Introductory description

Germany’s Weimar Republic (1918-1933) has fascinated historians, writers, artists and musicians for much of the past century. Often characterised as a doomed democratic experiment between an authoritarian empire and a fascist dictatorship, it has been portrayed as an unloved polity beset by economic crisis and political extremism, a weak democracy powerless to defend itself from those who would destroy it. Yet it was also a period of progressive social change and cultural ferment, a ‘laboratory for modernity’ that saw the development of a modern mass culture, welfare state and consumer society.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Week 1: Introduction: Historians and the Weimar Republic
Week2 : War and Revolution
Week 3: Crises and Consolidation
Week 4: The Golden Twenties?
Week 5: Crisis and Collapse
Week 6: Reading Week
Week 7: Political Culture
Week 8: Social Change
Week 9: Weimar Culture
Week 10: Aftermath: Weimar in Exile

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a detailed knowledge and understanding of the history of the Weimar Republic.
• Effectively communicate ideas, and make informed, coherent and persuasive arguments, relating to the history of the Weimar Republic
• Generate ideas through the analysis of a broad range of primary source material relating to Weimar Germany.
• Critically analyse and evaluate different historiographical, theoretical and methodological perspectives from the existing scholarship on Weimar Germany.
• Act with limited supervision and direction within defined guidelines, accepting responsibility for achieving deadlines.

Indicative reading list

Theo Baldeson, Politics and Economics in the Weimar Republic (Cambridge, 2002)
Helen Boak, Women in the Weimar Republic (Manchester, 2013)
Brendan Fay, Classical Music in Weimar Germany (London, 2020)
Ben Fowkes (ed.), The German Left and the Weimar Republic: A Selection of Documents (Chicago, 2015)
Bernd Fulda, Press and Politics in the Weimar Republic (OUP, 2009)
Peter Gay, Weimar Culture (London, 1992)
Robert Gerwarth, November 1918 (OUP, 2020)
Benjamin Carter Hett, The Death of Democracy (London, 2018)
Jochen Hung, Godela Weiss-Sussex, Geoff Wilkes (eds.), Beyond Glitter and Doom: The Contingency of the Weimar Republic (Munich, 2012)
Noah Isenberg (ed.), Weimar Cinema (New York, 2009)
Larry Eugene Jones, Hitler Versus Hindenburg (Cambridge, 2016)
Mark Jones, Founding Weimar (OUP, 2016)
Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, Edward Dwimendberg (eds.), The Weimar Republic Sourcebook (Berkeley, 1994)
Gabriel Kuhn (ed.), All Power to the Councils! A Documentary History of the German Revolution of 1918-1919 (Oakland, 2012)
Walter Laqueur, Weimar 1918-1933: A Cultural History (London, 2000)
Anthony McElligott, Rethinking the Weimar Republic (London, 2014)
Anthony McElligott (ed.), Weimar Germany (OUP, 2009)
Laurie Marhoefer, Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis (Toronto, 2015)
Elizabeth Otto, Haunted Bauhaus: Occult Spirituality, Gender Fluidity, Queer Identities and Radical Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 2019)
Detlev Peukert, The Weimar Republic (London, 1993)
Nadine Rossol and Benjamin Ziemann (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of the Weimar Republic (OUP, 2022)
Matthew Stibbe, Germany, 1914-1933 (Harlow, 2010)
Colin Storer, A Short History of the Weimar Republic (I. B. Tauris, 2013)
Henry Ashby Turner, Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power (London, 1997)
C. Paul Vincent, A Historical Dictionary of Germany’s Weimar Republic, 1918-1933 (Westport, 1997)
Eric Weitz, Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy (Princeton, 2007)
Clayton Whishant, Queer Identities and Politics in Germany: A History, 1880-1945 (New York, 2016)
John Alexander Williams (ed.), Weimar Culture Revisited (Basingstoke, 2011)

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes