Weimar Kültürü

by Peter Gay, Eren Buğlalılar (Translator)

Birinci Dünya Savaşı ve akabinde Versay Antlaşması Alman toplumunu derin bir buhrana sürüklemişti. Weimar kültürü, bu buhranın içerisinden filizlendi ve kısa ömürlü ama kendine özgü demokratik bir deneyime sahne oldu. Weimar demokrasisinin ayırt ediciliğinin kanıtı olarak Weimar Anayasası çalışmalara epey konu olmuştur ancak Weimar’ın sınırlarını aşıp 20. yüzyılda sanatta, edebiyatta, müzikte Batı kültürünün pek çok veçhesine etki etmiş “Weimar kültürü” dendiğinde ne anlayabiliriz?

Peter Gay’in Weimar Kültürü kitabı, bir sanatsal arayışa ve uyanışa eşlik eden bu kültürün canlı ve akıcı bir anlatımını sunarak Weimar deneyiminin saklı hazinesini okurlarına teslim ediyor.

“Birkaç ay içinde Adolf Hitler Almanya Şansölyesi oldu ve Weimar ahalisi yanına Weimar ruhunu da alarak dört bir yana dağıldı: Kimi kendi içine, Ezop diline çekildi, kimileri soykırım kamplarında ölüme gitti... Ancak kimisi de Weimar ruhunu hayatın içine, müthiş kariyerler yaparak iz bıraktıkları laboratuvarlara, hastanelere, gazeteciliğe, tiyatrolara, üniversitelere taşıdı ve bu ruh gerçek yurduna orada kavuştu, sürgünde.”
PETER GAY

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Germany, European History, Art, Politics, German Literature

246 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Peter Joachim Gay was a German-American historian, educator, and author. He was a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and former director of the New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers (1997–2003). He received the American Historical Association's (AHA) Award for Scholarly Distinction in 2004. He authored over 25 books, including The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, a two-volume award winner; Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (1968); and the widely translated Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988).
Gay was born in Berlin in 1923, left Germany in 1939 and emigrated, via Cuba, to the United States in 1941. From 1948 to 1955 he was a political science professor at Columbia University, and then a history professor from 1955 to 1969. He left Columbia in 1969 to join Yale University's History Department as Professor of Comparative and Intellectual European History and was named Sterling Professor of History in 1984.
Gay was the interim editor of The American Scholar after the death of Hiram Haydn in 1973 and served on that magazine's editorial board for many years. Sander L. Gilman, a literary historian at Emory University, called Gay "one of the major American historians of European thought, period".

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

I saw this lurking in a secondhand bookshop and since I was reading Berlin Alexanderplatz it seemed that Fate was calling to me in capital letters - perhaps I need my hearing checked, because fine as this book is, it is not helpful or informative on the subject of Berlin Alexanderplatz although that novel is listed in the index and recommended in the Bibliography. Anyway, rumble, grumble, cruel fates tricking coins out of my hollow pockets, grrgh, accursed lack of self restraint...

This is a smooth, short, easy reading, whistle-stop tour of Weimar Germany. In style it is not so different from his book Why the Romantics Matter - engaged, interested, and wandering from point to point purely on the basis of what arrests his attention. I had the sense too of Gay writing to the USA saying 'this is me and my cultural hinterland, this is where I am coming from, read it and weep oh ye philistines!', but perhaps that is me and my over active imagination.

The key points are then that this is a short book (152 pages plus a 23 page history of the Republic as an appendix) which draws attention to Gay's idiosyncrasies - a lengthy six or seven pages given over to The Magic Mountain and his theme -The Outsider as Insider a vision of the Weimar republic as dominated by forces and perspectives which had been present in Imperial Germany but which had then been on the peripheries, as you can imagine in such circumstances the big story is the centre ground striking back, and the centre ground in this case was anti-Republican, Monarchist, Authoritarian and generally politically right-wing (particularly noticeable he points out among the judiciary who gave light sentences to political criminals from the political Right, but heavy ones to those from the political Left).

The early years were years of civil war, then in 1929 the wall street crash brought down such political stability as there had been (a revolving door of temperamental coalition governments which mostly managed to last about a year or so before they needed to be broken apart and reassembled like building blocks). For Gay the artistic movements of the times mirrored the political developments as illustrated by the brief life of the Bauhaus (though it gets less space than The Magic Mountain, only Thomas Mann gets a reasonable amount of space - though other cultural figures are name checked, this is a book that might help build up the sense of the cultural framework of the Weimar era but which does not fill in the details, he was best I thought on literary writers who, with the exception of Thomas Mann, he sums up quickly and moves on, generally in a few sharp words, a bit catty, but not completely unfair (Hermann Hesse he describes as writing about puberty with "a psychoanalytical twist" (p.121). There's nothing on Popular music, and little on cinema - a critical look at Fritz Lang's Metropolis (hopelessly conservative) and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (mauled into a conservative direction during the writing process and unfortunately influential), much more on Historians than a casual reader might want to find ( though I did like his placing of Kantorowicz's Frederick the Second: 1194–1250 in it's Weimar context with Kantorowicz as a war veteran in the circle of Stefan Georg), and surprisingly little on the visual arts. Still one hundred and fifty pages is not very much. Lively, opinionated, entertaining, it tempts me to read further on the subject, at the same time much of his commentary on the deteriorating politics felt far too contemporary to be comfortable to read.

