Zeitgeist: The Golden Twenties in Berlin

It was the decade of daring expressionist paintings, brilliant book design, the Bauhaus total artwork, groundbreaking psychology, drag balls, cabaret, Metropolis, and Marlene Dietrich's rising star in theater and silent film. Between the paroxysms of two world wars, Berlin in the 1920s was a cultural heyday of Carpe Diem, characterized by groundbreaking art, inventions, and ideas.

This book immerses readers in the carefree spirit of the Weimar era. Through outstanding works of painting, sculpture, architecture, graphic design, photography, and film, we discover the innovations, ideas, and precious dreams that shaped this unique cultural window. We experience the jazz bars and dance halls, the crowded cinemas and flapper fashion, the advances in technology and transportation, the radio towers and rumbling streetcars and trains, the towering buildings, the cinematic masterpieces, and the newly independent women who smoked cigarettes, wore their hair short, and earned their own money.

Among the works featured in this vibrant cultural portrait are Hannah Höch's journalists, Lotte Jacobi's hands at the typewriter, Otto Dix's portrait of Sylvia von Harden, Peter Behrens' project Alexanderplatz, and Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel, in which Dietrich plays the cabaret artist Lola Lola. Along the way, we explore both the utopian longings and the grim economic and political realities that fueled the escapist, idealistic, or reactionary masterpieces of this era. Behind the bright lights and glittering dresses, we see the inflation, factory work, and fragile political consensus that lurked beneath this golden age and would ultimately seal its brutal end with the rise of National Socialism.