„Schriftstellerischer“ Kampf gegen antipolnische Stereotype? Thomas Manns Interview für La Pologne Littéraire

In this article, an interview that Thomas Mann gave to the magazine La Pologne Littéraire in April 1927 is carefully analyzed in the context of Polish-German relations. At the time, the public opinion of the Weimar Republic was dominated by anti-Polish stereotypes. In the analyzed interview, Mann looks to show a different face of Poland, depicting it as a country with a rich cultural heritage that is insufficiently known in Germany. His fight against anti-Polish stereotypes would not yield any visible results but his article still remains an engaging testimony of Polish-German dialogue.

Hört zu!

Artikelbeginn:[English title and abstract below] Die Mediengeschichte zeigt, dass mit dem Aufkommen neuer Medien immer auch literarische Stoffe von ihnen aufgegriffen wurden, sei es in Form von traditionellen, neu erschienenen oder eigens für sie geschriebenen Texten. In Deutschland trifft diese Feststellung auch auf den Rundfunk zu, der flächendeckend ab 1923 in Form von dezentralen Rundfunkgesellschaften aufgebaut wurde (vgl. Halefeldt 1997), die ab 1924 ein Programm für Kinder und Jugendliche anboten. Hört zu! lautete der an sie gerichtete Aufruf. Listen!Children's and Youth Literature on the Radio during the Weimar Republic and the Era of National Socialism This article presents some results from a research project on German-language children‘s and young people‘s literature in the media network from 1900 to 1945, focussing on radio programmes, from 1924 on, that engaged with this literature. The sources of information about the programmes were radio magazines, which were only published until 1941 due to the constraints of the Second World War. In the initial phase, readings of fairy tales and legends dominated; from the early 1930s on, more and more fairy tale radio plays were produced. Punch and Judy radio plays by Liesel Simon, for instance, were broadcast regularly from 1926. Book recommendations aimed at parents and young people also played an important role as did readings by contemporary authors such as Felix Salten, Lisa Tetzner, Erich Kästner, Irmgard von Faber du Faur and Will Vesper. While the new political and social start with the Weimar Republic in 1918/1919 did not result in a caesura in the market for children’s literature, because authors who had been successful up to that point continued to be published, it did introduce several innovations, for which there was little room after Hitler came to power in 1933.

Dramaturgical, Theoretical, and Musical Associations between Max Brand’s Maschinist Hopkins and Alban Berg’s Operas

In the German-speaking countries during the morally uninhibited years of the Weimar Republic, the opposing cultural epochs of Expressionism and Neue Sachlichkeit dominated the aesthetic landscape. Opera was a central proponent of both movements, as implemented by the Expressionist practitioners and those who favored the subsequent topical and objectifying Zeitoper that sought to move away from representations of psychological distortion to depict social realism that emphasized mechanical technology and lighter, popular narrative themes. Max Brand’s famous Zeitoper, Maschinist Hopkins, will be analyzed to illustrate how it bore fundamental trace elements back to Alban Berg’s Expressionist opera Wozzeck, and likewise, how Hopkins in turn influenced Berg’s second opera Lulu, to constitute a linear association of narrative, music, and theatrical design that simultaneously conformed to and defied the operatic models that all three operas are historically associated with. It will also be suggested that both composers were consequentially influenced by Richard Wagner, promoting vestiges of an even older lineage, which contributed to this association between the three operas at a time when Wagner was less applicable to the trends of innovation and progress.

The Prussian Paradigm?

The very first Napolas which were founded at Potsdam, Plön, and Köslin, as well as those which were subsequently founded at Naumburg, Oranienstein, Bensberg, Berlin-Spandau, and Wahlstatt, were deliberately established on the premises of the former Prussian cadet schools, which had been refashioned as civilian ‘State Boarding Schools’ (Staatliche Bildungsanstalten/Stabilas) after World War I, in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles. To an extent, the NPEA authorities deliberately wanted to resurrect the tradition of the Royal Prussian Cadet Corps at the Napolas, but in a new, Nazified guise. This chapter explores the extent to which the former cadet-school Napolas retained or regained their militaristic Prussian spirit, and examines continuities between the Prussian cadet schools, the Stabilas, and the NPEA. It begins by chronicling the demise of the cadet schools and their resurrection as civilian state schools, more or less dedicated to upholding the Weimar Republic, during the aftermath of World War I. It then goes on to chart the rise of revanchist sentiment and the formation of illegal Hitler Youth cells at the Stabilas during the early 1930s, before analysing the process of Napolisation which took place in 1933–4 in greater detail. In conclusion, the chapter sites the Napolas’ Janus-faced attitude towards the cadet-school tradition within existing debates regarding the affinities (or otherwise) between Prussianism and National Socialism, and the degree of continuity which existed between the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich.

Inmitten des ‚Methodenkampfs‘. Literatursoziologie im Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturgeschichte (1925–1931) und Sachwörterbuch für Deutschkunde (1930)

The article examines the admission of ‘sociology of literature’ in the standard literary reference works of the Weimar Republic. In addition to handbooks, these include above all the Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturgeschichte and the Sachwörterbuch für Deutschkunde. The study examines how the method is understood, whom it is associated with, what examples are given, and what significance it had in the methodological discourse at the time.

Visualizing Disease and ‘Depravity’ in the Weimar Republic: The Film Roles and Dance Performances of Anita Berber and Otto Dix’s Bildnis der Tänzerin Anita Berber

During Germany’s Weimar Republic (1918–33), women who did not conform to conventional expectations for “proper” female behaviour were met with suspicion and criticism. Due to their embrace of sexual liberation and economic independence, interwar New Women were often unfairly associated with prostitutes and cultural degeneration. Anita Berber, a drug-addicted nude dancer and actress in multiple Aufklärungsfilme, was regarded as the embodiment of debauched modern womanhood. However, her persona intrigued Neue Sachlichkeit artist, Otto Dix, who enjoyed offending bourgeois sensibilities. Dix captured her likeness in the painting Bildnis der Tänzerin Anita Berber (1925) but altered her features to make her look aged and sickly. Amid growing bourgeois fears about postwar societal decay, Dix utilized Berber’s painted body to engage Weimar discourses about the threat of the sexually liberated Neue Frau, the pervasiveness of the so-called depravity of metropolitan life, and the fear of the loosening grip of patriarchal social control.

Marta Górnicka’s «Grundgesetz»: The Chorus as Portrait and Proxy of Political Community

This text analyzes the function of the chorus in Marta Górnicka’s open-air production Grundgesetz (Berlin, 2018) in redefining the political community of “the German people.” While examining its relation to the audience, the author refers to examples of German mass spectacles from the Weimar Republic that invested choruses to both represent a political community in the making and to shape political subjects through collective action. Based on aesthetic and political concepts of representation, which intertwine in the performance, the author shows how the chorus of Grundgesetz both portrays and enacts “the German people” as a plurality of bodies and voices united by fundamental rights. Making it thus an available community to stand for, the performance questions the agency of the audience as a collective body capable of acting together in public space.