radically equal.
Postwar reception
Contrary to the expectation of Spengler’s family and of some close friends
such as the French scholar André Fauconnet, who hoped that the demise
of Nazi Germany would finally open up the path to a new, politically more
unbiased study of Spengler, the year 1945 brought no change to the in-
creasingly hostile attitude toward the “morphology of history.”47 On the
contrary, the hegemonic optimism of an increasingly American- styled
capitalism in the West and of Russian- dominated socialism in the East
made Spengler’s prophecy of the decline and end of the West seem overly
15
Oswald Spengler and the Decline of the West
15
pessimistic, perhaps even obsolete— an attitude even more pronounced
after 1968 and its hostile stance toward bourgeois historiography and elite
culture.
Despite some notable exceptions, such as Henry Kissinger and leading
member of the Frankfurt School Theodor Adorno, who once stated that
“forgotten, Spengler takes his revenge by threatening to be right. . . .
Spengler found hardly an adversary who was his equal; his oblivion is the
product of evasion,”48 and the French scholar Gilbert Merlio, who devoted
his influential PhD dissertation on the study of Spengler and his context,49
Spengler and his philosophy of history were largely forgotten by academia
and press alike.50 When not forgotten, they were merely remembered in
the narrower context of the German “Conservative Revolution,” perhaps
somewhat too simplistically, as Spengler, unlike many other thinkers of the
Weimar Republic, had no illusions concerning the ultimate shortcomings
of traditional conservatism; he was convinced that Western culture was
doomed to decline and fossilize during coming generations, regardless of
its political choices.
Only in the late twentieth and early twenty- first centuries has there
been something of a renaissance of Spengler, exemplified by an ever-
growing series of studies and conferences.51 The end of the Cold War, the
slow decline of Western political domination over the globe, the rise of
China, the unification of Europe, the return of religious fundamentalism,
the dominant place of Germany within the European Union and the
increasing strength of populism have led to a rediscovery of The Decline of
the West, not only in academia but also in the media. Spengler has again
become a figure of interest, and there have even been attempts to reapply
Spengler’s thought to the political realities and historical knowledge of the
twenty- first century.52
Conclusion
No consensus has yet been reached on the place Spengler might or should
occupy in our endeavor to understand history, and although the current
discussion on the Decline of the West is becoming more and more lively,
it is also characterized by a series of still somewhat monolithic meth-
odological approaches, unwilling to make contact and to soften their
positions.53 However, this conflict is surprisingly representative of the dif-
ferent facets of Spengler’s complex thought, situated somewhere in be-
tween historiography, philosophy, politics, and prophecy, and should be
16
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quickly summarized in order to provide a conclusion and outlook to the
present study.
First, there is what might be called an “orthodox” approach, essen-
tially endeavoring to demonstrate the rightness of Spengler’s philosophy
of history, represented by an admittedly small group often battling with
tendencies to make much of Spengler’s occasional shortcomings as a his-
torian and to define themselves in relation to Spengler’s obvious elitism,
a Nietzschean legacy that is unsurprisingly deeply unpopular and dis-
turbing in a period of mass democracy and social inclusiveness.
Then there is what might be called the “moralizing” tendency, char-
acteristic of most discussions of Spengler in the media, and reducing his
morphology of history to the cliché of “yet another conservative philoso-
pher” or even of a “precursor of National Socialism.” This view exaggerates
the limited place contemporary German politics played within Spengler’s
much larger oeuvre, and it is based on an insufficient distinction be-
tween Spengler’s admittedly elitist view of social history, his disappoint-
ment with the Weimar Republic, and his (unenthusiastic) expectancy of
Caesarism as the inevitable fate of every declining civilization.
