Dr Graham Bartram    

Germ 205 The Weimar Republic: Culture and Society in Germany 1918-1933

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  GERMAN STUDIES 205:  THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC  (1)

   

  Culture and Society in Germany 1918-1933

   

  READING LISTS

   

  Below are detailed reading lists for each topic on the course, preceded by a list of general works on Weimar culture.

   

  Do not be put off by the length of the lists – they are meant to provide you with a choice of material available in the Library (some of it in the History section). Go and browse along the shelves! The main texts, which you should buy from the bookshop, are:

   

  Eberhard Kolb, The Weimar Republic (a reliable introduction to the history and politics of Weimar)

  Bertolt Brecht, Ausgewählte Gedichte

  E.M. Remarque, Im Westen nichts Neues

   

   

  Detlev Peukert, The Weimar Republic (Penguin) is a stimulating account of the cultural and social conflicts of the 1920s – good value and highly recommended!

   

  Materials in the Resource Centre

   

  There is a pamphlet-box collection of back-up materials for German 205 in the departmental Resource Centre, including translations for ex-Intensive German students.

   

  Graham Bartram  October 2004

   

  ****************************************************************

   

  General works on society and culture in the Weimar Republic – fun to browse through:

   

  Bance, A. (ed.). Weimar Germany: Writers and Politics (Edinburgh, 1982). Essays on individual topics

   

  Bartram, G. and A.E. Waine (eds.). Brecht in Perspective (London, 1982). Includes chapters on the history and culture of the 1920s.

   

  Gay, Peter. Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (London, 1969). A very readable introduction

   

  Grenville, Anthony. Cockpit of Ideologies: The Literature and Political History of the Weimar Republic (Bern, 1995)

   

  Hermand, Jost and Frank Trommler. Die Kultur der Weimarer Republik (Munich, 1978). Good on broad cultural trends, American influences, etc.

   

  Kaes, Anton et al. (eds.). The Weimar Republic Sourcebook (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1994). A mine of information

   

  Kniesche, Thomas W. and Stephen Brockmann (eds.). Dancing on the Volcano: Essays on the Culture of the Weimar Republic (Columbia SC, 1994)

   

  Lamb, Stephen and Anthony Phelan. ‘Weimar Culture: The Birth of Modernism’. In: Rob Burns (ed.), German Cultural Studies: An Introduction (Oxford, 1995), pp. 53-99.

   

  Laqueur, Walter. Weimar: A Cultural History 1918-1933 (London, 1974)

   

  Peukert, Detlev. Die Weimarer Republik. Krisenjahre der klassischen Moderne (Frankfurt a.M., 1987) The German original of the Penguin text mentioned above.

   

  Schrader, Bärbel and Jürgen Schebera. The ‘Golden’ Twenties: Art and Literature in the Weimar Republic (Yale UP, 1988). Translation of a study first published in the GDR, and thus using a Marxist approach to relate Weimar culture to social and economic trends. Interesting and copiously illustrated.

   

  Willett, John. The New Sobriety: Art and Politics in the Weimar Period 1917-1933 (London, 1978). Relates developments in Germany to trends in the rest of Europe, esp. USSR and France. Lots of detail, and plenty of pictures: a book for browsing in

   

  Willett, John. The Weimar Years: A Culture Cut Short (London, 1984). A spin-off from the previous item. More space devoted to pictures, and a more exclusive focus on Germany.

   

  Williams, C.E. Writers and Politics in Modern Germany (1918-1945) (London, 1977)

   

   

  
   

  Social and Political History

   

  Bessel, Richard. Germany After the First World War (Oxford, 1993). The word ‘after’ is meant here in its fullest sense – the book looks at the wide-ranging impact of war and defeat on Weimar’s politics and culture. See especially Chapter 9.

   

  Bessel, Richard and E.J. Feuchtwanger (eds.). Social Change and Political Development in Weimar Germany (London, 1981)

   

  Dobkowski, Michael and Isidor Wallimann (eds.). Towards the Holocaust (Westport, Connecticut, 1983)

   

  Fulbrook, Mary (ed.). Twentieth-Century Germany: Politics, Culture and Society 1918-1933 (London, 2001). See the chapters by Richard Bessel: ‘Germany from war to dictatorship’, Niall Ferguson: ‘The German inter-war economy’, Elizabeth Harvey: ‘Culture and Society in Weimar Germany’, and Jill Stephenson: ‘The rise of the Nazis’.

