Library of Conservatism

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Library of Conservatism
facade
founding 2012
Duration 34,000 (2019)
Library type Specialized library
place Fasanenstrasse (Berlin)
ISIL DE-B1582
operator Foundation for Conservative Education and Research (FKBF)
management Wolfgang Fenske
Website www.bdk-berlin.org

The Library of Conservatism ( BdK ) is a specialist library in Berlin-Charlottenburg . It mainly offers conservative , national conservative and libertarian literature and magazines as well as lectures. It was created at the instigation of the publicist Caspar von Schrenck-Notzing († 2009) and opened in 2012. Its cataloged holdings currently (2019) include around 34,000 titles. The sponsor is the Conservative Education and Research Foundation (FKBF). According to the social scientist Samuel Salzborn, the library and support foundation belong to the network of the New Right .

Emergence

The publicist Caspar von Schrenck-Notzing founded the support foundation in Munich in 2000 to manage his private library and the archive of the right-wing conservative journal Criticón , which he published. In 2007 he handed over the chairmanship of the foundation to Dieter Stein , editor-in-chief of the new right-wing weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit . Numerous donations enabled the foundation to set up the BdK in Berlin until 2011. The social scientist Samuel Salzborn describes the library together with the Institute for State Policy in Schnellroda, which was founded in 2000, as the central strategic location of the New Right in Germany.

Schrenck-Notzing set the purpose of his support foundation as “building, expanding and maintaining library holdings” and appointed Junge Freiheit editor Dieter Stein as chairman of the foundation council. Together they developed the idea of ​​a library of conservatism. This was opened on November 25, 2012 with a ceremony. Since then, it has been headed by Wolfgang Fenske, who previously also worked for Junge Freiheit .

financing

Schrenck-Notzing had initially bequeathed one million euros to the FKBF as start-up capital to build the BdK. When he died in 2009, there were no donors for the project. In 2013 the Hamburg shipowner Folkard Edler bought the office building used by the BdK in Fasanenstrasse through his company Vebefa for 3.6 million euros and then transferred the house and its company shares to the library foundation . Edler and his wife are also major donors and lenders of the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) and supporters of Junge Freiheit . The BdK also receives income from the rents of the other residents. The FKBF does not provide any information on the BdK's support group.

Self-image

The ancient historian Alexander Demandt gave a speech at the opening of the library . In it he deconstructed the right-wing theorist Oswald Spengler , who was by no means a conservative . The term conservatism cannot be defined once and for all and politically operationalized. Even the conservative is open to progress and must always differentiate between what is worth preserving and what is simply traditional.

When asked what he understands as conservative, Wolfgang Fenske quoted the volkisch-nationalist author Arthur Moeller van den Bruck in 2017 : “Conservative is to create things that are worth preserving.” What conservatives consider to be worth preserving does not exist and must first be created again. The BdK does not want to specify what is conservative and what is not. The struggle against “ political correctness ” and “uncontrolled immigration ” belongs to the main conservative stream . There is no common theory of the state ; the spectrum ranges from the minimal state of libertarianism to the strong state and "very nationally thinking people". They combine "that everyone does not feel represented by the socio-political situation in Germany". The BdK wants to initiate discourses that are not possible elsewhere.

In 2019, Fenske emphasized that the BdK offers all kinds of books that are interesting for conservatives and invites AfD and CDU politicians alike. Conservatives are convinced that "man is not a reasonable being, but that he is a defective being, according to the Christian tradition is a sinner who needs help and support."

Institutions like the state and the churches with an anti-enlightenment message would have to compensate for these shortcomings. Some ideas of the young conservatives are still compatible today, such as the constant reference to the philosophy of antiquity , Christianity and natural law . The bisexuality of humans, "basic orders" such as marriage and family and social hierarchy are laid out in this. Humans need a point of orientation outside of their own thinking, an afterlife or timeless values ​​that can be justified by natural law.

Stock and topics

When the BdK opened, its total inventory comprised 60,000 volumes, of which around 20,000 were initially recorded in the catalog. The core collection includes works by British thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes and Edmund Burke , as well as works by Richelieu , Louis-Ferdinand Celine , Joseph Otto Plassmann , Richard Wagner , Stefan George , the " Speeches to the German Nation " Johann Gottlieb Fichtes , Hermann Löns and the folk-esoteric authors Erich and Mathilde Ludendorff . The center of the Schrenck-Notzings collection is what Armin Mohler called the “ Conservative Revolution ” of the Weimar Republic after 1945 . It contains works by Hans Blüher , Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Arnold Gehlen , Ernst Jünger , Friedrich Georg Jünger , Carl Schmitt , Oswald Spengler and Thomas Mann , among others .

