debauhaus1-7, Exercise 2: How the school ended

Model answer:

The sequence (check each date and detail):
1. 1930: Meyer is dismissed and Mies becomes director; students seen as political agitators are expelled.
2. 1931 to 1932: the Nazi party grows stronger in Dessau and the region; in 1932 the Dessau council, with Nazi support, votes to close the school.
3. Autumn 1932: Mies reopens the school in Berlin as a private institution, in a former factory building.
4. April 1933: after the Nazi seizure of power, police search and close the Berlin school; there are negotiations about reopening it on conditions.
5. July 1933: the teachers vote to dissolve the school.

In what sense it was closed: the authorities shut it twice, first the Dessau council in 1932 and then the police in Berlin in 1933, under political pressure from the Nazi movement. In what sense it dissolved itself: when reopening was offered only on conditions, the masters chose to dissolve the school rather than accept them (check the details). Serious histories use both statements, and the best answer says that it was driven out by political pressure and that the final act was the teachers' own decision.