Oswald Spengler

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Dr. phil. Oswald Spengler in 1929

Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler (b. 29 May 1880 in Blankenburg, Duchy of Brunswick, German Empire; d. 8 May 1936 in Munich, Bavaria, German Reich) was a German historian and philosopher of history, part of the Conservative Revolutionary movement, whose interests included mathematics, science, and art and their relation to his cyclical theory of history.

Life

“The fundamental concept of all living custom is honor. Everything else—loyalty, humility, bravery, chivalry, self-control, resolve—lies within it. And honor is a matter of blood, not of reason. One doesn't deliberate—otherwise one is already dishonorable. To lose one's honor means to be destroyed for life, for time, for history. The honor of one's standing, of family, of man and woman, of the people and Vaterland, the honor of the peasant, the soldier, even the bandit: honor means that a person's life has value, possesses historical rank, distinction, nobility.” — Oswald Spengler, in: “The Decline of the West”
Oswald Spengler, grave.JPG
Oswald Spengler, commemoration, 2011.jpg

Oswald Spengler was born in 1880 in Blankenburg am Harz, the second of five children of imperial postal official Bernhard Spengler and his wife Pauline Spengler, née Grantzow. He was baptized a Protestant. His older brother had died at the age of three weeks. In 1891, the family moved to Halle an der Saale, where Spengler attended the Latina of the Pietist-oriented Francke Foundations. From an early age, he directed his remarkable imagination toward historical topics: As a 15-year-old, he filled entire notebooks with detailed information on the history, geography, and administration of two fictitious empires, "Africasia" and "Greater Germany." As a Gymnasium student in Halle, he sneaked into the university library and read works by Ernst Haeckel, Ludwig Büchner, and David Friedrich Strauß.

After achieving his Abitur in 1899 and being exempted from military service due to a serious heart defect, he studied mathematics, natural sciences, and philosophy in Halle, Munich, and Berlin. He wrote his dissertation under the supervision of the philosopher Alois Riehl on the topic of "The Metaphysical Fundamental Idea of Heraclitean Philosophy." After the oral defense, the examination committee rejected his dissertation on the grounds that it had cited too few specialist literature. Spengler retook the exam and received his doctorate from the University of Halle on 6 April 1904. In December 1904, he passed the examination for higher teaching qualifications in zoology, botany, physics, chemistry, and mathematics. The topic of his state examination thesis was "The Development of the Organ of Vision in the Main Stages of the Animal Kingdom." During his studies, Spengler became acquainted with both the natural sciences and philosophy. He was influenced by Ernst Haeckel, the fictional philosophy of Hans Vaihinger (Philosophy of the As If), and, to a particularly large extent, by Friedrich Nietzsche's cultural criticism, especially his concepts of decadence and the will to power. He also revered Goethe throughout his life as a pinnacle of Western culture and as a super-being of a Kulturvolk.

Spengler began his seminary year in Lüneburg in 1905. However, teaching did not appeal to him. At his mother's request, he accepted a position in Saarbrücken in 1906, where he lived in Saarbrücken Castle until 1907. He then completed his probationary year in Düsseldorf at the Oberrealschule am Fürstenwall, now the Geschwister-Scholl-Gymnasium. After receiving his teaching license to teach mathematics, he took up a permanent position as a full professor at the Heinrich-Hertz-Realgymnasium in Hamburg in 1908. He was popular with his students, especially for his impromptu lectures.

A small inheritance following his mother's death gave Spengler the opportunity to give up teaching and pursue his literary ambitions as a freelance writer. He finally moved to Munich-Schwabing in March 1911. In Munich, he initially worked as a cultural consultant for various newspapers. Spengler felt only disgust and contempt for the “incomparable atmosphere of ambiguous modernity” of the Munich scene full of artists and revolutionaries of various stripes, especially when he compared the “filth and meanness” of the German literary scene of his time with “a Russian ghetto”.

Spengler is best known for his book The Decline of the West (Der Untergang des Abendlandes), published in 1918 and 1922, covering all of world history. Spengler's model of history states that any culture is similar to a biological organism with growth, decay, and death. In the introduction to The Decline of the West, Spengler cites Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Nietzsche as his major influences. Von Goethe's vitalism and Nietzsche's cultural criticism, in particular, are highlighted in his works.

I feel urged to name once more those to whom I owe practically everything: Goethe and Nietzsche. Goethe gave me method, Nietzsche the questioning faculty…

Spengler was also influenced by the universal and cyclical vision of world history proposed by the German historian Eduard Meyer. The belief in the progression of civilizations through an evolutionary process comparable with living beings can be traced back to classical antiquity, although it is difficult to assess the extent of the influence those thinkers had on Spengler: Cato the Elder, Cicero, Seneca, Florus, Ammianus Marcellinus, and later, Francis Bacon, who compared different empires with each other with the help of biological analogies.

Spengler predicted that Western civilization would soon enter a period of authoritarianism before final collapse. Spengler is therefore prominently associated with "cultural pessimism", sometimes claimed to be a characteristic of the entire Conservative Revolutionary movement, but other members stated various criticisms, such as regarding the inevitability of decline.

