Postmortem Report

by Tomislav Sunic

  19. Louis Rougier, Celse contre les chrétiens (Paris: Copernic, 1977), 67, 89. Also, Sanford Lakoff, “Christianity and Equality”, in Equality, ed. J. Roland Pennock and John W. Chapaman (New York: Atherton, 1967), 128–30.

  20. Alain de Benoist, “L’Eglise, L’Europe et le Sacré”, in Pour une renaissance culturelle (Paris: Copernic, 1979), 202.

  21. Louis Rougier, Celse, 88.

  22. Comment peut-on être païen?, 170, 26. De Benoist has been at odds with the so-called neo-conservative “nouveaux philosophes”, who attacked his paganism on the grounds that it was a tool of intellectual anti-Semitism, racism, and totalitarianism. In his response, de Benoist levels the same criticism against the “nouveaux philosophes.” See “Monothéisme-polythéisme: le grand debat”, Le Figaro Magazine, 28 April 1979, 83: “Like Horkheimer, like Ernest Bloch, like Levinas, like René Girard, what B. H. Lévy desires is less ‘audacity,’ less ideal, less politics, less power, less of the State, less of history. What he expects is the accomplishment of history, the end of all adversity (the adversity to which corresponds the Hegelian Gegenständlichkeit), disincarnate justice, the universal peace, the disappearance of frontiers, the birth of a homogenous society…”

  23. Ernest Renan, Histoire générale des langues sémitiques (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1853), 6.

  24. Mircae Eliade, Histoire des croyances et des idées religieuses (Paris: Payot, 1976), 1:369, passim.

  25. Jean-Marie Domenach, Le retour du tragique (Paris: édition du Seuil, 1967), 44–45.

  26. Jean Haudry, Les Indo-Européens (Paris: PUF, 1981), 68.

  27. Hans. K. Günther, The Religious Attitude of Indo-Europeans, trans. Vivian Bird and Roger Pearson (London: Clair Press, 1966), 21.

  28. Alain de Benoist and Pierre Vial, La Mort (Paris: ed. Le Labyrinthe, 1983), 15.

  29. Giorgio Locchi, “L’histoire”, Nouvelle Ecole 27/28 (1975):183–90.

  30. Sigrid Hunke, La vraie religion de l’Europe, trans. Claudine Glot and Jean-Louis Pesteil (Paris: Le Labyrinthe, 1985), 253, 274. The book was first published under the title Europas eigene Religion: Der Glaube der Ketzer (Bergisch Gladbach: Gustav Lubbe, 1980).

  31. Mircae Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return or, Cosmos and History, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1965), 106–7.

  32. Pierre Chaunu, Histoire et foi (Paris: Edition France-Empire, 1980), quoted by de Benoist, Comment peut-on être païen? 109.

  33. Michel Maffesoli, La violence totalitaire (Paris: PUF, 1979), 228–29.

  34. See Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now (New York: Scribner’s, 1963), 41, passim. “Shrug of eternity” are the last words Arthur Koestler uses in his novel Darkness at Noon (New York: Modern Library, 1941), 267.

  35. Georgio Locchi, et al., “Über den Sinn der Geschichte”, Das unvergängliche Erbe (Tübingen: Grabert Verlag, 1981), 223.

  36. Walter Scott, A New Look at Biblical Crime (New York: Dorset Press, 1979), 59.

  37. Comment peut-on être païen? 157–58.

  38. Mircea Eliade, Histoire des croyances, 1:194.

  Part II: Cultural Pessimism

  History and Decadence: Spengler’s Cultural Pessimism Today

  1. In the case of the European “New Right”, see Jean Cau, Discours de la décadence (Paris: Copernic, 1978), Julien Freund, La décadence: histoire sociologique et philosophique d’une expérience humaine (Paris: Sirey, 1984), and Pierre Chaunu, Histoire et décadence (Paris: Perrin, 1981). In the case of authors of “leftist sensibility”, see Jean Baudrillard’s virulent attack against simulacra and hyperreality in America: Amérique (Paris: Grasset, 1986); in English, America, trans. Chris Turner (New York, London: Verso, 1988) and Jean-François Huyghe, La soft-idéologie (Paris: Laffont, 1987). There is a certain Spenglerian whiff in Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism (New York: Warner Books, 1979), and probably in Richard Lamm, Megatraumas: America at the Year 2000 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985). About European cultural conservatives see my Against Democracy and Equality: The European New Right (London: Arktos Media Ltd, 2011).

  2. See Spengler’s critic and admirer Heinrich Scholz, Zum “Untergang des Abendlandes” (Berlin: von Reuther and Reichard, 1920). Scholz conceives of history as polycentric occurrences concentrated in creative archetypes. (117). My trans.

