Klee

Paul Klee painted "Twittering Machine," only a few years after the end of World War One. The Treaty of Versailles left Germany with far less territory and a weaker military than it had prior to the war, injuring an already fragile national identity. Then known as the Weimar Republic, Germany was relatively stable at the time Klee painted "Twittering Machine." However, the period also gave rise to a number of radical political groups including the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), which Hitler would turn into the Nazi party. When Klee painted "Twittering Machine," the Weimar Republic also experienced high rates of inflation and other economic problems that impacted the development of radical politics.

However, Berlin was experiencing a heyday of art and culture in the early 1920s. German literature, art, architecture, and scholarship blossomed, and Klee rode the wave of cultural expression as a key member of the Bauhaus. During this time, film became a striking new media that represented both technological advancement and artistic expression. Film and motion pictures were in fact one of the most important technological and cultural developments in 1920s Germany. In addition to film, revolutions in the transportation and communications industries were sweeping across Europe. The advancement in automobile technology encouraged the planning and development of some of Germany's first major urban and suburban freeways.

Berlin was a socially liberal city during the early 1920s, sharing much in common with other European capitals like Paris in the tolerance for sexual expression and homosexuality. Women's suffrage and feminism were also major issues of social justice, as were labor rights. Germans during the 1920s also cultivated a fascination with the occult. Esoteric symbolism made its way into the arts as an embrace of alternative spirituality. Unfortunately, Hitler and the Nazi party distorted occult symbolism and esotericism.