Roger Woods

The Referential and the Relational: Victor Klemperer's Diaries in the Nazi Years

Abstract To what extent do Victor Klemperers diaries from the years of Nazi rule in Germany have referential value for conveying factual detail about how a German who has been classified as Jewish survived anti-Semitism and the war, and to what extent does their significance lie in their relationality, i.e. their accounts of the interactions Klemperer has with those around him? Against the background of Aleida Assmanns ideas on the limits of ‘positivist historiography’ and a rapprochement between history and memory, this analysis shows how Klemperer captures the detail of everyday life, while being acutely aware of his limited access to reliable information about what is going on around him. In his accounts of experiences at the hands of non-Jewish Germans and his processing of those experiences he also conveys the complex reality that must be grasped by anyone attempting to summarize popular attitudes to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany.

The Conservative Revolution and National Socialism

Traditionally, studies of the links between the Conservative Revolution and National Socialism have given an account of what the two have in common and what separates them. This is a relatively straightforward undertaking. When it comes to similarities they clearly share a scorn for liberalism and an insistence on the superiority of a dictatorial order. This is backed up by the elevation of militarism to the status of an ideology. The notions of self-denial and total commitment to a cause during the First World War resurface as the basis for a nationalist community, with the army providing the model for the new state. Both Conservative Revolutionaries and Nazis knew disputes over the meaning of socialism, and both claimed to have transcended reaction and traditional nationalism. Both movements argued Germany’s case in vitalist terms: struggle was the law of life, and there was no such thing as the right of the weak. On the basis of such similarities it has been suggested that the Conservative Revolution provided the ideas for all branches of German nationalism, including National Socialism.1 From here it is one short step to seeing the Conservative Revolution as a causal factor in the rise of National Socialism by virtue of the anti-democratic ferment it created. Political writers such as Oswald Spengler and Moeller van den Bruck ‘helped to make National Socialist ideology socially acceptable’.2

Introduction: What was the Conservative Revolution?

The Conservative Revolution has often been described as part of the great counter-movement to the French Revolution.1 By this definition it extends back beyond the twentieth century as a tradition of militaristic, authoritarian nationalism which rejected liberalism, socialism, democracy and internationalism. The following study concentrates on the Weimar period of German history, however, a period in which the Conservative Revolutionaries assumed the role of ‘intellectual vanguard of the right’.2 Embracing some of the best-known writers, academics, journalists, politicians, and philosophers of the interwar years, the Conservative Revolutionary movement produced a flood of radical nationalist writings in the form of war diaries and works of fiction, political journalism, manifestos, and theoretical tracts outlining the development and destiny of political life in Germany and the West.

This new theory of war is nothing but an uninhibited transfer of the principle of art for art's sake to war: Ernst Jnger, Walter Benjamin, and the New Right

Abstract Walter Benjamins reception of Ernst Jnger and the new nationalists grouped around him during the years of the Weimar Republic is notable for establishing a link between their aestheticization of the war experience and Germanys military defeat. Benjamins interpretation can also be extended to the new nationalist politics in the 1920s: the failed attempt to work out a programme which would reconcile the forces of nationalism and socialism gives way to a view of politics as style, hierarchy, and leadership. A parallel process is at work in Germany today among intellectuals of the New Right: through its project of intellectualization, the New Right seeks to distance itself from National Socialism and present itself as heir to the supposedly alternative tradition of the Conservative Revolution. The project fails, and the New Right moves towards the aestheticization of politics mapped out by the new nationalists.

Conclusion: From Exemplary Thinkers of Modernity to Living without Absolutes

We have seen how Modernity provides the disturbing backdrop to much New Right thinking. It is invariably seen as a major cause of existential unease, of a lack of ultimate meaning and purpose, of social and political dissolution and chaos, and of psychological turmoil. Analysing the significance of Modernity deepens our understanding of the New Right by shedding light on the thought processes at work behind the movement’s social and political commentary.

What is the New Right

There is little agreement among observers or representatives of the New Right about what it is. This lack of agreement is partly due to the varying motives of writers on the subject, but it is partly also due to the tensions and ambiguities within the New Right itself. Surveying the definitions of the New Right that have been advanced in recent years and reconsidering the nature and the boundaries of the New Right will help to define the critic’s task.

