Armin Mohler

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Armin Mohler (born April 12, 1920 in Basel , † July 4, 2003 in Munich ; pseudonyms: Nepomuk Vogel , Michael Hintermwald ) was a Swiss publicist , writer and journalist . Mohler is considered an apologist of the “ conservative revolution ” and one of the pioneers of the New Right .

Life

Mohler attended high school in Basel and was a member of the Swiss scouts . In 1938 he began studying at the University of Basel in the subjects of art history , German literature and philosophy . At the end of the 1930s Mohler was, according to his own account, left-wing extremist and anti-militarist ( “I myself was a salon communist” ). In retrospect, he saw his left-wing commitment as "resistance to the petty-bourgeois environment" of his hometown. The " bourgeois self-righteousness of my Swiss compatriots" repelled him and fueled his "hunger for monumentality". Later he turned right . Günter Maschke , a former APO activist who switched to the New Right, denied Mohler's allegedly left-wing past. Mohler's repertoire contained no traces of Marxist terms.

Desertion

At the age of 20, Mohler was drafted into the Swiss army , but deserted in February 1942 and illegally crossed the German border to join the Waffen SS .

In Germany he went through a folkish and subversive training in the SS- operated “Panoramaheim” for Swiss National Socialists in Stuttgart, as well as in the Reichsführer-School I of the VDA at Kalkhorst Castle , which was operated by the Volksbund für das Deutschtum Abroad (VDA) . According to his own accounts, he felt influenced by reading Oswald Spengler and his main work The Decline of the Occident and especially by the large essay Der Arbeiter - Herrschaft und Gestalt by Ernst Jünger from 1932. Allegedly classified as "unreliable" he was not a war volunteer , but studied art history in Berlin for a few months . In the same year he went back to Switzerland. Here he was, "attempted military strength weakening and service failure illegal entry" due to one year imprisonment sentenced.

Education

In 1942 Mohler continued his studies of philosophy and art history in Basel. During this time, the Jewish philosopher Jacob Taubes was friends with Mohler. Taubes characterized himself and Mohler: "He was the right-wing radical, I the left-wing radical". Mohler received his doctorate in 1949 with Herman Schmalenbach and Karl Jaspers with the dissertation The Conservative Revolution in Germany 1918-1932 . It was published as a book edition in 1950 and is still a standard work in its 6th edition. Karlheinz Weißmann has been working on the work since Mohler's death .

Even within the New Right it was admitted that the work The Conservative Revolution in Germany was an attempt by Mohler to “translate his biography into a dissertation ”. Mohler's doctoral supervisor Karl Jaspers only accepted it because he believed that such a “large-scale denazification of these authors [...] would only cause limited mischief”. According to Volker Weiß , the work comes up with “some daring constructions, omissions and legends” in order to “install the legend of an important movement within the German right that is unresponsive to National Socialism”. In old age, Mohler himself admitted that the work had the aim of “dividing the Conservative Revolution” and “National Socialism” and wrote that it was “very difficult to distinguish”, “in historical reality it already overlaps a lot”.

Back in Germany

The writer Ernst Jünger became aware of Mohler because he had written a very positive article about Jünger in 1946 in the Weltwoche . From 1949 to 1953, the now married Mohler was von Jünger's private secretary. When Jünger revised his early writings for new editions and took away some national revolutionary tips from them, a rift broke out. Mohler later: “(I) had publicly protested against Jünger's self-mutilation carried out on his early work. That was too much education for the master on the part of his secretary. "

Publications

journalism

From 1953 to 1961 Mohler went to Paris for the Swiss daily newspaper Die Tat , where he was also a correspondent for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit from 1955 to 1960 . From 1960 to 1964 he wrote for the church weekly Christ und Welt , published by Giselher Wirsing , with the highest circulation at the time . From 1964 he worked for the daily newspaper Die Welt . On behalf of Axel Springer , Mohler took part in the preparation of a conservative magazine in 1968, but the project failed due to dissonances among those involved. From the first issue he wrote for the conservative magazine criticón , whose profile he played a major role in 1970. He also published in the right-wing conservative weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit and, from 1994 onwards, took care of the column “Notes from the Interregnum ” (referring to the view within the Conservative Revolution that the republic was not a form of government appropriate to the Germans and that its existence could only be overcome as an “interim period “ Should be considered.) Under the pseudonym Michael Hintermwald , two articles by Mohler appeared in the right-wing extremist German national newspaper Gerhard Freys . In addition to political issues, Mohler wrote a large number of articles on art and literature, wrote book reviews and portraits, especially for criticón . Kindler's Painting Lexicon printed Mohler's articles on favorite painters, including the Marxist Mexican wall painter Diego Rivera .

science

The Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation in Munich hired Mohler as its secretary in 1961. In 1964 he became managing director of the foundation. He completed his habilitation at the Law and Political Science Faculty for Science and Politics at the University of Innsbruck .

politics

Armin Mohler supported Franz Josef Strauss and the CSU in the 1970s . For a time he was a consultant and speechwriter for Strauss. Under the pseudonym Nepomuk Vogel , he wrote several articles for Bayernkurier . He was the mentor of the leading CSU functionary and close collaborator of Franz Josef Strauss, Marcel Hepp , for Mohler “one of my two closest friends” alongside the French Lettrist Michel Mourre. Later he got involved with Franz Schönhuber and his attempt to establish a party to the right of the CDU / CSU with the party Die Republikaner . Mohler was the text and key word for the first position paper of the Republicans, which was adopted on June 16, 1985 as the "Siegburg Manifesto".

