Zur Frage eines ästhetischen Faschismus

Abstract

"This essay is an attempt to throw light on German fascism from a new perspective, namely by examinating its vocabulary of cultural criticism. I focus on the language of Martin Heidegger and Ernst Jünger to suggest that it represents a critique of philosophical and religious transcendence. Being neither logical nor primarily communicative, it was arbitrary and elaborately coded, and while thus evading party political identification and orthodoxy, it added up to an expression of what has been called, in reference to Heidegger, a 'Privat-Nationalsozialismus'. That is why the concept of 'Aesthetic Fascism'." (author's abstract)