Edgar Julius Jung: The Conservative Revolution in Theory and Practice

Abstract

Of the conservative theorists who rose to prominence during the last years of the Weimar Republic, none stood more directly in the eye of the storm that descended upon Germany in 1933–34 than Edgar Julius Jung (1894–1934). HisDie Herrschaft der Minderwertigen, first published in 1927 and then again in a revised and expanded edition in 1930, has been called the bible of German neo-conservatism and played a major role in crystallizing antidemocratic sentiment against the Weimar Republic. But Jung was more than a theorist; he was also a political activist deeply committed to a conservative regeneration (Erneuerung) of the German state. In 1930–31, for example, Jung was actively involved in the efforts of the People's Conservative Association (Volkskonservative Vereinigungor VKV) to create a new conservative movement to the left of the German National People's Party (Deutschnationale Volksparteior DNVP) after its takeover by film and press magnate Alfred Hugenberg.