Ernst Troeltsch, a German philosopher and theologian, wrote this account of the ‘German democracy’ in December 1918:

“Overnight we have become the most radical democracy in Europe, and are obliged as well to consider it the relatively moderate solution to the problem of our political life. On closer inspection, it did not happen overnight. Democracy is the natural consequence of modern population density, combined with the education of the population necessary to nurture it, with industrialisation, mobilisation, defence preparations, and politicisation. Democracy has been suppressed in Prussia since 1848 by the constitution and the military system, but it struggled constantly and powerfully for supremacy against both… It fell solely to the terrible world war to deliver democracy to victory. But this also which introduced a danger that the development will not stop at democracy because the “dictatorship of the proletariat” will assume the form of the terrorist domination by a minority.

Questions arise whether this socialist revolution was avoidable; whether the initiatives of Prince Max’s government against the resistance of the old ruling strata were truly capable of being executed, including the doubtlessly great and sweeping social reforms… It is certain that the revolution broke the backbone of the Reich in the most terrible moment of its history, when it would have had greater need of such a structure than at any other time…

It means principled anti-militaristic thinking and an approach based on the League of Nations as the sole means of maintaining our existence and rebuilding within the geographical borders at that time… We have to adapt ourselves to a wholly new situation, which can only be secured externally through the idea of the League of Nations and internally through a new order renovated along democratic and social lines, if Germany is not to become a volcano of misery, ever subject to eruption, as well as a focus of civil wars and an endless slave rebellion against despots.

It means secondly that the Bismarckian creation of the Reich has been worn down to its foundations, and, since the latter ultimately rest on the military and bureaucratic state of old Prussia, that the entire political order and formation since the reorganization of the German territorial state through absolutism is undergoing dissolution or at least total transformation… The Reich as a whole, as well as in its individual parts, must be rebuilt with a new administration and new constitution, the army newly organized with a social foundation. The German solution must be expanded into the pan-German solution…

That means thirdly that democracy is no longer a pure question of political and moral principle… Democracy can unite broad social strata to facilitate enormous productivity, can supply a foundation of love and affection for the common state, can bring into greater play the dignity and personality of each citizen, can root responsibility and initiative in individual will, and can effect a selection of fresh talents and will: all things of the highest ethical value and most fruitful political significance… We Germans have no talent for democracy, none at all for politics; we have not been trained for it by our history and are unprepared… We will learn it, even at the cost of suffering and pain and much confusion…

As dark and difficult as this future might be, it can also become a reconstruction, and above all, it is no break with the German spirit and its history. We want to ground ourselves anew in this history and draw from it its great treasures in order to stamp it with a new vitality and unity. In this respect, we want to establish the ideal of a conservative democracy, since novelty will be sufficiently looked after on its own. And, contrary to the despondency and embitterment of so many, we side with the conclusion of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister: “We bid you to hope.”

In 1926, German director Fritz Lang offered his views about the development of Weimar film and differences between the German and American film industries:

“There has perhaps never before been a time so determined as ours in its search for new forms of expression. Fundamental revolutions in painting, sculpture, architecture, and music speak eloquently of the fact that people of today are seeking and finding their own means of lending artistic form to their sentiments. Film has an advantage over all other expressive forms: its freedom from space, time, and place. What makes it richer than the others is the natural expressiveness inherent in its formal means. I maintain that film has barely risen above the first rung on the ladder of its development, and that it will become the more personal, the stronger, and more artistic the sooner it renounces all transmitted or borrowed expressive forms and throws itself into the unlimited possibilities of the purely filmic.

The speed with which film has developed in the last five years makes all predictions about it appear dangerous, for it will probably exceed each one by leaps and bounds. Film knows no rest. What was invented yesterday is already obsolete today. This uninterrupted drive for new modes of expression, this intellectual experimentation, along with the joy Germans characteristically take in overexertion, appear to me to fortify my contention that film as art will first find its form in Germany. For it is not to be found in the absence of a desire to experiment, nor in the absence of a drive toward incessant formal invention (however trustworthy and fruitful the old remains), nor most especially in the absence of uninterrupted overexertion in the name of results, which can only be achieved with that particularly German kind of stamina and imagination, of those who become obsessed with the work from the first idea on.

