the Kroll Opera, 1933–1942

In nine years the Reichstag met only 18 times, mostly to hear the government

The sitting of 17 May 1933 was the last at which more than one party sat in the hall. After that, the regime used the opera stage to announce. Some of what was said on it:

Sittings on the Kroll stage, on one time axis

Seven of the 18 sittings the Bundestag counts up to 1942, those whose dates and business an institution records. Other counts give 19 or 20.

For four seasons it was the boldest stage in Berlin. Then the Reichstag voted away its own power on it.

Nothing of the building is left. A panel on a park path says where it stood.

Parliamentary democracy in Germany ended on the stage of an opera house: 444 votes to 94.

Only the Social Democrats voted no. The Communists’ seats were already empty

Otto Wels spoke for the Social Democrats, with SA men lining the hall