Mohler saw himself as a “ conservative ” with an open commitment to the intellectual foundations of the “ conservative revolution ” from the 1920s and its best-known representatives Carl Schmitt , Ernst Jünger , Ernst von Salomon and Ernst Niekisch . He had a friendly relationship with Schmitt and tried in several of his works to take up his ideas and make them socially compatible again.

Since the mid-1970s, Mohler promoted the French right-wing conservative and pioneer of the French New Right Alain de Benoist .

He repeatedly spoke out against a legal ban on Holocaust denial , the aim of which was merely to "silence any research that would exonerate Germany". In a column for the newspaper Junge Freiheit in 1994, Mohler advocated a more detailed scientific study of the so-called "Auschwitz lie", whereupon the editor Dieter Stein separated from Mohler because he was concerned about the reputation of his newspaper. The new right publisher Götz Kubitschek , after his own rift with Junge Freiheit, published Mohler's columns as an anthology, including the aforementioned historical revisionist column, which was well-meaning commented on in the volume.

In November 1995, Die Wochenzeitung asked him : “Do you still admire Hitler today as you did in your youth?” To which he replied:

“What does it mean to admire? After all, he created real leadership. The cadres he brought in had style. "

Armin Mohler was considered one of the few high-profile right-wing thinkers in the Federal Republic of Germany. In a newspaper interview he answered the question of whether he was a fascist with "Yes, in the sense of José Antonio Primo de Rivera ". When asked what fascism meant to him, Mohler said:

“For me, fascism is when disappointed liberals and disappointed socialists come together for something new. The result is what is called a conservative revolution. "

Awards

Fonts

  • The Conservative Revolution in Germany 1918–1932. A manual. 6. A. Ares , Graz 2005, ISBN 3-902475-02-1 (also Diss. Basel 1949; in the 6th A. revised by Karlheinz Weißmann)
  • The bow. Documents on Ernst Jünger's path . Arche, Zurich 1955; Reprint: Edition Antaios , Bad Vilbel 2001, ISBN 3-935063-15-6
  • The French right. The battle for France's ideological armor . Isar, Munich 1958
  • The fifth republic . Piper , Munich 1963
  • What the Germans fear . Seewald, Stuttgart 1965
  • Coping with the past. From purification to manipulation . Seewald, Stuttgart 1968
  • Sex and politics . Rombach, Freiburg im Breisgau 1972
  • Seen from the right . Seewald, Stuttgart 1974
  • Trend reversal for advanced users . Criticon, Munich 1978
  • Coping with the past. Or how to lose the war again. 3rd over A. Sinus, Krefeld 1981, ISBN 3-88289-014-2
  • The nose ring. In the thicket of coming to terms with the past . 3. A. Langen Müller , Munich 1991, ISBN 3-7844-2332-9
  • Liberal abuse. Three political treatises . Heitz & Höffkes , Essen 1990, ISBN 3-926650-90-7
  • together with Dieter Stein: In conversation with Alain de Benoist . Junge Freiheit, Freiburg im Breisgau 1993, ISBN 3-929886-00-6
  • Georges Sorel. Archfather of the Conservative Revolution. An introduction . Antaios, Bad Vilbel 2000, ISBN 3-935063-01-6
  • The foray. Look at pictures, books and people . Antaios, Dresden 2001, ISBN 3-935063-16-4
  • The conversation. About right, left and boring . Antaios, Dresden 2001, ISBN 3-935063-17-2
  • Dear boss ... Letters to Ernst Jünger 1947–1961 , ed. v. Erik Lehnert . Antaios 2016, ISBN 978-3-935063-29-6
  • The fascist style . Antaios, Schnellroda 2020, ISBN 978-3-944422-67-1

