Conservative Revolutionary movement

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Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland by Armin Mohler

The Conservative Revolutionary movement, sometimes the Conservative Revolution, is a term for several radical right-wing ideologies/movements in the Weimar Republic. It was critical of the results of the German Revolution of 1918–19 and more generally the liberal ideas of the French Revolution. It did not support the non-radical conservatism of the Weimar Republic after WWI (and was not closely associated with any particular political party), and neither supported a reactionary restoring of old systems, but instead supported establishing new systems suitable for the new circumstances, but still influenced by the good characteristics of non-liberal traditions and systems.

The term itself has a long history, in various countries, with various meanings, often differing from the later meaning. It, and related terms, were used in the Weimar Republic by some members of the movement(s). Importantly, in the post-WWII period, Armin Mohler (part of the Neue Rechte) wrote the Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918-1932 (1950), the fame of which contributed to the movement and the term itself becoming widely known. One purpose was to provide new pathways based on old traditions for a non-National Socialist and non-fascist right.

The movement(s) included many different views, but has been divided it into several main components, although also in these there were great variation:

Wikipedia gives the impression that anti-Christianity was the most important characteristic of the movement, possibly to scare away Christian conservatives, but parts of it was highly supportive of (pre-Enlightenment) Christianity and/or certain Christian social theories, with some members even described as supporting Christian theocracy.

General history

The Conservative Revolutionary school of thought advocated a new conservatism and nationalism that was specifically German, or Prussian in particular. Like other conservative movements in the same period, they sought to put a stop to the rising tide of communism, with some groups advocating a Conservative Socialism.

The Conservative Revolutionaries based their ideas on organic rather than materialistic thinking, on quality instead of quantity and on Volksgemeinschaft ("folk-community") rather than class conflict and ochlocracy. These writers produced a profusion of radical nationalistic literature that consisted of war diaries, combat fictional works, political journalism, manifestos, and philosophical treatises outlining their ideas for the transformation of German cultural and political life. The movement had a wide influence among many of Germany’s most gifted youth, universities and middle classes.

The term "Conservative Revolution" predates the First World War, but the writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the political theorist Edgar Julius Jung were instrumental in making this term an established concept of the Weimar period. The term signified a general group with a variety of concepts and attitudes, in some cases although not all including nihilistic ideas. Most of the Conservative Revolutionaries were born at the end of the ninenteenth century and were heavily influenced by the experiences of the First World War. The horrors of the war along with the German Revolution, caused by the betrayal of the German nation by certain treasonous figures, created a break with Germany's past and the Second Reich.

After 1933 some of the proponents of the conservative revolutionary movement were persecuted by the National Socialists, most notably by the SS of Heinrich Himmler, who wanted to prevent reactionaries and other opposing conservative groups from opposing or deviating the Hitler regime in this early time. Many noblemen were anti-democratic, and were happy with a National Socialist abolition of democracy, but some (not all) of them were also opposed to socialism and even racialism, which were key parts of NSDAP policy, and therefore were opponents of the party. Other conservative revolutionary movement members went into anonymity and some arranged themselves with the new regime and became NSDAP members. Again others remained inside the Reichswehr and later Wehrmacht, to silently conspire on the lower levels of the 20 July plot of 1944.

Although the Conservative Revolutionary movement included a vast amount of intellectuals with a variety of views, it is clear that the most important theorists of Revolutionary Conservatism were: Edgar Julius Jung, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Oswald Spengler, Othmar Spann, and Carl Schmitt.

Other noteworthy although lesser figures were: Ernst Jünger, Friedrich Georg Jünger, Hans Zehrer, Hans Freyer, Ludwig Klages, Ernst Niekisch, Ernst von Salomon, Stefan George, Werner Sombart, and Karl Haushofer. Also of note is Otto Strasser, who is sometimes considered a Conservative Revolutionary, and the key postwar historian of the Conservative Revolution, Armin Mohler. In addition, some intellectuals of the European New Right, including Alain de Benoist and Tomislav Sunic, are sometimes considered to belong to an extension of the Conservative Revolution.

