Abstract
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 Schönhuber’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.
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Notes
Wolfgang Strauss, ‘Deutschlands Rechte und Hitler’, Europa Vorn, 15 October 1995, 8–12 (p. 9).
Franz Schönhuber, Ich war dabei ( Munich: Langen Müller ), 1981.
Armin Mohler, Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918–1932, 3rd edn, 2 vols (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1989), II, p. 103.
Armin Mohler, Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918–1932, II, p. 107. Mohler is quoting from Zeev Sternhell, Ni droite ni gauche. L’idéologie fasciste en France (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1983), p. 293.
Johannes Schwefel, ‘Leserbrief’, Junge Freiheit, 30 August 2002.
Wilhelm Kleinau, ‘Mussolini über Verfassungen und Programme’, in: Die Standarte, 14 August 1927, p. 339.
Oswald Spengler, Jahre der Entscheidung ( Munich: Beck, 1933 ), pp. 134–5.
Günter Maschke, ‘Der Zauberlehrling Machiavellis: Benito Mussolini’, Erste Etappe, 1, 1988, pp. 63–71. This idea is particularly significant when one considers that it was put forward in the first issue of the journal Etappe where one might expect to read some kind of programmatic statement or set of goals. Mohler also takes up this line of thought in Sternhell’s work. Mohler quotes Sternhell on Maurice Barrès (for Mohler one of the fathers of fascism): ‘For a man like Barrès it is not a matter of which doctrine is the correct one, but rather which force will enable one to act and to be victorious’. Mohler also picks out Sternhell quoting Sorel on myth in order to prove that fascism is not to be judged by how true it is. Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918–1932, II, p. 116.
Rüdiger Safranski, Wieviel Wahrheit braucht der Mensch? Über das Denkbare und das Lebbare ( Munich, Vienna: Carl Hanser, 1990 ), p. 198.
Wolfgang Venohr, ‘Vor 50 Jahren: Der Kulminationspunkt wird überschritten’, Junge Freiheit, September 1992, p. 15.
Quoted by Elliot Neaman in ‘A New Conservative Revolution?: Neo-nationalism, Collective Memory, and the New Right in Germany since Unification’, in Antisemitism and Xenophobia in Germany after Unification, ed. by Hermann Kurthen, Werner Bergmann, Rainer Erb (New York, Oxford: OUP, 1997), pp. 190–208 (p. 203).
Wolfgang Venohr, ‘Vor 50 Jahren’, Junge Freiheit, 1–2, January/February, 1992, p. 15.
Alexander Barti, ‘Die Schlammschlacht geht weiter’, Junge Freiheit, 20 July 2001.
Erich Vad, ‘Eine ganze Generation unter Generalverdacht’, Junge Freiheit, 11 January 2002.
Franz Schönhuber, ‘Endzeit’, Nation und Europa, January 1997, 9–12 (p. 9 ).
Wolfgang Bialas, ‘Die selbstbewußte Nation und ihre Intellektuellen’, Berliner Debatte. Initial, 8 (1997), 214–24 (p. 220). Strauß gives a bitter account of the effect his association with the New Right has had on his life: ‘What a tiny fall: from famous to infamous! Etymologically insignificant. Some people who spit at me today used to like coming to visit, and one said as he entered my home: let me take a deep breath. I must absorb the whole atmosphere… Today he writes in the newspapers: Hang him!’ Die Fehler des Kopisten, p. 118.
Wolfgang Saur, ‘Neurose oder Selbstbehauptung’, Junge Freiheit, 11 October 2002.
Bernard-Henry Lévy, ‘Allemagne année zéro?’, Le Monde, 6–8 February 1999. Similarly, Jürgen Habermas says one group in the Historikerstreit has a functionalist understanding of the public use of history. They dispense the slogan of ‘national consciousness instead of guilt consciousness’. The other group promotes enlightenment, and they ‘trust above all a national self-consciousness that draws its strength solely from the critical appropriation, educated by Auschwitz, of our traditions, which, fortunately, are not lacking in unambiguous models’. The New Conservatism, pp. 247–8.
Doris Neujahr, ‘Wie bei Hempels unterm Sofa’, Junge Freiheit, 19 March 2004.
Oliver Busch, ‘Identität durch Irritation: Berliner Denkmalpläne: Es hätte schlimmer kommen können’, Junge Freiheit, 21 January 2005.
Wolfgang Venohr, Patrioten gegen Hitler, Der Weg zum 20. Juli 1944 ( Bergisch Gladbach: Lübbe, 1994 ), p. 5.
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, ‘Das Schrifttum als geistiger Raum der Nation’ ( Munich: Bremer Presse, 1927 ), p. 31.
Angelika Willig, ‘Abschied von rechts’, Junge Freiheit, 16 October 1998.
Frank Como, ‘Organisch, faustisch, grenzenlos: Oswald Spenglers ästhetische Theorie’, Etappe, 12, June 1996, 136–9 (p. 136).
Oswald Spengler, Briefe 1913–1936, ed. by A.M. Koktanek ( Munich: Beck, 1963 ), p. 749.
Documents of the Preußische Geheime Staatspolizei (R58/243), Bundesarchiv. See also Robert Gellately, The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy 1933–1945 ( Oxford: Clarendon, 1990 ), p. 50.
Albrecht Erich Günther (ed.), Was wir vom Nationalsozialismus erwarten ( Heilbronn: Eugen Salzer, 1932 ).
Quoted in Kurt Sontheimer, Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik ( Munich: Nymphenburger, 1968 ), p. 283.
Dieter Stein, ‘Streit, Aufbruch und Selbstkritik’, Junge Freiheit, supplement, 14 June 1996, p. 8, quoted by Armin Pfahl-Traughber, ‘Konservative Revolution’ und ‘Neue Rechte’, p. 189.
Henning Eichberg, ‘Der Unsinn der “Konservativen Revolution”. Über Ideengeschichte, Nationalismus und Habitus’, Wir selbst, 1, 1996, 6–33 (p. 9).
Harald Holz, ‘Die Tragik der deutschen Geschichte’, in Criticôn, 135, January/February 1993, p. 39.
Wolfgang Venohr, Stauffenberg. Symbol der deutschen Einheit ( Frankfurt am Main and Berlin: Ullstein, 1986 ), p. 9.
Martin Greiffenhagen, Das Dilemma des Konservatismus in Deutschland, ( Munich: Piper, 1977 ), pp. 195–6.
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Woods, R. (2007). A Cultural Interpretation of National Socialism. In: Germany’s New Right as Culture and Politics. New Perspectives in German Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230801332_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230801332_4
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