Weimar Republic 1918-33: great culture, great democracy

Pres Paul von Hindenburg

Wiki

The usual image of the Weimar Republic was one of political instability, economic crisis and cultural decadence. That always seemed ridiculous to me since this republic was Germany’s new system of democratic government after the Second Reich collapsed. The name was chosen because Berlin was still in the midst of revolution when the Imperial period ended in 1918. So the first Assembly for the new Republic was held in Jan 1919 in Weimar instead.

My best German era started when Weimar Republic politics became democratic, social freedoms arrived and vibrant artistic movements blossomed. The tricky cond­itions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles and economic instab­ility only made governmental support more urgent.

Intellectual and political democracy
The Weimar era was noted for these amazing successes:
1.Political power was rested in the Reichstag
2.Universal voting for men & women made for a genuine democracy
3.unemployment insurance was introduced
4.the working week was reduced from 50 hours down to 46.
5.free speech was guaranteed.
6.freedom of religion was guaranteed
7.sciences were promoted in the universities and scientists supported at work

Arts The Bauhaus Academy opened in 1919 where expressionist artists overcame the rigid traditions of the main art academies; the new style which flourished in the German-speaking nations was characterised by distorted forms, sharp colour contrasts, dark shadows, weird angles and distorted id­ent­it­ies. Bauhaus was great for young architects when a new wave of designers foll­ow­ed Walter Grop­ius (1883-1969) instead of traditional or cl­ass­ical architects. It foll­owed a new post-war Western spirit when cultural modernity would be Germany’s reparations to the world. Did it reflect the comp­lic­ated German society when the learned Weimar Rep­ublic suff­er­ed high inflation?

A woman exchanges vegetables for baskets of money during the hyperinflation of 1923 

Law & Liberty

In Berlin post-WW1, Christian Schad became an model of New Objectivity,  painting cool, sharp portraits of his social milieu. He painted the androgynous Sonja, with fashionable cloth­es, cropped hair and smoking Camel cigarettes, all attributes of the independent New Woman. New Object­ivity spread through various cities, creating cynical depictions of injured war veter­ans, jobless workers and war profiteers. They portrayed an scarred society, denouncing the devastating effects of WW1.

Many works railed against both capitalism and the effects of WW1 on society. Otto Dix’s anti-militarist The Skat Players 1920 marked his trans­ition to the social­ly critical New Realism, depicting 3 hideously disfigured office­rs in a café playing skat card game. And Dix completed 4 panels in a triptych, like a church altarpiece, depicting horrid morb­idity with putrefied flesh, gangrene and death. Was Dix reflecting the German nationalism that was surging in the more tense political atmosphere in the Depression? His critics certainly hated his anti-German, hypercritical views of WW1 and post-war society.

George Grosz, 

Eclipse of the Sun, 1926
Weimar Republic

Films Through the 1920s Fritz Lang made ambitious films, includ­ing the al­l­egorical melo­drama Destiny (1921) and Dr Mabuse The Gambler (1922). In 1924 he first travelled to film companies in New York and Hollywood. Lang’s first project back in Germany was the futuristic, expensive master-piece Metropolis (1927). The plot showed a repressive society with exp­loited workers, lazy rulers and emotionless robots. Lang created his vis­ually detailed films where he blended shots of miniatures with live action. After a crime film Spies in 1928, Lang returned to science fict­ion for Woman in the Moon (1929). M (1931) was a German thriller, famous for its horrifying light­ing and sound. It was Fritz Lang’s first sound film, starring a chill­ing Peter Lorre, Lang’s greatest global success.

Wedekind’s early play formed the basis for Viennese director G W Pabst's famous silent film Pand­ora's Box in 1929 star­ring Louise Brooks as Lulu, a masterpiece of C20th opera. Fritz Kohn-Kortner was an Austrian stage-actor who became one of the era's most famous silent actors. Talkies arrived in late 1929, producing a flourish of German film. Sound production and distribution were quickly taken up and soon Germany had 3,800 cinemas with sound. G.W Pabst's version of Bertolt Brecht's The Three-penny Opera 1931 and Lang's M 1931 were landmark talkies.

Berlin jazz girls with mandolins at a 1929 cabaret

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Cabaret were nightclubs where patrons sat at tables, entertained by singers, dancers and comedians on a stage like Moulin Rouge. Berlin’s first cabaret nightclub (1901) was during the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II when German cabarets were not permitted to perform lewd humour, bawdy dancing or political satire. But by 1920s, Berlin became known for its high living and vibrant urban-life. Some cabarets were patronised by gay men and lesbians; once forced to conceal their sexuality, they used the cabaret scene to openly display it. Right wingers were horrified.

So what was the impact of Weimar democracy and cultural dominance? The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall 1918-1933 by Frank McDonough suggested that finding a detailed narrative history of Weimar Germany was tricky. Other writers focused on specific aspects of the era where the rise of Adolf Hitler dominated history. Fortunately The Weimar Years was NOT a history of Hitler’s rise to power. 

“The first important man was Chancellor and Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann, the man McDonough considered the only politician who could have saved German democracy. Stresemann’s diplomatic skills inspired political compromise within the Republic, while his peaceful foreign policy vision triumphed at Locarno, sparking a new spirit of friendship towards Germany and winning him the Nobel Peace Prize before his death in 1929”. I had never heard this mentioned.

“The second was President Paul von Hindenburg, widely seen in the 1920s as a hero. Initially non-partisan, the old monarchist and ex-military leader soon reverted to the right. From 1930 he governed in accordance with his right-wing preferences and gave little thought to the views of the elected Reichstag. But as McDonough argued, the blame did not lie with individuals: there were structural issues with Weimar democracy baked into its constitution, Article 48 of which enabled Hindenburg to disregard the Reichstag. Proportional representation made coalition government difficult. Issues with the system, more than the economic misery, inspired Germans to vote for the Nazis. So the mortal damage was dealt by Hindenburg.

Thank you to Frank McDonough for an excellent history book.