I liked very much his statement that "he cure for the ills of modernity is more, and the right kind of modernity" (p.106) but I remain ignorant of how we are to recognise the right kind of modernism if we should happen to meet it on the road or down a dark alley some moonless night.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Weimar Republic was born from the collapse of one empire and was murdered in the rise of another. In the span between, however, it was the site of one of the most extraordinarily fruitful cultural movements in Western history, one that would spread far beyond the borders of interwar Germany to shape the cultural aesthetics of a century. Peter Gay’s book is an extended essay about this development. Over the course of a half-dozen chapters, he offers a perceptive analysis of German culture in the 1920s, one that assesses the shapes it took and how it reflected the tumultuous events surrounding it.

What Gay describes amounts to an explosion of cultural exploration in the aftermath of the demise of the German empire in 1918. Freed from its oppressive cultural conservatism, many German artists, writers, and designers pushed the avant-garde to new levels of innovation. These efforts were fueled by their criticisms of a society still dominated by much of the Wilhelmine old order, which provided them with subject material to portray and critique. Yet Gay makes it clear that to think of Weimar culture exclusively in terms of Expressionism and the Bauhaus school is false, as he shows the equally important contribution made by conservative intellectuals who sought to come to terms with Germany’s circumstances in their own works. In the short term their contributions proved more relevant, as the rightward turn of German youth in the early 1930s that Gay describes fueled the rapid growth of the Nazi-led right, the triumph of which brought an end to the cultural experimentation of the Weimar era.

As one of the 20th century’s foremost cultural historians Gay left behind an impressive body of insightful works. Yet his short book stands out from them thanks to a personal tone that inflects much of the work. As a refugee from Nazi Germany, Gay was a personal witness to the aftermath of the era he describes, one that gives his book an almost elegiac tone in its description of a culture doomed to extinction. Writing as he does with an assumption of his readers’ familiarity with the era, this is not a book that should serve as someone’s introduction to the period. Yet it is one that anyone seeking to understand interwar German history must come to terms with, thanks to Gay’s graceful prose and his penetrating judgments of his subject.

[Ilse · Rating 4 out of 5]

(****1/2)

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I did not like about Peter Gay's Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider is that it ignored many of the aspects of Weimar Culture which interested me and concentrated, instead, heavily on the politics. There was, for instance, almost no mention of the horrible inflation that gripped Germany, nor of the cabaret life that had such a great influence throughout Europe and the U.S.

Also, I was dismayed to find that Gay did not think anything of Fritz Lang and went to considerable lengths to denigrate his silent masterpiece Metropolis (1927). He also slammed Vicki Baum, whose novel Grand Hotel was superb.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Gay's short book--he calls it an essay--on the cultural underpinnings of the Weimar Republic is an excellent primer on why it failed: catastrophic economic difficulties imposed by both Versailles-mandated reparations and the Great Depression, a lack of conviction on the part of the German intellectual elite, an electorate fractured into too many places from right to left, and the simmering-to-boiling resentment of Germans who could not accept responsibility for the consequences of WWII in moral terms, i.e., they needed "others" to blame, be they French, Jews, industrialists, or communists. Hitler then orchestrated his circular firing squad and the destruction of Germany after WWII was greater than its destruction after WWI.

The artfulness of this study lies not so much in its account of political history as in the way it weaves literature, painting, dance, theater, architecture and other facets of German life into a broader tapestry. That's hard to do. Simply mastering the nature and impact of German poetry, or the Bauhaus, or Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche requires exceptional erudition.

The lesson we might draw from Weimar today (on the eve of 2018) is that violent political consequences are sometimes concealed by the brilliance of contemporary culture. You can have Brecht and Mann and Gropius and Benjamin pushing the boundaries of the arts and still end up in disaster. Ugly politics can undermine civil society. Hypocrisy can be the order of the day. Terrible things can happen that do not have to happen. And great nations can collapse.

[merixien · Rating 4 out of 5]

".... Weimar’ın seçilmesi kısmen bir hüsnükuruntu belirtisiydi. Bir ülkenin Goethe’nin şehrinde kurulması, o ülkenin Goethe’nin suretinde olmasını sağlamadı. Hayatta kalmasını bile sağlamadı. Cumhuriyet yenilgi sonucu doğdu, çalkantılarla yaşadı, felaket sonucu öldü ve onun doğum sancılarını müthiş bir kayıtsızlıkla veya “schadebfreude” ile izleyenler başından beri çoktu.”