A Cultural Interpretation of National Socialism

The New Right presents its rejection of National Socialism as one of the major defining characteristics of the movement: Europa vorn points out that there is no room in modern Germany’s ideological baggage for the Hitler cult and nostalgia for National Socialism.1 It is certainly the case that many of the typical features of extreme right-wing propaganda in which the link with National Socialism has not been explicitly severed – such as Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism – are generally absent from New Right publications,2 and the programmes of the political parties associated with the New Right go out of their way to underline their commitment to democracy. Hitherto observers have tended to focus on individual statements by New Right authors and to detect a relativisation of National Socialism. Such is the critical view of Ich war dabei (I was there), for example, Franz Schonhuber’s best-selling autobiographical account of his years in the Waffen-SS, published in 1981 and leading to his dismissal from Bavarian State television.3 Relativisation of National Socialism is clearly an important trend in New Right thinking and it is one we shall pursue, yet considering the New Right’s views on National Socialism and fascism as a political and cultural whole reveals a further matter for analysis. As we shall see, a recurrent pattern in New Right thinking presents humankind with a stark choice between chaos and order, and this is coupled with the conviction that we are still living in the fascist era. This broad cultural context of New Right thinking must lead critics to look beyond the New Right’s basic assertion that is has distanced itself from National Socialism.

Values and Programmes

One might suppose that despite the confusion over culture, multiculturalism and National Socialism, at least the nation and nationalism would be beyond question in New Right thought. Certainly an assertive nationalism is a consistent feature of New Right political philosophy. Pierre Krebs offers one of the most aggressive portrayals of the renewed sense of nation which followed the demise of Marxism in the East and German unification and which now challenges the liberal order of the West. Krebs sees the revolution that swept away Marxism in the East as still having some way to go. It will reach beyond political unification and seek a more profound reconnection with German history. It will search out the ‘essence of what is German’ and the sacred things that today’s politicians, from whatever party, would let sink into oblivion. Through this revolution the founding myth of the people will burst forth, the myth of Germans’ origins, the source of what makes Germans special and different. Representatives of a chaotic one-world ideology, from liberals to Marxists are hostile to German unification because it is based on a law of identity that undermines cosmopolitan nonsense about all people being equal.1

From Cultural Hegemony to Cultural Pessimism

After the NPD’s failure in the Bundestag elections of 1969 the more innovative sections of the extreme right set in motion the process generally referred to as the intellectualisation of the right, and this process marked the birth of the New Right. The New Right took up the theories of the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci on the need to achieve ‘cultural hegemony’ in society before one can expect political success. This means achieving acceptance in civil society, particularly in the education system, the media and mass culture.The New Right thus aims to change the parameters of public debate by discussing issues which are seen as undiscussable, and drawing others into the discussion. In the late sixties and early seventies the New Right concentrated on marking itself off from National Socialism as the first step to gaining wider acceptance. In more recent years it has concentrated on gaining acceptance for an assertive nationalism in which the memory of National Socialism is outweighed by anti-Nazi elements of Germany’s past, on setting out German values which are distinctive and in need of protection from multi-culturalism, and winning support for its views within the political mainstream.

The Conservative Revolution and the Conservative Dilemma

Early studies of the Conservative Revolution have been criticised for failing to give an adequate account of the sociological background to the anti-democratic thought they portray.1 If the historian does not examine the socioeconomic roots of ideology, it is rightly argued, then the interests served by that ideology remain unclear.2 As long ago as 1960 Walter Busmann made the point that analysing political ideology meant ‘looking at its motives and aims, at its social origins, its effect and how widespread it was’.3 As has been the case with studies of the First World War, more recent studies of anti-democratic thought in the period up to 1933 have taken up this challenge and examined not just political thought but also its social and political context.4 For example, Oswald Spengler’s financial support from figures such as Hugenberg has come under scrutiny, as have Conservative Revolutionaries’ links with big business.5 Studies of the specific political, social and economic circumstances of individuals and groups within the Conservative Revolution have tended to conclude that its ideology was not revolutionary since its sociopolitical roots were in the middle classes and its economic support was drawn from traditional conservative sources. There was a tendency for the Conservative Revolutionaries to ride on the financial backs of organisations which were more committed to the very tradition of nationalism which they scorned. Much of the new nationalists’ publishing activity, for example, was financed by Stahlhelm, the ex-servicemen’s league, which in turn was closely involved with the monarchist Deutschnationale Volkspartei.