Introduction

The interwar years of the Weimar Republic have a tendency to be overshadowed by the predominant events that bookend it within the narrative of the twentieth century. However, the Republics existence is both the product of, and precursor to, the wars of 1914 and 1939, and thus it ought to be acknowledged for all that it represents- the first trial of a democratic system since German unification in 1871 and a fourteen-year period that saw the emergence of a distinctive German culture. In 1886, Nietzsche expounded his belief that German culture had yet to find its day, he saw the newly established nation as lacking any common cultural traditions, having not yet asserted its own artistic identity.[1]It was within the context of the Weimar Republic that the German arts flourished, undergoing what is considered by some a cultural renaissance, although I argue the arts were not renewing ideas of a former time but rather establishing a distinctly German movementwith novel styles and new subject matter.[2]The 20thcentury German arts became distinguishable as the antithesis of 19thcentury European art movements, by removing art from the highbrow sphere it was formerly exclusive to and establishing a public platform from which it could critically engage with the society of its conception. I seek to harness Weimar art as a tool, with which to better understand the development of the German nation in the aftermath of war, and, as a perspective from which to view the turbulent years of the Republic. 

The Weimar years should be contextualised as a period of polarisation; polarised politically, not only between the opposing forces of fascism and communism, but simultaneously polarised by the internal divisions of the left. The early years of Weimar politics can be reduced to a clash of conflict between those who supported the democratic socialism of the SPD, and those who sought a more radical Bolshevist vision for the future of Germany. Society itself represented a polarised image of extreme poverty amidst excess and opulence, and the nationalistic rhetoric left over from the Great War opposed the lived memory of trauma and mortality. It was a period that experienced mass inflation and a stock market crash, both situated on either side of six ‘golden years’ of economic stability.[3]Despite the economic hyperinflation that lasted until 1923 the creative arts industry was able to flourish as people exploited the opportunity to spend their daily earnings immediately, living amidst the constant uncertainty of how the value of the German mark would fluctuate from one day to the next.[4]It was within this unstable environment that the arts found its inspiration. The pre-war years had already constituted a large shift away from the movements that had defined the fin de siècle, however the war gave these newly emerging styles a context from which to develop. I primarily use these early movements to contextualise how a cultural specific to Weimar society materialised. However, this initial shift from a pre-war to a post war moment is only one of two significant shifts I consider. The concluding focus will be an attempt to understand why, moving into the 1930s, the once continentally celebrated products of Weimar artists become subject to ridicule and censorship by the Nationalist Socialist government. 

The extent of cultural censorship under the Nazi government is widely documented. The book burnings that were held across Germany from 1932 have become a high profile and widely publicised example of cultural eradication under fascism. However, what sets art apart from other cultural mediums prohibited by the Nazis was that rather than being explicitly banned or destroyed, it was put on display nationwide. In 1937, the minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels assisted in designing the infamous Entartete Kunst exhibition that would tour cities across the country showcasing paintings, drawings and sculptures taken from the collections of prominent German artists of the previous two decades. The exhibited work was scorned and labelled as distinctly un-German, its contents of a ‘Jewish Bolshevik’ nature.[5]In a speech given at the exhibition’s opening, Hitler proclaimed the art to be product of the mentally ill.[6] Why the Nazi government felt the need to exemplify art, as though its existence represented a national threat, is something I seek to reveal. The immediate answer lies in the exhibition’s title: ‘Entartete Kunst’, which in its translation means ‘Degenerate Art’. The term had been borrowed from social critic Max Nordau who, in 1892, had related the production of certain styles of modern art to the moral decline of society. His infamous text Entartung (Degeneration)asserted that if artists were to produce work that is ‘absurd and anti- social, they (would) exert a disturbing and corrupting influence on the views of a whole generation’. [7]The exhibition’s title reflected the Nazi belief that modern art posed a threat to society. Unearthing exactly what constituted the ‘degenerate’ and the obscene within modern art is central to understanding the necessity of its condemnation. 

While the 1932 Entartete Kunst exhibition showcased a diverse variety of styles and mediums, the most critically acclaimed artists on display - including George Grosz, Otto Dix, and Max Beckmann - synonymised a style that depicted subjects of a decadent, dispassionate nature. Anna Russell described dispassionate art as portraying the subject with a ‘steely- eyed gaze’, in a way that is unsentimental and impassive.[8]Thus, art of dispassion becomes the subject of my inquiry. I must first address the fact that art as a means of historiography is always a subjective tool, as with all archives it can only speak for the feelings and opinions of the individual artist at the particular moment of its conception. It is also near impossible to collate sources to create a single comprehensive narrative of Weimar culture due to the fluctuation and change that occurred within the period.[9]However, a greater understanding of particular cultural moments can be gained through the common themes that emerged in the arts and the recorded intentions of individual artists. There are three major developments that I consider to be inextricably linked within the cultural products of the Weimar Republic; firstly, artists became motivated by their own political ideologies, art manifested itself as a means of furthering the objectives of its makers. Secondly, artists began to purposefully locate their subject matter in the war and its aftereffects, in particular the urban make-up of Germany in the post-war moment. Lastly, and most importantly, artists sought to displace art as a bourgeoisie luxury and make it accessible to all classes of German society. I am attempting to reveal how all of these developments contributed to the politicisation of art under the Republic and why this became problematic by the 1930s. Through this I seek to situate art within wider historiography.

While art remains the subject of inquiry, I understand that a more comprehensive understanding can be gained by employing primary material that directly relates to artistic objectives. For this reason, my research materials have primarily consisted of: diary entries, contemporary essays on art, the writings of Weimar intellectuals, and published manifestos. Manifesto writing became an integral tool in my investigation into dispassionate art as it was employed by art movements and political groups alike as a means of articulating objectives. Manifestos have also been used in conjunction with archives of public speeches, exhibition pamphlets, artists’ statements, and biographical records to gain a wider sense of artist’s intentions. Paintings, prints and other mediums will be employed, however, as I am more concerned with the politicisation of art they function more as reference points used to articulate common themes that reappear throughout the era. As aforementioned, the Weimar years were a period where artistic expression flourished, therefore there exists a vast pool of artists and art works that I could have chosen to reference. However, my focus is on those names I felt best encompassed the spirit of the age, including Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz and August Sanders, however other names that will emerge in the context of the wider picture. Particular attention has been paid to George Grosz and his explicitly political role in the formation of Berlin Dada. Alongside this, the movement New Objectivity play a significant role in understanding later developments in the arts. I have attempted to map key shifts that occurred in the early 20thcentury and create a roughly chronological structure with which to trace the emergence of particular art groups. 

