Culture + Women in Weimar Flashcards
What was Neue Sachlichkeit?
New objectivity - show reality and objectivity, art should comment on society and be understood by everyone
What was art like in the Weimar Republic?
- Expressionism
- George Grosz and Otto Dix
- Highly political and critical paintings commenting on society
What was Literature like in the Weimar Republic?
- Authors shared personal experience with literature, social and political purpose
- Utilitarianism provoked reaction from avant-grande writers, Gottfried Benn, and right wing writers
- Erich Mariqo Remarque, ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ challenged the ‘stab in the back’ myth.
What was Music and Opera like in the Weimar Republic?
- Zeitopera reflected modern issues from radical left perspective, Kroll Opera Berlin
- Experimental, Schoenberg’s use of atonality within music
- Gebrauchsmusik, music with a practical purpose
What was Theatre like in the Weimar Republic?
- Zeittheater employed actors to convey critical messages of the bourgeoisie society and involve the audience
- Drama became an explicit political art from with lots of left wing playwrights
- Marxist Bertolt Brecht believed ‘a theatre that makes no contact with the public is nonsense’
What was Architecture and Design like in the Weimar Republic?
- Great stress on Functionalism
- Famous school of ‘Bauhaus’ under Walter Gropius
- Used familiar materials such as concrete (functionalism)
- art and technology was a ‘new unity’ seeking to unite art and craft in a utilitarian approach
How was Radio used in the Weimar Republic?
- Began in 1925, 40 million. listeners by 1930
- Controlled by the state
- 1950 4 million sets
- New music and plays sometime created just for radio
What was Dance like in the Weimar Republic?
- 40 theatres, 120 newspapers and magazines challenged Paris as the cultural centre of Europe
- Nightclubs, naked dancing, subversive songs and homosexuality
- Charleston became popular showing mechanisation and democratisation of life
- Cabaret mainly in Berlin shows US influence through Jazz
How would conservatives react to the cultural changes?
- They hated the Kulturbolshewismus, attacked the government for allowing traditional culture to be undermined
How would the left react?
- Though lots of support…
- Some would describe it as grey and uninspiring
- State used radio to limit radical programmes
- George Grosz fined for defaming military and corrupting public morals and blasphemy
Where would the cultural explosion really be felt?
1932, 42% of houses in large cities received radio, 10% in small. villages
- More Germans still went to church festivals, choral societies and beer halls
- Culture symbolised what was wrong with their country reinforcing hostility.
Compare women in employment from 1907 and 1925
1907 - 31.2%
1925 - 36.9%
Compare women in domestic workers industries in 1907 and 1925
1907 - 16%
1925 - 11.4%
- Men were coming back and taking their jobs back
Compare women in white collar job from 1907 and 1925
1907 - 6.5%
1925 - 12.6%
What were social attitudes towards women?
- To be made to stay at home and give up work if necessary
- Women were not paid as much by businesses
- Married women who worked were called Doppelverdiener
