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The Political Background

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Austrian National Socialism before 1918

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Abstract

The ultimate sources of Austrian National Socialism must be looked for in changes in the thought and behavior of the people of Western Europe that had been going on for some 150 years. Most of these changes were thought to represent progress, and their proponents generally succeeded in labeling the opposition to them reactionary and evil; their effects, in fact, are seen in what is now almost universally considered praiseworthy in our civilization. The authority of moral law was bestowed on such conceptions as popular sovereignty, the trilogy of liberty, equality, and fraternity, the reality of progress, belief in science as the source of answers to metaphysical questions. The liberal esprit large was exalted above the conservative idée fixe — since all beliefs were held subject to continual modification, tolerance of the new was necessary. Worldly activity and the acquisition of material riches were admirable; meditation and poverty to be condemned. Novel theorems in mathematical physics destroyed the simple Newtonian principles of causation and a mechanical universe. The inclusion of man as an integral part of nature undermined faith in the power of reason.

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  1. Andrew Gladding Whiteside
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© 1962 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands

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Whiteside, A.G. (1962). The Political Background. In: Austrian National Socialism before 1918. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0468-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0468-3_2

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