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From Weimar Culture (Peter Gay, 2001) pp130-2

There was something in what Zweig saw, but Berlin had its soberer, more respectable, yet equally striking side. It had, among others, Bruno Walter, born in Berlin, grown famous in concert and opera houses in Munich, Vienna, and Salzburg, yet always at heart a Berliner. “In his memoirs,” he writes, “the English ambassador to Berlin, Viscount d’Abernon, speaks of the time after 1925 as of an epoch of splendor in the Reich capital’s cultural life.” He was right; it was “as if all the eminent artistic forces were shining forth once more, imparting to the last festive symposium of the minds a many-hued brilliance before the night of barbarism closed in.” The accomplishments of the Berlin theatres “could hardly be surpassed in talent, vitality, loftiness of intention, and variety.” Walter lists the “Deutsches Theater and the Kammerspiele, in which Reinhardt held sway,” which imparted to “tragedies, plays, and comedies the character of festival plays – from Shakespeare to Hauptmann and Werfel, from MoliPJe to Shaw and Galsworthy, from Schiller to Unruh and Hofmannsthal.” Then there was “the Tribune, under Eugen Robert,” devoted to “the careful and vivacious rendition of French, English, and Hungarian comedies. And the State Theater, where “Leopold Jessner’s dramatic experiments caused heated discussion.” Karlheinz Martin “conducted the destinies of the Volksbiihne with a genuine understanding of the artistic popularization of plays and the theater.” And there were other stages, which also tried to “raise dramatic interpretative art to new levels. Actors and stage directors alike were able to display the full scope of their talents. Contemporary native and international creations as well as those of the past had their day on the boards.” There were many experiments; “there were oddities, and occasionally even, absurdities.” But the “characteristic sign of those days was an unparalleled mental alertness. And the alertness of the giving corresponded to the alertness of the receiving. A passionate general concentration upon cultural life prevailed, eloquently expressed by the large space devoted to art by the daily newspapers in spite of the political excitement of the times.” Music was just as lively. “The Philharmonic Concerts led by Wilhelm Furtwiingler; the ‘Bruno Walter Concerts’ with the Philharmonic Orchestra; a wealth of choral concerts, chamber-music recitals, and concerts by soloists; the State Opera, deserving of high praise because of premiérer such as that of Alban Berg‘s Wozzeck and Leos Janacek’s Jenufa under Erich Kleiber’s baton; the newly flourishing Municipal Opera under my guidance; the Kroll Opera under Klemperer.” And a number of other institutions “matched the achievements of the dramatic stage.” Add to all this “the visible arts and the outstanding accomplishments of science” and, clearly, it was a great epoch in a great city.

Bruno Walter’s compilation, though copious, is far from complete. Berlin was headquarters for the political cabaret, where Otto Reutter performed his own dry compositions, lampooning the Germans for their rigidity in conduct and instability in politics, where Paul Graetz and Trude Hesterberg sang Walter Mehring’s satirical songs, and Claire Waldotf her proletarian ditties; Berlin the center of political journalism, the biting commentary of Carl von Ossietzky, Leopold Schwarzschild, and — usually sent in from abroad — Kurt Tucholsky; Berlin the stage for Erwin Piscator’s experiment in the political theatre; Berlin the scene of Alfred Doblin’s most remarkable novel, Berlin Alexanderplatz; Berlin the best possible town for premieres of charming trifling films, sentimental Lehar operettas, and the Dreigroschen-oper; Berlin the city of publishing empires like Mosse and Ullstein; Berlin the city of Samuel Fischer, the great publisher, who had on his list Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Gerhart Hauptmann, Stefan Zweig, Carl Zuckmayer, Alfred Doblin, Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Berlin was eminently the city in which the outsider could make his home and extend his talents. “The overflowing plenty of stimuli,” the poet Gottfried Benn writes about the Jews in his autobiography, his nose for race intact, “of artistic, scientific, commercial improvisations which placed the Berlin of 1918 to 1933 in the class of Paris, stemmed for the most part from the talents of this sector of the population, its international connections, its sensitive restlessness, and above all its absolute — totsicher — instinct for quality?“ No wonder there should be good Germans, like Heidegger, who looked upon Berlin, and not the Berlin of the inflation period alone, as a modern Babylon, and refused to live there.