   

  Grube, Frank and Gerhard Richter (eds.). Die Weimarer Republik (Hamburg, 1983) An easy-to-read book with lots of photos and some culture (film and art).

   

  Henig, Ruth. The Weimar Republic 1919-1933 (London, 1998) (A clear account, one of the Lancaster Pamphlets series)

   

  Kershaw, Ian (ed.). Weimar: Why Did German Democracy Fail? (London, 1990) (Debates in Modern History)  (Four individual viewpoints, plus a 50-page debate)

   

  Kühnl, Reinhard. Die Weimarer Republik. Errichtung, Machtstruktur und Zerstörung einer Demokratie (Reinbek, 1985)

   

  McKenzie, John R.P. Weimar Germany 1918-1933 (London, 1971). A bit out of date, but a good general account.

   

  Peukert, Detlev: see the ‘General works’ list

   

  Stachura, P.D. (ed.). The Nazi Machtergreifung (London, 1983)

   

  Stachura, P.D. (ed.). Unemployment and the Great Depression in Weimar Germany (Basingstoke, 1986)

   

   

  
   

  Brecht’s poetry in the 1920s

   

  Brecht, Bertolt. Ausgewählte Gedichte (Frankfurt, 1964)

   

  Brecht, Bertolt. Selected Poems, ed. K. Wölfel (Oxford: Clarendon German series, 1965) Xeroxes of Wölfel’s useful Introduction are available in the Resource Centre.

   

  Brecht, Bertolt. Über Lyrik (Frankfurt, 1971). A collection of Brecht’s writings about poetry. See especially pp. 7-13.

   

   

  General works on Brecht

  Bartram, Graham and Anthony Waine (eds.). Brecht in Perspective (London, 1982)

   

  Benjamin, Walter. Understanding Brecht, trans. Anna Bostock (London, 1973)

   

  Dickson, Keith. Towards Utopia: A Study of Brecht (Oxford, 1978)

   

  Hecht, Werner. Brecht im Gespräch (Frankfurt a.M., 1975)

   

  Hecht, Werner (ed.). Bertolt Brecht. Sein Leben in Bildern und Texten (Frankfurt a.M., 1978)

   

  Joost, Jörg-Wilhelm et al. Bertolt Brecht: Epoche – Werk – Wirkung (Munich, 1985)

   

  Kesting, Marianne. Bertolt Brecht in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (Reinbek, 1959)

   

  Klotz, Volker. Bertolt Brecht: Versuch über das Werk (Bad Homburg, 1971)

   

  Völker, Klaus. Brecht: A Biography (London, 1979)

   

  Willett, John. Brecht in Context: Comparative Approaches (Methuen, 1984)

   

  Wright, Elizabeth. Postmodern Brecht (Routledge, 1988)

   

   

  On Brecht’s poetry:

  Knopf, Jan. Brecht-Handbuch (2 vols.) (Stuttgart, 1984) – see volume on Lyrik. Prosa. Schriften.

   

  Marsch, Edgar. Brecht: Kommentar zum lyrischen Werk (Munich, 1974)

   

  Mennemeier, Franz Norbert. Bertolt Brechts Lyrik (Düsseldorf, 1982)

   

  Thomson, P. The Poetry of Brecht: Seven Studies (University of North Carolina Press, 1989)

   

  Whitaker, P. Brecht’s Poetry: A Critical Study (Oxford, 1985)

   

  The Bauhaus

   

  Bayer, Herbert and W. and I. Gropius (eds.). Bauhaus 1919-28 (Stuttgart, 1955)

   

  Droste, Magdalena. Bauhaus 1919-1933 (Cologne, 1993)

   

  Franciscono, Marcel. Walter Gropius and the Creation of the Bauhaus in Weimar (Illinois UP, 1971). Focuses on Expressionist influences on early years of the Bauhaus.

