Writing Represents a subversive medium through which authors can engage critically with and seek to influence public discourses. The works of popular fiction considered in this chapter advocate greater independence and opportunities for women as mothers and, by distancing young protagonists from their mothers, criticize the model of motherhood represented by women of the pre–First World War generation. The novels, Irmgard Keun's Gilgi—eine von uns (1931; Gilgi, One of Us, 2019), Vicki Baum's stud. chem. Helene Willfüer (Helene Willfüer, Student of Chemistry, 1928), and Gabriele Tergit's Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm (Käsebier Conquers the Kurfürstendamm, 1931; in English as Käsebier Takes Berlin, 2020), were commercial successes at the time of their publication. As works of popular fiction, they are not explicitly aligned with any party-political position, but they are nevertheless socially critical and adopt a liberal stance toward women's mothering. Yet the tensions between progressive and conservative ideas about motherhood that run through left-wing Weimar-era publications are also present in these novels, as the authors continue to rely on shorthand coding of conventional maternal qualities and leave assumptions of women's mothering largely unchallenged. In the following, I focus on the portrayals of motherhood and intergenerational female relationships in Helene, Gilgi, and Käsebier. With reference to psychoanalytic ideas and cultural types, I argue that Baum, Keun, and Tergit complicate the definition of the new woman by showing how their representative young protagonists negotiated, at times unsuccessfully, a balance between financial independence, liberal social values, and familial relationships that were compatible with their modern lifestyles.

Three Bestsellers by Women Writers

Gilgi—eine von uns, Irmgard Keun's debut novel, was met with widespread critical and public acclaim. The book sold over thirty thousand copies and was serialized in the Social Democratic newspaper Vorwärts (Forward) in 1932, further increasing the novel's reach. The work explores themes of motherhood, class, and women's work in the late Weimar years as Gilgi, an archetypal new woman, navigates the revelation of her adoption, her relationship with bohemian writer Martin, and her unplanned pregnancy. Gilgi was quickly adapted for the screen, with Johannes Meyer's Eine von uns (One of Us), which starred Brigitte Helm in the lead role, appearing in 1932.