© Peter Crawford 2012
WEIMAR CULTURE
Weimar culture refers to the arts and sciences that occured during the Weimar Republic (between Germany's defeat at the end of World War I in 1918, and Hitler's rise to power in 1933).
1920s Berlin in particular was at the hectic center of the Weimar culture.
Although not part of the Weimar Republic, some authors also include the German speaking Austria - (the Ostmark), and particularly Vienna, as part of Weimar culture.
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| Brandenburger Tor - Berlin - 1920s |
As a result of the collapse of the monarchy, and collapse of the social order of the Second Reich, resulting from the defeat in the Great War, the environment was chaotic, and politics were passionate.
A significant new development in Germany's intellectual environment happened in 1918, when the faculties of German universities became fully opened to prominent Jewish scholars for the first time.
Leading Jewish intellectuals on university faculties included physicist Albert Einstein; sociologists Karl Mannheim, Erich Fromm, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse; philosophers Ernst Cassirer and Edmund Husserl; political theorists Arthur Rosenberg and Gustav Meyer; and many others.
Jewish intellectuals and creative professionals were among the leading figures in many areas of Weimar culture.
With the rise of National Socialism and the ascent to power of Adolf Hitler in 1933, many German intellectuals and cultural figures, both Jewish and non-Jewish, left Germany for the United States, the United Kingdom, and other parts of the world.
The culture of the Weimar year was later reprised by the left-wing intellectuals of the 1960s, especially in France.
Deleuze, Guattari and Foucault reprised Wilhelm Reich; Derrida reprised Husserl and Heidegger; Guy Debord and the Situationist International reprised the subversive-revolutionary culture.
Social Environment
By 1919, an "influx" of labor had migrated to Berlin, turning it into a fertile ground for the modern arts and sciences.
This caused "a boom in trade, communications and construction."
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| Old Berlin |
People used their backyards and basements to run small shops, restaurants, workshops and haulage carts.
This led to the establishment of bigger and better commerce in Berlin, including its first department stores, prior to World War I.
An "urban petty bourgeoisie", along with the middle class, colonized and developed the wholesale commerce, retail trade, factories and crafts.
Types of employment were becoming more modern, shifting gradually, but noticeably, towards industry and services.
Before World War I, in 1907, 54.9% of German workers were manual labourers.
This dropped to 50.1% by 1925.
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| Berlin - 1920s |
By 1925, only a third of Germans lived in large cities; the other two-thirds of the population lived in the smaller towns or in rural areas.
The total population of Germany rose from 62.4 million in 1920 to 65.2 million in 1933.
The Wilheminian values were further discredited as consequence of World War I and the subsequent inflation, since the new youth generation saw no point in saving for marriage in such conditions, and preferred instead to spend and enjoy.
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| 'Dr. Mabuse the Gambler' (1922) Fritz Lang - UFA |
The film moves from the world of the slums to the world of the stock exchange and then to the cabarets and nightclubs, and everywhere chaos reigns, authority is discredited, power is mad and uncontrollable, wealth inseparable from crime.
Politically and economically, the nation was struggling with the terms and reparations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles (1918) that ended World War I and endured punishing levels of inflation.
Sociology
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| Max Weber |
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| Martin Hiedegger |
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| Erich Fromm |
Among the prominent philosophers not associated with the Frankfurt School were Martin Heidegger and Max Weber.
The German philosophical anthropology movement also emerged at this time.
Science
Many foundational contributions to quantum mechanics were made in Weimar Germany or by German scientists during the Weimar period.
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| Das Kätzchen von Schrödinger © Peter Crawford 2012 |
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| Werner Heisenberg |
Prominent German physicists included Erwin Schrödinger, and Werner Heisenberg, who formulated his famous 'Uncertainty Principle', and, with Max Born and Pascual Jordan, accomplished the first complete and correct definition of 'quantum mechanics', through the invention of Matrix mechanics.
Göttingen was the center of fluiddynamic and aerodynamic research in the early 20th century.
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| Ludwig Prandtl |
It was there that compressability drag and its reduction in aircraft was first understood.
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| Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe |
Albert Einstein rose to public prominence during his years in Berlin, being awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921.
He was left Germany for America in 1933.
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| Magnus Hirschfeld |
Hirschfeld believed that an understanding of homosexuality could be arrived at through science.
Hirschfeld was a vocal advocate for homosexual, bisexual, and transgender legal rights for men and women, repeatedly petitioning parliament for legal changes.
His Institute also included a museum.
If we also include the German speaking Vienna, during the Weimar years Mathematician Kurt Gödel published his ground-breaking 'Incompleteness Theorem'.
The Arts
During the fourteen years of the Weimar era German artists made contributions in the fields of literature, art, architecture, music, dance, drama, and the new medium of the motion picture.
