New Book: The Weimar Century

In his study The Weimar Century: German Émigrés and the Ideological Foundations of the Cold War, Udi Greenberg traces the academic and political careers of Weimar émigrés Carl J. Friedrich, Ernst Fraenkel, Waldemar Gurian, Karl Loewenstein and Hans Morgenthau to show ‘that the foundations of Germany’s reconstruction [after WWII] lay in the country’s first democratic experiment, the Weimar Republic.

Journal Review: German History 4/2014

In the December issue of German History, Heidi Tworek writes about the cooperation between German journalists and diplomats to raise Germany’s international profile after WWI: ‘From August 2013, a new, controversial ancillary copyright law (Leistungsschutzrecht) permitted German publishers to charge online news aggregator, such as Google for displaying article snippets. Implementation remains contested, but this is not the first time that new technology has prompted Germans to seek intellectual property rights in news. In August 1927, a German delegation successfully pushed through its compromise resolution on the legal protection of news during a Conference of Press Experts at the League of Nations.

Information on Bauhaus students?

Topper Sherwood, a member of our network, is looking for information on the political activities of Bauhaus students:

Berlin researcher is looking for help/sharing on left-wing students and their organizations at the Bauhaus in Weimar, 1918-1924. Specifically: Bruno M. Adler, Franz Singer, Margit Tery (Adler), Friedl Dicker, Erwin Ratz, Stefan Wolpe, and others. Some of these were reportedly part the Sparticist movement,and/ or the KPD. For sharing/conversation, contact: toppersherwood[at]gmail.com.

Research on Weimar on LISA portal

LISA, the online portal of the Gerda Henkel Foundation, offers two very interesting video series about the Weimar Republic. The lecture series Dimensionen der “Machtergreifung” – Von der Weimarer Republik zum NS-Staat features talks by esteemed German experts on the rise of the Nazis in Weimar Germany, including Stefanie Schüler-Spingorum on anti-Semitic violence 1932-34.

The 9-part documentary The New Objectivity in Dresden introduces and presents the research project of the same name, based at the Dresden State Art Collection, from its initial inception to the final exhibition.

Adam Tooze: Remaking of Global Order, 1916-31

Adam Tooze’s The Deluge: The Great War and the Remaking of Global Order, 1916-1931 has been included in the Financial Time‘s Books of 2014: ‘Tooze’s book […] possesses the virtue of analysing the 1920s not as a prelude to the Great Depression, the rise of the dictators and another global conflict, but as a decade worthy of study in its own right.’

Reviews:
Financial Times
The Guardian
Foreign Affairs
Sehepunkte

Conference: European Democracies after WWI

The conference Nach dem „Großen Krieg“. Vom Triumph zum Desaster der Demokratie 1918/19 – 1939 at the Hannah Arendt Institute in Dresden covered the development of European democracies after WWI– and their rapid disintegration from the end of the 1920s – in a comparative perspective. A conference report has just been published on H-Soz-Kult (in German).

New book on Ullstein publishing house

Ullstein was, without a doubt, one of the most important cultural and political actors in Weimar Germany. As the country’s biggest book publisher and the home of such influential publications as Vossische Zeitung, BZ am Mittag and Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, the company exerted a major influence on contemporary culture. A staunch proponent of liberal politics and the democratic system, it was viewed by many as one of the pillars of the Weimar Republic. Not surprisingly, it quickly became a target for Nazi attacks and was one of the first Jewish companies to be “Aryanized” after 1933.

Journal Review: Journal of Contemporary History

In the October issue of the Journal of Contemporary History, Molly Loberg writes about the phenomenon of fortified shops in Weimar Berlin: ‘By 1931, in the context of a general breakdown in public security, the police promoted a fortified shop as the best means for crime prevention. In contrast to ‘invisible’ security measures invented by department stores to deter crime without inhibiting consumption, these measures made explicit a defensive posture of the shop toward the street.’

Berliner Volkszeitung online

The Berlin State Library has digitized the popular Berliner Volkszeitung. The daily newspaper was published from 1904-1944, for the longest part by the liberal Mosse house. The issues from 1904-1919 are available at the State Library at the moment, with the years of 1920-1933 to follow soon.

Archives Portal Europe

The Archives Portal Europe provides access to information on archival material from different European countries as well as information on archival institutions throughout the continent.

One of the many documents found via the Portal is the file of the SS High Command Security Service Main Office on Weimar-era political and legal theorist Carl Schmitt, held at the Wiener Library, London.