How Did German Culture Influence The Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic, despite economic and political problems, was one of the most fertile grounds for the modern arts and sciences. Berlin, in particular, became a thriving centre of many new art movements. The Bauhaus school near Weimar, moreover, revolutionized architecture, and the theatres in Berlin and Frankfurt led to a revolution on stage.
Great film companies made German cinema one of the most notable in the world (a position it never again achieved). Leading composers of atonal music taught and heard their works first performed in Weimar Germany. George Grosz painted satire in its most bitter ways. The Frankfurt Institute for Social Research developed theories inspired by a synthesis of Marxism and Freudian psychoanalysis that have proven highly influential in twentieth-century thought. In addition to that, the Weimar Republic "inherited" excellent universities and science centres from the Wilhelmine period. Göttingen was the world's most famous centre for physics, and German was the international language in physics and chemistry. Albert Einstein lived and taught in Berlin. …show more content…
But it was much less an influence through American artists as through a perceived "American" way of life that seemed exceedingly modern to Weimar's artists and thinkers. The assembly line technique (developed in the American auto industry), the skyscraper, and styles of American mass consumption and advertisement seemed the epitome of modernity to Weimar artists. They adapted some American forms but often used them critically and creatively. In addition to the importance of American patterns, one can discern a strong influence of Russian modernism on Weimar culture. The posters, graphics, and architecture of the young Soviet Union to many Weimar artists seemed to represent the manifestations of a new and more humane
Great film companies made German cinema one of the most notable in the world (a position it never again achieved). Leading composers of atonal music taught and heard their works first performed in Weimar Germany. George Grosz painted satire in its most bitter ways. The Frankfurt Institute for Social Research developed theories inspired by a synthesis of Marxism and Freudian psychoanalysis that have proven highly influential in twentieth-century thought. In addition to that, the Weimar Republic "inherited" excellent universities and science centres from the Wilhelmine period. Göttingen was the world's most famous centre for physics, and German was the international language in physics and chemistry. Albert Einstein lived and taught in Berlin. …show more content…
But it was much less an influence through American artists as through a perceived "American" way of life that seemed exceedingly modern to Weimar's artists and thinkers. The assembly line technique (developed in the American auto industry), the skyscraper, and styles of American mass consumption and advertisement seemed the epitome of modernity to Weimar artists. They adapted some American forms but often used them critically and creatively. In addition to the importance of American patterns, one can discern a strong influence of Russian modernism on Weimar culture. The posters, graphics, and architecture of the young Soviet Union to many Weimar artists seemed to represent the manifestations of a new and more humane