Eric Voegelin on Nazi Political Extremism

Porter, Clifford F.

Journal of the History of Ideas, Volume 63, Number 1, January 2002,pp. 151-171 (Article)

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Eric Voegelin on Nazi PoliticalExtremism

Clifford F. Porter

Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) is not as well known among historians as he isamong political theorists, yet he has had a continuing influence on both Ger-man Social Democrat and Christian Democrat political leaders. His early life isvery much a reflection of both the intellectual developments and the chaos ofGermany and Austria between the wars. Voegelin’s analysis of Nazism is worthrevisiting by historians because it delineated the Nazi rationale for the Holo-caust in the early 1930s, even if the Nazis themselves had yet to move towardsmass murder early in the regime. Voegelin was not prescient enough to predictthe extent of the Holocaust, but he understood that the ideological rationale ofNazi violence was unlimited. Furthermore, his description of political extrem-ism as Gnosticism in 1952 is valid for explaining why an individual mightsupport the Nazis and then voluntarily commit extraordinarily vicious acts totry to realize the dream-world of the Third Reich.

The political, economic, and social chaos in Austria after World War I wasthe catalyst for the young Eric Voegelin’s studies of the essence of ideologiesand the ideologists who promoted them from both the left and right wing. AsNational Socialism grew, so did his experiences with and understanding ofextremist political ideologies. Contemporary intellectual debates between neo-Kantian and existentialist methodology, however, did not help penetrate to theessential causes of political extremism. His experiences in America in the mid-1920s were essential for his development away from what he characterized asnarrow methodological provincialism to an empiricism open to philosophicquestions, including spiritual questions. By 1938 he had theorized that ideolo-gies were political secular religions that substituted the state for divine reality.

Because of this interpretation, Voegelin’s approach to totalitarianism hasbeen characterized as an outdated ersatz religion model, better suited for theCold War.1 The ersatz religion model worked reasonably well to describe simi-

1 See, for example, Dominick LaCapra, Representing the Holocaust: History Theory, andTrauma (Ithaca, N.Y., 1994).

152 Clifford F. Porter

larities the National Socialist movement had with religions, but Voegelin rec-ognized that it did not penetrate to the essence of ideologies. His understandingof ideologies matured after World War II into his theory that ideologies wereGnostic quests for absolute certainty that caused alienation from reality.

Voegelin thought that the search for certainty ultimately required exclud-ing any evidence to the contrary of the ideology; therefore, ideologies limitedthe individual’s view of human reality to the immediate world. Furthermore,although ideologies are founded on a kernel of truth—e.g., proletarians aresometimes oppressed—ideologists become quickly alienated from reality as aconsequence of their own quest for certainty about meaning in existence. Theconsequences of alienation are that ideologists pursue the perceived immanentgood and try to eliminate the perceived immanent evil, thereby rationalizingcriminality and even murder. Violence is inherent to extremist political ideologies.

Background and Influences: Weber, Kraus, University, and America

Eric Voegelin was born in 1901 and grew up in Vienna. After the warAustria was convulsed by political and social crises ranging from attemptedreactionary and Communist coups to constant food shortages. In the first post-war election Voegelin’s political and social inclinations led him to vote for theSocial Democratic Party (SDP), but he was aggravated by the uncompromisingMarxist rhetoric of the SDP leadership. In this atmosphere Voegelin began hislong journey toward understanding ideologies, but first he had to work throughmany different political and philosophic problems before he arrived at an ad-equate understanding. The intellectuals that influenced him during this longprocess were diverse, but they shared a hostility to ideologies.

The first important academic influence on Voegelin was Max Weber.2 We-ber encouraged intellektuelle Rechtschaffenheit (intellectual honesty) with oth-ers and especially with oneself. Weber insisted on following an ethic of re-sponsibility for one’s actions (Verantwortungsethik), rather than making apolo-gies for following an ethic of good intentions (Gesinnungsethik). The latter,Weber feared, was often used to justify bad consequences of well-intendedactions.3 These simple principles helped guide the young Eric Voegelin awayfrom violent ideological movements.

Weber also was intent on “scientifically” understanding society. “Science”(wissenschaft) did not have quite the same positivistic implications in Germanas it did in either French or English, although there was the positivistic ten-dency to eliminate any perceived values in scientific work.4 The impact onVoegelin rather straightforwardly impressed on him the need to be as honest

2 Autobiographical Reflections, 11-13.3 Ibid., 11.4 Jürgen Gebhardt and Barry Cooper, “Introduction,” The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin,

I, On the Form of the American Mind, tr. Ruth Hein (Baton Rouge, 1995), xii-xv.

Voegelin’s Interpretations of Nazi Extremism 153

with himself and in his studies as he could be. The first example of this was his quickabandonment of Marxism when he decided it was economically untenable.5

Voegelin followed Weber’s methodology of comparative knowledge forscientific inquiry; otherwise, without comparison with other societies’ experi-ences, a basis for any research was limited to one’s own realm of social experi-ence. The premise of Voegelin’s comparative research was that there was acommon ground of human experience across time and space. When Voegelinstudied ancient or non-Western societies, he saw essential similarities in hu-man experience, rather than differences.

A problematic aspect of Weber’s work, however, was how to define “value.”Weber’s emphasis on value-free science meant that many social issues couldnot adequately be studied because they involved values. Voegelin began tounderstand that ethical judgement in society required a foundation of values.This issue would resurface in the late 1920s in Voegelin’s study of politicalscience as a subset of constitutional law. The problem of how to judge valuewas not philosophically difficult for Voegelin because the underlying premiseof his work was that humanity has a spiritual as well as a temporal foundation.The Weberian elimination of values severely hindered studying political phi-losophy or ideologies, and it took Voegelin several years to work through theproblem. As he put it 50 years later:

But of course so far as science is concerned that is a very precariousposition, because students after all want to know the reasons why theyshould conduct themselves in a certain manner; and when the reasons—that is, the rational order of existence—are excluded from consider-ation, emotions are liable to carry you away into all sorts of ideologicaland idealistic adventures in which ends become more fascinating thanthe means.6

Without a clear science of values or ethics, a basis for human conduct wasmissing. Furthermore, without such a science of values, a critique of the behav-ior of ideologists is difficult. Weber was a very ethical person, so this was notan issue. The generation after World War I, however, was deeply troubled,lacking social or political stability in any form, paradigm, zeitgeist, or even aPlatonic noble myth. A related and fundamental question remained, whichVoegelin witnessed around him academically, socially, and politically: whydid intellectuals, political groups, or factions cling to philosophies that weredemonstrably false—for example, Zionist Jewish conspiracies or the inevita-bility of the proletarian revolution?

