Weimar Culture Flashcards
What where the characteristics of the “new women”?
.Short hair .shortened skirts .economic figure .political figure .sexually liberated .inderpendant
Name 4 changes to women lives in Weimar?
.1920 over 100 women were elected to the reichstag
.one third of all women worked in the paid labour force
.declining brith rate due to abortions
.Women were now a political force making up half of the
Voting population.
What where the ethnic groups in Germany?
.less then 1% were jews who mainly lived in Prussia and in large cities.
.poles on the eastern border
.Danes I’m Schleswig - Holstein near border with Denmark.
.traveling gypsy communities traveling around Germany and mainly concentrated in Bavaria.
What is article 113?
Guaranteed rights of ethnic minorities?
How where the jews treated?
.Jews prospered with 11% of doctors and 16% of lawyers being Jewish and also heavily in the arts and media.
.There were five cabinet ministers of jewish decent, most notable one was Walter Rathenau who was killed in 1922.
.Most were well integrated but eastern Jews arriving from persecution were less well off and less integrated in German society.
.As Germany entered depression anti semitism increased, as there was 700 anti Semitic journals in circulation.
.When the SA would march they would sing “when Jewish blood drops from the knife”
How where other minorities treated?
.poles and Danes were treated well nd allowed to keep there culture and constitution.
.Gypsies were persecuted despite being protected under the constitution, in 1930 Frankfurt passed an act to remove the Gypsy plague.
.Gypsies were not allowed to move and had to carry identity cards.
What was education like before Weimar?
.Education was compulsory from 6 - 14, most working class children left school at 14 if not before because secondary education was expensive.
.Most schools were faith schools
.Upper class parents put there children into fee paying better schools
While working class children went to free bad schools with big classes teaching basic reading and writing.
.Universities were very conservative in both curriculum.
What where the key changes to education?
.Reduced religious cone of schools, removal of clerical inspections and less faith schools
.Abolishment of elite shoots and opened up opportunities for poorer children
.Progressive teachings in primary schools
.Teachers required to reach A level equivalent to teach
.Girls were given greater access to higher education
Ways education stayed the same?
.The class divide remained, very little working class access to education beyond 14
.universities were not reformed, cultural snobbery still remained
.Schools remained deeply divided on religious lines, as 80% of primary was in faith schools.
.No national uniform system of primary education was imposed.
What was German culture like pre 1919?
.Imperial culture was traditional with conservative values and morality, censorship was firm and did not allow fro criticism of the Kaiser or state.
.Arts reinforced the divide between the elites who enjoyed high art like opera copied to low class arts like folk art and singing in a beer hall.
.However new ideas of expressionist arts were developing
What was culture like in urban areas?
Artistic technique, free expression, homosexual and fetish themes, expressionism in literature, theatre and poetry. Socialism and liberalism. Naked dancers, female wrestling, cross dressing, cabaret and wold nightlife - international culture, anti war novels and plans. Americanism fashions and jars/swing music. Attacks on traditional and bourgeois themes.
What was culture like in rural areas?
Church going, art with purpose, nationalism, patriotic pro war attitudes, anti industrial/ modernisation, traditional and conservatism, fear and distrust of sexually alternate lifestyles, anti communists and anti semitism, belief that permissiveness always leads to moral degeneracy and a decline in cultural life.
How did the culture change?
.Change in topic as some chose to romanticise the past, while others looked to the future
.more expressive and dangerous.
.Germany’s open and editing cultural climate led Berlin to become the European centre of the arts. Famous artist from all over flocked to Germany, from American Jazaz musicians to experimental artists from Russia such as Kandinsky. New jobs were created in film, theatre and dance, however it did not win the appeal of home.
.The new culture was seen as cultural degeneracy and a decline in moral attitudes, with some artists being KPD symphasisers and attacking republican targets.
How did the culture not change?
.Rural areas didn’t change much
.Continutation of traditional culture
What key right did women gain in the Weimar that they didn’t have in the Kaiserreich as part of Article 109 of the constitution?
Right to vote