According to its own information, the BdK merged Schrenck-Notzings private library (around 20,000 volumes) with the estate of Günter Rohrmoser (around 10,000 volumes) and has received other larger collections since it opened. The focus is on writings from the counter-revolution after 1789, the Conservative Revolution (1918–1932) as well as scientific literature on conservatism. In September 2012, the BdK, together with the Yes to Life Foundation, opened a special collection on issues relating to the rights movement such as the protection of life , bioethics and family policy . In October 2012, the BdK offered to take over the holdings of the Johann Gottfried Herder Library in Siegerland, which was threatened with closure .

In autumn 2017, according to BdK information, the total stock comprised around 136,000 titles, a quarter of which (34,000 titles) are cataloged. This includes historical periodicals, an archive of political posters from 1848 and more than 70 current journals. According to research by the Göttingen Institute for Democracy Research from 2015, the latter include the new right-wing magazines Sezession , Blaue Narzisse and the right-wing extremist National-Zeitung . Other subject areas are Germans abroad , German folklore and German military history .

The BdK is a member of the German Library Association (DBV) and of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Spezialbibliotheken eV. The writings are cataloged in the union catalog of the Common Library Association (GBV).

Events and speakers

Since the house of the BdK has belonged to its support foundation, lectures with up to 120 visitors have been held in its rooms every two weeks. The speakers cover the full spectrum of the New Right. In addition, the BdK expanded its offering to include film evenings and seminars. A future course of their own is being considered. Dieter Stein recruits many BdK speakers from among the authors who publish regularly for Junge Freiheit, among others . A number of them became full-time AfD employees.

The pioneer of the New Right Alain de Benoist presented his new book on world finance in 2012 in the BdK. In 2013, the libertarian journalist André F. Lichtschlag ( strangely free ) and the new right-wing author Karlheinz Weißmann discussed the subject of conservatives and libertarians - brothers in spirit or political opponents? Felix Strüning , at that time a member of the federal board of the right-wing extremist civil rights party for more freedom and democracy - The Freedom and Chairman of the Gustav Stresemann Foundation , which was taken over by AfD functionaries , spoke in November 2013 in the BdK on the subject of “Human rights freedom of expression . How Islamic Actors Threaten our Fundamental Rights ”.

Until the end of 2013, the AfD chairman Bernd Lucke , Erika Steinbach , Georg Pazderski (AfD Berlin), Oliver Janich and Thilo Sarrazin appeared in the BdK. On 11 December 2013 there said Carsten Rentzing representing the VELKD on "Church in Crisis - Where is the EKD ?" As Bishop of the EvLKS he claimed in October 2019 not known stone and Schrenck- Notzing and Remuneration to the far right to to have.

In 2014, Karlheinz Weißmann gave a commemorative lecture in the BdK on the 80th anniversary of Edgar Julius Jung's death . Hedwig von Beverfoerde polemicized against the alleged early sexualization of children. The historical revisionist historian Stefan Scheil , author in the Secession and later AfD member, spoke about "Polish illusions 1939". The BdK also invited the scientist Tilman Nagel and the CDU politician Wolfgang Bosbach to give lectures.

In the summer of 2015 Thor Kunkel spoke about "conservative political marketing". The Berlin AfD then hired him in 2016 as an election campaign advisor and source of ideas for provocative poster slogans. In January 2017, the publicist Bruno Bandulet presented his book Beuteland - The systematic plundering of Germany since 1945 in the BdK . In doing so, he claimed that Angela Merkel's refugee policy was destroying the nation-state and possibly following an “agenda” of wire-pullers in the UN and the EU . The Germans would have to rediscover the “principle of sovereignty ” and the “value of borders”.

The CDU politician Rupert Scholz , who has criticized Merkel's refugee policy since 2015, gave a lecture in May 2018 in the BdK on the subject of “ Migration and Ceilings”. Listeners attacked him for not wanting Merkel and other politicians to go to jail; whose asylum policy is destroying Germany. Other listeners saw "either military coup or war" as an antidote. Scholz, on the other hand, defended the German rule of law . According to observers, this shows that conservatives who, like new rights, fear the loss of national identity, have "intentionally or unintentionally" become part of the right-wing movement against mass immigration since 2015. The former time - employee Ulrich Greiner read in the BdK from his book The Right, right to be (in March 2016). He rejected same-sex marriage , artificial insemination and child-rearing in daycare centers and complained that conservatives would then be suspected of being right-wing extremists.

