About the Work
This volume collects the surviving correspondence of Oswald Spengler, the German philosopher of history, spanning the years from 1913 to 1936. The letters were assembled by Spengler’s sister, Frau Hildegard Kornhardt, and her daughter, Fräulein Dr. Hildegard Kornhardt, who preserved what remained of a correspondence that was never complete. Much of it perished in the war, and Spengler himself, notoriously averse to letter-writing and often short of paper, cut up letters for notes—a fate that also befell portions of his masterpiece’s manuscript. Letters that could have endangered him during the Hitler period, particularly after June 30, 1934, were destroyed by him and later by his heirs.
The collection includes letters to family members, close friends, publishers, fellow intellectuals, and public figures, as well as a number of replies from correspondents. Among the recipients and senders are Walther Rathenau, Hans Vaihinger, Adolf von Harnack, Hermann Graf Keyserling, Sven Hedin, Crown Prince William, Erich Ludendorff, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, and Alfred von Tirpitz. The introduction, written by A. M. Koktenek, provides biographical context and an assessment of Spengler’s character and thought. The correspondence itself is unevenly distributed across the years, with dense clusters during the First World War and the early Weimar period, when Spengler was most politically engaged, and thinner coverage elsewhere.
Spengler died unexpectedly from a heart attack on the night of May 7-8, 1939, before reaching age fifty-six. He left behind a body of work that had made him one of the most controversial and widely discussed intellectuals of his generation, and these letters offer a window into the private man behind the public controversies.
Context
Spengler lived through three revolutions: the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the German Revolution of 1918, and the National Socialist seizure of power in 1933. His letters track his responses to each of these upheavals, as well as to the First World War, which he both foresaw and misjudged. As early as 1911, during the Morocco crisis, he was horrified by the stupidity of German policy, believing that the world war had actually begun then. He foresaw the war itself but not Germany’s defeat. He regarded 1911 as parallel to the Punic Wars, casting Germany as the classical world, Berlin as his Rome, Prussia as his Latium, and Germany as his Italy. He quoted Cecil Rhodes: “Expansion is everything.”
The Versailles Treaty aroused a spirit of revenge in Germany, and the war guilt paragraphs represented a novelty in international law. The “stab in the back” legend appeared, dividing the country. The Munich war memorial inscription read: “Invictis victis victuri”—those who will conquer to the unconquered conquered. Spengler prophesied democracy’s collapse, believing that the best Germans awaited a man with full power to remove anyone restricting that power, establishing what he called “the freedom of the Great Personality.”
His relationship to National Socialism was one of rejection. He did not believe in race theory. Hitler did not appeal to him as the hoped-for leader; their one interview in Bayreuth in 1933 disappointed Spengler. He opposed the Beer Hall Putsch as a venture bound to fail that would delight the French. He warned youth that national politics were being treated as “inebriation,” but observed that “trumpeters are hardly generals.” In 1932 he said the pathfinder must be a “real hero, not an operatic hero.” He called the Nazi party “the organization of the unemployed by the workshy.” He hoped Gregor Strasser would improve matters, but Strasser was killed in June 1934. Spengler scented in Hitler the plebeian mass-man, failing to see that Caesarism rises on mass enthusiasm.
The letters also document Spengler’s personal circumstances: his poverty during the war years, his chronic health problems—headaches, angina, lung inflammation—his difficulty finding adequate housing in Munich, and his struggles to complete his magnum opus under conditions of material hardship and political turmoil. They show a man who felt lifelong misunderstanding, who belonged to the “misunderstood and hated,” and who believed that understanding requires “a new generation born with the ability to understand.”
Structure of the Book
The book is organized chronologically, presenting Spengler’s correspondence from 1913 through 1936, with editorial notes and footnotes providing context, identifying individuals mentioned, and explaining references. The introduction by A. M. Koktenek offers a biographical and interpretive frame, discussing Spengler’s character, his philosophical self-conception, his political views and predictions, and his relation to National Socialism.
The correspondence itself falls into several broad phases. The earliest letters, from 1913 to 1914, are largely literary and aesthetic in content, discussing German prose style, the limitations of Kleist as a model, the merits of foreign writers such as Balzac, Stendhal, and Cervantes, and the state of contemporary German letters. Spengler is finishing his great work, The Decline of the West, and writes of his plans for completion.
With the outbreak of war in 1914, the letters shift to political and military analysis. Spengler writes optimistically about German prospects, discusses strategy, and reflects on the historical significance of the conflict. He compares Germany’s mission to Rome’s, and field-grey soldiers to Roman legions. He predicts the end of hostilities repeatedly—in the spring of 1915, the summer of 1916, the summer or autumn of 1918—and is repeatedly wrong.
The period from 1918 to 1924, when The Decline of the West appears and becomes a sensation, dominates the middle of the collection. Letters document the book’s reception, Spengler’s exchanges with admirers and critics, his political pamphleteering, and his behind-the-scenes efforts to influence policy, particularly regarding the Ruhr occupation and the Reparations question. He corresponds with industrialists like Paul Reusch, military figures like Ludendorff and Lettow-Vorbeck, and attempts to sway General Smuts on the Reparations total.
The later letters, from the mid-1920s into the 1930s, are sparser. They show Spengler’s growing disillusionment with the political situation, his rejection of National Socialism, and his withdrawal from the public fray. The collection ends with letters from 1936, three years before his death.
Inside the Book
The Introduction: A Life Understood Through Letters
The volume opens with an introduction by A. M. Koktenek, painting a portrait of Oswald Spengler in the years leading to his sudden death from a heart attack on the night of May 7-8, 1939, just before his fifty-sixth birthday. The collection itself was assembled by his sister, Frau Hildegard Kornhardt, and her daughter, Fräulein Dr. Hildegard Kornhardt, a task made difficult by the fact that much of his correspondence perished in the war. Spengler himself, often short of paper, would cut up letters for notes, a fate that also befell the manuscript of his masterpiece. More deliberately, letters that could have endangered him during the Hitler period, particularly after June 30, 1934, were destroyed by him and later by his heirs.
The introduction reveals a man who felt a lifelong sense of being misunderstood, belonging to the “misunderstood and hated.” He believed true understanding required “a new generation born with the ability to understand.” Despite his aversion to writing letters—a dislike that persisted from childhood, as he preferred interviews—his political letters were deliberately brief, often arranging meetings and using cipher for people. His sister noted this deep-seated reluctance. Yet, he was always ready to help others, acting as a go-between with publishers, correcting manuscripts, and promoting young talent, though he reacted sharply when deceived.