German visual art, music, and literature were all strongly influenced by German Expressionism at the start of the Weimar Republic.
The early twentieth century was a period of wrenching changes in the arts.In the visual arts, such innovations as cubism, Dada and surrealism - following hot on the heels of symbolism, post-Impressionism and Fauvism - were not universally appreciated. The majority of people in Germany, as elsewhere, did not care for the new art which many resented as elitist, morally suspect, and too often incomprehensible.
By 1920, a sharp turn was taken towards the 'Neue Sachlichkeit' (New Objectivity) outlook. Neue Sachlichkeit was not a strict movement in the sense of having a clear manifesto or set of rules.
Under the Weimar government of the 1920s, Germany emerged as a leading centre of the avant-garde - the birthplace of Expressionism in painting and sculpture, of the atonal musical compositions of Arnold Schoenberg, and the jazz-influenced work of Paul Hindemith and Kurt Weill.Robert Wiene's 'Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari' (1920), and F.W. Murnau's 'Nosferatu' (1922), brought Expressionism to cinema.
The term was originally the title of an art exhibition staged by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the Kunsthalle in Mannheim, to showcase artists who were working in a post-expressionist spirit, but it took a life of its own, going beyond Hartlaub's intentions. As these artists rejected the self-involvement and romantic longings of the expressionists, Weimar intellectuals in general made a call to arms for public collaboration, engagement, and rejection of romantic idealism.
The movement essentially ended in 1933 with the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the NSDAP to power.
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| Entartete Kunst Exhibition |
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| Entartete Kunst |
Much Weimar art was political - a questionable position for the arts - and was fiercely experimental, iconoclastic and left-leaning, spiritually hostile to business and bourgeois society.
Not surprisingly, the old autocratic German establishment saw it as 'Entartete Kunst' (decadent art), a view shared by Adolf Hitler who became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933.
The National Socialists viewed the culture of the Weimar period with disgust.Their response stemmed partly from a conservative aesthetic taste, and partly from their determination to use culture as a propaganda tool.
For the National Socialists, the model for the arts was to be classical Greek and Roman art, seen by Hitler as an art whose exterior form embodied an inner racial ideal.
The Jewish and left wing nature of all art that was indecipherable, distorted, or that represented depraved subject matter was explained through the concept of degeneracy, which held that distorted and corrupted art was a symptom of an inferior race.By propagating the theory of degeneracy, National Socialism combined their anti-Semitism with their drive to control the culture, thus consolidating public support for both campaigns.
Modern art was seen as an act of aesthetic violence by the Jews against the German spirit (Deutsch Geistes).
One of the first major events in the arts during the Weimar Republic was the founding of an organization, the 'Novembergruppe' (November Group) on December 3, 1918.
This group was established in the aftermath of the November beginning of the German Revolution of 1918–1919, when Communists, anarchists and pro-republic supporters had fought in the streets for control of the government.
In 1919, the Weimar Republic was established.
Around 100 artists of many genres who identified themselves as avant-garde joined the November Group.
They held 19 exhibitions in Berlin until the group was banned by the Third Reich in 1933.
The group also had chapters throughout Germany during its existence, and brought the German avant-garde art scene to world attention by holding exhibits in Rome, Moscow and Japan.
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| Walter Gropius |
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| Kurt Weill |
Its members also belonged to other art movements and groups during the Weimar Republic era, such as architect Walter Gropius (founder of Bauhaus), and Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht (agitprop theatre).
The artists of the 'Novembergruppe' kept the spirit of radicalism alive in German art and culture during the Weimar Republic.
Many of the painters, sculptors, music composers, architects, playwrights, and filmmakers who belonged to it, and still others associated with its members, were the same ones whose art would later be denounced as 'entartete Kunst' by Adolf Hitler.
Fine Arts
The Weimar Republic era began in the midst of several major movements in the fine arts that continued into the 1920s.
German Expressionism had begun before World War I and continued to have a strong influence throughout the 1920s, although artists were increasingly likely to position themselves in opposition to expressionist tendencies as the decade went on.
Dada had begun in Zurich during World War I, and became an international phenomenon. Dada artists met and reformed groups of like-minded artists in Paris, Berlin, Cologne, and New York City.
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| Richard Huelsenbeck |
Machines, technology, and a strong Cubism element were features of their work.
Jean Arp and Max Ernst formed a Cologne Dada group, and held a Dada Exhibition there that included a work by Ernst that had an axe "placed there for the convenience of anyone who wanted to attack the work".
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| Kurt Schwitters |
The house was destroyed by Allied bombs in 1943.
The 'Neue Sachlichkeit' artists did not belong to a formal group.
Various Weimar Republic artists were oriented towards the concepts associated with it, however.