Weimar Kültürü; İkinci Dünya Savaşı ve Avrupa’nın delirme sürecine ilgi duyan pek çok insanın en merak ettiği konu olan Cumhuriyet dönemine dair detaylı bir inceleme. Çünkü bu dönemin iki yüzü bulunuyor. Bir yandan sanatsal ve kültürel anlamdaki gelişmenin en açık daha doğrusu en özgür olduğu dönem yaşanırken, diğer yandan -bütün kültürel yükselmenin tam karşısında- politik, siyasal ve sosyal istikrarsızlığın zirveye çıkmasıyla gelen çöküş. Bu çöküş faşizmin yükselişinin temel sebeplerinden birisi olarak gösterilebilir pek tabii. Ancak kitabın özellikle de ilk bölümlerinde Alman milliyetçiliği ve muhafazakarlığının ne kadar geçmişe dayandığı, Birinci Dünya Savaşı yenilgisinin ardından daha da çıkmaza giren işçi sınıfı bir nevi görünmez olurken en büyük tröstlerin bu dönemde kurulması gibi cumhuriyetin temellerinde yapılan hataların, zaten derinlere kök salmış muhafazakarlığı nasıl beslediğini anlatıyor. Zira monarşinin muhafazakâr baskısının altında toplumdan dışlanmış sanatçılar kültürel sektörlerde ve sanat okullarında önemli bir rol sahibi olurken, teknik okulların, üniversitenin ve yargı mekanizmalarının monarşi yanlılarının elinde kalması, ülke genelinde muazzam bir problemi doğuruyor. İmparatorluğun dışlanmış azınlıkları ve avandarde sanat kültürel iktidarı ele geçirirken, monarşini yargısı işçi hareketini güçlendirmeye çalışan öğrencileri ve halkı baskı altına alıyor. Cumhuriyetin yıkılmasının ardından da azınlıkların ve sanatın bu kadar hedef haline gelip, malum şahsın halkın bu kadar büyük bir desteğini almasının sebeplerinden birisini bu bölümler sayesinde daha net görüp algılayabiliyorsunuz. Tabii şunu eklemeden geçmeyeyim; akademik cephe aydınlarının halk ile kültür arasında ektikleri zıtlık inançları, monarşiyle kodlanmış nesillerin demokrasiye geçişle ilgili yaşadıkları zorluklar, körüklenen azınlık nefreti – ki Weimar’ın bir Alman değil Yahudi cumhuriyeti olduğuna dair hala yıkılamamış olan inanç- açıklamasıyla kitabın yalnızca politik bir açıdan cumhuriyeti anlattığına dair yanlış bir fikir oluşturabilir. Ancak ilk bölümlerin ardından Peter Gay, Almanya’nın içinde bulunduğu ikiliğin ortasında Weimar kültürünün detaylarını uzun uzun anlatıyor. Eğer o dönem kültürel açıdan çok ilginizi çekmiyorsa ve ana odağınız siyasi ve toplumsal süreç ise kitabın ilk bölümlerinden sonra sıkılabilirsiniz.



“Warburg üslubunun yalın ampirizmi ve bilimsel tahayyülü, 1920’lerde Alman kültürünü barbarlaştırmakla tehdit eden azalı entelektüel düşmanlığı ile kaba mistisizmin tam bir antitezi, Weimar’ın en iyi haliydi. Warburg’un İskenderiye’nin ellerinden Atina’yı tekrar tekrar kurtarmak gerektiğini söyleyen meşhur formülü, bir sanat tarihçisinin Rönesans’ı simya ve astrolojiye karşı verdiği çetin mücadelelerle birlikte anlamayı buyuran talimatı olmanın ötesinde, bir philosophe’un akıldışılığın tehdidi altındaki bir dünyada yaşamaya dair sunduğu reçeteydi. Onu yakından tanıtan biri ‘Warburg aklın gücüne inanıyordu; bilhassa şeytani antikitenin mirasını çok iyi bilmesi nedeniyle bir aydınlanmacı o.”

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this book is little more than a reflective essay on certain key points its author is interested in, it remains a profoundly interesting and influential text. It also has the advantage of being very accessible and well-written, so can be readily used by non-specialists. It is rather old now, so it certainly doesn't represent the most current
research on its subject, but it remains a point of departure for much recent work as well.

Writing in 1968, Gay was concerned to make his work also a message to the current generation, many of whom were inspired by artistic and literary trends with their roots in interwar Germany (Dada, Expressionism, the Bauhaus and Bertolt Brecht, to name just a few). In some ways, Gay's book is a reminder and a warning about what followed, and a consideration of the ways in which these movements failed to prevent the collapse of freedom into a totalitarian horror. At the same time, it is clear that Gay himself is fascinated by the diversity and breadth of Weimar cultural expression, and he is far from unsympathetic to many of the participants, which is part of how his writing draws the reader in.

Gay's thesis for this short work is simple: during the period after the fall of Imperial Germany, people who had always felt themselves to by "outsiders" to the mainstream became the "insiders." This parallels the odd foundation of the Republic at the end of the First World War, in which the military elite suddenly thrust the opposition Social Democrats into the position of having to form a government to surrender to the Allies. It also parallels rather neatly the way that many young people were understanding themselves in 1968, at a time when it seemed that an older generation was on the verge of collapse in the face of youthful enthusiasm and people who happily called themselves "freaks."

In that sense, Gay was wise to make the point that the enthusiasm of the revolution was followed by the Dolchstosslegende, by the sense of betrayal of Germany by the revolutionaries, and by a system in which most of the real power was held by people who nominally or actively opposed the Republic. Similarly, the New Left rapidly found itself alienated from the American mainstream, being accused of having lost the war in Vietnam, and being maced and arrested for trying to make its voice heard by the Democratic Party it thought of as an ally. The message remains just as relevant in the current unstable political situation, although Gay offers little in the way of solutions.

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is suitable for undergraduate history majors or informed lay readers. It isn't heavily theoretical and doesn't devolve into too many complicated philosophical developments (as a work on this topic might well choose to do). There is quite a bit of factual information, though, so it may get confusing if you're not familiar with the history.

The book is organized around the idea that cultural outsiders of the Wilhelmine period are emblematic of the Weimar period. It weaves together a number of areas of culture to give some sense of cohesion -- perhaps reflecting the Weimar "hunger for wholeness" that Gay describes.

[Carla Remy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the title and the cover, to me this book was more about Weimar politics than culture. A lot of interesting facts and delightful, long, German names. It just was a heavy read for me.

[Korcan Derinsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Resmi olarak on beş sene sürmüş, iki dünya savaşı arasında kurulan Weimar Cumhuriyeti’ndeki kültür ortamına dair güzel bir inceleme. Özellikle 1. Dünya Savaşı’ndan sonra dönemin sanatçılarının “sanki ülkeyi temize çekmek” istercesine gösterdiği gayreti -ki çok sevdiğim ekspresyonizmin de çıktığı dönem bu dönem- ve sonradan yaşadıkları hayal kırıklıklarını anlama adına, Nazizm’e giden yolu görme adına çok faydalı bir okumaydı.

