Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Reinhardt
continued to dominate Berlin theatre, as he'd done since taking over at the
Deutsches heater in 1905.
Erwin Piscator
moved from propaganda into mainstream
theatre at the heater am Nollendorfplatz, without losing his innovative edge, and in
1928
Bertolt Brecht
's
Dreigroschen Oper
(“hreepenny Opera”) was staged for the first
time. Appropriately, Berlin also became a centre for the very newest of the arts.
Between the wars the
UFA film studios
(see p.173) at Babelsberg was the biggest in
Europe, producing legendary films like
Fritz
Lang
's
Metropolis
,
he Cabinet of Doctor
Caligari
and
he Blue Angel
(starring Berlin-born
Marlene Dietrich
).
Middle- and lowbrow tastes were catered for by endless all-singing, all-dancing
musicals
, featuring platoons of women in various states of undress. his was also the
heyday of the Berlin
cabaret
scene, when some of its most acidic exponents were at work.
Political extremism and the Nazis
With inflation under control, Germany returned to relative
political stability
. he
1924 elections demonstrated increased support for centre-right and republican
parties. When President Ebert died (February 28, 1925) and was succeeded by the
former commander of the Imperial army,
General Field Marshal von Hindenburg
,
monarchists and conservatives rejoiced. Nevertheless, it was now that the extreme
right, particularly the
National Socialist German Workers' Party
(NSDAP), or Nazis,
began gradually gaining ground, starting in Bavaria.
Germany's late-1920s economic upsurge would last only until the
Wall Street Crash
in October 1929. hat suddenly ended all American credit and wiped out Germany's
economic stability. he poverty of the immediate postwar period returned with a
vengeance. Everyone suffered: hyperinflation wiped out middle-class savings, and by
1932 there were six million unemployed. Increasingly people sought radical solutions
in political extremism, and started supporting two parties that bitterly opposed one
another but shared a desire to end democracy: the
Communists
and the National
Socialist German Workers' Party. While red flags and swastika banners hung from
neighbouring tenements, gangs from the left and right fought in the streets in
ever-greater numbers, with the brown-shirted Nazi
SA
(
Sturmabteilung
) Stormtroopers,
fighting endless pitched battles against the communist
Rote Frontkämpferbund
(Red
Fighters' Front). he threat of a return to the anarchy of the postwar years increased
Nazi support among the middle classes and captains of industry (who provided heavy
financial support) who feared for their lives and property under communist rule. Fear
of the reds also helped the Nazis ensure little or nothing was done to curb their
violence against them. Growing Nazi popularity was also attributable to Hitler's record
as a war veteran, his identification of Jews as scapegoats and a charisma that promised
to restore national pride. Meanwhile, the Communists found it di
cult to find
support beyond the German working classes.
By September 1930, the Communists and Nazis together gained nearly one of every
three votes cast and in the July 1932
parliamentary elections
the Nazis took 37 percent
of the vote - their biggest total in any free election - making them the largest party in
the Reichstag; the Communists took fifteen percent. Very soon, Nazi thugs began
attacking Jewish shops and businesses throughout Germany and intimidating liberals
into muted criticism or silence. But what eventually brought the Nazis to power in
1841
1861
1871
Berlin's Museum Island is
dedicated to “art and science” by
Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia.
Wedding, Moabit and
several other suburbs are
incorporated into Berlin.
Berlin becomes the capital of a
unified German Empire, under Otto
von Bismarck's chancellorship.
