Good Books on Weimar-era Berlin?

I’m fascinated–in a guilty way–with that era (after all, I embody everything the Nazis abhored!). Not only the obvious ghastliness–the approach of Nazism and the decadence of Berlin at the time . . . But the marvelous film and theater, and the marvelous characters: Margo Lion, Dietrich and Lubitsch; Anita Berber and Sebatian Droste; the great Magnus Hirschfeld and his Institute . . .

Can anyone recommend good books on the period? I’m more into history and biography, but if you know of any good novels as well (I’ve already read Isherwood, some Mann and have Voluptuous Panic).

A doomed world of toe-headed catamites and der schwartzen yatz-musik.

“Before the deluge; a portrait of Berlin in the 1920’s”
by Otto Freidrich, gives a look at some of the goings-on, but not in any great depth. Among other things, it describes Bertolt Brecht’s days in Berlin (and Fredrich follows up on Brecht in Hollywood in a later book "City of Nets). However, a lot of interesting painters were active in Germany between the wars, but are ignored by this book.

Not exactly what you’re looking for but a terrific fictional trilogy, “Berlin Noir”… http://hallenglishclassics.com/index.php/Mode/product/AsinSearch/0140231706/name/Berlin%20Noir%3A%20March%20Violets%2Fthe%20Pale%20Criminal%2Fa%20German%20Requiem%2F3%20Novels%20in%201%20Volume/browse/10305/page/1

Rough and tough.

also not exactly what you’re looking for, but I somehow suspect you would find this book quite interesting: I Am My Own Woman by Charlotte von Mahlsdorf.

“The outlaw life of Berlin’s most distinguished transvestite”
Hailed by DER SPIEGEL as speaking to “the fate of a whole generation of German homosexuals,” I AM MY OWN WOMAN is the exquisitely written autobiography of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, whose lifelong pursuits of sexual liberty and antique furniture offer a unique perspective on European history. During World War II, von Mahlsdorf murdered his father, dubbed himself Charlotte (after his cross-dressing lesbian aunt’s lover) and has lived openly as a transvestite since. Dressed in high-heeled sandals and a good suit, Charlotte has collected furnishings from the Grunderzeit for half a century: in the Third Reich, she “rescued” pieces from Jewish deportees; in the German Democratic Republic, she protected “bourgeois cultural assets” from the Stasi. Now well past sixty, a quietly passionate, steadfast and serene figure, Charlotte shuns makeup and wears the simplest frocks. The Grunderzeit Museum–which Charlotte and her friends have defended against assault from skinheads–has become a symbol for the German lesbian and gay community.³Move over Quentin Crisp: A naked civil servant is nothing compared with the German boy in a dressŠ² ‹ Out. ³As a child, Lothar Berfelde loved to wear an apron and polish porcelain. Given his druthers, he would have chosen to live quietly in the 19th century, perhaps as a housekeeper in a well-appointed home near Berlin. Instead, his life took a bumpier courseŠ.² ‹ Time. “Like the late-1800s Grunderzeit bric-a-brac she privately collects and passionately dusts in her museum, Charlotte’s been smacked and pawed for decades by a gallery of rogues and brutes. . .and she’s resisted. In drag. . .It is not the transgendered soul that is perverse, but the situation in which it lives. . .” --The Village Voice.

I must confess I’ve not yet read it, but it is on my Amazon wishlist.

I was going to put this book in my strangest book thread, but it’ll go here instead. The Hot Girls of Weimar Berlin might be of interest. Its sister volume, “Voloptuous Panic” is even better, but might not be work safe to link to.

I’ve read “Before the Deluge” and it was quite good.

You have, of course, read everything by Christopher Isherwood you can get your hands on?

Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood is something that I think you will really enjoy. It was the book from which Caberet was taken and is hauntingly well written. I have seen it numerous times in used bookstores.

A new book out on the era ties into the above author and W.H. Auden. It is called Auden and Isherwood: The Berlin Years. It’s put out by St. Martin’s Press and runs about $30.

Hmmm . . . I have read all of Isherwood; and I’d rather read Weimer novels that were written during the period (or at least by people who were there). I have Voluptuous Panic (recommended by Ukulele Ike, unsurprisingly), and will look for those Hot Girls, thanks . . .

There is a bio of Magnus Hirschfeld, but I think it’s pretty dry . . . Wonder if anything’s ever been written about Anita Berber? Offr to the NYPL’s history shelves tomorrow during lunch . . .

If you look at the “Customers who bought this book also bought” list on the Amazon page for Voluptuous Panic, you come up with a number of very interesting-looking books about Weimar, BTW.

Oooh, thanks, Harpo–I’m off to Amazon!

. . . and I’m back! Great suggestion, thanks. I’m going to see what the NYPL has on their shelves, then e-mail my own library and see if they can hunt me down some of those other titles!

I agree that they’re a great read, but, aside from the fact they start in the Nazi era, I did once read an interview with Kerr in which he admitted that he made much of the period detail up. His view was that it was far more important as a novelist to be convincing than accurate. I have to confess that, as far as I was concerned, he’d succeeded.

I had intended this to be the area of my thesis study, so I’ve done a lot of reading about Weimar. :slight_smile: If you’re interested, Eve, I’ll post a few, though my reading list has a specific leaning to art, culture and the role of gender.

I’ll letcha know what I get at the library at lunchtime—thanks!

I’ve begun reading “Berlin” by David Clay Large, which gives a great overview of the city from the beginning of the 20th century to the present, with a large chunk devoted to the Weimar period.

A few titles off the top of my head that were written by German authors during that period:

  • “Alexanderplatz” by Alfred Döblin (THE book to read from the Weimar era)
  • “Gilgi - eine von uns” by Irmgard Keun (I don’t know, though, if it’s been translated into English)
  • anything by Brecht, as you know
  • “Little Man, What Now?” by Hans Fallada

This is my favorite historical period to learn about. Don’t you wish you were there too, Eve?

Jesus, no! Unless I could have escaped in '33, of course.

Can you believe the NYPL doesn’t have one damn book on Weimer Germany?

And the new spring bags at Lord & Taylor were ghastly. Total waste of a lunch hour.

I’ve had it with the NYPL . . . The Jefferson Market branch didn’t have anything either. So I went across the street to B&N and bought Hot Girls of Berlin, the follow-up to Voluptuous Panic.

[Damn subways . . . I could’ve gotten downtown and back faster riding piggyback on Hume Cronin . . .]

During high school, I saw a brilliant touring art exhibition entitled “Degenerate Art.” It was a collection if artwork and biographies of artists banned by the Nazis in the 1930s. Not precisely on topic, but it is a good place to find some of the lesser known stories from the period.

This is a good place to start, lots of info and several web links.

How often does Hume run?

I see on Amazon’s German site a book called Tanz zwischen Rausch und Tod. Anita Berber 1918-1928 in Berlin, by Lothar Fischer (1996, Taschenbuch).

I’d love to order it, even though I’ll only be able to make out some of the text (my German is shaky at best), as I am fascinated by Anita Berber and her husband, Sebatian Droste. I also may get in touch with the auyhor and my publisher, to see if maybe an English-language version might be feasible . .

Anyhoo—can I order in English from Amazon’s German site? Or from their US site, where it doesn’t appear?