Development of the Weimar golden age

How did arts and culture develop in the Weimar Republic?

Introduction:

• 1919, German writer Paul Ernst: “Our age is over! Thank God it is over! A new age dawns that will be different!”

• William Shirer, European correspondent of US newspaper, ‘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 intellectual life seem so lively...In contemporary writing, painting, architecture, in music and drama, there were new currents and fine talents”

• New political and social freedom in Weimar Germany gave rise to era of experimentation and innovation in the arts.

• Germany in 1920s witnessed explosion of creativity in art, architecture, music, literature, theatre, film and music that it has been described as ‘cradle of modernity’.

• The roots of this dated pre-1914, but Imperial Germany had in the main been conservative, authoritarian and conformist → in contrast, Weimar Republic upheld toleration, reduced censorship and led to fundamental change.

• Yet as with social and political change, not all Germans welcomed the new developments in culture and there was ongoing tension between modernists and conservatives.

The New Cultural Ferment:

• Term generally used to reflect cultural developments in Weimar Germany = ‘Neue Sachlichkeit’

• This can be translated as ‘new practicality’ or ‘new functionalism’ → essentially a desire to show reality and objectivity.

Berlin’s Nightclubs

• Greater cultural and political freedom epitomized in vibrant nightlife of Berlin in 1920s, especially in prosperous years after 1924.

• Berlin nightclubs became renowned for cabaret clubs, with a permissiveness that mocked the conventions of the old Germany: satirical comedy, jazz music and women dancers and even wrestlers, in varying degrees of nudity.

• One club, the Eldorado, described by German composer Friedrich Hollaender as “supermarket of eroticism”.

• Gay men, lesbians and transvestites, who before 1918 were forced to conceal sexuality, now free to display sexuality openly.

• American jazz music, much of it played by black American musicians, popular.

• Comedians performing in clubs attacked politicians and authoritarian attitudes.

• Many older, more traditionally minded Germans regarded Berlin nightclub scene with contempt → hated influence of USA on German cultural life and attacked Weimar Republic for relaxing censorship. Felt order and discipline had been destroyed by 1918 revolution and German society becoming morally degenerate.

Art:

• Artists in favour of ‘new objectivity; broke away from traditional nostalgia of 19th century, wanting to understand ordinary people in everyday life, and through art aimed to comment on state of society.

• Predominant movement in German art at this time = Expressionism.

• Expressionism originated in Germany in early 20th Century and associated with artists e.g. Kandinsky, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Franz Marc and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.

• Expressionist painters believed works should express meaning/emotion rather than physical reality → paintings were abstract in style and vivid in colour.

• Some of these artists paintings and caricatures had a seedy and aggressive style conveying strong political and social messages.

Music:

• Expressionism influenced German classical composers.

• Most innovative were Hindemith and Arnold Schoenberg.

• Schoenberg attempted to convey powerful emotions in his music but avoided traditional forms of beauty.

• Schoenberg associated with ‘atonal’ music, which lacks a key → traditionalists found this harsh-sounding and lacking in harmony.

Literature:

• Impossible to categorise rich range of writing which emerged in Weimar Germany

• Big sellers were authors like Hans Grimm who wrote on more traditional themes.

• Expressionism a key influence in German literature.

• ‘Avant garde’ (modern) novelists and poets adopted free form of writing focusing on character’s internal mental state rather than external social reality, exploring social issues growing out of distress and misery of working people in big cities e.g. Arnold Zweig and Peter Lampel.

• Common theme in German expressionist literature = revolt against parental authority.

• Thomas Mann = leading German writer of period, awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929, but was not an expressionist.

• Unlike many German intellectuals, Mann was a staunch supporter of the Weimar Republic and decided to live in Switzerland after the Nazis came to power in 1933.

• Pacifist ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ published in 1928 by Erich Maria Remarque, ex-soldier critical of First World War.