Spengler’s philosophical outlook was one of fatalistic struggle. He asserted that one cannot choose one’s birth into a definite century, country, or rank; one must adapt to this destiny. There are no “men per se,” only men of a certain time and place struggling with a predetermined world. He saw his own picture of the world as true “because it is identical with my life,” and unlike Ranke, who sought to exclude his personality, Spengler was present in every line. His political predictions were stark. He foresaw the Second World War, horrified by the stupidity of German policy during the 1911 Morocco crisis, which he believed marked the true beginning of the world war. He saw 1911 as parallel to the Punic Wars, with Berlin as his Rome and Prussia his Latium, and he prophesied the collapse of democracy, awaiting a “Great Personality” with full power.
Crucially, the introduction establishes Spengler’s rejection of National Socialism. He did not believe in Race-theory, and Hitler did not appeal to him as the hoped-for leader; their one interview in Bayreuth in 1933 left him disappointed. He opposed the Beer Hall Putsch as a venture bound to fail, warning youth that “trumpeters are hardly generals.” He called the Nazi party “the organization of the unemployed by the workshy” and hoped Gregor Strasser would improve matters, but Strasser was killed in June 1934. Spengler scented in Hitler the plebeian mass-man, failing to see that Caesarism rises on mass enthusiasm. This context of three revolutions—Bolshevik, German, and National Socialist—frames the letters that follow.
Early Letters: On Literature and the Coming War (1913-1915)
The early letters, beginning in 1913, are dominated by Spengler’s literary criticism and his evolving thoughts on the impending war. Writing to a correspondent who had acquired a writing table, he hopes no “literary trash” will be produced on it. He warns against studying Kleist’s stories as a model, calling this “hazardous,” and dismisses the century of “epigone literature” that followed. Kleist, he argues, was an “exceptional phenomenon,” artificial and tortured, suitable only for “mannerists” like Thomas Mann. Instead, he recommends foreign models: Balzac, Stendhal’s Italian Stories, and Cervantes, not for imitation but to see what is possible. He finds Thomas Mann’s sentimentality “false,” rooted in a Romantic “Belle-triste” sensibility.
By March 1914, Spengler is finishing the work begun two years prior, The Decline of the West. He declines a visit to Hamburg due to the damp climate, suggesting the Riviera instead. With the outbreak of war in October 1914, his letters turn optimistic and nationalistic. He believes Germany will win, and that Belgium’s possession is “an enormous gain.” He expects an African Colonial Empire and a possible invasion of England. He condemns Munich writers as dishonest former anarchists now peddling patriotic ecstasy, preferring practical workers and engineers to “voluble thinkers and poets.” He envies those who can volunteer but cites his own nervous weakness. By December, he sees the war as “not a decisive event, but the beginning of a tremendous epoch,” comparing Germany’s mission to Rome’s, with field-grey soldiers as sober as Roman legions.
In 1915, his letters continue to mix literary ambition with political prophecy. He proposes a novel in the grand style that would exhaust an epoch’s whole life, beginning with “dying romantic Germany”—Ludwig II, Nietzsche, and Boeklin—with Munich as its starting point, for “Germany means Berlin” henceforth. He regrets his correspondent’s war experiences of “dirt, hunger, and boredom,” and calls Italy’s entry into the war a “criminal act” that will lead to “a fearful awakening.” He encloses books by Ricarda Huch, Büchner, and Dostoievski, seeing in them the seeds of a new prose style and a drama for reading.
The War Years: Politics, Prose, and Personal Trials (1915-1916)
Throughout late 1915 and 1916, Spengler’s letters reveal a man grappling with the war’s progress and his own place in the world. He speculates on Hindenburg’s plans for a “Sedan” on the Russian army, which could lead to revolution. He defends German diplomacy, arguing that the “great powers” concept is ending, leaving only world powers: Germany, England, and Russia. He envisions a new Germany as “a second America,” an Imperium Romanum that is an “unscrupulous business venture.” He hopes for a new German master prose, a “Hindenburg style”—short, clear, and natural—citing Ricarda Huch as the closest to this ideal.
In September 1915, he congratulates his friend Klores on his promotion, expressing a shared longing to leave the thinker’s study for real life. He envies Napoleon, who realized his ideas without opposition. In November, he describes his terror at being ordered for a call-up examination, which he calls a “walk to execution.” He was rejected as unfit, but the experience transformed him; he worked day and night to transcribe his notes, fearing they would be illegible to others. Since then, he has become a new man, with his most successful ideas coming in October.
By May 1916, he predicts the end of hostilities late in the summer, foreseeing a central European industrial union from Brussels to Constantinople, with Berlin as its center of gravity, aligned against London-Washington. He defines world rule as a negative phenomenon—a lack of resistance on the other side—and plans to print the first volume of his book that summer, predicting it will enter literature “like an avalanche into a shallow lake.” In October, he praises Dostoievski as a writer for the next millennium’
The Consolations of Philosophy in Wartime
In an undated letter from around 1918, Spengler sought to console a correspondent suffering from “mental depression” over the war. He argued that the conflict’s “base, stupid, infamously prosaic quality” was not unique to their era but universal. Recommending Stendhal’s letters, edited by Schurig, he pointed out the striking similarity between the utterances of people during the campaigns of Jena, Wagram, and Moscow and the contemporary mood, suggesting the book offered hints for a possible “German novel of the great future.” He critiqued the “ideologue” who tries to experience great events with the clarity of historical distance, which only leads to “disgust with the world” and resignation. Contrasting the German, a “thorough sceptic” who laughs at himself, with the Frenchman, protected by “vanity and lack of scepticism,” he recalled the Sedan celebration of 1910 to argue that people never truly understand the events in which they participate. After four years of war, Germans had grown weary of the “great situation” and grumbled at their own accomplishments, as in 1814 and 1870, but a philosopher must see this mood as subjective, not an objective valuation.
The First Copies and Early Reactions
On 20 April 1918, Spengler sent the first copies of his book from Munich, asking the recipient to read it slowly, noting that only a beginning had been made and the world picture would be completed by a second volume and minor writings. A few weeks later, on 11 May, he thanked another correspondent for material gifts, especially tea, which he called a “magic remedy” for his nerves and philosophy. He predicted the war would end by summer or autumn, foreseeing a “factual German protectorate over the continent (as far as the Urals)” after disarmament and political demobilization. He praised German policy in the east, marveling at the prophecy of German, Finnish, Esthonian, and Ukrainian troops in conjunction at Wiborg, Narwa, Charkow, Rostow, and Sebastopol.
In a letter of 4 April 1918, Spengler offered condolences to Hilde Kornhardt on the death of her husband Fritz, his brother-in-law, killed in France, praising his selfless duty and encouraging her to find comfort in remembrance and her child’s future. He also sent a copy of his work to Walther Rathenau on 11 May, hoping for the opinion of an “eminent practical thinker” and expressing gratitude for Rathenau’s own writings on the present crisis. Rathenau acknowledged receipt on 15 May, promising to read it despite overwork but declining to offer a public criticism. Spengler similarly sent copies to Albert Erich Brinckmann, asking for press criticism, and to Oskar Lang, requesting his most important objections. He felt sure of his foundations, admitting he had been subjected to no criticism and lacked a library, and contrasting his own realism with Lang’s romanticism.
