Talk:Weimar culture

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 2 February 2021 and 14 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Zachdavis6.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 12:48, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Weimarer Zeit

To my opinion the term "Weimar culture" does not match the wellknown term "Weimarer Zeit" (in spoken language shortened to "Weimar Zeit" or just "Weimar", which is used in Germany to describe a certain period between World War I and II introducing some new political and cultural ideas. In English I just would call it "Weimar period". That period is standing in for the first trial of a republican form of state in Germany and the liberization of arts and social forms. Also I think that it is not a good idea to merge the page with "Berlin". That city was in fact very important during the Weimar period, but the term stands in for changes allover Germany. (Brente de 07:42, 20 October 2006 (UTC))

Jung was Swiss. Freud lived in Vienna. I don't think these two belong here. Clocke 06:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Hesse lived at this time in Swiss!

14 March 2006 I added Herbert Bayer, former graphic design teacher at the Bauhaus of Dessau who worked during ten years from 1928 to 1938 in Berlin

Old Discussion

Er? What exactly is this? Actually, did a Google search and it did jog my memory, but some sites say that this period in Germany is sometimes overrated as a specific cultural period. Anyone like to take a stab at this, I'm certainly not qualified... Rgamble

Some information (background, history, signnificance, etc) on wiemar culture would certainly be alot more useful than a bunch of links as this page currently stands... quercus robur 19:52 Dec 31, 2002 (UTC)

Please be patient. The title should be "Weimar culture" rather than "Weimar Culture", but let's not delete it too hastily. Eventually, the already existing list could be at the end of this page, after some text written some time by someone about -- no, I'm not going to say "something" now -- cultural life in Germany in the interwar years. --KF 20:02 Dec 31, 2002 (UTC)

Maybe it should be Weirmar Kultur....I would hardly say that Hitler is not a prominent figure of this period. Vera Cruz

I agree that Hitler will have to be reintroduced here (and some others as well). However, the term "Weimar Kultur" is against German syntax: It would have to be "Weimarer Kultur", but this would not be recognized by anyone, whether they are German or English-speaking. So why not stick to "Weimar culture" as a working title? KF 20:14 Dec 31, 2002 (UTC)

I just like the word Kultur, thats all...

About Hitler, it depends on how broadly you understand "culture". If politics belongs to culture, well yes. Otherwise, no. Either way is good for me. --FvdP 20:24 Dec 31, 2002 (UTC)

Nobody has defined what we are talking about here, is this a list of plays, authors, operas, music, popular in Weimar Germany- or a list of topics relevant to understanding Weimar Germany? Vera Cruz

That, I hope, will evolve naturally after this brainstorming session and after someone has actually started writing complete sentences on this page. As far as politics is concerned, I don't think it's as simple as that. If we consider what came immediately after the end of the Weimar Republic (see, for example, "Gleichschaltung"), we will realize that culture was very strongly defined in political terms. I'm still hopeful that some expert among us will tell us more. (I'll have to stop now -- champagne is waiting.) --KF 20:37 Dec 31, 2002 (UTC)

The culture of the Weimar Republic is certainly not overrated – its impact is underrated. Just look at the name-list – it reads like the “who is who” of persons ( and ideas ), which have shaped the world-views in modern societies. In fact, the creativity of the “Nazi-Reich” is by far overrated! The Nazis just were in the comfortable position that they could dip into the creative pool of the Weimar Republic – the concept of the “Autobahn” is the best example for it. Like all totalitarian systems, the “Nazi-Reich” itself was totally inflexible and strangled real creativity. --Sushi Leone 05:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Archive from Wikipedia:Requested Moves — February 2005

The article Weimar Culture was moved and set up as a redirect to Weimar culture after shortly after proposed on Wikipedia:Requested Moves. The brief commentary on the proposed move is archived below: —ExplorerCDT 14:17, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This was proposed on Talk:Weimar Culture on 2004-12-31 and has not seen any opposition there. Jonathunder 02:13, 2005 Feb 13 (UTC)

• Oppose I vehemently hate the arbitrary naming convention policy you seem to be implementing (at varying levels) on almost every article I contribute to (and just after I get back from an extended vacation)...it's starting to feel personal. Besides, the move was proposed in 2002, and nothing was done over a span of 26 months (especially nothing done towards writing this article, something I've recently started to work on—expanding it to a serious tome from a mere list). I don't think that's a sign of opposition, it's a sign of this article not having any attention whatsoever from anyone except a handful of people who are long gone onto better places or more important articles. —ExplorerCDT 02:23, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Actually, I misread that. After looking at the talk page again, I see this move was first proposed way back on Dec 31, 2002 -- wow!