As postwar descriptions, such as by Armin Mohler, describe it as a non-National Socialist radical right, included individuals were generally not National Socialists, or, if initially supportive, they later had a falling out and/or had little later influence. This for a variety of reasons, which varied for different individuals, including NSDAP persecutions (especially after the Night of the Long Knives, with victims such as Edgar Julius Jung), views on nationalism (such as seen as being too narrowly German), views governance (with, for example, a federal empire/Reich or Soviet-influenced ideas seen as preferable), views on race, views on religion, and views on anti-Semitism. Some were admirers of the old Prussian aristocracy, or an elitist society more generally, and disliked the argued proletarian and demagogic character of the NSDAP. Wikipedia gives misleading descriptions regarding the support of members for National Socialism, possibly as attempted guilt by association.

Quotes about the Conservative Revolution

  • "The process of which I am speaking is nothing less than a conservative revolution on such a scale as the history of Europe has never known. Its object is form, a new German reality, in which the whole nation will share." – Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Das Schrifttum als geistiger Raum der Nation
  • "The crumbling state threatened to bury the nation in its ruins. But there has arisen a hope of salvation: a conservative-revolutionary movement of nationalism. It seeks to save the nation’s life; it seeks to make good what had been omitted: to permit the nation to take a share in determining its own destinies." – Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Germany's Third Empire
  • "A new front is forming on the battlefields of bourgeois society - the revolution from the right. With that magnetic power inherent in the battle cry of the future even before it has been sounded, it draws into its ranks the toughest, the most alert, the most timely men from all camps. It is still lining up, but it will strike. Its movement is still a mere assembly of spirits, lacking awareness, symbols, or direction. But overnight the front will arise. It will reach beyond the old parties with their petrified programs and antiquated ideologies. It will successfully challenge the conceit that the rigidified class antognisms of contemporary reality - which have led on both sides to a petit bourgeois world - can be politically productive. It will do away with the ossified remnants of the nineteenth century and free the way for the history of the twentieth..." – Hans Freyer, Revolution von Rechts
  • "The Conservative Revolution is the Restoration of all those elementary laws and values without which man loses his ties with nature and God and without which he is incapable of building up a true order. In the place of equality there will be inherent standards, in the place of social consciousness a just integration into the hierarchical society, in the place of mechanical election an organic elite, in the place of bureaucratic leveling the inner responsibility of genuine self-government, in the place of mass prosperity the rights of a proud people." – Edgar Julius Jung, "Germany and the Conservative Revolution"
  • "We are reproached for proceeding alongside or behind active political forces, for being romantics who fail to see reality and who indulge in dreams of an ideology of the Reich that turns toward the past. But form and formlessness represent eternal social principles, like the struggle between the microcosm and the macrocosm endures in the eternal swing of the pendulum. The phenomenal forms that mature in time are always new, but the great principles of order (mechanical or organic) always remain the same... We once again see the world as it is because we are ourselves not only of this world, but because we have an immediate sense of the metaphysical and feel its presence within us as a cosmic law. That is why our hour has come: the hour of the German revolution." – Edgar Julius Jung, "Germany and the Conservative Revolution"
  • "What is needed is not to artificially and coercively perpetuate particular forms tied to the past, despite having exhausted their vital possibilities and being out of touch with the times. For the authentic revolutionary conservative, what really counts is to be faithful not to past forms and institutions, but rather to principles of which such forms and institutions have been particular expressions, adequate for a specific period of time and in a specific geographical area... what remains is a certain continuity amid the changing historical, social, economic, and cultural factors. In order to ensure this continuity, while holding fast to the underlying principles, it is necessary to eventually throw away everything that needs to be discarded, instead of stiffening, panicking, or confusedly seeking new ideas when crises occur and times change: this is indeed the essence of the true conservative spirit." – Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins
  • "The old structure of the West as a synthesis of classical culture, Christianity, and the impulses of peoples entering history for the Žfirst time has broken down. A new unity, however, has not yet emerged. We stand in this transitional period, this ‘interregnum’ which leaves its mark on every spiritual activity. The Conservative Revolution is conditioned by it, and at the same time sees itself as an attempt to overcome it." – Armin Mohler, Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland

Notable members

External links

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