HI136 The History of Germany
Lecture 8
Weimar Society
and Culture
The Upper Classes






No fundamental change to the social & economic structure after
1918 – no redistribution of wealth, no nationalization of industry.
But some social change:
The aristocracy (at least temporarily) dislodged from their dominant
position.
Aristocratic ranks and titles banned after 1918 – many families
incorporate their titles into their surnames.
Nevertheless, industrialists and landowners still powerful and the old
elites represented in the Reichstag by the DVP and DNVP.
The Officer Corps of the Reichswehr more aristocratic than the old
Imperial Army:


25% of regular officers came from old military families in 1913,
this number had risen to 67% by 1929.
The Middle Classes




Family of the Lawyer Dr Fritz von Glaser
(1920) by Otto Dix.
Small businesses struggled to
survive in the difficult economic
climate of the 1920s and early
30s.
Many middle class families
continued to fear a loss of
status and the threat of
revolution and the extreme left.
Also a lack of identification
with the new Republic.
Even those who came to
accept it often had little love for
it – they came to be known as
Vernunftrepublikaner, ‘rational
republicans’.
The Stinnes-Legien Agreement
15 November, 1918




An agreement between labour (represented by the trade
unionist Karl Legien) and capital (represented by
industrialist Hugo Stinnes) reached on 15 November
1918.
The Unions agreed not to interfere with private
ownership.
In return, they were granted them full legal recognition
and an 8 hour working day.
Achieved long-standing aims of the labour movement.
The Working Classes





Slow improvement in living
standards after 1924.
Shorter working day, legal Union
representation and higher wages.
SPD government in Prussia
invested in public works –
affordable housing, increased
benefits, education etc.
Extension of adult education
aimed at workers.
But curriculum designed to raise
class consciousness, not improve
employment prospects or provide
re-training.
Education






Weimar Constitution: the state committed to providing free
compulsory education.
Universities controlled by central government, primary and
secondary schools the responsibility of state governments.
Hoped that education will create a sense of civic responsibility,
foster a commitment to democracy and provide greater social
mobility.
Attempts to reform secondary education in Prussia – more
opportunities for girls, raised the age at which testing took place,
and allowed for more movement between educational streams.
But resistance from the Centre Party and from within the educational
establishment.
Many teachers and professors, recruited from the middle classes,
remained hostile to the Republic and old educational methods –
learning by rote etc. – remained standard.
Gender I





New educational and employment
opportunities for women.
Young middle-class women
increasingly employed in
secretarial and other ‘white collar’
jobs.
More disposable income &
interaction with the outside world
freed them from family influence.
Wages spent on consumer goods
and entertainment – fashion,
cosmetics, cinema etc.
Absence of young men brought
about changes in sexual
attitudes/behaviour.
Marlene Dietrich (left),
Josephine Baker (right),
and Louise Brooks
(below).
Gender II






All women over the age of 20
could vote after 1918.
36 female Reichstag deputies by
1924 – more than in any other
parliament in the world.
But these criticized for confining
their activities to ‘women’s issues’
– child care, social policy, family
issues etc.
Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine
(BDF) = the largest women’s
organization with over 900,000
members.
But a split in the women’s
movement along age and class
lines.
Debate over reproductive issues
and the campaign to legalize
abortion highlights these
differences.
‘Weimar was Berlin, Berlin Weimar’







Under the Weimar Republic Berlin
became
Germany’s
premier
cultural and social centre.
A hub for European travel.
1924: Tempelhof Airport opened.
Berlin had a population of 4 million
by 1925 & grew by 80-100,000
people a year.
By 1928 Berlin was the world’s 3rd
largest city after London and New
York.
1926: Funkturm Radio Tower built.
1928: Kempinski Haus Vaterland
amusement park opened.
The Potsdammerplatz by night.
Patrons of the Eldorado, Berlin’s notorious transvestite bar.
Six-day bicycle races.
Marlene Dietrich as the cabaret singer Lola Lola
Crime & Policing





Chaotic conditions in the early and later years of the Republic a breeding
ground for crime.
Prostitution – the police estimated that there were 25,000 full time
prostitutes in Berlin in 1929.
Drugs.
Organized Crime – extortion, illegal gambling, protection rackets etc.
Murder:






Fritz Haarmann, the ‘Butcher of Hanover’, killed 24 tramps and male prostitutes
between 1919 and 1924.
Karl Grossman murdered perhaps as many as 50 women before he was
arrested in Berlin in 1921.
Peter Kürten, the ‘Vampire of Düsseldorf’, was convicted of 9 murders and 7
attempted murders in 1931.
By 1929 50,000 crimes being reported annually in Berlin alone.
Policing effective – the uniformed Schutzpolizei (Schupo) and the plain
clothes Kriminalpolizei (Kripo).
Berlin police well trained and well educated, with a high success rate: 39 out
of 40 reported murders solved in 1928, while culprits brought to trial in all 20
cases of attempted murder.
Ernst Gennat (18801939), head of the
Homicide division of the
Berlin Kriminalpolizei
(1925-39) and originator
Of the term ‘serial killer’
(Serienmörder).
Above: Peter Lorre as the child murder in
Fritz Lang’s M (1931)
Left: Peter Kürten (1883-1931), ‘the
Vampire of Düsseldorf ’.
Weimar Cinema




