Überbrettl later known as Buntes Theater ("colorful theatre"), was the first venue in Germany for literary cabaret, or Kabarett

Kabarett

Kabarett is a form of cabaret which developed in Germany from 1901, with the creation of the Überbrettl venue, and that by the Weimar era in the mid 1920s was characterized by political satire and gallows humor...

, founded in Berlin in January 1901 by Ernst von Wolzogen

Ernst von Wolzogen

Ernst von Wolzogen Ernst von Wolzogen Ernst von Wolzogen (April 23, 1855 - August 30, 1934 was a cultural critic, a writer and a founder of Cabaret in Germany.-Biography:Wolzogen came from a noble Austrian family; he studied Literature, Philosophy, and the history of art in Strasbourg and Leipzig. ...

. The German Kabarett concept was imported from France, from which it kept the characteristic atmosphere of intimacy. But the German type developed his own peculiarities, most prominently its characteristic gallows humor

Gallows humor

Gallows humor , derives from gallows which is a platform with a noose used to execute people by hanging. Gallows humor is the type of humor that still manages to be funny in the face of, and in response to, a perfectly hopeless situation...

.

In the foundation of the Überbrettl, von Wolzogen was inspired by Otto Julius Bierbaum

Otto Julius Bierbaum

Otto Julius Bierbaum was a German writer.Bierbaum was born in Grünberg, Silesia. After studying in Leipzig, he became a journalist and editor for the journals Die freie Bühne, Pan and Die Insel. His literary work was varied...

's 1897 novel Stilpe. The initial name Überbrettl is a play of words on Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...

's Übermensch

Übermensch

The Übermensch is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche posited the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra ....

, Superman.