Changes in society, 1924–29

Change, 1924–29:

• Wages: real wages, what wages could actually buy, rose for many workers.
• Unemployment insurance: from 1927, workers paid into a scheme that gave them money if they lost their jobs.
• Housing: the government and councils built many new homes, to replace overcrowded slums.

Limits: the middle classes, who had lost their savings in 1923, did not recover as well, and many felt left behind.

Change:

• Politics: women could vote from 1919, and women were elected to the Reichstag.
• Work: more women worked, especially in offices, shops and professions such as teaching and medicine.
• Leisure: in the cities, the 'new woman' had short hair, wore shorter skirts and make-up, smoked and went out without a man.

Limits and reactions: most women's lives changed little, especially in the countryside, and many still left work when they married. Many traditional Germans saw the 'new woman' as a threat to family life.

The 1920s were a time of new ideas in culture, especially in Berlin:

• Architecture: the Bauhaus school, founded in 1919, designed simple, modern buildings and furniture, using steel, glass and concrete.
• Art: painters such as Otto Dix and George Grosz showed the harsh realities of war and city life, and criticised the rich and powerful.
• Cinema: German films, such as Metropolis (1927), were famous across the world.
• Cabaret and nightlife flourished.

Reactions: many conservative Germans saw this as shocking and immoral, which added to their dislike of the republic.