Retrospective: Factors favoring cultural achievement:
- economic / commercial/ communal: prosperity, appreciation for quality in the workmanship / artisanal, discretionary income, savings
- tradition of public discussion and free speech; and civic participation of projects [ [baptistery, cathedral], the role of the commune and private parties in this processes.
- educational level of a critical mass of citizens [even if purely functional], religion yes, but still minimal role of the church and university in artistic production, access to different cultural traditions, social mobility, rewards in public prestige for achievement
- patronage of the arts: church...community..or the nouveaux riches the chance to invest in art and legitimize social position.
Factors discouraging??? The "old order"; and alliance of "Throne and altar"? eine cristliche Weltanschauung defined by an established church? Too much licence? Too little moderation and self-control? the weakness of the middle class?
Images of Weimar Berlin
Starters:
- Sei lieb zu mir [Sprechgesang, a popular technique in the 20s and 30s]
- A movie to watch, modern but nonetheless revealing: Das Weisse Band ['The White Ribbon'] about village life in Germany on the eve of WW1. Available at Amazon.
- Maps of the period. Germany before 1914, after 1919 ; alternatively
Graf Harry Kessler, E. Munch; and again
Suburban/village Life. village
What was lost: images from the period before WW1 "There was peace and order, and a respect for traditional values, eine christliche Weltanschauung" [7]:
- Public life: Bismarck; the fleet; emperor
arrives! emperor&sons;
women's suffrage; parade; parade2; the palace (Stadtschloss).Chancellery. Elections 1912 . How a German Professor looked: Theodore Mommsen Nobel Prize winner.
- Commerce and industry: industrial
growth; machines; X-ray;
jugendstil factory
; factory ; factory2; PotsdamerPlatz1914
- City scenes: dresden; better homes; leipziger platz; brandenburgertor; industry;
department store; siegesallee;
the public garden; take the bus or drink a beer or eat a "wurst". Streets: 1885 ; 1896 ; 1898; 2005a; 2005b und damals . Markt At the beach or on the "underground";
- Private life:
- family: familyfest; but note the secessionist tradition. an imperial family; family; baptism1, baptism2, 1st-schoolday1; 1stschoolday2 ;children; 1st grade; confirmation1; confirmation2; lehrling1 and lehrling2; weddingparental-advice1 and parental advice2; student, school trip; girlswork; women's work ; young workers ; verlobung; hochzeit1 and hochzeit2 ; the unwed mother; goldenerhochzeit1; daysofourlives-man; daysofourlives-woman, recruits. Students 50years later.
- housing: bath1; bath2; hinterhof; mietkaserne1; hiring help; modernwoman; the electronic kitchen.
The War began with much patriotism.
Compare:
The venue for SSR-P CafeSociety: one and two
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Chapters 1-2
"Forces at Work" As the old order crumbled, new forces emerge, and yet a palpable nostalgia for the prosperous and stable past remained a powerful countervailing force. NOTE: not class distinctions: there were wealthy and poor nationalists; wealthy and poor socialists. For the most part the middle class will remain on the sidelines.
- The central govt has lost its legitimacy: deceptive promise of winning; then armistice that became a surrender, followed by a punitive peace. The major concern was how to establish stable govt given that the Kaiser had abdicated and all the leading politicians had been compromised by their support of the war effort and the acceptance of the terms of the Versailles treaty.
- The social divisions:
- A divided left: Social Democrats [tho 'internationalists' had been coopted into the war effort, and had to take the blame for Versailles, Communists / Sparticists; workers. Revolutionaries and bourgeois
- a Christian middle; Zentrum, civil servants...also tainted by complicity in the failed war and peace.
- Right also divided: Nationalists, monarchists, Junkers. All of whom denied responsibility for losing the war; most of whom were already seeking a replay.
- The armed forces & police: officers vs. rank and file.
- Sailors revolt. ==> paramilitary groups emerge on far left and on far right.
- On the left: Creation of a Soviet Republic of Germany? so Liebknecht: officers to be elected, debts cancelled, property re-distributed.
- On the right: a fear of a soviet style revolution and radical re-destribution of property but also a powerful desire for revenge; to win the war that had been lost due to internal dissension, socialism and catholicism.
Events and Propaganda: the context...
