Chapter 1 - Jazz in Weimar and Nazi Germany, 1918–1945

Summary

To provide the proper background to understand jazz in the GDR (founded in 1949), the book opens with a brief historical account of jazz in Germany prior to the creation of the East German state.examines the arrival of jazz in Germany after World War I, offering a brief synopsis of the cultural politics of the Weimar (1919-1933) and the National Socialist (1933-1945) eras. These years witness the influx of jazz music and dance culture into the defeated German empire, its ambivalent reception by the bourgeoisie, and the emergence of deep questions about national cultural identity against newfound American trends and influences. Under the twelve years of National Socialism, these questions took on new dimensions: Nazi propaganda unequivocally ostracized jazz as an emblem of racial transgression, categorizing it alongside other degenerate works, yet also recruited the popularity of the music for propagandist purposes throughout the regime, even until its collapse.