A New Age for Art

In 1804 Benjamin Constant described the sentiment of ‘art for art’s sake, with no purpose, for any purpose perverts art. But art achieves a purpose which is not its own’[10], characterising the aesthetic movement that would dominate the European art scene of the fin de siècle. Aestheticism perpetuated the idea that art’s sole objective was to elevate its audience to higher aesthetic planes; similarly impressionism, which constituted another prominent movement in Europe before the turn of the century, found its subject matter in the aesthetic open air settings of nature and the relationship between shadow and light.[11]The works of Claude Monet and Henri Matisse (see fig. 1) can be referenced as characteristic of the impressionist art of the age. However, going into the twentieth century and particularly into the post war period, art underwent a large shift, which triggered developments in the German art scene. The initial shift, which occurred pre-war, was brought about by the birth of expressionism. Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) were the two prominent groups associated with the founding of this new expressionist movement in Germany, the former emerging in 1905 in Dresden and the latter in Munich in 1911.[12]These groups became the forerunners of the movements that would emerge in the post-war Weimar years, all of which shared a commitment to creating a distinctly new path for German Art. Die Brücke was particularly characteristic of the new wave of art movements in its use of manifesto. Manifesto writing would subsequently become important in both politicising and giving direction to the various art movements that emerged under the Weimar Republic. Die Brüke’s manifesto, written a year after the groups conception, and recorded in the form of a woodcut print (see fig. 2), was a call to arms for ‘a new generation of creators’ to obtain ‘freedom of movement and of life for ourselves in opposition to older, well established powers’.[13]Like the manifestos of other movements that came later, Die Brücke’s is rather ambiguous in its proposals, however their key aim for this new epoch in art history was to remove art from the strictures of impressionism and to seek ‘liberation from what they saw as the constraints and over-sophistication of culture’, thus allowing for more freedom of expression.[14]Die Brücke represented the beginnings of a German departure from the rules and a disregard for the details and realism implicit in impressionism. 

As aforementioned, these groups were only representative of a precursory shift, as many of the movements that followed in the aftermath of the war were not concerned with expressionism. However, it should be acknowledged that this pre-war moment paved the way for further development of the avant-garde in German art. Wilhelm Hausenstein in his contemporary essay ‘Art at this moment’, criticised the way expressionism had failed to live up to its revolutionary potential, however, he simultaneously recognised that in its birth ‘a peculiar reversal (had) obviously transpired’, a ‘reversal’ that might be understood as the displacement of art from the higher cultural sphere exclusive to the upper classes and into a more accessible public domain.[15]This displacement of art is something that will be gauged later in more detail, as it was a significant objective of several art groups in the 1920s, however, it might be worth acknowledging that this new generation of artists seeking to move away from the highbrow sentiments of 19thcentury impressionism and ‘art for art sake’, represents the beginnings of art taking a place within the political sphere. Art from the beginning of the twentieth century was gradually becoming a tool that sought to transcend class boundaries and engage with public discourse. 

The Post-War Shift

The Ancient Romans had related decadence to the fall of Empire, however, as a cultural movement decadence had originated in France and spread across Europe during the fin de siècle. In its simplest definition the term relates to a process of decline. In the aftermath of the Great War, which had taken the lives of just under two million and left close to four million with physical and psychological disability, German decadence found the most fertile soil of inspiration.[16]Artists who had served in the German army and seen the front line for themselves, in the aftermath of the war, began to retell their experiences through the mediums of painting, sketch and print. German historian George Mosse acknowledged that following conflicts where body counts reached unparalleled levels the figures of mortality become justified by what he describes as ‘the myth of war experience’.[17]Such myths perpetuated the idea that the fallen had chosen to sacrifice themselves for the cause of the nation and such sacrifice was the redeeming factor of the war. These glorified narratives were propagated through visions of ‘powerful masculinity’ recalled in the memoirs of ex-soldiers such as Ernst Jünger.[18]Decadent art became a counter-narrative, with artists such Otto Dix and Max Beckmann illustrating their own visual accounts of lived trauma. In 1924, Otto Dix released his portfolio entitled Der Krieg (The War), an amalgamation of images that capture every aspect of the suffering he witnessed first hand as a machine gunner on the front line. His monotone etches and prints reproduce various scenes of warfare from collapsed trenches to animal carcases and the discomfort of those living among the remains of the fallen. Perhaps the most critically acclaimed of his portfolio; Stumtrupper geht unter Gas vor (Storm Troopers Advancing under Gas) (see fig. 3) best reflects what Dix was attempting to reveal. The masked faces of the five soldiers can be said to represent the implicit disassociation in war between the human and the enemy. Dix’s print recreates the experience of the soldier under attack and the oppressive feeling of the opposition bearing down from every angle; it conveys an image antithetical to the hyper masculine glorification of nationalistic memoirs. Art in this sense not only provides a form of social commentary but broadens historical narratives of the experience of war. Its politicisation lies in its contention of the nationalistic rhetoric that glorified sacrifice. 

In the final year of the war, German neurologist and psychoanalyst Ernst Simmel published  an article entitled ‘War Neuroses and Psychic Trauma’ in which he described the victim of war neuroses as having a ‘fractured personality’.[19]For the first time, professionals in the field of psychology were diagnosing the psychological after effects that war trauma could have on the individual. Max Beckmann had worked as an orderly in the medical corps at the beginning of the war but was dismissed on account of suffering a nervous breakdown after one year of service. He was vocal in his desires to reconcile the ‘injuries of the soul’ that he had experienced in seeing the immediate victims of the frontline, a reconciliation he believed he could achieve through the creative process.[20]In Beckmann’s 1918 print Irrenhaus (Madhouse) (see fig. 4), Simmel’s description of the ‘fractured personality’ is visualised. The caricatured and disfigured faces of the crowd reveal a catalogue of human emotions, but all are synonymous with despair. The title of the piece itself is indicative of the vast number of those who were institutionalised as a result of war neurosis. Michael White in reference to the culture of the post-war years noted that ‘sociology and history have found the most ‘active’ generations to be located in moments of rupture and trauma’.[21]Artists such as Beckmann became ‘active’ in this historical moment by depicting the conditions that would later in decades come to be recognised as post traumatic stress disorder. In visualising something that was yet to be understood by the general public and placing it within the public sphere, Beckmann and Dix were able to engage in conversations about the very real consequences of war. Beckmann wrote that he desired ‘a rougher, commoner, more vulgar art… An art that can always be right there for us, in the realist things of life’.[22]Essentially this was what the decadent movement allowed for; the caricatured and grotesque aesthetic enabled the horrors of the war to be exaggerated and exposed to society.

