For Modern History HSC Class

2. Berlin of the 1920s was a magnet for artists,
writers, directors, architects, leftists and
radicals
The city became known as open-minded and
tolerant to outsiders, and Europeans flocked
there, making Berlin a very cosmopolitan city
It became the base for the German left wing (the
conservatives were in Munich) and was
dominated by Socialists and Bolsheviks

5. Berlin was . . .
Artistic
Intellectual
Sexually
Liberated
For
nightlife
Cosmopolitan
Fact-paced
and
growing

6. Arts and Literature
Great artists and writers converged on Berlin as its reputation
as a great bohemian city, on the border of Eastern and
Western Europe, grew.
The new wave of artists, replacing the Expressionists, called
their style “New Objectivity”: "Art is boring; one wants facts”
wrote Alfred Döblin
They painted and drew what they saw in Berlin - the
demimonde, the rich men who visited them, the juxtaposition
of the starving unemployed in Berlin (133 000 in 1928) and
the nouveau riche, political art that ridiculed the Reichswehr

7. Otto Dix

8. By 1921, Berlin had more than 400 film theatres with 150 000
seats.
The film industry exploded and became known as a “Golden
Age” of cinema, due to the work of directors such as Fritz Lang
Weimar cinema has been described as “dancing on the edge of a
volcano” - the depictions of decadent nightlife, eroticism and
urban life were undercut by a vein of hopelessness under the
surface
Central tropes in Weimar films include the urban environment as
both a threatening and exciting place, men who are unable to
take or maintain control, the “fallen woman”

9. In contrast, a reactionary genre of film emerged called
“bergfilm”
Bergfilms, or mountain films, were a reaction to
modernism, representing a desire to flee the urban
landscape and escape into a more pristine world
These were far more archetypal than the films of Berlin -
bergfilms usually involved a hero (physically, morally and
spiritually superior to his peers) who would somehow
save a victim from the horrors of modern city life and a
society that was morally compromised

11. Intellectual Life
Great thinkers and writers from across Europe converged on Berlin in the
1920s, as its reputation for lively exchange of ideas grew.
Albert Einstein rose to public prominence in this period, and the Institute
of Sexology conducted groundbreaking research into human sexuality.
Philosophical blossomed, with Heidegger becoming the most influential
German historian of the period.
Many British writers also moved to Berlin in this period, joining a lively
writing scene in the city.
German and European intellectuals gathered in Berlin to search for new
meaning and a new way to live in the wake of WWI.

12. Sexuality
Berlin was the European capital of sexual liberation. It
boasted a gay culture, and was particularly interesting as
gay women could be open there. Homosexuality was
subject to intense scientific study and the first male-to-
female surgery was performed here.
Berlin’s sex shows were notorious, catering for every
preference and fetish. Nudity was common onstage. There
are stories of Berliners who staged sex shows in their own
homes to make money from the tourists that visited the city
for this very reason. Booksellers sold guides to Berlin’s
erotic night entertainment venues to tourists, as around
500 of these venues existed.

13. Sex work was common - many women started in sex
work after the hyperinflation years, then found their
niche market and flourished. Different types of sex
workers were identified by their dress.
This behaviour, though, was confined to Berlin, and
horrified many older Berliners. While the Berlin sex
trade emerged from the underground during the
1920s, the city remained a German anomaly.

14. Austrian writer Stefan Zweig is typical of those who exaggerated
and demonised stories of Berlin in this period:
“Berlin transformed itself into the Babel of the world. Germans
brought to perversion all their vehemence and love of system.
Made-up boys with artificial waistlines promenaded along the
Kurfiirstendamm … Even [ancient] Rome had not known orgies
like the Berlin transvestite balls, where hundreds of men in
women’s clothes and women in men’s clothes danced under the
benevolent eyes of the police. Amid the general collapse of
values, a kind of insanity took hold of precisely those middle-
class circles which had hitherto been unshakeable in their order.
Young ladies proudly boasted that they were perverted; to be
suspected of virginity at sixteen would have been considered a
disgrace in every school in Berlin.”

15. Nightlife
The heart of Berlin nightlife was the cabaret. These were
popular throughout Europe, but Berlin was famous for them.
The Berlin cabaret show was dominated by two themes: sex
and politics.
Many shows served as political satires and comedies,
mocking Germany’s leaders and political figures. Others
blurred the border with the sex shoes, and many cabarets
featured topless dancers.
Drug use was also widespread, with the most common being
cocaine and morphine

17. Cosmopolitan
Berlin in the 1920s rivalled Paris as a bohemian, artistic capital of the
roaring twenties. As its reputation grew, artists, thinkers and liberals
flocked to the city.
Many African-American artists relocated to Berlin as the city had a
reputation for being more racially inclusive. Likewise gay and lesbian
people, who were attracted to Berlin’s open-mindedness, gay clubs and
famed drag queens.
A small subculture of British novelists emerged, who often wrote about
the city and its excesses. Filmmakers from all over Europe made Berlin
their base, as the Weimar film industry became known for its forward-
mindedness.
Eastern European workers were attracted to the opportunities in growing
Berlin, and formed communities on the edge of the city. The Jewish
community in Berlin was thriving, with 150 of the city’s 201 private banks
under Jewish ownership.

18. Growing and Fast-Paced
In 1920, Berlin gained fourteen districts, on top of the
existing six, to become “Greater Berlin”. The
population surged to 4.3 million and became the third-
largest municipality in the world. Once the Dawes
Plan was in place, Berlin’s pace of expansion
increased rapidly. It gained a new airport, started
construction on an electric rail line and was the most
industrialised city in Europe.

19. Life in Berlin was notoriously fast paced. Writer Alfred
Döblin said
"This excitement of the streets, shop and cars is the heat
that I must constantly beat into myself when I work. It is
the gasoline that powers my engine.”
In 1921, the first autobahn was constructed and the city’s
50 000 private cars started to compete with carriages,
streetcars, trucks and motorcycles on the chaotic streets.

20. Berlin was at the centre of the
Roaring Twenties, a city of
excess, sexual liberation, free
thought and great art. However
the wounds of the war were
very fresh. Even as Berliners
and those who became
Berliners rebuilt German
society in the postwar period,
everything they created was
reliant on American money.
Thus, in 1929, all this came to
an abrupt end.