Culture and inflation in Weimar Germany / Bernd Widdig.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Widdig, Bernd.

Series:

Weimar and now ; 26.

Weimar and now ; 26

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Inflation (Finance).

History.

Germany--Social conditions--1918-1933.

Germany.

Social conditions.

Inflation (Finance)--Germany--History.

Germany--History--1918-1933.

Germany--Economic policy--1918-1933.

Economic policy.

German literature--20th century--History and criticism.

German literature.

Germany--Civilization--20th century.

Civilization.

Money in literature.

Antisemitism--Germany--History--20th century.

Antisemitism.

Physical Description:

xvi, 277 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [2001]

Summary:

For many Germans the hyperinflation of 1914-1923 was one of the most decisive experiences of the twentieth century. In his original and authoritative study, Bernd Widdig investigates the effects of that inflation on German culture during the Weimar Republic. He argues that inflation, with its dynamics of massification, devaluation, and the rapid circulation of money, is an integral part of modern culture and intensifies and condenses the experience of modernity in a traumatic way.

Looking at how inflation was articulated in the German cultural imagination, he finds that the shattering of important values and the feelings of betrayal left permanent scars embedded more deeply than inflation's measurable economic consequences. Among the themes Widdig explores are the importance of the number zero for understanding the inflationary dynamic; gambling and inflation; the impact of inflation on the rise of anti-Semitism; the significance of work as an alternative space in the inflationary chaos; the erosion of the status of writers, artists, and professors; and the different feminine codings within visual representations of inflation. The epilogue addresses the "after-life" of German inflation: the ways it shaped National Socialist ideology and its continuing power in the collective memory of Germany's postwar society.

Widdig illuminates the effects of Germany's inflation by drawing on a wide range of canonical literature and films as well as generally unexplored cultural materials such as satirical illustrations, photographs, and pamphlets. Widdig's clear-headed ability to combine cultural analysis with popular social experience makes his book highly readable and a welcome addition to German studies, German cultural history, and discussions of modernity.

Contents:

1. Money Matters: Culture and Inflation 3

Part I. History and Experience

2. Flirting with Disaster: The German Inflation, 1914-1923 33

3. Daily Explosions: Canetti's Inflation 53

Part II. Money

4. Under the Sign of Zero: Money and Inflation 79

5. Uncanny Encounters: Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler 113

6. Visions of Work: Hugo Stinnes and His Doubles 134

Part IV. Accounts

7. Cultural Capital in Decline: Inflation and the Distress of Intellectuals 169

8. Witches Dancing: Gender and Inflation 196

9. Aftershocks: Inflation, National Socialism, and Beyond 223.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-272) and index.

ISBN:

0520222903

OCLC:

44869111