Apollo Kino Theater

The city of Emden had several movie houses throughout the years, but this was its longest-operated theater in the city. The Apollo Theater opened its doors as a replacement of several other movie houses, including a nearby 240-seat theater which operated for only eight days during the first half of December 1908 because of destruction from a fire. It started life known as the Apollo Theater.

During the final months of World War II, much of the city of Emden experienced the worst air raid on September 6, 1944, with 78% of the buildings damaged or destroyed. The Apollo Theater, at the time being operated by Sophie Hempel, was also struck hard and was destroyed in the warfare. The theater was rebuilt and reopened a few years after the war with a capacity of 570 seats in 1948. Otto Neubauer was one of those original operators after the war. He installed widescreen films in 1956 and CinemaScope in 1958, and later expanded its capacity from 570 to 650 seats.

During the mid-1960’s, the Jentsch family operated the Apollo Theater until the early-1970’s when Hereditary Grand Duke Hotel owner Heinrich Buschmann (or Frido Buschmann) acquired the building and was converted into the Emden Cinema Center. The auditorium was downgraded from 650 to 513 seats but that didn’t last long at all. A short time afterward, he did the unthinkable by slicing the auditorium in thirds, converting the theater into a 489-seat triplex (with 186 seats in Screen 1 under the name “Stern”, 171 seats in Screen 2 under the name “Apollo”, and 132 seats in Screen 3 under the name “Rex”).

Buschmann operated the triplex until the first quarter of the 1990’s when it received ownership changes to his theaters across the region. Along with several of his other theaters, Buschmann leased the theaters to a chain from Hanover known in English as “Compare Filmtheater Operations” chain. In 1994, the Apollo became part of the Groteheide Ostfriesische Filmtheater chain based in neighboring Leer, which happened at the same time both the Kino-Center Leer began operating under the chain and a small fire minorly damaged the Leer theater.

Muckli Cinemas (or “East Frisian Film Theaters”) took over the Apollo in January 1999, also around the same time the nearby Kino-Center Leer began operating under the same chain. Around the same time, the foyer was updated.

During much of the 2000s, the Apollo was in its last legs. Right when the 927-seat 6-screen CineStar theater opened next to a parking garage in the immediate vicinity of the city’s train station in 2002, the number of patrons started to fall. During its final two years in operation, the Apollo was listed as the oldest-operating movie house in East Frisia.

The Apollo Kino Center closed for the final time as a movie house on July 31, 2009. However, the Apollo did briefly reopen as a special events venue for only two months in 2010. At the time, initiators Johannes “Urmel” Meyering and Manuel Rietmann wanted to preserve the historic Apollo and convert it into a cultural center. During its brief two-month period, many volunteers, artists, and performers organized many things, including concerts and contests. Because of it, a record-breaking 10,000+ visitors came to the Apollo during that brief period.

After the brief stunt, the Apollo was once again abandoned.

The city itself also supported this idea and bought the listed brick building at the end of 2012, although there was neither a coherent usage concept nor a support association at that time. However, it was found in late-March 2016 that the Apollo Association was not stable enough as the sponsor of such a project and that the annual Emden Film Festival requires additional space according to a paper published by the city’s administration, but does not make an economically relevant contribution due to the short season can afford the costs. The establishment of a cultural center also failed due to the costs. Using the building as a theater venue is also not financially feasible, and there are currently no external funding programs for expanding the hall. In mid-June 2016, the city administration was commissioned to work out the future use of the Apollo building in an open-ended manner because a sale was not worthwhile as the running costs were covered by rental income.

At the council meeting on December 8, 2016, the sale of the property, which was repeatedly pushed by the CDU, was rejected by a large majority because a new usage concept was presented. In coordination with the city administration, three Emden entrepreneurs developed a concept. They want to lease the building and operate an event restaurant with a freely usable event hall, a multifunctional presentation and event room for an event agency and a studio including an exhibition room. According to the operators, the use of the revenue would be almost cost-neutral for the city. According to Johannes “Urmel” Meyering, Corny Littmann rated the concept as promising and promised his support in further planning. Based on the three prospective tenants and the usage concept developed by the city administration, the Emden City Council decided at its meeting on May 11, 2017 with a large majority against the votes of the CDU and FDP to use the striking clinker brick building as a cultural site.

In a specially called press conference on March 1, 2019, the city administration announced the end of the planned project to convert it into an event venue and the intention to sell the building. The decision was made together with Meyering, whose event concept included a meeting room for 300 visitors, which would have made the renovation more expensive by around $44,000 in U.S. currency but the Emden City Council approved the renovation on November 8, 2018 as Budget capped it at $1.32M. The budget resources already planned should now flow into the fiber optic expansion by the Emden municipal utility, into the renovation of the inner city and into the renovation of the schools. Because of the idea, the city relies on a private investor who will further develop the building and not just extract the residual value, since, unlike the municipality, a private owner can write off the additional costs resulting from the monument protection during renovation over twelve years.

The building has been publicly advertised for sale since March 7, 2020, but the deadline for bidding ended on June 8, 2020.

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