Sally O'Rourke
Essays
German Film and the Instability of the Weimar Republic
Director Fritz Lang described Germany between the two World Wars as “a period of unrest and confusion, a period of hysteria, despair and unbridled vice, full of the excesses of an inflation-ridden country” (Eisner 1976:95). Between the years 1919 and 1933, Germany struggled with overcoming its authoritarian past to implement its first democratic government, the Weimar Republic. Unemployment levels soared, and the jobs that did exist often paid wages that barely helped workers survive. The ideal role of women in German society fluctuated from submissive wife and mother to independent, sexually liberated woman. Amidst this all, the Weimar films of this period reflected the unstable environment.
The 1918 abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II left Germany without a monarchy for the first time in history. The country pressed ahead by creating the Weimar Republic, but the threat of a dictatorial power always loomed. Many of the major political players responsible for Germany’s entrance into World War I remained in power. The infamous ending of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari warns viewers of how easy the slide back into authoritarianism can be. Francis believes that the dictator Caligari has been overthrown, only to find himself trapped in an insane asylum with Caligari as the deceptively benevolent overseer. “Freedom and revolution had proven illusory in life; so, too, they would prove illusory in Wiene’s film,” Ian Roberts writes (Roberts 2004:180).
Mädchen in Uniform also alludes to the struggle between democracy and dictatorship, but with perhaps an even more negative outlook for Germany’s future. While The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari had been filmed during the first year of the new Republic, Mädchen in Uniform was released in 1931, on the advent of Nazi Germany. Mädchen in Uniform demonstrated the return to the dictatorship that Dr. Caligari had only warned about. The boarding school is a cruel enclave of authoritarianism in the ostensibly democratic Weimar Republic. B. Ruby Rich describes how “barred shadows cross the women’s paths, a sternly overbearing staircase encloses their every movement, a frantic montage marshals their steps into a militaristic gait, and even the school songs reinforce the authority of a demanding fatherland” (Rich 1993:66-67). The Caligari of this film is the cruel headmistress, who forbids even small freedoms such as reading novels and writing negative letters home. The film’s denouement, in which the schoolgirls rescue Manuela from suicide, seems to signal a collapse of the headmistress’s authority. Siegfried Kracauer writes how, “stripped of her authority,” the “old, stooped woman … retreats under the accusing stares of the girls and silently disappears in the dark corridor” (Kracauer 2004:227). However, this apparent victory for democracy is proven to be ultimately futile. The headmistress is accompanied by the sounds of drums and bugles, which indicate that her authority cannot be “silenced” for good.
Another way in which Germany struggled with its authoritarian past involved the treatment of suspected criminals. M portrays the instability of the new democratic ideals, in which everyone is presumed innocent and guaranteed the right to a fair trial. John Sandford writes that the film “suggests deep uncertainties about the causes of criminality and deviance, and how to deal with them, in a society that is trying to be enlightened and progressive” (Sandford 1995:316). The townspeople are quick to accuse an innocent man of being the child murder and disregard his protests. When the townspeople, along with the criminals, do corner the real murderer, they set up a sham court to find him guilty. Had the police, that symbol of modern justice, not intervened, the mob would have lynched the murderer on the spot. It is only that “thin blue line” that prevents the crowd from casting off the democratic way of life and reverting to the barbarisms of the past.
In addition to the guarantees of fair treatment for criminals, the Weimar Republic assured that women would be treated equally to their male counterparts. Women began attending universities, earning their own wages and breaking out of the traditional role as wife and mother. However, this new freedom was not as widespread as expected. For instance, the boarding school in Mädchen in Uniform may be controlled by a headmistress and occupied exclusively by female students and teachers, but Rich writes that “military preparedness, steeples and archways, bugle calls and the marching rhythm of soldiery” informs us “that an all-woman school in no way represents a woman-defined space” (Rich 1993:66).
Richard W. McCormick writes that these “newly emancipated women were blamed for social instability, especially by antidemocratic forces on the Right” (McCormick 1993:644). The Blue Angel relates the story of how one of these “new women,” the socially and sexually open Lola Lola, brings about the downfall of Professor Rath. The once-respectable professor allows Lola to work, flaunt her sexuality to strangers and not have children. As a result, Rath loses his position of respectability and is forced to work as a clown. The storyline of The Blue Angel therefore represents the male fear of changing gender roles. Although legally women were entitled to most of the same rights as men, many men (and women) longed for a return to the traditional maternal archetype of the German woman. As a result, the standing of women in Weimar society existed in a constant state of uncertainty.
Germany also experienced economic instability during the Weimar Republic, in which the gap between the rich and the poor widened and the middle class deteriorated into poverty. The Last Laugh provides a clear illustration of life in this confused economy. The film contrasts the doorman’s “gloomy tenement house crowded with lower middle-class people” with his place of work, “a palace home for the rich, who keep the revolving door and elevators in permanent motion” (Kracauer 2004:100). In the old German society, a man could expect to occupy the same job his entire life, and thus it became an important part of his identity. However, the instability of the job market, and the rise of consumerism, means that the hoteliers are free to hire a younger, more capable person as doorman. The former doorman must then relinquish his position of prestige and move to the basement, both literally and figuratively. He, and by extension his neighbors, become even further removed from the wealthy patrons and operators of the hotel. The film’s ending, in which the doorman suddenly inherits a large sum of money, is purposely over the top in order to satirize the unlikelihood of social mobility in this time period. Even though the doorman achieves wealth, Marc Silberman writes, “the line of hotel employees waiting for tips in the last sequence stresses one last time the role of money in a corrupt and unstable system” (Silberman 1995:32).
The various instabilities that characterized the Weimar Republic are in large part responsible for why many Germans embraced the emergence of the Nazi Party. The Nazis promised a return to a familiar state of strong authority, a stable economy and a more maternal role for women. As a result, many of the people who made these films were persecuted by the Nazis and forced to flee Germany. Their films, however, remain as a lasting legacy of the uncertainties and instabilities of life in Germany’s first republic.
Works Cited
Eisner, Lottie (1976). Fritz Lang. Cambridge: Da Capo.
Kracauer, Siegfried (2004). From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film. Princeton: Princeton University.
McCormick, Richard W (1993). "From Caligari to Dietrich: Sexual, Social, and Cinematic Discourses in Weimar Film." Signs, 18 (3), 640-668.
Rich, B. Ruby (1993). "From Repressive Tolerance to Erotic Liberation: Girls in Uniform." Gender and German Cinema: Feminist Interventions, Vol. II, ed. Frieden et al. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 61-95.
Roberts, Ian (2004). "Caligari Revisited: Circle, Cycles and Counter-Revolution in Robert Wiene's Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari." German Life and Letters, 57 (2), 175-187.
Sandford, John (1995). "Chaos and Control in the Weimar Film." German Life and Letters, 48 (3), 311-323.
Silberman, Marc (1995). German Cinema: Texts in Context. Detroit: Wayne State University.
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