Introduction

Abstract

Writing on Weimar and Nazi Germany, with an eye to political culture, means first of all dealing with a number of images and assumptions closely linked to both periods. The term ‘Weimar culture’ evokes a set of mental snapshots. Some of them are of the stunning Marlene Dietrich, the modern architecture of the Bauhaus, or Charleston-dancing girls in short dresses. Breathtaking cultural prosperity stands in sharp contrast to political turmoil and economic depression. In these images Weimar Germany is crisis-ridden and exciting at the same time. The failure of the republic and the sense of an intensive, but all too short, experiment in republican democracy and cultural modernity in Germany still inspire scholars writing on Weimar to devise book titles such as Dancing on the Volcano or Promise and Tragedy.¹ However, we need to keep in mind that the cultural admiration of 1920s Germany is in part a post-1945 phenomenon.² After the collapse of the Nazi regime, the limelight of Weimar culture shone even more brightly. Historians have helped to create these impressions, too.³ In addition, the condemnations of the alleged political shortcomings of the republic need to be placed in the context of the late 1940s and early 1950s when ‘learning from Weimar’s mistakes’ became the guideline for reconstructing Germany’s shattered political system.⁴