• ‘Berlin Alexanderplatz’, written by Alfred Doblin, examining the life of a worker in Weimar society.

Architecture and Design:

• Founding of Bauhaus at Dessau, in the town of Weimar itself, by William Gropius in 1919 = key event in development of modern art in Germany.

• Bauhaus = primarily architectural school but also school of art, design and photography, influencing all aspects of design including furniture, urban planning, textiles, pottery and graphics.

• Bauhaus students encouraged to break down barriers between art and technology by incorporating new materials e.g. steel, concrete and glass into designs. This close relationship between art and technology underlined by Bauhaus motto ‘Art and technology - a new unity’.

• Students taught to make function of object/building key element of design, stripping away superfluous ornamentation.

• Bauhaus was profoundly resisted among more conservative circles.

Theatre:

• Many German dramatists incorporated expressionist ideas into productions.

• ‘Zeittheater’ (theatre of the time) introduced new dramatic methods, often with explicit left-wing sympathies.

• Sets were stark and plays relied on abstraction and symbolism to convey their message.

• Much experimental theatre in Weimar Germany = explicitly political, attacking capitalism, nationalism and war.

• Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill developed new form of music theatre that came to symbolise Weimar Berlin, above all ‘The Threepenny Opera’, a savage left-wing satire that treated respectable middle classes as villains, while making heroes out of criminals and prostitutes.

• Another key playwright was Erwin Piscator, who used innovative techniques e.g. banners, slogans, films and slides, and adopted controversial methods to portray characters’ behaviour in their everyday lives.

• Brecht and Weill were attacked by the right as ‘cultural Bolsheviks’.

Film:

• During the 1920s German film industry became most advanced in Europe and there were more cinemas in Germany than anywhere else in Europe.

• Berlin became important centre for world cinema, developing modern techniques that would later be exploited by Nazi propaganda.

• Important figures of Jewish descent in German film industry included Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder (later famous in post-war Hollywood) and Josef von Sternberg.

• Key films:

• ‘Metropolis’ (1926) by film-maker Fritz Lang, a sci-fi classic that raised frightening issues about direction of modern industrialised society.

• ‘King Frederick the Great’ (1922): traditional patriotic epic

• Sternberg directed best-known film of Weimar era, ‘The Blue Angel’ (1930) starring Marlene Dietrich as Lola, the sexy singer in a sleazy nightclub cabaret who seduces an innocent old professor played by Emil Jannings. This was the first big German ‘talkie’ which openly played on female glamour and touched on sexual issues.

• German film market was dominated by organisation UFA, run by Alfred Hugenberg.

• From mid 1920s US movies made exceptional impact → popular appeal of comedy of Charlie Chaplin shows Weimar culture was part of international mass culture and not exclusively German.

Radio:

• Emerged rapidly as mass medium

• German Radio Company established in 1923 and following year radio network and 9 companies set up to serve different regions across the country.

• By 1932, despite the depression, 1 in 4 Germans owned a radio.

Conclusion:

• Cultural innovation divided Germans in the Weimar era, just as they were also divided by class, religion and politics.

• In rural areas and small towns, cultural change = no more than a rumour, something happening in faraway cities e.g. Berlin and Hamburg.

• In rural areas, influence of churches = still strong, traditional family values held sway and people placed great store by traditional German culture.

• Yet even in more remote areas, spread of cinema and increasing popularity of radio brought new cultural influences to wider population.

• The right wing feared that cultural change brought in unwelcome foreign influences, whether in the form of ‘cultural communism’ or American influences e.g. jazz music and Hollywood films.

• Modern culture regarded by conservatives as decadent, immoral and un-German.

• Weimar Republic have citizens greater freedom than would have seemed possible pre-war → freedom welcomed by many but feared by others.

• Allowed experimentation in the arts and opportunity for young people and women to break through constraining barriers.

• But changes provoked fierce conservative reaction as enemies of Weimar Republic fought to resist cultural change.