The Golden Twenties was a particular vibrant period in the history of Berlin. After the Greater Berlin Act, the city became the third largest municipality in the world[1] and experienced its heyday as a major world city. It was known for its leadership roles in science, the humanities, art, music, film, architecture, higher education, government, diplomacy and industries.
The Weimar Republic era began in the midst of several major movements in the fine arts. German Expressionism had begun before World War I and continued to have a strong influence throughout the 1920s, although artists were increasingly likely to position themselves in opposition to expressionist tendencies as the decade went on.
Film was making huge technical and artistic strides during this period of time in Berlin, and gave rise to the influential movement called German Expressionism. "Talkies", the sound films, were also becoming more popular with the general public across Europe, and Berlin was producing many of them.
The so-called mystical arts also experienced a revival during this time-period in Berlin, with astrology, the occult, and esoteric religions and off-beat religious practices becoming more mainstream and acceptable to the masses as they entered popular culture.
The University of Berlin (today Humboldt University of Berlin) became a major intellectual centre in Germany, Europe, and the World. The sciences were especially favored — from 1914 to 1933.
Physician Magnus Hirschfeld established the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexology) in 1919, and it remained open until 1933. Hirschfeld believed that an understanding of homosexuality could be arrived at through science. Hirschfeld was a vocal advocate for homosexual, bisexual, and transgender legal rights for men and women, repeatedly petitioning parliament for legal changes. His Institute also included a museum.
Politically, Berlin was seen as a left wing stronghold, with the Nazis calling it "the reddest city [in Europe] after Moscow."[3] Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels became his party's "Gauleiter" for Berlin in the autumn of 1926 and had only been in charge a week before organizing a march through a communist-sympathizing area that devolved into a street riot. The communists, who adopted the motto "Beat the fascists wherever you encounter them!" had their own paramilitary organization called the Roter Frontkämpferbund to battle the Nazis' Sturmabteilung (SA). In February 1927 the Nazis held a meeting in the "Red" stronghold of Wedding that turned into a violent brawl. "Beer glasses, chairs and tables flew through the hall, and severely injured people were left lying covered with blood on the floor. Despite the injuries, it was a triumph for Goebbels, whose followers beat up about 200 communists and drove them from the hall."[4]
Infrastructure and industrialization
The government began printing tremendous amounts of currency to pay reparations; this caused staggering inflation that destroyed middle-class savings. However, economic expansion resumed after mid-decade, aided by U.S. loans. It was then that culture blossomed especially.
The heyday of Berlin began in the mid-1920s when it was the most industrialized city of the Continent. Tempelhof Airport was opened in 1923 and a start was made on S-Bahn electrification from 1924 onwards. Berlin was also the second biggest inland harbor of Germany; all of this infrastructure was needed to transport and feed the over 4 million Berliners throughout the 1920s.[citation needed]
Architecture and urban planning
Color variations of doors and entrances in the Hufeisensiedlung (1925-1933)
During the interwar period high-quality architecture was built on a large scale in Berlin for broad sections of the population, including poorer people. In particular the Berlin Modernism housing estates built before the beginning of National Socialism set standards worldwide and therefore have been added to the UNESCO World-heritage list in 2008.[5]
As a result of the economically difficult situation during the Weimar Republic, housing construction, which up to that time had been mainly privately financed and profit-oriented, had found itself at a dead end. Inflation was on the up and for citizens on low incomes decent housing was becoming increasingly unaffordable.
Consequently, the search was on to find new models for state-initiated housing construction, which could then be implemented with a passion from 1920 on following the creation of Greater Berlin and the accompanying reform of local and regional government. The requirements for the type of flats to be built and the facilities they were to have were clearly defined, and the city was divided into different building zones. Following some basic ideas of the Garden city movement two- to three-storey housing estates that were well integrated into the landscape of the suburbs of the city were planned. The first large estate of this type with more than 2,000 residential units was the so-called Hufeisensiedlung (Horseshoe Estate) designed by Bruno Taut in Berlin, which introduced a new type of high quality housing and became a prominent example for the use of colors in architecture.
Reputation for decadence
Prostitution rose in Berlin and elsewhere in the areas of Europe left ravaged by World War I. This means of survival for desperate women, and sometimes men, became normalized to a degree in the 1920s. During the war, venereal diseases such as syphilis and gonorrhea spread at a rate that warranted government attention.[6] Soldiers at the front contracted these diseases from prostitutes, so the German army responded by granting approval to certain brothels that were inspected by their own medical doctors, and soldiers were rationed coupon books for sexual services at these establishments.[7]Homosexual behaviour was also documented among soldiers at the front. Soldiers returning to Berlin at the end of the War had a different attitude towards their own sexual behaviour than they had a few years previously.[7] Prostitution was frowned on by respectable Berliners, but it continued to the point of becoming entrenched in the city's underground economy and culture.
