A Dance Between Flames: Berlin Between the Wars

This fast-paced, wonderfully evocative chronicle of interwar Berlin opens with the Communist revolution of 1918, which nearly took over Germany; it closes on Kristallnacht , Nov. 9, 1938, when Nazis burned and pillaged Jewish property and synagogues. Drawing primarily on German sources, British writer Gill re-creates the creative frenzy of a city that nurtured Bertolt Brecht, Max Reinhardt, Josephine Baker, Kathe Kollwitz, George Grosz, Arnold Schonberg, Christopher Isherwood, satirical journalist Kurt Tucholsky and dozens more against a backdrop of economic chaos and rising Nazism. He charts the Weimar Republic's doomed attempt to introduce democratic ideas to a wrecked, disillusioned people craving order, and he includes a wealth of fresh material on Berlin's cafe society, criminal underworld, theater, arts and its regimented university system--which emphasized militarist nationalism and actively harassed Jewish students and teachers. Photos. (Apr.)