The war freed German cinema
from foreign competition and
provided a captive audience for
home-grown products.
1917: The German High
Command forced a merger of
German production companies to
form Universum Film A.G. (Ufa).
1918: The state withdrew its stake
in Ufa, which continued as a
private concern and Germany’s
largest production company.
Technological innovations, high
production values and a strong
aesthetic sense put Weimar
cinema at the fore-front of the
European avant-garde.
Notable German Films, 1918-33













Der Golum (1920)
Das Cabinet des Dr Caligari (1920)
Der müde Tod (1921)
Dr Mabuse, der Spieler – Ein Bild der Zeit (1922)
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)
Der letze mann (1924)
Die freundlose Gasse (1925)
Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (1926) – the world’s first feature
length animated film.
Metropolis (1927)
Der blaue Engel (1930)
Westfront 1918 (1930)
Die Dreigroschenoper (1931)
M (1931)
Notable Directors and Actors
Directors









Fritz Lang
F. W. Murnau
G. W. Pabst
Ernst Lubitsch
Josef von Sternbeg
Billy Wilder
Walter Ruttmann
Paul Leni
Arnold Franck
Actors








Conrad Veidt
Emil Jannings
Rudolf Klein-Rogge
Marlene Dietrich
Peter Lorre
Max Schreck
Werner Krauss
Leni Reifenstahl
Expressionism
Expressionism is
the tendency of an
artist to distort
reality for an
emotional effect; it
is a subjective art
form.
Art movement very
influential in
Germany since the
turn of the century
(Die Brücke, der
Blaue Reiter).
Wassily Kandinsky, Der blaue Reiter (1903)
Expressionist Architecture
The Einstein Tower in Potsdam (1919-20),
designed by Erich Mendelsohn
The Chilehaus in Hamburg (1922-24),
designed by Fritz Höger
Expressionist Film
Scenes from Das Cabinet des Dr Caligari (1920)
Still from Nosferatu (1922), directed by F. W. Murnau
The ‘Tower of Babel’ from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927)
Expressionist Theatre



The director and actor Max Reinhardt (1873-1943)
did much to popularize an Expressionist
aesthetic in the theatre of the Weimar Republic
Expressionist theatre was
strident
and
hostile,
“eccentric in plot, staging,
speech,
characters,
acting, and direction.”
(Peter Gay).
Ernst Toller, Die
Wandlung
(Transformation, 1919).
George Kaiser, Die
Koralle (1917), Gas
(1918) & Gas II (1920).
Dada





Germany: A Winter’s Tale (1917-19)
by George Grosz
An international cultural
movement founded in Zürich in
1916.
first and foremost a response
to the madness of war.
To the Dadaists, progress
(including reason and logic)
had led to the disaster of world
war.
They believed that the only
way forward was through
political anarchy, the natural
emotions, the intuitive and the
irrational.
A fore-runner of Surrealism.
The First International Dada Fair, Berlin, 1920
Neue Sachlichkeit
(New Objectivity)






An Outgrowth of and in opposition to expressionism.
A new naturalism in art, literature and cinema.
A style and aesthetic, rather than a movement.
Encompassed ‘Verists’ who used the style to comment critically on
society and ‘Classicists’ who merely favoured a representation and
realism over abstraction.
“What we are displaying here is distinguished by the – in itself purely
external – characteristics of the objectivity with which the artists
express themselves” (Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, 1923).
Rejection of sentimentality and emotional agitation of
Expressionism.
Großstadt (Metropolis) Triptych (1927-28) by Otto Dix
The Pillars of the Establishment (1926)
by George Grosz
Three Whores (1926) by Otto Dix
Satires of middle class family life:
Industriebauen (1920) by Georg Scholz and Deutsche Familie (1932) by Adolf Uzarski
Neue Sachlichkeit Film
Posters for Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Grosstadt (1927) and Der Letze Mann (1924)
Walter Gropius (1883-1969)



Director of the Bauhaus between
1919 and 1928.
His aim was to bring together all
creative efforts into one whole, to
reunify all the disciplines of
practical art — painting, sculpture,
handicrafts and the crafts. There
should be no distinction between
monumental and decorative art.
He believed that the student must
know the crafts — each student
had to work in the workshop to
familiarise
themselves
with
materials and construction in order
to learn how to design properly.
The Bauhaus








Established standards of excellence and workmanship.
Created products for mass production.
Chief aesthetic principle was to simplify the design of all
objects.
The modernist palette tended to emphasize white and grey
accented with black or primary colours.
Ornamentation had to be integral to the materials of
construction.
Made use of the latest technologies.
Stressed lightness and transparency.
Art and technology were fused in an effort to improve overall
quality of design.
The Bauhaus
Cantilever “Cesca” Chair
by Marcel Breuer.
The Bauhuas building in Dessau (1925-26)
Conclusion

No redistribution of wealth or nationalization of industry, but still a
great deal of social change under the Weimar Republic:





Growth of Berlin & identification with Weimar culture.
New styles and media:



Shorter working week, legal recognition of trade unions.
State authorities in Prussia tied to provide better living and working
conditions, raise social mobility through educational reform.
New opportunities for women.
Expressionism, Dada, New Objectivity.
Film & Radio.
But many Germans still feel alienated from the Republic and its
culture.