Germany has never had, and never will have, the gigantic human and financial reserves of the American film industry at its disposal. To its good fortune, for that is exactly what forces us to compensate a purely material imbalance through an intellectual superiority. Thousands of examples support my theory but I wish to single out only one. American cinematic photography is regarded, thanks to its as yet unparalleled recording equipment, its film stock and the brilliant work of its technicians, as the best photography in the world. But the Americans have still not understood how to use their magnificent equipment to elevate the miracle of photography into the realm of the spirit; that means, for example, that the concepts of light and shade are not to be made mere transporters of mood but factors that contribute to plot.

I recently had the opportunity of showing an American technician a few scenes from Metropolis, in which the beam of an electric flashlight illumined the pursuit of a young girl through the catacombs of Metropolis. This beam of light pierced the hunted creature like the sharp claws of an animal, refused to release her from its grasp, drove her unremittingly forward to the point of utter panic. It brought the amiable American to a naive confession, “We can’t do that!” Of course they could. But the idea never occurs to them. For them, the thing remains without essence, unanimated, soulless.

In contrast, believe that the great German dramatic film of the future will have the thing play just as important a role as the human character. Actors will no longer occupy a space that they appear to have entered by accident; rather the space will be constructed in such a way that the characters’ experiences appear possible only in it, appear logical only on account of it. An expressionism of the most subtle variety will make surroundings, properties, and plot conform to one another, just as I believe in general that German film technique will develop along lines that not only raises it to the level of an optical expression of the characters’ actions but also elevate the particular performer’s environment to the status of a carrier of the action in its own right and, most important, of the character’s soul. We are already trying to photograph thoughts, that is, render them visually; we are no longer trying to convey the plot complex of an event but to make visual the ideational content of the experience seen from the perspective of the one who experiences it.

The first important gift for which we have film to thank was in a certain sense the rediscovery of the human face. Film has revealed to us the human face with unexampled clarity in its tragic as well as grotesque, threatening as well as blessed expression. The second gift is that of visual empathy: in the purest sense the expressionistic representation of thought processes. No longer will we take part purely externally in the workings of the soul of the characters in film. We will no longer limit ourselves to seeing the effects of feelings, but will experience them in our own souls, from the instant of their inception on, from the first flash of a thought through to the logical last conclusion of the idea.”

In 1918 a group of artists compiled and signed what became known as the Dada Manifesto – a short explanation of the Dada movement:

“Art, in its production and direction, depends on the time in which it lives, and artists are creatures of their epoch. The highest art will be one in which the thousandfold issues of the day are revealed in its consciousness, an art which allows itself to be noticeably shattered by last week’s explosions, which is forever trying to collect itself after the shock of recent days. The best and most challenging artists will be those who every hour snatch the tatters of their bodies out of the turbulent whirl of life, who, with bleeding hands and hearts, hold fast to the intelligence of their time.

Has Expressionism fulfilled our expectations of such an art, which should be a measure of our most vital concerns? No! No! No!

Have the Expressionists fulfilled our expectations of an art that burns the essence of life into our flesh? No! No! No!

Under the pretext of turning inward, the Expressionists in literature and painting have banded together into a generation which even now is expecting its historical validation and is campaigning for honourable bourgeois recognition… Expressionism, discovered abroad and—true to style—transformed in Germany into a fat idler with hope of a good pension, has nothing in common with the efforts of active men. The signers of this manifesto have, under the battle cry

DADA!

What is DADAISM? The word Dada symbolizes the most primitive relation to the surrounding reality; with Dadaism a new reality comes into its own. Life appears as a simultaneous whirl of noises, colours and spiritual rhythms, which Dada takes unflinchingly into its art, with all the spectacular screams and fevers of its feisty pragmatic attitude and with all its brutal reality.

This is the sharp dividing line separating Dadaism from all artistic directions up until now and particularly from FUTURISM, which not long ago certain weak minds took to be a new version of impressionist realization. By tearing to pieces all the platitudes of ethics, culture, and inwardness, which are merely cloaks for weak muscles, Dadaism has for the first time ceased to take an aesthetic position toward life…”

Felix Gilbert was a young university student in Berlin during the 1920s. In this account, written in 1988, he recalls the Weimar culture in the capital:

“Berlin was an intellectually exciting city. Its isolation from the outside world, first during the war and then during the years that followed, created a restless eagerness to catch up with what had been going on elsewhere and to make Berlin a centre of new movements in art, music, and literature.

