Waldemar Gurian

Waldemar Gurian (born February 13, 1902 in Saint Petersburg , Russian Empire , † May 26, 1954 in South Haven ) was a German-American political scientist and publicist . He is considered one of the leading interpreters of political Catholicism and a theoretician of totalitarianism .

Life

Gurian, born in St. Petersburg to a wealthy Jewish-Armenian family, emigrated to Berlin with his mother and sisters in 1911, before the outbreak of the First World War . Here he converted to the Catholic faith like his mother in 1914. In 1916 he became a member of the Quickborn Association , which was part of the Catholic youth movement in Düsseldorf .

After studying in Cologne , Breslau , Munich and Berlin , Gurian received his doctorate at the age of 21 under Max Scheler with a thesis on The German Youth Movement . Gurian became editor of the Kölnische Volkszeitung , an influential newspaper of the Catholic center . In addition, he began to publish books on Catholicism as a freelance journalist, working alongside French Catholicism on the question of reconciling church and democracy . He also warned of the danger of conservative nationalism . In 1928 his book appeared on the political and social ideas of French Catholicism. However, he did not receive much attention until three years later when his book on Bolshevism appeared. Here he did not derive the Soviet system from the Marxist theory, but understood it as an expression of the “total state”. In relation to this total system, the church has the role of a “Noah's Ark of social freedom”.

Gurian identified what Bolshevism and fascism had in common , which he referred to as “totalitarianism”. At the same time he also showed the differences: “Because the fascist state is nowhere near as total as the Bolshevik state. Because the Concordat proves that he at least theoretically recognizes an area of ​​religion that he does not claim to determine in terms of content. "

Gurian developed a close bond with the constitutional lawyer Carl Schmitt , which later broke through his commitment to National Socialism (Gurian referred to Schmitt as " Crown lawyer of the Third Reich" after his justification of the Roman murders ). Gurian fled to Switzerland with his family in 1934 after the murder, from which he, as an exposed critic of National Socialism, saw himself threatened. In Lucerne , together with Otto Michael Knab, who had also emigrated, he published the German Letters , an information sheet about church struggle and church persecution. Gurian wanted to call on the German bishops to resist National Socialism. He also tried to take action against anti-Semitism with the former Chancellor Joseph Wirth and the political scientist and historian Karl Thieme , who converted to the Catholic Church in 1934.

In 1937 Gurian emigrated to the USA, where he got a job at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana). Here he founded the Review of Politics magazine in 1939, of which Hannah Arendt was one of the staff from the very beginning .

Fonts (selection)

• The political and social ideas of French Catholicism. 1789/1914. Volksvereins-Verlag, Mönchengladbach 1929.
• Bolshevism. Introduction to history and teaching. Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1931.
• Integral nationalism in France. Charles Maurras and the Action Française. Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt 1931.
• (as Walter Gerhart) About the future of the empire. National rebirth or political response. Herder, Freiburg 1932.
• Decision and order. On the writings of Carl Schmitt. In: Schweizerische Rundschau. Vol. 34, 1934/35, ZDB -ID 6467-1 , pp. 566-576.
• (as Paul Müller, Cologne ) On the problem of mass. Schweizerische Rundschau 34, 1934/35.
• Bolshevism as a world danger. Vita Nova Verlag, Lucerne 1935.
• Lenin's methods of conquering power in 1917. In: Werner Conze (Hrsg.): Germany and Europe. Historical studies on the order of peoples and states in the West. Festschrift for Hans Rothfels . Droste, Düsseldorf 1951, pp. 271-291.
• as editor with Matthew A. Fitzsimons: The Catholic Church in World Affairs. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame IN 1954
• Totalitarianism as Political Religion. In: Carl J. Friedrich (Ed.): Totalitarianism (= Grosset's Universal Library . Volume 167, ZDB -ID 1432009-5 ). Grosset & Dunlap, New York NY 1964, pp. 120-123, 125-129.
• Waldemar Gurian - Carl Schmitt. Correspondence from 1924 to 1932. Edited by Ellen Thümmler a. Reinhard Mehring . In: Schmittiana , New Series 1 (2011), pp. 59–111.

literature

• Hannah Arendt : Waldemar Gurian. In: Hannah Arendt: People in dark times (= Piper 3355 series ). Edited by Ursula Ludz. Unabridged, reviewed paperback edition. Piper, Munich a. a. 2001, ISBN 3-492-23355-4 , pp. 304-328.
• Heinz Hürten: Waldemar Gurian. A witness of the crisis in our world in the first half of the 20th century (= publications by the Commission for Contemporary History at the Catholic Academy in Bavaria. Series B: Research , Volume 11). Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Mainz 1972, ISBN 3-7867-0359-0 .
• Ellen Thümmler: Catholic publicist and American political scientist. An intellectual biography of Waldemar Gurian . Nomos-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2011 (= university publications. Politics , Volume 178).
• Various authors: German letters . 1934-38. Ed .: Otto Michael Knab , Waldemar Gurian. Lucerne, DNB  013254766 , LCCN  mm96-083890 (Reprint: Grünewald-Verlag, Mainz 1969).

Web links

• Literature by and about Waldemar Gurian in the catalog of the German National Library
• Wolfgang Heuer : Europe and its refugees. Hannah Arendt on the necessary politicization of minorities . In it detailed. Arendt on Gurian (Section II), presentation of her obituary from 1954 (for print see Ref.)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Stefan Breuer : Carl Schmitt in context . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-05-005943-3 , pp. 235 .
2. ↑ Ellen Thümmler, Michael Kunze: Waldemar Gurian's image of France in the outline of his journalism . In: Alfons Söllner (Ed.): German books on France from the interwar period . Baden-Baden 2011, pp. 173–196.
3. ↑ Waldemar Gurian: Der Bolschewismus , S. VIf.
4. ↑ Elias H. Füllenbach: The Church of Christ and the Jewish Question (1937) . In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus. Hostility to Jews in the past and present . Volume 6: Publications. Berlin / Boston 2013, pp. 400–403.
5. ↑ also older edition - Readable online in English from an Anglo-American Internet dealer ISBN 0-15-658890-0 , pp. 263-268. See also the presentation at Heuer in web links.