The Politics of Revolution and the Philosophy of History
Writing to Georg Misch on 27 December 1918, Spengler expressed reduced apprehension about Germany’s future, predicting a speedy end to the “mob revolution” due to the leaders’ incompetence. He anticipated the “approaching fiasco” of the National Assembly, whose “amateurism and majority ideology” would be met by Radicals’ machine guns, restoring the reputation of the monarchy, State authority, and military power. He referenced a “master race” bred since Frederick William I and expected much from “leader natures” hidden nameless in the middle class and respectable working class. Germany’s future, he argued, lay in “Prussian Conservatism” and a working class separated from the anarchistical radical mob, asserting that much blood must flow for such decisions.
In a follow-up on 5 January 1919, Spengler was gratified by Misch’s agreement with his basic metaphysical ideas of Life, Time, Fate, Space, and World. He argued that Relativism, or “Scepticism in the Faustian manner,” was a necessary sequence of this thinking. He found deeper scepticism in Goethe, from whom he derived his idea of independent, plant-like, individual cultures, rather than in Hegel’s belief in a steadily increasing stock of human potentialities. He claimed the “insatiable historical voracity” of the Western Mind began with Hegel, and that extensive historical knowledge leads to a perception of the void. He argued there had never been a real reawakening of a strange culture’s content—only a “mask” or “mould”—and that progressive development exists only inside an individual culture. He declined Misch’s suggestion of a professorship, citing a lack of technical knowledge and energy, and noting he was born at Blankenburg in the Harz in 1880 and must waste no time completing his life’s work.
Munich’s Turmoil and Personal Strains
On 3 February 1919, Spengler wrote to Hilde Kornhardt, apologizing for a delayed reply due to tooth trouble. He described Munich’s unstable political situation as a “peace before the storm,” with the Independents holding power despite losing the election, led by a “low Jewish journalist” as President (Kurt Eisner), a journeyman locksmith as Minister of Commerce, and a peddler leading the Soldiers’ Council. Danger came from the “rigidly Catholic peasantry armed with knives and scythes,” and he warned against underrating the religious factor, as priests viewed Lutheran heresy as a prelude to Spartacism. He advised against emigration to Austria due to famine and harsher Catholicism, recommending Württemberg for its food supply and evangelical Swabian Alps instead.
By 6 March 1919, Spengler confessed to Hans Kléres that he had worked seven years without relaxation and could not go on. The second volume was not ready; he felt exhausted and his intellectuality was wasted in “feuilletonism.” He sought a small society of fellow thinkers and had a medical certificate for Switzerland but needed 1,000 francs credit from an enthusiastic Swiss reader. Later that year, he complained to Kléres about Munich’s poor quality imported goods—broken chocolate, spotted cigars, and bad-smelling American hams—while necessary foodstuffs remained scarce. He described his apartment as damp-cold and almost unheatable, restricted to two rooms by a “rascally law from the time of the Soviet,” and disgusted with a city dirtier than a Polish village since the revolution.
Recognition, Prizes, and Critical Voices
Paul Lensch wrote on 28 August 1919, the 170th anniversary of Goethe’s birth, to thank Spengler, noting his review in the Deutsche Allgemeime Zeitung and lectures that profoundly affected audiences, while university professionals were against the work. Adolf von Harnack, writing from Grunewald-Berlin, admitted he had read the book twice but directed his criticism against the “longitudinal” section and the determination of cultures’ beginnings and ends, which he found unproven, dogmatic, and arbitrary. He doubted Spengler’s prophecies, arguing the strength of “retarding powers” could not be foreseen, using the metaphor of men on an ice floe who might make a sail to change course, calling himself a “doubting Thomas” but a disciple.
The Editorial Footnote on Mommsen and Meyer
The segment opens with an editorial comparison of two great historians of Rome’s decline. Mommsen, described as “the 1848 enthusiast,” laid the blame at the feet of the Senatorial class, dismissing them as “Priests and the ‘Yunkers'” [sic]. Eduard Meyer, by contrast, blamed the Gracchi and their well-meaning but doomed attempts to rescue the Italian small farmers, who were abandoning the land for the towns, unable to compete with imported corn and the slave labor that the rich imported. The Gracchi’s revival of the Tribunate and the Comitia only accelerated the Senate’s decay and the loss of traditions upheld by the leading families, paving the way through Marius and Sulla to a dictatorship resting on “the dregs of the great towns, the underworld.” A translator’s footnote sharpens this image, listing the dregs as “decayed aristocrats like Catiline and Philip Egalité, failed academics, criminals, half-wits, and a couple of sad enthusiasts for some abstract ideal (Gregor Schlosser).”
The Murder of Rathenau and the Crisis of Civilization
In an undated letter from around 1922, Spengler describes capitalism as the offspring of democratic movements, a force that kills independent life through the formal perfection of an ever-richer, uniformly constituted culture-state, returning society to primitive conditions and unchaining “the most barbarous forces.” He confesses that on August 4, 1914, he knew the West had passed its peak and begun its descent—a conviction confirmed daily—yet he insists on fighting and hoping that his people might “make the impossible possible.” He writes under the “quite shattering effect of yesterday’s event,” identified in a footnote as the murder of Walther Rathenau, which he fears could prove more fatal than the Kapp Putsch. The people’s moral degradation strikes him as “terrible,” a sinking to the most degenerate level of the Roman Republic. Berliners, he says, live “like machine operators,” the inevitable result of overcultured civilization, the great city corrupting and destroying itself through capitalism, machines, technique, and “pedagogic!”
Seeking Support for the Research Institute
Writing to Paul Reusch from Munich on June 26, 1922, Spengler solicits support for the Research Institute for Culture Morphology, appealing for recruits among leading German industrial figures. The Institute, he promises, will further German industry’s plans. He mentions an arrangement between German and American newspapers, in which he participated, undertaking to keep Americans informed of German scientific results. Information will flow from a central office in Cincinnati (confidential). Americans, he notes, prefer ethnological topics over purely historical ones and are swayed by great names; each notable signature has practical value. “$1,000 means very little” in America, he observes, but much in Germany.