5 Autobiographical Reflections, 11.6 Ibid., 12.

154 Clifford F. Porter

The Viennese iconoclast, drama critic, and social commentator, Karl Kraus,reinforced Voegelin’s emphasis on the pursuit of truth and intellectual honesty.Kraus’s scathing commentary on contemporary intellectuals and journalists inhis journal Die Fackel was essential for Voegelin’s developing understandingof ideologies. Kraus ruthlessly exposed the artificiality and pretentiousness ofmuch of Viennese literati through vicious satire.7 He was a master of languageand firmly held that how a person used language represented his or her truecharacter. The Viennese literati had corrupted their professional ethics by fail-ing to report the complete truth, especially during the war where journalismdecayed into insulting propaganda. The literati also failed as leaders of culture,which was perhaps the focus of Kraus’s bitterest attack, because without cul-tural leadership the civilization would decay. If honesty in language were used,honesty of discourse must follow. However the reverse held true: dishonest useof language represented dishonest intentions and contempt for the audience,thereby preventing truth.8

Voegelin concluded from reading Kraus that ideologists could not be suc-cessful without destroying language and truth. The consequence of the abuseof language in political and social life is that the standards of thought are solowered that the society becomes susceptible to the vulgar propaganda of theNational Socialists.9 Wittgenstein was also profoundly influenced by Kraus:with ethical precision in language it would be possible to truly study philoso-phy and prevent ideology.10 Fifty years later Voegelin still thought a thoroughanalysis of the success of the Nazis was not possible without studying Kraus’sdiagnosis of Austrian society beginning in the 1890s.11

As admirable as Kraus was a critic of society, his tactic of satirizing hisenemies was ineffective against the Nazis. The Nazis twisted language andappealed to people’s worst instincts, raising terror and violence to an allegedspiritual level. In this case, the sword was mightier than the pen.12 However,once actual events usurped satire, then society had decayed too far to be saved.13

Kraus’s words were inadequate to influence society, and the effort to changebehavior by demanding honest language failed. The failure of language was amanifestation of a deeper problem.

7 Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York, 1985), 363.8 Kari Grimstad, Masks of the Prophet: The Theatrical World of Karl Kraus (Toronto, 1982).9 Wilma Abeles Iggers, Karl Kraus: A Viennese critic of the twentieth century (The Hague,

1967), 32.10 Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, Wittgenstein’s Vienna (New York, 1973), 93.11 Autobiographical Reflections, 18.12 Kari Grimstad, Masks of the Prophet: The Theatrical World of Karl Kraus, 228.13 Kraus died in 1936, two years before the Anschluss.

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Voegelin adopted Kraus’s analysis that the Nazis’ linguistic vulgarity anduse of pagan symbols indicated their true essence as criminal barbarians.14 Muchof the symbolism in the propaganda of the Nazis was designed to garner imme-diate support and did not reflect the true nature of their ideology. But what wasor was not Nazi ideology was not entirely clear at the time to many people,including Kraus and Voegelin. It was still true that many Germans respondedpositively to the propaganda.15

The academic debates of the 1920s at the University of Vienna, were domi-nated by methodological arguments about epistemology and did not helpVoegelin understand the ideologies. All academic discussions, or so it appearedto Voegelin, were subsets of the competing arguments between the neo-KantianKultur-wissenschaft and the universalist Geisteswissenschaften.16 Reducing thedebate to its base level, the question was whether knowledge was a priori or ifexistence preceded essence. Hans Kelsen, one of Voegelin’s professors inVienna, used a priori categories for the logic of a legal system. In the semanticsused at the time Staatslehre (Political Studies) was a part of Rechtslehre (LegalStudies). Consequently, anything beyond Rechtslehre could not be consideredpolitical science and “values” as defined by Weber and in common use, andwere not considered important for studying political or legal systems. The ques-tion in terms of the Pure Theory of Law was whether the activities of Commu-nists and, later, the National Socialists were legal. Such a question, however,hardly explains why ideologists behaved as violently as they did, especiallyagainst innocent people when the Nazis made it technically legal after 1933.

Ideologists claimed to be scientific, and the methodologies of neo-Kantianism and existentialism did not easily allow a challenge of the values ofthe ideologists. So within the academic community in which Voegelin wasworking there was not an adequate foundation to challenge the ideologies asunethical, immoral, or simply bad “values.” In fact all methodologies withinthe intellectual climate tended to forbid value-based or metaphysical question-ing. Neo-Kantianism rejected any study not within a priori categories, such asRechtslehre. Heidegger rejected value judgments because a priori conscious-ness was fallacious. Marxism simply rejected metaphysics as bourgeois ab-stractions. These intellectual taboos frustrated Voegelin throughout his life.17

During Voegelin’s studies in America he learned how to break out of thislimited debate and how to find a better basis for analyzing politics and ideolo-gies. He studied the British and American common-sense philosophic tradi-

14 Voegelin described Nazism’s appeal in part as pre-Christian paganism in 1940, “SomeProblems of German Hegemony,” The Journal of Politics, 3 (1941), 164.

15 E.g., see the analysis of Nazi propaganda in Ian Kershaw, The “Hitler Myth”: Image andReality in the Third Reich (New York, 1987).