In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Kaisers sudden abdication created a political vacuum in Germany. While a democratic Republic was shortly established by Friedrick Ebert’s Social Democratic Party (SDP), this was by no means an act in line with popular sentiment, and political upheaval plagued Germany in the initial months of the Republics existence. Those who had previously been active during expressionisms birth, recognised that in that moment Germany stood on the brink of a new political society and they sought to reconcile art with the emerging revolutionary sentiment.  Both the Novembergrupp (November group) (1918) and the Arbeitsrat für Kunst (Work Council for Art) (1919) represented two early art groups that united their artistic aims with the changing political climate. The Novembergrupp took its name from the month of the sailor’s insurrection in Kiel which transpired as a result of the authority’s inefficiency to quickly negotiate the wars end.[23]The incident marked the beginning of a wave of political unrest that concluded in 1919 and came to be termed the German Revolution. Novembergrupp co-founder Max Pechstein had previously been a member Die Brücke and extended the former groups use of manifesto to lay clear this post-war movement’s objectives. While the aims of the 1905 expressionist movement had been relatively abstract, the Novembergrupp boldly announced that they stood ‘on the fertile ground of the revolution’, its first manifesto proclaiming it the ‘highest duty’ of artists to devote their efforts to the ‘moral cultivation of a young free Germany’. [24]While they did not explicitly associate themselves with a political party or class, they sought to seize the revolutionary moment and bring all progressive art movements- ‘expressionists, cubists, futurists’- into association with one another, to collectively ensure art’s place within the new society.[25]Between 1919 and 1932 the group curated nearly forty exhibitions across Germany, which reflected an underlying aim to ‘introduce abstraction and surrealism to a broader audience fostering a new art market’ that was not limited to high-class art dealers. [26]The effort that was employed in bringing art into new spheres and exposing it to wider audiences outside of traditional class divisions, lends itself to the argument that artists were seeking to revolutionise art in conjunction with the political revolution and ensure its significance within the developing German nation. 

The Arbeitstrat für Kunst worked in close association with the Novembergruppe however it was less exclusive to the world of art and more all encompassing as an association including architects, sculptors and even writers. The group’s 1919 manifesto made it clear how modern art could both play a role in, and be liberated by the growth of socialism in Germany; ‘the political revolution must be used to liberate art from decades of regimentation’.[27]Their aim was more defined; to unite all branches of the arts into a resistance. They believed culture could be utilised as a tool of the people, proclaiming that art ‘shall no longer be the enjoyment of the few but the life and happiness of the masses’. The Arbeitstrat für Kunst similarly hoped that in the new post-war society, art would no longer be exclusive to the upper classes and as Katherine Rigby argued they ‘cherished the illusion that the proletariat, and the radical artists could unite to revolutionise Germany’.[28] The Arbeitstrat für Kunst’s manifesto detailed six preliminary demands, including: ‘the enlivenment of museums’ as distinctly ‘educational establishments’, the elimination of fees for exhibitions, the provision of state funds for arts and handicrafts and most importantly the creation of a national centre ‘to ensure the fostering of the arts within the framework of future law-making’. [29]These early groups make it evident that in the aftermath of the war, many felt that they were living in a moment of great significance and that there was a possibility to completely reimagine the structure of German society. Members of both organisations were committed to ensuring that the arts would be permitted its place within this society. While some artists- as it will be later discussed- turned their backs on expressionism, it continued to play a role within both of these movements, particularly The Novembergruppe. It is interesting to note the difference in contemporary opinion regarding expressionism’s influence in this post-war, revolutionary moment, while Hausenstein in 1919 had felt the movement had never lived up to its revolutionary potential, over a decade later in in 1931 Walter Benjamin wrote that ‘expressionism (had) exhibited the revolutionary gesture, the raised arm, the clenched fist in papier-mâché’.[30][31] These two groups were politicised in their various aims: to unite the arts, to bring them to a much wider audience and to align them with the emerging revolutionary sentiment.  

Dada and the Left

Dada, in its universal context, was an obscure and indefinable movement, that drew on the modernist themes of the pre-war avant-garde whilst simultaneously being a reaction to the conflict of its conception. The movement originated in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1916, where founders; Emmy Hennings and Hugo Ball manifested their Dadaist ideology through performance art at Cabaret Voltaire, a space they had designed specifically for that purpose.[32]Before attempting to define exactly what Dada represented, its interesting to note that the Zurich group was only active for a short period of two months, but the Dada philosophy, as quickly as it disbanded, spread as ‘a zeitgeist throughout the world’ with movements emerging in cities as far reaching as New York and Japan.[33]Dada in the next decade went on to express, through a multitude of mediums exactly what its ambitions were, however, even today, historians and artists alike struggle to capture the exact sentiments of Dada. Arguably the movements only real consistency lay in its continuous self contradictions; it was ‘inextricably tied to the eras’ chaos and beauty’.[34]Perhaps the most fundamental, statement Dada made was its demand for ‘the international, revolutionary unification of all creative and intellectual people of the entire world on the basis of radical communism’.[35]  The internationalism of Dada meant that it characterised something distinct and universal about the age of its conception, however, it simultaneously fragmented the movement as each branch became contingent with its individual location. Berlin Dada was one of the most politically charged organisations within the movement. The turbulent political situation in Germany allowed Berlin Dada to develop an urgency and direction that it had lacked in its Swiss conception. Berlin Dada aligned itself wholeheartedly with the communist plight of the early Weimar years. 

