TODAY IN BERLIN: MISS KWANDT TAKES IT ALL
March 5 in Berlin
On this day - March 5, 1927 - the first ever Miss Germany was crowned in Berlin’s fame-drenched venue, the Sportpalast (known, among others as an ice-rink, a bicycle-racing track and the stage for the screeching “Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg?!” speech of one Joseph G.)
The event called "Nacht der Frauen" had attracted some interesting guests: German boxing champion Max Schmeling, film director Fritz Lang (#Metropolis), Prof. Joseph Oppenheimer, sculptor Ernesto de Fiori, Professor Retzlaff and with Max Ehrlich, wonderful German actor and cabaret artist murdered by the Nazis in 1944 in Auschwitz, as a presenter. After hours and hours of debating, which lasted until approximately 3 AM on March 6, it was the 21-yearold new Berlinerin, slender and blond (very dark blond as the black-and-white photos would suggest) Hildegard Kwandt who made to the finish line as the winner.
Miss Kwandt had practically just arrived from her East Prussian Heimat of Heinrichsdorf (now Russian Rownoje) but her personal charm seemed so irresistible that the jury had no choice but to call her the victor. She repeatedly emphasized her dislike for bobbed hair (synonymous with too emancipated for her own good) - the “New York Times” made a point of telling its readers that her two main competitors both sported bobs - and her unwillingness to sacrifice her traditionally long mane for a fashionable chop (“if my fiance wants it, I’ll probably do it, but I don’t think he will”). She also made sure her dedication to the cause of becoming the perfect housewife to her future husband did not go amiss (“I have no particular ambition as far as my selection is concerned. The only ambition I have at present is to make my future husband happy at home.")
And so Fräulein Kwandt won the race. Which caused some commotion among her bobbed, Berlin-working-class competitors who clearly did not expect this kind of an outcome. In the words of the “New York Times” reporter: “other contestants evidently regarded the decision as unfair, for their shrieked their protests so vehemently that the three of the swooned.” Other newspapers, especially the Berlin ones, blamed the organisers for choosing the wrong kind of female to compete in such a high-brow event.
The proof was in the pudding. The 16-year-old Leni Otto and the 20-year-old Lola Reller (despite their clear film-credits potential, both real names, in case you were wondering), clad in their swimming suits, fainted upon hearing the news that one of them came second, while the other one only made it as third. Both young ladies had to be carried out of the hall.
As for Hilde Kwandt, the lucky winner, she was very lucky, indeed. The young woman, who insisted on emphasising the fact she was “100-percent German”, was to represent Germany during the Miss Universum competition in the US. Her new title also brought her a series of very profitable advertising jobs (for just one of those engagements she earned five times a worker’s week’s wages) and a wealthy husband (it seems it was not the same man she had in mind while discussing the bobbed-my-hair-for-my hubby option). In 1930 she married Walther Franz Thier, owner of an elegant and popular Konditorei Thier (a patisserie) on Viktoria-Luise-Platz.
Hildegard Thier lived in Berlin until 2000. After her death, in the attic of the family house her son found a trunk, inside which lay a ribbon with an inscription “Miss Germany”. She might have been 100% German but the ribbon was 100% in English.
She certainly had an eventful life and undoubtedly witnessed a great deal of remarkable and traumatic history.