Aspects Of Life (1918-33)

Question 1

What were women’s lives like in the Kaissereich?

Answer 1

-women could go to university but the numbers getting degrees were very small
-during the war, more women took up factory and industrial work
-women vigorously campaigned for the right to vote
-Germany’s civil code gave men authority over the family

Question 2

How were the new woman different?

Answer 2

-shorter hair
-smoked cigarettes
-wore shorter skirts/dresses
-equal political rights

Question 3

What was the ‘new woman’?

Answer 3

Younger women in Weimar Germany who were different in their appearance, behaviour and employment from the older generation

Question 4

How far did women’s lives change?

Answer 4

-League for the Protection campaigned for free abortion and government financial assistance for unmarried mothers
-sharp increase in the divorce rate : 21 per 1000 marriages during 1901 through 1905 to 62 per 1000 marriages from 1921 through 1925
-League of German Women’s Associations set out to improve moral standards and conventional family life

Question 5

What suggested continuity for women’s lives in Weimar Germany?

Answer 5

-even on the left, political parties did not fully endorse women’s rights. SPD opposed equal pay for women
-although many women worked, they were till expected to do all domestic chores
-married women generally expected to stay home. 1925 statistics : almost all female, white collar workers were single, 2/3 under 25

Question 6

Evidence that shows that women’s lives did not improve in the Weimar years

Answer 6

-women assumed to have a natural instinct to nurture
-abortion and contraception remained illegal
-KPD said fighting was a man’s job

Question 7

Evidence that shows women’s lives did improve in the Weimar years

Answer 7

-equal education and political rights + equal pay in professions
-marriage reform : more accessible divorce
-Germany Reichstag had 32 women deputies in 1926 = women had better political representation (supported by DVP and DNVP)

Question 8

What are examples of minority groups?

Answer 8

-Jews
-people of colour
-people with disabilities
-travellers
-LGBTQ

Question 9

Positive aspects of minority groups in the Weimar Republic

Answer 9

-Article 113 of the Weimar Constitution guaranteed the rights of ethnic minorities, covering their culture, religion and language
-Jews could organise their own community groups, newspapers and religious worship
-The Poles and Danes were mostly treated well and allowed to retain their culture and languages

Question 10

Negative aspects of minority groups in the Weimar Republic

Answer 10

-Jews hit hard by financial crisis of 1923: 500,000 Jews among the working poor
-Bavaria insisted on identity cards for Roma and Sinti people from 1927
-racist groups such as the League of German Defence and Defiance spread anti-Semitic propaganda
-over 700 anti-Semitic journals

Question 11

What was the ‘black horror’?

Answer 11

The idea that black soldiers were raping white women. The french government deliberately using racially inferior troops to occupy German land to humiliate German nation

Question 12

What were the short term effects of the Weimar’s ‘Black Horror’ campaign against the french colonial troops in the Rhineland?

Answer 12

-lots of stories in the press : criminal behaviour of black soldiers in the Rhineland
-German public believed black soldiers were abusing white women = all parties demanded removal of black soldiers

Question 13

What were the long term effects of the ‘black horror’ against French colonial troops in the Rhineland?

Answer 13

-propaganda was counterproductive, racist assumptions underlying propaganda were undemocratic and strengthened position of extreme nationalists.
-french government defend African troops, USA don’t get involved which undermined the government so was unable to end occupation

Question 14

What does the ‘Black Horror’ campaign suggest about German attitudes towards racial and ethnic minorities?

Answer 14

Always been underlying even before the Nazis

Question 15

What does assimilated mean?

Answer 15

Fully integrated into German society

Question 16

What was the size and distribution of the Jewish community in Weimar Germany?

Answer 16

Less than 1% of the population
80% of Jewish born in Germany and less than 1/5 born outside

Question 17

Evidence of antisemitism in Germany during Weimar period

Answer 17

-1922 Rathenau murder
-riots in Berlin
-Wanting to stop immigration from east

Question 18

What was the size and distribution of black communities in Weimar German?

Answer 18

Very small, mostly around sea ports

Question 19

Evidence for anti-black discrimination

Answer 19

Difficult to get jobs as they were based on stereotypes

Question 20

What kind of employment did black Germans have?

Answer 20

-film industry
-universities (language departments)

Question 21

Why was it significant that Weimar Germany had lost its African colonies

Answer 21

-anti colonial activism : Germany was the only one without colonies from ToV

Question 22

Johann Trollman

Answer 22

-Roma and Sinti experiences in Weimar Germany
-famous boxer from 1928, denied a place in the German team for the Amsterdam summer olympics because of his ‘non-German’ boxing style = moved to Berlin and turned professional = won 29/52 fights October 1929-May 1933. Nazis abused him as ‘the Gypsy in the ring’

Question 23

Konrad Piecuch

Answer 23

Polish communist who defended and promoted polish culture in Weimar
-August 1932 : 5 Nazis beat and assassinated him in his home. Assassins sentenced to death but never enforced. A defender said this was acceptable because it was their duty to defend the Reich by ‘killing poles first then communists’. Polish campaigners = petition to League of Nations in Geneva but it had no effect

Question 24

The education system before Weimar

Answer 24

-compulsory from 6-14, most working class children left school at 14 if not before as secondary education was expensive
-most schools were confessional schools (organised by Protestant or Catholic Churches or by Jewish organisations)
-universities were very conservative in both curriculum (traditional subjects like classics) and organisation

Question 25

What was the education system like before weimar for the upper class?