   

  Hahn, Peter (ed.). Pressestimmen für das Staatliche Bauhaus Weimar (Munich, 1980) (reprint, with introduction, of a 1924 publication; gives a fascinating picture of the political controversy the Bauhaus stirred up from the beginning.)

   

  Hahn, Peter. ‘Kunst und Technik in der Konzeption des Bauhauses.’ In Helmut Friedel (ed.), Kunst und Technik in den 20er Jahren (Munich, 1980), pp. 138-47.

   

  Hüter, Karl-Heinz. Das Bauhaus in Weimar. Studie zur gesellschaftspolitischen Geschichte einer deutschen Kunstschule (Berlin, 1976). A well-documented account of the social aims of the Bauhaus and the socio-political reactions it provoked.

   

  Naylor, Gillian. The Bauhaus (London, 1968)

   

  Naylor, Gillian. The Bauhaus Reassessed: Sources and Design Theory (London, 1985)

   

  Rowland, Anna. Bauhaus Source Book (London, 1990)

   

  Sharp, Dennis. Bauhaus Dessau. Walter Gropius (London, 1993)

   

  Whitford, Frank. Bauhaus (London, 1984)

   

  Whitford, Frank (ed.). The Bauhaus: Masters and Students by Themselves (Woodstock, NY, 1993)

   

  Wingler, Hans M. (ed.). Das Bauhaus. Trans. The Bauhaus (MIT Press, 1969). An ‘outsize’ book – very comprehensive.

   

  The University Library also has numerous works on individual members of the Bauhaus, e.g. Klee, Schlemmer, Moholy-Nagy. See also the slide sets on the Bauhaus in the Library under V3K U, and Open University videos ‘Bauhaus at Weimar 1919-23’ (A 305: TV 8); ‘Industrial Architecture: AEG and Fagus Factories’ (TV 4); ‘Berlin Siedlungen’ (TV 9) – all under VAY.

   

  On context and predecessors of the Bauhaus:

  Campbell, Joan. The German Werkbund. The Politics of Reform in the Applied Arts (Princeton UP, 1978)

   

  Campbell, Joan. ‘Social Idealism and Cultural Reform in the German Arts and Crafts 1900-1914’, in G. Chapple and H.H. Schulte (eds.), The Turn of the Century. German Literature and Art 1890-1915 (Bonn, 1981), pp. 311ff.

   

  
   

  War literature: Remarque and Jünger

   

  1. Remarque

   

  Remarque, E.M. Im Westen nichts Neues (1929). See also the edition in the Library ed. '‘it Materialien’ by T. Westphalen (Cologne, 1987)

   

  Bance, Alan F. ‘Im Westen nichts Neues: A bestseller in context’, Modern Language Review, 72 (1977), 359-73. (Find MLR on C floor together with other modern languages serials that cover several languages – i.e. not in the German section , but close by.)

   

  Barker, Christine R. and R.W. Last. Erich Maria Remarque (London, 1979)

   

  Firda, R.A. Erich Maria Remarque: a thematic analysis of his novels (Berne, 1988)

   

  Minden, Michael. ‘The First World War and its aftermath in the German novel’ in Graham Bartram (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Modern German Novel (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 138-51.

   

  Poppe, R. Erich Maria Remarque: Im Westen nichts Neues. Kommentare, Diskussionsaspekte und Anregungen für produktionsorientiertes Lesen (Beyer, 1998) (pamphlet, shelved at XWW. R384)

   

  Rowley, Brian. Essay on Im Westen nichts Neues in Holger Klein (ed.), The First World War in Fiction (London, 1976). (In UL under Comparative Literature – YUCT)

   

  Rüter, Hubert. Erich Maria Remarque: Im Westen nichts Neues. Ein Bestseller der Kriegsliteratur im Kontext (Paderborn, 1980).

   

  Schneider, Thomas. Erich Maria Remarque. Ein Chronist des 20. Jahrhunderts: eine Biographie in Bildern und Dokumenten (Bramsche, 1991)

   

  Schrader, Bärbel (ed.). Der Fall Remarque. Im Westen nichts Neues: Eine Dokumentation (Leipzig, 1992)

   

  Schütz, Erhard. Romane der Weimarer Republik. Text und Geschichte (Munich, 1986). See Ch. 10 ‘Die Wiederkehr des Weltkrieges’.