16 Jürgen Gebhardt and Barry Cooper, “Introduction,” On the Form of the American Mind,xii-xv.

17 Eric Voegelin, New Science of Politics (Chicago, 1952), 21.

156 Clifford F. Porter

tion, attending the seminars of John Dewey and Alfred North Whitehead andreading commentaries on America by writers such as George Santayana, Alexisde Tocqueville, and William James. He also experienced this open-ended com-mon-sense philosophy as practiced by his host in Wisconsin, the labor econo-mist, John R. Commons. He also spent time studying French philosophy, fromBodin to Bergson, and learned to appreciate the Lucretian poetry of Paul Valery.18

These experiences caused a profound change in his outlook. The methodologi-cal debates of Central Europe were no longer meaningful. British and Americanphilosophers were asking metaphysical questions, rather than seeking method-ological answers about how to determine truth positivistically in a precise sys-tem of thought.19 Voegelin, therefore, became convinced of the basic provincial-ism of German academic questions, then rejected neo-Kantianism and existen-tialism for a return to metaphysics and empiricism. He read Heidegger’s Seinund Zeit in 1927, which was creating a sensation at the time in Austria and Ger-many, and later simply stated that when he read it, “It just ran off.”20 Heideggerhad essentially presented a closed philosophy by offering a complete answer tothe fundamental questions of human consciousness—existence precedes es-sence. To Voegelin, Heidegger had denied the open-ended nature of existence.

As Voegelin furthered his own studies into medieval Christian and classi-cal philosophy, he came to believe that consciousness relied on more than merelyexternal objects; it was consciousness of experiences of both immanent realityand of spiritual reality.21 Although he never formally became a member of aChristian denomination, Voegelin developed an understanding of the Christianand classical ideas as symbols of Divine reality, such as consciousness or faith.22

The hostility to metaphysics in the academic community, he believed, preventedphilosophy from asking transcendental or spiritual questions about human ex-istence and discarded religious and metaphysical symbolism as mere supersti-tion.23 He found current methodologies limiting, whereas the experiences ofthe classical and Christian philosophers revealed a greater breadth of humanexperience. Voegelin concluded that modern philosophy had closed itself tothe possibility of transcendent reality and consequently provided little guid-ance for recognizing the Nationalist Socialists for what they were—immaturebarbarians. By the late 1920s Voegelin had the foundation to formulate a theoryof ideologies. His own work was disciplined by Weber’s and Kraus’s influ-ences, and he bypassed contemporary methodological problems by returningto a classical and Christian understanding of metaphysics and empiricism.

18 Autobiographical Reflections, 28-33.19 On the Form of the American Mind, 4-5.20 Autobiographical Reflections, 33.21 Ibid., 70-74, and Ellis Sandoz, The Voegelinian Revolution (Baton Rouge, 1981), 51-53.22 Autobiographical Reflections, 63.23 E.g., Eric Voegelin, From Enlightenment to Revolution, ed. by John H. Hallowell (Durham,

N.C., 1975), 25-27.

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Voegelin’s personal experiences at this time are very revealing about thenature of ideologies—that is, he experienced the consequences of ideologicalthinking. Voegelin very much enjoyed discussing political events with his stu-dents, while at the same time trying often in vain to keep their minds open tophilosophic questions and to prevent them from falling into the closedmindedness of an ideological system. He was rattled after one lively discussionat the Volkshochschule,24 when one of his better students told him that it wouldbe a true shame that when they—the SDP—came to power, they would have tokill Voegelin. The ideological logic was very straightforward; the SDP politicswere correct, and even though Professor Voegelin was a wonderful and honestintellect, he would be dangerous to the struggle. The logic disturbed Voegelingreatly: the political objectives of the ideologist were more important than honestphilosophic inquiry.

The student clearly understood Voegelin’s critiques of the SDP or any othernarrow ideology. But the ideology was so vitally important to society, civiliza-tion, or the proletariat that any undermining criticism had to be eliminated forthe ultimate goal. Implicitly, if not explicitly, the student understood that theintellectual honesty Voegelin had learned from Weber was of secondary im-portance, or even dangerous, to ideological goals.

Voegelin concluded that ideologies were systems of thought that deniedintellectual honesty, rejected metaphysics, and accepted political violence. Overthe next twenty years Voegelin first challenged the ideologies’ claims to bescientific, then he tried to explain ideologies as secular political religions. Ide-ologists could not be partners in scientific inquiry; they were objects of in-quiry.

Towards Political Religions

Voegelin’s first attempts to penetrate to the essence of National Socialismwere two books published in 1933 analyzing race theories—Rasse und Staatand Die Rassenidee in der Geistesgeschichte. He showed that National Social-ist racism denied the fundamental humanity of Jews and other races, and, basedon his own studies with biology, that National Socialist race theory was notscience. Voegelin labeled this abuse of science for ideological purposes ratherthan to understand reality as “scientism.”25

The Nazi race idea had in fact little to do with biology and ethnography.Rather, Voegelin believed that racism was the symbolic expression of the or-dering principle of German nationalism. The elaborate use of scientific lan-guage gave comfort to the ideologists that they were actually engaged in sci-

24 This was the SDP sponsored college for urban workers, where Voegelin taught from 1927to 1938. The Austrian SDP was dominated by Marxism at the time.

25 From Enlightenment to Revolution, 20-21.

158 Clifford F. Porter

ence seeking positive truth. Nonetheless, no matter how elaborate the use oflanguage was, it still denoted little or nothing.26

In the introduction to Die Rassenidee in der Geistesgeschichte, Voegelinoutlined the dangerous implications of modern race theories. Although he didnot mention National Socialism by name, it is obviously the object of his con-tempt:

The fact that human beings are physiologically descended fromeach other does not yet make a human history....

... the dangerous thought arises that the historical substance couldbe arbitrarily generated by diligent clubs for the breeding of raciallypure bodies....

It is a nightmare to think that we should recognize the people whomwe follow and whom we allow to come near us not by their looks, theirwords, and their gestures, but by their cranial index and the propor-tional measurements of their extremities.27

With the humanity of Jews and other races undermined by race theory, thenightmare came true less than 10 years later. Few could have imagined in 1933that the worst possible implications of National Socialism from a dream couldbecome real. Quite clearly, the words used by the Nazis had real consequences.Voegelin had foreseen that the Nazis would establish Aryan breeding farmsand cranial measurements as SS enlistment criteria.

As the discrimination and laws directed against the Jews increased, Voegelinpublicly predicted in the Vienna Neue Freie Presse (30 Nov. 1937) that shouldanother war between the great powers develop, “total war would probably be awar of annihilation” (Vernichtungskrieg).28 Judging by the international situa-tion in late 1937—wars in Spain and China—there were no limits to warfarebetween peoples. Wars between states were previously limited, but it was clearby 1937 that all citizens would become participants. According to Voegelin,the next war would be a war between racially defined peoples with no logicallimits until one people or another was annihilated.

