ABSTRACT
Social and political satire holds a prominent place in the culture of Weimar Germany. The limits of political satire were already apparent in the first performances of the Weimar cabarets, and they continue to be seen on West German stages. For Raoul Hausmann and his fellow dadaists, Weimar implied not only the classical tradition of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich von Schiller but the party politics and parliamentarianism of the new republic. By the end of the 1920s, the cabaret-type shows with the most explicitly political content were the communist agitprop performances. The general public's desire for sexual entertainment and its dislike of political satire made life difficult for socially critical entertainers. The songs of Kurt Tucholsky, Walter Mehring, and Erich Kastner, the cabaret-revues of Friedrich Hollaender, Marcellus Schiffer, and Mischa Spoliansky usually succeeded in maintaining a spirited balance between political satire and ironic eroticism.