A Cascade of Thanks for Volume Two
The summer of 1922 brings a stream of acknowledgments for the second volume of The Decline of the West. Crown Prince William writes from Wieringen in June, thanking Spengler for the volume, which he is studying with great interest. Sven Hedin writes from Stockholm on July 11, thanking him and admiring his “bold, acute ideas,” finding comfort in his explanations amid collapse. Germany’s defeat came “as a blow”; Hedin had blindly believed in victory, and the people now show themselves unequal to the crisis. Yet he has not abandoned hope for “the red dawn.” Hans Pfitzner writes from Schondorf on August 8, thanking him for the volume and enclosing an admission card from Bruno Walter for the Cantata rehearsals, with instructions to ring Walter before 8:30 a.m. Hans Vaihinger writes from Halle on August 29, apologizing for six months of illness-induced silence, praising Spengler’s beginning with the macrocosmos, his emphasis on the “will to power” and the “act of God (Gottzufall),” and his bringing forward the “religious background and underground” that governs history alongside race and money. He remarks that Ranke’s school’s “ideas” might better be called “mad ideas by which mankind allows itself to be led and misled.”
Keyserling and Frobenius
Hermann Graf Keyserling writes from Friedrichsruh on September 13, delighted with volume two and expressing interest in Paideuma, the work of Leo Frobenius, who led ten African and Asia Minor expeditions and founded the Research Institute for Culture Morphology. An editorial note explains that Spengler was initially impressed by Frobenius but later tried to escape his influence; the term “Paideuma,” implying an overall culture, likely displeased him. Keyserling wants to meet its author. Spengler replies from Munich on September 18, noting that Frobenius lives there and is informed of Keyserling’s visit, suggesting the three meet. Frobenius’s chief work, Unbekannte Afrika, is at the printer.
A Joke and a Lecture Tour
Writing to Hilde Kornhardt on November 15, 1922, Spengler jokes about a “noble pig” eaten after its death. He has finished recasting volume I and “feel[s] like Uz after her examination.” He has a lecture in Oberhausen on the 27th, then Blankenburg till New Year, and will bring the new volume I for fair copy. He asks about Christmas gifts for Uz and Trübchen (a dolls’ house). An editorial note identifies Uz as his niece, Fräulein Hildegarde Kornhardt.
An Old School Friend’s Request
An undated letter from an old school friend, who has learned from Otte Most that Spengler is the famous “O. Sp. Man,” expresses astonishment. The “reflected glory” of Spengler’s fame gilds their “proletariat existence” from shared school days. Mostrich informed him that Spengler visits the Ruhr. He makes two requests: first, that Spengler take the direct train Munich-Hagen and travel twenty minutes further to Unna to stay with him, to drink to their “alma mater” with his vintage red currant wine ’21. He is married with two charming daughters. Second, he must obtain all of Spengler’s works; his purse has only sufficed for Prussianism and Socialism, and he bought Decline I for the school library, which cannot afford II. He asks if Spengler can get him The Decline from the publisher at a reduced price without financial loss; otherwise he must await a lottery win or a rise in pay for officials in group X/XI.
The Ruhr Crisis and English Policy
Spengler writes to Paul Reusch from Munich on June 9, 1923, announcing he will arrive in Berlin on the morning of the 14th and hopes Reusch can keep an hour for him. He wishes to discuss the point, gleaned from English sources, that territorial guarantees on Germany’s side must be refused. Herr J[anson] called his attention to the serious position: France is trying to make the separation of the Rheinland an accomplished fact before a conference on the money question. Spengler calls English policy shortsighted; if France succeeds, England will have to “wrest back with streams of English blood” what could be obtained by “a few emphatic words.”
The Editor’s Geopolitical Summary
The segment opens with an editor’s overview of Spengler’s geopolitical anxieties in 1924. Spengler saw grave danger in French policy of training native troops in Africa, predicting this would ignite nationalism. He foresaw powerful propaganda emanating from American negroes via Liberia, with the cry “Africa for the Africans,” and anticipated that Islam would convert masses of negroes south of the Equator—a fear long held by German colonial authorities, who had established belts of missionaries and pig-breeding natives in northern German East Africa to halt its advance. Turning to sea power, Spengler noted that Britain’s control of Malta, Aden, Singapore, and Hongkong had secured its dominance over Africa and Asia in the nineteenth century. He argued that a navy is too precious to risk in battle, citing the defeats of Spain in 1898 and Russia by Japan in the Straits of Tsushima as foregone conclusions when antiquated navies faced modern ones. He saw circumstances shifting against Britain as land masses grew more powerful than sea power, due to air power, interior communications, India’s demand for independence, Russia’s introduction of Bolshevism into China, and Herzog replacing Smuts. Regarding Russia, Spengler held that the Bolshevist idea of an alliance of Western proletariats under Russian leadership died with Lenin. In the vast area between the Vistula and the borders of China and India, he thought a Caesar would arise, like Enver Pasha, with the cry “Asia for the Asiatics,” comparing this to the collapse of Czarism, which would have seemed a madman’s dream if prophesied three years prior.
Letters of 1924: Politics, Polemics, and Support
The correspondence of 1924 begins with Ernst Paraquin recalling a political conversation and the subsequent Hitler “putsch.” Paraquin expresses disgust with politics, calling it a “dirty story,” but praises Spengler’s unique political framework, stating he is unfit for political leadership but would serve under Spengler. He mentions six weeks in Sicily, where the west stops and inhabitants are “Fellachin” who find Mussolini an uncanny phenomenon. Alban Schachleiter thanks Spengler for his speech, The Political Duties of German Youth, lamenting that Germany is leaderless, criticizing Tirpitz and Ludendorff, and noting Helfferich’s death and political confusion in Bavaria. Edouard Meyer agrees with Spengler’s pamphlets publicly but has private misgivings, as the people are unadapted for sober realism and party strife is in their blood. He changes topic to the Turfan fund and the Ethnological Museum’s poor organization, criticizing the tendency to separate Asiatic art from its cultural context and place it in an Art Museum under aesthetic dilettantes, proposing Spengler arrange a comprehensive exhibition. Alfred Doren addresses Spengler as “Mentor Germaniae” but cannot subscribe to his judgments, seeing honour and loyalty in party life, believing Rathenau was the only man who could have built a raft for the struggling nation, and questioning Spengler’s comparison of the popular movement to the Jeunesse dorée of the 18th century. Erich Kuttner, a Member of the Provincial Assembly, challenges two claims in Spengler’s Reconstruction of the German Reich: that heroes of the “farce” got drunk in Weimar on the day Versailles was signed, and that leaders of the Proletariat got drunk with naked female dancers in a Berlin profiteer’s villa, demanding names, dates, and sources. Spengler replies that he attacks conditions and systems, not persons, and refuses to be forced into revealing names. Martin Olpe writes to support Spengler against attacks in the Berliner Tageblatt, providing personal testimony of drunken proletarians, including Soldiers’ Council members, on the day the Versailles treaty was signed in Essen/Ruhr.
