My second source is a painting. The artist is Otto Dix. The painting is entitled ‘Big City.’ From the title, it can’t be worked out what the painting is about. This painting is made up of three pictures, which should be shown together. The first picture is about high-class, urban people going to a party. In the painting, the people pass a man begging on the streets, he also has no legs. The high-class people just ignore him and walk past.
In the middle picture, there is a party going on, everyone is high-class with cutting edge fashion. They are all enjoying themselves, men are dancing with women and they don’t have a care in the world.
The last picture shows a dead man and a man with no legs. The people coming home from the party don’t care about them and again just ignore them.
This painting shows both sides of life in Germany at the time, it is corrupt because of paintings one and three. It is creative because of painting two.
My third source is about Berlin. Berlin, the capital of Germany became a main entertainment centre of the world. It became a centre of new art movements such as Dadaism and Expressionism. Berlin resembled New York in 1945. Theatres in Berlin and Frankfurt led to a revolution on stage. Films were getting more and more outrageous. German cinemas were among the most notable in the world.
Germany also had great universities and science centres from the Wilhelmine period. German was the international language in Physics and Chemistry. This source shows that Germany was creative.
My fourth source is about the German cinema cabaret and nightlife. In particular a film called ‘the blue angel’ (‘Der blaue engel’). The film starred Marlene Dietrich; she was one of the most popular film stars of the time. She often played strong, mysterious or glamorous women. Women in Germany at the time looked up to her and thought of her as a role model. In the film ‘Der blaue engel’ she plays a cabaret singer called Lola. A university professor is obsessed with Lola. The story is set before the war.
This time in Germany was a golden age for cinema. They had an extremely well known director called Fitz Lang; he produced epic films such as Metropolis. This was the most technically advanced film of the decade.
German cinema suggests that Germany was creative at the time.
Now on to cabaret and nightlife. Berlin became famous for its nightlife. As well as theatres and cinemas there was a vibrant nightclub scene which involved daring floor shows, risqué songs and naked dancing. To German people this seemed very experimental and shocking. Berlin was also famous for its transvestite balls. Every subject was discussed openly, before the war, these subjects had never been talked about openly. Now things like this were not frowned upon, at least in Berlin. This source shows that the Republic was corrupt.
Looking at all of these sources, I have come to the conclusion that the Weimar Republic was both corrupt and creative. There was something for everyone in Germany because of the nightlife and cabaret and those who didn’t enjoy things like that could go to all of the new art galleries and watch films. Germany was obviously a bad place to live in for some people, such as ex army officers and poor people. For the people with money life was easy and they had nothing to worry about.
By Hayley Anderson.