Crime in general developed in parallel with prostitution in the city, beginning as petty thefts and other crimes linked to the need to survive in the war's aftermath. Berlin eventually acquired a reputation as a hub of drug dealing (cocaine, heroin, tranquilizers) and the black market. The police identified 62 organized criminal gangs in Berlin, called Ringvereine.[8] The German public also became fascinated with reports of homicides, especially "lust murders" or Lustmord. Publishers met this demand with inexpensive criminal novels called Krimi, which like the film noir of the era (such as the classic M), explored methods of scientific detection and psychosexual analysis.[9]
Apart from the new tolerance for behaviour that was technically still illegal, and viewed by a large part of society as immoral, there were other developments in Berlin culture that shocked many visitors to the city. Thrill-seekers came to the city in search of adventure, and booksellers sold many editions of guide books to Berlin's erotic night entertainment venues. There were an estimated 500 such establishments, that included a large number of homosexual venues for men and for lesbians; sometimes transvestites of one or both genders were admitted, otherwise there were at least five known establishments that were exclusively for a transvestite clientele.[10] There were also several nudist venues. Berlin also had a museum of sexuality during the Weimar period, at Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute of Sexology.[11] These were nearly all closed when the Nazi regime became a dictatorship in 1933.
Artists in Berlin became fused with the city's underground culture as the borders between cabaret and legitimate theatre blurred. Anita Berber, a dancer and actress, became notorious throughout the city and beyond for her erotic performances (as well as her cocaine addiction and erratic behaviour). She was painted by Otto Dix, and socialized in the same circles as Klaus Mann.
The Europahaus, one of hundreds of cabarets in Weimar Berlin, 1931
Prostitutes buy cocaine capsules from a drug dealer in Berlin, 1930. The capsules sold for 5 marks each.
A liquor-seller after closing time on the road. His activity was illegal and the liquor, which cost one mark per glass, was often of quite dubious origin. The seller constantly changed his location.
Life
1920s Berlin was a city of many social contrasts. While a large part of the population continued to struggle with high unemployment and deprivations in the aftermath of World War I, the upper class of society, and a growing middle class, gradually rediscovered prosperity and turned Berlin into a cosmopolitan city.
Cinema in Weimar culture did not shy away from controversial topics, but dealt with them explicitly. Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst and starring Louise Brooks, deals with a young woman who is thrown out of her home after having an illegitimate child, and is then forced to become a prostitute to survive. This trend of dealing frankly with provocative material in cinema began immediately after the end of the War. In 1919, Richard Oswald directed and released two films, that met with press controversy and action from police vice investigators and government censors. Prostitution dealt with women forced into "white slavery", while Different from the Others dealt with a homosexual man's conflict between his sexuality and social expectations.[12] By the end of the decade, similar material met with little, if any opposition when it was released in Berlin theatres. William Dieterle's Sex in Chains (1928), and Pabst's Pandora's Box (1929) deal with homosexuality among men and women, respectively, and were not censored. Homosexuality was also present more tangentially in other films from the period.
The following significant films about 1920s Berlin show the metropolis between 1920 and 1933:
The Last Laugh, 1924 - the aging doorman at a Berlin hotel is demoted to washroom attendant but gets the last laugh, by F.W. Murnau
Slums of Berlin (Die Verrufenen), 1925 - an engineer in Berlin is released from prison, but his father throws him out, his fiancée left him and there is no chance to find work. Directed by Gerhard Lamprecht.
Die Stadt der Millionen, 1927 - first full-length documentary and experimental movie on Berlin, its people and their attitude towards life. Directed by Adolf Trotz.
Refuge (Zuflucht), 1928 - a lonely and tired man comes home after several years abroad, lives with a market-woman in Berlin and starts working for the Berlin U-Bahn. Directed by Carl Froelich.
Asphalt, 1929 - the Berlin underworld touches a policeman's life, Film Noir classic by Joe May
Looking for His Murderer (Der Mann, der seinen Mörder sucht), 1931 - a man in Berlin plunged in debt does not succeed in committing suicide and has to hire a murderer to kill him within twelve hours. But in the same night he falls in love with a girl who wants to stop the appointed killer. Directed by Robert Siodmak.
The Beaverskin (Die Buntkarierten), 1949 - the fate of a typical working-class family in Berlin between 1883 and 1949 facing child labour, trade union engagement, war, depression, unemployment and the rise and fall of Nazism. Directed by Kurt Maetzig.
