The historical image of the Weimar Republic has long been dominated by the trope of the “Wilden Zwanziger”: the juxtaposition of an all-consuming crisis with a supposedly uniquely modern culture and decadent nightlife. In the past decade or so, historians have questioned and complicated this cliché (see the Reading List on this site), but to no avail: this year, Babylon Berlin, the most expensive TV series every produced in Germany and which promises to be an international hit, has reanimated the view of 1920s Berlin full of “growing poverty and unemployment [that] stand in stark contrast to the excesses and indulgence of the city’s night life and its overflowing creative energy”.
Incidentally, the show’s star, the actor Volker Bruch, lent his voice to the audio guide for the exhibition Glanz und Elend der Weimarer Republik (Splendour and Misery of the Weimar Republic) opening this month at the Schirn Museum in Frankfurt. While this exhibition features a truly impressive range of art works, drawings, posters and sculptures from the era, its organisers could not help putting it all in the context of the “restlessness and sense of new beginnings of a golden epoch”.
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Jochen Hung (October 27, 2017). Return of the “Wilden Zwanziger” Weimar Studies Network. Retrieved January 18, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/vbom