Finally, we can refer to what may be called “antiquarian” scholarship,
to which most of the current literature on Spengler belongs, and which is
essentially interested in Spengler as a historical phenomenon while omit-
ting any attempt to discuss or even consider the validity of his thought
in itself. Of course, addressing this question is essential not only for the
broader study of the intellectual evolution of the 1920s and 1930s but also
for a deeper understanding of Spengler’s life and work. However, there
is an increasing tendency in the study of past philosophical and political
thought to be more interested in form than in content, and in history
rather than in “truth” (or even probability); most studies belonging to this
school are able to propose fascinating enquiries into the psychological
roots, sources, context, and reception of Spengler’s historical analogies
without even once referring to the question of their factual, logical, or met-
aphysical validity, leaving the general reader somewhat frustrated.
In view of this specific scholarly situation, given that Spengler not only
described past events but also dared to forecast at length and with many
details the future course of Western history for the next two hundred years,
it should be one of the tasks of twenty- first- century scholarship to overcome
and transcend the deficiencies of current research. Thus, one hopes that fu-
ture studies will, on the one hand, finally discuss to what extent the pre-
sent state of historical research factually confirms, alters, or even invalidates
17
Oswald Spengler and the Decline of the West
17
Spengler’s intercultural comparison of past events, and, on the other hand,
objectively confront Spengler’s prophecies to the actual history of the last
decades in order to discuss to what extent his cultural morphology may be
considered just another outdated piece of early twentieth- century scholarship
or a reliable tool in our endeavor to understand past, present, and future.
Notes
1. Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West: Outlines of a Morphology of World
History, trans. Charles Francis Atkinson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927).
Originally published as Der Untergang des Abendlandes: Umrisse einer Morphologie
der Weltgeschichte (vol. 1, Vienna: Braumüller, 1918; rev. ed. Munich: Beck, 1923;
vol. 2, Munich: C. H. Beck, 1922), 1:3.
2. Oswald Spengler, Preußentum und Sozialismus (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1919);
Neubau des deutschen Reiches (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1924)
; Politische Pflichten der
deutschen Jugend (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1924).
3. Oswald Spengler, Jahre der Entscheidung (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1933).
4. On Spengler’s life and times, see in general Anton M. Koktanek, Oswald Spengler
in seiner Zeit (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1968); Jürgen Naeher, Oswald Spengler: In
Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1984);
Detlef Felken, Oswald Spengler: Konservativer Denker zwischen Kaiserreich
und Diktatur (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1988); Angela Van der Goten, Im
gespaltenen Zauberland: Oswald Spengler und die Aneignung des Fremden
(Heidelberg: Heidelberger Abhandlungen, 2016).
5. For an analysis of these early fantasies, see Van der Goten, Im gespaltenen
Zauberland.
6. Oswald Spengler, “Montezuma: Ein Trauerspiel (1897),” in Anke Birkenmaier,
Versionen Montezumas: Lateinamerika in der historischen Imagination des 19.
Jahrhunderts (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011).
7. “Der metaphysische Grundgedanke der Heraklitischen Philosophie,” in Reden
und Aufsätze, ed. Hildegard Kornhardt (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1937).
8. Die Entwicklung des Sehorgans bei den Hauptstufen des Tierreiches, a text now
unfortunately lost.
9. Cf. Oswald Spengler, Ich beneide jeden, der lebt: Die Aufzeichnungen “Eis heauton”
aus dem Nachlaß, ed. Gilbert Merlio (Düsseldorf: Lilienfeld Verlag, 2007).
10. She and her daughter Hilde later tried to organize his literary fragments, and
proved important intermediaries between early scholarly research on Spengler
and the extant archival material.
11. Cf. Max Otte, “Oswald Spengler und der moderne Finanzkapitalismus,” in
Oswald Spenglers Kulturmorphologie— eine multiperspektivische Annäherung, ed.
Sebastian Fink and Robert Rollinger (Berlin: Springer, 2018), 355– 392.
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12. Cf. Markus Henkel, Nationalkonservative Politik und mediale Repräsentation: Oswald
Spenglers politische Philosophie und Programmatik im Netzwerk der Oligarchen
(Baden- Baden: Nomos, 2012).
13. Oswald Spengler, Der Mensch und die Technik (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1931).
14. Oswald Spengler, Urfragen; Fragmente aus dem Nachlaß, ed. Anton Mirko
Koktanek and Manfred Schröter (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1965); Frühzeit der
Weltgeschichte: Fragmente aus dem Nachlass, ed. Anton Mirko Koktanek and
Manfred Schröter (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1966).