  3. Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, trans. Charles Francis Atkinson, 2 vols. (1926; New York: Knopf, 1976), 1:21. My text, however, contains my own translations from Der Untergang des Abendlandes (München: Beck, 1923), 1:28–29. Citations hereafter are in the text, in parentheses, giving references to these two editions, respectively.

  4. Vilfredo Pareto, “Dangers of Socialism”, in The Other Pareto, ed. Placido Bucolo, trans. Gillian and Placido Bucolo, pre. Ronald Fletcher (New York: St. Martin’s, 1980). Pareto writes: “There are some people who imagine that they can disarm the enemy by complacent flattery. They are wrong. The world has always belonged to the stronger and will belong to them for many years to come. Men only respect those who make themselves respected. Whoever becomes a lamb will find a wolf to eat him” (125). In a similar vein, Gustave le Bon, Psychologie politique (1911; Paris: Les Amis de G. L. Bon, 1984), writes: “Wars among nations have, by the way, always been the source of the most important progress. Which pacifist people has ever played any role in history?” (79). My trans.

  5. John Lukacs, The Passing of the Modern Age (New York: Harper, 1970), 10, 9.

  6. Claude Polin, L’esprit totalitaire (Paris: Sirey, 1977), 111. My trans.

  7. Claude Polin, Le totalitarisme (Paris: Presses Universitaires Françaises, 1982) argues that egalitarianism, universalism and economism are the three pivots of totalitarianism: “Totalitarian power is first and foremost the power of all against all; the tyranny of all against all. Totalitarian society is not constructed from the top down to the bottom, but from the bottom up to the top” (117). My trans.

  8. “Is World Peace Possible” in Selected Essays, trans. Donald O. White (1936: Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1967), 207.

  9. Serge Latouche, L’occidentalisation du monde (Paris: La Découverte, 1989), 9. My trans. About Westerners’ self-hate and self-denial, see Alain de Benoist, Europe, Tiers monde même combat (Paris: Laffont, 1986): “And whereas Christian universalism had once contributed to the justification of colonization, Christian pastoralism today inspires decolonization. This ‘mobilization of consciences’ crystallizes itself around the notion of culpability.” The colonized is no longer “a primitive” who ought to be “led to civilization.” Rather, he is a living indictment, indeed, an example of an immaculate morality from whom the “civilized” has much to learn (62). See also Pascal Bruckner, Le sanglot de l’homme blanc; Tiers monde, culpabilité, haine de soi (Paris: Seuil, 1983), 13: for the bleeding-heart liberal Westerner “the birth of the Third world gave birth to this new category; expiatory militantism.” My trans.

  10. Spengler, “Pessimismus”, Reden and Aufsätze (München: Beck, 1937), 70; in English, “Pessimism?” in Selected Essays, 143.

  11. Konrad Lorenz, The Waning of Humaneness (Boston: Little, Brown, 1987), 58–59.

  12. It would be impossible to enumerate all cultural pessimists who usually identify themselves as heroic pessimists, often as conservative revolutionaries, or aristocratic nihilists. Poets and novelists of great talent such as Gottfried Benn, Louis F. Céline, Ezra Pound, and others, were very much inspired by Oswald Spengler. See Gottfried Benn, “Pessimismus”, in Essays und Aufsätze (Wiesbaden: Limes, 1959): “Man is not alone, thinking is alone. Thinking is self-bound and solitary” (357). See also the apocalyptic prose of Ernst Jünger, An der Zeitmauer (Werke) (Stuttgart: Klett, 1959): “It seems that cyclical system corresponds to our spirit. We make round-shaped watches, although there is no logical compulsion behind it. And even catastrophes are viewed as recurrent, as for example floods and drought, fire-age and ice-age” (460–61). My trans.

  13. Friedrich Sieburg, Die Lust am Untergang (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1954), 54. My t
rans.

  Emile Cioran and the Culture of Death

  1. Emile Cioran, Syllogismes de l’amertume (Paris: Gallimard, 1952), p. 72 (my trans.).

  2. De l’inconvénient d’etre né (Paris: Gallimard, 1973), p. 161–162. (my trans.) (The Trouble with Being Born, translated by Richard Howard: Seaver Bks., 1981).

  3. Cioran, Le mauvais démiurge (Paris: Gallimard, 1969), p. 63. (my trans.).

  4. Syllogismes de l’amertume, p. 87 (my trans.). 5. Ibid., p. 176.

  6. De l’inconvénient d’etre né, p. 11 (my trans.). 7. Ibid., p. 29.

  8. Ibid., p. 23.

  9. Ibid., p. 141.

  10. Syllogismes de l’amertume, p. 61 (my trans.).

  11. La tentation d’exister, (Paris: Gallimard, 1956), p. 37–38 (my trans.) (The Temptation to Exist, translated by Richard Howard; Seaver Bks., 1986).