The historian Andreas Rödder gave a lecture on conservatism in the BdK in July 2019. The BdK speakers also include political scientist Werner J. Patzelt , CDU member and author of Junge Freiheit and reviewer for the AfD.

Event manager Norman Gutschow in conversation with Junge Freiheit at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2018

Collaboration and networking

In 2012, the BdK presented itself like the Islamophobic network Politically Incorrect (PI), the racist identity movement and ethnic fraternities at the right-wing extremist fair “Zwischenentag” by Götz Kubitschek .

Since 2012, the BdK has been working with the Christian fundamentalist “Yes to Life Foundation”. Since 2013 she has been accompanying the annual “ March for Life ” with its own events, which serve as a meeting for “ life protection ” activists. “ Christian Democrats for Life ” and the CDU member of the Bundestag Thomas Dörflinger also took part in these accompanying events. In October 2013 the BdK took part in the Berlin “Long Night of Libraries”.

The evangelical news agency idea , which represents the evangelical spectrum in Germany, is ideologically and personally close to the BdK and the Junge Freiheit . Their anti-feminist campaign "Gender do not fully" overlaps according to the social scientist Andreas Kemper with the BdK department against abortion, which in turn closely with Christian abortion opponents is connected.

The BdK often gives AfD representatives the opportunity to appear and influenced the party's course. The Junge Alternative für Deutschland (JA) organized a lecture evening in February 2015. There Karlheinz Weißmann spoke on the subject of "What is liberal and what is conservative - and what should the path to power look like for the AfD?" In the dispute over the direction at the time, he pleaded for a strictly nationalist AfD course against the leadership of Bernd Lucke at the time. He also recalled the course of the early FDP against denazification . In 2016, the JA representatives Markus Frohnmaier and Thorsten Weiß celebrated internal party electoral successes in the BdK together with Manuel Ochsenreiter , the editor of the right-wing extremist monthly magazine First! .

In 2017, Stein initiated the cooperation between the Study Center Weikersheim (SZW) and the “ Association for the Preservation of the Rule of Law and Civil Liberties ”, which financed the AfD's federal election campaign with millions. The club's founder, David Bendels , who also publishes the Deutschland-Kurier , met in the BdK for talks and performed with Thilo Sarrazin. The AfD chairmen Alexander Gauland and Alice Weidel appeared in the election campaign for the 2017 federal election in the BdK.

Since 2015, an exclusive discussion group of thirty or more people has been meeting in the BdK on issues such as refugee policy, Islam in Europe and freedom of expression. The initiator was the historian Jörg Baberowski , the participants include Frank Böckelmann , Henryk M. Broder , Michael Klonovsky , Vera Lengsfeld , Monika Maron , Matthias Matussek , Thilo Sarrazin, Rüdiger Safranski , Cora Stephan , Dieter Stein and Karlheinz Weißmann. The 2018 joint declaration against “illegal mass immigration” comes from this group .

media

Since 2016, Wolfgang Fenske has published the eight-page letter Agenda for BdK sponsors every two months . Unnamed authors introduce representatives of the New Right, such as Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner , present current and discontinued right-wing magazines and review new publications. Separate sections present right-wing conservative to right-wing speakers who recently appeared in the library or who are scheduled for the following two-month cycle, such as Karlheinz Weißmann, Alice Weidel, Erika Steinbach. Speakers like Helmut Roewer and Bassam Tibi are intended to address a circle that goes beyond the actual audience. In the income series , the BdK publishes lectures, scientific papers and texts on conservatism topics. The results of the series of events Conservative Today from May 2017 should be published in an anthology in 2018.

Since 2017, the BdK has been supporting the Cato magazine founded by Karlheinz Weißmann financially and by providing editorial rooms in the library building.

Classification and criticism

The participation of the BdK in the Berlin Library Night 2013 was criticized as playing down German national and ethnic positions under the label of conservatism. The AStA of the TU accused the BdK of “anti-legal agitation and networking of rights”. The then state chairman of the Berlin Jusos, Kevin Kühnert, criticized the fact that by participating in the BdK, Berlin offered “right-wing conservative networks spaces” and put their “propaganda” into perspective. Alfred-Mario Molter from the Berlin Regional Association in the German Library Association promised to examine the criticism.

