Bruno Koschmider (1926 – 2000) was a German entrepreneur in Hamburg, best known for employing

the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

in the early 1960s. He controlled various businesses, such as the Bambi Kino, which was a cinema, the Indra club and the

Kaiserkeller Kaiserkeller is a music club in the St. Pauli quarter of Hamburg, Germany, near the Reeperbahn. It was opened by Bruno Koschmider on 14 October 1959. The Beatles had a contract with Kaiserkeller to play there in 1960. History A Caribbean steel ...

Personal life

Koschmider was born in 1926 in Danzig (Gdańsk) and died in 2000 in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

, Germany.

The Beatles

Allan Williams Allan Richard Williams (21 February 1930 – 30 December 2016) was a British businessman and promoter who was the original booking agent and first manager of the Beatles. He personally drove the van to take the young band to Hamburg, Germany, in ...

booked the Beatles (in May 1960) into Koschmider's Indra club.Miles. p56.Photos of Clubs in Hamburg
/ref> The Beatles first played at the Indra club, while living in small, dirty rooms behind the movie screen in the Bambi Kino cinema. After the closure of the Indra, they played at the larger

, also owned by Koschmider.Miles. pp. 57–58. In October 1960, they left the Kaiserkeller to work at the "

Top Ten Club The Top Ten Club was a music club in Hamburg's St. Pauli district at Reeperbahn 136, which opened on 31 October 1960 and kept its name until 1994. In 1961, the Beatles performed 92 times at the Top Ten Club. History At the beginning of the 2 ...

",Cynthia Lennon, ''John''. p93. which was run by Peter Eckhorn.Miles. pp. 71–72. When

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...

and

Pete Best Randolph Peter Best (né Scanland; born 24 November 1941) is an English musician known as the drummer of the English rock band the Beatles who was dismissed immediately prior to the band achieving worldwide fame. Fired from the group in 1962 ...

went back to the Bambi Kino to get their belongings they found it in total darkness.Miles. p72. Attaching a

condom A condom is a sheath-shaped barrier device used during sexual intercourse to reduce the probability of pregnancy or a sexually transmitted infection (STI). There are both male and female condoms. With proper use—and use at every act of in ...

to a nail on the wall of their room and setting fire to it gave McCartney and Best a source of light, which they used to pack their belongings.Spitz pg.230 There was no real damage, but Koschmider reported them for attempted

arson Arson is the crime of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, wat ...

. McCartney and Best spent three hours in a local

jail A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...

and were deported, as was

George Harrison George Harrison (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Indian c ...

, for working under the legal age limit.Miles. pp. 72–73.

Legacy

Koschmider has been portrayed in films about the early career of the Beatles. He was played by

Richard Marner Richard Marner (born Alexander Pavlovich Molchanov, russian: Александр Павлович Молчанов, translit=Aleksandr Pavlovič Molčanov; 27 March 192118 March 2004) was a Russian-British actor. He was probably best known for h ...

in the 1979 film ''

Birth of the Beatles Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring, also referred to in technical contexts as parturition. In mammals, the process is initiated by hormones which cause the muscular walls of the uterus to contract, expelling the f ...

'', by Paul Humpoletz in the 1994 film ''

Backbeat In music and music theory, the beat is the basic unit of time, the pulse (regularly repeating event), of the ''mensural level'' (or ''beat level''). The beat is often defined as the rhythm listeners would tap their toes to when listening to a p ...

'', and by

Alex Cox Alexander B. H. Cox (born 15 December 1954) is an English film director, screenwriter, actor, non-fiction author and broadcaster. Cox experienced success early in his career with ''Repo Man (film), Repo Man'' and ''Sid and Nancy'', but since th ...

in the 2000 TV movie '' In His Life: The John Lennon Story''.

Notes

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Koschmider, Bruno Businesspeople from Hamburg 1926 births 2000 deaths People from the Free City of Danzig