Having demonstrated National Socialism’s false claim to science and itsimplicit logic toward violence, Voegelin had yet to resolve satisfactorily whyideologies were believable to so many people of varying intelligence and socio-economic class. In his next attempt, Der Autoritäre Staat (1936), Voegelindiscussed the danger of ideologies in the context of whether or not the Austrian

26 Barry Cooper, Eric Voegelin and the Foundations of Modern Political Science (Colum-bia, Mo., 1999), 41.

27 Eric Voegelin, The History of the Race Idea: From Ray to Carus, tr. Ruth Hein and ed.Klaus Vondung (Baton Rouge, 1998), 23-25.

28 “Der neue Stil des Krieges,” Neue Freie Presse, 30 November 1937.

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authoritarian constitution of 1934 was an adequate defense for democracy againsteither Nazi or Communist ideologies. An authoritarian state was certainly bet-ter than the totalitarian regime to the north in Germany. Voegelin also demon-strated that Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law failed: its absence of values allowedfor the legal seizure of power by groups openly hostile to democracy.

Aside from ruining his personal relationship with Kelsen, Voegelin theo-rized that the totalitarian conception of the state, as developed by the NaziStaatslehre theorist Carl Schmitt, broke down the distinction between the com-munity or society (Gesellschaft) and the state. The totalitarian state tried tocontrol or lead the community directly in all aspects of human life based on theideological conception of human reality. That such control of all of societyproved difficult for the Nazis is not the essential observation, but rather that thetotalitarian ideology tried to subordinate the individual to the party and thestate.29

The Authoritarian State on the other hand had no such objective. Its goalwas to defend the state from ideological assault. If the authoritarian state coulddefend itself successfully, then there existed the very real possibility that amature democratic tradition could develop to resist ideologies on its own.30

The appeal of ideologies was not addressed in Der Autoritäre Staat and thequestion remained why the Nazis hated the Jews so much. Voegelin concludedthat the Nazis made the Jews the Satanic figure that any millenarian movementneeds. The Nazis inherited this tradition from the lingering anti-Semitic sub-culture of Central-East Europe, but their ideology changed it into the symbol-ism of good versus evil manifested as Aryan versus Semite. It is logical thatwith such a religious mindset the destruction of evil could become a political goal.31

Voegelin’s last effort to understand the appeal of ideologies before the warwas Die Politischen Religionen (1938). He furthered his understanding thattotalitarian ideologists were in the same tradition as the many millenarian per-versions of Christianity and political religions of ancient Egypt.32 Die PolitischenReligionen is an emotional and polemical work. All of Voegelin’s principlesare evident from the first few pages. First and foremost, ideologies were attheir basis nothing more than temporal, secular attempts to create a religiouscommunity to answer humanity’s fundamentally spiritual needs. Second, po-litical religions denied divine reality, perverted temporal reality, and attemptedto enforce their visions of reality on the rest of the society. Consequently,

29 Der Autoritäre Staat, 10-11.30 Ibid., 281-83.31 Cooper, “Introduction,” Political Religions, xxi; and, Gregor Sebba, “Prelude and varia-

tions on the Theme of Eric Voegelin,” Eric Voegelin’s Thought: A Critical Appraisal, ed. EllisSandoz (Durham, N.C., 1982), 12.

32 Eric Voegelin, Political Religions, Introduced by Barry Cooper, trans. T.J. DiNapoli andE.S. Easterly III, Toronto Studies in Theology, 23 (1986), orig. Die Politischen Religionen(Stockholm, 1939). The first effort to distribute in Vienna in 1938 was obstructed by the NaziAnschluss.

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Voegelin unreservedly argues that the basis for a renewal of philosophy andpolitical society requires a spiritual religious foundation, whether it is withinthe traditional churches or not. His reasons for this are simply that humanitymust be in balance with its spiritual and physical existence and that the denialof the spiritual aspect has caused many errors in modern philosophy.33

Voegelin used empirical evidence on two levels to make his argument. Thefirst is simply that the consequences of ideologies are obvious in the terror theNazis caused. Secondly, and far more profoundly, Voegelin argued that thebasis of human spirituality is within the soul and is accessible to everyone bylooking within one’s self.34

Man experiences his existence as a creature and therefore as doubtful.Somewhere in the depths, at the umbilicus of the soul, there where ittouches the cosmos, it strains. This is the place of those stimuli whichare inadequately referred to as “feelings” and which are therefore eas-ily confused with similarly named, superficial movements of the soul.35

Religious experiences are real and they are evident throughout history in thevarious symbols every culture has used to describe them. Furthermore, withoutrecognizing the foundation of these experiences as evidence of divine reality,the individual cannot recognize the breadth of reality and will attempt to createfalse images to account for the missing spirituality producing alienation or adeformation of reality.

Others are granted only scant glimpses of reality, perhaps only one: ofnature, a great person, his Volk, humanity. What is seen becomes forhim the Realissimum, the metareality; it takes the place of God andtherefore conceals from him all else, even—and above all—God.36

Not only does this passage demonstrate Voegelin’s spiritual philosophy, italso introduces new terms to convey his meaning more accurately. (Realissimumand metareality are used to signify a concept of reality that is changed from andfails to incorporate all human experiences.) With spiritual reality denied orobscured, something must take its place to respond to the human need to ex-press the feeling of being created.37 Voegelin argues that modern philosophyhad gradually attributed to the state the redemptive power that belongs to God.

33 Ibid., 3.34 This is clearly the influence of his classical and Christian studies, but Voegelin never

specifically indicated what influenced him towards these conclusions or when he accepted them.35 Ibid., 10.36 Ibid., 12-13.37 Ibid., 11.

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“It was Hegel who proposed the theory that the Volk as the State was the spiritin its immediate reality and therefore the absolute power on earth.”38 The indi-vidual becomes subsumed by this apparatus and gains his own meaning onlyby being a part of the State.

