Arthur Moeller van den Bruck
Encyclopedia
Das Dritte Reich
Das Dritte Reich is a 1923 book by German author Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, the ideology of which heavily informed the Nazi party...
(1923). He also published the first full German translation of Dostoyevsky.
Biography
Arthur Moeller van den Bruck (also Moeller-Bruck) was born in SolingenSolingen
Solingen is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the northern edge of the region called Bergisches Land, south of the Ruhr area, and with a 2009 population of 161,366 is the second largest city in the Bergisches Land...
in 1876, the son of Ottomar Moeller, a government building official, and Elisabeth van den Bruck, the daughter of a building official.
From 1898 to 1910 he studied at, and was expelled from, a gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
(a type of 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 to be a more vital education. Afterwards, he continued his studies on his own in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
His 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 enlisted in the army at the start of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Soon thereafter, he joined the press office of the Foreign Ministry and was attached to the foreign affairs section of the German Supreme Army Command
Oberste Heeresleitung
The Oberste Heeresleitung or OHL was Germany's highest echelon of command of the German Army in World War I, while the Navy was led by the Seekriegsleitung or SKL ....
.
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, marking his embrace of nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
. It showed him as an opponent of parliamentary democracy and liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
, and exerted a strong influence on the Jungkonservativen ("young conservative movement").
After a nervous breakdown
Nervous breakdown
Mental breakdown is a non-medical term used to describe an acute, time-limited phase of a specific disorder that presents primarily with features of depression or anxiety.-Definition:...
, he committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
on May 30, 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
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
. Later, it was renamed "Deutscher Herrenklub" (German Gentlemen's Club): it became very powerful, helping Franz von Papen
Franz von Papen
Lieutenant-Colonel Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen was a German nobleman, Roman Catholic monarchist politician, General Staff officer, and diplomat, who served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933–1934...
to become Reichskanzler 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 SonderwegSonderweg
Sonderweg is a controversial theory in German historiography that considers the German-speaking lands, or the country Germany, to have followed a unique course from aristocracy into democracy, distinct from other European countries...
theory, in which he developed the theme of Russia as representing Communist civilization and the United States representing capitalist civiliation, 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 was Moeller van den Bruck attempt 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. He may have also supplied the Nazis with some of the concepts underpinning their movement, though upon meeting Hitler in 1922 he rejected him for his "proletarian primitiveness". The Nazis nevertheless made use of his ideas where they could, including appropriating the title of his 1923 book Das Dritte Reich
Das Dritte Reich
Das Dritte Reich is a 1923 book by German author Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, the ideology of which heavily informed the Nazi party...
(meaning "The Third Reich") as a political slogan.
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)
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. ISBN 0-7509-3054-3.
- Fritz SternFritz SternFritz Richard Stern is a German-born American historian of German history, Jewish history, and historiography. He is a University Professor Emeritus and a former provost at New York's Columbia University...
, The Politics of Cultural Despair: a study in the Rise of Germanic Ideology, UCP, Berkeley, 1974. ISBN 0-520-02626-8. - Gerhard Krebs, Moeller van den Bruck: Inventor of the Third Reich. The American Political Science Review, Volume 35, No. 6 (December 1941).