Despair, 1978 - against the backdrop of the Nazis' rise, a Russian émigré and chocolate magnate in Berlin goes slowly mad. Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Pinselheinrich, 1979 - episodes from the life of famous Berlin illustrator Heinrich Zille. Zille gets dismissed from his work, starts to live from his funny and socially critical drawings but uses his earnings and rising fame to help people who are poorer than him. Directed by Hans Knötzsch.
Fabian, 1980 - in the late 1920s Berlin a copywriter observes the night life with his friend, gets unemployed during the Great Depression, but meets a new girlfriend. When his friend commits suicide and his girlfriend leaves him for a film career, he loses his livelihood. Based on the novel by Erich Kästner and directed by Wolf Gremm.
Als Unku Edes Freundin war, 1981 - during the 1920s a circus driven by Sinti comes to the outskirts of Berlin. A Sinti girl becomes the friend of a poor German boy who tries to buy a bicycle to earn money for his family as a paperboy. Directed by Helmut Dziuba.
Hanussen, 1988 - while recovering from being wounded during World War I, the Doctor discovers that Austrian Klaus Schneider possesses empathic powers. After the war, Schneider changes his name into Erik Jan Hanussen and goes to Berlin to perform as a hypnotist and mind reader. When he predicts Adolf Hitler'sMachtergreifung and the Reichstag fire, the Nazis murder him. Directed by István Szabó.
Spider's Web (Das Spinnennetz), 1989 - based on the 1923 novel by Joseph Roth and focused on a young opportunistic Leutnant who suffered personal and national humiliation during the downfall of the German Empire, and now becomes increasingly active in the right-wing underground of the early 1920s Berlin. Directed by Bernhard Wicki.
A Letter Without Words, 1998 - reconstructing the life of a wealthy, Jewish amateur filmmaker in Berlin during the 1920s and early 1930s on the basis of authentic filmic material presented by her granddaughter. Directed by Lisa Lewenz.
Sass, 2001 - based on the true story of brothers Franz and Erich Sass from Moabit district, who became the most famous and innovative bank robbers during 1920s Berlin. Directed by Carlo Rola.
Love in Thoughts (Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken), 2004 - about the so-called Steglitz student tragedy in 1927, when two young men made a suicide pact under the influence of alcohol, music and sex, which led to a tragedy. Directed by Achim von Borries.
The film industry in Germany can be traced back to the late 19th century. German cinema made major technical and artistic contributions to early film, broadcasting and television technology. Babelsberg became a household synonym for the early 20th century film industry in Europe, similar to Hollywood later. Early German and German-speaking filmmakers and actors heavily contributed to early Hollywood.
Weimar culture was the emergence of the arts and sciences that happened in Germany during the Weimar Republic, the latter during that part of the interwar period between Germany's defeat in World War I in 1918 and Hitler's rise to power in 1933. 1920s Berlin was at the hectic center of the Weimar culture. Although not part of the Weimar Republic, some authors also include the German-speaking Austria, and particularly Vienna, as part of Weimar culture.
Magnus T. Hirschfeld was a Jewish German physician and sexologist, whose citizenship was later revoked by the Nazi government. Hirschfeld was educated in philosophy, philology and medicine. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee and World League for Sexual Reform. He based his practice in Berlin-Charlottenburg during the Weimar period. Performance Studies and Rhetoric Professor Dustin Goltz characterized the committee as having carried out "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights".
Bruno Alfred Döblin was a German novelist, essayist, and doctor, best known for his novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929). A prolific writer whose œuvre spans more than half a century and a wide variety of literary movements and styles, Döblin is one of the most important figures of German literary modernism. His complete works comprise over a dozen novels ranging in genre from historical novels to science fiction to novels about the modern metropolis; several dramas, radio plays, and screenplays; a true crime story; a travel account; two book-length philosophical treatises; scores of essays on politics, religion, art, and society; and numerous letters—his complete works, republished by Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag and Fischer Verlag, span more than thirty volumes. His first published novel, Die drei Sprünge des Wang-lung, appeared in 1915 and his final novel, Hamlet oder Die lange Nacht nimmt ein Ende was published in 1956, one year before his death.
Berlin Alexanderplatz is a 1929 novel by Alfred Döblin. It is considered one of the most important and innovative works of the Weimar Republic. In a 2002 poll of 100 noted writers, the book was named among the top 100 books of all time.
Erik Jan Hanussen, born Hermann Steinschneider, was an Austrian Jewish publicist, charlatan and clairvoyant performer. Acclaimed in his lifetime as a hypnotist, mentalist, occultist and astrologer, Hanussen was active in Weimar Republic Germany and also at the beginning of Nazi Germany. He is said to have instructed Adolf Hitler in performance and the achievement of dramatic effect.
