While the politics of the Weimar Republic
have generally been seen as a failure that contributed to the rise of
National Socialism, the culture of the Weimar Republic was unusually
creative and diverse and continues to have an impact on modern culture
in the twenty-first century. During the Weimar years Germany was in the
vanguard of developments in the visual arts, architecture, theater, literature
and film. The writer Henry Pachter captured the essence of Weimar culture
in his autobiography:
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It is a matter of historical
justice to say that, for all its shortcomings, the Weimar Republic
was
one of the freest states that ever existed, that it afforded the
working classes greater opportunities for collective improvement
than any other European state at the time, and that its cultural
life was determined by progressive minds more effectively than
at any other time in German history.
As quoted in Paul Bookbinder, Weimar Germany: The Republic of
the reasonable (Manchester University Press: Manchester and New
York, 1996), p.120. |
Anthology
Cover: Der Almanach "Der Blaue Reiter" (Der
Blau Reiter). The Blue Rider art movement emerged
in opposition to the Neue Künstlervereinigung
(NKV), a conservative art movement. The Blue Rider's aim was
to ensure exhibition space for
artist's dedicated to unrestricted freedom of expression through
a variety of art forms including visual arts, architecture, music,
poetry and the performing arts. |
Art of the Weimar Republic
Photo: Bauhaus,
Dessau, 1925-26. Architect: Walter
Gropius (1883-1969). Courtesy of Prof. Jeffrey Howe, Boston
College. |
There is no single movement or theory that describes the art
produced during the Weimar Republic, 1919-1933. The major trends
that spanned these years and have become identified with the Republic
are:
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While these trends produced very different forms of expression and
articulated varying views on the purpose of art, they shared a disdain
for traditional art forms and sought to create art that was accessible
to the general public.
In the months between the end of World War I and the creation of the
Weimar Republic, German artists were concerned about the future but saw
a place for artists in the new Germany. As the artist association known
as the November Group stated in a circular on December 13, 1918:
Dear Sirs:
The future of art and the gravity of the present moment force
all of us revolutionaries of the spirit (expressionists, cubists,
futurists) into mutual agreement and close association. Therefore
we are directing an urgent summons to all artists who have broken
with old forms in art that they declare their membership in the
November Group.
The elaboration and realization of a broadly conceived program—to
be carried out in the various art centers by trusted associates—should
achieve the closest possible relationship between the people and
art.
Renewed contact with like-minded people of all countries is our
duty. Our creative instinct already united us years ago as brothers.
As the first sign that we have joined together, a common exhibition
is being planned. The same should be demonstrated in all of the
larger German cities and later elsewhere in Europe.
The Planning Committee:
M. Pechstein,C. Klein, G. Tappert, Richter-Berlin, M. Melzer.
B. Krauskopf, R. Bauer, R. Belling, H. Steiner, W. Schmid. |
Artists themselves engaged in lively debates about the appropriate
direction of modern art in the Republic. Key questions were:
German Jews and Weimar Culture
According to Walter Laqueur in his "Weimar
- The left Wing Intellectuals"
from Weimar – A
Cultural History 1918-1933:
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Without the Jews there
would have been no ‘Weimar culture’ – to this
extent the claims of the antisemites, who detested that culture,
were justified. They were in the forefront of every new, daring,
revolutionary movement. They were prominent among Expressionist
poets, among the novelists of 1920s, among the theatrical producers
and, for a while, among the leading figures in the cinema. They
owned the leading liberal newspapers such as the Berliner Tageblatt,
the Vossische Zeitung and the Frankfurter Zeitung, and many editors
were Jews too. Many leading liberal and avant-garde publishing
houses were in Jewish hands (S. Fischer, Kurt Wolff, the Cassirers,
Georg Bondi, Erich Reiss, the Malik Verlag). Many leading theatre
critics were Jews, and they dominated light entertainment...
Arnold Schoenberg, [a Jew] who had been converted,
found, as he wrote to Kandinsky in 1923, that ‘I am neither
a German, nor a European, not even perhaps a human being, but a
Jew’.
Schoenberg continued to compose, Wassermann to publish his best
selling novels,
and even Moritz Goldstein did not emigrate to Palestine but became
literary editor of a leading Berlin newspaper. But it is also true
that these three and many others eventually had to leave Germany
and that the symbiosis came to an end in an even more gruesome
way than anyone had expected.
See also Schönberg
and the [Blue Rider] Almanac and visit the Arnold
Schönberg
Center online. |
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