OXFORD GERMAN NETWORK

German, Austrian and Swiss Culture in 1914

Upcoming Events & Exhibitions

The Bodleian Library, Oxford, the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, Germany, and the Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg, France are collaborating on a series of exhibitions on 1914 over the next twelve months. Click on the links to find out more about each of the exhibitions!

Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach: 'August 1914: Literatur und Krieg' (16 October 2013-30 March 2014)

Bodleian Library: 'The Great War: Personal Stories from Downing Street to the Trenches' (12 June 2014-2 November 2014)

Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg: '1914: La Mort des poètes' (5 September 2014-7 December 2014)

Film

Left: Poster for the third Golem film from 1920.

Cinematography was new in the early twentieth century and films were still in black and white - and silent. It was quickly seen as a cheap form of entertainment, but from 1910 onwards, directors tried to show their films were part of a serious art form. The German director and actor, Paul Wegener, made two iconic films in this period: Der Student von Prag (1913) and Der Golem (1915). Der Golem passed the censors in late 1914 and was released soon afterwards. It is often considered the first of the horror film genre and it had two sequels in 1917 and 1920. Only fragments of the first film survive - you can watch the fragments online here. You can find a list of some German films from the period here. Other popular German, Austrian and Swiss actors and actresses at this time were Henny Porten, Karl Valentin, Paul Otto, Lil Dagover, Lissy Lind, Dorrit Weixler and Erich Kaiser-Titz.

Literature

Expressionism was the modernist movement that developed in Germany before World War I. Its style could be found in a broad range of the arts, including the literature of the period. Poets who wrote in an Expressionist style were Else Lasker-Schüler, Georg Trakl and Gottfried Benn, among others, while famous Expressionist authors from the time include Franz Kafka, who wrote his short story In der Strafkolonie in 1914 (published 1918) and wrote Die Verwandlung in 1912 (published 1915).

Food & Drink

Domestic food preparation was still the task of women in this period. In the nineteenth century, the household name for cookery books that aimed to help the housewife to cook appetising and nutritious meals for her family - and to help her with the important task of budgeting - was Henriette Davidis. Her books continued to be reprinted into the early twentieth century. The Neues Wiener Menu- und Kochbuch (1914) gives a taste of what people might have been eating at the time. When World War I began in 1914, cookery books that helped the ordinary housewife adjust her cooking to wartime conditions soon followed. You can view some of these books online, for example, this short Kriegskochbuch (1915) or Was sollen wir kochen? (1915). Why not try out some of those recipes? Let us know how they taste!

Right: Front cover of a cookery book by Elisa von Schmidt and published in 1913, aimed at a readership beginning to feel the effects of inflation ('Ein Teuerungskochbuch für bessersituierte Stände')

What happens in 1914?

January February March April

May June July August

September October November December

Volksblatt, Zeitung, Anzeiger...

Right: Front page of Vienna's Die Neue Zeitung on 1 January 1914

The German and Austro-Hungarian empires extended over large parts of Europe and included many non-German-speaking countries. Consequently, there were hundreds of newspapers published within their borders in many different languages, although the majority were in German. They frequently did not only report the news, but also included serialised literature, advertisments and other entertaining features. Click here to view Austro-Hungarian newspapers printed in 1914, now held by the Austrian National Library.

Satire

Left: Front page of Simplicissimus on 6 April 1914 'Der britische Löwe'.

Simplicissimus was a successful satirical magazine. Founded in 1896 by the publisher Albert Langen, it continued for nearly 100 years and was famous for its political caricatures and striking front covers, which sometimes got the magazine into difficulties with the censors. Many well-known artists and writers contributed to the magazine. Around 1914, some of these were Lovis Corinth, Käthe Kollwitz, Fanny zu Reventlow, Frank Wedekind, Kurt Tucholsky and Hermann Hesse. Click here to look at issues of Simplicissimus from 1914.

Germans in Great Britain

Great Britain had links with Germany through the royal family and this was one factor in encouraging German migration to Great Britain. In the early twentieth century there were also economic factors. By 1914, there were significant concentrations of Germans in London and German communities in cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle.They set up their own businesses as, among other things, tailors, bakers, butchers, restaurateurs and delicatessen owners. There have been German-speaking church congregations in London since the seventeenth century - for example, St George's in the East End, which had an important library collection now held by the British Library, and the Swiss Church in Endell Street. The city even had two German newspapers, which ran until the outbreak of World War I: Londoner Zeitung: Herrmann and Londoner General-Anzeiger. Click here to see a list of German newspapers published in London since 1810, now held by the British Library.

Was there a German, Austrian or Swiss community near you in 1914? Send us an email and tell us about it!

1914

Above: Poster by Peter Behrens for the Deutsche Werkbund-Ausstellung held in Cologne from May to October 1914. Printed by A. Molling & Comp. KG, Hannover-Berlin. Original dimensions: approx. 89.2cm x 62.5cm.

Science

Left: Physicist Max von Laue in 1914.

German researchers were making significant chemical discoveries and developments in the early twentieth century. Although some of this resulted in the development of the chemical warfare used in World War I, it also resulted in the Haber-Bosch process of manufacturing ammonia, which was first made in significant quantities in 1913 and is still vital for fertilizer production today. Meanwhile, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to German scientist Max von Laue for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals.

Business & Industry

Right: Atrium of Wertheim department store on Leipziger Strasse in Berlin, 1900.

Department stores had existed in the big cities of Europe since the eighteenth century, but the early twentieth century saw new shopping habits develop among the wealthy as these commercial houses proliferated. Fenwicks was founded in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1882 and Selfridges in London in 1909. Meanwhile, in Berlin, the famous Kaufhaus des Westens (known as KaDeWe) was founded in 1905, and the chain Wertheim had several stores in the city by 1914, as did the competing chain run by the Tietz family. The Wertheim store on Leipziger Strasse in Berlin was the largest in Europe at the start of the twentieth century.

The German steelworks company, Friedrich Krupp AG, was the largest company in Europe in this period. Krupp patented and began working with stainless steel in 1912. Just before World War I, the company's biggest competitor was Thyssen & Co; both companies would be important for Germany's armaments production in the years following 1914.