Berlin Electropolis: Shock, Nerves, and German Modernity (Volume 38)

Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism #38

by Andreas Killen

Berlin Electropolis ties the German discourse on nervousness in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to Berlin's transformation into a capital of the second industrial revolution. Focusing on three key groups―railway personnel, soldiers, and telephone operators―Andreas Killen traces the emergence in the 1880s and then later decline of the belief that modernity caused nervous illness. During this period, Killen explains, Berlin became arguably the most advanced metropolis in Europe. A host of changes, many associated with breakthroughs in technologies of transportation, communication, and leisure, combined to radically alter the shape and tempo of everyday life in Berlin. The resulting consciousness of accelerated social change and the shocks and afflictions that accompanied it found their consummate expression in the discourse about nervousness.

Wonderfully researched and clearly written, this book offers a wealth of new insights into the nature of the modern metropolis, the psychological aftermath of World War I, and the operations of the German welfare state. Killen also explores cultural attitudes toward electricity, the evolution of psychiatric thought and practice, and the status of women workers in Germany's rapidly industrializing economy. Ultimately, he argues that the backlash against the welfare state that occurred during the late Weimar Republic brought about the final decoupling of modernity and nervous illness.

Genres: History

308 pages, Hardcover

First published December 17, 2005

Reviews

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having studied shock and nerves in an Anglo-American context I have long been curious about these were handled in and affected German Society. Killen's book answered my questions and did much more. Germany had a national health insurance system in the 1870s. This made it very different from other countries in that such phenomena as railway spine was seen as a national issue. Money spent on it mattered to the country. In England, America and Germany there was a shift from a biological understanding of railway spine and shell shock. While this had a lot to do with reducing liability in all three countries, in the Anglo-American context we also tend to relate it to the advent of psychoanalysis. In Germany it seems to have a more insidious implication, since if you symptoms were due to something inside of you, rather than external events, this suggested that weakness was responsible. I don't need to spell out all the implications of that idea, nor does Killen. What he does do is present a clear, well written and fascinating account of how shock and nerves were important in the introduction of German Modernity.

[Clayton Whisnant · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was a little disappointed by this one, probably in part because it wasn't really what I was looking for. I found the discussion of German modernity during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century interesting; I was less appreciative of the discussions of German psychiatry. Someone looking for an indepth discussion of German psychiatry, though, would find more here for them.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's like the man said (paraphrase): To create the train is to create the derailment. A bit of a Manichean teleology but useful as a shorthand way of understanding that every technological convenience or advance comes at a price.

"Berlin Electropolis" examines basically three epochs in Germany (Wilhelmine, Deutschland on war footing, and the post-war constitutional Weimar Republic) to show how the state and its enforcers and adversaries in the medical community came to define, diagnosis, and treat maladies related to the nerves. Even more important than treatment or diagnosis, though, was the question of compensation for injuries (still a hot button issue here in America), and the separating of the true sufferers from the malingerers.

In rough chronology, the book deals with the concept of "railway spine" (and assorted train-related traumas), various neurotic conditions in peacetime Germany, the "steel bath" of nerves that was the Great War (as I think Ernst Junger may have called it) and the idea of combat shock; finally, and most fascinating, Killen treats the life of those mostly-female salaried masses Siegfried Kracauer wrote about, who worked switchboards until they sometimes had nervous breakdowns and ended up writhing around on the ground en masse. The New Woman, despite her emancipation, wasn't exempt from the effects of the Electropolis on the nerves, and if anything, was a primary target of the constant electrical bombardment of modernity, in the form of everything from pulsing neon signage to the nascent technology of the cinema.

I've encountered most, if not all, of the ideas, concepts, and thinkers treated in this book, but never in one place, and never so cogently. Andreas Killen's book is informative and accessible, which is the most one can hope for from an academic text. Recommended equally for laity and the smarty pants set. The price makes it fairly prohibitive for most personal collections, so check your library or win the lottery.