[IWB · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gay’s book, "Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider", is a chronological study of the artistic and intellectual life of the Weimar Republic that emphasizes the contributions of Wilhelmian era “outsiders” and their rise to influence as Republican era “insiders.” Drawing his sources from various autobiographies, memoirs, and diaries; numerous written records, letters, and correspondence; and personal interviews and recollections, Gay documents the creative culture that flourished in the Weimar Republic. Gay includes both an annotated bibliography and, even though his focus is on the creative spirit of Weimar culture, an appended synopsis of the history of Weimar politics.

Gay states his thesis to be the following: In the Weimar Republic outsiders became insiders. Now, allow me a bit of pedantry for the moment. His key terms, while not defined precisely, are understood to apply broadly as follows: “Outsider” denotes a kind whose members are typically marginalized due to their perceived identity by the imperial elites (e.g., the Emperor, university professors, artistic directors, and the like). These outsiders can be identified politically, ethnically, and artistically; thus, for example, the democrat, the Jew, and the avant-garde artist are outsiders, respectively. A person, furthermore, is not delimited to just one kind—one might be a Jewish democrat who supports modernist trends in literature and music. The constitutive feature of an outsider thus is a relative identity condition. “Insider” denotes a kind whose members have relatively significant cultural influence due to their respective positions of authority and power—“decision-makers” as Gay calls them; e.g., curators of museums and galleries, directors of orchestras and theatres, chairs of private centers of scholarship. While not explicitly stated, Gay treats the membership between outsiders and insiders in the Weimar Republic as a one-way relationship—outsiders may become insiders but not conversely.

According to Gay, his thesis—that outsiders became insiders-- implies the claim that these outsiders had already been active in the late Empire. As Gay sees it, this claim is a necessary condition for the plausibility of his thesis statement. Gay’s thesis, then, is really the following conditional statement:
(T) If in the Weimar Republic outsiders became insiders, then these outsiders had already been active in the late Empire.

Gay argues for this claim throughout the book. Chapter one, however, is particularly devoted to establishing the consequent. In this chapter, Gay provides compelling evidence that not only were outsiders present in imperial Germany but also the corollary claim that their political and artistic sentiments made the ruling classes sick. For instance, German artists had moved from impressionism to expressionism well before the foundation of the Republic—Kadinsky wrote Uber das Geistige in der Kunst in 1910—as had German composers from the brooding romanticism of Brahms and Bruch to varying degrees of atonalism and serialism—Schoenberg completed the twelve-tone system in 1912. In 1908 the Emperor dismissed Hugo von Tschudi, the director of the National Gallery in Berlin, for having subversive modernist tastes; similarly, Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, while musically still in the style of late romanticism, portrays the Baron as a dumb ox, which prompted the Empress to prevent its opening in Berlin.

The subsequent chapters follow a similar argumentative format. Each chapter consists of a simple enumeration of evidence for the thesis. With each chapter focusing on a different aspect of Weimar culture, the result is a sweeping account of the rise of outsiders whose influence as insiders is virtually undeniable. For instance, in a number of chapters Gay discusses Walter Gropius and the significance of the Bauhaus. Chapter three sketches the innovations and influence of poets and novelists, such as Stefan George, Rainer Rilke, and Thomas Mann. Gay adeptly reveals the importance of cinema and its relation to artists; hence, Gay reveals the impact that the 1920 film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and the three expressionist painters—Warm, Rohrig, and Reimann-- who designed the sets, had in the Republic and particularly in Berlin. In chapter six, Gay demonstrates the flourishing of modernist composers, such as Alban Berg and Paul Hindemith, and those conductors with whom they collaborated, such as Erich Kleiber and Wilhelm Furtwanger, who could finally raise their batons in full musical license. While not pretending to give a rigorous analysis of theoretical developments in philosophy, literary criticism, and history, Gay does discuss the cultural and political impact that arose from Ernst Cassier’s interpretations of Kant, Martin Heidegger’s magnum opus of ontology, Sein und Zeit, and Leopold von Ranke’s ideological historiography.

Gay succeeds in giving a cogent argument for his thesis—it is, indeed, the case that in the Weimar Republic outsiders rose to an unprecedented level of prominence within the Weimar Republic. This success, nevertheless, has some difficulties. Gay’s project is opaque at times, for a number of reasons. First, Gay frequently inserts rhetorical flourishes that, instead of motivating the argument for his thesis, merely serve to misdirect the reader’s focus. For instance, it is one thing to demonstrate the developed, modernist creative culture of Weimar, quite another thing to merely assert that “ the Weimar Republic was a breathless era of cultural flowering that drew the world’s attention….” Phrases likes this occur throughout the text and leave one with the impression that perhaps Gay is tacitly arguing for something more; namely, that Weimar culture is unique in the history of the twentieth century. Suppose Gay intends this. Such an argument seems prima facie false. The Weimar Republic certainly can boast a significant number of impressive individuals, such as Gropius, Schoenberg, and Heidegger, as well as influential movements, such as logical positivism, serialism, and expressionism. But having a number of influential persons and movements seems to be a general feature of a number of European states at this time, such as France, where there were a number of important composers, philosophers, and writers; and Russia, which also had a number of important writers and an extraordinary group of modernist composers that included Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Mosolov, and Shostakovich.

