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  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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  C L A S S I C T H I N K E R S

  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.

  18

  18

  C L A S S I C T H I N K E R S

  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).

  19

  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

  0

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  C L A S S I C T H I N K E R S

  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,