Social and political scientists assign the BdK to a network of the New Right. The political scientist Wolfgang Gessenharter sees the BdK as a tried and tested means to give the new right ideology access to broad social classes under the serious guise of a library and to make nationalism socially acceptable. According to the social scientist Samuel Salzborn, the BdK strives for an elite education and an "intellectualization through metapolitics ". According to right-wing extremism researcher Matthias Quent , the BdK, like the Institute for State Policy, serves as a meeting point to specifically build up people for “parliamentary and extra-parliamentary positions in right-wing radicalism”.

Der Spiegel described the BdK as one of the “most important meeting places of the New Right in Berlin”, where “AfD politicians, anti-abortionists, anti-abortion critics and critics of Islam ” presented the “image of a different Germany that is more national, more homogeneous, more authoritarian than the republic of today”. , draft.

Ulli Jentsch from the Berlin association Apabiz classifies the BdK as a “prestigious project of the new right”. It represents an anti-democratic school of thought and an anti-modern understanding of the state and nations with an anti-liberal and völkisch-nationalist core. Her book inventory reflects "the entire canon of the German extreme right, from right-wing conservative to neo-Nazi ". The special collection on the subject of the protection of life is "clearly anti-feminist". He criticized appearances by CDU representatives such as Wolfgang Bosbach and Mechthild Löhr in the BdK. This lack of demarcation by the CDU has "opened the door relatively unproblematically" to nationalist discourses. Almost only anti-fascist specialist publications criticized the thinking represented by the BdK. Jentsch called for a serious political debate on the part of the CDU and SPD. He and other authors described the “dovetailing of the extreme right and important people in the 'protection of life' movement” in a book.

On February 13, 2018, the Antifa West Berlin and the Initiative for Democracy and Tolerance organized a demonstration in front of the BdK “Against the right to take space in Charlottenburg in memory of Kläre Bloch ”. The participants recalled their life-threatening efforts to rescue persecuted Jews during the Nazi era and protested against “right-wing agitation” and meetings of anti-abortion opponents, Islamic critics, euro enemies and AfD politicians in the BdK. In May 2018, strangers threw bags of paint against the facade of the BdK.

In 2019 scientists organized a city tour through politically and ideologically charged “right-wing spaces” in Berlin, which also led to the BdK. Their modern building, architecturally integrated into its environment, is an example of how right-wing national ideologies are inconspicuously disseminated in urban areas. The operators tried to get away from the neo-Nazi image to an academization and hid their ideology behind the label "conservative".

Additional information

Publications

editor

  • Patrick Neuhaus (ed.): Caspar von Schrenck-Notzing: Conservative Journalism. Texts from the years 1961 to 2008. Foundation for Conservative Education and Research, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-9814310-0-1 .
  • Philippe Bénéton et al: A Europe we can believe in (Paris Declaration) / A Europe we can believe in (The Paris Statement). Foundation for Conservative Education and Research, 2019, ISBN 978-3-947600-12-0 .

