Subtle Strides: Mass Culture and Anti-Semitism during the Weimar Republic, 1920-1925

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Tonya D. Lambert

Abstract

Alien, rootless, parasitic, strange, mysterious, ugly and deceptive: these were common stereotypes of the Jews during the years of the Weimar Republic. Although it is true that the Weimar Republic politically emancipated the Jews in Germany, mass culture of the 1920s clearly defined the minute differences between the German and the Jew. As the Germans read popular works of literature and viewed the various films produced during this time, the question of "who is the Jew' emerged. The mass culture of the Weimar Republic did much to answer this question. The authors of the literary works, as well as the producers of the films, preyed upon the prior years of anti-Semitism to subtly reintroduce the concept of the other. This concept had almost totally dissipated during Kaiser Wilhelm ll 's reign. The Jews faced racism and terror in prior years, but during the 1800s had begun to experience emancipation, which later the Weimar Republic tried to complete. This paper will argue that the mass culture of the 1920s encouraged anti-Semitism through the subtle use of prejudice in literature and films.

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