Jazz, dance, fun, misery, poverty, and vice. That’s what large cities were about during the Roaring Twenties – as seen so by German artist Otto Dix. Continue reading
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Picture: “Cocaine Emil”
Nightlife Berlin! Photographer Georg Pahl took some extraordinary pictures of the German demimonde during the 1920s. Here we see “Koks Emil” (“Cocaine Emil”) doing his daily work: Selling small capsules of cocaine mainly to ladies from the Berlin demimonde. One capsule costs 5 Marks. In the background, the “Spanner” (“stalker”) searches for nearing dangers, ready to warn the dealer. Not only dealers like “Koks Emil“, thugs and small-time criminals seek out their victims, but also uncertain, dislocated existences like liquor or cigarette sellers and gamblers – constantly trying to escape the police.
Series: Babylon Berlin – Trailer
Upcoming German crime series Babylon Berlin, based on the novels by Volker Kutscher. The stor is set in Weimar Republic era’s Berlin during the Roaring Twenties. Airing in october, the series prospectively includes 16 episodes in 2 series. Stay tuned! 😉
Movie: Mordkommission Berlin 1
This TV-Flick takes you straight to the Roaring Twenties’ “European Chicago”. Set in the continent’s biggest city at that time, we whisk into a world of corruption, sex, violence, organized crime, and revenge… Continue reading
Picture: Brute Road Safety
A not-so-unusual picture on German streets in the years following the Great War: Soldiers blocking a road or certain buildings. Here we see government troops during the 1919 Märzkämpfe (march fights): A general strike initialized by German communist party KPD in grew into an armed rebellion. Their objectives were to overthrow autorities and establish a German Soviet Republic. Centres of the fightings were Berlin’s Alexanderplatz and the Lichtenberg district. The rebellion ended when government troops took Lichtenberg on March 13 without a shot being fired.
The caption says: “Street fights in Berlin. Road block with tank.”
Gangster’s Tools: Lee Enfield MK3 No.1 (Well MB03)
Who doesn’t know the famous scene from Peaky Blinder’s season 1 finale as the Blinders face Billy Kimber’s gang armed to the teeth? Having fought in WW1 they not only bare the “usual” handguns but also military rifles and a light machinge gun! But few look cooler than John Shelby and Jeremiah Jesus getting ready for fight with their SMLEs – so I made me one.
Mini Series: Mob City
Los Angeles being a mob stronghold during the late 1940s and into the 1950s is not really a new setting place. Numerous movies, novels, and games use the same background of the rolling years after the Second World War in the “City of Angels” – and thanks to glamorous mobsters “Bugsy” Siegel and Mickey Cohen it got enough real-life inspiration. Here it is where Mob City is, too.
