Probable or Possible? The Issue of Women's Emancipation in German Literature of the 1920s

Abstract

The period directly following World War I was a time of great outward change in women's lives. New laws guaranteed women legal rights, and the equality of the sexes was affirmed in constitutions. Much publicized women with radical hair and clothing styles were openly flaunting sexual freedoms, and working at jobs, studying at universities, and debating in parliaments. In reality these women comprised only a small minority of the female population; yet there was a general belief that a new woman, an emancipated woman had come into being.1 The nature and value of women's emancipation became a hotly debated issue, and many writers took part in the debate during the fifteen years after World War I by creating a personal vision of emancipated women in their works. Exactly who were these writers? Most of the major works written during this period like Mann's Der Zauberberg (1924), Musil's Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (particularly Book I, 1930), Kafka's Der Prozefl (1925), or Doblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) revolve around male characters, relegating women to peripheral roles and largely ignoring the questions being raised about women's lives.2 On the other hand, works of popular literature written to entertain broader audiences were much closer to the contemporary social scene, often presenting the issues of women's emancipation, and are interesting today mainly in their value as documentation of the social impact of emancipation and similar issues. Some works of this caliber are Felix Dormann's Jazz (1925), Josefine Widmar's Die Kameradin (1930), Melchior and Eva Vischer's Kind einer Kameradschaftsehe (1931), and Die letzten Tage von . . . (1931) under the collective authorship of K.OLEKTIV.3 Between these two poles lie works which, while not major, nonetheless achieve a certain literary niveau, as well as entertaining their audiences. In this type of literature from the postwar era, the emancipation of women plays an important role, combining the authors' insights into and opinions about the social question with genuine literary value. Included in this group are Robert Neumann's Karriere (1931), Erich Kistner's Fabian (1930), Joseph Roth's Flucht ohne Ende (1927), Marieluise Fleif3er's Mehlreisende Frieda Geyer (1931; reprinted in 1972 as Eine Zierde fur den