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| George Grosz |
Broadly speaking, artists linked with New Objectivity include Käthe Kollwitz, Otto Dix, Max Beckmann, George Grosz, John Heartfield, Conrad Felixmüller, Christian Schad, and Rudolf Schlichter, who all worked in different styles, but shared many themes: the horrors of war, social hypocrisy and moral decadence, the plight of the poor.
Otto Dix and George Grosz referred to their own movement as Verism, a reference to the Roman classical Verism approach called verus, meaning "truth", warts and all.
While their art is recognizable as a bitter, cynical criticism of life in Weimar Germany, they were striving to portray a sense of realism that they saw missing from expressionist works.
'Neue Sachlichkeit' became a major undercurrent in all of the arts during the Weimar Republic.
Design
The design field during the Weimar Republic witnessed some radical departures from styles that had come before it.
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| Marcel Breuer |
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| Wassily Chair - Bauhaus |
Designers from these movements turned their energy towards a variety of objects, from furniture, to typography, to buildings.
Known to his friends and associates as Lajkó, Breuer studied and taught at the Bauhaus in the 1920s. The Bauhaus curriculum stressed the simultaneous education of its students in elements of visual art, craft and the technology of industrial production. Breuer was eventually appointed to a teaching position as head of the school's carpentry workshop. He later practiced in Berlin, designing houses and commercial spaces. In the 1920s and 1930s, Breuer pioneered the design of tubular steel furniture. Later in his career he would also turn his attention to the creation of innovative and experimental wooden furniture.
Dada's goal of critically rethinking design was similar to Bauhaus, but whereas the earlier Dada movement was an aesthetic approach, the Bauhaus was literally a school, an institution that combined a former school of industrial design with a school of arts and crafts.
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| Wilhelm Wagenfeld |
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| Wagenfeld Lamp WG25 Bauhaus |
The founders intended to fuse the arts and crafts with the practical demands of industrial design, to create works reflecting the 'Neue Sachlichkeit' aesthetic in Weimar Germany.
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| Adolf Loos - Villa Karma 1906 Precursor to Albert Speer ? |
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| Adolf Loos |
He was influential in European Modern architecture, and in his essay 'Ornament and Crime' he repudiated the florid style of the 'Vienna Secession', with the Austrian version of Art Nouveau.
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| Adolf Loos Decorative Console |
Ornament and Crime in no way reflects his architectural style.
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| Adolf Loos - Table |
'In Spoken into the Void', published in 1900, Loos attacked the Vienna Secession, at a time when the movement was at its height.
In his essays, Loos used provocative catchphrases and has become noted for one particular essay/manifesto entitled 'Ornament and Crime', spoken first in 1910.
In this essay, he explored the idea that the progress of culture is associated with the deletion of ornament from everyday objects (?), and that it was therefore a crime to force craftsmen or builders to waste their time on ornamentation that served to hasten the time when an object would become obsolete.
Loos' stripped-down buildings influenced the minimal massing of modern architecture, and stirred controversy.
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| Adolf Loos - Villa Karma 1906 |
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| Pendant Light - Adolf Loos |
The visual distinction is not between complicated and simple, but between "organic" and superfluous decoration.
Loos was also interested in the decorative arts, collecting sterling silver and high quality leather goods, which he noted for their plain yet luxurious appeal.
He also enjoyed fashion and men's clothing, designing the famed Kníže of Vienna, a haberdashery.
His admiration for the fashion and culture of England and America can be seen his short-lived publication 'Das Andere', which ran for just two issues in 1903 and included advertisements for 'English' clothing.
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| Bauhaus Building - Model |
Berlin and other parts of Germany still have many surviving landmarks of the architectural style at the Bauhaus.
The mass housing projects of Ernst May and Bruno Taut are evidence of markedly creative designs being incorporated as a major feature of new planned communities.
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| Mies van der Rohe Barcelona Pavilion |
Erich Mendelsohn and Hans Poelzig are other prominent Bauhaus architects, while Mies van der Rohe is undoubtedly the greatest architect to emerge from the Weimar design movement.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (born as Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886, Aachen – August 17, 1969, Chicago) was a German-American architect. He is commonly referred to, and was addressed, as Mies, his surname.
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Mies van der Rohe - Barcelona Pavilion |
The architecture of Mies is in fact a continuation, using modern materials, of the neo-classical revival of the late nineteenth century.
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| Ehrenhal - The Hall of Honour - 1929 - Nuremberg |
The design was by architect Fritz Mayer.
A rectangular yard is adjacent to the arcaded hall, with a row of pillars carrying fire bowls on either side. Lord Mayor Hermann Luppe officially opened the hall in 1930.
During the Party Congress of the NSDAP in 1929 the then unfinished "Hall of Honour" was used for the enactment of a cult of the dead by the National Socialists the first time.
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| Comemoration of 9 November 1923 in Munich |
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| "Blutfahne" Ritual |
Hitler, accompanied by SS-leader Heinrich Himmler and SA-leader Viktor Lutze, strode through the arena over the 240 meters long granite path, from the main grandstand to the terrace of the Ehrenhalle.
