From Machiavellism to the Holocaust The Ethical-Political Historiography of George L. Mosse Inauguraldissertation der Philosophisch-historischen Fakultät der Universität Bern zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde vorgelegt von Karel Plessini Italien Akademisches Jahr 2008/2009 Hauptgutachterin: Prof. Dr. Marina Cattaruzza Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Emilio Gentile 1 Contents INTRODUCTION: THE SERPENT AND THE DOVE...................................................................... 6 The Link Between Life and Work..................................................................................................... 11 The Devil's Advocate.......................................................................................................................... 13 Mosse the Scholar................................................................................................................................ 15 Pioneering Cultural History................................................................................................................ 18 Machiavellism and the Holocaust...................................................................................................... 19 I – FROM MACHIAVELLISM TO TOTALITARIANISM.................................................................... 23 At the Edge of Catastrophe: George Mosse and Politics............................................................ 26 Sir Edward Coke and the Fate of Liberalism: A Fighter in a Lost Cause?................................. 30 The New Leviathan............................................................................................................................ 33 The Serpent and the Dove: The Question of Political Morality................................................. 36 From Machiavellism to National Socialism..................................................................................... 41 II – BEYOND THE HISTORY OF INTELLECTUALS........................................................................ 43 The Turn to Popular Culture............................................................................................................ 46 A Ghost Come Alive.......................................................................................................................... 52 The Problem of Consensus.............................................................................................................. 53 Between Consensus and Propaganda.............................................................................................. 55 A Revolution of Nihilism?................................................................................................................. 56 From Nihilism to Liturgy.................................................................................................................... 60 The Religion of Fascism..................................................................................................................... 63 Beyond the History of Intellectuals.................................................................................................. 66 III - THE ROOTS OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL AND VISUAL TURN................................... 71 The “Anthropological Turn”: The Idea of Myth........................................................................... 76 Georges Sorel............................................................................................................ 77 Carl Gustav Jung, Psychology and the Unconscious.......................................... 80 Claude Lévi-Strauss, the Masses and Irrationality................................................ 84 Mosse, Myth and the German-Jewish Heritage................................................... 86 An Eclectic Approach to Myth.............................................................................. 91 2 The “Visual Turn”: Architecture and the Baroque......................................................................... 92 The Baroque and Mass Movements....................................................................... 95 Thomas Nipperdey................................................................................................... 99 Albert Speer............................................................................................................... 101 With the Students in the 1960s......................................................................................................... 104 IV – THE MISSING LINK: THE NATIONALIST REVOLUTION.................................................. 111 The “New Politics”.............................................................................................................................. 112 The Building Blocks of a General Theory: Fascism as Revolution............................................. 118 Fascism as a Nationalist Movement: The Missing Link................................................................. 126 Toward New Perspectives................................................................................................................... 131 V – THE DARK SIDE OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT......................................................................... 133 The “Dialectic of the Enlightenment”............................................................................................. 138 The Failure of the Enlightenment.................................................................................................... 140 Toward the Final Solution.................................................................................................................. 145 The History of Sexuality..................................................................................................................... 151 “George's Voice”................................................................................................................................. 160 VI - FROM MACHIAVELLISM TO THE HOLOCAUST..................................................................... 162 Machiavellism, Nihilism and the Holocaust.................................................................................... 168 Respectability and the Holocaust...................................................................................................... 173 The “New Man” Between Myth and Reality................................................................................... 179 Concluding Remarks: The “Ideal Bourgeois” Reconsidered........................................................ 182 VII – THE “MISSION OF JUDAISM”....................................................................................................... 187 George Mosse, Zionism and the Reality of Israel.......................................................................... 188 The Rediscovery of a German-Jewish Tradition............................................................................ 192 Between Nationalism and Patriotism................................................................................................ 196 The “True Mission of Judaism”........................................................................................................ 202 George Mosse and Jewish History.................................................................................................... 206 VIII – FASCISM BETWEEN INTERPRETATION AND SELF-REPRESENTATION............... 209 The Fear of Ideology.......................................................................................................................... 212 Mosse and the Category of “Totalitarianism”................................................................................ 217 The World Through the Eyes of Its Faiths..................................................................................... 219 3 IX – THE GRANITIC FOUNDATION OF A FAITH........................................................................... 228 The “Continuity of Interests”............................................................................................................ 234 The Dialectic of History..................................................................................................................... 240 Culture, Popular Piety and Ideology.................................................................................................. 244 The History of Perceptions................................................................................................................ 248 The History of Mediated Human Perceptions............................................................................... 251 Mosse and Croce.................................................................................................................................. 254 Mosse and Hegel.................................................................................................................................. 258 The Role of Empathy: The Way People Think............................................................................... 261 The Rational and the Irrational: Further Considerations............................................................... 262 The Mind of the Historian................................................................................................................. 264 CONCLUSION: GEORGE MOSSE'S LEGACY...................................................................................... 267 Mosse's Work Between Recognition and Neglect..........................................................................