German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol in Italy and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there are some currents of literature influenced to a greater or lesser degree by dialects.
The Deutscher Werkbund is a German association of artists, architects, designers and industrialists established in 1907. The Werkbund became an important element in the development of modern architecture and industrial design, particularly in the later creation of the Bauhaus school of design. Its initial purpose was to establish a partnership of product manufacturers with design professionals to improve the competitiveness of German companies in global markets. The Werkbund was less an artistic movement than a state-sponsored effort to integrate traditional crafts and industrial mass production techniques, to put Germany on a competitive footing with England and the United States. Its motto Vom Sofakissen zum Städtebau indicates its range of interest.
A Burschenschaft is one of the traditional Studentenverbindungen of Germany, Austria, and Chile . Burschenschaften were founded in the 19th century as associations of university students inspired by liberal and nationalistic ideas. They were significantly involved in the March Revolution and the unification of Germany. After the formation of the German Empire in 1871, they faced a crisis, as their main political objective had been realized. So-called Reformburschenschaften were established, but these were dissolved by the Nazi regime in 1935/6. In West Germany, the Burschenschaften were re-established in the 1950s, but they faced a renewed crisis in the 1960s and 1970s, as the mainstream political outlook of the German student movement of that period started learning more towards the left. Roughly 160 Burschenschaften exist today in Germany, Austria and Chile.
The Nazi book burnings were a campaign conducted by the German Student Union to ceremonially burn books in Nazi Germany and Austria in the 1930s. The books targeted for burning were those viewed as being subversive or as representing ideologies opposed to Nazism. These included books written by Jewish, half-Jewish, communist, socialist, anarchist, liberal, pacifist, and sexologist authors among others. The initial books burned were those of Karl Marx and Karl Kautsky, but came to include very many authors, including Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, writers in French and English, and effectively any book incompatible with Nazi ideology. In a campaign of cultural genocide, books were also burned en masse by the Nazis in occupied territories, such as in Poland.
The Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung was founded on 28 August 1949, on the 200th birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt. It is seated in Darmstadt, since 1971 in the Glückert House at the Darmstadt Artists' Colony. It is a society of writers and scholars on matters pertaining to German language and literature in the Deutsche sprachraum, or Germanosphere.
The "Urgent Call for Unity" was an appeal by the Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund (ISK) to defeat the National Socialist German Workers Party. It was signed by nearly three dozen well-known German scientists, authors and artists in advance of the German federal election in July 1932.
Bekenntnis der Professoren an den Universitäten und Hochschulen zu Adolf Hitler und dem nationalsozialistischen Staat officially translated into English as the Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State was a document presented on 11 November 1933 at the Albert Hall in Leipzig. It had statements in German, English, Italian, and Spanish by selected German academics and included an appendix of signatories. The purge to remove academics and civil servants with Jewish ancestry began with a law being passed on 7 April 1933. This document was signed by those that remained in support of Nazi Germany.
Große Berliner Kunstausstellung , abbreviated GroBeKa or GBK, was an annual art exhibition that existed from 1893 to 1969 with intermittent breaks. In 1917 and 1918, during World War I, it was not held in Berlin but in Düsseldorf. In 1919 and 1920, it operated under the name Kunstausstellung Berlin. From 1970 to 1995, the Freie Berliner Kunstausstellung was held annually in its place.
Kunst und Künstler: illustrierte Monatsschrift für bildende Kunst und Kunstgewerbe was a German periodical, that shaped the reception of art during the first third of the 20th century. It was in circulation between 1902 and 1933.