Late 1924: Politics, Archaeology, and Economics
Spengler writes to Edmund Stinnes scheduling a meeting, reporting that events in the Baltic have proven him right, and expressing surprise at recent election results, having predicted eighty German Nationalists and forty Democrats, concluding “So then a la England.” Walter Andrae, an Assyriologist, appreciates Spengler’s optimism about achieving complete knowledge in their field within years, though he sees “thick veils,” feeling pre-history studies are still preliminary and one is “groping in the dark” with potsherds without a clear local connection. Alfred Jeremias invites Spengler to visit, noting he has announced a lecture on “Spengler’s Magian Culture and the Ancient East,” arguing ancient oriental “spiritual culture” is more than a preliminary stage to “Arabian culture.” Max Warburg praises Spengler’s pamphlet on Economics and Taxation Policy since 1750, agreeing with collecting tax where profit is made but noting international agreements are hard, arguing for steps against double taxation for “moral and just taxation.” Spengler writes to Rudolf Schlubach regretting a lost letter, pessimistic about the Dawes plan’s workings as unfavorable to industry, and congratulating Schlubach on the colonial question.
1925: Refusals, Politics, and the Nazi Overture
Elizabeth Förster-Nietzsche relays requests: Herr von Hake seeks introductory words for his book on atrocities in the Rhine and Ruhr, and Publisher Dr. Klemm wants to publish Spengler’s Nietzsche lecture as a pamphlet. Spengler refuses both, stating Hake’s pamphlet is too late, he cannot write introductions to others’ books as a matter of principle, and the Nietzsche lecture needs expansion into a book or nothing. Kuno Graf Westarp shares confidential plans for the new Kreuzzeitung, aiming to extend the Conservative spirit beyond landowners and middle class, requesting Spengler’s support. Roderich Schlubach arranges for Dr. Knittel to visit, noting Carl Woermann is going to the Cameroons to plant the German flag on Mt. Cameroon. Spengler cancels a visit to Weimar due to political business and a trip to Sicily to arrange a new philosophical book.
The most significant letter comes from Gregor Strasser, who praises Spengler’s political views, agreeing with his refusal to overestimate political ‘will’ and his demand for political ‘action.’ Strasser distinguishes the ‘Popular Movement’ from the political-economic Power-idea of National Socialism, arguing the latter seeks a real German social revolution, not a Utopian World-Revolution. He calls Spengler’s claim that the movement has failed a “material mistake,” arguing National Socialism is only beginning, and addresses Spengler’s “personal mistake”: that Spengler only criticizes without acting. The editor notes Strasser became a Nazi in 1920, organized the ‘Voelkisch’ party while Hitler was in Landsberg fortress, and was murdered in 1934 on the pretext of the Roehm rebellion. Alfred Jeremias reports on Forrer’s findings of stamp seals at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, positing a great power centered in south/southeast Afghanistan, and critiques Spengler’s Pseudo-Morphosis concept, preferring to see morphosis where new content fills old forms. Helmut Franke reports on plans of younger front-soldiers to revive the Grenzboten, calling the ‘Putsches’ of 1920 and 1923 “comparatively pointless.” Klara von Leipzig invites Spengler to tea with the Kaiserin Hermine.
The Frobenius Affair Deepens
Spengler’s New Year correspondence with Leo Frobenius in January 1927 quickly soured into a bitter public quarrel. Spengler explained his withdrawal from the culture-morphological institute’s board by distinguishing between its scientific promise, which he had supported, and its business operations, which struck him as adventurously “wild west” in style. He had resigned once convinced the Egypt journey would occur, assuming it was a proper archaeological excavation of a Pharaoh’s grave—a concession the Egyptian government grants only to professional Egyptologists. When the press revealed plans for unknown parts of Sahara, Arabia, Persia, and Turkistan lasting one or two years, Spengler concluded the scheme was impossible and that the real parties were a film publisher and a motor firm. He objected fundamentally to combining film expeditions with scientific ones. His deepest grievance, however, was intellectual: having supported the Africa-Archive in Munich, he had worked through prehistoric and ethnographical literature to establish history to the sixth millennium, only to recognize increasing uncertainty in the Research Institute’s constructions. The basic mistake of the culture circle theory, he argued, was neglecting absolute chronology, treating “later” and “earlier” as identical with late and early—so that the relatively earliest culture in central Africa was in fact much later than the latest in Egypt.
Ludwig von Wilm wrote from Frankfurt on 12 January with a mocking report: Frobenius had appeared in a circus at New Year, riding a camel in a torn khaki suit and south-wester, followed by an Institute employee and his daughter Ruth in tropical costumes, while four camels carried chests inscribed “D.I.A.F.E.” Six clowns cried “My money is finished” and two trumpeters blew. The absurdity of the scene underscored Spengler’s charges of theatrical self-promotion.
An American Commission and a Homeric Dispute
Hermann George Scheffauer, writing from Berlin-Grunewald on 18 January, brought a different kind of request. Commissioned by the New York Times, he asked Spengler for an article of roughly 2,800 words applying his philosophical principle to America’s decline, under the title “The Decline and Fall of America,” with payment of $100 and Scheffauer as translator. Spengler’s response is not recorded, but the request itself showed how his fame had spread across the Atlantic.
More substantive was Spengler’s letter to Albert Hermann on 7 February, denying that a proto-Odyssey had ever existed. He warned against imagining ancient writings on the analogy of today’s publications, citing the example of proto-Mark in Gospel research. He distinguished sharply between the time of the Skalds and the literary epic. Sagas varied by locality and occasion—they were related themes, not an original version. With written literature, circulation increased, but every rhapsodist had his own text; there were as many original Odysseys as rhapsodists. In the mid-second millennium BC, sea traffic had existed from Spain to Southern Russia, with pottery from Petreny related to South Babylonia. Malta had high culture; Cyprus was called Alaschia, connected with Elysium via Rhadamanthys, whom Spengler identified as an actual King in Phaistos and judge of the dead. The sea peoples destroyed this traffic; the Phoenicians and Ionians later reunited threads—they did not discover them. Ionian colonies on the Black Sea were older than the Ionians themselves. Saga themes dated from this old period. Ogygia, he suggested, might connect with the Babylonian demon name Ugugu (Igigi), appearing later as Gyges; Ogygia originally meant part of the underworld.