The ritual was the climax of the celebration.
During the party rallies, deployments of the SA and the SS with up to 150,000 people took place in this area.
The central "relic" here was the "Blutfahne" (Blood flag), which was carried by the Beer Hall Putsch rebels and was soaked with the blood of one of them.
Painter Paul Klee was a faculty member of Bauhaus.
Bruno Taut and Adolf Behne founded the 'Arbeitsrat für Kunst' (Workers' Council for Art) in 1919.
Their aim was to assert pressure for political change on the Weimar Republic government, that would benefit the management of architecture and arts management, similar to Germany's large councils for workers and soldiers.
This Berlin organization had around 50 members.
Still another influential affiliation of architects was the group 'Der Ring' (The Ring) established by ten architects in Berlin in 1923-24, including: Otto Bartning, Peter Behrens, Hugo Häring, Erich Mendelsohn, Mies van der Rohe, Bruno Taut and Max Taut.
The group promoted the progress of modernism in architecture.
Literature
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| Tadzio |
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| Thomas Mann |
“Getting used to things is death. It is ennui. Don’t give in to it, don’t let anything become a matter of course, preserve a childlike taste for the sweets of life.”
“Wälsungenblut' - Thomas Mann
'Wälsungenblut' is significant because of its direct allusions to the Wagnarian milieu, which brings with it associations with and with Adolf Hitler's obsession with Wagner and 'Der Ring des Nibelungen', as the two main protagonists in the novel are Siegfried and Sieglinde, who, like their namesakes in 'Der Ring', have an incestuous relationship.
'Der Zauberberg' can be read as a classic example of the European 'Bildungsroman' – a "novel of education" or "novel of formation". Many formal elements of this type of fiction are present: like the protagonist of a typical Bildungsroman, the immature Castorp leaves his home and learns about art, culture, politics, human frailty and love. Also embedded within this vast novel are extended reflections on the experience of time, music and nationalism. Hans Castorp’s stay in the rarefied air of 'Der Zauberberg' thus provides him with a panoramic view of pre-war European civilization and its discontents.
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| 'Der Zauberberg' |
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| 'Der Zauberberg' |
At the core of this complex work is an encyclopaedic survey of the ideas and debates associated with modernity, a key concept of conflict in the völkisch philosophy, which culiminated in the NSDAP. Mann acknowledged his debt to some of the insights of Friedrich Nietzsche concerning modern humanity and embodied this in the novel in the arguments between the characters.
Of significance is the mystical effect of the mountain in question, which directly links the novel to the Obersalzburg and Kehlstein, and their association with Hitler's völkisch romanticism.
Foreign writers also travelled to Berlin, lured by the city's dynamic, freer culture.
The decadent cabaret scene of Berlin was documented by Britain's Christopher Isherwood, such as in his novel 'Goodbye to Berlin' which was later transposed to the musical film 'Cabaret'.
'The Berlin Stories' was chosen as a Time 100 Best English-language novels of the 20th century.
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| Cabaret - Tomorrow Belongs to Me |
'The Berlin Stories' was the starting point for the John Van Druten play 'I Am a Camera', which in turn went on to inspire the film 'I Am a Camera', as well as the stage musical and film versions of 'Cabaret'.
The character Sally Bowles is probably the best-known character from 'The Berlin Storie's because of her later starring role in the 'Cabaret' musical and film, although in 'The Berlin Stories', she is only the main character of one short story in 'Goodbye to Berlin'.
TOMORROW BELONGS TO ME
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| Hitler-Jugend Fahnenträger |
The stag in the forest runs free
But gathered together to greet the storm
Tomorrow belongs to me
The branch on the linden is leafy and green
The Rhine gives its gold to the sea
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen
Tomorrow belongs to me
The babe in his cradle is closing his eyes
The blossom embraces the bee
But soon says the whisper, arise, arise
Tomorrow belongs to me
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| Hitler-Jugend Trompeter |
The blossom embraces the bee
But soon says the whisper, arise, arise
Tomorrow belongs to me
Now Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign
Your children have waited to see
The morning will come
When the world is mine
Tomorrow belongs to me'
Probably the most significant poet of the Weimar period was Stefan George.
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| Stefan George |
George was born in Bingen in Prussia in 1868.
He spent time in Paris and began to publish poetry in the 1890s, while in his twenties. George founded and edited an important literary magazine called 'Blätter für die Kunst' (Magazine for the Arts).
Stefan George was also at the centre of an influential literary and academic circle known as the 'George-Kreis' (George Circle), which included many of the leading young writers of the day, (for example Friedrich Gundolf and Ludwig Klages).
In addition to sharing cultural interests, the circle reflected mystical and political themes.
