Culture

• Culture exploded as a reaction to the pain of war and removal of censorship.
• Expansion of media such as radios, newspapers, magazines and film.
• The government subsidised art exhibitions and sponsored cultural works.
• Painting and writing could be inspired by the horrors of war and extremism of the early years.
• Artist such as George Grosz reflected horrors, paining distorted and violent images.
• Writing linked to personal experience was replaced with ones that had a political and social message.
• All Quiet on the Western Front exposed painful life in the trenches.
• Street theatre which took new political drama to the people was very popular.
• There were developments in theatre, stark stage sets and new techniques such as direct communication with the audience.
• 'Mother Courage' was a playwright showing sympathy for the ordinary people.
• The film 'Metropolis' was a critique of modern society, depicting a future where workers lived a robotic life under the ruling of an impractical upper class.
• Walter Gropius' Bauhaus movement which was promoting a more modern outlook on architecture, bringing down the barrier between architecture and art.
• Youth culture undertook Americanisation: chewing gum, cigarettes, fashion. Berlin was the 'Avantgarde' capital of Europe renowned for a liberal nightlife and tolerance of same-sex marriage.
• The older generation saw it as a decline of the nation. In 1926, the Reichstag passed a law to protect youth from pulp fiction and pornography.
• Pressure groups campaigned against female emancipation, nudism, homosexuality and Americanisation.
• Books such as 'Decline of the West' painted a gloomy picture of democracy and only the elites could save the nation.