Zum schwarzen Ferkel

Zum schwarzen Ferkel ("The Black Piglet") was a tavern located at the corner of Unter den Linden and Neue Wilhelmstraße[1] in Berlin.

Said once to have been frequented by Heinrich Heine, Robert Schumann and E. T. A. Hoffmann,[2] it was in the 1890s the meeting place for a circle of mainly Nordic writers and artists, including August Strindberg, Holger Drachmann and Edvard Munch but also the Pole Stanisław Przybyszewski and several Germans.

After a while he started to refer to the place in letters as "Friedrichshölle" ("Friedrichs-Hell") and eventually moved into central Berlin, falling out with this former hosts in the process, and settling at a pension on Neue Wilhelmstrasse, close to Türke's tavern.

The story of Strindberg's discovery and naming of the tavern comes from the Finnish writer Adolf Paul, and the circle at the Ferkel originally consisted of Strindberg, Paul, the German writer Richard Dehmel, the physician Carl Ludwig Schleich, the Polish journalist Stanisław Przybyszewski and a few others, all of whom had previously belonged to the group frequenting Ola Hansson's home in Friedrichshagen.

Several of the men were attracted by Dagny Juel, who entered into a number of brief sexual liaisons within the circle, including a three-week relationship in March 1893 with the newly engaged Strindberg while Frida Uhl was still away.