1920s Berlin

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History of Berlin
This article is part of a series
Weimar Republic (1919–33)
1920s Berlin
Greater Berlin Act
Nazi Germany (1933–45)
Welthauptstadt Germania
Bombing of Berlin in World War II
Battle of Berlin
Divided city (1945–90)
East Berlin
West Berlin
Berlin Wall
Berlin Blockade (1948–49)
Berlin Crisis of 1961
"Ich bin ein Berliner" (1963)
"Tear Down This Wall" (1987)
See also:
History of Germany
Margraviate of Brandenburg
v t e

Leipziger Platz

Lesser Ury: "Berliner Straße mit Droschken im Regen" (1925)

Stadtschloss

The Golden Twenties in Berlin was a vibrant period in the history of Berlin, German history, and European history in general.

Weimar culture

This fertile culture of Berlin extended onwards until Adolf Hitler rose to power in early 1933 and stamped out any and all resistance to the Nazi Party. Likewise, the Nazis decried Berlin as a haven of vice.^{[clarification needed]} A sophisticated, innovative culture developed in and around Berlin, including highly developed architecture and design (Bauhaus, 1919–33), a variety of literature (Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 1929), film (Lang, Metropolis, 1927, Dietrich, Der blaue Engel, 1930), painting (Grosz), and music (Brecht and Weill, The Threepenny Opera, 1928), criticism (Benjamin), philosophy/psychology (Jung), and fashion.^{[citation needed]} This culture was often considered to be decadent and socially disruptive by rightists.^[1]

Film was making huge technical and artistic strides during this period of time in Berlin, and gave rise to the influential movement called German Expressionism. "Talkies", the Sound films, were also becoming more popular with the general public across Europe, and Berlin was producing very many of them.

The Humboldt University of Berlin (formerly The University of Berlin) became a major intellectual centre in Germany, Europe, and the World. The sciences were especially favored — from 1914 to 1933, Albert Einstein served as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin, only leaving after the anti-Semitic Nazi Party rose to power.

The so-called mystical arts also experienced a revival during this time-period in Berlin, with astrology, the occult, and esoteric religions and off-beat religious practices becoming more mainstream and acceptable to the masses as they entered popular culture.

Berlin in the 1920s also proved to be a haven for English writers such as W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood, who wrote a series of 'Berlin novels', inspiring the play I Am a Camera, which was later adapted into a musical, Cabaret, and an Academy Award winning film of the same name. Spender's semi-autobiographical novel The Temple evokes the attitude and atmosphere of the time.

Weimar Constitution

Germany's liberal Weimar Constitution (1919) could not guarantee a stable government in the face of rightist violence (Rathenau assassination, 1922) and Communist refusal to cooperate with Socialists.^{[citation needed]}

Political extremism became common during this time. Both communists (Communist Party of Germany) and fascists (Nazi Party) could be found in Berlin, and politics were a fixture of the culture.^{[citation needed]}

Infrastructure and industrialization

The government began printing tremendous amounts of currency to pay reparations; this caused staggering inflation that destroyed middle-class savings. However, economic expansion resumed after mid-decade, aided by U.S. loans. It was then that culture blossomed especially.

The heyday of Berlin began in the mid-1920s. It became the most industrialized city of the continent. Tempelhof Airport was opened in 1923 and a start was made on S-Bahn electrification from 1924 onwards. Berlin was also the second biggest inland harbor of Germany; all of this infrastructure was needed to transport and feed the over 4 million Berliners throughout the 1920s.^{[citation needed]}

Movies about 1920s Berlin

The following significant films about 1920s Berlin show the metropolis between 1920 and 1933 (until the Nazi takeover of power):

• Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, 1922 - first (silent) film about the character Doctor Mabuse from the novels of Norbert Jacques, by Fritz Lang
• The Last Laugh, 1924 - the aging doorman at a Berlin hotel is demoted to washroom attendant but gets the last laugh, by F.W. Murnau
• Slums of Berlin (Die Verrufenen), 1925 - an engineer in Berlin is released from prison, but his father throws him out, his fiancée left him and there is no chance to find work. Directed by Gerhard Lamprecht.
• Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, 1927 - expressionist documentary film of 1920s Berlin by Walter Ruttmann
• Refuge (Zuflucht), 1928 - a lonely and tired man comes home after several years abroad, lives with a market-woman in Berlin and starts working for the Berlin U-Bahn. Directed by Carl Froelich.
• Asphalt, 1929 - the Berlin underworld touches a policeman's life, Film Noir classic by Joe May
• Mutter Krausens Fahrt ins Glück, 1929 - depicts the cruelty of poverty in Wedding district and Communism as a rescuing force that reaches a mother and her grandchild too late. Directed by Phil Jutzi.
• People on Sunday, 1930 - Avant-garde look at daily life in Berlin, screenplay by Billy Wilder and Curt Siodmak
• Symphonie einer Weltstadt (Berlin - Wie es war), 1930 - documentary view of Berlin by Leo de Laforgue. First showed in 1950.
• Die drei von der Tankstelle, 1930 - three friends are broke, so they sell their car and open a filling station in Berlin. The film shows the rising level of motorisation in Germany. Directed by Wilhelm Thiele.
• Cyankali, 1930 - a poor female office employee in Berlin gets pregnant, but abortion is not allowed in the Weimar Republic. So she goes to a quack doctor who applies toxic potassium cyanide to her. Directed by Hans Tintner.
• Emil and the Detectives, 1931 - the Adventure film based on the novel Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner shows Berlin from children's point of view. Director: Gerhard Lamprecht.
• M, 1931 - Berlin thriller by Fritz Lang; beginnings of film noir and the endings of expressionism
• Berlin-Alexanderplatz, 1931 - first film adaption of the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz from Alfred Döblin, directed by Phil Jutzi
• Looking for His Murderer (Der Mann, der seinen Mörder sucht), 1931 - a man in Berlin plunged in debt does not succeed in committing suicide and has to hire a murderer to kill him within twelve hours. But in the same night he falls in love with a girl who wants to stop the appointed killer. Directed by Robert Siodmak.
• Grand Hotel, 1932 - showing the life of permanent residents in a Berlin Hotel. Directed by Edmund Goulding. Academy Award for Best Picture (1931–1932).
• Kuhle Wampe, 1932 - about a working-class family in Berlin in 1931 where survival is difficult during the Great Depression. Directed by Slatan Dudow.
• Wolf unter Wölfen, 1964 - the four-part movie based on the novel Wolf Among Wolves by Hans Fallada describes the Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic in 1923 which led to widespread unemployment, homelessness, starvation and rioting in Berlin. Directed by Hans-Joachim Kasprzik.
• Ganovenehre, 1966 - comedy about the panderer and crime environment in 1925 Berlin. Directed by Wolfgang Staudte.
• Cabaret, 1972 - set in the early 1930s depicting Weimar Berlin from the writings of Christopher Isherwood; film by Bob Fosse
• Memories of Berlin: The Twilight of Weimar Culture, 1976 - Documentary about Berlin's cultural scene during the Weimar Republic, by Gary Conklin
• Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo, 1978 - a Prussian officer returns home to Berlin following the end of World War I. Unable to find employment elsewhere, he works as a gigolo in a brothel run by a Baroness; by David Hemmings.
• Berlin Alexanderplatz, 1980 - elaborate film of the novel written by Alfred Döblin. Made for television (in many parts) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
• Kai aus der Kiste, 1988 - during the hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic 1923 in Berlin a boy and his friends start a campaign of competitive advertising for an American chewing gum brand and use the resources of the metropolis for it. Based upon the novel by Wolf Durian and directed by Günter Meyer.
• Invincible, 2001 - the true story of a Jewish strongman in 1932 Berlin by Werner Herzog
• Love in Thoughts (Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken), 2004 - about the so-called Steglitz student tragedy in 1927, when two young men made a suicide pact under the influence of alcohol, music and sex, which lead to a tragedy. Directed by Achim von Borries.

See also: List of films set in Berlin

See also

• Alexanderplatz
• Berlin Alexanderplatz (novel)
• Erik Jan Hanussen
• Friedrichstraße
• Glitter and Doom - German Portraits from the 1920s
• Kreuzberg
• Nightlife
• Potsdamer Platz
• Weimar Culture
• Universum Film AG (UFA)

References