Shouldn't see red links on this page - Weimar culture doesn't exist. violet/riga (t) 10:10, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Term "Weimar culture"

Is "Weimar culture" a fixed term in English, or does it just mean "the culture of the Weimar era" in general?

I have never heard the term before as a fixed expression, and as this article does not even have a German counterpart, this does make me wonder. --93.212.233.204 (talk) 11:18, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

It comes up #10, in a search of the top ten nouns in bigrams starting with "Weimar" in the first position, in books of the last sixty years. A targeted search for "Weimar culture" in books of the last ten years finds primarily Walter Laqueur's book, "Weimar, A Cultural History", and books which quote him. For example, Brendan Fay (2019) wrote:

As the historian Walter Laqueur, whose Weimar: A Cultural History deeply shaped historical understanding of the period, puts it in his memoirs:

What we now call "Weimar culture" was really only part of the scene and foer most of the time, not even the dominant trend. During those years, one hardly ever used the term, "Weimar" ... only in the 1960s and 1970s did the term "Weimar" gain wide currency. There had been no Cultural Revolution only gradual change in some fields. What we referred to as Weimar Culture really only pertained to Berlin and a few of the other big cities.

Yet in his own work, Laqueur often wrote with a particular kind of culture in mind, namely Weimar modernism.

— Brenday Fay, 2019

So, it doesn't seem like it's used a lot, but one influential book raised the issue, and others commented on it. Mathglot (talk) 07:15, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

References

Adding additional information and citations

After reading this article on Weimar culture, we believe we can offer additional citations and information that can help improve it. In its current state, there are few mentions of any aspect of the gay community which was increasingly prevalent during this specific time period. We believe this article would do well to add an additional sub-heading on LGBT culture itself. Under this new section, added after “Health and self-improvement” and before “Berlin’s reputation for decadence,” we will add information gathered through three secondary sources regarding the status of LGBT persons living in the Weimar Republic, specifically including how this period brought increased visibility for homosexual people – a noteworthy mention given their subsequent persecution under the Nazi regime.

The first source we will pull from is “I feel that I belong to you”: Subculture, Die Freundin and Lesbian Identities in Weimar Germany by Angeles Espinaco-Virseda. This peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal focuses on the formation of lesbian and gay identities through queer media of the time. As the movement for homosexual rights grew, several instances strengthened the status of LGBT persons, including in 1919 when scientist Magnus Hirschfeld founded the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin and argued that homosexuality was natural. Additionally, during this time homosexuality was seen more and more in various public venues and in the arts. Travel guides were created to introduce homosexual individuals to clubs and nighclubs; various ladies clubs were also formed across Germany that helped link lesbians to the homosexual rights movement. Lesbian magazines like Die Freundin – which were circulated to more than one million readers across Germany – were immensely important for spreading information about homosexuality. Another source we will reference is Less and More than Women and Men: Lesbian and Gay Cinema in Weimar Germany by Richard Dyer. This journal article is published by Duke University Press for the New German Critique, a leading journal in German studies funded by Cornell University. The article includes relevant information regarding how cinema about homosexuality was received during the Weimar period. In particular, the films Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others, 1919) and Madchen in Uniform (Girls in Uniform), both of which received wonderful critic reviews at the time of release. The third and final source is "THE BOOK WAS A REVELATION, I RECOGNIZED MYSELF IN IT": Lesbian Sexuality, Censorship, and the Queer Press in Weimar-era Germany by Laurie Marhoefer, another peer-reviewed, university press article. This article primarily focuses on how lesbian literature and queer media was important in the Weimar period to forming a lesbian society, as it revealed meeting spots to readers, thereby enabling the formation of social clubs and communities – especially for those in less tolerant areas.

In total, these additions would add roughly 200-300 words to the article. If anyone has any suggestions or comments regarding these changes, we would love to hear them. Please let me know on this Talk Page or on my own Talk Page. Thank you!Zachdavis6 (talk) 10:11, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

@Zachdavis6: it sounds like an interesting addition, and that you have your sources lined up; that's good, that's how you should start, and it's nice to have shared them here. Otoh, they're not formatted and linked, so anyone who wanted to look at them would have to do a search first. I presume you went through the Wiki Ed training modules for your course, so you know how to write citations already, using the {{cite book}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}}, and the other {{citation}}-series of templates. Although it's not a requirement, it would be a courtesy to write up your sources and list them here (see H:LIST), that way interested editors could follow along more easily. I'll have more to say if you do. (please  mention me on reply; thanks!) Mathglot (talk) 17:47, 7 May 2021 (UTC)