His 1920 Preußentum und Sozialismus (Prussianism and Socialism') supported an argued form of socialism, sometimes termed "Prussian Socialism", based on the good characteristics of Prussia. Despite the name, the argued for society has been described as similar to that proposed by other prominent members of the Conservative Revolutionary movement. On 13 October 1933, Spengler became one of the hundred senators of the German Academy (Akademie zur Wissenschaftlichen Erforschung und Pflege des Deutschtums).

Despite being a proud nationalist, he was critical of the National Socialists, notably in The Hour of Decision (1934). Different sources give different explanation for this, such a viewing the National Socialists as too proletarian and demagogic (with Spengler being an admirer of the old Prussian aristocracy), differences regarding views on race and anti-Semitism (despite Spengler also stating negative views on Jews/Judaism), viewing the National Socialists as too narrowly German and not sufficiently European, and as ignoring the reaction from outside the country.

Last years

On 13 October 1933, Spengler became one of the hundred senators of the "Academy for the Scientific Research and Cultivation of Germanness" (Akademie zur Wissenschaftlichen Erforschung und Pflege des Deutschtums) in Munich. Spengler spent his final years in Munich, listening to Ludwig van Beethoven, reading Molière and Shakespeare, buying several thousand books, and collecting ancient Ottoman, Persian and Indian weapons. He made occasional trips to the Harz mountains and to Italy.

Death

Dr. Spengler died of a heart attack on 8 May 1936, in Munich, at age 55. He was buried in the Nordfriedhof in Munich.

Commemoration

"Oswald Spengler, we remember you as one of the great German thinkers," with these words Max Otte paid tribute to the popular German philosopher who died in 1936 at Munich's Nordfriedhof Cemetery on 7 May 2011. He was best known as the author of The Decline of the West (1918/1922) and a fervent opponent of the Weimar Republic. Thirty people had gathered at Spengler's grave for a short memorial service at the invitation of the Institute for State Policy (IfS). The invitations to the gathering, sent at short notice, were signed by Erik Lehnert, who, since 2008, has co-directed, with Karlheinz Weißmann, the currently most active right-wing think tank in Germany. The group presented themselves accordingly. As a climax to the event, Erik Lehnert and Martin Böcker laid a wreath at Spengler's grave: "Optimism is cowardice," proclaimed the inscription on the ribbon.[1]

Works

  • Der metaphysische Grundgedanke der Heraklitischen Philosophie [The Fundamental Metaphysical Idea of the Philosophy of Heraclitus] (in German), Dissertation, Halle 1904
  • Der Untergang des Abendlandes. Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte (English: The Decline of the West: Outlines of a Morphology of World History), Gestalt und Wirklichkeit; Welthistorische Perspektives (in German), 1918–22, 2 vols. – The Decline of the West; an Abridged Edition by Helmut Werner (tr. by C.F. Atkinson)[2]
  • Preussentum und Sozialismus, 1920, Translated 1922 as Prussianism And Socialism by C.F. Atkinson (Prussianism and Socialism).
  • Pessimismus?, G. Stilke, 1921.
  • Neubau des deutschen Reiches, 1924.
  • Die Revolution ist nicht zu Ende, 1924.
  • Politische Pflichten der deutschen Jugend; Rede gehalten am 26. Februar 1924 vor dem Hochschulring deutscher Art in Würzburg, 1925.
  • Der Mensch und die Technik, 1931 (Man and Technics: A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life, tr. C.F. Atkinson, Knopf, 1932).[3][4][5]
  • Politische Schriften, 1932.
  • Jahre der Entscheidung, 1934 (The Hour of Decision tr. C.F. Atkinson; The Hour of Decision).[6]
  • Reden und Aufsätze, 1937 (ed. by Hildegard Kornhardt) – Selected Essays (tr. Donald O. White).
  • Gedanken, c. 1941 (ed. by Hildegard Kornhardt) – Aphorisms (translated by Gisela Koch-Weser O’Brien).
  • Briefe, 1913–1936, 1963 [The Letters of Oswald Spengler, 1913–1936] (ed. and tr. by A. Helps).
  • Urfragen; Fragmente aus dem Nachlass, 1965 (ed. by Anton Mirko Koktanek and Manfred Schröter).
  • Frühzeit der Weltgeschichte: Fragmente aus dem Nachlass, 1966 (ed. by A. M. Koktanek and Manfred Schröter).
  • Der Briefwechsel zwischen Oswald Spengler und Wolfgang E. Groeger. Über russische Literatur, Zeitgeschichte und soziale Fragen, 1987 (ed. by Xenia Werner).

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ Immer noch aktuell: Spengler
  2. ↑ Stewart, W. K. (1924). "The Decline of Western Culture," The Century Magazine, Vol. CVIII, No. 5.
  3. ↑ Mumford, Lewis (1932). "The Decline of Spengler," The New Republic, 9 March.
  4. ↑ Dewey, John (1932). "Instrument or Frankenstein?," The Saturday Review, 12 March.
  5. ↑ Vasilkovsky, G. "Oswald Spengler's 'Philosophy of Life'," The Communist, April 1932.
  6. ↑ Reis, Lincoln (1934). "Spengler Declines the West," The Nation, 28 February.
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