Dada was brought to Berlin, in the same year as its formation, by German writer Richard Huelsenbeck. However, it was not until 1918, shortly before the wars climax, that Dada Berlin formalised its objectives with the creation of the First German Dada Manifesto.Having previously been involved with Cabaret Voltaire, Huelsenbeck introduced the movement, in the spirit of Dadaist performance art, with a carefully scripted speech that was then reissued in print 1920. The manifesto situated art explicitly within its social context by declaring artists ‘creatures of their epoch’. Continuing, Huelsenbeck proclaimed that only ‘the highest art will be one in which the thousandfold issues of the day are revealed in its consciousness’. In a complete reversal of the principles of 19thcentury aestheticism, which detached itself from any didactic purpose, Berlin Dada declared art an explicit vehicle for political expression. Huelsenbeck, professed the dawn of a ‘new art’ which, once brought to life would lead in turn to a social awakening. Dada Berlin, he believed, would be the counter-culture of the socialist revolution, ‘the international expression of the times, the great rebellion of artistic movements, the artistic reflex of all these offensives, peace congresses, riots in the vegetable market, suppers at the esplanade’.[36]Huelsenbeck, achknowledged- as The Novemebergruppe had - that following Germany’s imminent military defeat the country would be made to face up to questions regarding the political structure of society. The speech is anticipatory of a socialist revolt, and with the 1917 Russian Revolution as its model, Dada pre-empted that such events would entail violence and civil discord. The manifesto proclaimed Dada the illustrator of the revolution, it aimed to project through art the sentiments of the revolutionaries and to visualise the events as they unfolded. What distinguished Berlin Dada from its global counterparts was the political direction it asserted. While its corresponding movements manifested a chaotic nihilism, proclaiming; ‘no more Bolsheviks, no more politicians… no more anything’, Huelsenbecks’ political objectives were clear. [37]

The Spartacist uprising that took place in Berlin in January of 1919 was a defining moment of Dada’s history and was inextricably linked to the growth of Dadaist politics in the 1920s. Eve Katsouraki described it as a ‘catalyst’ that assured Dada’s commitment to the unification of politics and art.[38]However, it can also be described as a ‘catalyst’ that led artists outside of the movement to engage with the tense political climate in Germany at this time. The Spartacist uprising was a pivotal defeat in the German Revolution, that transpired as a result of  the Spartacus Leagues’ attempts to assert control over the nations political destiny and create a utopian socialist state.[39]Germany in this moment was a ‘society in transition’, the post-war political vacuum had been filled by the Council of Peoples’ Representatives- a coalition government composed of the SPD and the USPD- which had appointed itself the task of creating, via public election, a National assembly which would then formulate a new parliamentary constitution.[40][41]Crucially, its only real political legitimacy during this transitional stage lay its military backing by General of the Army Wilhelm Groener. Military backing was provided on the condition that the SPD would supress the Spartacists attempts to establish a political monopoly. Scott McCracken critically described the January revolt, which saw a seven-day period of unrest and violence in the streets of Berlin, as a ‘delusional dream’ that had hindered efforts towards post-war national recovery.[42]However, in the eyes of the revolutionaries Germany stood on the brink of a communist society, and thus insurrection was worth the cost.

Count Harry Kessler’s contemporary day-by-day account of the insurrection as it unfolded is recorded in The Diaries of a Cosmopolitan, and draws vital links between the Spartacist revolt and the involvement of the Dadaists. His entry from the 5thof January- the first day of the upheaval- captures the tense atmosphere on the streets of Berlin;

‘Today history is in the making and the issue is not only whether Germany shall continue to exist in the shape of the Reich or the democratic Republic, but whether East or West, war or peace, an exhilarating vision of Utopia or the humdrum everyday world shall have the upper hand. Not since the great days of the French Revolution has humanity depended so much on the outcome of street-fighting in a single city.’ [43]

In his likening of the situation to forgone moments of political upheaval he captures the feelings of uncertainty that those on either side of the conflict, as well as the rest of the population felt in regards to Germany’s future. And yet, amidst the days of conflict, he states his belief that the uprising will merely be the ‘birth-pangs’ of an age that will not arrive.[44]An important factor he attributes to the failings of the German Revolution is the lack of stimulating ideological content from German Intellectuals, he argues that neither Nietzsche nor Schopenhauer have provided the people with anything akin to the ‘Marxist fertility of imagination’.[45]In an era where people could no longer be moved to action by the writings of their contemporaries, the Dadaists saw art as a new means of cultivating and inspiring the German masses.  Kessler, as a patron of the modern arts, had personal associations with several Dada members. His diary accounts in the days following the revolt record his encounters with two of Dadas’ members; Wieland Herzfelde and George Grosz. Upon seeing a series of caricatured sketches by Grosz entitled ‘The Handsome German Male’ (see fig.5) Kessler described Dadaist work as having an ‘Astrophanic’ quality, pertaining to the ancient Greek dramatist Aristophanes, whose plays were markedly comedic.[46]The satire and exaggeration of Dada was one element that distinguished it as something new in the art world. In an age where philosophy and intellectual thought had, in the eyes of some, stagnated, their aim was to ‘let in a little fresh air and and smooth the way for fresh ideas’.[47]The word Dada itself reflects an almost childlike quality which it emulates in its satirical content.  Historian Brigid Doherty linked the infantile nature of the movements name with a quality of feeling stuck in the rifts of time, and trying to make sense of that which is completely new, an age which has no prior point of comparison.[48]In a sense that is exactly what the transitional stage of 1919 represented; a new platform from which to redefine the German nation. 