Unlike a secular thinker who might attribute the desire for salvation eitherto culture or to human psychology in the face of death, Voegelin takes theexperience as real evidence of the existence of the soul in essentially the sameway Socrates did 2300 years earlier in the Phaedo. The real experiences ofdivine reality are expressed in complex and confusing sets of symbolic lan-guage and concepts formed by historical and cultural circumstances. The com-plexity of symbols creates confusion, but there are still only two kinds of reli-gion:

The spiritual religions, which find the Realissimum in the Weltgrund,should be termed for us “world-transcendent religions;” all others, whichlocate the divine in partial things of the world, should be called “world-immanent religions.”39

The latter are the political religions which have served as the foundations fortotalitarian ideology.

National Socialism was not the first political religion, however. Voegelinmakes the bold claim that the first political religion in human history was theEgyptian cult created by the Pharaoh Akhenaton in approximately 1376 BC.Using the comparative approach learned from Weber, Voegelin argues thatAkhenaton changed the ancient religious structure to make himself the directconduit of meaning from the gods to the people of Egypt. After Akhenaton’sdeath the Egyptians returned fairly quickly to their old gods in no small partbecause the people had to rely on the Pharaoh—i.e., a man—to participate in ameaningful religious experience.40

Having used the comparative approach to demonstrate that political reli-gions were not new in human history, Voegelin outlined the essential elementsof a religious structure and the parallel within contemporary political move-ments. Just as every religion has its own hierarchy and ecclesiastical officials,faith and the apocalypse also have their essential role. The political religion,for example, offers itself as the good, and there is an evil, or anti-good. In thecase of Germany the Jews were the embodiment of evil.

The relationship between the ideologist and the ideology is also very reli-gious. Belonging to the Christian religious community, ecclesia, is symbolizedas a mystic union with the body of Christ, unio mystica. On the other hand, a

38 Ibid., 8.39 Ibid., 14.40 Ibid., 17-28.

162 Clifford F. Porter

political religion also offers purpose and salvation, but only within the tempo-ral community. The ideologist enjoys a mystical connection with the ideologi-cal community, giving a purpose to existence. The ideological community in-carnates the source of meaning, offering salvation, replacing God as the con-duit for salvation. Thus, the ideologists’ position entails that the state controlseverything just as a church determines religious practices; in a political reli-gion public policy replaces theology. Consequently, the ideological commu-nity becomes clearly totalitarian after it controls the state.

The historical development of the idea that the community has purporteddivine qualities is traced by Voegelin to Joachim of Flora in the thirteenth cen-tury.41 Yet it takes centuries for the cultural development of the symbolism ofthe temporal community to replace God completely as the spiritual basis ofhuman existence. By the seventeenth century Hobbes’s Leviathan became themediator between God and man, as Akhenaton was for Egypt. Again, the indi-vidual finds meaning and salvation not in an individual relationship or under-standing of existence but strictly in terms of how the individual fits into thestate.

The historical development required for the religious/political symbols ofthe temporal community or state to replace God is long and complex. AsVoegelin recounts this process, beginning with Joachim and the millenariantraditions of the Reformation mixed with the scientific revolution, it leads tothe creation of the symbols of scientism, where “scientific philosophies” offerthe knowledge of how to achieve salvation without Revelation.42 Science thusgains the status of Revelation.

Challenging science is difficult because science contains powerful sym-bols that offer definitive answers about human existence. But the scientism ofthe political religion has dubious claims to truth, which Voegelin demonstratedin Rasse und Staat and Die Rassenidee in der Geistesgeschichte. The mostbothersome aspect of scientism is that it obscures truth in the name of science.The question remains: why did otherwise intelligent people accept the dubiousclaims of scientism and ignore the weaknesses in their ideological theories?Voegelin continues,

Since the myth [ideology] is not justified by supernatural revelationand scientific criticism cannot stand its ground, there develops in thesecond phase a new conception of truth—Rosenberg’s concept of so-called organic truth. The theory is then further developed into the in-terpretation, that that which promotes the existence of the organicallyclosed temporal community of a people is true.43

41 Ibid., 44-45.42 Ibid., 59.43 Ibid., 63. Rosenberg was the chief philosopher of National Socialism.

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Truth becomes malleable and dependent on the political goals that the ideologyhas established, which Kraus had satirized earlier. The purveyor of truth is theparty or the state with its ultimate arbiter being the leader; in the case of theThird Reich, the leader is the Führer playing the identical role of Akhenatonand acting as the conduit of meaning to the Volk. Voegelin concludes the mainbody of discussion with the evidence of the poetry of Gerhard Schumann’sLieder vom Reich (1935), which illuminates all of the religious symbolism ofthe ideology:

Lost myself and found the Volk, the Reich.

The Führer! Slaves that we are, make us free!

Millions bowed down before him in silenceRedeemed. The Heavens flamed pale as morning.The sun grew. And with it grew the Reich.

The deed was good, if you reddened it with blood.44

The symbolism is painfully obvious, disturbing, and came from an otherwisewell-educated man.

Religious symbolism includes an “anti-idea” or Satanic foe that opposesthe good offered by the ideology. In the case of the Third Reich, the Jews arethe anti-idea. Voegelin states very early in the book that the danger to otherpeople is very real:

The mechanical means of killing were therefore invented not by acci-dent, but rather by the spirit that has become the State, in order to trans-form the personal form of courage into the impersonal. This homicidalurge is directed against an abstract foe, not against a person.45

The danger to the Jews as an abstract foe was imminent. By 1938 Voegelinhad outlined the logic of ideological violence, and there was no reason why theNational Socialists would stop. Theory was translated into practice, and physi-cal attacks on Jews accelerated as Hitler grew more secure in power. (That theNazis required several years before they actually formulated the idea of theHolocaust and that they tried to keep it a secret testify to the resistance of tradi-tional cultural morality to murder. That the resistance was eventually over-come demonstrates the power of the ideology.)

44 Ibid., 71-74.45 Ibid., 8.

164 Clifford F. Porter

Gnosticism

Political Religions worked well to describe Nazi symbolism, because theNazis used a variety of Christian and Pagan symbols for propaganda and for avague metaphysical appeal to the masses and to themselves.46 But with the riseof Communist totalitarianism and East European coups by Stalin’s regime, de-scribing Marxist ideology as a political religion or manifestation of pre-Chris-tian pagan symbolism did not hold. Throughout the 1940s Voegelin struggledto better understand ideologies, but first he had to escape the Third Reich tofind refuge in Britain or the United States.

