Wealth and Frailty, Episode One: Caligari and the Founding

     In May of 2016, I completed a three episode documentary film on the history of the early Weimar Republic, i.e. 1920's Germany. This was done as my capstone or "Keystone" project for the Honors Humanities program at the University of Maryland. The documentary, entitled Wealth and Frailty, seeks to understand the relationship between the economic and political instability of the early Weimar Republic and the cultural vibrancy that simultaneously emerged. Each one-hour episode relates a different portion of the Weimar Republic's history to an artistic product of the time. The time frame covered is roughly 1918-1924.

     This episode chronicles the founding of the Republic, and places the silent film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, within the context of those events.

Submitted by William Whitmore