Houston Stewart Chamberlain
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Houston Stewart Chamberlain (; 9 September 1855 – 9 January 1927) was a British-German philosopher who wrote works about
political philosophy Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...
and
natural science Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...
. His writing promoted German
ethnonationalism Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric (and in some cases an ethnocratic) approach to various politi ...
,
antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
, and
scientific racism Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies ...
; and he has been described as a "racialist writer". His best-known book, the two-volume ''Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts'' (''
The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century ''The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century'' (''Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts,'' 1899) is a book by British-born German philosopher Houston Stewart Chamberlain. In the book, Chamberlain advances various racialist and especially ''v ...
''), published 1899, became highly influential in the
pan-Germanic Pan-Germanism (german: Pangermanismus or '), also occasionally known as Pan-Germanicism, is a pan-nationalist political idea. Pan-Germanists originally sought to unify all the German-speaking people – and possibly also Germanic-speaking ...
''Völkisch'' movements of the early 20th century, and later influenced the antisemitism of
Nazi racial policy The racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented in Nazi Germany under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, based on a specific racist doctrine asserting the superiority of the Aryan race, which claimed scientific legi ...
. Indeed, Chamberlain has been referred to as "Hitler's
John the Baptist John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...
". Born in
Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...
, Chamberlain emigrated to
Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...
in adulthood out of an adoration for composer
Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
, and was later naturalised as a German citizen. He married Eva von Bülow, Wagner's daughter, in December 1908, twenty-five years after Wagner's death.Eva von Bulow's mother,
Cosima Wagner Francesca Gaetana Cosima Wagner ( née Liszt; 24 December 1837 – 1 April 1930) was the daughter of the Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt and Franco-German romantic author Marie d'Agoult. She became the second wife of the German co ...
, was still married to
Hans von Bülow Freiherr Hans Guido von Bülow (8 January 1830 – 12 February 1894) was a German conductor, virtuoso pianist, and composer of the Romantic era. As one of the most distinguished conductors of the 19th century, his activity was critical for es ...
when Eva was born – but her biological father was Wagner.


Early life and education

Houston Stewart Chamberlain was born in
Southsea Southsea is a seaside resort and a geographic area of Portsmouth, Portsea Island in England. Southsea is located 1.8 miles (2.8 km) to the south of Portsmouth's inner city-centre. Southsea is not a separate town as all of Portsea Island's s ...
,
Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...
, England, the son of
Rear Admiral Rear admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, equivalent to a major general and air vice marshal and above that of a commodore and captain, but below that of a vice admiral. It is regarded as a two star "admiral" rank. It is often regarde ...
William Charles Chamberlain Rear-Admiral William Charles Chamberlain (21 April 1818 – 27 February 1878) was a rear admiral in the Royal Navy. Family He was the eldest son of the diplomat Sir Henry Chamberlain, 1st Baronet, by his second wife Anne Eugenia née Morgan. Ch ...
, RN. His mother, Eliza Jane, daughter of
Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
Basil Hall Basil Hall (31 December 1788 – 11 September 1844) was a British naval officer from Scotland, a traveller, and an author. He was the second son of Sir James Hall, 4th Baronet, an eminent man of science. Biography Although his family home was ...
, RN, died before he was a year old, leading to his being brought up by his grandmother in France. His elder brother was
Japanologist Japanese studies (Japanese: ) or Japan studies (sometimes Japanology in Europe), is a sub-field of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on Japan. It incorporates fields such as the study of Japanese ...
and
Tokyo Imperial University , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...
professor Basil Hall Chamberlain. Chamberlain's poor health frequently led him to being sent to the warmer climates of
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...
and
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
for the winter. This constant moving about made it hard for Chamberlain to form lasting friendships.