George Grosz remains one of the most prominent figures of the Weimar period, not only for his active participation in both Dada and subsequently New Objectivity- a movement that will come to be discussed - but also for the way his work is still used to epitomise Weimar decadence as a whole. Count Harry Kessler labelled him ‘a Bolshevist in the guise of a painter’ and thus he is central to understanding how art became a façade with which artists could assert their own ideologies.[49]Like Otto Dix, Grosz had been a conscript in the German army, and had taken his experiences of the front line - and subsequent time spent in hospital as a sufferer of war neurosis - and employed it to capture ‘everything that was laughable and grotesque’ about the war.[50]His style was effective in articulating the political chaos and poverty that plagued Germany in the post war years, and much of his work was overtly opposed to the actions of the military. His 1919 lithographic print The Communists fall and Foreign Exchange Rises (Blood is the Best Sauce) (see fig. 6) employs simplistic line drawing to reveal the unjust polarity of the Revolutionary situation. The scenes of street fighting and brutality are placed in stark opposition to the wealth and excess enjoyed by those military officers and politicians who turned turned a blind eye towards the revolutionary bloodshed occurring at the hands of the Friekorps.[51]His art in this early period of the Weimar Republic was a form of activism, that revealed a dislocation between German society and the actions of the SPD’s government. As Martin Kane described; the publicity that his cartoons drew toward the atrocities of the military made him ‘a thorn in the side of the Weimar authorities’.[52]The overtly political nature of Grosz and Berlin Dada’s work led them to be prosecuted on multiple occasions for military blasphemy, the most famous example in the case of Grosz being his 1928 cartoon ‘Christ in a Gas Mask’ (see fig. 7) the controversial image was captioned ‘keep your mouth shut and do your duty’ and despite the outrage it incited, Grosz defended his accused blasphemy as symbolic of an age that had turned away from traditional Christian values in favour of militarism and nationalistic rhetoric. [53]

In December of 1918 Grosz became a founding member of the Communist party, which was formed out of the remains of the Spartacus league. It was from this point that his art became directly aligned with a political party as he was commissioned to create satirical cartoons for the KPD’s newspaper which appeared publically in 1923.[54]However, even earlier than this Grosz and Dada had been using media publications as an explicitly political tool. The magazine ‘Die Pliete’ which began in 1919 and was co-created by Grosz, Wieland Herzfelde and John Heartfield was an expose of the callousness of the German state.[55]A sketch by Grosz taken from the cover of the April 1919 (see fig. 8) issue plays on the events of the Spartacist Uprising and the brutal suppression of the revolutionaries. The caption reads; ‘Cheers Noske! The proletariat has been disarmed/ The young revolution is dead’, accompanying the decadent image of a soldier rejoicing amongst the scattered corpses of the revolutionaries. It might be said of Grosz, as shown in the aforementioned sketch, that the simplicity of his style reflected the childlike symbolism of Dada, but he despoiled this childishness with the decadence of its content. Part of the effectiveness of Dada lay in its shock factor, however, they members were also efficient in their use of periodicals to showcase their art, not only did it enable them to broadcast their message to a larger audience but the accessibility of a magazine was in itself a protest against the exclusiveness of the art gallery. While some, such as Gertrud Alexander, critiqued Dada as a bourgeoisie movement that diverted the attention of proletariat away from ‘the everyday realities of their harsh lives to high, abstract ideals’[56], I believe, as the Dadaists themselves asserted, that they were creating a new purpose for art. Grosz argued it was ‘an organic productwhich arose as a reaction to the tendency of so-called sacred art to wander in the clouds, with its adherents musing on cubes and gothic while military leaders painted in blood’.[57]They saw themselves as the creators of a movement that was culturally distinct to the working class struggle.Grosz felt that this was the task of all artists alike, he asked of all in his field; ‘do you make any effort to experience and grasp the sphere of ideas of the proletarians and to set them against the exploiters and oppressors?’.[58]It cannot be said of Grosz that he spoke for every sector of Berlin society, but rather he was an activist representing the opinions of the far left.  Most importantly his work and the subsequent criticism it received reveals something of the polarised nature of political opinion and the extent of class tension during the Weimar years.    

New Objectivity and German Society

In their 1925 essay Art is in Danger,George Grosz and Wieland Herzfelde arguedthat ‘the meaning, nature and history of art (is) directly related to the meaning, nature and history of society’.[59]While Grosz and Herzfelde were situating this claim within their own revolutionary objectives, there were other Weimar art movements that embodied this in a more covert political manner. Moving into the post-revolutionary moment, artists of the 1920s began to take inspiration from urban settings and create art that mirrored the scenes of the everyday; the primary movement of this period being Neue Sachlichkeit or New Objectivity. The origins of New Objectivity lay in Franz Roh’s conception of ‘magic realism’ in 1920, which related to an artistic turn, away from the themes of Romantic idealism and a relocation of subject matter in daily life.[60]While realism had been a movement of the 19thcentury, Roh’s term involved a distinct dislocation between the artist and the subject, a detachment that John Willet described as having a ‘stillness’ which was absent in previous expressions of realism.[61]The artists of New Objectivity created their work with this same dispassionate outlook. The movements creator and German art historian, Gustav Freidrich Hartlaub had dubbed New Objectivity a form of ‘post-expressionism’ which had moved away from emotional subjectivity to objectively to draw with a coldness and indifference that mirrored the atmosphere within Weimar Society.[62] Historian Dennis Crocket acknowledged that New Objectivity was merely a culturally accepted translation of the original name and that ‘sachlichkeit’ could refer to a ‘matter-of-factness’ and an ‘impartiality’.[63]While Dada had been impassioned by the plight of the working class during the revolution, New Objectivity detached itself from any emotional sentiments and sought to depict German life exactly as it was. Art, as with most cultural mediums, is traditionally associated with subjectivity: an interpretation of the subject through the eyes of the artist, New Objectivity sought to overcome this. 

Unlike Dada and The Novembergruppe, New Objectivity did not express its objectives within a written manifesto and thus cannot be formalised as a historical source in this way. Rather New Objectivity had emerged from an exhibition in 1925, which had showcased artists that Hartlaub considered to be working within the ‘post expressionist spirit’.[64]The artists on show included; George Grosz, Max Beckmann, Otto Dix , Rudolph Schlichter and many others. All had differing styles, however all shared a ‘mode of seeing that was rooted in a common rejection of expressionism’, essentially a rejection of subjectivity and emotion.[65]If we are to consider the intentions of New Objectivity, then pieces from the exhibition can be employed, in conjunction with existing knowledge of life under the Weimar Republic, to create a finer picture of urban settings and lived existence. Anna Russell listed the subject matter of New Objectivity as including: ‘factory buildings, prostitutes, exotic plants and children’, all taken from the everyday reality of city life.[66]A large part of the work exhibited, inadvertently revealed, through these commonplace scenes, the extent of social inequality and the polarity that defined the Weimar Years. A point I am inclined to make here is that whether they succeeded in being entirely objective is a matter of opinion, however, what can be said with certainty is that New Objectivity’s projection of a corrupt and immoral society, was a political act in itself.  

