To the original history of the Third Reich

Abstract

The article by E. Bloch raises the question of how the intellectual heritage of the distant past is appropriated by modern political movements. The author draws attention to the actualization of ancient folk dreams at the beginning of the twentieth century. He focuses on the reception of medieval religious teachings by the mass consciousness of Germans during the period of the birth of Nazism in Germany in the 1920s — 1930s. The way in which the concepts of medieval consciousness „leader“ and „Third Reich“ were introduced into the consciousness of contemporaries, Bloch qualifies as „deception“, distortion of their original meaning, transformation of meanings into opposite ones. The philosopher shows that the term „Third Reich“ has a long, truly revolutionary history, since in the original the Third Reich denoted the socio-revolutionary ideal dream of Christian heresy: the dream of the Third Gospel and the world corresponding to it. Bloch examines the influence of chiliasm on many historical revolutionary movements. Modern socialism, according to Bloch, is an attempt to realize the dreams of the medieval masses without mystical coloring. Then, the article traces in detail the evolution of the concept of „liberator of the oppressed“, „leader“ from the most ancient times; it also analyzes book texts and oral legends. The author emphasizes the constant motif of the „resurrected“ or „awakened“ Kaiser-liberator and his place in the mass consciousness. The conclusion is made about how the use of this image helped the Nazis in establishing their popularity. The article pays special attention to the life and ideas of Abbot Joachim Florsky (XII century) as an iconic figure of the socio-chiliastic turn. Bloch is interested in Florsky in connection with another important motif of the Middle Ages, which was actualized by Nazism: „this world’s Gospel“. Bloch analyzes the predecessors of Florsky’s teaching — Eriugen and the Saint Victorians. He proves that in Florsky’s interpretation, the mystical movement of the soul along the steps was projected onto the entire process of the movement of humanity, its history. He „put the earth under strict Christian requirements“, which should be implemented in the last, third stage. Further, Bloch traces the development of the idea of the trinity of stages of the historical movement from the Old Testament eschatological motives, Augustine, through the German Enlightenment and Romanticism up to the present (Fyodor Dostoevsky, Henrik Ibsen and others). Bloch concludes that „the neglect of the old ways and forms does not go unpunished“. The main result of the study can be understood as an indication that the old forms of mass dreams can be used by modern political forces with completely different goals and effects.