In 1938 the Anschluss forced Voegelin to flee Europe. The Anschluss wasnot opposed by the West—Italy, Britain, and France—despite Mussolini’s ef-forts at joint action and to Voegelin’s intense dissatisfaction. Voegelin believedthe West would stop the Anschluss in order to prevent a German revanchistthreat directed against Czechoslovakia. He was so angry at the West’s geopo-litical miscalculation that he contemplated joining the Nazis as German troopsentered Vienna. He described himself as taking several hours to calm downbefore deciding his best option was to flee.47

It is very peculiar that Voegelin would even contemplate joining the Naziseven in a state of “fury,” as he described it. He wrote many anti-Nazi books andarticles, and clearly expressed his opposition to narrow ideologies, especiallyvulgar ones that used brutality as others might play sports.48 Even in fury theremust be some rationale for action. Voegelin’s father was a Nazi sympathizerand an admirer of Hitler and would perhaps prevent his arrest for a short time.All that can be discerned is that by becoming a Nazi, Voegelin would survivein the short term and avoid the fate of many other victims. However, it was astate of mind that evaporated within a few hours and he planned his escape.

When the Nazis occupied Austria Voegelin, along with many others, wasimmediately fired from the University of Vienna and the Volkshochschule be-cause of his open anti-Nazism. The Austrian government offices were nottaken over immediately by Nazis, so Voegelin prepared for a legal exit visa toSwitzerland with the help of well-placed relatives, and from there he would goto Harvard for a term to tutor in political science. Before leaving, Voegelinwent to see his father, smashed a portrait of Hitler on the floor, then left; henever saw his father again. By the time his papers were in order and he boardeda train for Switzerland, the Gestapo was literally on the way to arrest him.49

46 Eric Voegelin, “Some Problems of German Hegemony,” The Journal of Politics, 3 (1941),164.

47 Autobiographical Reflections, 42-43.48 Voegelin had published many articles in both Viennese and German newspapers criticiz-

ing the intellectual pretensions of National Socialism.49 Cooper, Eric Voegelin, 16-18.

Voegelin’s Interpretations of Nazi Extremism 165

Once Voegelin arrived in Switzerland, his trip was held up by the Ameri-can vice-consul. The official theorized that if Voegelin was not Jewish, Catho-lic, or a Socialist, his only reason for fleeing the Nazis was because he was acriminal.50

Arriving in America, Voegelin discovered many other European émigrésfrom Hitler’s Europe centered in New England. These émigrés were often bit-ter about their flight and did not like their new American surroundings. Voegelinalways liked America but found the cosmopolitan academic circles of NewEngland to be provincial. So he moved to the University of Alabama in Bir-mingham, then to Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, where he re-mained until 1958.51

Once in the United States Voegelin wrote several articles and papers re-stating his fundamental understanding of events. In 1940 he tried to describeNational Socialism’s success as in part due to the medieval substratum of pre-Christian paganism that ran throughout Germany.52 He furthered his work onthe history of ideas from the “supposed constitutionalism of Plato and Aristotle,through the dubious constitutionalism of the Middle Ages, into the splendidconstitutionalism of the modern period.”53 But this model was not entirely sat-isfying. Furthermore, Voegelin realized that Political Religions only adequatelydescribed Nazism, but it failed to penetrate to the essence of ideologies in general.

Voegelin observed that the Nazis were emotionally tribal because“[t]ribalism is the answer to immaturity because it permits man to remain im-mature with the sanction of his group.”54 But there were consequences for im-maturity:

good Germans who got emotionally drunk on the harangues of thesavior...and who shrank back in horror when the program ... was trans-lated into political action.55

Abandoning his earlier conjecture about the nature of “pre-Christian pagan-ism,” Voegelin refined his views, describing Nazi symbolism as a mix of im-manent pagan tribalism within the symbols of Christianity.56

Voegelin’s analysis evolved in the late 1940s, when he realized that thisexplanation did not adequately illuminate the ideological motivations of Com-munism or Positivism. According to Voegelin, the latter also exhibited an ideo-logical limiting of philosophy and science to temporal reality—in this casequantifiable laws describing humanity.

50 Autobiographical Reflections, 44.51 Ibid., 57-58; and, Cooper, Eric Voegelin, 21.52 “Some Problems of German Hegemony,” 16453 Autobiographical Reflections, 63.54 Voegelin, From Enlightenment to Revolution, 97.55 Ibid., 145.56 Ibid., 97.

166 Clifford F. Porter

... The climax of this is the magic dream of creating the Superman, theman-made Being that will succeed the sorry creature of God’s making.This is the great dream that first appeared imaginatively in the worksof Condorcet, Comte, Marx, Nietzsche and later pragmatically in theCommunist and National Socialist movements.57

He also realized that his own quest to discover the meaning of history througha study of ideas presumed to limit human experience strictly to the movementof ideas. But, history is, in part, unknowable for many reasons, not the least ofwhich is that much of human experience lies before us. Also, ideas are symbolsof experience; they are not independent objects. As symbols, ideas representexperiences people have had throughout history.58

Voegelin discovered how to tie together his observations and analysis ofNational Socialism while studying Gnosticism in ancient, medieval, and mod-ern forms. As the search for certainty, Gnosticism became for Voegelin themodel for diagnosing modern, mass, ideological movements. Ideologies aremodern Gnostic speculations of the meaning of existence. All ideologists claimto provide definitive and absolute understanding and knowledge—i.e., gnosis—of the meaning of existence. Gnostic speculations are not new. Throughouthuman history people have attempted to break from the fundamental uncertain-ties of existence to find salvation from that uncertainty. Furthermore modernGnostic ideologists seek this salvation through the state as a substitute for di-vine reality; the state comes to represent all of human reality and through itsperfection the Gnostic ideologists achieve salvation—in other words, the foun-dations for totalitarianism are laid. The drive for certainty, however, requires alimited understanding of human experience and leads to an alienation from thefullness of both Divine and temporal reality. This alienation requires more ex-planation.