Another difficulty with Gay’s project is that his thesis argument is not the most interesting aspect of the book. Far more interesting are Gay’s chapter-by-chapter psychoanalytic speculations about the cultural mindset and spirit of the Republic itself. This is most palpable in specific discussions. For example, Gay attempts to explain why various intellectuals engaged in ‘revivalism’ in which scholarly research erupted in Holderlien and Kleist studies. Gay refers to this need for revivalism as a German “hunger for wholeness.” Or when, for instance, Gay attempts to psychoanalyze why the ‘community of reason’- –the various intellectual institutions—were often divided amongst themselves, yet united in the pursuit of modernism. Lastly, Gay gives a psychoanalytic explanation for the German artists, philosophers, and psychologists’ love affair with poetry during the Weimar period. While Gay’s psychoanalytic musings are more interesting than the historical thesis, they are hardly as demonstrative. For this reason, Gay’s book lacks rigor and often results in shallow explanations and claims. For instance, without any citations, Gay makes the following claim:
"What Gropius taught, and what most Germans did not want to learn, was the lesson of Bacon, Descartes, and the Enlightenment: that one must confront the world and dominate it, that the cures for the ills of modernity is more, and the right kind of modernity."

Anyone who has seriously studied the philosophies of Bacon, Descartes, and the Enlightenment, recognizes this, at best, to be sophomoric, if not simply false. In Gay’s defense, however, he never claims that his book is a rigorous, exhaustive account. Had it been as such, much of the charm that this book possesses would be lost. In short, though, Gay makes a convincing case for his historical thesis, but his account is often confused by irrelevant rhetoric about the greatness of the culture of the Weimar Republic, and by speculative psychoanalytic explanations.

[Leonardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un estudio seminal sobre el período de entreguerras en Alemania, La cultura de Weimar nos presenta un panorama exhaustivo de una época de gran convulsión política y explosión cultural que culminó en la tragedia del ascenso de Hitler y los nazis al poder. Gay nos ofrece un análisis crítico sobre los filósofos, historiadores, escritores, artistas visuales que lidiaron con la confusión, la violencia y la crisis que prevalecieron en una Alemania atrapada entre la derrota en la Primera Guerra Mundial y el inminente inicio de una de las épocas más oscuras de la humanidad. El estudio de Gay ha resistido con dignidad el paso del tiempo y no sólo nos ofrece una visión crítica y equilibrada de la Alemania de la época, sino que también nos permite reflexionar sobre las consecuencias del culto de la irracionalidad y la xenofobia. En estos nuevos años 20, bien vale la pena reflexionar sobre lo que ocurría hace cien años en Alemania.

[Hagar · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Eternally chained to a single small fragment of the whole, man forms himself only as a fragment.”- Schiller

[Ezgi · Rating 4 out of 5]

İmparatorluğun çöküşünden doğan Weimar Cumhuriyeti’nin ömrü çok kısa oluyor. Peter Gay bu kısa sürede yaşanan sanat olaylarına odaklanıyor. Birinci Dünya Savaşı ile İkinci Dünya Savaşı’nın arasında tam anlamıyla durmadan eser veren bir kuşak var. Bu kuşak modernist eserleriyle yüzyılın estetiğini etkiliyor.

Baskıcı bir rejimden kurtulan Alman sanatçıları kısa bölümlerle çok başarılı bir şekilde anlatılıyor. Almanların bir türlü etkisinden çıkamadığı romantizmi bu kuşak kesip atıyor. Avangart sanatı kendi stillerince bir yükselişe geçiriyorlar. Elbette yalnızca avangart ve dışavurumcu sanat değil, muhafazakar entelektüeller de bu özgürlük döneminden faydalanarak pek çok eser ortaya çıkarıyor.

Tüm sanatsal çalkalanışların ardında ise Nazi partisi olgunlaşıyor. Bence Gay’in kitabında vurgulamak istediği nokta da tam olarak bu. Bir tür rönesans gibi gördükleri dönemin büyük bir çöküşle geldiği. Birinci Dünya Savaşı’ndan beri huzursuz olan alman burjuvazisi sanatı, müzeleri desteklerken daha fazlasını istiyor, elindekini hayal kırıklığı olarak görüyor. Büyük eserler yaratılırken aynı toplum çöküşe de geçiyor. Yalnızca bir sanat tarihi olarak okunmamalı, kısacık olmasına rağmen çok yararlı bir kitap. Yine de Gay’in muzip tavrına alışmak için önce Modernism okunmalı. Weimar ikinci sırada geliyor. İletişim Yayınları çok iyi bir baskı yapmış. Çevirisinde de hiçbir kusur yoktu.

[Mesoscope · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Gay delivers a whirlwind tour of the social and cultural realities of Weimar Germany in this extraordinary little book. What an astonishing time, when the country was electrified and torn every which way by incredible forces driving the country both forward and back. In the words of Visouct d'Abernon, quoted in this book, it was "as if all the eminent artistic forces were shining forth once more, importing to the last festive symposium of the minds a many-hued brilliance before the night of barbarism closed in."

A great brightness and a terrible darkness. Names that will live forever in European memory haunted the streets of Berlin - Brecht, Einstein, Schoenberg, Mann, Kandinsky, Gropius, and so many others.

At 150 pages, the book can only introduce us to the currents and landmarks of the momentous period between the Treaty of Versailles and Hitler's chancellorship. It's a bit like a three-day trip to New York, shown about by a tour guide who knows simply everything there is to know about the place.

It's a breath of fresh air when he lingers on a particular favorite subject, and under more spacious analysis the power of Gay's insight and knowledge becomes evident. I found his digressions on Rilke, Stefan George, and Walter Gropius especially illuminating.

