Serious Fun: Berlin Dada's Tactical Engagement with German National Narration

Abstract

German Dada, particularly the Berlin performance practices of George Grosz and Richard Hülsenbeck, shifted the ‘eternal’ history of the German Reich into the immediacy and annihilation of the postwar Berlin environment. These practitioners formed their social and political opinions into Dada's own German national narrative. The Weimar government responded by classifying ‘Dada’ as obscene, putting its members on trial, and judging its practices to be detrimental to the reforming German nation. The issues raised by Berlin Dada's performance practices formed the basis for Berlin Dada's future historical treatment by its own members, who sought to establish the German cell's primacy as both the singular heir to Hugo Ball's Cabaret Voltaire and the only legitimate mode of Dada expression in Weimar Germany.