Obituary for Coco Schumann

In May 1924, Heinz Jakob Schu­mann was born to a Jewish mother and Christian father. He re­ceived the name Coco later from a French girl­friend who was at a loss for how to pro­nounce the “H” in Heinz. Liberal Juda­ism was among the formative influ­ences of his early years, as were Christian traditions:

“The Christmas tree stood next to the Hanukkah menorah. We celebrated Easter with my father’s parents and Pessah with my mother’s parents. The family didn’t diffe­rentiate much between them, which I thought was ideal, even back then.”

With the intro­duction of the anti-Semitic Nurem­berg Laws in 1935, Heinz Schumann was labeled a “Geltungs­jude”, someone who was deemed Jewish but did not previously fit into a legal category defining them as such. He had to leave public school and attend a Jewish school, and his mother had to close her hair salon.

Nightlife and music opened worlds beyond this hostile reality. Heinz Schu­mann discovered his love of jazz through his uncle Arthur Roth­holz, who played drums with his “gypsy band” at the Prater in Berlin. The Nazis consi­dered the sound of the era to be an “inhuman evil.” At first, it wasn’t prohi­bited because the capital city was supposed to seem cosmo­politan for the 1936 Olympics. Heinz Schumann first re­ceived guitar lessons from his German teacher, but later he became a self-taught virtuoso.

Beginning in 1939, Heinz Schu­mann performed forced con­struction labor. Despite his hard work by day, by night he was drawn to the bars. On New Year’s Eve 1939/40, he had his first paid performance as a drummer at the Hasenschaukel in Charlottenburg. That’s when he received his stage name and Heinz became Coco. Soon he was earning good money with his music. In the Rosita Bar in Schöneberg, he played with Tullio Mobiglia’s orchestra, a city-wide heart-throb. As his suc­cess grew, Coco Schu­mann’s perfor­mances became ever more dangerous. As a Geltungs­jude, he was not a member of the Reich Chamber of Culture and was not allowed to perform in public. And especially not the English and American “music of the enemy,” which had been banned by then. Coco Schumann risked hiding his “star” in his pocket at the bars.

In March of 1943, he was de­nounced and sent to the Theresien­stadt ghetto. There, he joined the Ghetto Swingers jazz band, formed by Czech trumpet player Erich Vogel. At first, the music kept Coco from being de­ported to an exter­mination camp. The National Socialist ghetto admin­istration wanted cultural activities in order to maintain the outer appearance that Theresienstadt had a “normal” cultural scene.

On 24 September 1944, Coco Schu­mann was transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Coco Schu­mann and other members of the Ghetto Swingers were forced to play for the SS guards on the instru­ments of Sinti and Roma people who had just been murdered. They were com­manded to play when the guards were inducting people into the camp, when they were off duty, and as they forced people into the gas chambers.

As Soviet troops approached, Coco Schu­mann was deported from Auschwitz to a satellite of the Dachau camp. The camp was dispersed in April 1945. The prisoners were sent on a death march toward Lake Starnberg. Gravely ill, Coco Schu­mann was liberated by American soldiers.

Soon after the end of the war, swing music returned to Germany. Coco Schu­mann was there from the start, taking the stage with Helmut Zacharias and with his “Coco Schu­mann Combo.” He also made his his first records. He was the first musician in Germany to play an elec­trically amplified guitar. However, he didn’t trust the country’s political climate.

In 1950, Coco Schu­mann and his family emigrated to Australia. Four years later, he returned, playing in dance, radio, and tele­vision bands. In the 60s and 70s, bars and dance halls lost interest in jazz. Coco Schu­mann began to take on jobs as an entertainer. He sailed the seas as a musician on a ship and contri­buted to a Heinz Erhardt film. At some point, he decided to com­pletely dedicate himself to jazz once again. He founded the Coco Schu­mann Quartet, which he performed with until recently.

“The direction was clear: back to my roots, back into the world where my soul is at home, into swing. Into these mys­terious yet simple vibrations that unite musicians and make sparks fly over the audience, that make everyone who feels them part of the whole, regardless of who they are or where they come from.”