Tracing the roots of The Blue Flower from the Belle Epoque to the Second World War
Tracing the roots of The Blue Flower from the Belle Epoque to the Second World War
Nov. 7, 1867: The physicist Marie Curie is born.
1871: The nation of Germany is formed. The Belle Epoque begins, lasting until 1914.
Feb. 8, 1880: The artist Franz Marc is born.
1881: Le Chat Noir, the first cabaret, opens in the Montmartre district of Paris. It is a huge success and remains open until 1897.
Feb. 12, 1884: The artist Max Beckmann is born.
June 20, 1887: The artist Kurt Schwitters is born.
Jan. 30, 1889: Prince Rudolph of Austria commits suicide; Archduke Franz Ferdinand becomes heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
1901: Germany’s first cabaret, The Motley Theater, opens.
1903: Thirty-six-year-old Marie Curie, with Pierre Curie and Henri Bequerel, is awarded the Nobel Prize; The Motley Theater is sold.
1906: Marie Curie becomes the first female professor of General Physics at the Sorbonne.
1911: Marie Curie wins the Nobel Prize for chemistry.
June 28, 1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is assassinated; World War I begins.
Feb. 9, 1916: Cabaret Voltaire opens in Zurich and becomes the birthplace of the Dada movement that spring.
March 4, 1916: Artist Franz Marc dies at the Battle of Verdun.
January 1917: First Dada show at the Galerie Corray, Zurich; Max Beckmann is discharged from the German army; first issue of the journal Dada is published.
Nov. 1918: November Revolution in Germany; Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates; Friedrich Ebert becomes chancellor of Germany; World War I fighting ends.
January 1919: The Weimar Republic is formed.
June 1919: The Treaty of Versailles is signed, officially ending World War I.
1919: The Ballet Celly de Rheidt, known for its nudity and sexuality, begins performances in Berlin.
June 5, 1920: First International Dada Exhibition takes place in Berlin.
Dec. 23, 1920: Cabaret Megalomania opens in Berlin, focusing on political and literary acts.
Sept. 11, 1921: The politically minded Wild Stage cabaret is opened in Berlin, focusing on political and literary acts.
January 1922: For six nights, Bertolt Brecht performs some of his songs at the Wild Stage, causing a scandal.
December 1922: Cabaret Megalomania is sold; conservative Germans take the Ballet Celly de Rheidt to court over obscenity charges and the ballet loses.
1923: Berlin’s political cabarets fall out of vogue: the Wild Stage and the Ballet Celly close.
Dec. 1, 1924: Weimar’s most successful cabaret, Kurt Robitschek’s Cabaret of Comedians, opens in Berlin with Quo Vadis, a satire that includes attacks on Adolf Hitler’s “Beer Hall Putsch.”
September 1930: The Nazi Party becomes the second largest political party in Germany; Most of Berlin’s substantive literary cabarets are shut down.
March 1931: Due to Nazi harassment of his primarily Jewish audience, Robitschek reduces ticket prices to his Cabaret of Comedians by thirty percent and banishes all politics from his cabaret, in hopes of attracting an audience.
November 1932: Nazis win the largest number of seats in the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament.
January 30, 1933: Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany.
Feb. 27, 1933: The Reichstag building is burned.
March 5, 1933: The Nazis win the majority of seats in the Reichstag and re-organize the German government; Germany’s Weimar Republic is replaced by Germany’s Third Reich.
