From Berlin Bohemia to Hitler:

The Weimar Republic's Crisis Democracy

& the Emergence of German Fascism


Week 4: February 10, 2005

The Assassinations & The Emergence of Fascism

The 1921-1922

[Assigned Reading from Weimar Republic Sourcebook]

A New Democracy in Crisis

I. The Legacy of the War

7. Willi Wolfradt, The Stab-in-the-Back Legend? (1922) [pp. 16-18]

8. Ernst Jünger: Fire (1922) [pp. 18-20]

IV. Coming to Terms with Democracy [pp.86-87]

37. Emil Julius Gumbel, Four Years of Political Murder (1922) [pp. 100-104]

38. The German Center Party Program (1922) [pp. 104-105]

39. Thomas Mann, The German Republic (1922) [pp. 105-109]

Pressure Points of Social Life

VIII. The Rise of the New Woman

74. Manfred Georg: The Right to Abortion(1922) [p. 200-202]

X. The Jewish Community: Renewal, Redefinition, Resistance

100. Arnold Zweig: The Countenance of Eastern European Jews (1922) [p. 255-257]

101. S. Steinberg: What We Strive For (1922) [p. 257-258]

The Challenge of Modernity

XIX. From Dada to the New Objectivity: Art and Politics

192. Adolf Behne: On the 1922 Russian Art Exhibition in Berlin (1922)[p. 489-490]

Changing Configurations of Culture

XXI. Theater, Politics, and the Public Sphere

217. Herbert Jhering: The Dramatist Bert Brecht (1922) [p.534-535]

218. Hans Johst: The Drama and the National Idea (1922) [p. 535-536]

XXII. The Roaring Twenties: Cabaret and Urban Entertainment

228. Alice Gerstel: Jazz Band (1922) [p. 554-555]

The Transformation of Everyday Life

XXIX. Sexuality: Private Rights versus Social Norms

305. Guidelines of the German Association for the Protection of Mothers (1922) [p. 697-698]


Supplemental Readings [photocopies supplied by instructor]

A. A.J. Nicholls, Weimar and the Rise of Hitler, Chapter 6: Hitler & Republican Instability, pp. 71-82 & Chapter 7: Ruhr Occupation and Inflation, pp. 83-92.

B. Peter Gay, Weimar Culture, Chapter 4: The Hunger for Wholeness: Trials of Modernity, pp. 70-101 & Chapter 5: The Revolt of the Son: Expressionist Years, pp. 102-118.

C. John Willett, Art & Politics in the Weimar Period: The New Sobriety, 1917-1933, Chapter 8: The Turning Point, 1921-1923, pp. 67-94.