Culture and Inflation in Weimar Germany

Bernd Widdig is Associate Professor of German Studies and Director of the MIT-Germany Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Mannerbunde und Massen: Zur Krise mannlicher Identitat in der Literatur der Moderne(1992).

"A landmark study.... Widdig's energetic account uses an interdisciplinary approach to reveal how economic anxieties were powerfully symptomatic of larger social and cultural issues." - Maria Tatar, author of Lustmord: Sexual Murder in Weimar Germany "Bernd Widdig displays sharp intelligence and uncommon wit in this brilliant study of culture and inflation. Following the explosions in politics and culture that the inflation detonated from the end of World War I to the rise of the Nazis, this book is a bold and original mediation on modernity and money and the trauma of oblivion. It is a masterful, illuminating analysis." - Peter Fritzsche, author of Reading Berlin 1900"

• List of Illustrations List of Tables Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Money Matters: Culture and Inflation PART ONE: History and Experience 2. Flirting with Disaster: The German Inflation, 1914-1923 3. Daily Explosions: Canetti's Inflation PART TWO: Money 4. Under the Sign of Zero: Money and Inflation PART THREE: Figures 5. Uncanny Encounters: Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler 6. Visions of Work: Hugo Stinnes and His Doubles PART FOUR: Accounts 7. Cultural Capital in Decline: Inflation and the Distress of Intellectuals 8. Witches Dancing: Gender and Inflation PART FIVE: Epilogue 9. Aftershocks: Inflation, National Socialism, and Beyond Notes Bibliography Index