Armin Mohler (12 April 1920 – 4 July 2003) was a Swiss
far-right
Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of bein ...
political philosopher and journalist, known for his works on the
Conservative Revolution
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 ...
. He is widely seen as the father of the
Neue Rechte (''New Right''), the German branch of the
European New Right
The European New Right (ENR) is a far-right movement which originated in France as the Nouvelle Droite in the late 1960s. Its proponents are involved in a global "anti-structural revolt" against modernity and post-modernity, largely in the form o ...
.
Life
Armin Mohler was born in
Basel
, french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese
, neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS) ...
, Switzerland, on 12 April 1920, the second child of a Swiss railway official. After passing his Abitur in 1938, he studied art history, German studies and philosophy at the
University of Basel
The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis'', German: ''Universität Basel'') is a university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest surviving universitie ...
. As a student, he wrote articles on art history and film criticism for the ''Baseler Nationalzeitung''. At that time, he espoused left radical and pacifist views, but the reading of authors like
Oswald Spengler
Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler (; 29 May 1880 – 8 May 1936) was a German historian and philosopher of history whose interests included mathematics, science, and art, as well as their relation to his organic theory of history. He is best k ...
,
Friedrich 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 c ...
,
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novella ...
, and
Ernst Jünger
Ernst Jünger (; 29 March 1895 – 17 February 1998) was a German author, highly decorated soldier, philosopher, and entomologist who became publicly known for his World War I memoir '' Storm of Steel''.
The son of a successful businessman and ...
, as well as his military service in the Swiss army, increasingly eroded his ideological certainties.
Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941–42 led to a political "awakening experience". Enlisted during World War II, he deserted in February 1942 and crossed the border with Germany in order to join the
Waffen-SS
The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and unoccupied lands.
The grew from th ...
and fight against communism, but his application was turned down.
At the end of 1942 he returned to Basel and was sentenced to 150 days in prison for illegal border crossing and dereliction of duty. After his release and recovery from tuberculosis, Mohler devoted himself to his dissertation. In 1950, he published ''Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918-1932 (The Conservative Revolution in Germany, 1918-1932)'', the product of his doctoral thesis under the supervision of German-Swiss philosopher
Karl Jaspers
Karl Theodor Jaspers (, ; 23 February 1883 – 26 February 1969) was a German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry, and philosophy. After being trained in and practicing psychiatry, Jaspe ...
. The work helped spread the popularity of the concept of "
Conservative Revolution
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 ...
" to a wider audience.
From 1949 to 1953, Mohler served as
Ernst Jünger
Ernst Jünger (; 29 March 1895 – 17 February 1998) was a German author, highly decorated soldier, philosopher, and entomologist who became publicly known for his World War I memoir '' Storm of Steel''.
The son of a successful businessman and ...
's private secretary. Between 1953 and 1961, he worked as a foreign correspondent in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and 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), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...
, mainly for the newspapers ''Die Tat'', ''
Die Zeit
''Die Zeit'' (, "The Time") is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles.
History
Th ...
'', ''
Die Furche'' and ''
Christ und Welt
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...
''. There, he became enamored of
Gaullism
Gaullism (french: link=no, Gaullisme) is a French political stance based on the thought and action of World War II French Resistance leader Charles de Gaulle, who would become the founding President of the Fifth French Republic. De Gaulle wi ...
. Under the pseudonym "Michael Hintermwald", he also published in
Gerhard Frey's far-right newspaper ''
Deutschen National-Zeitung''. Mohler moved to
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
in 1961 to work for the
Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation
Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation or Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung is an independent foundation in Germany with the goal of promoting the humanities and the sciences. It is named after Carl Friedrich von Siemens and was founded in 195 ...
. He then served as its managing director from 1964 until its retirement in 1985. In 1967, Mohler received the
Konrad Adenauer Prize for his work in journalism.
In the 1980s Mohler actively promoted French
Nouvelle Droite
The Nouvelle Droite (; en, "New Right"), sometimes shortened to the initialism ND, is a far-right political movement which emerged in France during the late 1960s. The Nouvelle Droite is at the origin of the wider European New Right (ENR). Vario ...
philosopher
Alain de Benoist
Alain de Benoist (; ; born 11 December 1943) – also known as Fabrice Laroche, Robert de Herte, David Barney, and other pen names – is a French journalist and political philosopher, a founding member of the Nouvelle Droite ("New Right"), and ...
. He wrote the introduction to de Benoist's ''Kulturrevolution von rechts'' (Cultural Revolution from the Right) when it appeared in West Germany in 1985. Mohler had been introduced to French far-right ideas during his time in France.
Mohler died on 4 July 2003 in Munich. His eulogy was given by the then 32-year-old
Götz Kubitschek, who soon became one of the most important German New Right figures. Mohler remained an unrepentant fascist until the end of his life, acknowledging shortly before his death that he was an admirer of Italian and Spanish fascism.
Writings and ideas
Conservative Revolution
Mohler's seminal work is his book ''Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918-1932'' ("The Conservative Revolution in Germany, 1918-1932"), which initially was his doctoral thesis. There, he tried to unearth
Weimar Republic
The German Reich, commonly referred to as the Weimar Republic,, was a historical period of Germany from 9 November 1918 to 23 March 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is also r ...
right-wing thought and tradition apart from and alternative to
National Socialism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
. The most crucial thinkers of the
Conservative Revolution
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 ...
to him were
Ernst Jünger
Ernst Jünger (; 29 March 1895 – 17 February 1998) was a German author, highly decorated soldier, philosopher, and entomologist who became publicly known for his World War I memoir '' Storm of Steel''.