By 1918 the heavy reliance on loans which had been used to fund the war, had devastated the German economy and led to the rapid devaluation of the Papiermark. The post-war solutions of extended borrowing, in conjunction with reparations demanded by the Treaty of Versailles exacerbated the crisis, leading to a state of hyperinflation that’s effects lasted throughout the 1920s. By 1923 the German mark stood at 4, 200, 000, 000 to the dollar but more significantly the human cost of the crisis was immeasurable.[67]Friedrick Kroner in his contemporary memoir ‘overwrought nerves’ related his experience of the period: ‘it pounds daily on the nerves: the insanity of numbers, the uncertain future, today, and tomorrow become doubtful once more overnight’.[68]This day-to-day insecurity led many to spend their earnings immediately which in turn led to a surge in the growth of the entertainment industry. People sought immediate forms of satisfaction in the place of a stable economic existence. Otto Dix’s 1922 oil painting An Die Schönheit(To Beauty) (see fig. 9) which had been showcased in Hartlaub’s exhibition captures the opulence that juxtaposed the desperation. The painting contains a variety of motifs synonymous with the opulent culture of the Weimar Years including; the jazz band, the brothel and the prostitute. Such scenes recurred throughout the exhibition, including within George Grosz’s oil painting Suicide (see fig. 9), where the fallen body and pervading use of red creates an apocalyptic feeling amidst the urban landscape. Suicide in itself was another common theme of degenerate art, Detlev Peukert in his study on the crisis society of the early Weimar Republic argued that increased suicide statistics related directly to a ‘helpless state of mind’ that had been born out of the economic crisis.[69]Artists did not shy away from the reality of the situation, they depicted death and morality as a symptom of both the war and the wars aftermath. 

In 1931 Hans Ostwald recollected his own memories of life during the climate of hyperinflation, recalling a conflicting image of ‘agonising hunger and gluttonous feasts, sudden impoverishment and rapid enrichment, debauched, maniacal dancing…gambling passion, speculation frenzy, women’s independence’. [70]Histories of emotion become central to drawing parallels between the visions of Weimar society shown in the art of New Objectivity and the records of lived experience. Ostwald’s mention of women’s independence is another motif central to the decadent art of New Objectivity. Involvement in the war and the advent of the democratic Republic had redefined the position women held within society. The growth of the entertainment industry amidst the economic crisis also meant that professions such as prostitution became a viable means of making quick money, as Ostwald noted ‘post-war eroticism was nourished by the insecurities of life’.[71]The figure of the liberated woman within its historical context was perhaps the most controversial symbol of a society in decline. During the 19thcentury Nietzsche had written extensively on the subject of decadence; his thinking was significant because he saw the aesthetics of decadence as symptomatic of biological degeneration. An inseparable characteristic of decadence for Nietzsche was hedonism, which characterised the individual who solely pursued pleasure and indulgence.[72]As aforementioned, the instability of the economic situation drove many to embody these hedonistic values; Friedrich Kroner had noted in his contemporary account that the situation led many to abandon ethical values in the struggle to live day to day.[73]While Nietzsche had countless theories surrounding decadence, Bernheimer reduced his thinking to the argument that ‘decadence for Nietzsche (was) a woman’.[74]The figure of the prostitute was reimagined endlessly by artists of the age and in many cases she became inextricably linked with the loss of morality. Rudolf Schlichter’s The Artist with Two Hanged Women (see fig. 10) is characteristic of these depictions, in some ways it can be said to relate to the danger women faced in an urban environment where ethics had taken a back seat. In other ways the painting characterises the resentment that many felt towards the new German woman, as her liberation symbolised debauchery and the decline of the traditional family structure. By the 1930s the liberated female would become the adversary of the Nazi woman whose existence centred around kinder, küche and Kirche.[75]  

In July 2018, the Tate Modern in London showcased an exhibition titled ‘Magic Realism: Art in Weimar Germany 1919-1933’, which explored a cross section of art styles that fell within the Franz Roh’s movement. A peculiar theme that remerged throughout the exhibit was that of the circus. In 1922 Otto Dix had curated a whole series of sketches that centred around the theme, aptly titled Circus (see fig.11 for example). The circus was a significant feature of Weimar decadence as it represented a site of ‘wonder, exoticism and permissiveness’.[76]For some the circus was a microcosm of the urban make-up of the new Republic. Katherine Tubb argued that the ‘unanchorable’ nature of the travelling company related to the unstable environment of the post-war nation and the absence of any definitive national identity.[77]Within decadent art the circus reflected the chaos of a turbulent period. The absence of any national spirit and the ‘apparent collapse of all values’ had resulted in a fragmented population of outsiders, which related to the estranged figures of the travelling company.[78]

In 1929, portrait photographer, August Sander attempted to capture the diversity of the Weimar population through his photo series Face of Our Time. The portraits captured individuals from all sectors and social classes of German society, including The Bricklayer, The Coal Carrier and Disabled Ex-Serviceman (see figs. 12, 13 & 14). All three of the portraits capture real faces from the streets of Berlin and all three were subsequently censored by the Nazis. The reason behind the censorship of Sander’s work lay in physiognomy: the idea that an individuals facial features can determine their character. Physiognomy was employed by the Nazis as a means of rationalising the implementation of laws that sought to racially cleanse the German nation throughout the 1930’s and 1940’s.[79]What made Sander’s portraits and and other artistic depictions of the German nation in this after-war period so problematic was that they revealed a vulnerability and weakness within the German race that was not in accordance with Nazi ideas. Sander had proclaimed to ‘tell the truth about (his) age and its people’, in the same spirit of New Objectivity, his portraits revealed faces of disability, poverty and despair, he uncovered all that was symptomatic of the post-war moment, and in turn publicised a German society in decline.[80]

