Living Standards, Education and Culture in the Weimar Republic Flashcards

1
Q

How did the standard of living change for working-class Germans across the Weimar Era?

A
  • It generally got better
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2
Q

List 3 ways the living standards of the working class improved, and give figures.

A
  • Wages increased significantly between 1924 and 1929 (in 1932 they were still 30% higher than they had been in 1924)
  • Legal changes such as an 8-hour working day were introduced
  • Government spending on housing and welfare increased (20 times more was spent on housing in 1925 than 1913, and 60% more was spent on welfare in 1929 than 1913)
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3
Q

What were 2 reasons why the living standards of the working class improved during the Weimar period?

A
  • Unions had more power
  • The SPD had more influence in the Reichstag
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4
Q

When was the security of the working class threatened? Give 2 ways how.

A
  • During the Great Depression due to:
  • welfare cuts
  • the erosion of union power
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5
Q

How successful were farmers in the Weimar Republic? Give 3 reasons why.

A
  • Not very as:
  • immediately after the war the government set restrictions on the price of food to ensure everyone could access it
  • after 1924 the existence of cheap imports drove down the price of food
  • prices were driven down again (25% between 1927 and 1930) due to unemployment as people had to cut back on food
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6
Q

What were 2 positive effects of events in the Weimar Republic for farmers?

A
  • Inflation allowed them to pay off their debts
  • The economic chaos from 1922 to 1924 made their produce more valuable
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7
Q

How did the middle-class do overall during the Weimar era? What were 2 reasons why?

A
  • Poorly as they lost both money and status rapidly during the hyperinflation crisis
  • They also felt threatened by the working class, who were well protected by powerful unions and the SPD
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8
Q

What distinction can be made within the middle class of the Weimar Republic, and why is this distinction relevant?

A
  • There was the established middle class and the emerging middle class
  • The established middle class: Germans who had been wealthy prior to the war
  • The emerging middle class: Germans who became wealthy in the aftermath of the war through having professional or clerical jobs
  • The emerging middle class generally did better during hyperinflation
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9
Q

How did the middle class do during the rest of the 1920s (before the Great Depression)? Give 4 details and figures.

A
  • The established middle class did poorly as their savings were wiped out during hyperinflation
  • They were also critical of the Americanisation of German culture (cinemas, dance halls, jazz clubs)
  • The emerging middle class managed to pay off their debts during hyperinflation
  • They were also much more accepting of American forms of entertainment
  • In 1924, compared to 1913, the living standard of the lower middle class had decreased by 25% while the income of the upper-middle class had decreased by 60%
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10
Q

What was life like for the middle class during the Great Depression? Give 3 details.

A
  • Many lost their savings due to bank collapse in 1931
  • Some lost their jobs
  • Many had their pay decreased
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11
Q

What was education like in Germany before WW1? Give 5 details.

A
  • Education was compulsory from 6 to 14
  • Children from the upper-class went to private schools
  • Working-class children went to ‘Volksschule’, which had class sizes of over 50 pupils, and taught basic skills such as reading, writing and numeracy
  • Most schools were confessional (religious) schools
  • Education beyond the age of 14 was expensive
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12
Q

What effect did the education system that was in place before WW1 have on society?

A
  • It made social mobility very difficult
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13
Q

What was the main issue the government encountered when deciding how to structure the education system and schools?

A
  • The SPD wanted to get rid of confessional schools and religious education, but the ZP and other nationalist parties wanted the church to remain involved in education
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14
Q

How did the government deal with the issue of religion in schools? Give 4 details.

A
  • They let the Länder decide, but the Länder were required to take into account the wishes of parents in the area
  • In the meantime, common/ simultaneous schools were set up, which gave children of various faiths separate religious education
  • Confessional schools could run as private schools
  • Secular schools also existed
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15
Q

List the number of the different types of schools in Germany in 1931.

A
  • Protestant: 29,000
  • Catholic: 15,000
  • Jewish: 97
  • Common: 9000
  • Secular: 295
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16
Q

How did the Weimar government decide to run elementary schools, and why?

