The WEIMER Republic

After Germany’s loss in the First World War , the Kaiser abdicated and after the demise of the German Empire Its first republic was formed which lasted from 1918 until its overthrow by the Nazi Party under Adolph Hitler in 1933,

In Berlin , rebirth after WW1 was celebrated by crowds outside the Reichstag.

The decade during the 1920s known as the Golden Twenties   saw a burst of creativity in the city which became a meeting place for artists from East and West.

Homosexuality was tolerated, foreigners.welcomed, bohemian lifestyles and modernist art movements such as Bauhaus , Constructivism and Successionists, flourished.

The uncle of Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius had built this monumental structure , called the Gropius Bau, still here hosting exhibitions today.

Rampant inflation and the depression put an end to the short lived Republic.

Hyperinflation took hold. In 1914 the mark had been 4 to the US dollar. By 1921 it was 74 and two years later 48,000- six months later it was 440 million and then two months later 4.1 billion . Pictures of Berliners taking wheelbarrows full of cash to buy a loaf of bread were commonplace.

Unemployment skyrocketed to three million . When Hitler came to power the vast majority of modern artists and liberal thinkers  left the city and country.

The Golden Twenties , if it ever was such, came to an abrupt end.