The years of the Weimar Republic in Germany between 1919 and 1933 were a crucial period in European and world history. The political atmosphere after World War One and after the abdication of Emperor William II. was such that it prevented people both from coming to terms with the lost war and from developing trust in democracy and the parliamentary republic. Moreover, they were economically hard times that reduced many to poverty and left them in despair because life was only slowly getting better. Set in 1927/28 the German interwar classic Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin shows eighteen months in the life of Franz Biberkopf. He has just been released from prison and is determined to start a new, i.e. an honest life, but he’s a trusting kind of man and can’t understand why life puts obstacles into his way and everybody tries to drag him back into the world of petty crime.