15. Koktanek also published a selection of Spengler’s letters permitting insights into
the vast network of political and scholarly connections Spengler had managed to
build up, and some selected fragments of his other correspondence have been
published in other contexts. Oswald Spengler, Briefe, 1913– 1936, ed. Anton Mirko
Koktanek and Manfred Schröter (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1963); Oswald Spengler,
Der Briefwechsel zwischen Oswald Spengler und Wolfgang E. Groeger, ed. Xenia
Werner (Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag, 1987). Nevertheless, a substantial
amount of material accessible in the Munich Staatsbibliothek library still remains
unpublished, not least due to the extreme difficulty of deciphering Spengler’s late
handwriting, the near illegibility of which is due in part to not only the numerous
abbreviations he used but also to the impact his 1927 cerebral hemorrhage had
on his psychomotor capacities. See the “Spengler Nachlaß,” Sign. Ana 533.
16. Cf. Michael Thöndl, Oswald Spengler in Italien: Kulturexport politischer Ideen der
“Konservativen Revolution” (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2010).
17. Cf. Michael Thöndl, “Das Politikbild von Oswald Spengler (1880– 1936) mit
einer Ortsbestimmung seines politischen Urteils über Hitler und Mussolini,”
Zeitschrift für Politik 40 (1993): 418– 443.
18. Spengler, Jahre der Entscheidung.
19. Hans Frank, Im Angesicht des Galgens (Neuhaus: Eigenverlag Brigitte Frank,
1955), 247.
20. Paul Reusch and Richard Korherr, eds., Oswald Spengler zum Gedenken
(Nördlingen: C. H. Beck, 1937).
21. Cf. David Engels, “André Fauconnet und Oswald Spengler (mitsamt der
bislang unveröffentlichten Korrespondenz Fauconnets mit August Albers,
Hildegard und Hilde Kornhardt und Richard Korherr),” in Oswald Spengler
als europäisches Phänomen, ed. Zaur Gasimov and Cornelius A. Lemke Duque
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2013), 105– 156.
22. Spengler, Decline, vol. 1, xiv.
23. On Spengler, Goethe, and Nietzsche, cf. Uwe Janensch, Goethe und Nietzsche bei
Spengler: Eine Untersuchung der strukturellen und konzeptionellen Grundlagen des
Spenglerschen Systems (Berlin: Wissenschaftsverlag, 2006).
24. Spengler, Decline, vol. 1, 18.
25. Cf. in general Hans Joachim Schoeps, Vorläufer Spenglers: Studien zum
Geschichtspessimismus im 19. Jahrhundert (Leiden: Brill, 1955).
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Oswald Spengler and the Decline of the West
19
26. David Engels, ed., Von Platon bis Fukuyama. Biologistische und zyklische Konzepte in
der Geschichtsphilosophie der Antike und des Abendlandes (Brussels: Latomus, 2015).
27. On Hegel and Spengler cf. David Engels, “Ducunt fata volentem, nolentem
trahunt. Spengler, Hegel und das Problem der Willensfreiheit im
Geschichtsdeterminismus,” Saeculum 59 (2009): 269– 298.
28. Spengler, Decline, vol. 1, 21.
29. Ibid., 104.
30. Ibid., 107f.
31. Thomas Mann, Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen (Berlin: Fischer, 1918).
32. Spengler, Decline, vol. 1, 44.
33. Ibid., 165.
34. On this problem, see David Engels, “Is There a ‘Persian’ Culture? Critical
Reflections on the Place of Ancient Iran in Oswald Spengler’s Philosophy of
History,” in Persianism in Antiquity, ed. Miguel J. Versluys and Rolf Strootman
(Stuttgart: Steiner, 2017), 21– 44.