literature

  • Mohler, Dr. phil. Armin . In: Jens Mecklenburg (Hrsg.): Handbook of German Right-Wing Extremism (= Antifa Edition ). Elefanten-Press, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-88520-585-8 , pp. 493-494.
  • Friedrich Paul Heller , Anton Maegerle : Thule. From folk occultism to the new right. 2nd, expanded and updated edition. Butterfly, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-89657-090-0 .
  • Thomas Willms: Armin Mohler. From the CSU to neo-fascism. Papyrossa, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-89438-298-8 .
  • Helmut Kellershohn : Between Science and Myth. Some remarks on Armin Mohler's "Conservative Revolution" . In: Heiko Kauffmann, Helmut Kellershohn, Jobst Paul (eds.): Völkische Bande. Decadence and rebirth. Analysis of right-wing ideology. Unrast, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-89771-737-9 .
  • Florian Finkbeiner: Armin Mohler and the early history of the “New Right” in the Federal Republic of Germany. On the change from conservatism, nationalism and right-wing extremism. In Armin Pfahl-Traughber : Yearbook Extremism and Terrorism Research 2015/2016 I, Federal University for Public Administration, 50321 Brühl 2016, ISBN 978-3-938407-83-7 , SS 209-233.
  • Axel Schildt : Staging a biography - construction of a career. The right-wing intellectual Armin Mohler (1920–2003). In: History in Science and Education 70 (2019), 9/10, pp. 554–567.
  • Axel Schildt: Armin Mohler and the conservative revolutionaries. In: Jörg Später, Thomas Zimmer (Ed.): Biographies in the 20th century. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2019, ISBN 978-3-8353-3513-4 , pp. 187-204.
  • Harwardt, Darius: Dear enemy. Pictures of America by German legal intellectuals in the Federal Republic, campus Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. u. New York 2019, ISBN 978-3-593-51111-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Claus Leggewie: The spirit stands right - trips to the think tanks of the Wende , Berlin 1987, pp. 187–212, quoted from Armin Pfahl-Traughber: The “New Right” in France and Germany - On the development of a right-wing extremist intellectual scene. ( Memento of December 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive ): "Mohler was considered a 'pioneer of the New Right' and also influenced a number of younger representatives who understood themselves in the spirit of the 'Conservative Revolution' of the Weimar Republic."
  2. Journalist and social scientist Dr. Thomas Pfeiffer, who has been with the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in North Rhine-Westphalia since the beginning of 2002: “Another key figure in the link between the New Right in France and Germany was involved: the Swiss Dr. Armin Mohler, who was at times secretary to the conservative revolutionary Ernst Jünger, later appeared as an author in practically all important publications of the new right camp and is still active in some cases today. "; (PDF; 752 kB) ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  3. Stephan Braun, Alexander Geisler, Martin Gerster: The "Young Freedom" of the "New Right" . In: Stephan Braun, Ute Vogt: The weekly newspaper "Junge Freiheit" . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-15421-3 , p. 15. “The Swiss publicist Mohler is considered the main representative of the so-called 'New Right' in political science and journalism”.
  4. Volker Weiß : The authoritarian revolt. The New Right and the Fall of the West. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2018, p. 40
  5. Hans Rudolf Fuhrer : Espionage against Switzerland, The secret German intelligence services against Switzerland in the Second World War 1939-1945. Frauenfeld 1982, pp. 72-74
  6. Der Spiegel 29/2003, p. 164
  7. Volker Weiß, pp. 44–48
  8. Carl Schmitt - correspondence with one of his students . Edited by Armin Mohler in collaboration with Irmgard Huhn and Piet Tommissen, Berlin 1995, p. 60.
  9. Volker Weiß, p. 66
  10. See Jürgen P. Lang : Left Enemies, Right Friends - In der Ideologiefalle , August 5, 2015
  11. ^ Nils Wegner: "German history goes on ..." The brothers Marcel and Robert Hepp and their political path in the 1950s and 1960s , Berlin 2015, p. 35f.
  12. Hans-Gerd Jaschke: Die “Republikaner” - Profiles of a right wing party , Bonn 1993, p. 113.
  13. Harwardt, Darius: Dear Enemy. America images of German right-wing intellectuals in the Federal Republic . campus, Frankfurt a. M. u. New York 2019, ISBN 978-3-593-51111-5 , pp. 155 ff., 166-170 .
  14. Harwardt, Darius: Dear Enemy. America images of German right-wing intellectuals in the Federal Republic . campus, Frankfurt u. New York 2019, ISBN 978-3-593-51111-5 , pp. 208-209, 273-274 .
  15. Armin Mohler: In the thicket of coming to terms with the past. In: Bernard Willms (Ed.): Handbook on the German Nation, Volume 2, National Responsibility and Liberal Society. Hohenrain-Verlag, Tübingen 1987, p. 82, quoted by Joachim Rohlfes : Anti-democratic attitudes in the Weimar state and in the Federal Republic . In: History in Science and Education 66, Issue 3/4 (2015), p. 213.
  16. Harwardt, Darius: Dear Enemy. America images of German right-wing intellectuals in the Federal Republic . campus, Frankfurt a. M. u. New York 2019, ISBN 978-3-593-51111-5 , pp. 314 .
  17. Volker Weiß, pp. 66, 80
  18. Fred David: "I am a fascist" , interview with Armin Mohler, in: Leipziger Volkszeitung from November 25, 1995 (Journal), p. 2.