The Mind of Germany, by H. Kohn

[p025] The Mind of Germany. Kohn. According to Mr. Kohn, Germans since the Middle Ages have been full of ‘nationalism fused with the con- sciousness of the imperial mission’. The growth of modern science and technology, he claims, did not alter this ‘social and_ intellectual sub- structure’. It was this, together with their ‘dedicated discipline and feeling of superiority’ which led the Germans to rally round Hitler, who appeared to them as the legendary figure of Frederick Barbarossa, said to be sleeping in the heart of a mountain, awaiting Germany’s hour of need. A fascination with the concepts of Schicksal. (fate) and Verhiingnis (doom), a refusal to recognise the ‘demonic character of power’, a Macmillan, 30s. called off _ these strikes, but there were mutinies By Hans . ‘longing for a Hidden Saviour’, together make up a ‘specific German intellectual and _ political heritage which made the Germans acclaim Hitler’s rise to power’. Thus Hitlerism, in Mr. Kohn’s view, was not due to any contradic- tions within capitalism but to the imposition of modern society on pre- modern social and __ intellectual foundations. Similarly, the First World War was caused, not by a clash of rival imperialisms, but by ‘reliance. on power, a_ feeling. of. superiority and a _ disregard for moral factors’ on the part of Germany. In 1945, however, ‘sober and re- sponsible thinking began to assert itself’ and West Germany—though ° not East—has returned to ‘the prin- ciples of individual freedom’, Scholars have begun ‘to re-evaluate modern Germany and to re-assess its principle trends in the light of reality and of universal ethical principles’. Dr. Adenauer, we are assured, is determined to re-establish ‘moral and intellectual’ ties with the West. This theory that militarism and fascism were a _ product of the ‘German mind’ leaves out of account the crisis of imperialism which led to both world wars, and the deep economic crisis of.German capitalism which forced the German industrial- ists to turn to Adolf Hitler in order: to smash the German working class. ~ It also ignores the struggles of the German working class against them. What of Karl Liebknecht’s stand against the German war-credits in 1914? What about the Spartacists? What about the heroic March days? There is no mention of the in- numerable street. battles between German Communists and _ Hitler’s brownshirts; no mention of the thousands of Social - Democrats, Communists and Trotskyists who died in the concentration camps. And there is no mention either of Dr. Adenauer’s supporters in his new moral venture—many of them former Nazi industrialists, generals, judges or administrators. To present Nazism merely as a triumph of authoritarian power (Macht) over spiritual depth (Geist), completely divorced from economic and social corflict, and moreover, to present the Adenauer regime as a reversal of this process, may fit in

[p026] BOOK REVIEWS well with the outlook of a professor at an American college. It is’ of little value to a Marxist, or to anyone who wishes to study seriously the roots of fascism or the history of Germany. G.G. Political novels