It was obvious to Voegelin that many ideologies paralleled religious move-ments. A religious quest for answers, however, is inadequate to explain allideological movements; for example, Marx viewed any religious or metaphysicalspeculation or feelings as mere bourgeois abstractions.59 In The New Science ofPolitics (1952) and later Voegelin no longer described ideologies as religiousquests; rather, he argues that ideologists sought certainty to escape the uncer-tainty of human existence. According to Voegelin, the Christian response touncertainty was the symbol of faith elaborated by St. Paul in Heb. 11:1: “Nowfaith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”60

57 Ibid., 301-358 Voegelinian Revolution, 109.59 See, e.g., Karl Marx, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” Engels Reader,

ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York, 19782), 92.60 Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics (Chicago, 1952), 122.

Voegelin’s Interpretations of Nazi Extremism 167

Faith, however, does not definitively solve or end uncertainty. Accordingto Voegelin, Marx rejected faith and instead found certainty through his scien-tific discovery of the process of history; the Nazis, by contrast, found it in thescientific explanation of Race. Voegelin thus concludes that

Gnosticism as a counterexistential dream world can perhaps be madeintelligible as the extreme expression of an experience which is uni-versally human, that is, of a horror of existence and a desire to escapefrom it.61

Voegelin further concluded that the attempt to break away from the fundamen-tal fact of uncertainty requires a limiting of the sphere of human experience tomerely temporal experience. In short, God does not offer a salvation from un-certainty, most painfully manifested by death. On the other hand, Gnostic ide-ologists limit the horizon of all reality—particularly of human consciousness—so that certainty can be discovered.

Developing a position he elaborated decades earlier, Voegelin argued thatlimiting human experience to temporal reality leads to a limited understandingof human consciousness and prevents the recognition of reality. Ideologicalexplanations of reality are therefore deformations of reality when they seekcertainty exclusively within the temporal sphere of existence. Thus Heidegger’sand Marx’s assertion that existence precedes essence may give a definitiveexplanation of the development of consciousness, but it was at the price ofignoring the spiritual and unknown part of reality. Such a deformation of real-ity has serious consequences. Thus, Socrates was right to proclaim that he knewthat he knew nothing and thereby preserved openness to philosophic questions.

The Gnostic urge is a consistent occurrence throughout human history.Voegelin had read about many movements in ancient and medieval eras thatwere described as Gnostic by current scholars, and he realized the connectionwith modern Gnosticism while reading Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Prometheus(1937). Another influence was, Ferdinand Christian Baur’s 1835 work, Diechristliche Gnosis; oder, die christliche Religionsphilosophie in ihrer geschicht-lichen Entwicklung. It described common forms of Gnosticism in history, in-cluding strands of Gnosticism in Hegel and Schelling.62 Still, a theory of themovement of ideas fails to explain any connection or influence from one Gnos-tic movement to another over the span of millennia. For example, it did notmake sense that Marx and Hitler were directly influenced by reading aboutancient Gnosticism. He came to believe that the answer to understanding theappeal of Gnosticism lies in human consciousness. Thus, Voegelin was able to

61 Ibid., 167.62 Autobiographical Reflections, 66. Gilles Quispel considered it “obvious” that Jung was a

gnostic.

168 Clifford F. Porter

understand why ideologies only sometimes appear similar to religions and whyGnosticism is a consistent phenomenon throughout history.

Gnosticism has often penetrated into Christian symbolism because Chris-tianity expanded both spiritually and politically, and many Christians were notsatisfied with the tenuous bond of Faith. Ancient Gnosticism is commonly un-derstood to be an early form of Christian heresy of the second century AD.63

Voegelin, however, separated ancient Gnostic forms from Christian symbol-ism to reveal Gnosticism’s essence as a search for absolute knowledge aboutexistence and applied it to the modern era to show that ideologies were secularGnostic speculations.

Gnostic speculation does not require Christian symbolism, but throughoutmost of European history Christian and Gnostic symbols were mixed together.For example, an important medieval form of Christian Gnosticism is evident inthe thought of the twelfth century monk Joachim of Flora. In Political Reli-gions Voegelin theorized that Joachim began the trend in the history of ideasthat the temporal community had divine qualities. By the time he wrote TheNew Science of Politics, Voegelin understood Joachim’s philosophy as a mani-festation of early Gnosticism. Joachim theorized that God’s will was revealedin the course of history in three Realms representing the Trinity. Joachim ex-emplifies Gnosticism in that his linear, triadic view of history attempted toshow how God’s will is revealed on Earth; certain knowledge is attained anduncertainty is avoided.64

The symbolism of three Realms of history is an often repeated concept thatis evident in Hitler’s Third Reich, Hegel, the Enlightenment encyclopedists,Condorcet, Marx, and even in Tsarist Moscow’s claim to be the Third Rome.Voegelin’s earlier error was to think that this idea had a direct connection fromJoachim through the Enlightenment to Marx and Nazism. Voegelin’s realiza-tion was that the various symbols of three realms—the past, the present, andthe realization of an ideological goal in the future—are similar because theyconveniently help to explain the alleged progress of history. The progress ofhistory, then, replaces the reliance on faith and revelation and becomes themeans of revealing meaning in human existence.65

The form of Gnosticism in any given age is dependent on the symbolism ofthe era. Gnosticism during the Reformation is clearly represented by some ex-treme English Puritans. Using the contemporary analysis by Richard Hooker inOf the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (written 1593-1600), Voegelin demon-strated in detail how the Puritans’ vision of divine order was in fact an earthlyone in which the members of the chosen elite actively served to enforce theirvision on the rest of society. In fact they arrogated to themselves the function of

63 For example a brief discussion of the heresy is included in Frederick J. Copleston, S.J., AHistory of Philosophy (Westminster, Md., 1950), II, 20-25.

