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From Berlin Bohemia to Hitler: The Weimar Republic's Crisis Democracy & the Emergence of German Fascism

New College of California Humanities/Interdisciplinary Studies Spring 2005 Instructor: Scott J. Thompson

Week 7: March 3, 2005

Neue Sachlichkeit or Cultural Bolschevism

1924-1925

[Assigned Reading from Weimar Republic Sourcebook]

A New Democracy in Crisis

III. Economic Upheaval: Rationalization, Inflation, and Depression

24. Ernst Neckarsulmer, Hugo Stinnes (1925) [pp. 67-68]

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

42. Social Democratic Party (SPD) Program (1925) [pp. 112-115]

V. The Rise of Nazism [pp. 119-120]

48. Joseph Goebbels, National Socialism or Bolshevism? (1925) [pp. 127-129]

Pressure Points of Social Life

IX. Forging a Proletarian Culture

86. Otto Rühle, The Psyche of the Proletarian Child (1925) [pp. 223-224]

87. Larissa Reissner, Schiffbek (1925) [pp. 224-227]

88. Willi Münzenberg, Conquer Film! (1925) [pp. 228-229]

X. The Jewish Community: Renewal, Redefinition, Resistance

103. Franz Rosenzweig, The New Thinking (1925) [pp. 259-262]

The Challenge of Modernity

XV. Imagining America: Fordism and Technology [pp. 393-394]

150. Rudolf Kayser, Americanism (1925) [pp. 395-397]

151. Stefan Zweig, The Monotonization of the World (1925) [pp. 397-400]

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

194. Gustav Hartlaub, Introduction to "New Objectivity": German Painting Since Expressionism (1925)[p. 491-493]

195. Franz Roh, Post-Expressionist Schema (1925) )[p.493]

Changing Configurations of Culture

XX. Literature: High and Low

200. Hermann von Wedderkip, Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain (1925) [p.512]

201.Egon Erwin Kisch, Preface to The Racing Reporter (1925) [pp. 512-513]

The Transformation of Everyday Life

XXVI. Visual Culture: Illustrated Press and Photography [pp. 641-643]

271.Edlef Köppen, The Magazine as a Sign of the Times (1925) [pp. 644-645]

XXVII. Visions of Plenty: Mass Consumption, Fashion, and Advertising

281.Enough is Enough! Against the Masculinization of Woman (1925) [p. 659]

XXVIII. The Cult of the Body: Lebensreform, Sports, and Dance

294. Hans Surén, Man and Sunlight (1925) [p. 678-679]

Supplemental Readings [photocopies supplied by instructor]

A. John Willett, Art and Politics in the Weimar Period: The New Sobriety, 1917-1933, Chronology 1925, pp. 244-245.