The Golden Twenties was a particular vibrant period in the history of Berlin. After the Greater Berlin Act, the city became the third largest municipality in the world and experienced its heyday as a major world city. It was known for its leadership roles in science, the humanities, art, music, film, architecture, higher education, government, diplomacy and industries.
Weimar culture was the emergence of the arts and sciences that happened in Germany during the Weimar Republic, the latter during that part of the interwar period between Germany's defeat in World War I in 1918 and Hitler's rise to power in 1933. 1920s Berlin was at the hectic center of the Weimar culture. Although not part of the Weimar Republic, German-speaking Austria, and particularly Vienna, is also sometimes included as part of Weimar culture.
Germany, and Berlin in particular, was fertile ground for intellectuals, artists, and innovators from many fields during the Weimar Republic years. The social environment was chaotic, and politics were passionate. German university faculties became universally open to Jewish scholars in 1918. Leading Jewish intellectuals on university faculties included physicist Albert Einstein; sociologists Karl Mannheim, Erich Fromm, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse; philosophers Ernst Cassirer and Edmund Husserl; political theorists Arthur Rosenberg and Gustav Meyer; and many others. Nine German citizens were awarded Nobel Prizes during the Weimar Republic, five of whom were Jewish scientists, including two in medicine. Jewish intellectuals and creative professionals were among the prominent figures in many areas of Weimar culture.
German expressionist cinema was a part of several related creative movements in Germany in the early 20th century that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in Northwestern European culture in fields such as architecture, dance, painting, sculpture and cinema.