A
  • The 1920 School Law created a single type of elementary school- ‘Grundschule’
  • They did this to standardise education for the first 4 years of school for every child
17
Q

In what area had education stayed the most similar to how it was before the war, and how?

A
  • Secondary schools, as education beyond age 10 still had to be paid for, and the types of schools remained the same
  • The Gymnasium was the most prestigious type of school, was 9 years long (which was longer than all of the others), and led to university
18
Q

In what way did the Weimar government try to give poor students the same opportunities as the rich?

A
  • They invented the Aufbauschule, which gave a Gymnasium-style education to academically gifted children who could not afford the Gymnasium fees
19
Q

How did the government partially reach its goal of having an integrated education system? Give 2 ways.

A
  • All schools were inspected
  • Churches could no longer run state schools
20
Q

How did universities prevent social mobility? Give 2 details.

A
  • Universities had ‘corporations’ that formed nationwide associations
  • Membership in these were important as having or lacking support from them had an impact on a person’s career
  • Corporations excluded people according to race and social class
21
Q

What percentage of university students in 1928 were from the working class?

A
  • 2.3%
22
Q

Which areas of Germany were part of the ‘cultural experimentation’ that was going on in the Weimar Republic?

A
  • Mainly Berlin and other urban, modern and industrialised places
23
Q

What was Expressionism, and when had it become part of German culture?

A
  • It was an artistic style and movement that stressed thoughts and feelings more than realism
  • It was influential in art and film in the 1920s, but had first become a part of culture before the war
24
Q

What 4 aspects of German history did forms of culture tend to focus on?

A
  • Romanticising Germany’s past
  • The war
  • The birth of democracy
  • The realities of life in the Weimar Republic
25
Q

How was the war presented in literature? Give 2 examples.

A
  • Jünger wrote highly popular WW1 stories that presented life in the trenches as heavenly, as he wrote about how men were united with each other and with nature
  • Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front) wrote about the horrific effect war has on soldiers, and while it became an international bestseller, it was highly controversial in Germany
26
Q

How did film/ filming techniques change during the Weimar Republic? Give 3 details.

A
  • New ways of filming scenes were developed
  • The first horror film (The Cabinet of Dr Caligari) was made in 1920
  • The number of cinemas doubled
27
Q

How did films comment on the war? Using an example, give 2 details.

A
  • Nosferatu (1922) featured vampires rising from graves, which played on contemporary fears about restless spirits after the war (due to mass burials with no proper funerals)
  • Being buried alive was also a common trigger for shell shock
28
Q

What was Neue Sachlichkeit, and what inspired it?

A
  • ‘New Objectivity’
  • It was a movement that focused on representing life as it was
  • It grew from the pre-existing modernist and Expressionist movements
29
Q

Give 2 examples of works that were part of the New Objectivity movement.

A
  • Otto Dix’s etching ‘Advancing Under Gas’ (1924) presented German soldiers as inhumane, and the trenches as hell
  • Georg Grosz’s painting ‘The Pillars of Society’ (1926) critiqued the army, clerics, journalists and Ebert
30
Q

Which facet of culture tended to be the most futuristic? What developments were there in this area?

A
  • Architecture
  • In 1919 Walter Gropius set up the design school Bauhaus
  • They designed buildings in a futuristic and international way that focused on geometry, and they were built from glass, steel and reinforced concrete
31
Q

What were 2 reason why cultural experimentation led to some negative reactions?

A
  • The government allowed freedom of speech, and therefore had very few restrictions (such as banning under-16s from seeing pornography)
  • Each social group was therefore allowed to express itself
32
Q

What was a particular negative reaction a social group had to culture in the Weimar Republic? What were 3 reasons why?

A
  • Right-wing supporters did not like:
  • the increasing Americanisation of culture (jazz and new women, who were similar to the American ‘flapper’)
  • the decadence of culture
  • how many Jews were prominent artists, writers and musicians