1. Still from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Chapter 34
An Age of Anxiety
Still from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

2. Postwar Pessimism The “lost generation”
Term coined by Gertrude Stein, the writer/playwright/art patron and godmother of Americans in-exile in Paris after the war.
Surreal scene of many men on the street lacking limbs in Paris, London, and Berlin
Disillusionment after WWI and pessimism over idea of human progress
Oswald Spengler, Decline of the West: multi-volume work by a retired school teacher theorizing that civilizations are like organisms, and that Western culture was in its dying phase.

3. Postwar Pessimism
Many attacks on progress: Scientists and technological innovations were deemed responsible for the making of poisonous gas and explosives that killed millions and destroyed agriculture and cities.
Science was blamed for the industrialized horrors of World War I.
Most western societies granted suffrage to all men and women.
Many intellectuals became disillusioned with democracy because they saw it as lacking positive values. Some worried about the “rule of inferiors.”

4. Revolution in Physics Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Theory of special relativity
Neither time nor space are absolute values as they vary with observer; destabilizes orderly system of Newtonian physics
Werner Heisenberg ( )
The uncertainty principle: the act of observation interferes with whatever is being observed
Concepts extended to humanities and social sciences

5. Revolution in Psychology
Sigmund Freud ( )
The life of the subconscious mind
Repression of sexual desires, fears
Interpretation of dreams
Free association
In the 1920s and 1930s: Widespread application of his theories to mythology, religion, literature, art, etc.

6. Experimentation in Art
Photography makes realism irrelevant
Art as creation, not reproduction
Retreat to abstraction
Les Fauves (“wild beasts”) Group of artists led by Henri Matisse and André Derain in the first decade of the 1900s. Favored wild colors and stepped away from realistic representation.
Pablo Picasso ( )
Influence of non-western and ancient “primitive” styles

7. Experimentation in Art
Henri Matisse, Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra), 1907
André Derain, Charing Cross Bridge, London, 1906,
Fauvism

8. Experimentation in Art
Portrait of Gertrude Stein,
Bust of a Man, 1908
Guitar, 1912 é
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)

9. Experimentation in Architecture
Staatliches Bauhaus: First school for modern design
Director: Walter Gropius ( )
Operated from 1919 to 1925 in Weimar and from 1925 to 1933 in Dessau; shut down by the Nazis
Teachers are practitioners and artists rather than academics
No extraneous ornamentation; designers should work for industry and mass production
Bauhaus Aesthetic Leads to New Style of Skyscrapers
“Glass boxes” of the “International style”
Loved by businesses and governments

10. Experimentation in Architecture
Bauhaus Dessau building designed by Gropius, opened in 1926
Poster for a 1923 Bauhaus exhibition
Oskar Schlemmer, Bauhaus Stairway, 1932

11. Experimentation in Architecture
“Glass Boxes” of the “International Style”
United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan designed by Le Corbusier, completed in 1952
Lever House in Manhattan completed in 1952

12. European Origins of the Great Depression
Austria/Germany borrow money from U.S. to pay war debts to France and England
France and England pay debts owed to U.S. for WWI
System dependent on flow of cash from U.S.
Investors begin to pull out of Germany and Austria in 1928 in part to put the money in the booming New York stock exchange

13. New Technologies and the Great Depression
Single-export countries devastated by declines due to new technologies that make them less in demands
Reclaimed rubber destroys rubber-based economies of Dutch East Indies, Malaysia, Ceylon
More widespread use of oil hurts the coal industry, which is vast and employs many people in the U.S.

14. Agricultural Surpluses and the Great Depression
Overproduction in 1920s in Europe, United States, Canada, Argentina, and Australia.
Strongest harvests in 1925, 1929
Wheat at lowest price in 400 years
Farm income drops
Less demand for manufactured goods in the agricultural sector
Inventory surpluses
The Dust Bowl: Mid-1930s drought and overused soil create conditions for massive wind erosion in the Great Plains, causing massive dust storms and exacerbating depression conditions