Frobenius Defends Himself
Frobenius replied on 24 February with indignation. He denied that any film company or motor firm shared in the expedition; the cars were paid for, propaganda refused. Film people had made a culture film of the Nile, paying about 13,000 marks. He denied following tourist routes, claiming the expedition traversed important parts of the Nubian desert never reached by tourists or the Egyptian Survey. Schweinfurth had left Frobenius the task of studying Nubian desert rock drawings. Frobenius accused Spengler of “adoration of the printed word” and of specialists. The Institute’s work concerned objects, not applications; literary study gave a skeleton, not the living thing. Herr von Boeckmann’s book had nothing to do with the Institute. He defended the Equatorial Culture phenomena as self-evident to specialists, accused Spengler of wishing to remain undisturbed, of breaking a former friendship, of acting as a condemning judge, and of making false statements. Spengler’s second attack, he insisted, was based on literary material of dubious value for ethnology and pre-history; Frobenius himself had lived thirty-five years in the material.
French Perspectives and Political Corrections
Spengler wrote to Andre Fauconnet on 25 March, praising his book on Spengler’s philosophy as unmatched in Germany, and noting that French critical penetration was lacking in German scholarship. He corrected an error: he had stood aloof from the National Socialist movement leading to the Munich Putsch and had tried to prevent it. His lecture The Political Duties of German Youth was given the day Hitler’s trial began. Politics, he insisted, should be based on sober facts, not romanticism.
Fauconnet replied from Poitiers on 30 March, thanking him and describing himself as a transformer converting current for household use—a State official, French, determined by habitus. He would correct the political error, sourced to a Herr O. Grantoff of Berlin. Born near Paris in 1881, he lived with his elder 24-year-old daughter in an old house with a Roman wall. He quoted Spengler’s “Autumn” (“I write because I must”) and contrasted culture—Langenburg singing—with civilization, English jazz.
The Nietzsche Archive and a Cerebral Haemorrhage
Fritz Reck-Malleczewen wrote from Pasing on 15 April about a Leipzig publisher, Dr Curt Thesing, seeking essays where personalities viewed their opponents—Foch on Ludendorff, the Kaiser on Disraeli. The letter breaks off mid-thought, but the theme of cultural events as a “literary fashion” involving Steiner, Keyserling, and Eucken continued. Spengler opposed seeing Nietzsche placed arbitrarily in a long list of such events, wishing to discuss a newer, worthier, less literary form.
Edgar J. Jung reported on 14 June that the German Students Association had invited him, Othmar Spann, and Spengler to speak at the Tenth German Students’ Day in Würzburg in July, urging acceptance. A translator’s footnote identified Jung as an adviser to Von Papen who influenced his Marburg speech, rousing Hitler’s resentment; Jung was murdered on 30 June 1934. Royo Villanova invited Spengler to lecture on Goya at Saragossa’s centenary festival. Alfred Jeremias discussed his nearly finished Handbook of old oriental Religious Culture, noting the “Jewish question” consumed time—Modern Jerusalem raged because he did not recognize Reform Jewry, while the Martin Buber party harassed him with sympathy. Edouard Meyer declined an offer from publisher A. Knopf, saying he would never write for America again, calling it chiefly responsible for Germany’
The Last Letters: 1931–1936
In the autumn of 1931, Spengler wrote to Martin Bartels, agreeing on the “tremendous downgrading of the West.” He argued that the “Viking blood” last embodied in the English had died out, with the descendants of the Norman conquerors of 1066 having “bled to death” in northern France. He cited the loss of thirteen million men at Ypres as an unrecoverable blow, foreseeing the collapse of the English world empire. Yet he resisted Bartels’s conclusion that “we have come to an end,” pointing instead to the tenacity of the Serbs, Bulgarians, and Greeks, and to the “wonderful races” he had encountered in South Russia and the northern Caucasus, which might yet develop a new culture in Russia and Siberia. He noted that since Bismarck no leader had emerged among the Germanic peoples, whereas the Slavs and Romanic nations had produced Lenin, Mussolini, and Kemal Pasha. He also rejected the idea that mechanization had entered a stage of “highly dangerous over-stimulation,” observing that industry was no longer tied to coal and that South America and Asia were developing rapidly.
By October 1932, Spengler was sending extracts from the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten to Paul Reusch, pointing out its unchanged political attitude: Brüning was acclaimed, Socialists were above criticism, and national parties were treated with contempt. Edwin Payr wrote from Leipzig, noting that Spengler’s prophecies in The Decline of the West were being fulfilled “uncannily soon.” Roderich Schlubach, writing from Hamburg, argued that Liberalism was doomed among the great powers, predicting the next English elections would sweep away Lloyd George’s Liberal Party and drag down Labour with it. He saw the same process in Germany, where the Democratic Party was dying out. He described arguments with local National Socialist leaders, noting that Hitler had been forced to rely on early followers with “confused minds,” though the movement was strong in central Germany and growing in Hamburg because good people led it there. He offered to introduce Spengler to Dr. Nieland, a Reichstag member, and recalled dining with Maynard Keynes, who had called the Paris proposals “madness.” Schlubach disputed Spengler’s view that the collapse of European culture would drag down South and Central American culture, arguing instead that new cultures would develop from new peoples.
The Hour of Decision and Its Aftermath
In 1932, Spengler grew increasingly pessimistic about German politics. He dismissed the blind followers of Hitler, whose supporters did not know the mentality of their “Führer,” and called the party’s performances characterized by “semi-education and adolescence,” seeing them as a great danger because they encouraged Communism. He declared himself a member of no party and agreed with Ludendorff that Christianity was the cause of all troubles, calling Protestantism a “nullity” compared to Judaism, Catholicism, and Bolshevism. He concluded that reconstruction was doomed until Christianity was “completely got rid of.” An editorial note clarifies that Spengler did not blame Christianity itself but “Micheltum”—the amiability of the pre-imperial Biedermeier period—and quoted Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees to argue that the egoism of the individual is the driving impulse of the State.
Hjalmar Schacht thanked Spengler for his Political Writings. Spengler wrote to Abbot Alban Schachleiter, expressing indignation at his treatment due to his nationalist attitude, and referred to the “Carnival Ministry” of the Hitler Cabinet and the “grotesque incapacity” of the leading clique. Schachleiter replied that supporting Hitler had cost him the Holy Mass. Karl Wolfskehl praised Spengler’s writing for giving him courage. Hans Freyer offered Spengler a Leipzig professorship, but Spengler declined, citing his need for solitude, health issues, and administrative duties. In a letter to Carl Schuchardt, Spengler discussed Mycenaean culture, arguing the pit grave people were a “Nordic stem” overthrown by conquerors from east Spain, Sardinia, or Libya. Carl Friedrich Goerdeler agreed with Spengler on the organic formation of industry and the madness of guaranteeing fixed working time.