Answer 25

-upper class parents paid for their children to go to fee-paying schools and sent their children to an academic gymnasium

Question 26

What was the education system like before weimar for the working class

Answer 26

-working class children went to Volkesschule. These were schools with large classes which taught basic reading, writing and numeracy

Question 27

Key changes in education

Answer 27

-girls given greater access to higher education
-Rudolf Steiner = new type of schooling which rejected hierarchy so teachers and students should have an equal relationship and whole body learning = importance of music and pictures in learning (he opened 4 schools 1919-1925)
-more in PE
-teachers were requires to have reached the Abitur (like A levels) standard in order to teach

Question 28

Ways education stayed the same

Answer 28

-class divide remained, very little working class access to education beyond 14
-secondary schooling remained largely unreformed with 3 types of state funded schools = gymnasium, real gymnasium, oberrealschule (pre war approach)
-schools emailed deeply divided on religious terms. 1930 = 80% of primary education was in ‘confessional’ schools

Question 29

What were the most significant changes in education?

Answer 29

-teaching methods : learning through music and pictures
-access : The Aufbauschlue = Gymnasium style school to poor children who were academically gifted but could not afford it

Question 30

What were the main barriers to changing education?

Answer 30

-getting private schools and religious schools to meet the standard of state schools
-church and funding

Question 31

Culture

Answer 31

The arts such as music, literature, theatre, art, film, architecture and design

Question 32

What was German culture like prior to 1919?

Answer 32

-Imperial culture was very traditional with conservative values and morality
-censorship was firm and did not allow for criticism of the kaiser or the state
-arts reinforced divide between the elite who enjoyed ‘high art’ (e.g opera) and rural industrial workers who enjoyed ‘folk art’ (e.g singing in the beer hall)
-before the war = new ideas approaching such as e.g expressionist art

Question 33

The weimar constitution - Article 118

Answer 33

-every german is entitled to within boundaries set by the law, express their opinion, freely in word, writing, print, image or otherwise
-no job contract may obstruct him and nobody may put him at a disadvantage
-no censorship, other regulations may be established by law
-performances legal measures are permissible to combat literate and protect the youth and public exhibitions

Question 34

Divided cultures in urban areas

Answer 34

-artistic techniques, free expression, homosexual and fetishist themes, expressionism in literature, theatre and poetry
-naked dancers, female wrestling, cross dress, wild nightlife
-attacks on traditional and bourgeois themes

Question 35

Divided culture in rural areas

Answer 35

-nationalism, pro war attitudes, anti-industrial
-anti-communism and anti-semitism
-belief that permissiveness always leads to moral degeneracy and a decline in cultural life
-nazis develop this idea further and suggest that foreign culture can degrade a national group

Question 36

Example of jazz music

Answer 36

-(un-german)
-Herb Fleming, a member of the Sam Wooding band which toured Berlin and Hamburg in 1925

Question 37

Examples of literature

Answer 37

-Erich Remarque’s All quiet on the Western front (1927) an anti-war novel became bestseller

Question 38

Examples for architecture and design

Answer 38

-Bauhaus school founded by Watter Gropius
-Bauhaus movement in architecture merged geometric shapes with new materials. They inspired pottery, textiles and graphic design

Question 39

Examples of theatre

Answer 39

-Bertdt Brecht wrote controversial plays such as the Threepenny opera (1928) which was a critique of the capitalist world

Question 40

Examples of art

Answer 40

-key figures such as Otto Dix and George Grosz
-e.g pillars of society by Grosz : attack on church, military and politics which criticise weimar
-e.g Street fights by Dix, indication of the use of military to put down protests, violent slaughter but paintings we’re strayed in 1945 by the Nazis

Question 41

Examples of film

Answer 41

-weimar was the centre of exciting film making : e.g Fritz Lang’s metropolis of 1927
-expressionist science fiction films regarded as the first full length movie in this genre

Question 42

Examples of cabaret

Answer 42

-Berlin had a lot of cabaret clubs and was a centre of European culture
-saw political satire mixed with bawdy songs and strippers
-musical ‘Cabaret’ is set in the Kit Kat club in the last years of weimar

Question 43

What was the impact of Germany’s culture change?

Answer 43

-led Berlin to become the European centre of the arts
-Bauhaus design and innovative film making led to international admiration
-new jobs created in film, performance and design but did not wholeheartedly win approval at home
-culture change did little to generate support for republic
-

Question 44

When and who campaigned against what they claimed as ‘filth’ and ‘rubbish’ artist’s work?

Answer 44

1920s, right wing extremists

Question 45

How did german culture not change?

Answer 45

-rural areas not exposed to it, 1932 = radio reception available in only 10% of small villages so these people unlikely to hear jazz music
-folk dancing, church festivals etc all thrived in weimar years. Far more people were involved in these activities than saw avant grade paintings or went to cabaret clubs