[Eren Buğlalılar]

13 Ocak'ta kitapçılarda olacakmış diye duydum.
Nasıl karşılanacağını merak ediyorum.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gay is a great writer and deeply knowledgeable about the subject matter and he’s got a powerful (if perhaps debatable) thesis about Weimar’s fragility that still seems relevant in Trump’s America.

[Edward Champion · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Weimar Republic, a place of political turmoil presaging the rise of one of the most evil men in history and, as helpfully documented by Peter Gay, a cultural Mecca in which the likes of Mann, Brecht, and Dietrich (among untold others) flourished. If you're expecting an insider/outsider conceptual framework, you're bound to be disappointed. (Gay also has it in for Fritz Lang and METROPOLIS, for utterly bizarre reasons.) But this short book does possess a solid bed of facts and will have you realizing (or even imagining) just how much was lost because of those evil Nazi bastards. And, of course, there are many disturbing parallels to today (2024 America, as I write this; will the Trumpers shoot me in the head by 2030 for being a dissident leftist and hardcore reader? I have no idea).

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

German culture is divided between imperial militarists and cosmopolitan poets. In Weimar, the latter gain prominence, but their irrationalist vitalism facilitates Nazism.

[Jack Hrkach · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently re-read Gay's excellent book on the vital, turbulent Weimar Republic. I read it first as a young-ish fellow, then again about 12-14 years ago when I was concocting a seminar on the Avant-Garde from 1890 to 1940 for my theatre students at Ithaca College. And I just finished the third and probably last read as partial preparation for a trip to Germany I'll be making in June.

The research is detailed and accurate, the writing is scholarly but at the same time eminently readable, and the subject matter invites parallels to today. It has been called an examination of the art, music and literature in this fertile period for the arts, but it is especially interesting for the way Gay mixes politics with the arts. I'll not get into detail, except to say that if you have any interest in German expressionism (in visual art, film and literature), the Bauhaus, Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht and others you will probably find it enlightening.

In fact, if this short essay tempts you to read the book, depending on your knowledge of the period you might want to begin with the appendix, a brief rendering of the history of the Weimar Republic.

[Wolfgang · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do like the Weimar Republic, as it means European progress towards democracy. Freedom for German citizens in the early 20th century was not necessarily predetermined after the authoritarian rule of the Prussians.

One could argue that even todays German laws, in so far as they are derived from Hitler's law are illegal. Hitler's actions are legally wrong and have destroyed the Weimar Republic.

The book gives a good account of German culture under the influence of this sudden freedom. All the arts are covered and all the major styles like e.g. expressionism.

There is even a brief history of the Weimar Republic included. And all in a very entertaining format.

[K. M · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars: I love the Weimar era. An exciting and troubling time in Germany’s history. I wanted to read about the changing morals and ethics of a generation trying to find themselves again after a war, a generation barreling their way toward another. Instead I was given a dry read which focused too much on the men, and their politics, who formed the Weimar era and less about the actual culture of the time.
If you are looking for something actually about the culture of the Weimar era and is entertaining, I recommend Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy by Eric D. Weitz.

[Dfordoom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing compared to other books of his that I've read. Hsi psycho-analytical approach to history is interesting, but he's much too obsessed with the Nazis. I wanted to read about Weimar Germany, not the Nazis.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book on Weimar culture. Most books I've read on this tumultuous time period have been dry as dust. Gay's writing gives the period the color that you need to get a feel for Weimar culture.

[Judith]

Progressive thought eclipsed by the Extreme Right. Will update when I finish.

Not for fiction lovers.

