Weimar Germany (1919-1933): Challenges of a Young Democracy



From its very beginning, the Weimar Republic was in jeopardy as political extremist forces aimed at destabilizing the fragile republic. Yet, this precarious democracy also became the fertile breeding ground for a veritable explosion of new ideas in the arts, culture, the sciences, and society that shaped modernism in major and lasting ways. This course will retrace the conflict-ridden and fascinating developments in Germany between 1919 and 1933 and try to answer the question what led to the ultimate failure of this first German experiment with democracy.



Required texts:

Mai, Gunther: Die Weimarer Republik. München 2014. [2. Auflage].

Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (Hg.): Weimarer Republik [=Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung: Informationen zur politischen Bildung 261/2011]

Course reader

Schedule
8:00am-8:50am on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday (Jul 2, 2015 to Aug 14, 2015)
Location
LaForce 121
Instructors