Cheltenham college

Chamberlain's education began at a ''
lycée In France, secondary education is in two stages: * ''Collèges'' () cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 15. * ''Lycées'' () provide a three-year course of further secondary education for children between ...
'' in
Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
and continued mostly on the continent, but his father had planned a military career for his son. At the age of eleven he was sent to
Cheltenham College ("Work Conquers All") , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent School Day and Boarding School , religion = Church of England , president = , head_label = Head , head = Nicola Huggett ...
, an English
boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...
that produced many Army and Navy officers. Chamberlain grew up in a self-confident, optimistic, Victorian atmosphere that celebrated the nineteenth century as the " Age of Progress"; a time of growing wealth, scientific discoveries, technological advances and democratic political reforms; a world that many Victorians expected to get progressively better and better with Britain leading the way for the rest of the world. Chamberlain grew up supportive of the
Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...
, and shared the general values of 19th-century British
liberalism Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...
such as a faith in progress, of a world that could only get better, of the greatness of Britain as a liberal democratic and capitalist society. Chamberlain deeply disliked Cheltenham College, and felt lonely and out of place there. The young Chamberlain was "a compulsive dreamer", more interested in the arts than in the military, and he developed a fondness for nature and a near-
mystical Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...
sense of self.Mosse (1968), p.ix Chamberlain's major interests in his studies at Cheltenham were the natural sciences, especially astronomy.Field (1981), p.24 Chamberlain later recalled: "The starlight exerted an indescribable influence on me. The stars seemed closer to me, more gentle, more worthy of trust, and more sympathetic – for that is the only word which describes my feelings – than any of the people around me in school. For the stars, I experienced true ''friendship''".


Embracing conservativism

During his youth, Chamberlain – while not entirely rejecting at this point his liberalism – became influenced by the romantic conservative critique of the
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
. Bemoaning the loss of "Merry Old England", this view argued for a return to a highly romanticized portrait of a mythic, bucolic period of English history that had never existed, with the people living happily in harmony with nature on the land overseen by a benevolent, cultured elite. In this critique, the Industrial Revolution was seen as a disaster which forced people to live in dirty, overcrowded cities, doing dehumanizing work in factories while society was dominated by a philistine, greedy middle class. The prospect of serving as an officer in
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
or elsewhere in the
British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
held no attraction for him. In addition, he was a delicate child with poor health. At the age of fourteen he had to be withdrawn from school. After Cheltenham, Chamberlain always felt out of place in Britain, a society whose values Chamberlain felt were not his values, writing in 1876: "The fact may be regrettable but it remains a fact; I have become so completely un-English that the mere thought of England and the English makes me unhappy". Chamberlain then travelled to various
spas Spas or SPAS may refer to: * Spa, a therapeutic water treatment Geography *Spas, Russia, several rural localities in Russia * Spas, Lviv Raion, Lviv Oblast, a village in Lviv Raion in Lviv Oblast, Ukraine * Spas, Sambir Raion, Lviv Oblast, a vil ...
around Europe, accompanied by a
Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
n tutor, Mr Otto Kuntze, who taught him German and interested him in
German culture The culture of Germany has been shaped by major intellectual and popular currents in Europe, both religious and secular. Historically, Germany has been called ''Das Land der Dichter und Denker'' (the country of poets and thinkers). German cultu ...
and
history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
. Fascinated by Renaissance art and architecture, Chamberlain learned Italian and planned to settle in
Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
for a time.


University of Geneva and racial theory

Chamberlain attended the
University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centu ...
, in French-speaking Switzerland. There he studied under
Carl Vogt August Christoph Carl Vogt (; 5 July 18175 May 1895) was a German scientist, philosopher, popularizer of science, and politician who emigrated to Switzerland. Vogt published a number of notable works on zoology, geology and physiology. All his ...
, who was a supporter of racial typology, as well as under chemist
Carl Gräbe Carl Gräbe (; 24 February 1841 – 19 January 1927) was a German industrial and academic chemist from Frankfurt am Main who held professorships in his field at Leipzig, Königsberg, and Geneva. He is known for the first synthesis of the ec ...
, botanist
Johannes Müller Argoviensis Johann Müller (9 May 1828 - 28 January 1896) was a Swiss botanist who was a specialist in lichens. He published under the name Johannes Müller Argoviensis to distinguish himself from other naturalists with similar names. Biography Müller w ...
, physicist and parapsychologist Marc Thury, astronomer
Emile Plantamour Emile Plantamour or Émile Plantamour, (14 May 1815 - 7 September 1882) was a Swiss astronomer. Biography He was the son of François-Théodore, Hospital director, and of Louise Saladin. He was born in Geneva. He studied astronomy with Jean-Al ...
, and other professors. Chamberlain's main interests as a student revolved around systematic botany, geology, astronomy, and later the anatomy and physiology of the human body.Redesdale (1913), p. vi In 1881, he earned a ''baccalauréat ès sciences physiques et naturelles'' ("baccalaureate in physical and natural sciences").