The son of a successful businessman and ...
,
Oswald Spengler
Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler (; 29 May 1880 – 8 May 1936) was a German historian and philosopher of history whose interests included mathematics, science, and art, as well as their relation to his organic theory of history. He is best k ...
,
Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt (; 11 July 1888 – 7 April 1985) was a German jurist, political theorist, and prominent member of the Nazi Party. Schmitt wrote extensively about the effective wielding of political power. A conservative theorist, he is noted as ...
,
Ernst Niekisch,
Hans Blüher, and
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novella ...
(before his turn to liberalism).
In the words of historian
Roger Woods, "Armin Mohler’s long-term project after 1945 was to portray the Conservative Revolution as a distinctive intellectual movement which was distorted by the Nazis and which, in its pure form, had a role to play as a model for Germany’s future. Mohler presents the Conservative Revolution as theory, and National Socialism as practice, and he asks to what extent a theory can be made responsible for a practice which varied from it."
Neue Rechte
According to Michael Minkenberg, Mohler's ideas owed more to the Nouvelle Droite associated with
GRECE
The Groupement de Recherche et d'Études pour la Civilisation Européenne ("Research and Study Group for European Civilization"), better known as GRECE, is a French ethnonationalist think tank founded in 1968 to promote the ideas of the Nouvelle ...
than the ''
Ostpolitik
''Neue Ostpolitik'' (German for "new eastern policy"), or ''Ostpolitik'' for short, was the normalization of relations between the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, or West Germany) and
Eastern Europe, particularly the German Democratic Republ ...
''-derived ideas of a strong German state associated with contemporaries like
Robert Spaemann
Robert Spaemann (5 May 1927 – 10 December 2018) was a German Catholic philosopher. He is considered a member of the Ritter School.
Spaemann's focus was on Christian ethics. He was known for his work in bioethics, ecology, and human rights. Al ...
and
Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner.
One of his favourite targets was the so-called "''
Vergangenheitsbewältigung
''Vergangenheitsbewältigung'' (, "struggle of overcoming the past" or "work of coping with the past") is a German compound noun describing processes that since the later 20th century have become key in the study of post-1945 German literature, s ...
''", which he criticized in several books. That argument involved the claim that postwar Germany should 'step out of
Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
's shadow'. It was thus claimed that Mohler was a forerunner of
Ernst Nolte
Ernst Nolte (11 January 1923 – 18 August 2016) was a German historian and philosopher. Nolte's major interest was the comparative studies of fascism and communism (cf. Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism). Originally trained in philosophy, he w ...
and associated thinkers, who were involved in the ''
Historikerstreit''.
A
neopagan
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a term for a religion or family of religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North Afric ...
, Mohler viewed conservatism and Christianity as mutually exclusive and argued that Christians by necessity must embrace left-wing politics. This position met considerable opposition.
Fascism
Mohler's notion of Conservative Revolution has been described by some scholars like
Roger Griffin
Roger David Griffin (born 31 January 1948) is a British professor of modern history and political theorist at Oxford Brookes University, England. His principal interest is the socio-historical and ideological dynamics of fascism, as well as ...
as a form of
fascism
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and th ...
.
[R. Griffin, ''The Nature of Fascism'', London : Routledge, 1993, pp. 166-9] According to Woods, Mohler "illustrates the New Right tendency to separate what it regards as a pure version of fascism from the various attempts to put it into practice. He uncouples what he calls 'fascist style' from historical fascism, and on the basis of this distinction declares: 'I am a fascist'".
Political activism
Mohler supported conservative politician
Franz Josef Strauß
Franz Josef Strauss ( ; 6 September 1915 – 3 October 1988) was a German politician. He was the long-time chairman of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) from 1961 until 1988, member of the federal cabinet in different positions between ...
and the
Christian Social Union of Bavaria
The Christian Social Union in Bavaria (German: , CSU) is a Christian-democratic and conservative political party in Germany. Having a regionalist identity, the CSU operates only in Bavaria while its larger counterpart, the Christian Democratic ...
after his stint with the Siemens Foundation. He also backed
The Republicans for a brief time, serving as an adviser to its leader
Franz Schönhuber
Franz Xaver Schönhuber (10 January 1923 – 27 November 2005) was a German
right-wing extremist journalist, politician, and author. He gained fame as a founder and eventual chairman of the right-wing German party The Republicans.
He was a membe ...
, but saw no future for them. In 1983, he founded the ''Deutschlandrat'' (Council for Germany) with the support of a number of conservative university professors, but it never became a viable institution.
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
Further reading
* Willms, Thomas (2004). ''Armin Mohler''. Papyrossa.
External links
Literature by and about Armin Mohler
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mohler, Armin
1920 births
2003 deaths
Writers from Basel-Stadt
German politicians
Conservative Revolutionary movement
New Right (Europe)
Swiss fascists
German nationalists
20th-century Swiss journalists
20th-century Swiss philosophers
Swiss emigrants to Germany
Swiss modern pagans
Modern pagan writers