Main article:
Weimar culture
The Weimar Republic era began in the midst of several major movements in the fine arts.
German Expressionism had begun before World War I and continued to have a strong influence throughout the 1920s, although artists were increasingly likely to position themselves in opposition to expressionist tendencies as the decade went on.
A sophisticated, innovative
culture developed in and around Berlin, including highly developed architecture and design (
Bauhaus, 1919–33), a variety of literature (
Döblin,
Berlin Alexanderplatz, 1929), film (
Lang,
Metropolis, 1927,
Dietrich,
Der blaue Engel, 1930), painting (
Grosz), and music (
Brecht and
Weill,
The Threepenny Opera, 1928), criticism (
Benjamin), philosophy/psychology (
Jung), and fashion. This culture was often considered to be
decadent and socially disruptive by
rightists.
[2]
Film was making huge technical and artistic strides during this period of time in Berlin, and gave rise to the influential movement called
German Expressionism. "
Talkies", the Sound films, were also becoming more popular with the general public across Europe, and Berlin was producing very many of them.
The so-called
mystical arts also experienced a revival during this time-period in Berlin, with
astrology, the
occult, and
esoteric religions and off-beat religious practices becoming more mainstream and acceptable to
the masses as they entered popular culture.
Berlin in the 1920s also proved to be a haven for English writers such as
W. H. Auden,
Stephen Spender and
Christopher Isherwood, who wrote
a series of 'Berlin novels', inspiring the play
I Am a Camera, which was later adapted into a musical,
Cabaret, and an
Academy Award winning
film of the same name. Spender's semi-autobiographical novel
The Temple evokes the attitude and atmosphere of the time
