Expressionist Brotherhoods: Homophilic Elitism and the Drama of the Weimar Era

Abstract

When Philipp Scheidemann stood on the balcony of the Reichstag building in Berlin and proclaimed the new German Republic, he and other members of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) had much to celebrate. Scheidemann and the new Reich Chancellor Friedrich Ebert were the leaders of the SPD, which for decades had been the loudest voice of opposition to the Imperial regime. The Prussian Hohenzollern dynasty had ruled the German Empire since its inception in 1871. The Empire had become a global economic and military power under the Hohenzollerns, but it now faced defeat in the endgame of the First World War. Kaiser Wilhelm II had abdicated his position, and the Social Democrats stood ready to fill the political void. The SPD held the most seats in a Reichstag split along multiple party lines, and almost by default inherited the greatest share of political power upon the dissolution of the Empire. After elections in January 1919 landed the Social Democrats nearly forty percent of the delegates to a new National Assembly, the SPD entered into coalition with two centrist parties and shepherded a new constitution through months of debate in the city of Weimar—the site which subsequently lent its name to the new Republic.