Stefan George was a homosexual, yet exhorted his young friends to lead a celibate life, like his own.
In 1914 at the start of the war he foretold a sad end for Germany, and between then and 1916 wrote the pessimistic poem 'Der Krieg' (The War).
He died near Locarno in 1933.
George believed in the renewal of culture through the power of youth and beauty.The strength of George's belief in this cult of beauty is reflected not only in many of his later, quite monumental works, such as 'Der Stern des Bündes', and the prophetically titled 'Das neue Reich', but in the decisive `Maximin-Erlebnis,' which provided the poet with inspiration and material for much of his later poetry.
++Wiemar+culture+-+Deutschland+und+die+Ostmark+-+Peter+Crawford.JPG) |
| Maximilian Kronberger |
Some of his most significant work includes 'Algabal', and the love poetry he devoted to a gifted adolescent of his acquaintance named Maximilian Kronberger, whom he called "Maximin", and whom he identified as a manifestation of the divine.-
Maximilian Kronberger, known familiarly as Maximin (April 15, 1888 — April 16, 1904), was a German poet and a significant figure in the literary circle of Stefan George (the so‑called George‑Kreis).
He was idealized by George to the point of proclaiming him a god, following his death... the cult of 'Maximin' became an integral part of the George circle’s practice.
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| Albert Speer |
George thought of himself as a messiah of a new kingdom that would be led by intellectual or artistic elites, bonded by their faithfulness to a strong leader.
In his memoirs, Albert Speer claims to have seen George in the early 1920s and that his elder brother, Hermann, was a member of his inner circle: George "radiated dignity and pride and a kind of priestliness... there was something magnetic about him."
George's late works include 'Geheimes Deutschland' ("Secret Germany") written in 1922, and 'Das neue Reich' (The New Empire), which was published in 1928, which outlines a new form of society ruled by hierarchical spiritual aristocracy.
'Das neue Reich' (1928) is the title of the last published collection of poems by Stefan George .
Compared to previous works his these poems are less coherent in form and content, and its architecture looser. In addition to the role as time judge, George becomes the prophetic herald new values.
Increasingly, Plato , and especially Friedrich Hölderlin become important influences..
The appreciation of irrational forces, and the ambiguous reference to the historical situation, led to George, to be seen as an ideological precursor of the Third Reich.
These poems have always been associated with the brothers Berthold and Claus von Stauffenberg, Members of George's 'circle', and it was Claus von Stauffenberg's disillusionment with the development of the Third Reich that led him to make an attempt on the life of Adolf Hitler.
His poetry emphasized 'self-sacrifice', 'heroism' and 'power', and he thus gained popularity in National Socialist circles.
Along with the National Socialists, Stefan George had the ambition to revive a ‘Secret Germany’ that would sweep away the materialism of the Weimar Republic, and restore German life to its true spirituality.
The group of writers and admirers that formed around him were known as the 'Georgekreis' (George Circle).
Although many National Socialists claimed George as an important influence, George himself was aloof from such associations and did not get involved in politics. Although George was never a member of the NSDAP, his later works paved the way for the acceptance of National Socialist philosophy in upper class, intellectual circles, and his works were approved of by the hierarchy of the Third Reich, despite their obvious homoeroticism.
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| Claus von Stauffenberg |
'Das neue Reich' (1928) is the title of the last published collection of poems by Stefan George .
Compared to previous works his these poems are less coherent in form and content, and its architecture looser. In addition to the role as time judge, George becomes the prophetic herald new values.
Increasingly, Plato , and especially Friedrich Hölderlin become important influences..
The appreciation of irrational forces, and the ambiguous reference to the historical situation, led to George, to be seen as an ideological precursor of the Third Reich.
These poems have always been associated with the brothers Berthold and Claus von Stauffenberg, Members of George's 'circle', and it was Claus von Stauffenberg's disillusionment with the development of the Third Reich that led him to make an attempt on the life of Adolf Hitler.
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| Stefan George and the Stauffenberg brothers |
Along with the National Socialists, Stefan George had the ambition to revive a ‘Secret Germany’ that would sweep away the materialism of the Weimar Republic, and restore German life to its true spirituality.
The group of writers and admirers that formed around him were known as the 'Georgekreis' (George Circle).
Although many National Socialists claimed George as an important influence, George himself was aloof from such associations and did not get involved in politics. Although George was never a member of the NSDAP, his later works paved the way for the acceptance of National Socialist philosophy in upper class, intellectual circles, and his works were approved of by the hierarchy of the Third Reich, despite their obvious homoeroticism.
Theatre
Original German poster for 'Die Dreigroschenoper' (The Threepenny Opera) by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill (1928).
A moritat (from mori meaning "deadly" and tat meaning "deed") is a medieval version of the murder ballad performed by strolling minstrels.
