Golden Years

• Under Stresemann's leadership, from 1924 onwards Weimar's economy recovered, Germany regained international credibility and social change accelerated, until the disaster of 1929's Wall Street Crash
• The Greater Berlin Act of 1920 made Berlin the third largest city in the world and established it as the centre of German cultural and intellectual life
• Philosophy


  • One of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, Martin Heidegger, published his major work Being and Time in 1927. The political philosophers Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss received their university education in Germany during the Weimar period
• Visual arts movements in Weimar

  • Bauhaus School
  • Dada
  • New Objectivity
• Bauhaus School


  • Founded by Walter Gropius in the town of Weimar in 1919. Its impact on German architecture was limited because the movement only focused on architecture after 1927 and it was then suppressed by the Nazis in 1933
• Dada


  • The Dada movement started in Zurich during World War One. It was a protest against the traditional conventions of art and western culture, in which the war had begun. Its output included photography, sculpture, poetry, painting and collage. Artists included Marcel Duchamp and Hans Arp
• Experimentation in German art came to an end when the Nazis came to power in 1933. Hitler rejected modern art as morally corrupt and many of the best German artists – some of whom were Jewish – fled abroad
• Themes in Weimar music

  • Modern classical
  • Jazz
  • Cabaret
• Modern classical


  • Composers like Arnold Schoenberg, Kurt Weill and Alan Berg composed classical pieces and operas
• Jazz


  • The increasing influence of American culture brought jazz music to Berlin and Munich, with classical composers often crossing over into what was known as 'atonal' music, or jazz
• Cabaret


  • This became popular in Berlin, where young people could sit around in clubs, drinking and watching musical performances
• Features of the German film and cinema industry in the 1920s

  • Expressionist style
  • Kammerspielfilm movement
  • Darker storylines and themes
  • Prominent film directors
• Expressionist style


  • The economic disruption of the Weimar period produced an expressionist style in German film-making, with films often having unrealistic sets and featuring exaggerated acting techniques
• Kammerspielfilm movement


  • The shortage of funding gave rise to the Kammerspielfilm movement, with atmospheric films made on small sets with low budgets
• Darker storylines and themes

  • Expressionist film-makers favoured darker storylines and themes, including horror and crime
• Prominent film directors


  • The most prominent film directors of the time were Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau
• Famous films of the period

  • The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1920), Nosferatu (1922 – based on the Dracula story), Phantom (1922), The Last Laugh (1924) and Metropolis (1927)
• After World War One, Berlin became a place where behaviour previously thought of as immoral flourished: cabarets became known as places where transvestites and openly gay men and women could visit, despite homosexuality being illegal at the time, prostitution, which had grown during World War One, flourished, the city acquired a reputation for drug dealing, organised crime, and gangs called Ringvereine, grew