TAKI Tages Kino

Located in the Charlottenburg district on the west side of the city centre, close to the Zoo Railway Station. The Aki Aktualitaten Kino was opened in 1968 in a simple building to replace the Aki at Joachimsthalerstrasse 43 which closed in 1958(it has its own page on Cinema Treasures), maybe the space was needed for the new building at Hardenbergstrasse just around the corner?

After World War II the British and American Allies ordered that newsreels were to be screened in every cinema in their sectors in the West of Berlin for the purpose of re-education. In 1950 the Aki Aktualitaten Kino was founded and operated by Berhard Frank in Frankfurt Main to screen a newsreel programme without a feature film presentation, and the cinemas were located close to railway stations. The architects were Schweitzer & Bartels. The style of the theater was Modern. The Aki screened non-stop newsreels, short documentaries and a cartoon. The Aki Actualitaten Kino cinemas were successful and cheap. The moviegoers only paid 50 Pfennige for a ticket. The show started with an International newsreel by Ufa Wochenschau, then the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau was screened, then the Fox tonende Wochenschau and some commercials. After that there was a short documentary then a newsreel by Welt im Bild was screened, followed by a cartoon or a short slapstick comedy closed the programme. The running time for one show was 50 minutes. The Aki slogan was “around the world in 50 minutes”. The audience could enter or leave the theater at any time. The first show started at 9am in the morning and the last at 11pm or 12 midnight. In the auditorium was an illuminated clock and a second smaller screen for train information.

The cinema was part of the Aki Aktualitaten Kino chain of newsreel cinemas which had cinemas located in Berlin, Hamburg, Koln, Munich, Hannover, Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Bochum, Bremen, Frankfurt-Main, Nurnberg, Gelsenkirchen, Aachen & Wiesbaden and operated by Berhard Frank, Aktualitaten Kino GmbH, Frankfurt am Main and Akiengesellschaft AG.

The FP 5 projectors and the sound system were by Phillips. In 1956 CinemaScope was added. After opening the Aki Aktualitaten Kino at Hardenbergstrasse 27a in 1960, the Aki at Tauentzienstrasse 10 was re-named TAKI Tages Kino and screened adult movies.

The site at Tauentzienstrasse had contained the famous Romanisches Cafe which was demolished by allied bombs during World War II. A lot of famous artists had visited the Romanisches Cafe, including:Billy Wilder, Alfred Dolin, Gerorg Grosz, Friedrich Hollaender, Erich Kastner, Joachin Ringelnatz, Berthold Brecht, Stefan Zweig, Erich Maria Remarque, Otto Dix and many more. After World War II the dividing of Berlin into sectors administrated by America, France, Great Britain and the Soviet Russia (or more simply West Berlin & East Berlin, the site at Tauentzienstrasse was in the city center of the West sector and housed only a circus and temporary buildings.

With the start of construction of the famous Europa Center in 1963 at this site, inspired by American shopping malls, the TAKI had to close and was demolished. In 2019 there is a Camp David store at this address.

For a short time there were 3 cinemas in Berlin operated by Aktualitaten Kino GmbH: Aki Hardenbergstrasse 27a, TAKI (Aki) Tauentzienstrasse 10, both in the west of the city center and Aki at Karl Marx Strasse in the Neukoln district in the south.

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