Social Dancing and Rugged Masculinity--The Figure of the Eintanzer in Hans Janowitz's novel Jazz (1927)

Abstract

In her memoir of Berlin's Adlon hotel, one of the most exclusive in Weimar Germany, Hedda Adlon, wife of the last owner, states that after the end of World War I, returning officers, who were usually members of the aristocracy, were forced by adverse economic circumstances to become Eintanzer (180)— paid dance partners/instructors. Adlon's account indicates that Eintanzer are good-looking, educated, and well-mannered men, whose role she views in a positive light: their excellent dance skills lessen the predicament of men who cannot dance and whose female companions thus no longer have to be wall- flowers (181). A similarly upbeat assessment of the Eintanzer's dancing abil- ities was popularized by Trude Hesterberg's song Lieber kleiner Eintanzer, while Schoner Gigolo, a melody with cult status both in Weimar Germany and abroad, shared Adlon's romanticizing view about the Eintanzer's origin. 1 During the Weimar years the noun Eintanzer was used far more often than the international form gigolo. Both nouns referred to a paid male dance partner/instructor and both were ambivalent about the precise responsibilities such an employment entailed. To preserve the ambiguity of the term Eintan- zer and because today the word gigolo has a strong sexual connotation I use the noun Eintanzer, which I translate as dancer for hire. As this essay will reveal, Adlon's optimistic and romanticizing view stands in contrast to other sources of the time which present a less glossy and more complicated understanding of the Eintanzer and his role in society. These sources span literature, journalism, and science, and they testify to the remarkable interest the figure of the Eintanzer stirred in Weimar Germany. This article pays particular attention to the representation of the Eintanzer in Hans Janowitz's novel Jazz (1927) while it also draws comparisons and es- tablishes contrasts to the depiction of the dancer for hire in Billie Wilder's self-testimonial journalistic series Herr Ober, bitte einen Tanzer! Aus dem Leben eines Eintanzers (1927), and in Magnus Hirschfeld's scientific work Sittengeschichte der Nachkriegszeit (1931). 2 By investigating the figure of the