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If there would be time travel "Witness the history tours" Berlin at that time would be a frequent destination.
Around that time so much fundamental stuff changed at once in the Europe.
In 1913 there was one square kilometer in Vienna where Freud, Jung, Hitler, Trotsky, Stalin and Tito lived. Hitler and Trotsky were regulars in the the same cafe. Then there was WWI. Albert Einstein was becoming famous, quantum mechanics was being discovered. Einstein and Henri Bergson debated 1920 in Paris.
One of the weird things about history compared to the present is just how few people there were around. Population has more or less uniformly quadrupled over the past 100 years, and doubled in the 100 years before that. Everything is much more diffuse than it once was.
Käthe Kollwitz work is nothing short of being remarkable German expressionism. IMO arguably more impressive that Egon Schiele and her work and prints are still affordable. https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/65625953_kathe-kollwitz...
Check out Ernst Barlach for more awesome expressionism from that period, both sculptural and drawn.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ernst+barlach&t=iphone&ia=images&i...
I have a book of her prints. The way she is able to capture faces is astonishing. They’re not highly detailed, but it just looks like the person is in front of you. They have a photographic quality while almost looking like charcoal sketches. Amazing.
I recently read Jason Lutes' Berlin trilogy; they're beautiful graphic novels, set in the early to mid thirties. Highly recommend as a portrait of a precarious time.
One point that stood out to me was the low level street violence amongst the various factions - communists and fascists - which meant that both sides had readymade, active militias. And the unaffiliated ultimately siding with the law and order group looking to make Germany great again.
Of course, had the communists won out, we may have seen another Stalinist type country, as that was the popular strain of communism at the time...
Must check that out. I've really been enjoying Babylon Berlin, which is set around the same time and is an amazing production.
I dont think there were fascists fighting the communist revolutionaies in Germany in 1918-1919. The fascist parties arose in the 1920's in response to the communists.
He was talking about a graphic novel set in the 30s.
There were definitely right-wing militias in the period you're talking about though. Just not what we'd call NAZI or fascist.
"Fascism" as a political description originates with Benito Mussolini's movement, around 1919:
Yes, but not recognized that way in Germany at the time.
It was nationalist right wing militias that killed Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht (Spartakusbund)
There were definitely proto-fascists clashing with communists then. Rosa Luxemburg for example was killed in 1919 by right wing militia.