Botany dissertation: theory of vital force

In Geneva, Chamberlain continued working towards a doctorate in
botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...
, but he later abandoned that project due to ill health. The text of what would have been Chamberlain's doctoral dissertation was published in 1897 as ''Recherches sur la sève ascendante'' ("Studies on rising
sap Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a separa ...
"), but this publication did not culminate in any further academic qualifications. In his preface, Chamberlain quoted from a letter by Prof.
Julius Wiesner Dr. Julius Ritter von Wiesner (20 January 1838 – 9 October 1916) was a professor of botany at the University of Vienna, a specialist in the physiology and anatomy of plants. In 1870 he became a professor at the forestry academy of Mariabru ...
of the
University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...
praising Chamberlain's work. Chamberlain's book was based on his own experimental observations of water transport in various
vascular plants Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes () or collectively Tracheophyta (), form a large group of land plants ( accepted known species) that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They al ...
. Against the conclusions of Eduard Strasburger,
Julius von Sachs Julius von Sachs (; 2 October 1832 – 29 May 1897) was a German botanist from Breslau, Prussian Silesia. He is considered the founder of experimental plant physiology and co-founder of modern water culture. Julius von Sachs and Wilhelm Knop a ...
, and other leading botanists, he argued that his observations could not be explained by the application of the fluid mechanical theories of the day to the motion of water in the plants'
xylem Xylem is one of the two types of transport tissue in vascular plants, the other being phloem. The basic function of xylem is to transport water from roots to stems and leaves, but it also transports nutrients. The word ''xylem'' is derived from ...
conduits. Instead, he claimed that his results evidenced other processes, associated with the action of living matter and which he placed under the heading of a ''force vitale'' ("
vital force Vitalism is a belief that starts from the premise that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things." Wher ...
"). Chamberlain summarised his thesis in the book's introduction: In response to Strasburger's complaint that a vitalistic explanation of the ascent of sap "sidesteps the difficulties, calms our concerns, and thus manages to seduce us", Chamberlain retorted that "life is not an explanation, nor a theory, but a fact". Although most plant physiologists currently regard the ascent of sap as adequately explained by the passive mechanisms of
transpirational pull Xylem is one of the two types of transport tissue in vascular plants, the other being phloem. The basic function of xylem is to transport water from roots to stems and leaves, but it also transports nutrients. The word ''xylem'' is derived from ...
and
root pressure Root pressure is the transverse osmotic pressure within the cells of a root system that causes sap to rise through a plant stem to the leaves. Root pressure occurs in the xylem of some vascular plants when the soil moisture level is high either ...
, some scientists have continued to argue that some form of active pumping is involved in the transport of water within some living plants, though usually without referring to Chamberlain's work on the subject.


Still Liberal: Accusing Disraeli of ruining England

During his time in Geneva, Chamberlain, who always despised
Benjamin Disraeli Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation o ...
, came to hate his country more and more, accusing the Prime Minister of taking British life down to what Chamberlain considered to be his extremely low level.Field (1981), p.353 During the early 1880s, Chamberlain was still a Liberal, "a man who approached issues from a firmly Gladstonian perspective and showed a marked antipathy to the philosophy and policies of British Conservatism". Chamberlain often expressed his disgust with Disraeli, "the man whom he blamed in large measure for the injection of selfish class interest and
jingoism Jingoism is nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national inte ...
into British public life in the next decades". In 1881, he wrote to his family in Britain, praising
William Ewart Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...
for introducing the Land Bill to bring in "fair rents" in Ireland and withdrawing from the Transvaal. An early sign of his anti-Semitism came in 1881 when he described the landlords in Ireland affected by the Land Bill as "blood-sucking Jews (''sic'')". The main landowning classes in Ireland then were Anglo-Irish
gentile Gentile () is a word that usually means "someone who is not a Jew". Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, sometimes use the term ''gentile'' to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is generally used as a synonym for ...
s, though at this stage of his life his anti-Semitic remarks were few and far between.


