Metapolitics: From Wagner and the German Romantics to Hitler

Tom Lehrer a few decades back satirically warned us about the march of 'the Folk Song Army'. He was lampooning the social radicals of America in the early 1960s. Maybe his warning came too late for Germany which had it's own folk song army to deal with. Recently deceased Peter Viereck is something of an interesting character. His father, George Sylvester Viereck, possibly the Kaiser's illegitimate grandson, argued the pro-German case in America during Woodrow Wilson's run up to war. By all accounts his Great War oppositionism was both principled and loyal to America. After Versailles however GSV became more radical in his pro-Germanism and was eventually imprisoned as a German agent during World War Two. He also broke with his two sons around this time, both of whom served in the US Army with one dying in the Anzio landings, and the other, Peter, working for the Army Psychological Warfare Division. Peter Viereck sees Germany as uniquely torn between two souls, in short, a western looking, european and Christian civilisation soul and a northern looking Volkish Kultur soul. Goethe versus Wagner. Considering his family history perhaps the conflict struck home. Peter Viereck wrote "Metapolitics" whilst a Harvard undergraduate. Not bad work for a twenty four year old! He went on to an academic career and earned the 1949 Pullitzer Prize for poetry. A life long political conservative he was an ardent critic of McCarthyism in the 1950s. The term 'metapolitics' is derived from Wagner, similar to 'geopolitics', it refers to the German nationalists' metaphysical vision as it approached cultural and spiritual issues, where 'geopolitics' looked at the intersection of geography and politics. The book was one of the first in English to explore the Wagnerian roots of Nazism. Wagner was not only a great composer but something of a radical political pamphleteer. Despite having jewish promoters and agents Wagner blamed a jewish conspiracy for is works not being as popular as he imagined. Viereck explores not only the cultural roots of nazism but the appeal of nazism to what he calls Germany's "Greenwich Village Warriors", alienated bohemians in exile in their own hometown. And then there is the unusual number of 'failed' artists drawn to the nazi movement. Viereck's analysis starts with Ludwig Jahn, who Viereck recognises as a pioneer German "Volkish" nationalist, a forerunner of nazism but perhaps one who would be appalled by the later developments of his thought. It proceeds via Wagner, the Wagnerians and moves on to Hitler's "official philosopher" Rosenberg. He speculates Wagner may also be appalled at how his ideas were used but in Wagner's case, he was truly a proto-nazi, there is a stronger chain of responsibility than in Jahn's case, despite some minor retreat from full bore Volkism towards the end of his career. In any case , the first generation of 'Wagnerites', including family members (for example, the in-law Houston Stewart Chamberlain) were not

This new edition of Peter Viereck's classic is very gratifying in that it has stood the test of time. Prophetic when it was published before the war, wise and insightful when I first read it in the sixties. Even more interesting forty years later. This is one of the few intellectual historians whose autobiography I would loved to read.

_Metapolitics: From Wagner and the German Romantics to Hitler by Peter Viereck was one of the earliest books written during the World War to show the influence of Wagner on the thinking of Hitler. Previously it had been believed that Nietzsche's amoralistic thinking had played a larger role in the development of Hitler's Third Reich. However, as Viereck shows in this book, it was indeed Wagner who was the antisemite (and one of the most virulent antisemites even prior to the coming of Hitler). This edition put out by Transaction publishers of _Metapolitics_ is expanded not only to cover the influence of German Romanticism on Hitler (which preceded Wagner himself), but also to include a new introduction and several appendices on Albert Speer (Hitler's architect of the Third Reich), Count Claus von Stauffenberg (the aristocrat who tried to assassinate Hitler), the poet George Heym, and the poet Stefan George and his circle. In the letters of Richard Wagner is included a letter from an admirer and ardent nationalist which states: "To be genuinely German, politics must soar to metapolitics. The latter is to commonplace pedestrian politics as metaphysics is to physics." Metapolitics as defined by Viereck is the type of political thought serving as inspiration for Hitler and his Third Reich regime. The book begins with a discussion of German Romanticism and its influence on Hitler. For Viereck, the Third Reich may be perceived in some sense as German Romanticism writ large. The book also discusses the influence of "Father" Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, a German nationalist in the 1800's, on the storm troopers and on Volkish nationalism in general. The book next moves on to discussing the case of Wagner. Many of Wagner's operatic pieces can be seen as allegories for different components of his metapolitical thinking. For example, it has been suggested that certain characters (the dwarves and the dragon) represent capitalists or Jews within his operas. The book subsequently discusses Houston Stewart Chamberlain whose racialist tracts served as inspiration for Hitler. Also, the book includes several chapters on Alfred Rosenberg, the official Nazi philosopher. Rosenberg was also influenced by German Romanticism and his understanding of history proved particularly virulent. Viereck opposed Christian morality to Rosenberg's neo-paganism. In sum, this book presents an interesting discussion of some of the precursors of the Third Reich. Both German Romanticism and Richard Wagner played a large part in the development of the thinking of Hitler, and also in many of his primary proponents and Nazi fellow travelers.

This transaction reprint from 1941 is a classic chestnut and still reads well as one of the first analyses of the sources of fascist ideology. The case against the Romantics, and such as Fichte, is always important, although it is open to challenge. We can find the earlier sources, but no simple causal sequence--and yet... As Nietzsche well knew Wagner's spiritual odyssey was a strange one and we see the attempt at high tragedy itself turning into a tragedy, irony indeed. One of those books... Significant and lively reading with a 'genealogy' on the mark.