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An Informal
Biographical Glossary
of the
Cast of Characters
including some commentary
about
Major Works
and
Movements
of the
Weimar Era.
All Quiet on the Western Front
novel
Josephine Baker
Dancer, singer, actress, spy, activist
Born June 3, 1906, in St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Died April 12, 1975, in Paris, France
How does one connect a showgirl par excellence from Paris via St. Louis and Broadway to the Weimar Republic? To put it another way, why does a celebrity the likes of Josephine Baker figure in current historical surveys of the era? The answer lies in the intricate powers of revisionism and the creeping influence of pop culture on historical inquiry.
bauhaus
The "bauhaus," founded in Weimar by Walter Gropius in 1919, was a school for architects, artists, and designers. Its main purpose was the synthesis of art, technology, modernity, and functionalism. From 1925 to 1933 the "bauhaus" was located in Dessau.
Max Beckmann
painter
Berlin Alexsanderplatz
novel
Marlene Dietrich
actress
Otto Dix
painter from Dresden
Alfred Döblin
writer
Sam Fischer
publisher
Wilhelm Furtwängler
conductor
Greta Garbo
actress
Walter Gropius
architect. founder of the Bauhaus School.
Georg Grosz
satirist
Born 26 July 1893 in Berlin.
Died 6 July 1959 in Berlin.
Artist associated with the Dada movement in Berlin
http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/dada/grosz.html
Conscripted into Germany army in World War One, released because of emotional problems, but drafted again. Guarded prisoners until suicide attempt in 1917. Sentenced to death but saved by Count Kessler. Anti-war, anti-Hitler, pro-communist -- stayed in hot water with officialdom.
Fled Germany in 1932. Became naturalized citizen of USA in 1938.
Dadaists in Germany: John Heartfield, Otto Dix, Max Ernst, Kurt Schwitters.
Gerhart Hauptmann
playwright
John Heartfield
graphics artist and illustrator who pioneered the technique of photomontage in the arts journal, Die Neue Jugend,,
born Helmet Herzfelde in Berlin on June 19, 1891, to a family of socialists and trade union activists. Family fled to Switzerland in 1896 because of political oppression. Helmet slipped back into Germany in his late teens to study at the School of Applied Arts in Munich. By 1912 he had migrated to Berlin to study under Ernst Neuman at the Arts and Crafts School. His illustrations were published in Die Neue Jugend, an arts journal published by his brother.
He met Grosz in the Army.
Photomontage: the production of pictures by rearranging selected details of photographs to form a new and convincing unity.
Changed his name to John Heartfield in 1916 in protest against German nationalism. A Marxist, he joined the German Communist Party (KPD) after World War One, devoting his talents to creating posters and propaganda for the organization for 15 years.
Editor of the satirical magazine, Der Knöppel. Left Germany in 1938. Moved to England where he produced photomontages for the Reynolds News, Picture Post and Penguin Books.
Heartfield returned to Germany in 1950 where he designed scenery and posters for the Berliner Ensemble and the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. In 1960 he became professor at the German Academy of Arts in Berlin. John Heartfield died in Berlin on 26th April, 1968.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWheartfield.htm
Hermann Hesse
writer
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
writer
Wassily Kandinsky
painter
Otto Klemperer
conductor
Fritz Lang
filmmaker
Thomas Mann
writer
Moholy-Nagy
photographer
Mies van der Rohe
architect
Christian Schad
painter
Arnold Schoenberg
conductor
Kurt Schwitters
painter from Hanover
Josef von Sternberg
filmmaker
The Threepenny Opera
by Brecht and Weill
Billy Wilder
filmmaker
Carl Zuckmayer
writer
Stefan Zweig
novelist
*This is the first step toward THE One World Language.
Step Two: Your pronoun on a pike!
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