With over seven million visitors, the GeSoLei was the largest exhibition in Weimar Germany. The exhibition, which took place in Düsseldorf from May to October 1926, focused on the trio of healthcare, social welfare and physical exercise, which were meant to lift the weary post-WWI German population back onto its feet. Advertising film pioneer Julius Pinschewer commissioned avant-garde artist Walter Ruttmann to create this promotional film for the GeSoLei. While Ruttmann and his creative partner Lore Leudesdorff are now best known for their montage film Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (1927), here they crafted a colourful, dynamic animated cartoon full of playful humour, combining “absolute cinema” with easy-to-understand symbolism. With visuals that subtly recall Ruttmann’s earlier Opus quartet, Der Aufstieg begins with war, hunger and depression but ends on a hopeful note: having eaten his fill and exercised, the mechanical Deutscher Michel figure (representing the German people) climbs a flight of stairs to see the sun rise before him.

Philipp Stiasny