1. Who were the revolutionaries in Germany in 1918 and early 1919?

The text talks about two different sources. The Independent Socialists -- who have broken off from the Majority Socialists (both are branches of the pre-war German Social Democratic party, a Marxist party that claims to represent the industrial working-class) -- want to set up a system of Councils based loosely on Bolshevik Soviets that have sprung up in the wake of the February 1917 revolution in Russia. The Spartacists--headed by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht--rejected gradualist solutions and believe that a revolution--following a Bolshevik model that would involve seizing state power--is possible.

2. Who are Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg?

These are the leaders of the Spartacus League (that will become the German Communist Party or KPD=Kommunistische Partei Deutschland). In January 1919, the Spartacists attempt a violent coup in Berlin, and they are quickly defeated by Free Corps—paramilitary groups of demobilized soldiers—who are working in collaboration with the provisional government of Friedrich Ebert. Ebert is head of the Majority Socialists. The rift between Social Democrats and Communists is put solidly in place and won’t be patched up before 1933. Many of the artists we’ll study are either members of the KPD or very sympathetic to the KPD and critical of the SPD.

3. Who is Friedrich Ebert and what does he want?

Ebert is the head of the pre-1914 SPD. After November 1919, he wants to move swiftly to elections to a national assembly that will draft a constitution. Ebert becomes the first elected president of the Weimar Republic.

4. What are some of the most important provisions of the Treaty of Versailles?

Loss of colonies, reduction in the size of the army, demilitarization of boundary region with France, agreement to pay war reparations

5. What is the Kapp Putsch?

This is important as context for “The Art Scab.” In March 1920, a right-wing group of Free Corps adventurers led by Wolfgang Kapp and Hermann Ehrhardt attempted to seize control of the government in Berlin. A nation-wide strike and the willingness of Communist and Social Democrats to take up arms in defense of the republic led to its speedy defeat.

Discuss

6. Why would the author of the Britannica text call the cultural and intellectual developments of the 1920s the Weimar Renaissance? What do you know about the Renaissance that could be used to describe culture and the arts in Weimar?

7. What triggered the hyperinflation?

The French occupation of the coal-mining region in western Germany, the Ruhr, which led to passive resistance; the government paid workers by rolling the printing presses. Many students will think the inflation leads directly to Hitler. My point will be that it’s remarkable that the inflation doesn’t lead directly to Hitler.

8. What are the main characteristics of the artistic movement called Expressionism?

Go to Grove Art Online or maybe just Wikipedia for this, but the text says it’s “depicting their emotional responses to reality rather than reality itself.” This is important because of Dada’s rejection of expressionism.

9. What was the economic impact of the Great Depression?

Collapse of the German economy, triggered by stock market crash in the US, massive unemployment—depicted in Kuhle Wampe—collapse of domestic production and foreign trade.

10. Why do you think President Hindenburg would resist making Hitler chancellor in late 1932?

Speculate

11. What do Nazis and German Communists have in common?

Both are not supporters of Weimar Democracy

12. How does the Manifesto explain the First World War?

Emphasis on imperialism, capitalist profit drive

13. Why do the Spartacists not like Socialists who are part of the Second International? What is the Second International?

They think Socialist have abandoned internationalism in favor of the nation in 1914. The Second International is defined in the glossary, so they should look there to get the answer.

14. How do the Spartacists think they can achieve a successful revolution in Germany?

(Speculate) Emphasis here is on a global proletarian revolution

15. Why do the Dadaists dislike Expressionism?

They see it as a retreat from reality, a turn to “inwardness, abstraction, renunciation of all objectivity” instead of an engagement with political reality

16. Speculate…

The Dadaists wanted to make a political revolution, but in many ways they were also irreverent about politics. In the list of things Dadaism wants (50-51), which ones do you think are realistic demands and which ones are meant to be ironic and playful?

17. Why are Grosz and Heartfield so critical of Kokoschka?

Kokoschka is critical of the violence surrounding the Kapp Putsch because it’s led to the defacing of a painting in a Dresden art gallery. Grosz and Heartfield use this as an occasion to denounce outmoded conceptions of art and celebrate the revolutionary politics of the present.

18. Speculate

As Professor Lupton explained, Shakespeare was suggesting in MSND that the creative work of the playwright was on a higher plain than the manual labor of the Rude Mechanicals. What is the relationship between manual labor and artistic creativity that is outlined in the Bauhaus Program?

19. Speculate…

Friedrich Wolf argues very explicitly that art should be used to intervene directly into politics. What do you think of his argument? Should makers be just makers? Or must a maker be a doer if what s/he makes is to have any significance or meaning?

20. Photomontage

Look at the Heartfield images in the outline for Professor Moeller’s second lecture. Can you find anywhere in print an interesting image from the current presidential primary campaigns? If not in print, on the web? Bring examples with you to class.

21. According to Münzenberg, what function should film play for a revolutionary political movement?

See the Zetkin quotation

22. What made it more difficult for Communists to produce films than to produce an illustrated press?

Münzenberg makes much of the high costs of film and the capitalist control of the film industry. Possible to contrast this with the situation in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany where the state, not the market, determines what gets produced by whom. Think about the constraints on making, and a next step might be to consider the possibilities of political film-making in the age of

the digital revolution.

23. Why does Young Bönike commit suicide?

Sense of worthlessness because he can’t find work, he is the symbol of the worker who in isolation can’t solve her/his problems, by the end of the film, the answer will lie in organization in the Communist youth organization

24. Why does Young Bönike take off his watch before he leaps from the window?

An interesting footnote—Soviet film authorities didn’t want to distribute this movie in the Soviet Union because of this scene, because they thought it made it seem as if the German working-class was too affluent.