Arthur Wilhelm Ernst Victor Moeller van den Bruck (23 April 1876 – 30 May 1925) was a German
cultural historian
Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and history to examine popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past matter, encompassing the ...
,
philosopher and writer best known for his controversial 1923 book ''
Das Dritte Reich'' ("The Third Reich"), which promoted
German nationalism
German nationalism () is an ideological notion that promotes the unity of Germans and German-speakers into one unified nation state. German nationalism also emphasizes and takes pride in the patriotism and national identity of Germans as one n ...
and strongly influenced the
Conservative Revolutionary movement
The Conservative Revolution (german: Konservative Revolution), also known as the German neoconservative movement or new nationalism, was a German national-conservative movement prominent during the Weimar Republic, in the years 1918–1933 (betw ...
and then the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
, despite his open opposition and numerous criticisms of
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
.
From 1906 to 1922, he also published
Elisabeth Kaerrick's first full German translation of
Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...
's written works.
Biography
Moeller van den Bruck was born on 23 April 1876 in
Solingen
Solingen (; li, Solich) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located some 25 km east of Düsseldorf along the northern edge of the region called Bergisches Land, south of the Ruhr area, and, with a 2009 population of 161,366 ...
,
Westphalia
Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants.
The territory of the regio ...
, as the only child of
bourgeois parents. His father was Ottomar Victor Moeller, a German
state architect
Many national governments and states have a public official titled the state architect or government architect. The specific duties and areas of responsibility of state architects vary, but they generally involve responsibility for the design and ...
, and his mother was Elise van den Bruck, the daughter of
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
architect
van den Broeck and (allegedly) a
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
mother. At birth Moeller van den Broek was assigned the
given name
A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a ...
"Arthur" in honour of
Arthur Schopenhauer, but he would later drop that part from his name.
He was expelled from a
gymnasium, a German secondary school, for his indifference towards his studies. The young Moeller van den Bruck believed German literature and philosophy, particularly the works of
Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his car ...
, to be a more vital education.
[G Krebs, Moeller van den Bruck: Inventor of the Third Reich, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 35, No. 6] He later continued his studies on his own in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
,
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
and
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
.
In 1897 he married
Hedda Maase (later Eulenberg). She divorced him in 1904.
Moeller van den Bruck's eight-volume cultural history ''Die Deutschen, unsere Menschengeschichte'' ("The Germans, Our People's History") appeared in 1905. In 1907, he returned to Germany, and in 1914, he enlisted in the army at the start of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Soon, he joined the press office of the Foreign Ministry and was attached to the foreign affairs section of the German
Supreme Army Command.
His essay ''Der Preußische Stil'' ("The Prussian Style") in which he celebrated the essence of Prussia as "the will to the state" appeared in 1916 and marked his embrace of
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
. It showed him as an opponent of
parliamentary democracy
A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the ...
and
liberalism
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...
, and it exerted a strong influence on the ''Jungkonservativen'' ("young conservative movement").
After a
nervous breakdown
A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitt ...
, he committed
suicide in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
on 30 May 1925.
Moeller van den Bruck was the joint founder of the "June Club" (''Juniklub''), which sought to influence young conservatives in the fight against the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
. Later, it was renamed ''Deutscher Herrenklub'' ("German Gentlemen's Club"), became very powerful and helped
Franz von Papen to become ''
Reichskanzler
The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,; often shortened to ''Bundeskanzler''/''Bundeskanzlerin'', / is the head of the federal government of Germany and the commander in chief of the Ge ...
'' in 1932.
Influence on Nazism
In his 1918 book ''Das Recht der jungen Völker'' ("The Right Of Young Nations"), Moeller van den Bruck presents a version of the ''
Sonderweg
(, "special path") refers to the theory in German historiography that considers the German-speaking lands or the country of Germany itself to have followed a course from aristocracy to democracy unlike any other in Europe.
The modern school of ...
'' theory in which he developed the theme of Russia as representing communist civilization and the United States representing capitalist civilization, both of which are rejected. Germany is held up as the model between the two extremes. In the same book, Moeller van den Bruck advocated an expressly anti-Western and anti-imperialist philosophy of the state (''Staatstheorie''), which attempted to bridge the gap between nationalism and concepts of social justice.
He had a major influence on the ''Jungkonservativen'' (Young Conservatives) in their opposition to the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is ...
. He may have also supplied the Nazis with some of the concepts underpinning their movement, but upon meeting Hitler in 1922, Bruck rejected him for his "proletarian primitiveness". The Nazis still made use of his ideas where they could, including appropriating the title of his 1923 book ''
Das Dritte Reich'' (meaning "
The Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
") as a political slogan and the Germanic ''Übermensch'' idea.
Works
* ''Die moderne Literatur in Gruppen und Einzeldarstellungen'' (1900)
* ''Das Variété: Eine Kulturdramaturgie'' (1900)
* ''Die Deutschen: Unsere Menschheitsgeschichte'' (1904)
* ''Zeitgenossen'' (1905)
* ''Die italienische Schönheit'' (1913)
* ''Der preußische Stil'' (1915)
* ''Das Recht der jungen Völker'' (1918)
* ''Das Dritte Reich'' (1923)
See also
* ''
The Man Who Invented the Third Reich''
* ''
The Völkisch Ideology and the Roots of Nazism''
References
Sources
* Sebastian Maaß, ''Kämpfer um ein drittes Reich. Arthur Moeller van den Bruck und sein Kreis''. Regin-Verlag, Kiel, 2010.
* Stan Lauryssens, ''The Man Who Invented the Third Reich: The Life and Times of Arthur Moeller Van Den Bruck''. Sutton Publishing, NY, 2003. .
* Gabor Hamza, ''The Idea of the “Third Reich” in the German Legal, Philosophical and Political Thinking in the 20th Century''. Diritto e cultura 11 (2001) 127–138.
* Fritz Stern, ''The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of Germanic Ideology'', UCP, Berkeley, 1974. .
Further reading
* Chamberlain, Houston Stewart (2005). ''Political Ideals.'' Lanham, MD.: University Press of America.
* Rhodes, James M. (1970). "Dionysian and Promethean," ''The Modern Age'', Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 174–189.
External links
*
Works by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck at
Hathi Trust
HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally ...
''Germany's Third Empire''Complete English translation of "Das Dritte Reich" at archive.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moeller van den Bruck, Arthur
1876 births
1925 suicides
People from Solingen
20th-century German historians
German Army personnel of World War I
People from the Rhine Province
People of the Weimar Republic
Conservative Revolutionary movement
Political philosophers
Suicides in Germany
German opinion journalists
German male non-fiction writers
German nationalists
1925 deaths