64 The New Science of Politics, 123.65 Autobiographical Reflections, 62-64.

Voegelin’s Interpretations of Nazi Extremism 169

enforcing God’s will because salvation would occur within an earthly commu-nity.66 “The only righteous course will be the one that results in ‘suppressingthe enemies of godliness for ever.”67 That most Puritans did not respond to thelogical rationale for violence is testimony to the power of traditional Christianmorality and restraints on violence which prevented many Puritans from fullydeveloping the Gnostic rationale. Also, pragmatically, the reality of the politi-cal strength of the Puritans’ opponents prevented the more radical Puritansfrom trying fully to implement their visions of Earthly salvation; they mayhave been Gnostic, but they were not suicidal.68

Modern Gnostic ideologies share much of the essential characteristics ofthe Puritans, seeking certainty within the community or state but not necessar-ily within Christian or other religious symbolism. The secular state or commu-nity comes to represent the modern Gnostics’ interpretation of existence. Allsocieties have claimed to represent the reality of existence. For example, inancient empires understanding of the cosmos came from observing the rationaland predictable movement of the stars—these Voegelin refers to as cosmologi-cal symbols of existential representation. In ancient Athens philosophy, re-vealed to man through reason, supplanted the cosmos, and Socrates and Platointroduced anthropological representation, which is the second mode. Finally,with the advent of Christianity, the purpose of man’s existence is conceptual-ized as salvation. Christian Europe develops, in St. Augustine’s City of God, asoteriological69 representation for society—the purpose of society is to main-tain stability, peace, and order so that Christians can pursue the meaning of life,salvation. Modern Gnostic movements are a deformed variant of the third modeof representation. In Voegelin’s phrase they “immanentize the eschaton” bybelieving that the state or community is the conduit for salvation from uncer-tainty.70

Voegelin’s central contention is that modern Gnostic ideologists perceivesociety in soteriological terms. It is just that they use secular categories andseek a secular salvation. In Political Religions Voegelin explained that the com-munity in European history had evolved to symbolize divine powers of salva-tion; the theory of modern Gnosticism goes beyond religious symbolism toreveal that ideologists believe the state is the means to achieve certainty interms of creating a perfect community (e.g., Comte’s or Saint Simon’s utopiancommunities) or the end of history (e.g., Hegel’s rational existence). The Ger-man Volk gave meaning to the National Socialists and the Communist orderproposed to end alienation and allow the proletariat to develop to its fullest

66 The New Science of Politics, 145.67 Ibid., 150. Another example of Reformation Gnostic movements is the movement led by

Thomas Mòntzer discussed in Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (New York, 19612).68 Voegelin goes into great detail about the similarities of Puritan ideologists with modern

forms, ibid., “Gnostic Revolution—The Puritan Case,” chapter 5.69 From the Greek soterios (swthrioz) meaning salvation.70 The New Science of Politics, 120.

170 Clifford F. Porter

potential of material consciousness. For both Nazism and Communism, as wellas for the radical Puritans, it was the community that offered salvation frommeaningless existence. But simply and arbitrarily declaring that the Volk or“history” offered salvation (eschaton) does not make the declaration true. Theyare hypostatizations. Believing in them is an act of faith which, in Voegelin’slanguage, creates a dream world.71

Lastly, modern Gnostic ideologies are inherently violent. In Political Reli-gions Voegelin used Machiavelli’s classic formulation that “the end justifiesthe means” to demonstrate that ideologies logically move toward violence.Voegelin used the example of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s test for what means arejustifiable to spread Catholicism, “... earthly means may contain nothing whichis inconsistent with the sacred purpose.”72 The Jesuits were thereby limitedwithin Christian moral teachings. But in modern Gnostic movements the com-munity or state itself is the end. Therefore, the worldly community that re-places God can demand any means for the good of the ideology. Furthermore,the actions of men can aid the progress of history towards its end by directaction— “an event that requires his military co-operation.”73 Thus all of theseactions, from the propaganda of Rosenberg’s “organic truth” to violence, areviewed as moral means to achieve the end.74

Furthermore, as shown in Political Religions, the end community has natu-ral enemies, such as the “anti-idea.” The “anti-idea” parallels Satan in Chris-tian symbolism. After World War II Voegelin went beyond this parallel toexplain how the anti-idea becomes a focus of violence. Because ideologies arealienated from reality, any or anything that demonstrates the ideologies’ alien-ation from reality is met with resistance; as the separation from reality growsso does the resistance. Voegelin writes, “types of actions which in the realworld would be considered as morally insane because of the real effects whichthey have will be considered moral in the dream world because they intendedan entirely different effect.”75

Examples of actions that are “morally insane” are the murder of the Jewsby the Nazis or collectivization by Stalin. In the former the Jews represent theanti-idea to the German Volk: they hindered the fullness of the German nationand thereby denied the very meaning of existence for the Volk. In the latter theKulaks (wealthier peasants) suffered from a bourgeois consciousness that re-sisted socialism and oppressed other peasants, thereby preventing the realiza-tion of the people’s consciousness in socialist production. In both cases vio-lence was morally justified to preserve or enhance the ideology.

71 Ibid., 120.72 Political Religions, 65.73 The New Science of Politics, 145.74 See, e.g., the analyses of millenarianism by Michael Walzer, Revolution of the Saints: A

Study in the Origins of Radical Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1965); and Norman Cohn, The Pur-suit of the Millennium (New York, 1970).

75 Ibid., 169.

Voegelin’s Interpretations of Nazi Extremism 171

Not everyone who accepts the Gnostic ideology moves toward the rationalconclusion that violence is necessary. Christian Gnosticism is still within Chris-tian symbols, including the principle of turning the other cheek. Within secularideological movements, however, the danger of violence is much closer. Thegreatest restraint is the sobering reality of the physical power of opposition.Radical movements were often repressed, and Hitler’s or Stalin’s strategiesand tactics were calculated with clear recognition of the forces arrayed againstthem. Nevertheless, eventually, once in power, their ideological vision led themtoward violent policies.

Gnosticism is not the only cause of violence. Violence was acceptable insome of the cultural symbolism of Europe, from the Crusades to the “Just War”tradition. Both the apocalyptic tradition, revitalized by the Reformation, andNietzsche’s “will to power” contributed further to the Nazis’ rationalizationsfor violence. Nevertheless, Voegelin recognized that the root of ideologicalextremism lay in human consciousness: the desire for certainty and a releasefrom the uncertainty of existence, coupled with the limiting of consciousnessand reality to temporal existence, led to the desire to forcibly make a dreamworld into reality. The consequences were, in the case of Hitler, the Holocaust,and in the case of Stalin, the forced collectivizations and the Great Purges.

Presidio of Monterey.