In 1919, Walter Gropius became the director of a new institution, the Staatliches Bauhaus, also simply known as the Bauhaus, which merged the former Grand Ducal School of Arts and Crafts and the Weimar Academy of Fine Art. Even though Gropius was an architect and the term Bauhaus literally translates as "construction house," the school of design did not have an architecture department until 1927.

In a pamphlet for an April 1919 exhibition, Gropius stated that his goal was "to create a new guild of craftsmen, without the class distinctions which raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist." Combining influences from modernism, the English Arts and Crafts movement, and Constructivism, Gropius promoted the idea that design was to serve the community.

The most basic principle of the movement of the Bauhaus school was "form follows function." According to this idea, simple but elegant geometric shapes were designed based on the intended function or purpose of a building or an object. Illustrating this concept, the pieces of this chess game designed by Josef Hartwig (1923-24) are stylized to suggest how each of them moves and its rank of power.

The interdisciplinary approach of the school's professors and students meant that visual arts, graphic design, architecture as well as product and furniture design all came into conversation with how people lived in the modern world. They thereby actualized the concept of the "Gesamtkunstwerk," or complete work of art. This photo shows the interior of the Bauhaus school in Dessau.

The school had many major artists among its teachers. This photo from 1926 features, from left to right, Josef Albers, Hinnerk Scheper, Georg Muche, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer, Joost Schmidt, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Gunta Stölzl and Oskar Schlemmer. Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe were also directors of the school.

Although the Bauhaus is associated with minimalist design, students and teachers invested an unsuspected amount of energy in creating surreal costumes for parties, as reported by Farkas Molnar in his 1925 essay, "Life at the Bauhaus." The parties began as improvised events but were later turned into large-scale productions, such as Oskar Schlemmer's "Triadic Ballet" from 1922 (photo).

Political tensions led to different closures of the school. After being based in Weimar from 1919 to 1925, the Bauhaus moved to Dessau (picture). When the Nazis gained control of the city council there, the school closed again in 1932 and was reopened in Berlin. It was closed permanently in April 1933, pressured by the Nazi regime, which criticized the institution for producing "degenerate art."

Even though the Bauhaus school was closed, different members of its staff kept spreading its idealistic concepts after they fled Germany. For example, many Jewish architects of the Bauhaus school contributed to the White City of Tel Aviv (picture), where a collection of 4,000 buildings were designed in the Bauhaus style. It is a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site.

Though today people might most commonly associate modern, affordable, modular furniture with Ikea, the concept wasn't born in Sweden, but rather inspired by the classic works of Bauhaus designers. This photo shows tubular furniture designed by Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1927 to 1930.

The Bauhaus school turns 100 in 2019. Germany's major celebratory program involves not only the three museums housed in the former schools in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin (picture), but also at least 10 of the country's 16 federal states will participate. Expect several exhibitions, events, publications — and even new museums.

After the Second World War, Germany lay in ruins. Many things had to be rebuilt — including the political party landscape. When the first Bundestag or Parliament was formed in 1949, none of the parties could secure a third of the public votes. Coalitions had to be formed. The issues, however, were similar: reconstruction, economic integration, and the desire for a united Germany.

The election promise of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), whose leader Konrad Adenauer became the first German chancellor in 1949, was "construction and work" instead of "bureaucracy and a regulated economy." The latter two were the campaign platforms of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which in the years after 1945 focused on a regulated, planned economy.

Besides wanting peace and security, the parties in the 1950s focused on economic recovery. Here, the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) warns against the influence of the Soviet Union. SPD candidate Erich Ollenhauer is portrayed as a puppet of the USSR. A rather anti-communist climate was common at the time, which also resulted in the reelection of the conservative Adenauer in 1953.

By the mid-1950s, the economy had recovered. People were hopeful about a bright future, and this was also reflected in the birth rate that increased 30% between 1953 and 1963. At the same time, the unions demanded more rights for employees. With the video "Saturdays belong to Daddy," they began to fight for a five-day week in 1956.

First war, then reconstruction, and finally the building of the Wall: within just one and a half decades, the society in the Federal Republic underwent a transformation that permanently changed its attitude to life and its value system. Willy Brandt's candidacy (SPD) in 1961 heralded a change in policy, but first the CDU's Adenauer made it again into the chancellor's office.

Ludwig Erhard, the "father of the social market economy," is elected to the highest office in 1963. His liberal-conservative course and his promise of "prosperity for all" seemed to go down just as well with voters as the "housewife idyll" suggested by the CDU's election campaign in this picture.

In the 1970s, terrorist attacks by extreme left-wing groups, especially the RAF, had a significant impact on the sociopolitical climate. The parties focus on the issue of "internal security." Willy Brandt of the SPD is voted chancellor. He also advocates understanding with Eastern Europe, for which he receives the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971.

From the mid-1970s onward, the Federal Republic is dominated by change. More and more women demand greater equality. The CDU jumps on this bandwagon for its 1976 election campaign. In the same year, a protest movement also forms against the construction of a nuclear power plant in Brokdorf and the planned nuclear repository in Gorleben. The call for a political alternative grows louder.

The Green Party is founded in 1980 and three years later, its members make it into the Bundestag for the first time with their top candidate, Joschka Fischer (right). The mood in the Federal Republic at this time is characterized by fear of nuclear war and protests against the planned NATO rearmament. The peace movement becomes the largest mass movement in the history of the Federal Republic.

The year 1990 marked an important year in German history. The reunification of the former east and west Germany on October 3, 1990, was followed two months later by the first united German federal election. Helmut Kohl of the CDU once again received the approval of the voters — he would remain in office as the "Chancellor of Unity" for a total of 16 years.

The 1990s were a politically turbulent decade. In 1992, Hoyerswerda and Rostock became synonymous worldwide with a new German nationalism. In Hoyerswerda, a home for asylum seekers was set on fire, with fatal results. In the left-wing camp, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) is formed, and enters the Bundestag in the early 1990s with top candidate Gregor Gysi (photo).

In 2005, Angela Merkel became the first woman to head the Federal Republic of Germany. She took over from the SPD's Gerhard Schröder. Both the CDU politician and the 2006 World Cup helped improve Germany's image abroad. The following year was all about the European Union, which celebrated its 50th anniversary during Germany's EU Council presidency.

Following the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, Germany decides to phase out nuclear power by 2022. By 2050, the supply is to be covered entirely by renewable energies. At the beginning of the decade, compulsory military service was also suspended. Henceforth, there would be a purely professional army. Chancellor Merkel is voted into office again in 2013.

2015 will go down in history as the year of the refugee crisis. People from war zones in Africa and the Middle East sought refuge in Europe. Germany took in around one million refugees. The following year, an Islamist terrorist attack shook Berlin. Right-wing parties gained ground again throughout Europe; in Germany, the right-wing Alternative ffor Germany (AfD) increasingly secures votes.

The COVID-19 pandemic becomes THE topic in Germany in the early 2020s, raising many questions for politics and society: How can we have better health care? How well should people in the caring professions be paid in future? How can further crises be avoided? All these issues are dominating the current federal election campaign.