Housewives as New Women: Marital Relations and Domesticity in Vicki Baum's Zwischenfall in Lohwinckel (1930)

Abstract

Abstract:The period from 1928 to 1933 represents a decisive break in which both the political culture and the socioeconomic circumstances of the Weimar Republic changed dramatically and thus had a pronounced impact on the discourse about women's role in society. While the seductive and androgynously clad flapper dominated the image of modern femininity in the early 1920s, by the late 1920s and into the early 1930s this icon gradually transitioned into a less provocative type with reenforced traditional attributes. As seen in the fashion publications and beauty contests around 1930, more feminine fashions and images of motherhood accompanied the representation of women. In popular literature, urban liberal writers such as Vicki Baum created "New Women" who combined progressive elements with more conservative aspects.Taking these considerations as a starting point, this paper investigates Baum's vision of domestic space and marital relations as seen in her novel Zwischenfall in Lohwinckel (1930). While best known for her poignant novels about professionally employed women in the Weimar Republic (stud. chem. Helene Willfüer, Pariser Platz 13, and others), especially in their depictions of modern public spaces such as hotels (Menschen im Hotel) and retail shops, in Zwischenfall in Lohwinckel Baum features a provincial housewife. I argue that with this novel Baum proposes her view of a reformed marriage by drawing attention to the psychological and emotional effects of her heroine's confinement—in a dilapidated house, in an unromantic marriage, as well as in a small town. In addition, I explore how the novel interweaves the contemporary debates about the modern kitchen and the New Woman with the so-called maternalist ideology in order to devise the parameters for motherhood and domesticity, thus capturing the shifting feminine ideal on the eve of the Nazi takeover.