In the 1930s and '40s, LA became a cultural sanctuary for a distinguished group of German artists and intellectuals - including Thomas Mann, Theodor W. Adorno, Bertolt Brecht, Fritz Lang, and Arnold Schoenberg - who were fleeing Nazi Germany. This book is the first to examine their work and lives.

Exploring the gray zone of infiltration and subversion in which the Nazi and Communist parties sought to influence and undermine each other, this book offers a fresh perspective on the relationship between two defining ideologies of the twentieth century. The struggle between Fascism and Communism is situated within a broader conversation among right- and left-wing publicists, across the Youth Movement and in the “National Bolshevik” scene, thus revealing the existence of a discourse on revolutionary legitimacy fought according to a set of common assumptions about the qualities of the ideal revolutionary. Highlighting the importance of a masculine-militarist politics of youth revolt operative in both Marxist and anti-Marxist guises, Weimar Radicals forces us to re-think the fateful relationship between the two great ideological competitors of the Weimar Republic, while offering a challenging new interpretation of the distinctive radicalism of the interwar era.

Germany of the 1920s offers a stunning moment in modernity, a time when surface values first became determinants of taste, activity, and occupation: modernity was still modern, spectacle was still spectacular. Janet Ward's luminous study revisits Weimar Germany via the lens of metropolitan visual culture, analyzing the power that 1920s Germany holds for today's visual codes of consumerism.

Liberated, licentious, or merely liberal, the sexual freedoms of Germany’s Weimar Republic have become legendary. The home of the world’s first gay rights movement, the republic embodied a progressive, secular vision of sexual liberation. Immortalized – however misleadingly – in Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories and the musical Cabaret, Weimar’s freedoms have become a touchstone for the politics of sexual emancipation. Yet, as Laurie Marhoefer shows in Sex and Weimar Republic, those sexual freedoms were only obtained at the expense of a minority who were deemed sexually disordered. In Weimar Germany, the citizen’s right to sexual freedom came with a duty to keep sexuality private, non-commercial, and respectable. Sex and the Weimar Republic examines the rise of sexual tolerance through the debates which surrounded “immoral” sexuality: obscenity, male homosexuality, lesbianism, transgender identity, heterosexual promiscuity, and prostitution. It follows the sexual politics of a swath of Weimar society ranging from sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld to Nazi stormtrooper Ernst Röhm. Tracing the connections between toleration and regulation, Marhoefer’s observations remain relevant to the politics of sexuality today.

Limited to edition of 300 copies. The story of the Pazifische Press and the role it played in providing a voice in their native tongue to the German exiles living in Los Angeles during the Second World War. In the letter sent to prospective subscribers, the publishers, Ernst Gottleib and Felix Guggenheim, stated their intention to provide a few literary treasures that would still be enjoyed "when Hitler has long since become nothing more than a dark chapter in the book of history." While not a financial success, Pazifische did fill an historically significant niche until production was finally shut down in 1948. Includes a bibliography of the all of the eleven titles published.

In noting that political violence was the product of choices made by political actors rather than the result of irresistible forces ...Schumann issues a pertinent warning while making a first-rate contribution to the scholarly literature on the Weimar Republic. Central European History A well-documented and skillfully argued book. German Studies Review In his exceptional regional study of the Prussian province of Saxony, Schumann offers a richly detailed analysis of political violence in the Weimar Republic...This is a wordy but methodical and ultimately convincing work of scholarship. Choice Schumann ... calls into question some assumptions, provides interesting nuances, and helps to refine our understanding of the nature of political violence in Weimar Germany. Journal of Modern History ... provides a well-documented, solid narrative and challenging analysis of Weimar's political violence... American Historical Review This] definitive work, rich in source material and analysis, dispels stereotypes of political violence in the Weimar Republic. Historische Zeitschrift The Prussian province of Saxony-where the Communist uprising of March 1921 took place and two Combat Leagues (Wehrverb nde) were founded (the right-wing Stahlhelm and the Social Democratic Reichsbanner) - is widely recognized as a politically important region in this period of German history. Using a case study of this socially diverse province, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of political violence in Weimar Germany with particular emphasis on the political culture from which it emerged. It refutes both the claim that the Bolshevik revolution was the prime cause of violence, and the argument that the First World War's all-encompassing "brutalization" doomed post-1918 German political life from the very beginning. The study thus contributes to a view of the Weimar Republic as a state in severe crisis but with alternatives to the Nazi takeover. Dirk Schumann is Professor of History at Georg-August University, G ttingen. He is the co-editor of Life After Death (2003), Violence and Society after the First World War (first issue of Journal of Modern European History 2003]), Between Mass Death and Individual Loss (2007). Most recently, he has edited Raising Citizens in the "Century of the Child" The United States and German Central Europe in Comparative Perspective (2010).

"Lethen brilliantly interprets New Objectivity as a tactical response to the need for a 'code of conduct' in an age of anxiety about values and normative judgments. Moving effortlessly between analysis of philosophical texts and literary works, he charts an increasingly popular field of cultural studies: how cultural discourses shape behavior. One of the most original and daring contributions to Weimar scholarship and to the study of modernity in general in a decade."—Anton Kaes, University of California, Berkeley "Lethen is probably the most original and outstanding scholar writing in German today about Weimar literature and culture. He traces the figure of the 'cold persona' as part of a broader discourse of anthropological, ethical, and aesthetic dimensions. The book is written in a personal voice, witty, lucid, and unpretentious."—Miriam Hansen, University of Chicago