15. Black Thursday - October 24, 1929
Small Investors: The booming stock market of the 1920s led many brokers to sell to regular, middle-class people. Roughly 16% of American households owned stocks.
Speculation: Stock could be purchased on as little as a third of the face value on the assumption they would continue to go up; brokers would lend the rest.
Hints of slowdown in Europe in
Investors begin to sell off stocks and American market becomes volatile
September: cycles of falling and then recovering
Black Thursday
Market turns down, triggering a swell of panic selling
The collapse turns global, effecting every market except for Japan

16. U.S. Economic Collapse Inventory surplus leads to massive layoffs
Layoffs lead to decreased demand, businesses fail
1932 industrial production of the U.S. is half of 1929 levels
44% of U.S. banks out of business by the early 1930s: Deposits lost (not insured)
Because the world depended on the export of U.S. capital and the U.S. import markets, this created a global effect.

17. World Economic Collapse
When U.S. investors called in loans, banks in Austria and Germany became vulnerable because they had been major recipients of U.S. loans.
The Germany economy experienced a huge economic slide that by 1932 resulted in 35 percent unemployment and a 50 percent decrease in industrial production.
Foreign trade fell sharply between 1929 and 1932 causing further losses in manufacturing and employment. .

18. World Economic Collapse
Hardest hit: countries dependent on export of agricultural and manufactured goods
Chile: Devastated since its economy was so reliant on the export of mined copper and nitrates.
Caribbean: Sugar exports decline
Argentina: Beef exports decline
Brazil: Global devaluation of coffee hurts the Brazilian economy greatly and pushes industrialization efforts for economic diversity.
Germany: Reliant on exporting manufactured goods, Germany suffered greatly: 5 million unemployed by 1932, severe hyperinflation, all exacerbated by reparation payments.
Japan: Not too hard hit due to aggressive deficit spending by the government to develop heavy industries (especially munitions). .

19. Initial Government Attempts to Increase Demand
U.S.: “planned scarcity” in 1934
Vegetables, fruits, crops, and animals destroyed: 10 million acres of cotton and 12,000 acres of tobacco plowed under, 6 million pigs slaughtered, and a whole California fruit crop allowed to rot on the vine.
Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath: Bitterly angry passage points to the irony of the government destroying crops at a time when people are starving.

20. Initial Government Attempts to Increase Demand
From The Grapes of Wrath (published 1939):
“The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in
the river and the guards hold them back; they
come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges,
but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still
and watch potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; an in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath.”

21. Social Effects of the Great Depression
Thinkers like French physician Charles Richet believed that removing women from the workforce would solve the problem of male unemployment and increase the nation’s low birthrate.
Great Depression caused enormous personal suffering
Millions struggled for food, clothing, and shelter
Marriage and birthrates declined, suicide increased
Intensified social divisions and class hatreds

22. Social Effects of the Great Depression
Great Depression Bread Line near the Brooklyn Bridge

23. ©2011, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
New U.S. Strategies
Laissez-faire, “planned scarcity” approaches fail
Economist John M. Keynes ( ) challenged classical economic theory: the belief that capitalism was self-correcting and operated best if left alone.
Keynes argued the depression was a problem of inadequate demand, not supply; therefore, governments should play an active role in stimulating economy and consumer demand.
Keynes: Health of the economy is not measured by production, but by employment.
The New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt:
WWII Spending: Federal money injected into the economy in preparation for World War II ultimately lifts the depression conditions.
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24. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
The New Deal of President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt anticipated Keynes's
ideas.
After 1932, Roosevelt put in place a protected banking system, massive public works projects, and farm subsidies
Also, legislation established minimum wage, social security, workers' unions
Creates the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

25. The Bolshevik Revolution
In October 1917, Lenin led an armed
uprising against the Provisional Government.
Lenin renamed the Bolshevik Party as the
Communist Party in order to win wider
support.
In December 1917 Lenin set up a secret
police force known as the Cheka; agents spied on industrial workers and peasants.
Lenin launched the “Red Terror” campaign in September 1918 against anti-Soviet peasants, striking workers, and anyone associated with the White Guard. Some estimates say 50,000 people were arrested and executed in this period.

26. War Communism,
Lenin pushes for rapid collectivization of farms and confiscations of private property
Massively unpopular, Lenin backtracks in 1921
He initiates the New Economic Policy (NEP), which allows for partial privatization of the economy
Lenin crushes workers’ strikes, peasant rebellions, and a sailor’s revolt.