[Claudia Ciardi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weimar fu una stagione di grande vitalismo politico e culturale ma anche di tensioni e difficoltà di ordine sociale ed economico che finirono per produrre molte delle fratture esiziali alla sua sopravvivenza.
Questa coraggiosa fabbrica dell’alternativa sociale, nata dal dramma della guerra, ebbe un cammino affatto agevole e fece non poca fatica a sfuggire ai bassi tiri del conservatorismo e ai maneggi di certi professionisti della politica e delle arti, il cui unico obiettivo era servire il proprio interesse, flirtando il minimo indispensabile con la repubblica per tirare avanti e aver garantita la propria esistenza all’interno della collettività.
Più di ogni altra cosa, ad affondare il progetto di Weimar fu proprio l’amore freddo della maggior parte di coloro che vi aderirono. Mai, denuncia Peter Gay, vi fu un coinvolgimento autentico. Per molti si trattò di una scelta per esclusione, altri addirittura la vissero come un obbligo forzoso che gli eventi avevano costretto ad assolvere, una sorta di giogo da sopportare in attesa di una soluzione. Il blando attaccamento, se non l’aperto disprezzo, furono dunque i veri carnefici di Weimar. Ciò che nel decennio repubblicano (1919-1929) si era cercato di esorcizzare, ossia gli spettri del militarismo, dell’antisemitismo, della violenza nel dibattito pubblico, finì per riesplodere al massimo della virulenza, facendo a brandelli le istituzioni che erano venute alla luce dopo un parto tanto faticoso.
Coloro che ebbero chiara percezione del pericolo e a vario titolo dimostrarono sul campo vigore e decisione nel denunciarlo, e non furono pochi, vennero comunque ridotti alla condizione di outsiders, quando non banditi e duramente estromessi da ogni forma di partecipazione attiva.
Non a caso il titolo originale dell’opera di Gay è proprio The outsider as insider, a significare che la società weimariana fu, dall’inizio, destinata ad articolare una parte cospicua della propria esistenza fuori dai canoni. Fu una cultura che fiorì ed agì trasversalmente, ebbe un imprinting a-convenzionale, si avviò nella clandestinità e proseguì sul proprio cammino di rottura. I suoi artigiani più creativi e affezionati giocarono in realtà fuori campo e tuttavia continuarono, finché ne ebbero facoltà, a gettare i semi preziosissimi della loro opera dentro i fertili solchi improvvisamente aperti tra le ceneri imperialiste.
Quella di Weimar si connotò da subito come una cultura da esuli. La maggior parte dei suoi artisti, intellettuali, ricercatori, alimentarono una schiera di ingegni raffinatissimi e inquieti che in patria ricoprirono la posizione di battitori liberi, spesso nella consapevolezza del rovinoso logoramento al quale mese dopo mese erano sottoposte idee, istanze e propositi messi al servizio e schierati a presidio della repubblica.
Thomas Mann, Friedrich Meinecke, Walter Benjamin mostrarono un impegno costante nel rilevare trappole, incongruenze, atteggiamenti in difetto disseminati ovunque nel fragile organismo democratico che si andava costruendo.
All’indomani del viaggio attraverso la Germania in preda all’inflazione, nel 1923, Benjamin presentì i rischi pesantissimi corsi dal proprio paese, e la sconfortante visione alimentò, nel corso degli anni, un’amara consapevolezza: «Ciò che rende totale il grottesco isolamento della Germania agli occhi degli altri europei, ciò che porta costoro, in fondo, ad atteggiarsi nei confronti dei tedeschi quasi avessero a che fare con degli ottentotti è la violenza, del tutto incomprensibile a chi sta fuori e per nulla presente alla coscienza dei reclusi, con cui le condizioni di vita, la miseria e la stupidità rendono in questo luogo gli uomini sottomessi alle forze della collettività come solo la vita di un primitivo è condizionata dalle leggi del clan. Il più europeo di tutti i beni, quella più o meno piccata ironia con cui l’esistenza del singolo reclama sempre un corso dissimile dalla vita della collettività nella quale esso si ritrova sbalzato, i tedeschi l’hanno smarrito del tutto» (Da Einbahnstraße, “Kaiserpanorama”).
Sapeva, lui come altri, che dietro la malmessa facciata avevano continuato a covare le braci di un ingombrante e funesto passato con cui si sarebbe rinvigorito il fuoco di antichi errori. Ernst Toller, che proprio nel compromesso aveva colto la fine, e perciò scelse di aderire alla repubblica sovietica, cosa che gli costò cinque anni di detenzione, ebbe modo di sperimentare, anche lui tra i primi amanti illusi e traditi, l’inesorabile avanzarsi della minaccia.
Questa tragica esperienza occupa le pagine della sua autobiografia, Eine Jugend in Deutschland (Una giovinezza in Germania), cominciata il giorno del rogo dei libri sulla Babelstraße, quando ormai la deriva aveva chiaramente assunto il suo aspetto più fosco. Il meccanismo, quello stesso che aveva fornito l’oppiaceo alle giovani generazioni per annullarle, era da tempo in funzione. La giovinezza d’Europa, cui Toller rivolgeva l’estremo commosso appello, era stata ingannata e svenduta al nuovo padrone, senza che nessuno si battesse per strappargliela. Per due volte i padri furono ciechi al sacrificio dei figli; la prima guerra mondiale non era stata un dramma sufficientemente atroce da far comprendere la lezione.
Ma a Weimar mancò anche la pazienza e la piena coscienza della necessità di agire razionalmente per poter rimuovere gli ostacoli incontrati dalla vita pubblica e i bisogni espressi dalla collettività. Tutto ciò avrebbe richiesto uno sforzo non indifferente, e tuttavia il raggiungimento di un equilibrio nella vita pubblica avrebbe infine dato credibilità e giovamento al percorso istituzionale intrapreso.
«Certo tutto pareva andare parecchio meglio su ogni fronte durante questo primo lustro dorato degli anni Venti. La disoccupazione si era ridotta, il potere d’acquisto dei salari risollevato, l’estremismo politico pareva ormai fuori gioco, la repubblica di Weimar, insomma, si stava rivelando un buon posto per vivere. Per gradi, proprio in quegli anni, la Germania stava anche ponendo fine al suo isolamento per ricongiungersi alla comunità delle nazioni. La politica estera di Stresemann, ma, in definitiva, il puro e semplice trascorrere del tempo stavano dando il loro frutto» (Gay, p. 177). Il processo di lenta risalita non fu accompagnato dalla giusta pacatezza e neppure da un senso di misura che molto avrebbe contribuito a mantenere saldi i valori democratici e gli obiettivi ad essi ispirati.
Nel 1928, pochi anni prima del baratro, molti erano ormai i nodi venuti al pettine, nonostante la buona volontà di più d’uno avesse continuato a spingere perché il lavoro cominciato non si guastasse. La disoccupazione dei giovani e il loro massiccio reclutamento all’ideologia di estrema destra, l’arrivismo di imprenditori della politica che concentrarono nelle proprie mani ricchezza e mezzi di comunicazione, diffondendo messaggi conservatori e adulterando il confronto politico, lasciarono poco spazio agli slanci e agli entusiasmi della prima Weimar.
«La Weimar di quegli anni era però come la società sulla montagna incantata e le guance rubiconde mascheravano sintomi insidiosi. Di questi la cartellizzazione della cultura, sul modello della cartellizzazione dell’industria, fu uno dei più preoccupanti. Alfred Hugenberg, membro di primo piano della corrente di destra del già di destra partito nazionale tedesco, grosso industriale con ambizioni politiche e su posizioni irrimediabilmente reazionarie, costruì un impero nel campo dell’industria dei mezzi di comunicazione e divenne la voce stridente della controrivoluzione esercitando un’influenza enorme. Gli ufficiali, si disse, leggevano soltanto la sua stampa. Hugenberg riuscì a concentrare nelle sue mani dozzine di giornali in tutto il paese, acquistò il Berliner Lokalanzeiger, popolare quotidiano della capitale e fu proprietario di un’agenzia di informazioni dai numerosi abbonati fra cui poté propagare le «sue» notizie. Nel 1927 salvò dalla bancarotta l’UFA e la trasformò nella maggiore fabbrica di sogni a occhi aperti di tutto il paese. Personalmente insignificante, Hugenberg fu animato da insaziabili passioni politiche e odi mascherati da convinzioni e poté contare su smisurate risorse finanziarie» (Gay, pp. 177-178).
In questa breve riflessione ci premeva rilevare che l’ascesa e il declino weimariani si presentano come un cantiere ideale per cogliere molti fenomeni che hanno continuato ad affollare il concitato panorama storico e sociale del ‘900, compreso questo decennio, confuso e per molti versi regressivo, di inizio XXI secolo.
Buona parte dello spirito dell’Europa contemporanea risiede nelle istituzioni e negli uomini di Weimar. La dettagliata e appassionata analisi di Peter Gay si pone come un contributo ancor più prezioso, alla luce delle tante questioni che oggi occupano i tavoli della diplomazia internazionale e le cancellerie di Stato.
Se vogliamo procedere a una soluzione serena e obiettiva dei problemi che proprio in queste ore agitano il vecchio continente, e non solo, mettendo alla prova le sue classi dirigenti, bisogna ripercorrere le tracce di questo fondamentale capitolo di storia.

