‘Liberalism is the death of nations” — a famous line from an infamous book. Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, the author, did not have American progressivism in mind. His critique was aimed at liberal democracy as a political regime. Moeller coined the term “Third Reich” in his 1923 book, where these words originate. He was not a National Socialist but part of the “conservative revolution,” a diverse group of writers in the Weimar Republic. Alongside the more radical Völkische Bewegung, an influential ethno-nationalist movement, the “conservative revolutionaries” shaped the social atmosphere that paved the way for National Socialism.
The anti-liberal, anti-democratic, and antisemitic conservatism of the Weimar Republic survived beyond 1945 in small intellectual circles and networks. However, they never gained political traction in the Federal Republic until the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) emerged. This marked the end of German exceptionalism in Europe, where Germany had been almost the sole country without a right-wing populist party. For a considerable period, Germans believed that the lessons learned from the crimes of the “Third Reich,” especially the Holocaust, would immunize them against radicalism. With mainstream political parties having failed to respond meaningfully to the crises of German national sovereignty, and with the AfD on the rise for pretending to be able to solve these problems, this assumption no longer holds true.
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