27. New Economic Policy (NEP)
The New Economic Policy (NEP) temporarily restored private enterprise in Russia.
Large industries, banks, and transportation and communications facilities remained under state control.
Government returned small-scale industries to private ownership.
The government allowed peasants to sell their surpluses at free market prices.
Technical schools were established.

28. Lenin’s Death Lenin suffers three debilitating strokes and dies 1924.
Bitter power struggle among Bolshevik leaders ensues.
Lenin had written that Stalin was too rude and lacking finesse to become the Secretary-General.

29. Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) Native of the nation of Georgia in
the Caucasus
Mother’s influence leads to
Orthodox seminary education
Stalin triumphs over party rivals
Stalin: Name means “Man of steel”
Advocates socialism in one country
Consolidates rule over the Soviet Union by 1928

30. Stalin and Economic Planning
Stalin initiates the First Five-Year Plan ( )
Gosplan: the Soviet central planning agency controls all aspects of the economy
Focuses on developing heavy industry, collectived farms with use of state-owned tractors, and electrification
Massive collectivization of agriculture
Kulaks: peasant land-holders who resisted collectivization; targets of government persecution
Stalin halts collectivization in 1931
Proclaims its success, although reduction in productivity and famine resulted in : millions die of starvation
Destabilized Stalin’s power, heightening his paranoia

31. The Great Purge ( )
“Congress of Victors” in 1934 was the 17th annual meeting of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, but was the last clandestine attempt to unseat Stalin, but the disloyalty was reported to Stalin.
Later nicknamed the “Congress of Victims,” because of the 1,996 delegates, over 1,100 would be arrested over the next three years.
The “Cleansing”
Stalin removes all persons that he suspects of opposition from
Two-thirds of Central Committee
Half of army’s high ranking officers
Sent to labor camps or executed

32. The Growth of European Fascism
From fasces, Roman symbol of authority
Axe surrounded by wooden rods
Originates with Benito Mussolini in 1919
Mussolini’s doctrine included elements of nationalism, corporatism, national syndicalism, expansionism, and anti-socialism
Outside of Italy and Germany: Argentina,
Japan, Peru, Paraguay, Romania, Spain, etc.
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33. Fascism: Common Elements
Primacy of state over individual
Devotion to a strong leader
Ethnocentric
Militaristic
Anti-communist
Chauvinistic
Xenophobic
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34. Fascism in Italy Poor showing of post-WWI Italian government
Public disappointed with weak
territorial gains
Economic and social turmoil
Mussolini, former newspaper editor,
electoral successes in 1921
March on Rome, October, King Emmanuel III offers him office of prime minister
Blackshirts: paramilitary outfit
In 1926, he seizes power as Il Duce, “the leader”

35. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and the Nazi Party
Hitler becomes chairman of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis) in 1921
Attempts to overthrow Munich government in 1923 “Beer Hall Putsch”
Writes autobiography Mein Kampf in jail, massively popular; outlines his plans quite clearly
Capitalizes on public discontent with postwar era
War guilt clause
Reparation payments
Inability of major parties to come to consensus
Anti-Semitism

36. Consolidation of Power
Nazis become single largest party in parliament,
Weak president Paul von Hindenburg ( ) appoints Hitler as chancellor
Suppresses opposition, abrogates constitutional and civil rights
Makes the Nazis the sole legal party
Destroys trade unions
Purges judiciary, civil service of perceived enemies

37. The Racial State Theories of racial superiority, racial purity
Policies of eugenics
Compulsory sterilization of 30,000 Germans
Abortions illegal for healthy Germans, mandatory for “hereditary ill” and “racial aliens”
Euthanasia program kills 200,000 people with physical or mental handicaps between 1939 and 1945
Precursor to massacres of Jews, gypsies

38. Anti-Semitism Influence of nineteenth-century racism
Nuremburg laws of 1935 define Jews on a racial basis
Prohibits marriages between Jews and non-Jews
Removal of Jews from civil service, schools
Liquidation of Jewish-owned businesses or purchase by non-Jews
Kristallnacht: major country-wide pogrom on Jews, November 9-10, 1938, encouraged by Nazi officials
“Night of broken glass”