1. LECTURE THREE: Weimar History and
Politics and the German Film Industry in
the 1920s

2.  1919-1924:
 Expressionist film
 born of lost war, failed revolution and rampant
inflation
 1924-1929:
 New Objectivity OR New Realism (Neue Sachlichkeit)
born of increased economic stability and more realist
approaches in film art
 embrace of technological advance

3. Georg Grosz

4.  ‘Yet what I found within me was alien to me. To my
horror I found that my self was composed of
innumerable ‘selves’, each of which stood lurking
behind the other. Each seemed to me to be larger and
more inscrutable than the one before it. Lost in
shadows, those most distant from me could scarcely be
apprehended.’
From a novel by Alfred Kubin, The Other Side, 1909

5.  LOSS and TRAUMA
 11 million German men called up
 Over 7 million killed, injured or missing
 2 million dead

7.  trench warfare (mainly in France): men like
animals crawling around in mud. Disease rife
 shell shock
 first use of technology in war (tanks, gas) –
slaughter and trauma on an industrial scale
 Compulsory enlistment (led to stigmatism of
refuseniks and a large number of men feigning
madness)

11.  malnutrition/starvation
 50% rise in child mortality
 disillusionment

13.  Bolsheviks seized power from Tsarist aristocracy: promise
to create a classless society. Strong influence on Germany –
growth of Communist party.
 Communist theory based on Karl Marx’s philosophy
 Used vampire imagery to describe how the rich and
powerful drain life out of working people (Living labour is
‘bled’ to expand the wealth of those who control society’s
productive resources)
 Analysis of war: consequence of competition between
growing capitalist nations for economic power. Entwined
with big business (weapons production for e.g.)

15.  defeat
 trauma
 decimation of (male) population (2 million men)
 anger

16.  28 October 1918: sailors in Kiel refused to obey orders
and subsequently took over the town
 Nov 1918: workers and soldiers began to set up organs
of popular power across the country (‘Workers and
soldiers councils’)

19.  Nov 1918: new democratic government proclaimed by
the SPD and ratified in Weimar because of revolution
in Berlin.

21.  aristocrats
 industry managers, financiers etc.
 middle class: not a matter of wealth but of
education and status-bearing work; range of
political views
 proletariat or working class
 ‘Lumpenproletariat’: lowest class of prostitutes,
criminals and drifters (characters in the film
Threepenny Opera)

22.  Left and right wing hostilities to the Weimar
Republic
 Very unstable
 Climate of conspiracy and political polarisation
 Series of political murders: Rosa Luxemburg and
Karl Liebknecht from the left (1920); Walter
Ratenau (1923)

25.  Hyperinflation:
 Savings and indeed earnings of middle and lower
middle classes were suddenly worth nothing.
 Ironically had a positive outcome for the cinema
industry

29.  Hunger, death and disease
 Social as well as political instability
 Unemployment

31.  Demonstration against
unemployment

32.  Contradictory experiences for women: new opportunities
but also new pressures and dilemmas
 War efforts (work in factories etc) had led to
destabilisation of gender relations.
 Women were given the vote in the new democracy but
remained second class citizens.
 Small minority: liberated ‘new woman’ (new jobs in
secretarial work etc) – threat to the conservative male elites
(panic about the decline of the family etc). Majority still
did not question their traditional role however.

35.  Crisis led to Allies renegotiations of payments
 Currency reform and stabilisation of currency
 foreign investment (credit above all from USA)
 withdrawal of French troops

36.  German Historical Museum in Berlin
 www.dhm.de
 Also short videos