Conclusion

Nietzsche had foreseen an age where the German people would find ‘their today’, and would establish a unified national culture that paralleled the accomplishments of other European nations.[81]Despite the importance of this period in the development of the modern German arts, it is not hard to imagine that Nietzsche would have renounced the decadent cultural products of Weimar, in the same way the Nazis had regarded such art as the symptom of a degenerate society. What New Objectivity had captured and Dada had caricatured, was the essence of all that was to be seen by the 1930s as distinctly un-German. At the centre of Hitler’s nationalistic vision stood the idea that the Germanic race was inherently superior to all others; Weimar art movements were an inherent contradiction of this idea. The works of art that toured the country in the 1937 Entartete Kunst exhibition were evidence of people marked by war loss, disability, social disparity, and economic inefficiency. It was not enough to merely deny the existence of the art, it had to be exemplified and ridiculed. The Nazis adopted Nordau’s aforementioned theory that modern art exerted a corrupting influence on society in order to counter the idea that dispassionate art held any truths about society. In one of the exhibition halls titled ‘Madness becomes method’ modernist paintings were likened to works created by institutionalised mental patients. Weimar art was reconfigured as the cause of, rather than the symptom of, social decline.[82]

I originally stated that the most important development in the arts of the early 20thcentury was its displacement from a highbrow position of exclusivity into public life. With around 20,000 people in attendance every day, the Entartete Kunst exhibition served to show how art, by the 1930s, had become accessible to all.[83]While the politically charged content of Dada sought to defend the cause of the working classes, had they never circulated their content and showcased it within the accessible format of the periodical, Dadaist art would never have served its purpose. Similarly, the early efforts of groups such as Die Brücke, the Novembergruppe and the Arbeitstrat für Kunst were examples of real socialist change in the sense that, by the 1930’s, the accessibility of culture was no longer dependant on income. It seems there is an inherent contradiction in claiming ‘art of dispassion’ to be simultaneously political, however there was a brutality inherent in dispassionate art that made it political. While New Objectivity had claimed an emotional detachment from its subject matter, the objective portrayal of the urban environment exposed the harsh conditions of German life under the Republic. In the contemporary moment Karl Mannheim had argued that in future years Weimar would come to be regarded as a ‘Periclean age’ (a term he had borrowed from Ernst Bloch), of cultural prosperity.[84]Inarguably the Republic had experienced immeasurable levels of growth in culture and the arts, but far from reviving the themes of a former age, Weimar artists found their subjects in their own contemporary moment and revolutionised German art by integrating it within the sphere of politics.

[1]Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, ‘Peoples and Fatherlands’, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, Oxford University Press, 2008, 132.

[2]The notion of a Weimar cultural renaissance reoccurs within wider historiography. 

[3]Period 1924-1929 dubbed the ‘golden years’. 

[4]Information taken from Friedrich Kroner, ‘Overwrought Nerves’, in The Weimar Republic Source Book, ed. Dimenberg, Edward. Kaes, Anton. Jay, Martin. University of California Press, 1994

[5]Olaf Peters, ‘Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany’, 1937, editor of compilation; Bernhard Fulda contributer; Neue Galerie, New York, Prestel 2014, 20.

[6]Information taken from, Peters, ‘Degenerate Art’, 30.

[7]Max Nordau, Entartung, 1892, 4.

[8]Anna Russell, ‘The Art of Dispassion During the Weimar Republic; New Lacma exhibit will look at German art that emerged during the turbulent years before WWII’, Wall street Journal, Easter edition; New York, N.Y. 05 Sep 2015: C.14., 1.

[9]Information taken from,‘Preface’, The Weimar Republic Source Book.

[10]Benjamin Constant, 1767-1834 diary, 11thFebruary 1804.

[11]Information taken from Phoebe Pool, Impressionism, Thames and Hudson, London, 1967.

[12]Information taken from, Barry Herbert, German Expressionism Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter, Jupiter Book, 1983.

[13]Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig,Programm der Künstlergruppe Brücke, 1906, woodcut, Künstlergrupper Brücke, Dresdon

[14]Colin Rhodes, Die Brücke. Dresdon, the Burlington Magazine 2002.

[15]Wilhelm Hausenstein, ‘Art at this Moment’, in The Weimar Republic Source Book, 479.

[16]Statistics taken from The Weimar Republic Source Book, 5.

[17]Michael White, Generation Dada: The Berlin Avant-Garde and the First World War, Yale University Press, 2013, 20.

[18]Ernst Jünger, ‘Fire’, in The Weimar Republic Source Book, 18. 

[19]Ernst Simmel, ‘War Neuroses and ‘Psychic Trauma’, in The Weimar Republic Source, 7.

[20]Max Beckmann quoted within, Peter Selz, Max Beckmann, Abbeville Press, 1996,21.

[21]White, Generation Dada: The Berlin Avant-Garde and the First World, 16.

[22]Max Beckmann, Self Portrait in words: Collected Writings and Statements, 1903- 50, University of Chicago Press, 1999, Saturday, January 9, 19190, 98.

[23]Information taken from Ruth Henig, The Weimar Republic 1919-1933, Taylor and Francis Ltd. 1998.

[24]‘November Group Manifesto’, in The Weimar Republic Source Book, 477.

[25]‘November Group Circular’, in The Weimar Republic Source Book, 477.

[26]Reine Blixer, & Eva Eicker, ‘The Full Avant- Garde: The November Group Exhibition’,Exberliner, November 2018.

[27]‘Work Council for Art Manifesto’, in The Weimar Republic Source Book, 478.

[28]Katherine Rigby, ‘German Expressionist Political Posters 1918-1919: Art and Politics, a Failed Alliance’, Art Journal Vol. 44, No.1, Spring 1984, 35.

[29]‘Work Council for Art Manifesto’, in The Weimar Republic Source Book, 478.

[30]Hausenstein, ‘Art at this Moment’, in The Weimar Republic Source Book, 479.

[31]Walter Benjamin,Left Wing Melancholy, in The Weimar Republic Source Book, 305.

[32]Information taken from, Leah Dickerman & Brigid Doherty, Dada: Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, New York, Paris, National Gallery of Art, 2005.

[33]‘Dada Art Movement History – “Dadaon Tour”’, YouTube video, 27:22, ‘Bruno Art Group’, 14 Feb 2016, 1:27.

[34]Michael White, Generation Dada: The Berlin Avant-Garde and the First World, 16

[35]Eve Katsouraki, Violating Failures: Rosa Luxemburgs SpartacusManifesto and Dada Berlin Anti-manifestation’. Somatechnics, Edinburgh University Press, 2013, 54.