  12. Syllogismes de l’amertume, p. 151 (my trans.). 13. Ibid., p. 156.

  14. Ibid., p. 158.

  15. Histoire et utopie (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), p. 59. (my trans.) (History and Utopia, trans. by Richard Howard, Seaver Bks., 1987).

  16. Syllogismes de l’amertume, p. 154 (my trans.)

  17. Ibid., p. 86.

  18. De l’inconvénient d’etre né, p. 154 (my trans.).

  19. Ibid. p. 155.

  20. Syllogismes de l’amertume, p. 109.

  21. Histoire et utopie (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), p. 14 (my trans.).

  Part III: Race / The Third Reich

  The Destruction of Ethnic Germans and German Prisoners of War in Yugoslavia, 1945–1953

  1. Mads Ole Balling, Von Reval bis Bukarest (Copenhagen: Hermann-Niermann-Stiftung, 1991), vol. I and vol. II.

  2. L. Barwich, F. Binder, M. Eisele, F. Hoffmann, F. Kühbauch, E. Lung, V. Oberkersch, J. Pertschi, H. Rakusch, M. Reinsprecht, I. Senz, H. Sonnleitner, G. Tscherny, R. Vetter, G. Wildmann, and others, Weissbuch der Deutschen aus Jugoslawien: Erlebnisberichte 1944–48 (Munich: Universitäts Verlag, Donauschwäbische Kulturstiftung, 1992, 1993), vol. I, vol. II.

  3. On Croatia’s armed forces during World War II, and its destruction after 1945 by the Yugoslav Communists, see, Christophe Dolbeau, Les Forces armées croates, 1941–1945 (Lyon [BP 5005, 69245 Lyon cedex 05, France]: 2002). On the often critical attitude of German military and diplomatic officials toward the allied Ustasha regime of the Independent State of Croatia (“NDH”), see Klaus Schmider, Partisanenkrieg in Jugoslawien 1941–1944 (Hamburg: Verlag E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 2002). This book includes an impressive bibliography, and cites hitherto unpublished German documents. Unfortunately, the author does not provide precise data as to the number of German troops (including Croat civilians and troops) who surrendered to British forces in southern Austria, and who were subsequently handed over to the Yugoslav Communist authorities. The number of Croat captives who perished after 1945 in Communist Yugoslavia remains an emotion-laden topic in Croatia, with important implications for the country’s domestic and foreign policy.

  4. Anton Scherer, Manfred Straka, Kratka povijest podunavskih Nijemaca/ Abriss zur Geschichte der Donauschwaben (Graz: Leopold Stocker Verlag/ Zagreb: Pan Liber, 1999), esp. p. 131; Georg Wildmann, and others, Genocide of the Ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia 1944–1948 (Santa Ana, Calif.: Danube Swabian Association of the U.S.A., 2001), p. 31.

  5. A. Scherer, M. Straka, Kratka povijest podunavskih Nijemaca/ Abriss zur Geschichte der Donauschwaben (1999), pp. 132–140.

  6. Georg Wildmann, and others, Verbrechen an den Deutschen in Jugoslawien, 1944–48 (Munich: Donauschwäbische Kulturstiftung, 1998), esp. pp. 312–313. Based on this is the English-language work: Georg Wildmann, and others, Genocide of the Ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia 1944–1948 (Santa Ana, Calif.: Danube Swabian Association of the U.S.A., 2001).

  7. G. Wildmann, and others, Verbrechen an den Deutschen in Jugoslawien, 1944–48, esp. p. 274.

  8. Wendelin Gruber, In the Claws of the Red Dragon: Ten Years Under Tito’s Heel (Toronto: St. Michaelswerk, 1988). Translated from German by Frank Schmidt. In 1993, the ailing Fr. Gruber returned to Croatia from exile in Paraguay, to spend his final years in a Jesuit monastery in Zagreb. I spoke with him shortly before his death on August 14, 2002, at the age of 89.

  9. Stéphane Courtois, and others, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1999).

  10. G. Wildmann, and others, Verbrechen an den Deutschen in Jugoslawien (cited above), p. 22.

  11. Armin Preuss, Prinz Eugen: Der edle Ritter (Berlin: Grundlagen Verlag, 1996).

  12. Otto Kumm, Geschichte der 7. S.S.-Freiwilligen Gebirgs-Division “Prinz Eugen” (Coburg: Nation Europa, 1995).

  13. Roland Kaltenegger, Titos Kriegsgefangene: Folterlager, Hungermärsche und Schauprozesse (Graz : Leopold Stocker Verlag, 2001).

