The Golden Age of Weimar

Weimar Culture

Learning Objectives

• To be able to analyse aspects of Weimar culture in order to reach a conclusion about whether Weimar was really living through a golden age.

Success Criteria

1. Ao1a: To describe different aspects of Weimar culture.

2. Ao1b: To be able to analyse Weimar culture to show whether it is positive towards Weimar.

3. Ao1b: To evaluate whether Weimar culture supports the idea that 1923-29 was a golden age for Weimar.

Challenge Criteria

• Ao1b: to develop links between the different areas of Weimar’s stability; political, economic, international relations AND cultural in order to develop a really amazing conclusion.

Think about the Kaiserreich vs the Weimar Republic

• Consider the two political systems.• What kind of impact do you think the

changing political system would have on the cultural world?• What kind of messages might follow

the turmoil of the First World War?

William Shirer: correspondent of the Chicago Tribune

“A wonderful ferment was working in Germany. Life seemed more free, more

modern, more exciting than in any place I had ever seen. Nowhere else did the arts or the intellectual life seem so lively... In

contemporary writings, painting, architecture, in music and drama, there

were new currents and fine talents”

Deutsch Kultur vor dem ersten Weltkrieg- how hat es sich verändert?

• Germany during the Kaiserreich had been conservative, authoritarian and conformist.

• WWI and the subsequent turmoil turned everything on its head.

• The Weimar Republic was also a liberal, tolerant society with reduced censorship.

• Across the world, the period was dramatically changing- in communication and the media in particularly (film, radio and the car).

Neue Sachlichkeit

• New Practicality, or New Functionalism. Art in post war Germany tried to express reality with a more objective view of the world.

• This was quite a modern way of looking at things- a far cry from the traditional classical or Romantic art.

Kunst

• Broke away from the traditional nostalgia of the nineteenth century.

• They wanted to move it away from royalty, gods and subjects from great literature and comment on ordinary people in every day life.

• They were also wishing to comment on the state of society.

Georg Grosz: Grey Day (1921)

Architect of the new republic

War veteran

Faceless worker Business

Georg Grosz: The Eclipse of the Sun (1926)

Hindenburg

His ministers

The public

Big Business

Literatur

• Not all writers were expressionist (suggests that the artist transforms reality to express a personal outlook). The big sellers were authors who wrote traditional nostalgic literature (such as Hans Grimm).

• But, many wrote again about social issues and misery of people working in the big cities- e.g. Berlin Alexanderplaz written by Alfred Doblin, which was about a worker in Weimar society.

• Others (such as Erich Maria von Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front) were critical of the war.

Kabarett und Theater

• Drama in the theatre became Zeittheater (theatre of the time) that introduced new dramatic methods with left wing sympathies. They used innovative techniques and controversial methods (e.g. a man sitting on the toilet complaining about the Weimar Republic).

• Berlin had a vibrant nightlife. Cabaret clubs opened with a permissiveness that mocked the conventions of the old Germany (satirical comedy, jazz music and women dancers with varying degrees of nudity).

Nachtleben und Diskotheken

• Isherwood, British author of The Berlin Novels spent some time in Weimar Germany, partly attracted by the vibrant nightlife. He had this description of a night out in Berlin in one of his novels:

• “We were in a room full of people dancing, shouting, singing, drinking, shaking our hands... The boys were in shirtsleeves and the girls had unhooked their dresses... I became involved in the dancing... I was seized round the waist, round the neck, kissed, hugged, tickled, half undressed; I danced with girls, with boys, with two or three people at the same time”.

Otto Dix: Big City

Das Kino

• During the 1920s, the German film industry became the most advanced in Europe.

• Very well respected for high quality work, e.g.o Fritz Lang, Metropolis

(1926)o Blue Angel (1930) starring

Marlene Dietrich

• However, American films were also popular, such as Charlie Chaplin films.

Bauhaus

• Functional, modern, new style that influenced all aspects of design.

• Wanted to emphasise the relationship between art and technology- slogan “Art and technology- a new unity”.

Bauhaus- University, Weimar

The foyer of Bauhaus-University, Weimar

A clash of cultures• Berlin was not typical of the rest of Germany- which many Germans

wanted to remind others. Prostitution (of both genders) had risen during the war and stayed part of Berlin’s underground. Berlin eventually acquired a reputation as a hub of drug dealing (cocaine, heroin, tranquilizers) and the black market.

• This attracted tourists. Booksellers sold many editions of guide books to Berlin's erotic night entertainment venues, including a large number of homosexual venues; a few were exclusively for a transvestites and nudists. Berlin also had a museum of sexuality (Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute of Sexology).

• The borders between cabaret and legitimate theatre blurred. Anita Berber, a dancer and actress, became notorious throughout the city and beyond for her erotic performances (as well as her cocaine addiction and erratic behaviour).

• Many Germans were shocked and appalled at Berlin.

Images

Anita Berber: 1991 Stamp Prostitutes buying cocaine

Disparity between rich and poor

• There was not only increasing polarisation between the right wing groups and ordinary Germans that didn’t like this decadence but also a growing separation between rich and poor.

• The similarity between all groups in society, is they could all use Weimar’s lack of censorship to criticise and attack it.