35. Spengler, Der Mensch und die Technik.
36. Spengler, Decline, vol. 2, 507.
37. Manfred Schröter, Der Streit um Spengler: Kritik seiner Kritiker (Munich: C.
H. Beck, 1922).
38. Cf. e.g., Gasimov and Lemke Duque, eds., Oswald Spengler als europäisches
Phänomen.
39. This explains, for instance, the very hostile position of the French press,
summarized in André Fauconnet, Oswald Spengler, le prophète du déclin de
l’occident (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1925). See also Engels, “André Fauconnet und
Oswald Spengler.”
40. Cf. Lutz Keppeler, Oswald Spengler und die Jurisprudenz (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2014).
41. Cf. Marie- Elisabeth Parent, Recherches sur les éléments d’une conception
esthétique dans l’oeuvre d’Oswald Spengle (Frankfurt/ Bern: Peter Lang, 1982);
Ingo Kaiserreiner, Kunst und Weltgefühl: Die bildende Kunst in der Sicht Oswald
Spenglers: Darstellung und Kritik (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 1994).
42. Thomas Mann, Von deutscher Republik (Berlin: Fischer, 1923).
43. Cf. Barbara Beßlich, Faszination des Verfalls: Thomas Mann und Oswald Spengler
(Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002).
44. Cf. in general Hugh L. Trigg, “The Impact of a Pessimist. The Reception of
Oswald Spengler in America 1919– 1939” (PhD, Peabody College for Teachers
of V
anderbilt University, 1968). See also the two following case studies: David
Engels, “‘Spengler Emerges Biggest and Best of All’: Die Rezeption Oswald
Spenglers bei Henry Miller,” Sprachkunst 43 (2012): 113– 130; David Engels,
“‘This Is an Extraordinary Thing You’ve Perhaps Heard of’: Die Rezeption
Oswald Spenglers bei Francis Scott Fitzgerald,” in Spengler ohne Ende, ed. Gilbert
Merlio and Daniel Meyer (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2014), 217– 242.
2
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45. For example, Arthur Zweiniger, Spengler im Dritten Reich: Eine Antwort auf
Oswald Spenglers “Jahre Der Entscheidung” (Oldenburg: Stalling, 1933); Günther
Gründel, Jahre der Überwindung: Umfassende Abrechnung mit dem “Untergangs”-
Magier (Breslau: Korn, 1934).
46. Discussion in Alfred von Martin, Geistige Wegbereiter des deutschen
Zusammenbruchs, Hegel— Nietzsche— Spengler (Recklinghausen: Bitter, 1948). It
is noteworthy that Fauconnet gave a public lecture in France devoted to the ques-
tion “Spengler a- t- il été national- socialiste?” in August 1945 and answered in
the negative: André Fauconnet, “Spengler a- t- il été national- socialiste?” (public
conference 1945), in Mélanges littéraires de l’Université de Poitiers (1946): 69– 79.
47. Correspondence published in Engels, “André Fauconnet und Oswald Spengler”;
see also Hildegard Kornhardt’s 1941 attempt to launch a small volume with
aphorisms, Gedanken (Munich: C. H. Beck, ca. 1941).
48. Theodor W. Adorno, “Spengler nach dem Untergang” (1950) in Adorno, Prismen
(Berlin: Suhrkamp, 1955), 51– 81.
49. Gilbert Merlio, Oswald Spengler: Témoin de son temps (Stuttgart: Akademischer
Verlag Hans- Dieter Heinz, 1982).
50. Some noteworthy exceptions: Manfred Schröter, Metaphysik des Untergangs: Eine
kulturkritische Studie über Oswald Spengler (Munich: Leibniz Verlag, 1949); Anton
M. Koktanek, ed., Spengler Studien: Festgabe für M. Schröter zum 85. Geburtstag
(Munich: C. H. Beck, 1965); Peter Chr. Ludz, ed., Spengler heute: Sechs Essays mit
einem Vorwort von Hermann Lübbe (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1980).
51. Klaus P. Fischer, History and Prophecy: Oswald Spengler and the Decline of the
West (New York: Peter Lang, 1989); Alexander Demandt and John Farrenkopf,
Key Thinkers of the Radical Right Page 6