"Income" series

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Joachim Güntner: There is no need to confess. A visit to the recently opened Library of Conservatism in Berlin. In: NZZ . December 14, 2012.
  2. ^ A b Samuel Salzborn: Right-wing extremism: manifestations and explanatory approaches. 2nd Edition. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2015, ISBN 978-3-8252-4476-7 , pp. 71f. (books.google.de)
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Sven Becker, Ludwig Krause: They don't just want to read. In: Spiegel online. 3rd February 2017.
  4. ↑ a b c Heimo Schwilk : The true conservative is open to progress. In: Welt online. November 26, 2012.
  5. ↑ Boris Kartheuser, Paul Middelhoff: In bed with the alternative. Time online, May 23, 2017.
  6. ↑ Oliver Hollenstein: How the "New Right" rose with money from Hamburg. In: time online. March 18, 2019 (registration required)
  7. ↑ New Conservatism: Making Change Compatible. In: DLF . September 12, 2019.
  8. ↑ FKBF: About us.
  9. ↑ Call for help to Volkmar Klein. In: Siegener Zeitung. October 2012.
  10. ↑ GBV.de: Online catalog of the library of conservatism.
  11. ↑ Florian Finkbeiner, Julika Förster, Julia Kopp: Trutzburgen des Konservatismus. In: INDES . 3/2015, p. 113.
  12. ^ Members: Library of Conservatism . Bibliotheksverband.de
  13. ↑ ASpB-member list. August 7, 2013 (PDF p. 2)
  14. ↑ Boris Kartheuser, Paul Middelhoff: In bed with the alternative. In: time online. 23 May 2017.
  15. ↑ a b Martin Eimermacher, Christian Fuchs and Paul Middelhoff: AfD: An active network. In: time online. 1st November 2017.
  16. ↑ Darius Harwardt: Dear Enemy: America Images German law intellectuals in the Federal Republic. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2019, ISBN 978-3-593-51111-5 , p. 484 and fn. 109. (books.google.de)
  17. ^ Nico Schmidt: Stresemann Foundation received money from right-wing US financiers. In: time online. 22nd December 2017.
  18. ↑ Michael Freitag: Interview with Regional Bishop Carsten Rentzing: “The Church of Jesus Christ on the side of the weak and needy”. In: Leipziger Internet newspaper. October 6, 2019.
  19. ↑ Volker Weiß : The "Conservative Revolution". Spiritual place of remembrance of the "New Right". In: Martin Langebach , Michael Sturm (ed.): Places of remembrance of the extreme right. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978-3-658-00130-8 , pp. 101–120, here p. 111.
  20. ^ A b Christian Fuchs, Paul Middelhoff: The Network of the New Right: Who directs them, who finances them and how they change society. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2019, ISBN 978-3-644-40637-7 , pp. 104f. (books.google.de)
  21. ↑ Florian Finkbeiner, Julika Förster, Julia Kopp: Trutzburgen des Konservatismus. In: INDES. 3/2015, pp. 114 and 117
  22. ↑ Armin Lehmann: Conservatives and New Right: Germany's liberal conservatives are homeless. In: Tagesspiegel. May 16, 2018.
  23. ↑ Martin Reeh: Historians on Conservatism: "Panic is not reasonable". In: taz , July 16, 2019.
  24. ↑ Konstantin Nowotny, Felix Schilk: The shadow boxer. In: Friday. 09/2019.
  25. ↑ a b Arne Zillmer: Long Night of the New Right? In: time online. 22nd October, 2013.
  26. ^ A b Margarete Schlueter: Library of Conservatism. In: The Right Edge . Issue 172, May / June 2018.
  27. ↑ EKD and “idea”: Dispute over Protestant media portal. In: DLF. 5th December 2017.
  28. ↑ Jan Rübel: The young face of conservatism. In: NZZ. 3rd February 2015.
  29. ↑ Christoph Kluge: Authoritarian rebels: A visit to the Berlin AfD youth. Vice.com, April 26, 2016.
  30. ↑ Christian Fuchs, Paul Middelhoff: The network of the new right. Hamburg 2019, p. 194. (books.google.de)
  31. ↑ Christian Fuchs, Paul Middelhoff: The network of the new right. Hamburg 2019, p. 168f. (books.google.de) ; Martin Machowecz: "Declaration 2018": A new salon in Berlin. In: time online. March 21, 2018.
  32. ↑ Gideon Botsch , Christoph Kopke , Alexander Lorenz: How does the “Alternative for Germany” act locally? The Brandenburg case study. In: Andreas Zick , Beate Küpper : Anger, contempt, devaluation. Right-wing populism in Germany. Friedrich Ebert Foundation . Dietz, Bonn 2015, ISBN 978-3-8012-0478-5 , pp. 146–166, here: p. 163.
  33. ↑ Maria Fiedler: The strategy is starting to work: How the right-wing scene recruits its offspring. In: Tagesspiegel . October 24, 2019.
  34. ^ Fanny Lüskow: "Renommierprojekt der Rechts". In: taz. March 9, 2015.
  35. ↑ Eike Sanders, Ulli Jentsch, Felix Hansen: "Germany drives itself off". Organized “life protection”, Christian fundamentalism and anti-feminism. Unrast, Münster 2014, ISBN 978-3-89771-121-1 , p. 89 f.
  36. ^ Martin Horn: Demo in Charlottenburg: Protest against right-wing bookworms. In: taz. February 13, 2018.
  37. ↑ Cay Dobberke: “Ratskeller” in Charlottenburg pelted with stones. In: Tagesspiegel. May 28, 2018.
  38. ↑ Christoph Schäfer: Right Spaces: Inconspicuous Political. In: DLF. May 28, 2019.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 26.6 ″  N , 13 ° 19 ′ 39.4 ″  E