1930: Political, all too political
With Marina Weisband
Political Struggles at the Bauhaus
In 1930, the second Bauhaus director, Hannes Meyer, was dismissed on the grounds that his communist views were threatening the school. His successor, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, was appointed because he was regarded as apolitical, yet students criticised some of his decisions as undemocratic. Across the Republic, political conflicts were intensifying: the National Socialists achieved their first national breakthrough in 1930, and there were also antisemitic incidents at the Bauhaus.
How political life at the Bauhaus developed, and how political a school should or could be, is discussed in conversation with Marina Weisband, former executive director of the Pirate Party. Today she is politically active with the Green Party, has written books on democracy and antisemitism, and founded AULA, a programme to promote greater democracy in schools.