   

  Sternburg, Wilhelm von. ‘Als wäre alles das letzte Mal.’ Erich Maria Remarque: Eine Biographie (Cologne, 1998)

   

  See also broader studies in section 3 below.

   

   

  2. Jünger

   

  Jünger, Ernst. Feuer und Blut (1925). A xeroxed extract from this forms the main Jünger text we will be studying.

   

  Jünger, Ernst. In Stahlgewittern (1920). See also ‘Die totale Mobilmachung (1930).

   

  Herf, Jeffrey. Reactionary Modernism. Technology, Culture and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich (Cambridge, 1984). See pp. 70-108, ‘Ernst Jünger’s magical realism’.

   

  Liebchen, Gerda. Ernst Jünger. Seine literarischen Arbeiten in den zwanziger Jahren (Bonn, 1977)

   

  Meyer, M. Ernst Jünger (Hanser, 1990)

   

  Mörchen, Helmut. Schriftsteller in der Massengesellschaft (Stuttgart, 1973), pp. 76-101.

   

  Stern, J.P.  Essay on In Stahlgewittern in Holger Klein (ed.), The First World War in Fiction (London, 1976)

   

  Volmert, Johannes. Ernst Jünger: In Stahlgewittern. Text und Gerschichte (Stuttgart, 1983)

   

  Williams, C.E. Writers and Politics in Modern Germany (1918-1945) (London, 1977), pp. 13-16.

   

  Woods, R. Ernst Jünger and the Nature of Political Commitment (Stuttgart, 1982)

   

   

  3. Studies on the impact of the war and on 1920s war literature

   

  Berg, Jan et al.  Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur von 1918 bis zur Gegenwart (Frankfurt a.M., 1981), pp. 229-43, esp. pp. 237-8

   

  Bornebusch, H.  ‘Kriegsromane’, in Horst A. Glaser (ed.), Deutsche Literatur, Vol. 9, pp. 138-43.

   

  Denham, Scott D. Visions of War: Ideologies and Images of War in German Literature Before and After the Great War (Berne, 1992)

   

  Eksteins, Modris. Rites of Spring. The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (London, 1989). See for example Ch. 3 ‘In Flanders’ Fields’; also pp. 275-99 on Remarque. A gripping and imaginative book.

   

  Flasch, Kurt. Die geistige Mobilmachung. Die deutschen Intellektuellen und der Erste Weltkrieg (Berlin, 2000)

   

  Fussell, Paul. The Great War and Modern Memory (New York, 1975)

   

  Genno, Charles N. and H. Wetzel (eds.). The First World War in German Narrative Prose  (Toronto, 1980)

   

  Gruber, Helmut. Article on Neue Sachlichkeit and WW1 in German Life and Letters (1966/67)

   

  Hughes, H. Stuart. Consciousness and Society (St Albans, 1974) (a fascinating account of the upheavals in European culture in the early twentieth century). See Chapter 9, especially pp. 368 ff.

   

  Kaes, Anton (ed.). Weimarer Republik. Manifeste und Dokumente (Stuttgart, 1983), Section IV.2 ‘Die Wiederkehr des Krieges in der literarischen Diskussion’.

   

  Killy, Walther (ed.). Die deutsche Literatur: Texte und Zeugnisse, Vol. 7 (Munich, 1967), pp. 767-94

   

  Minden, Michael. ‘The First World War and its aftermath in the German novel’ in Graham Bartram (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Modern German Novel (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 138-51.

   

  Prümm, Karl. Die Literatur des soldatischen Nationalismus der 20er Jahre (1918-1933), 2 vols (Kronberg, 1974). Substantial sections on Jünger in both volumes

   

  Schwarz, Wilhelm Johannes. War and the Mind of Germany (Berne, 1975), Vol. 1.

   

  Vondung, Klaus (ed.). Kriegserlebnis. Der erste Weltkrieg in der literarischen Gestaltung und symbolischen Deutung der Nationen (Göttingen, 1980)

   

   

  SCHLUSS!

   

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