Claudia Ciardi

PETER GAY, La cultura di Weimar, introduzione di Cesare Cases, Dedalo Libri, 1978

Also available on:
http://www.facebook.com/notes/caff%C3...

[Jim Dooley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A historical study of the Weimar Republic that governed Germany from the end of World War I to early 1933 when Hitler came to power. Along the way, it also discusses the polarized political philosophies, various aspects of the Weimar culture, the education system, the many organizations that arose as people traditionally on the “outside” gained influence, and the actions of world governments that raised the ire of almost all Germans. The great strength of the book is the overview of the elements that led to the virtual self-destruction of the Weimar Republic in the midst of an artistic and philosophical explosion of expression.

Although it is not a simple stating of facts, there is still a dryness to the material that would appeal mainly to the Reader who is willing to work to learn more. The casual Reader would find this overly descriptive and often too opinionated. (I was taken aback by the writer’s low opinion of Fritz Lang as a director and outright contempt for his film, METROPOLIS.) Regarding the political history, it was actually much easier to follow the details in the Appendix than it was to read them in the main body of the book. Also, thank goodness that I had four years of German language study, because the writer infrequently translates German passages!

I have read so much about the extravagances in bizarre and hedonistic lifestyles during the Weimar Republic. This was worth reading because it delved into the reasons why that came about and why people were drawn to them. So, if your only knowledge of this period comes from the Broadway musical, CABARET, the nightmare film, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, or the evocative movie, THE BLUE ANGEL, you will have the opportunity to learn more about the cultural thought that inspired them. If your interest is in an entertaining narrative, there are better places to look.

[Arife Pehlivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

…”Bauhaus’un üç dönemi (başlangıçtaki cüretli denemeler, ara dönemdeki sağlam başarılar ve sondaki çılgın umutsuzluk) Cumhuriyet’in geçirdiği üç dönemi çok iyi ifade eder. 1918 Kasım’ından 1924 yılına kadarki zaman devrimi, iç savaşı, yabancı işgali, siyasi cinayeti, inanılmaz enflasyonuyla sanatlarda bir deney zamanıydı; Dışavurumculuk resme, sahneye hakim olduğu kadar siyasete de hakimdi. 1924 ile 1929 yılları arasında, Almanya mali istikrara kavuşup siyasal şiddet azalınca, ülke dışındaki prestijine ve yaygın refaha yeniden erişince sanat da bir Neue Sachlichkeit (nesnellik, olguculuk, itidal) aşamasına girdi. Ardından 1929 ile 1933 arasında, işsizliğin feci halde yükseldiği, ülkenin kararnamelerle yönetildiği, orta sınıf partilerinin dağıldığı, şiddetin kaldığı yerden devam ettiği yıllarda, kültür olan bitenin eleştirmeninde. çok bir aynasına dönüştü; gazeteler ve film endüstrisi seri halde sağcı propaganda üretiyordu, en iyi mimarlar, romancılar ya da oyun yazarları hizaya getirilmiş ya da susturulmuştu ve ülke ilhamını çoğunlukla siyasetten alan, yükselişteki bir Kitsch dalgasına boğulmuştu”.

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, the Weimar Republic. What can you say? Short lived, 14 years in all, but packed with incident, and cultural extravagance. It seems to be impossible to avoid, it confronts us at every step. Reading how the decline of the Republic gave way, collapsed in the face of Nazism, it is hard not to feel that if only something had been done. From the viewpoint of our own unsettled age there is a terrible sense of deja vu.

This is an excellent introduction to the subject. It has an extensive bibliography, most of the sources however, are in German.

[Tobias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Splendid short book that reviews the major themes of the cultural effervescence of the Weimar years, highlighting the ways in which it intersected with Weimar's politics. More introductory than exhaustive.