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CfA Special Issue: Women’s History of the Weimar Republic

ARIADNE, the journal published by the Archive of the German Women’s Movement, is inviting contributions for a special issue on the “female history/ies of the Weimar Republic”. The editors aim to present the different female lifestyles and social realities and ask which role women played in the new state.

Proposals have to be submitted before 1 July 2017 to schibbe@addf-kassel.de.

German Centre for Weimar Research

uni_jena.JPG-941fe9f2In August 2016, the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena established the Forschungsstelle Weimarer Republik, a “central platform for German and international Weimar research”. Funded by the Ministry of Economy, Science and Digital Society of Thuringia, the new research centre hosts a yearly conference, organises regular workshops for early career researchers, awards prizes for research publications (from BA theses to Habilitationen), and publishes a series on Weimar history.

Exhibition: Berlin 1937

9783939254430“Give me four years’ time” – with this slogan Hitler promised a total transformation of German society in 1933. The new exhibition Berlin 1937 at the Berliner Stadtmuseum looks at daily life in the German capital after Hitler’s four years and “the National Socialist dictatorship had permeated every aspect of German everyday life”: “What was the city like for its residents as they went from their homes to school or to work, to the church or to the synagogue, to air raid exercises or to dance? What changed under Nazi rule; what stayed the same? What were the consequences for individuals and for societal groups? And: To what degree was it possible to recognise the system’s criminal nature before the war and the Holocaust began?”

Weimarer Verhältnisse?

The FAZ and regional broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk have teamed up for an essays series on the topic of “Weimarer Verhältnisse?” (Weimar conditions): a group of distinguished historians of the era, including Andreas Wirsching, Ute Daniel and Hélène Miard-Delacroix, consider the reasons for Weimar’s collapse and its lessons for today, from democratic breakdown to economic policy.

BBC on Rosa Luxemburg

The BBC has produced a programme on revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, with input by historians Jacqueline Rose, Mark Jones, and Nadine Rossol: “Melvyn Bragg discusses the life and times of Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), ‘Red Rosa’, who was born in Poland under the Russian Empire and became one of the leading revolutionaries in an age of revolution. She was jailed for agitation and for her campaign against the Great War which, she argued, pitted workers against each other for the sake of capitalism. Continue reading “BBC on Rosa Luxemburg”

Journal Review: CEH, Dec. 2016

coverIn the current issue of Central European History, Jochen Hung reviews new literature on the history of the Weimar Republic, focusing on the often-used “plot” of Weimar’s cultural modernism juxtaposed with its democratic breakdown: “More than thirty years ago, Eberhard Kolb commented that the vast wealth of research on the history of the Weimar Republic made it “difficult even for a specialist to give a full account of the relevant literature.” Since then, the flood of studies on Weimar Germany has not waned, and by now it is hard even to keep track of all the review articles meant to cut a swath through this abundance. Yet the prevailing historical image of the era has remained surprisingly stable: most historians have accepted the master narrative of the Weimar Republic as the sharp juxtaposition of “bad” politics and “good” culture, epitomized in the often-used image of “a dance on the edge of a volcano.””

Journal Review: VfZ, 1/2017

s00425702In the January issue of the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Dirk Blasius writes about the mutual influences between Carl Schmitt and historian Hans Rothfels during the Weimar Republic: “This article widens the scope in the debates about Hans Rothfels by assessing the significance of reviews within the political and intellectual culture of the Weimar Republic.
Rothfels as a reviewer showed an interest in the publications of Schmitt. The reviews of Rothfels are short essays which exhibit his own position on the Weimar constitutional system. They make clear the distinction between Rothfels and Schmitt. Continue reading “Journal Review: VfZ, 1/2017”

Portraying a Nation: Germany 1919-1933

august_sander_secretary_at_west_german_radio_in_cologne_1931_printed_1992A new exhibition at Tate Liverpool shows portraits of Weimar Germans by August Sander and Otto Dix: ‘Portraying a Nation: Germany 1919–1933 presents the faces of Germany between the two world wars told through the eyes of painter Otto Dix (1891–1969) and photographer August Sander (1876–1964) – two artists whose works document the radical extremes of the country in this period.   Continue reading “Portraying a Nation: Germany 1919-1933”

Trump and Weimar Germany

donald_trump_25218642186The comparisons between Donald Trump’s political success and Hitler’s rise, so numerous even before the election, have intensified since the former won the electoral vote in November 2016. Historians have weighed in with differing opinions and analyses about the two phenomena. This is an on-going collection of articles on the topic, all suggestions welcome! Continue reading “Trump and Weimar Germany”

The Weimar Republic: Gone, but not forgotten

kirchner_berlin_street_scene_1913_1050x700Matthew Wills gives a short overview over the current relevance of Weimar’s history for today’s political landscape: “The Weimar Republic has been on people’s minds with the results of the U.S. presidential election and rise of the radical right in Europe. Is there a lesson to be learned from the Weimar experience?  Any answer to that question has to be grounded in the chaotic history of the republic that barely held Germany together from 1919 to 1933.”