Performing the Nation in Interwar Germany: Sport, Spectacle and Political Symbolism, 1926-36

by N. Rossol

Overview

Performing the Nation in Interwar Germany challenges the notion that the Nazis invented the use of aesthetics for the staging of their mass events. Instead, the book argues that the period from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s should be considered as a whole with regard to the development of political aesthetics and festive culture. A stress on rhythm, moving bodies, shapes and community already characterised mass events in the republic and strongly influenced festivities, parades, sporting events and spectacles organized by the republican state. Consequently, the originality of Nazi propaganda and representation was limited as the public was well accustomed to mass staged events by the state and political organisations alike by the time the National Socialists came to power. 'Nazi aesthetics' were thus less quintessentially 'Nazi' than an expression of the Zeitgeist of the 1920s and 1930s.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230217935
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	02/03/2010
Edition description:	2010
Pages:	226
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

NADINE ROSSOL is a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow in the History Department at the University of Limerick, Ireland, and works on twentieth century German history, in particular cultural and police history. She is currently working on a book studying the role of the police as educator in Germany. She received her doctorate from the University of Limerick in 2006.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

List of Abbreviations xi

Acknowledgements xii

Introduction 1

1 Bodies and Urban Space: Parades, Marches and Demonstrations 1890s-1920s

1412 The republic and parades: Expressing republican spirit or militaris

1812 ‘A black-red-gold storm in German Cities’: Interpreting

2511 2 Sports and Games 1925-1928 3412 Frankfurt in 1925: The Worker

3512 Cologne's Kampfspi

4212 ‘

4911 3 Staging the Republic: Constitution Day Festivities in 1929 581

‘Staging the Republic’: Ideas, concepts, problems 591

Flags, masses and parades: August 1929 6612 A republican mass sp

7111 4 Republican

8012

The republic and nationalist themes 8112 The Rhineland as part o

8512 The Rhinela

9011 5 Party Rallies and t

10212 Naz

10312 The Nazi

10812 The

1131

6 The Death of the Spectacle in the mid-1930s 12112 The festive

12212 The death of

12912 Territorial un

13311

7 ‘Like 100 years ago…’: Local Festivities in W

13912 Constitution Day celebrations at local level 14012 The Reichsban

14512 Reforming popular tas

15001

15801 Notes 16601 Bibliography 20401 Index 222

Editorial Reviews

'In Performing the Nation, Nadine Rossol highlights continuities in German political representation that transcended the historical divide of 1933, and, in so doing, she challenges the notion that the Nazis invented the mass spectacle...One of the greatest strengths of Rossol's study is its depiction of the gradual evolution in the scale and assertiveness of the Weimar Republic's self-celebration. Rossol's study provides another important example of the continuities that linked the Weimar Republic and the Nazi regime, and she incorporates a great deal of material in this book that will be of value to cultural historians of the period.'

- Erik Jensen, Miami University, USA

From the Publisher