Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner

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Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner (born February 23, 1939 in Vienna ; † April 12, 2011 in Lörrach ) was an Austrian writer , private scholar and philosopher . He preferred to publish in organs of the new right and conservatism .

Life

Kaltenbrunner studied philosophy, law and political science at the University of Vienna . In 1962 he moved to Germany , where he worked, among other things, as a publishing editor . From 1974 to 1988 he published the series Initiative at Verlag Herder , which Junge Freiheit describes as "one of the most important mouthpieces of neoconservative thought". After discontinuing the series in 1988, he lived as a freelance writer in the Black Forest. He was a founding member of the Liechtenstein PEN Club .

He published in the magazines Zeitbühne , Criticón , Epoche , Saka-Informations , the Catholic-traditionalist magazine Theologisches , MUT and in the Junge Freiheit . His last book was published in 1996. In the following years he lived in extreme seclusion. He died on April 12, 2011 in Lörrach in southern Baden . His final resting place is in the Perchtoldsdorf cemetery near Vienna.

Act

conservatism

In the 1970s, Kaltenbrunner was first known as a publicist and thought leader in the conservative political spectrum. In 1972 his book Reconstruction of Conservatism was published , which saw itself as a conservative alternative to the 1968 movement . His metapolitical ideas of an “evolutionary traditionalism” were based on the utopian thinking of the Conservative Revolution .

The Initiative series of publications , for which he was able to win over numerous authors of various stripes before it was hired in 1988, addressed a multitude of topics beyond the purely political, which were expressed in titles such as: Why still read? About the necessary abundance of books / reasons to celebrate. Abolition and return of festivals or warmth of the nest in a cold society: Ashrams, communes, kibbutzim and what else?

Already in the first volume, Plea for Reason: Signals of a Turning Trend , he coined the term Turning trend , which subsequently became a catchphrase for conservative thinking.

Kaltenbrunner's political publications in the 1980s included Elite. Education for an Emergency (1984) and What is German? The Inevitability of Being a Nation (1988). Compared to his previous publications, these publications were characterized by a sharper tone and an increased preoccupation with the subject of “nation”, which also led to increased criticism, for example by the political scientist Claus Leggewie .

His essay, in particular, was his essay, Does Hitler determine the guidelines of our policy? , which appeared in MUT magazine in 1987 and was reprinted in a large number of conservative and right-wing magazines.

Europe trilogies

In addition, in the course of the 1980s, Kaltenbrunner's focus of interest increasingly shifted from politics to culture. His encounter with Richard Nikolaus Graf von Coudenhove-Kalergi , the founder of the Paneuropean movement , was particularly influential in his youth .

Evidence of this is the three-volume work Europa. His intellectual sources in portraits from two millennia and the also three-volume follow-up publication Vom Geist Europa . Both works contain a collection of several hundred monographic essays on people from European intellectual history, with a recognizable focus on - in Kaltenbrunner's view, wrongly - those who have been forgotten.

Religious and mystical late work

Since the early 1990s, Kaltenbrunner finally no longer dealt with political issues. Instead, he devoted himself to questions of the philosophy of religion in several publications: in addition to a few smaller hagiographic volumes, the two extensive books Johannes ist seine Name (1993) (about the priest-king Johannes ) and Dionysius vom Areopag (1996) should be mentioned.

In these works, Kaltenbrunner brought together various philosophical, theological and historical theoretical approaches - especially those of the traditionalist school ( René Guénon , Julius Evola and above all Leopold Ziegler ), negative theology and mysticism ( Dionysius Areopagita , Meister Eckhart , Nikolaus von Kues ), idealistic philosophy ( Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , Wolfgang Struve ), plus the utopianism of romantic literature as well as medieval legends and grail poetry - with the aim of creating a comprehensive overview of occidental-Christian culture.

Honourings and prices

Works (selection)

  • Hegel and the Consequences, Freiburg 1970.
  • Reconstruction of Conservatism, Freiburg 1972.
  • International Conservatism, 1973.
  • Difficult Conservatism, 1975.
  • Europe. His spiritual sources in portraits from two millennia. Three volumes, Heroldsberg near Nuremberg 1981–1985.
  • Elite. Education for emergencies, Asendorf 1984.
  • Ways of World Conservation, Asendorf 1985.
  • Secret societies and the myth of the world conspiracy, Freiburg a. a. 1987.
  • From the spirit of Europe. Three volumes, Asendorf 1987–1992.
  • What is German? The inevitability of being a nation, Asendorf 1988.
  • The seer from Dülmen and her poet-chronicler, Gersau 1992.
  • Tacui, Gersau 1993.
  • Johannes is his name. Priest-King, Guardian of the Grail, dream figure. Zug / Switzerland 1993.
  • Dionysius from Areopagus. The unfathomable, the angels and the one. Zug / Switzerland 1996.
  • From the spirit of Europe. Origins and Portraits, 2 vols., Graz 2019. (Combined partial reprint of Vom Geist Europa und Europa .)

As editor:

  • Herderbücherei INITIATIVE, 75 volumes (1974–1988).

Literature on the author

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from April 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Reservation to the political , article by Karlheinz Weißmann in: Junge Freiheit from April 22, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Kaltenbrunner, Gerd-Klaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian author
DATE OF BIRTH February 23, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH April 12, 2011
Place of death Loerrach