Als Berlin leuchtete: Kunst und Leben in den zwanziger Jahren

Abstract

The culture of Weimar Berlin continues to fascinate scholarly and lay audiences alike. This fascination has led to films such as Cabaret or Comedian Harmonists and continues to inspire retrospectives and revivals far beyond the German metropolis. It also underpins a myriad of specialized studies as well as more broadly conceived books such as Richard Bodek’s exploration of Agitprop theatre and other communist innovations or Peter Jelavich’s analysis of how radio and film adaptations of Alfred Döblin’s seminal novel Berlin Alexanderplatz reflected an increasingly repressive atmosphere and therefore marked ‘the death of Weimar culture’. What has thus far been missing is a synthetic book that brings together the whole range of currents, protagonists and events. This is the task that Dietmar Schenk has set himself. As the long-time chief archivist of the University of Arts, Schenk possesses a thorough and intimate knowledge of the art world of Weimar Berlin. He brings this knowledge to bear in a richly detailed, clearly structured and fluently written book. Given the broad and continuing interest in the topic, it is a pity that students and non-academic readers will likely be put off by the rather stiff price for a paperback of c. 200 pages. With all due respect for Franz Steiner, a publisher mainly of doctoral theses and collective volumes, it was perhaps not an ideal choice for this kind of book.