  14. Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, Nemesis at Potsdam: The Expulsion of the Germans from the East (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska, 1989 [3rd rev. ed.]); Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, The German Expellees: Victims in War and Peace (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993); Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, A Terrible Revenge: The “Ethnic Cleansing” of the East European Germans, 1944–1950 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994); Ralph F. Keeling, Gruesome Harvest: The Allies’ Postwar War Against the German People (Institute for Historical Review, 1992).

  15. Tomislav Sunic, Titoism and Dissidence: Studies in the History and Dissolution of Communist Yugoslavia (Frankfurt, New York: Peter Lang, 1995).

  Part IV: Liberalism and Democracy

  Democracy Revisited: The Ancients and the Moderns

  1. George Orwell, Selected Essays (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1957), p. 149.

  2. François Guizot, De la démocratie en France (Paris: Masson, 1849), p. 9.

  3. Georges Burdeau observes that judging by appearances, in terms of their federal organization, the institutions of the Soviet Union are similar to those of the United States, and in terms of its governmental system the Soviet Union is similar to England. La démocratie (Paris : Seuil, 1966), p. 141.

  4. T. S. Eliot, The Idea of a Christian Society (London: Faber & Faber, 1939).

  5. Bertrand de Jouvenel, Du pouvoir (Geneva : Cheval ailé‚ 1945), p. 411.

  6. Giovanni Sartori, Democratic Theory (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1962), p. 3.

  7. “Les démocrates ombrageux”, Contrepoint (December 1976), p. 111.

  8. Other authors have held exactly the opposite opinion. For Schleiermacher, democracy is a “primitive” political form in contrast to monarchy, which is thought to correspond to the demands of the modern state.

  9. “Le pouvoir des idées en démocratie”, Pouvoir (May 1983), p. 145.

  10. Significantly, it was with the beginning of the inquiry into the origins of the French monarchy that the nobility, under Louis XIV, began to challenge the principles of monarchy.

  11. The word “thing”, which designated the parliament, derives from the Germanic word that connoted originally “everything that is gathered together.” The same word gave birth to the English “thing” (German Ding: same meaning). It seems that this word designated the assembly in which public matters, then affairs of a general nature, and finally “things” were discussed.

  12. “Les fondements de l’État libre d’Icelande: trois siècles de démocratie médiévale”, in Nouvelle Ecole 25–26 (Winter 1974–75), pp. 68–73.

  13. Les Scandinaves (Paris: Lidis [Brepols], 1984), p. 613.

  14. Cf. P. M. Martin, L’idée de royauté à Rome. De la Rome royale au consensus républicain (Clermont-Ferrand: Adosa, 1983).

  15. Here “democracy”, as in the case of peasants’ freedoms as well, already included social demands, although not “class struggle” — a concept ignored by ancient democracy. In the Middle Ages the purpose of such demands was to give voice to those who were excluded from power. But it often happened that “democracy” could be used against the people. In medieval Florence, social strife between the popolo grosso and the popolo minuto was particularly brisk. On this Fra
ncesco Nitti writes: “The reason the working classes of Florence proved lukewarm in defense of their liberty and sympathized instead with the Medicis was because they remained opposed to democracy, which they viewed as a concept of the rich bourgeoisie.” Francesco Nitti, La démocratie, vol. 1 (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1933, p. 57).

  16. This opinion is shared by the majority of students of ancient democracies. Thus, Victor Ehrenberg sees in Greek democracy a “form of enlarged aristocracy.” Victor Ehrenberg, L’état grec (Paris: Maspéro, 1976), p. 94.

  17. Pius XII, 1944 Christmas Message: http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P12XMAS.HTM.

  18. M. Robespierre, “On Political Morality”, speech to the Convention, February 5, 1794: http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/413/

  19. On this debate, see the essay by Luciano Guerci, “Liberta degli antichi e liberta dei moderni”, in Sparta, Atene e i ‘philosophes’ nella Francia del Setecento (Naples: Guido, 1979).

  20. Camille Desmoulins, speech to the Convention, March 31, 1794. It is significant that contemporary democrats appear to be more inclined to favor Athens. Sparta, in contrast, is denounced for its “war-like spirit.” This change in discourse deserves a profound analysis.

  21. Cf., for example, the essay by Moses Finley, Démocratie antique et démocratie moderne (Paris: Payot, 1976), which is both an erudite study and a pamphlet of great contemporary relevance. The study is prefaced by Pierre Vidal-Naquet, who, among other errors, attributes to Julien Freund (see n. 7, above) positions that are exactly the very opposite of those stated in the preface.

  22. To cite Thucydides: “Thanks to his untainted character, the depth of his vision, and boundless disinterestedness, Pericles exerted on Athens an incontestable influence.… Since he owed his prestige only to honest means, he did not have to truckle to popular passions.… In a word, democracy supplied the name; but in reality, it was the government of the first citizen.” (Peloponnesian War II, 65)