Wiermar Republic

4 Pages 1030 Words

Free Thought in the Weimar Republic


From Artists to Industrialists, many Germanys were being mistreated because they were “degenerates.” First, to define a degenerate in the time period, one would find that a person was a degenerate if they did not fit into the social norm. The growing Nationalist parties had set this norm to increase pride in the German Country, the Fatherland. One can find many types of German people who suffered from this attack on humanism and art. Some of these degenerates were people who had serious doubts about the Weimar Republic. They saw the flaws in how the country was running and brought their visions to the public eye so the problem could be averted or fixed. So was the life of an artist named Otto Dix.
Dix, a painter who fought in World War One, hated the war. After being exposed to the atrocities of war he wanted the population to remember Germany’s treatment and the hell of war. Germany was subjected to a naval blockade even after signing an armistice. The blockade starved much of Germany. Dix believed there was nothing good in war. This belief is what labeled him a degenerate, and made rightist leaders such as Hitler hate him. Leaving the military, he began experimenting in Expressionism. Expressionist painting in its ideal is abstract, ignoring the surface and reveal the hidden truth of something. An expressionist exclaimed: “We believe that our first duty is to dedicate all our energies to the moral regeneration of a young free Germany. We plead for excellence in all things… We insist upon unlimited freedom of expression….” The “New” Germany had no room for such individuality or hate of war.
Dix painted several works portraying skulls, prostitutes, starving children, and the carnage of the war. He used his art as a political lever to change people’s minds about war but instead of being the best thing a country can do, he showed it as the worst. Dix’s works were viewed a...