Adam Parfrey was an American journalist, editor, and the publisher of Feral House books, whose work in all three capacities frequently centered on unusual, extreme, or "forbidden" areas of knowledge. A 2010 Seattle Weekly profile stated that "what Parfrey does is publish books that explore the marginal aspects of culture. And in many cases—at least back when his interests were almost exclusively transgressive—he sheds light on subjects that society prefers to leave unexplored, carving a niche catering to those of us with an unseemly obsession with life's darkest, most depraved sides."
Anita Berber was a German dancer, actress, and writer who was the subject of an Otto Dix painting. She lived during the time of the Weimar Republic.
Ernst Otto Burchard was a German physician, sexologist, and gay rights advocate and author. Burchard, who was gay, testified as an expert witness in several court cases involving prosecutions on grounds of Paragraph 175, which criminalized homosexual practices.
Phil Jutzi was a German cinematographer and film director.
Lebensreform is the German generic term for various social reform movements that started since the mid-19th century and originated especially in the German Empire and later in Switzerland. Common features were the criticism of industrialisation, materialism and urbanization combined with striving for the state of nature. Common practices included vegetarism, naturopathy, naturism, gymnastics and expressionist dance. The various movements did not have an overarching organization, but there were numerous associations.
The Artaman League was a German agrarian and völkisch movement committed to a Back-to-the-land–inspired ruralism, founded in 1923. Active during the inter-war period, the League became closely linked to, and eventually absorbed by, the Nazi Party.
Berlin-Alexanderplatz or The Story of Franz Biberkopf is a 1931 German drama film directed by Phil Jutzi and starring Heinrich George, Maria Bard and Margarete Schlegel. It was adapted from the 1929 novel of the same title by Alfred Döblin, who also co-wrote the screenplay.
Margarethe Sylva Elisabeth Wisniewski, known professionally as Margarete Schlegel, was a German theatre and film actress and soprano operetta singer.
Berlin was the capital city of the German Empire from 1871 to 1945, its eastern part the de facto capital of East Germany from 1949 to 1990, and has been the capital of the unified Federal Republic of Germany since June, 1991. The city has an active LGBTQ community with a long history. Berlin has many LGBTIQ+ friendly districts, though the borough of Schöneberg is widely viewed both locally and by visitors as Berlin's gayborhood. Particularly the boroughs North-West near Nollendorfplatz identifies as Berlin's "Regenbogenkiez", with a certain concentration of gay bars near and along Motzstraße and Fuggerstraße. Many of the decisive events of what has become known as Germany's second LGBT movement take place in the West Berlin boroughs of Charlottenburg, Schöneberg, and Kreuzberg beginning in 1971 with the formation of the Homosexuelle Aktion Westberlin (HAW). Whereas in East Berlin the district of Prenzlauer Berg became synonymous with the East Germany LGBT movement beginning in 1973 with the founding of the HIB. Schöneberg's gayborhood has a lot to offer for locals and tourists alike, and caters to, and is particularly popular with gay men.
Charlotte "Lotte" Hedwig Hahm was a prominent activist of the lesbian movement in Berlin during the Weimar Republic, National Socialist period, and after 1949, in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Willi Pape was a celebrated German dancer, variety show performer and later a bar owner in Weimar Berlin who was contemporarily referred to as a "transvestite."
Melvin Irwin Gordon was an American professor, director and writer.
The first homosexual movement was a socio-political movement which thrived in Germany from the late nineteenth century until 1933. The movement began in Germany because of a confluence of factors, including the criminalization of sex between men and the country's relatively lax censorship. German writers in the mid-nineteenth century coined the word homosexual and criticized its criminalization. In 1897, Magnus Hirschfeld founded the world's first homosexual organization, the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, whose aim was to use science to improve public tolerance of homosexuality and repeal Paragraph 175. During the German Empire, the movement was restricted to an educated elite, but it greatly expanded in the aftermath of World War I and the German Revolution.
↑ Berlin Modernism Housing Estates. Inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List; German/English; Editor: Berlin Monument Authority - ISBN978-3-03768-000-1
1 2 Gordon, Mel (2006). Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin. Los Angeles: Feral House. p.17. ISBN1-932595-11-2.
↑ Gordon, Mel (2006). Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin. Los Angeles: Feral House. p.242. ISBN1-932595-11-2.
↑ Gordon, Mel (2006). Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin. Los Angeles: Feral House. p.229. ISBN1-932595-11-2.
↑ Gordon, Mel (2006). Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin. Los Angeles: Feral House. p.256. ISBN1-932595-11-2.
↑ Gordon, Mel (2006). Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin. Los Angeles: Feral House. pp.256–7. ISBN1-932595-11-2.
↑ Gordon, Mel (2006). The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber. Los Angeles: Feral House. pp.55–6. ISBN1-932595-12-0.
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