The Nazi Regime and Silence
Following the publication of The Hour of Decision in 1933, reactions poured in. Gunther Gründel praised the work’s circulation but was shocked that Spengler did not mention Hitler, regarding him as a quantité négligeable. Spengler did not answer, and Gründel later attacked him. Goebbels’s office requested an article for the forthcoming national election, but Spengler declined, having never participated in election propaganda, though he offered to write for the German Press on foreign policy occasions like the League of Nations withdrawal, conditional on the cessation of attacks against him. Crown Prince Wilhelm praised the book, calling his views prophetic. Heinrich Beck reported royalties near 100,000 marks, with the book’s success passing The Decline of the West in tempo, though National Socialists attacked it. Rudolf Graber, a Catholic priest, expressed gratitude for Spengler’s works while correcting a footnote quoting St. Thomas. Alfred Hugenberg expressed disapproval of attacks on the book in the “gutter Press.” Fedor Stepun announced his own book, recalling lecturing on The Decline in Moscow to over two thousand people. Heinrich Schaeder called the book a “satanic wicked book,” noting Spengler was becoming a mythical, isolated figure. August Albers reported that discussion of Spengler had been prohibited by higher authorities. Spengler refused a French translation of the book, as it had been misunderstood and attacked by a section of the ruling party.
Final Years and Farewells
In August 1934, Spengler wrote from Bayreuth that The Ring was “splendid.” Paul Reusch invited him to meet Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. The Grand Duke of Austria sent an interview about their conversation. Schlubach expressed deep disagreement with Spengler’s pessimistic views, arguing that 1934 was progress toward Germany’s internal unity. Spengler wrote to Hans Erich Stier about scholarly matters, rejecting the “belief in the sole blessedness of ceramics.” Hugo Obermeier corrected Spengler on the bow’s antiquity and attributed the destruction of Knossos to an earthquake. Elizabeth Forster-Nietzsche grieved Spengler’s departure from the Nietzsche Archive, suspecting his opposition to the Third Reich. Spengler called Mussolini’s Abyssinian adventure “evil and fatal to Italy,” believing England would not tolerate a great power on the route to India. He resigned from the Nietzsche Archive’s Board, disapproving of its procedure. August Sylvius Graf Pückler asked why The Hour of Decision was not continued. In his final letters, Spengler insisted all second-millennium movements came from central Asia, arguing that “Tocharians” was a Mongol word. The correspondence ends with Spengler still engaged in scholarly debate, his political hopes dimmed, his isolation complete, and his voice growing quieter against the rising tide of the Third Reich.
Main Arguments
Throughout these letters, Spengler advances and defends the central arguments of his philosophy of history. He asserts that one cannot choose one’s birth into a definite century, country, people, religion, or rank; one must adapt to this destiny. There are no “men per se,” only men of a certain time, place, and race struggling with a predetermined world. He regards life as a struggle between stamped individuality and a predetermined world. His picture of the world is true, he says, “because it is identical with my life. The symbolism is essential.” Unlike Ranke, who wished to exclude his own personality from his work, Spengler is present in every line. His philosophy supports Fichte’s claim that philosophy depends on the sort of man one is.
He argues that there has never been a real reawakening of a strange culture’s content—only a “mask” or “mould.” The accumulation of learned information since Hegel strengthened the illusion that cultures can be transmitted and revived. This “purely Faustian” phenomenon will end with Western Man. Progressive development exists inside an individual culture—in the West since A.D. 1000—but it is wrong to trace it backwards through an arbitrary line of cultures or extend it forwards in a straight line. Relativity applies to the phantom of a “general culture,” not to a single one.
Spengler claims to have established a philosophical basis for the political and social thought of the coming period, now that nineteenth-century systems are exhausted. He sees attention called to manifold trends in all branches of knowledge that point to the same idea, providing evidence for a “deep-lying necessary philosophy.” He argues that the “insatiable historical voracity” of the Western Mind began with Hegel, who relied on the traditional view of Antiquity—Middle Ages—Modern Times. Extensive historical knowledge leads to a perception of the void, to Goethe’s “beautiful purposeless game of Living Nature.”
He contends that capitalism results from democratic movements, killing independent life through the formal perfection of an ever-richer, uniformly constituted culture-state, returning to primitive conditions and unchaining “the most barbarous forces.” On August 4, 1914, he knew that Western culture had passed its peak and descended, a conviction confirmed daily. Yet he insists on fighting and hoping that his people might “make the impossible possible.”
He argues that world rule is a negative phenomenon—a lack of resistance on the other side, not excess strength. The Romans only occupied what was politically dead. He predicts the passivity of all continental factors except Germanism, with political-commercial forms centered on Berlin, controlled by Prussian intelligence. He calls the “great powers” concept ending, leaving only world powers: Germany, England, and Russia. Germany will hold a dominant position, and the Reich will change through reforms or force, needing far-seeing minds, “even if they are clever Jews.” He calls this new Germany “a second America,” not Goethe’s Germany, comparing it to the Imperium Romanum as an “unscrupulous business venture.”
Key Concepts
Several distinctive concepts and motifs recur throughout the correspondence. The idea of culture morphology—that cultures are organic entities with life cycles of birth, flowering, and decay—underlies everything Spengler writes. He derived his idea of independent, plant-like, individual cultures from Goethe, finding in him a deeper scepticism than in Hegel or Dilthey, who believed in a steadily increasing stock of human potentialities and a uniform purpose in history.
The distinction between culture and civilization is central. Culture is the living, creative phase of a society; civilization is its overcultured, mechanical, decadent phase. Spengler describes Berliners living “like machine operators”—the inevitable result of overcultured civilization, the great city corrupting and destroying itself through capitalism, machines, and technique. He calls this “pedagogic!”—the attempt to teach what can no longer be learned.
The concept of the “Faustian” spirit—the restless, striving, infinite-seeking character of Western culture—appears throughout. Spengler speaks of “Scepticism in the Faustian manner” as a necessary consequence of his thinking. He identifies the “purely Faustian” phenomenon of historical voracity, the accumulation of learned information about dead cultures, which will end with Western Man.
Spengler’s idea of the “master race” bred since Frederick William I by “old Fritz,” 1813, Bismarck, and Hindenburg, appears in his political letters. He expects much from “leader natures” hidden nameless in the middle class and respectable working class. Germany’s future lies in “Prussian Conservatism,” freed from feudal-agrarian narrowness, and in the working class, separated from the anarchistical radical mob. Much blood must flow for such decisions.
The motif of Rome as the analogue for Germany recurs constantly. Spengler compares field-grey soldiers to Roman legions—”sober, unadorned, but profoundly in keeping.” He questions whether reaching London would be “for the British a Zama.” He notes that the Romans were only great once, after Cannae, and that barbarism is the rule in history. The German people, he says, have sunk to the Roman Republic’s most degenerate level.
