The Weimar Divide

Schneidemann on 09. November 1918

The Weimar Republic, born out the German Revolution in 1918, was unified Germany’s democratic republic from years 1919 to 1933, at which time Hitler rose to power.   Post World War I, Germany was a parliamentary system of government, but unrest grew in the people of Germany.  Throughout the history of the Weimar Republic, and even before its establishment, the people of Germany were divided, not only with each other, but with the governmental powers.  A revolution broke out: on the ninth of November 1918, Kaisar Wilhem II abdicated, and two separate parties laid claim to the German government. (198)  Philipp Schneidemann, member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, proclaimed the German Republic.  Just hours later and two kilometers away, leader of the communist-favoring and parliament- rejecting Spartacus League, Karl Liebknecht, proclaimed a Free Socialist Republic.  However, power was granted to leader of the SPD, Friedrich Ebert, albeit with questionable authority.  (201)  The leftists revolted; while the nation was united, the people revolted.  

Liebkneckt in December of 1918

1919 was a year of political transitions and in 1920, the supporters of the Republic, the SPD, couldn’t gain a majority in parliament.  The survival of the Republic depended on the support of their political, and the division continued into the 1920’s, where Weimar Culture was born.  The identity of the German people continued to be dichotomous.  Schulze mentions the notion of Weimar culture, otherwise heralded as a flourishing in the humanities and sciences, was nothing particularly original or even representative of then-modern German identity; rather, Schulze argues that the idea of Weimar culture was an exaggeration at odds with itself, obsessed with the avant-garde and pseudo-intellectualism while fighting that very image.  (220-221) While Schulze critically cites the few literary successes attributed to Weimar culture, he fails to mention the grossly influential accomplishments born out of inner strife.

Walter Gropius, Monument to the March Dead (1922)

The liberal viewpoints emerging in the early Weimar years were perhaps only continuations of those found pre-World War I.  Design and architecture were again an expression not only of political beliefs but of what it means to be German.  Bauhaus, a school of the fine arts and design, was famous for the modernism and expressionism they taught, as well as the philosophy behind them.  The founder of Bauhaus and German architect, Walter Gropius, was influenced by expressionism but contributed largely to the New Objectivity movement (also referred to as Neues Bauen), indicative of the shifting German views.   Perhaps in the rejection of “old” German art, while only in advent barely twenty years earlier, German artists latched onto the clean, practical, technologically-forward styles, especially seen in the architecture of Neues Bauen.  Not limited to practical forms of design, even one of forefathers of modern expressionism, Russian painter and co-founder of German expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter, Wassily Kandinsky, developed of shift in style away from the loose and soulful expressionism toward the careful, theory-heavy influences of constructivism, especially evident during his teaching years at Bauhaus.  The German identity was progressive, not just in the arts, but in technology.

Kandinsky, In Blue (1925)

Kandinsky, Autumn in Bavaria (1908)

Heisenberg and Bohr

The Weimar era was a landmark for scientific invention.  While economic crisis fueled tension between social classes, the Weimar Republic prospered in research of physics, psychology, mathematics, and dynamic systems.   While Schulze may be critical of the pseudo-intellectualism likely prevalent post-war, some of the most influential strides in quantum mechanics were made by German physicists, even in this time where many scholars looked to the past.  (222)  It is clear, however, that it’s the very nature German physicists to look ahead and challenge the status quo, which is exactly what Max Born, Pascual Jordan, Werner Heisenberg, Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Gustav Hertz, and many others accomplished.  While their discoveries will never be hidden, there were powers working to quench such progress, even within their own fields.  Soon a time would come where brilliant minds such as Born, Hertz, Einstein, James Franck, Wolfgang Pauli, and Fritz Haber would be outcast in their homelands as the anti-Semitic Nazi regime grew to power.  Fellow German physicist Johannes Stark, who along with Phillip Lenard supported Adolf Hitler in the Deutsche Physik, remarked against “Jewish physics.”  

Cover of "Deutsche Physik," a physics text written to reject "Jewish physics," i.e., all that Einstein proved.

Whether working toward a common goal or against a common enemy, whether simply bucking tradition or desiring progress, the German people could not, cannot, and will never be tied to one identity, for positive can’t exist without negative, and light without dark. The Weimar Republic was birthed out of the fall of the monarchy, and crumbled in the division of German thought.