Beware the “Cabaret Syndrome.” Exploring the Weimar Republic’s Cultural Legacy

The movie's huge success and its enduring appeal (there was a stage revival of the show on Broadway in 2024) means it has become difficult to separate the Cabaret-influenced view of Weimar from the actual history, she said. So many tropes have emerged from the film, she added, "We get this idea of politically naïve, slutty showgirls, pandering to fascists, amidst a decadent, doom-laden, promiscuous party atmosphere."

In her book, Smith asserts that the film portrays a "causal relationship between decadence and fascism suggesting that Weimar culture allowed, through indifference, neglect, or complicity, the development of a politically oppressive regime." This is an unfair portrayal, Smith said, and a central plank of the "Cabaret syndrome." In a conversation with Associate Professor of English Ann Kibbie, Smith explained how this syndrome, most prevalent in the Anglo-American world, consists of two major symptoms:

The Temporal Symptom. This relates to a timeline of events, said Smith, explaining how the film gives the impression that the Weimar Republic only refers to the early 1930s, the period directly before the National Socialists came to power. This means we don't get a full view of the era, which began in 1919, and its complexities.

The Spatial Symptom. This gives a false geographic impression of the Republic, implying that Weimar is Berlin, rather than the entire German state. "This means we ignore the areas of innovation outside the capital city and are blind to conservative forces that remained intact in more provincial areas," explained Smith.

This book is an effort "to really expose that syndrome … that just keeps coming up in works of literature and scholarship," said Smith, "and also to celebrate those works that are calling that into question." There's been a renewed scholarly interest in the Weimar period since the turn of the millennium, she explained, something that The Afterlives of Weimar Berlin taps into in its five chapters.