Spengler’s literary judgments are inseparable from his historical philosophy. He identifies the novel as the future form for Germany; the French and English novel is exhausted, and the German novel has not yet arrived. A great novel must exhaust an epoch, citing Wilhelm Meister, Liaisons dangereuses, and Rouge et Noir as examples. He proposes a novel in the grand style that would exhaust an epoch’s whole life, beginning with “dying romantic Germany”—Ludwig II, Nietzsche, Leibl, Boeklin—with Munich as starting point. “Germany means Berlin” henceforth. The hero must be an artist who finds philosophical motive in practical organizing.
Themes
The letters reveal Spengler’s deep ambivalence about his own role and vocation. He expresses self-contempt for the “mere writer,” referencing Goethe’s Tasso and Shakespeare’s self-ridicule in Julius Caesar. He envies Napoleon, who realized his ideas without opposition. He mentions the underrated writer Klinger, who burned his manuscripts upon receiving his officer’s commission and died a General in Riga. He wishes to undertake something “real,” such as poetry, though this is currently impossible. He describes his terror at being called up for military examination, his horror at possibly leaving his work unfinished, his notes illegible to others. He calls this a “walk to execution.”
The theme of loneliness runs throughout. Spengler complains of having no one to discuss serious matters with. He seeks a small society of fellow thinkers. He feels his intellectuality is wasted in “feuilletonism.” He worked seven years without relaxation and cannot go on. He was a schoolmaster until 1911, then lived in loneliness, condensing ideas from mathematics, history, painting, and literature into a metaphysical whole. He is conscious of the dangers of independence. He declines a suggestion of a professorship, citing a lack of technical knowledge and energy. He was born at Blankenburg in the Harz in 1880 and must waste no time completing his life’s work.
The correspondence also reveals Spengler’s complicated relationship to the Germany of his time. He condemns Munich writers as dishonest—former anarchists and “Jewish nihilists” who now peddle patriotic ecstasy. He prefers practical workers, engineers, officers, merchants to “voluble thinkers and poets.” He notes that German culture from Goethe’s time has been “completely extinguished”; a “soulless Americanism” will rule. He is disgusted with Munich, saying it is dirtier than a Polish village since the revolution, and that the better-to-do families, Court, and nobility have left.
His anti-Semitism, evident in casual remarks about “Jews and commercial literateurs,” coexists with practical cooperation with Jewish intellectuals and publishers. He sends his book to Walther Rathenau, hoping for the opinion of an “eminent practical thinker,” and expresses gratitude for Rathenau’s writings. He says the Reich needs far-seeing minds, “even if they are clever Jews.” He understands why Jewish novelists imitate Flaubert, as Stendhal as a model is beyond their reach. A Jew, like a Frenchman, has intelligence and technique and can be an artist but not more.
The theme of prophecy and its limits pervades the letters. Spengler repeatedly predicts the end of the war, the course of politics, the shape of the future—and is repeatedly wrong in detail, though often right in broad outline. He foresaw the Second World War, noting that Germany is not an island and destiny would pass her by without pity if she ignored world relations. He predicted the collapse of democracy and the rise of Caesarism. But he did not foresee Germany’s defeat in the First World War, nor did he recognize in Hitler the Caesar he had prophesied. He scented in Hitler the plebeian mass-man, failing to see that Caesarism rises on mass enthusiasm.
The Author’s Conclusions
The letters do not present a single, systematic conclusion, but they do reveal the trajectory of Spengler’s thought and his final positions. His pessimism about the future of Western civilization, first announced in The Decline of the West, never wavered. He believed that Western culture had passed its peak on August 4, 1914, and that everything since was decline. Yet this conviction did not lead to quietism. He insisted on fighting and hoping that his people might “make the impossible possible.”
His political conclusions hardened over time. He rejected National Socialism as a movement of the workshy and the unemployed, led by a plebeian mass-man. He hoped for a time when the “real hero, not an operatic hero” would appear, but he did not live to see it. He watched the destruction of his hopes for a Prussian Conservatism that would unite the best of the old order with the working class, and he saw instead the triumph of what he considered the worst elements of modern politics.
His literary conclusions remained consistent. He continued to believe that the German novel had a great future, that a new prose style was possible, that the German language alone among West European languages still had lyrical possibilities. He identified the models—Stendhal, Dostoievski, Ricarda Huch—and the pitfalls—Kleist’s artificiality, Thomas Mann’s false sentimentality, the epigone literature of the nineteenth century. He believed that the task of forming an artistic conception of the epoch remained to be accomplished.
His philosophical conclusions, repeated throughout the correspondence, affirm the organic, plant-like nature of cultures, the impossibility of cultural transmission, the relativity of all historical judgments, and the necessity of accepting one’s destiny. He asserted that one cannot choose one’s birth into a definite century, country, people, religion, or rank; one must adapt to this destiny. There are no “men per se,” only men of a certain time, place, and race struggling with a predetermined world. His picture of the world is true “because it is identical with my life. The symbolism is essential.”
Significance
These letters matter for several reasons. They document the intellectual development and personal circumstances of one of the most controversial thinkers of the twentieth century, a man whose work provoked passionate responses across the political and intellectual spectrum. They show the human being behind the monumental philosophical edifice: the man who suffered from headaches seven days a week, who was rejected for military service due to “interior troubles,” who worried about the cost of housing and the quality of food, who joked about a “noble pig” eaten after its death, who asked about Christmas gifts for his niece.
They also provide a running commentary on the great events of the era from a distinctive and often prescient perspective. Spengler’s letters from the First World War capture the optimism, the miscalculations, and the gradual disillusionment of a German intellectual who had predicted the war but not its outcome. His letters from the Weimar period document the political chaos, the inflation, the occupation of the Ruhr, and the desperate attempts of conservative nationalists to influence policy. His letters from the Nazi period show his rejection of the regime and his awareness of the danger it posed.
The correspondence reveals the network of relationships through which Spengler operated: his exchanges with publishers like Oscar Beck, who urged him to complete volume two and may have caused signs of hurry in the final chapters; his correspondence with admirers and critics, from Crown Prince William to Jose Ortega y Gasset; his efforts to place articles in English newspapers and to influence General Smuts on the Reparations question; his involvement with the Research Institute for Culture Morphology and his attempts to secure industrial funding.
Finally, the letters offer insight into the character of the man himself: his sense of lifelong misunderstanding, his conviction that he belonged to the “misunderstood and hated,” his belief that understanding requires “a new generation born with the ability to understand.” They show a man who disliked writing letters, even as a child, preferring interviews; who was always ready to help others—acting as go-between with publishers, correcting manuscripts, promoting young talents—but who reacted sharply when deceived. They reveal a thinker who was present in every line he wrote, who believed that philosophy depends on the sort of man one is, and who saw his own life as identical with his picture of the world. The collection ends with letters from 1936, three years before his death, leaving the reader with the image of a man who had foreseen the catastrophe, warned against it, and been ignored—a prophet without honor in his own country, watching the destruction of everything he had hoped to save.