[36]All quotes from, Huelsenbeck, Richard, Dada Manifesto 1918. German History in Documents and Images; Volume 6. Weimar Gemrany 1918/19-1933.

[37]Tristan Tzara’s ‘Twenty-Three manifestos of the Dada movement’, March 1918, Paris

[38]Katsouraki, Violating Failures, 51.

[39]The Spartacus league had been co-founded in Germany in 1914 by Marxist thinkers Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. The revolutionary movement was originally founded as an oppositional force against the SPD’s decision to vote in the Reichstag in favour of the war. 

[40]Henig, The Weimar Republic 1919-1933, 4.

[41]Information taken from Henig, The Weimar Republic 1919-1933.

[42]Scott McCracken, ‘The Mood of Defeat’,New Formations vol. 82, 2014.

[43]Harry Kessler, The Diaries of a Cosmopolitan: Count Harry Kessler 1918-1937. Weidenfeld, London, 1971, 5thJanuary 1919, 53.

[44]Kessler, The Diaries of a Cosmopolitan, 14thJanuary 1919, 57.

[45]Kessler, The Diaries of a Cosmopolitan, 155hJanuary 1919, 58.

[46]Kessler, The Diaries of a Cosmopolitan, 28thJanuary 1919, 63.

[47]Kessler, The Diaries of a Cosmopolitan, 28thJanuary 1919, 63.

[48]Brigid Doherty, ‘The Work of Art and the Problem of Politics in Berlin Dada’.October, No.105, 2003.

[49]Kessler, The Diaries of a Cosmopolitan, 5thFebruary 1919, 64.

[50]Felixmüller Conrad, ‘Military Hospital Orderly Felixmüler’, German Expressionism: Documents from the End of the Wilhelmine Empire to the Rise of National Socialism, ed. Barron, Stephanie. Long, Rose-Carol Washton. Rigby Ida Katherine. Roth, Nancy. University of California Press, 1995, 168.

[51]The Friekorps were veterans who, following the wars end, had remained mobilised under government instruction to supress communist revolts. 

[52]Martin Kane, Weimar Germany and the Limits of Political Art; A study of the Work of George Grosz and Ernst Toller, Hutton Press Ltd; First Edition, 1987,45

[53]Goggin, Mary- Margaret, ‘Decent’ vs. ‘Degenerate’ Art: The National Socialist Case Source: Art Journal, Vol. 50, No. 4, Censorship II (Winter, 1991), pp. 84-92 Published by: CAA, 1.

[54]Information taken from:Martin Kane, Weimar Germany and the Limits of Political Art, 3.

[55]Martin Kane, Weimar Germany and the Limits of Political Art, 32.

[56]Kane, Weimar Germany and the Limits of Political Art, 46.

[57]George Grosz, A little Yes, translated within Martin Kane, Weimar Germany and the Limits of Political Art, 32

[58]Grosz, A little Yes, translated within Martin Kane, Weimar Germany and the Limits of Political Art, 31.

[59]George Grosz & Wieland Herzfelde, Art is in Danger, 1925, trans. Gabriele Bennet, in Lucy Lippard, Dadas on Art, New Jersey, 1971, quoted in Harrison, C. & Wood, ibid, 450

[60]Franz Roh, Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community.Trans.Wendy B.Faris & Lois Parkinson Zamora Duke University Press, 1995. 

[61]John Willet,The Weimar Years, A Culture Cut Short, Thames and Hudson Ltd; New Ed edition, 1987, 148

[62]Dennis Crockett, German Post-Expressionism: The Art of Great Disorder 1918-1924, Pennsylvania State U.P. 1999, 148.

[63]Dennis Crockett, German Post-Expressionism: The Art of Great Disorder, 205.

[64]Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, Neue Sachlichkeit, Mannheim, 1925

[65]Dennis Crockett, German Post-Expressionism: The Art of Great Disorder, 1.

[66]Anna Russell, ‘The Art of Dispassion During the Weimar Republic’, 1

[67]Information taken from,The Weimar Republic Source Book, 60.

[68]Friedrich Kroner, ‘Overwrought Nerves’, in The Weimar Republic Source Book, 63.

[69]Moritz Föllmer, ‘Suicide and Crisis in Weimar Berlin’, University of Leeds, 2009, 195.  

[70]Hans Ostwald, ‘A Moral Hisotry of the Inflation’, in The Weimar Republic Source, 77.

[71]Ostwald, ‘A Moral Hisotry of the Inflation’, in The Weimar Republic Source, 78.

[72]George de Huszar, Nietzsche’s Theory of Decadence and the Transvaluation of all values, Journal of the History of Ideas, 6(1/4):259, 1945, 261

[73]Friedrich Kroner, ‘Overwrought Nerves’, in The Weimar Republic Source Book, 63.

[74] Charles Bernheimer, Decadent Subjects: The Idea of Decadence in Art, Literature, Philosophy, and culture of the Fin de Siècle in Europe. JHU Press, 2002, 20

[75]Slogan employed by the Nazi party as part of their policy to encourage population growth and promote a return to traditional family structures.

[76]Katherine Tubb, ‘Face to Face? An Ethical Encounter with Germany’s Dark Strangers in August Sander’s People of the Twentieth Century’.Tate Papers, no.19, Spring 2013

[77]Tubb, Face to Face? An Ethical Encounter with Germany’s Dark Strangers’

[78]Ostwald, ‘A Moral Hisotry of the Inflation’, inThe Weimar Republic Source, 78.

[79]Eric Ehrenreich, The Nazi Ancestral Proof, Genealogy, Racial Science, and the Final Solution, Indiana University Press, 2007.

[80]Andy Jones, ‘Reading August Sander’s Archive’ Oxford Art Journal, vol.23, 2000, 3.

[81]Nietzsche, ‘Peoples and Fatherlands’, Beyond Good and Evil, 132

[82]Ariela Freedman, ‘Charlotte Salomon, Degenerate Art and Modernism as Resistance’. Journal of Modern Literature Vol. 41. No. 1, Indiana University Press, 2017, 14

[83]Information taken from:Ariela Freedman, ‘Charlotte Salomon, Degenerate Art and Modernism as Resistance’, 7

[84]Peter Gay, Weimar Culture, The Outside as Insider, 1968, W.W. Norton & Company, xiv