The writings of journalist and novelist Gabriele Tergit during the Weimar Republic exhibit a powerful urge to chart and evaluate the conflicts arising from shifting social and cultural values and from contemporary economic and political instability. Although Tergit wrote feuilletons (subjective impressions), travel reports, and reviews, her main focus as a journalist during the Weimar Republic was reporting from the law courts at Moabit in Berlin, because she felt they offered her insight into the essence of the age: “Moabit ist seit einigen Jahren Quelle für die Erkenntnis der Zeit” (For some years now, Moabit has been the source for understanding our time). It is in these civil and criminal trials that conflicts of shifting social values are thrown into sharp relief, where some resolution must be sought for the aftermath of political turmoil, and where both poverty and the desire to take full advantage of the new opportunities in the Weimar Republic spill over into theft, fraud, and murder. The question of an appropriate response to a crisis-ridden modern age is also at the heart of Tergit's first novel, Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm (Cheesebeer Conquers the Kurfürstendamm, 1931).

Better Late than Never: Biographical Overview

Gabriele Tergit's success was at its height during the Weimar Republic. In her autobiography, she refers to her time as legal correspondent for the left-liberal newspaper Berliner Tageblatt from 1925 until 1933 as her seven years of plenty.