Berlin in the twenties was emphatically ‘international’; foreign visitors of distinction were eagerly welcomed. I heard Arnold Toynbee, Johan Huizinga, and Rabindranath Tagore speak at the university, and I remember seeing André Gide sitting in the centre box at a commemorative celebration for Rilke. From the first half of the 19th century, Berlin had always been a capital of musical life; I doubt, however, that its musical offerings had ever been as brilliant as they were in the twenties. Berlin had three large opera houses, all for the staging of serious operas, and one placed special emphasis on modern operas and experimental productions…

Yet Berlin’s best offerings during these years were the theatre performances; and they were the chief topic of many conversations. During the winters no week passed without my going at least once to the theatre. When at the end of the month my budget was exhausted and I could not afford a seat, it was “standing room.” I doubt that any city has ever had as many theatres playing simultaneously as Berlin did in the 1920s. There were three state theatres, four theatres under the direction of Max Reinhardt, a similar number under Victor Barnowsky, and many other theatres for serious plays and social comedies…

The theatre in Berlin was profoundly exciting not only because it was frequently great art, but also because it was intensely political. It was no longer an expressionist outcry against all social conventions, which it had been immediately after the revolution of 1917, but it was still a manifestation against old traditions, a place for social criticism and for denouncing restrictions of freedom. Not only did modern plays—those by Ernst Toller, Georg Kaiser, and Carl Zuckmayer, the most admired of the young poets—serve these purposes, but so did older plays like Schiller’s Don Carlos and Hauptmann’s Weber. Brilliantly produced and acted, these suddenly seemed to be written for our time and for us. The greatest and most unforgettable production, however, in which art and politics was beautifully combined, was Brecht and Weill’s Threepenny Opera, which played before full houses for years and which I must have seen three or four times. It gave a grim, hopeless picture of a world in which corruption controlled human life and society. Yet it had a fairy-tale ending: the mounted messenger of the king arrives at the last moment, saving the hero from execution.

In my description of Berlin in the twenties, I have given a picture of the life, or at least of the thinking, of people who felt more and more the approach of an evil power, and the unavoidability of the collapse of the world in which they had set their hopes. What is misleading is this, and what I have been unable to depict, is that whatever we rationally thought about the future, we never gave up hope that the mounted messenger of the king would arrive.”

In September 1920 the first Weimar president, Friedrich Ebert, wrote to the prime minister of Sweden, outlining the political divisions within Germany:

“As enormous as our task seems to be, it would be only half as difficult if the working class were united. It is, naturally, quite out of the question to think of reconciliation with the Communist groups. The Independents (USPD) are in a ghastly muddle, oscillating between Soviet dictatorship and democracy. Thus we have to defend the democratic republic for which we have been battling for decades, against attack from the Right but also from the Left.

We are fighting against military putsches and against communist putsches for the safety of the Republic. It is not impossible that one day the putschists from the Right and from the Left will face us in one united front. In any event, we are holding firm to the line of democracy and we will succeed. It is especially difficult to set up a reliable state authority without which even a democracy cannot exist. The peace conditions have forced us to accept a troop of mercenaries — dangerous for any state.

The thing to do would be, first of all, to remove from this body all the reactionary officers… The same kind of cleaning up would also be good for the administration, though there, too, we have to face a lack of suitable candidates. Unfortunately, it is true that our universities and high schools are the breeding ground for reactionaries.

If the revolution has had no more penetrating and persistent effect in these areas, this is, above all, a result of the Versailles Treaty. The brutal attitude towards our national independence and the continuous sadistic attacks on our national feelings must whip up national passions and help to spread nationalist demagogy among the young. They are the greatest enemy of German democracy and the strongest impulse for turning to communism and nationalism.”

On January 21st, the British ambassador to Berlin made the following observations about the French occupation of the Ruhr:

“The French, by their invasion of the Ruhr, and by their imprisonment of the mine directors, have done more to bring together all parties and all classes in Germany than it was possible to effect by any other means. The mine-owners and mine-directors who have been imprisoned are becoming national heroes. They do not deserve to be, for the policy they have followed has been certainly selfish and probably short-sighted. They have ruined large classes of their countrymen by their inflation policy, and without doing much good to themselves; but they have achieved the object nearest their heart, which was to avid the payment of reparation to France. For the moment, all class hostility by the workmen towards the owners has I been submerged by the patriotic wave. The whole country appears to be united.”

