The German Republic guaranteed freedom of expression, in stark contrast to the authoritarian rule of Kaiser Wilhelm. Life in Germany became freer. Arts and culture flourished. Attitudes toward sex and sexuality became more liberal.
And Berlin filled with new ideas and avant-garde art in a way no one had never been before. For a few years, from roughly 1925-1933, Germany’s capital was one of the most important, perhaps the most important, center of culture in the Western world.
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Playlist:
Fanfare
Opening Theme
“At the Jazz Band Ball”
Composed in 1917 by Nick LaRocca and Larry Shields. Public domain.
Performed by the Dixieland Jazz Ensemble of the United States Coast Guard Band. Public domain recording. Source.
String Quartet No. 2 in F# minor
Composed in 1908 by Arnold Schönberg. Public domain.
Performed by The Carmel String Quartet and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 license. Source.
Closing Theme
Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.
When you mentioned the Nosferatu, I was reminded of the movie Shadow of the Vampire about the producton of Nosferatu, starring John Malkovich as F. W. Murnau (the director) and Willem Dafoe as Max Shreck (Nosferatu). In this movie Willem Dafoe is a vampire and the director knows that he is.
Great stuff this week!
This episode felt like a real call-back to the early episodes on the art of the Belle Epoch. Degenerate Art deserves a full episode on the “degenerate artists” like Otto Dix, Paul Klee, and Piet Mondrian. The cultural output of these interwar years was astronomical.