In 'Die Dreigroschenoper', the moritat singer, with his street organ, introduces and closes the drama with the tale of the deadly Mackie Messer, a character based on the dashing highwayman Macheath in John Gay's 'The Beggar's Opera' (who was in turn based on the historical thief Jack Sheppard). The Brecht-Weill version of the character was far more cruel and sinister, and has been transformed into a modern anti-hero.
'Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne,
Und die trägt er im Gesicht.
Und Macheath, der hat ein Messer,
Doch das Messer sieht man nicht'
Oh the shark has pretty teeth, dear,
And he shows them, pearly white,
Just a jackknife has Macheath, dear,
And he keeps it out of sight.
Oh the shark has pretty teeth, dear,
And he shows them, pearly white,
Just a jackknife has Macheath, dear,
And he keeps it out of sight.
The theatres of Berlin and Frankfurt am Main were graced with drama by Ernst Toller, Bertolt Brecht, cabaret, and stage direction by Max Reinhardt and Erwin Piscator.
Many theatre works were sympathetic towards Marxist themes, or were overt experiments in propaganda, such as the agitprop theatre by Brecht and Weill.
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| Bertolt Brecht |
Its aim was to add elements of left wing public protest (agitation) and persuasive politics (propaganda) to the theatre, in the hope of creating a more activist audience.
Toller was the leading German expressionist playwright of the era.
He later became one of the leading proponents of 'Neue Sachlichkeit' in the theatre.
The avant-garde theater of Bertolt Brecht and Max Reinhardt in Berlin was the most advanced in Europe, being rivaled only by that of Paris.
Music
Concert halls and conservatories exhibited the atonal and modern music of Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, and Kurt Weill.
Hanns Eisler and Paul Dessau were other modernist composers of the era.
Undoubtedly the two greatest German composers of the Wiemar period were Richard Strauss and Hans Pfitzner.
His significant works of the Weimar period were:
'Film music for Der Rosenkavalier' (1925), and the operas 'Die Frau ohne Schatten' (1919), 'Intermezzo' (1923), 'Die ägyptische Helena' (1927), 'Arabella' (1932).
Strauss continued to compose into the era of the Third Reich and beyond (he died in 1949).
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| Hans Pfitzner |
Hans Erich Pfitzner (5 May 1869 – 22 May 1949) is undeservedly less well known. He was a German composer and self-described anti-modernist.
His own music — including pieces in all the major genres except the symphonic poem — was respected by contemporaries such as Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss.
Pfitzner's works combine Romantic and Late Romantic elements with extended thematic development, atmospheric music drama, and the intimacy of chamber music.
His greatest work of the period was the romantische Kantate 'Von deutscher Seele' (Of the German Soul) (1921).
During this period he also composed a 'Sonata in e-minor for Violin and Piano' Op. 27 (1918), and his 'String Quartet [Nr. 3] in C-Sharp minor' (1925).
Other Orchestral works composed during the Weimar period include the 'Piano concerto in E-flat Major' (1922), the 'Violin Concerto in b-minor' (1923) and the Symphony in C-sharp Minor (1932).
Cinema
At the beginning of the Weimar era, cinema meant silent films.
Some films from this period have remained among the most well known in all of German cinema, however, a testament to the creative power of the artists who made them using the most basic of early film technology.
Expressionist films featured plots exploring the dark side of human nature.
They had elaborate expressionist design sets, and the style was typically nightmarish in atmosphere.
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| Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari |
The sets depict distorted, warped-looking buildings in a German town, while the plot centres around a mysterious, magical cabinet that has a clear association with a casket. F. W. Murnau's vampire horror film 'Nosferatu' was released in 1922.
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| Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari |
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| Dr. Mabuse der Spieler |
Lang's 'Dr. Mabuse der Spieler' (Dr. Mabuse the Gambler) (1922) was a hugely popular film when it was released.
It is described as "a sinister tale" that portrays "the corruption and social chaos so much in evidence in Berlin and more generally, according to Lang, in Weimar Germany".
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| Fritz Lang |
It is about four hours long and divided into two parts: Der große Spieler: Ein Bild der Zeit and Inferno: Ein Spiel um Menschen unserer Zeit. The title, Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, is plurivalent. Der Spieler means the player in German, and can be translated as the gambler, the actor, or the puppeteer. Dr. Mabuse, who disguises, plays with emotions and tricks other people, is probably all of them in some sense.
The film is included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, being the first of five Lang films to be entered.
'Futurism' is another favourite expressionist them, shown corrupted into a force of oppression in the dystopia in one of the greatest films ever produced - 'Metropolis' (1927).
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| Metropolis - the Workers |
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| Metropolis - Rotwang |
Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia, and follows the attempts of Freder, the wealthy son of the city's ruler, and Maria, whose background is not fully explained in the film, to overcome the vast gulf separating the classist nature of their city.
