The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology

by Fritz Stern

Book Overview

This is a study in the pathology of cultural criticism. By analyzing the thought and influence of three leading critics of modern Germany, this study will demonstrate the dangers and dilemmas of a particular type of cultural despair. Lagarde, Langbehn, and Moeller van den Bruck-their active lives spanning the years from the middle of the past century to the threshold of Hitler's Third Reich-attacked, often incisively and justly, the deficiencies of...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520026268
• ISBN13: 9780520026261
• Release Date: October 1974
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 367 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Short review: Great!

The reviewer ("prenziberg") who complains of "venom dripping from nearly every sentence" has a non-rare ability to extract surprising things from mild-mannered text. In my opinion, what drips from nearly every sentence is clarity. (I know, clarity does not drip. He (she?) started it...) This is, again IMO, one of the great books of historical reportage and interpretation. Stern wrote the book in the 60's; he could have had no inkling of current goings-on in Muslim land, the relevancy of the book to which other reviewers have commented approvingly on. I underlined almost every sentence. I have not done that since my mid-twenties. Either, at 65, I'm loosing it, or the book is pretty good. Both are likely. bill

A presage of the rise of German National Socialism. Similarities to modern Islamic Radicalism.

Stern's book gives us valuable insight into currents of German thinking from the 19th century up to the rise of National Socialism in the 20s and 30s. Stern's books focuses on the writings of Paul de Lagarde, Julius Langbehn, and Moeller van den Bruck. Paul de Lagarde was a biblical scholar and a master of oriental languages like Aramaic and Persian. He was also a rabid Jew hater who openly called for extermination. He loathed classical Western liberalism, science, and capitalism. For him, these were all spiritless abstractions. For Lagarde, Western liberalism, capitalism, science, and the Jews where the monstrous embodiment of all he hated. He had a romantic notion of a mythical Germanic past, and he believed the Jews and the modern society of the West were conspiring to pollute and corrupt this pure German spirit. He advocated a Great Leader, a "purge the Jew" program, and a divinely inspired expansionist foreign policy to rekindle an authentic and noble Germanic way of life. Lagarde despised bourgeois 19th century German Christianity, and he called for a "new" German religion that would purge all the Jewish elements of Christianity and become the unifying spiritual basis and justification for the new German state. This new religion would fuse the squabbling German factions and sects into a unified people and nation with one single will .... embodied in the form a "Great Leader." Lagarde rejected the premise of general education, and instead, he proposed a totally new education system based on social status and intellectual promise. This new, state-run authoritarian education system would mold the leaders of the new German nation. Julius Langbehn wrote a book that extolled the Dutch artist Rembrandt as an authentic "German man". If this sounds confusing, well ... it is ..., but recall that many years later the Nazis attempted to use Rembrandt as a cultural symbol to force a Dutch-German alliance after they occupied Holland during the war. Like Lagarde, Langbehn hated the modern liberal society because of its mechanization, realism, bourgeois lifestyle, and commercialism. Like Hitler, Langbehn was an "artist"; he was anti-scientific, anti-Western, and anti-rational. He postulated a "cult of the young" (think Hitler Youth) and a "Hidden Emperor" (think Führer) who would emerge to unite the German people. Again like Lagarde, Langbehn hated the U.S.A because it was the embodiment of all he despised. He warned that Jews were destroying the German "Volk" by "worming" their way into German life. For Langbehn, modernity itself was the ultimate cause of German decay, and the Jews were to blame for bringing this modernity to German society. For Langbehn, the Jews were "democratically inclined; they have an affinity for the mob," and like Lagarde, Langbehn called for extermination of the Jews. I won't go on about Moeller van den Bruck, because it is similar to Lagarde and Langbehn. One important footnote: The Nazi's got the ter

Excellent book

Stern's book is an excellent study of German anti-semitism and Pan Germanism that ultimately concluded in Hitler and the Nazis. While it's impossible to prove that Hitler read the three authors that Stern studies in this book it's quite likely that Hitler either did read them or someone close to him read them and detailed their contents to him. Many of Hitler's ideas are either directly in the writings of the three men studied in this book or are extensions of their writings. A vastly important book that will lead a reader to the conclusion that Hitler wasn't just an "accident" of German history, he was its ultimate frightening conclusion.

Stern's Insight

Yes I may be a history student, but this book would truly appeal to anyone, especially if you are the least bit bewildered about German history or are seeking to understand it a bit more. Stern does an excellent job examining three 'average' people in Germany spanning 1871-1933 (roughly). 'Cultural despair' is an interesting concept and Stern does an excellent job showing how this was such an issue in modernising Germany and how much it meant to them. In no ways does it fully explain Nazism, but it illustrates how powerful one's 'culture' can be to a person or group of people. Howeverm it isn't just limited to Germans in any sense--it's something we should all understand and Stern's work truly anables the reader to do so.