On January 12th 1923, The Times (London) reported on the French Ruhr occupation, specifically the entry of French troops into Essen:

“In accordance with the plan the French yesterday occupied Essen and other places in the Ruhr, a Belgian detachment cooperating. There were no disorders. A proclamation has been issued by the French and Belgian authorities exhorting the inhabitants of the newly occupied regions to remain calm and continue at work.

It is announced in Berlin that reparations deliveries will be suspended to those countries which have broken the Peace Treaty and that the transport of coal to France was discontinued yesterday.”

(Essen, January 11th)

“Essen was occupied this afternoon by two divisions of French troops … headed by cavalry and armoured cars. Despite the machine-guns, the swords, and slung rifles of the horizon-blue cavalry, who came cantering down the street behind the armoured cars, there were angry murmurs from the crowd—many took no trouble to hide the hatred in their hearts.

Near the station, I saw a man of some 30 years suddenly turn aside with a sob and muttering ‘The swine. My God, the pack of swine. May God pay them for this cruel outrage.’

At the head of one cavalry squadron rode a French officer, a fine figure, with a snow-white moustache, perfect seat in his saddle, and erect as a lance. The French looked straight before them, sparing no glance for the serried ranks of angry men.

The French troops behaved with absolute correctness. As on a ceremonial parade, these men in pale blue passed silently through the equally silent lanes of human beings. But the French rode as conquerors; some of the officers, especially could not but show their pride in military pomp and perfection in every movement.”

In his memoir, written in 1952, Franz von Papen recalls his appointment as German chancellor in mid-1932:

“On 26 May 1932 I received a telephone call from General von Schleicher who asked me to come to Berlin on an argent matter… He told me it was the President’s wish to form a cabinet of experts, independent of the political parties.

Bruning had insisted, so Schleicher told me. that he would never sit at the same table as the National Socialists… Hindenburg was also perturbed at the manner in which Bruning’s emergency financial decrees were depressing the standard of living of those dependent on pensions and investment income.

Schleicher left me in no doubt that he was acting as spokesman for the army, the only stable organisation in the State, preserved intact and free from party political strife by von Seeckt and his successors…” I have already suggested your name to the Old Gentleman”, Schleicher said, “and he is most insistent that you accept the post.”

Schleicher said, “I have already had a word with Hitler. I told him we would lift the ban on the Brown Shirts, providing they behaved themselves, and dissolve the Reichstag. He assured me that in return the Nazis would give the cabinet their tacit support.”

In March 1926, Reichswehr officer Colonel Joachim von Stulpnagel wrote to Berlin and outlined his views about the aims of German foreign policy:

“The immediate aim of German policy must be the regaining of full sovereignty over the area retained by Germany, the firm acquisition of those areas at present separated from her and the reacquisition of those areas essential to the German economy. That is to say:

1. The liberation of the Rhineland and the Saar area.

2. The abolition of the [Danzig] Corridor and the regaining of Polish Upper Silesia.

3. The Anschluss [union] of German Austria.

4. The abolition of the Demilitarised Zone…

The above exposition of Germany’s political aims… clearly shows the problem for Germany in the next stages of her political development can only be the re-establishment of her position in Europe, and that the regaining of her world position will be a task for the distant future.”

In a letter dated September 7th 1925, foreign minister Gustav Stresemann outlines the interests for Berlin in German admittance to the League of Nations:

“On the question of Germany’s entry into the League I would make the following observations:

In my opinion there are three great tasks that confront German foreign policy in the more immediate future. In the first place the solution of the Reparations question in a sense tolerable for Germany, and the assurance of peace, which is an essential premise for the recovery of our strength.

Secondly, the protection of Germans abroad, those 10 to 12 million of our kindred who now live under a foreign yoke in foreign lands.

The third great task is the re-adjustment of our eastern frontiers; the recovery of Danzig, the Polish corridor, and a correction of the frontier in Upper Silesia. In the background stands the union with German Austria, although I am quite clear that this not merely brings no advantages to Germany, but seriously complicates the problems of the German Reich.

If we want to secure these aims, we must concentrate on these tasks… The question of a choice between east and west does not arise as a result of our joining the League. Such a choice can only be made when backed by military force. That, alas we do not possess… German policy will be one of finesse and the avoidance of great decisions.”