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| Metropolis |
The appearance of the city in Metropolis is strongly informed by the Art Deco movement; however it also incorporates elements from other traditions. The architecture featured in Metropolis is eclectic and represents both 'functionalist modernism' and 'art deco', whilst also featuring the scientist’s 'archaic' little house, with its high-powered laboratory, and the catacombs and the 'Gothic' cathedral.
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| Metropolis |
The film’s use of 'art deco' architecture was highly influential, and has been reported to have contributed to the style’s subsequent popularity in Europe and America.
The film was met with a mixed response upon its initial release, with many critics praising its technical achievements and allegorical social metaphors with some deriding its "simplistic and naïve" presentation. Due both to its long running-time and footage censors found questionable, Metropolis was cut substantially after its German premiere; large portions of the film were lost over the subsequent decades.
The film was met with a mixed response upon its initial release, with many critics praising its technical achievements and allegorical social metaphors with some deriding its "simplistic and naïve" presentation. Due both to its long running-time and footage censors found questionable, Metropolis was cut substantially after its German premiere; large portions of the film were lost over the subsequent decades.
Numerous attempts have been made to restore the film since the 1970s-80s. 'Giorgio Moroder', a music producer, released a version with a soundtrack by rock artists
The self-deluded lead characters in many expressionist films echo Goethe's 'Faust', and Murnau indeed retold the tale in his film 'Faust'.
German expressionist films represented a significant stylistic and thematic development in film that has had a lasting worldwide influence, however, they were not the dominant type of popular film in Weimar Germany, and were outnumbered by the production of costume dramas, often about folk legends, which were enormously popular with the public.
The Weimar era's most groundbreaking film studio was the UFA studio.
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| Universum Film AG - UFA |
UFA was created during November 1917 in Berlin as a government-owned producer of World War I propaganda and public service films.
It was created through the consolidation of most of Germany's commercial film companies, including Nordisk and Decla.
Decla's former owner, Erich Pommer, served as producer for the 1920 film 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari', which was not only the best example of German Expressionism and an enormously influential film, but also a commercial success.
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| UFA-Palast am Zoo |
During the Weimar years the studio produced and exported an enormous, accomplished, and inventive body of work. Only an estimated 10% of the studio's output still exists. Famous directors based at UFA included Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau; under chief producer Erich Pommer the company created landmark films such as 'Dr. Mabuse' (1922), 'Metropolis' (1927), and Marlene Dietrich's first talkie, ''Der blaue Engel' (1930).
These films were produced at Filmstudio Babelsberg, located in Potsdam-Babelsberg, Berlin.
Silent films continued to be made throughout the 1920s, in parallel with the early years of sound films during the final years of the Weimar Republic.
Silent films had certain advantages for filmmakers, such as the ability to hire an international cast, since spoken accents were irrelevant, thus, American and British actors were easily able to collaborate with German directors and cast-members on films made in Germany (for example, the collaborations of Georg Pabst and Louise Brooks).
When sound films started being produced in Germany, some filmmakers experimented with versions in more than one language, filmed simultaneously.
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| 'The Threepenny Opera' - 1931 |
An English version was planned but never materialized.
'Der blaue Engel' (The Blue Angel) (1930), directed by Josef von Sternberg with the leads played by Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings, was filmed simultaneously in English and German (a different supporting cast was used for each version).
'Der blaue Engel' (The Blue Angel) (1930), directed by Josef von Sternberg with the leads played by Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings, was filmed simultaneously in English and German (a different supporting cast was used for each version).
Although it was based on a 1905 story written by Heinrich Mann, the film is often seen as topical in that it depicts the doomed romance between a Berlin professor and a cabaret dancer, reflecting the popular image of the city during the era.
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| Karl Vollmöller |
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| Der Blaue Engel |
Karl Gustav Vollmöller, (May 7, 1878 – October 18, 1948) was a German playwright and screenwriter.
He is most famous for two works, the screenplay for the celebrated 1930 German film 'Der Blaue Engel' (The Blue Angel), which made a star of Marlene Dietrich, and 'Das Mirakel' (The Miracle), which he wrote in collaboration with Max Reinhardt.
Aufklärungsfilme (enlightenment films) supported the idea of teaching the public about important social problems, such as alcohol and drug addiction, venereal disease, homosexuality, prostitution, and prison reform.
Health and Self-improvement
Germany had many innovators in health treatment, some more questionable than others, in the decades leading up to World War I.
As a group, they were collectively known as part of the 'Lebensreform', (Life Reform), movement.
During the Weimar years, some of these found support with the German public, particularly in Berlin.
Some innovations had lasting influence.
Joseph Pilates developed much of his Pilates system of physical training during the 1920s. Expressionist dance teachers such as Rudolf Laban had an important impact on Pilates' theories.
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| Nacktkultur |
Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach pioneered the concept in Vienna in the late 1890s.
