1929 is the last year of the turbulent wild twenties, which were later called the 'golden ones', but which were anything but that. On the contrary. These were dramatic times. Remarque's anti-war novel 'Im Westen nichts Neues' ('Nothing New in the West'), which was published by a Berlin newspaper as a serial novel, is now also a popular book edition.
 
The children's book 'Die Biene Maja' becomes a bestseller, Thomas Mann receives the Nobel Prize for Literature. Technical achievements are to be reported: The airship 'Graf Zeppelin' circles the world, a Berlin experimental station broadcasts its first television pictures, the sound film is on its way and paints the spectre of thousands of unemployed musicians on the wall.

Ten years after the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty, which obliges Germans to pay high reparations for more than half a century, protests are still taking place, giving a boost to radical forces, Nationalists and National Socialists alike. The Weimar Republic is becoming more and more discredited about this. Scandals such as the arrest of the Sklarek brothers, who like the politicians they bribe are involved in a huge corruption affair, also contribute to this.

When leftist workers disregard the ban on demonstrations on May 1, there are clashes with the police: the so-called 'Berliner Blutmai' claims 31 lives, there are over a thousand arrests. Black Friday' on the New York Stock Exchange triggered a global financial and economic crisis.

The French head of government Aristide Briand is in favour of the creation of the 'United States of Europe'. Gustav Stresemann, Germany's Foreign Minister, who agreed with him, dies shortly after a stroke.