ABSTRACT
By the first decades of the twentieth century, the dominant cultural forces in Europe were largely generated by an urban, industrial culture, in which the machine or rather technology had become an all-pervading presence, despite large regions remaining rural in their economic and cultural life. The new world was visualized in Walter Ruttmann’s memorable movie Berlin, Symphonic der Großstadt (Berlin, the symphony of a metropolis) (1927). In the same years the concomitant features of this culture were voiced by the German film actress Marlene Dietrich (1901-92), who sang:
Es liegt in der Luft eine Sachlichkeit, es liegt in der Luft eine Stachlichkeit . . . Durch die Lüfte sausen schon Bilder, Radio, Telefon, durch die Luft geht alles drahtlos und die Luft wird schon ganz ratios, Flugzeug, Luftschiff.
