From Berlin Bohemia to Hitler:

The Weimar Republic's Crisis Democracy

& the Emergence of German Fascism


Week 6: February 24, 2005

The Road to Recovery & New Sobriety

The 1923-1924

[Assigned Reading from Weimar Republic Sourcebook]

A New Democracy in Crisis

I. The Legacy of the War

9. Kurt Tucholsky, The Spirit of 1914 (1924) [pp. 20-22]

III. Economic Upheaval: Rationalization, Inflation, and Depression

23. The Dawes Committee Report (1924) [pp. 64-67]

IV. Coming to Terms with Democracy

41. Carl von Ossietzky, Defending the Republic: The Great Fashion (1924) [pp. 110-112]

VI. The Struggle Against Fascism [pp. 145-146]

56. Ernst Bloch, Hitler's Force (1924) [pp. 147-149]

Pressure Points of Social Life

VII. White-Collar Workers: Mittelstand or Middle Class?

67. Fritz Schröder, The Labor Market for White-Collar Workers (1924) [pp. 184-185]

X. The Jewish Community: Renewal, Redefinition, Resistance

102. Das Tagebuch, Editorial, The German Spirit (1924) [pp. 258-259]

Intellectuals and the Ideologies of the Age

XIV. Cultural Pessimism: Diagnoses of Decline

140. Willy Hellpach, The Catholic Cultural Offensive and Political Catholicism (1924-1925)[p. 362-365]

The Challenge of Modernity

XVII. Designing the New World: Modern Architecture and the Bauhaus

168. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Architecture and the Will of the Age (1924)[pp. 438-439]

XVIII. Housing for the Masses

177. Bruno Taut, The New Dwelling: The Woman as Creator (1924)[pp. 461-462]

Changing Configurations of Culture

XX. Literature: High and Low [pp.507-509]

199. Max Brod, Franz Kafka's Posthumous Writings(1924) [p.510-511]

XXII. The Roaring Twenties: Cabaret and Urban Entertainment

229. Frank Warschauer, Berlin Revues (1924) [p. 554-555]

230. Maximilian Sladek, Our Show (1924) [p. 556]

231. Ferdinand Hager, The Flight of the 'Blue Bird' (1924) [pp. 557-558]

The Transformation of Everyday Life

XXVIII. The Cult of the Body: Lebensreform, Sports, and Dance [pp. 673-675]

292. Adolf Koch, The Truth About the Berlin Nudist Groups (1924) [p. 676]

XXIX. Sexuality: Private Rights versus Social Norms

306. Hugo Bettauer, The Erotic Revolution (1924) [p. 698-700]


Supplemental Readings [photocopies supplied by instructor]

A. John Willett, Art & Politics in the Weimar Period: The New Sobriety, 1917-1933, Chronology 1924: pp. 242-243.