The Weimar Republic began at 2:00 PM on November 9, 1918 when Philip Scheidemann declared from a second-story window in the Reich Chancellery to his hearers below that the German Reich was now a republic. It ended at 11:00 AM on January 30, 1933 when President Paul von Hindenburg named Adolf Hitler Chancellor. The Cultural Chronicle of the Weimar Republic is an account of significant cultural events in Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic. Weimar, already a German cultural mecca because Goethe and Schiller had lived and worked there 120 years earlier, emerged as a unique and experimental culture. Weimar culture was responsible for producing such icons as actress Marlene Dietrich, novels like All Quiet on the Western Front, musicals like The Threepenny Opera, the political cabaret, the Bauhaus School, and films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Metropolis. There were hundreds of premieres, performance debuts, exhibitions, works of fiction, and other cultural events that marked the Republic as Western Civilization's first modernist society. Modernism took many forms: the Einstein Tower in Berlin, the symphonies of Paul Hindemith, the paintings of Max Beckmann, the drawings of K the Kollwitz, the novels of Alfred D blin, the industrial designs of Ferdinand Porsche, the choreography of Mary Wigman, the acting of Ernst Deutsch, the plays of Expressionism. The Cultural Chronicle of the Weimar Republic presents these and scores of other modernist inscriptions worthy of note, while providing notations that inform readers of connections among individuals, art works, related cultural activities, and significant political and economic developments.

Reproduces (translated into English) contemporary documents or writings with an introduction to each section.

In this comprehensive companion to Weimar cinema, chapters address the technological advancements of each film, their production and place within the larger history of German cinema, the style of the director, the actors and the rise of the German star, and the critical reception of the film.

November 1932. With the German economy in ruins and street battles raging between political factions, the Weimar Republic is in its death throes. Its elderly president Paul von Hindenburg floats above the fray, inscrutably haunting the halls of the Reichstag. In the shadows, would-be saviours of the nation vie for control. The great rivals are the chancellors Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher. Both are tarnished by the republic's all-too-evident failures. Each man believes he can steal a march on the other by harnessing the increasingly popular National Socialists - while reining in their most alarming elements, naturally. Adolf Hitler has ideas of his own. But if he can't impose discipline on his own rebellious foot-soldiers, what chance does he have of seizing power?

This book features a fresh and provocative chronicle of Germany from the aftermath of the First World War to the beginning of the Third Reich.

“A much-needed study of the aesthetics and cultural mores of the Third Reich . . . rich in detail and documentation.” (Kirkus Reviews) Culture was integral to the smooth running of the Third Reich. In the years preceding WWII, a wide variety of artistic forms were used to instill a Nazi ideology in the German people and to manipulate the public perception of Hitler’s enemies. During the war, the arts were closely tied to the propaganda machine that promoted the cause of Germany’s military campaigns. Michael H. Kater’s engaging and deeply researched account of artistic culture within Nazi Germany considers how the German arts-and-letters scene was transformed when the Nazis came to power. With a broad purview that ranges widely across music, literature, film, theater, the press, and visual arts, Kater details the struggle between creative autonomy and political control as he looks at what became of German artists and their work both during and subsequent to Nazi rule. “Absorbing, chilling study of German artistic life under Hitler” —The Sunday Times “There is no greater authority on the culture of the Nazi period than Michael Kater, and his latest, most ambitious work gives a comprehensive overview of a dismally complex history, astonishing in its breadth of knowledge and acute in its critical perceptions.” —Alex Ross, music critic at The New Yorker and author of The Rest is Noise Listed on Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles List for 2019 Winner of the Jewish Literary Award in Scholarship

Edgar G. Ulmer is perhaps best known today for Detour, considered by many to be the epitome of a certain noir style that transcends its B-list origins. But in his lifetime he never achieved the celebrity of his fellow Austrian and German émigré directors—Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger, Fred Zinnemann, and Robert Siodmak. Despite early work with Max Reinhardt and F. W. Murnau, his auspicious debut with Siodmak on their celebrated Weimar classic People on Sunday, and the success of films like Detour and Ruthless, Ulmer spent most of his career as an itinerant filmmaker earning modest paychecks for films that have either been overlooked or forgotten. In this fascinating and well-researched account of a career spent on the margins of Hollywood, Noah Isenberg provides the little-known details of Ulmer’s personal life and a thorough analysis of his wide-ranging, eclectic films—features aimed at minority audiences, horror and sci-fi flicks, genre pictures made in the U.S. and abroad. Isenberg shows that Ulmer’s unconventional path was in many ways more typical than that of his more famous colleagues. As he follows the twists and turns of Ulmer’s fortunes, Isenberg also conveys a new understanding of low-budget filmmaking in the studio era and beyond.