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| Javelin Thrower |
However, Rothschuh (113) claims that Nacktkultur first appeared in Germany in the 1870s, along with the animal protection, vegetarian, and natural healing movements. Nudity was an important feature of Freikörperkultur well before World War I, and the idea of nudity as a healthful activity apparently owed something to the medical profession's efforts to combat such diseases as tuberculosis with what before the war was called Luft und Licht Therapie (air and light therapy) or Heliotherapie. As late as 1922 a Munich filmmaker, Robert Reinert, released a film (Nerven ) that concluded with scenes of nude bodies in the mountains finally cured of neurasthenic ailments contracted in a decadent urban environment.Resorts for naturalists were established at a rapid pace along the northern coast of Germany during the 1920s, and by 1931, Berlin itself had 40 naturalists' societies and clubs. A variety of periodicals on the topic were also regularly published.
When the NSDAP took over power in 1933, the ideals of 'Lebensreform' were not entirely lost, and while the Party was not entirely comfortable with the practice of 'nudism', they were certainly enthusiastic about encouraging health and physical development - particularly among the young.
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| HJ Schwimmenmannschaft |
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| Napola Schwimmenmannschaft |
Berlin's Reputation for Decadence
Prostitution rose in Berlin and elsewhere in the areas of Europe left ravaged by the World War.
This means of survival for desperate women, and sometimes men, became normalized to a degree in the 1920s.
During the war, venereal diseases such as syphilis and gonorrhea spread at a rate that warranted government attention.
Soldiers at the front contracted these diseases from prostitutes, so the German army responded by granting approval to certain brothels that were inspected by their own medical doctors, and soldiers were rationed coupon books for sexual services at these establishments.
Homosexual behaviour was also documented among soldiers at the front.
Soldiers returning to Berlin at the end of the War had a different attitude towards their own sexual behaviour than they had a few years previously.
Prostitution was frowned on by respectable Berliners, but it continued to the point of becoming entrenched in the city's underground economy and culture.
First women with no other means of support turned to the trade, then youths of both genders.
A byproduct of the tolerance for prostitution appears to have been a more visible tolerance for diverse sexual behaviour, mainly with the growth of a large underground homosexual culture in the city among both men and women.
Sexual experimentation became less hidden, and the pornography, cabaret and prostitution entrepreneurs found their consumer niche.
Crime in general developed in parallel with prostitution in the city, beginning as petty thefts and other crimes linked to the need to survive in the war's aftermath.
Berlin eventually acquired a reputation as a hub of drug dealing (cocaine, heroin, tranquilizers) and the black market.
The police identified 62 organized criminal gangs in Berlin, called Ringvereine.
The German public also became fascinated with reports of homicides, especially "lust murders" or Lustmord.
Publishers met this demand with inexpensive criminal novels called Krimi, which like the film noir of the era (such as the classic M), explored methods of scientific detection and psychosexual analysis.
Apart from the new tolerance for behaviour that was technically still illegal, and viewed by a large part of society as immoral, there were other developments in Berlin culture that shocked many visitors to the city.
Thrill-seekers came to the city in search of adventure, and booksellers sold many editions of guide books to Berlin's erotic night entertainment venues.
There were an estimated 500 such establishments, that included a large number of homosexual venues for men and for lesbians; sometimes transvestites of one or both genders were admitted, otherwise there were at least 5 known establishments that were exclusively for a transvestite clientele.
There were also several nudist venues, and many other well-known venues where underground figures such as crime bosses gathered.
Berlin also had a museum of sexuality during the Weimar period, at Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute of Sexology.
These were nearly all closed when the National Socialist regime came to power in 1933.
Artists in Berlin became fused with the city's underground culture as 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).
She was painted by Otto Dix, and socialized in the same circles as Klaus Mann.
Cinema in Weimar culture did not shy away from controversial topics, but dealt with them explicitly.
'Diary of a Lost Girl' (1929) directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst and starring Louise Brooks, deals with a young woman who is thrown out of her home after having an illegitimate child, and is then forced to become a prostitute to survive.
This trend of dealing frankly with provocative material in cinema began immediately after the end of the War.
In 1919, Richard Oswald directed and released two films, that met with press controversy and action from police vice investigators and government censors.
'Prostitution' dealt with women forced into "white slavery", while 'Different from the Others' dealt with a homosexual man's conflict between his sexuality and social expectations.
By the end of the decade, similar material met with little, if any opposition when it was released in Berlin theatres.
William Dieterle's 'Sex in Chains' (1928), and Pabst's 'Pandora's Box' (1929) deal with homosexuality among men and women, respectively, and were not censored. Homosexuality was also present more tangentially in other films from the period.
In the light of such activities it is not difficult to see why the NSDAP received so much support in Germany from the more conservative majority towards the end of the 1920s.
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