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Cabaret during the Weimar Republic

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Cabaret during the Weimar Republic
What are the values and limitations of the film Cabaret to a historian studying the cabaret culture of the Weimar Republic

Table of Content

A – Plan of Investigation 3
B – Summary of Evidence 3
C – Evaluation of Sources 4
D – Analysis 5
E – Conclusion 7
F – List of Sources 8
G – Appendix 9

A – Plan of Investigation

This investigation focuses on the German cabarets during the Weimar Republic and how they are depicted in the movie “Cabaret”. To understand the importance and value cabarets had at this time, I studied various primary sources such as written extracts from writers and illustrators who experienced the Weimar Republic and secondary sources about comedy, genders and sexuality and theatre in the Weimar modernity.
In order to evaluate the trustworthiness of the film and to assess it’s usefulness for an investigating historian, the film is compared with the information collected by research with primary and secondary sources.

B – Summary of Evidence

Post-World War I Berlin was the dynamic and whirling heart of the Weimar Republic. Not only developments in technology and mathematics but also movements in visual arts, literature and theatre were achieved.
After World War I, the days seemed forlorn; it was to foretell that sacrifices of everything comforting and familiar had to be made.
During this crisis, cabaret demonstrated that even the worst apocalypse could be welcomed with the typical Berlin-attitude of amusement and with somewhat of a smile.
Cabaret was popular long before World War I and the word. Kabarett originates from the French word cabaret, which means tavern or pub. It had been in use since 1910 and refers to entertainment, which combined a musical number with the consumption of alcohol and food.1
However, cabaret reached its highest peak during inflation. The Berliners saw the cabaret as an exit path from the cruel reality that hit them every day outside the smoky bars. At a cabaret one could expect

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