A brief history of post-World War I society
Over the whole nineteenth century, the Western world in its entirety had been moving in the same direction: away from the countryside into the cities. Away from a rural lifestyle into industrialization and generally into a more inclusive, if maybe more lonely, society. Germany had been inside that general flow.
The great shift, which had started in the nineteenth century with the Industrial…
Occultism and new forms of spirituality flourished in Weimar Germany
Occultism and spiritualism weren’t new on the scene of European society. They had been very popular in Victorian times, and when World War I broke out people again turned to these practices and beliefs in search of solace.
The spiritualist movement was founded in 1848 and supported the belief that the personality would survive after death and could be contacted by livings through séance.
The…
The Nazis started out as just one of many small far-right parties in Weimar Germany: A brief history of the NSDAP
Because of its prominence in the European history of the twentieth century, it’s tempting to consider the Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeitpartei (German National Socialist Workers Party) more powerful then all the other right-wing movements of its time. In fact, it was a very small, mostly regional, not very influential party for most of Weimar history. What really singled it out from all…
Memory and tradition in the Weimar Republic
Life in the Weimar Republic, and more prominently in Berlin, seemed to be fast moving toward the future. Avant-garde movements of every kind were almost the norm. Social mores were evolving toward equality (between men and women, between minorities and the German population at large) and new ideas were quick to take root, then change once more.
World War I had been a dramatic caesura with the…
A brief history of the left in Weimar Germany
When we think about the Weimar Republic, most likely we think about the time of right-wing power. Certainly, many authoritarian forces were at work in the republic, but this was also the time of a left government, one that shaped the social life of Germany profoundly.
The Weimar Republic was a relatively short experience in the history of Germany. It may even be true that the republic was too…
The Weimar Republic is often considered one of the most remarkably energetic periods in the artistic history of humanity, a roaring surge of modernism in all fields of arts, where experimentation was the norm. For a glorious, if all too short, period over the “Golden 1920s” and the first part of the 1930s, while Germany went through one of the most troubling political and economic times in her…
A brief history of Jews in the Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic’s relation with Jews was contradictory at best. On the one hand, the republic was a first time of full citizenship for the German Jewish people, who became a driving force in the political and cultural life of Weimar. But on the other, it was during the republic’s time that antisemitism rose to upsetting levels.
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