Support of World Ice Theory

Chamberlain was an early supporter of
Hanns Hörbiger Johannes "Hanns" Evangelist Hörbiger (29 November 1860, in Atzgersdorf – 11 October 1931, in Mauer), better known as Hanns Hörbiger, was an Austrian engineer from Vienna with roots in Tyrol. He took part in the construction of the Budapes ...
's ''
Welteislehre Welteislehre (WEL; "World Ice Theory" or "World Ice Doctrine"), also known as Glazial-Kosmogonie (''Glacial Cosmogony''), is a discredited cosmological concept proposed by Hanns Hörbiger, an Austrian engineer and inventor. According to his ideas, ...
'' ("World Ice Theory"), the theory that most bodies in our
Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...
are covered with ice. Due in part to Chamberlain's advocacy, this became official
cosmological Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher ...
dogma Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Islam ...
during the
Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
.


Anti-scientific claims

Chamberlain's attitude towards the natural sciences was somewhat ambivalent and contradictory – he later wrote: "one of the most fatal errors of our time is that which impels us to give too great weight to the so-called 'results' of science." Still, his scientific credentials were often cited by admirers to give weight to his political philosophy. Chamberlain rejected Darwinism, evolution and
social Darwinism Social Darwinism refers to various theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics, and which were largely defined by scholars in We ...
and instead emphasized "
Gestalt Gestalt may refer to: Psychology * Gestalt psychology, a school of psychology * Gestalt therapy, a form of psychotherapy * Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test, an assessment of development disorders * Gestalt Practice, a practice of self-exploration ...
" which he said derived from
Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...
.


Wagnerite

An ardent
Francophile A Francophile, also known as Gallophile, is a person who has a strong affinity towards any or all of the French language, French history, French culture and/or French people. That affinity may include France itself or its history, language, cuisin ...
in his youth, Chamberlain had a marked preference for speaking French over English.Buruma (2000) p.219 It was only at the age of twenty three in November 1878, when he first heard the music of
Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
—which struck him with all the force of a religious revelation—that Chamberlain became not only a Wagnerite, but an ardent
Germanophile A Germanophile, Teutonophile, or Teutophile is a person who is fond of German culture, German people and Germany in general, or who exhibits German patriotism in spite of not being either an ethnic German or a German citizen. The love of the ''Ge ...
and
Francophobe Anti-French sentiment (Francophobia or Gallophobia) is fear or antagonism of France, the French people, French culture, the French government or the Francophonie (set of political entities that use French as an official language or whose French-s ...
. As he put later, it was then he realized the full "degeneracy" of the French culture that he had so admired compared to the greatness of the German culture that had produced Wagner, whom Chamberlain viewed as one of the great geniuses of all time. In the music of Wagner, Chamberlain finally found the mystical, life-affirming spiritual force that he had been unsuccessfully seeking to find in British and French cultures. Further increasing his love of Germany was that he had fallen in love with a German woman named Anna Horst, and she with him.Field (1981), p.33 As Chamberlain's wealthy, elitist family back in Britain objected to him marrying the lower middle-class Horst on the grounds that she was socially unsuitable for him, this further estranged him from Britain, a place whose people Chamberlain regarded as cold, unfeeling, callous and concerned only with money. By contrast, Chamberlain regarded Germany as the romantic "land of love", a place whose people had human feelings like love, and whose culture was infused with a special spirituality that brought out the best in humanity. In 1883–1884, Chamberlain lived in Paris and worked as a stockbroker. Chamberlain's attempts to play the Paris bourse ended in failure as he proved to be inept at business, and much of his hatred of capitalism stemmed from his time in Paris. More happily for him, Chamberlain founded the first Wagner society in Paris and often contributed articles to the '' Revue wagnérienne'', the first journal in France devoted to Wagner studies. Together with his friend, the French writer
Édouard Dujardin Édouard Dujardin (10 November 1861 – 31 October 1949) was a French writer, one of the early users of the stream of consciousness literary technique, exemplified by his 1888 novel '' Les Lauriers sont coupés.'' Biography Édouard Émile Loui ...
, Chamberlain did much to introduce Wagner to the French, who until then had largely ignored Wagner's music. Thereafter he settled in
Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...
, where "he plunged heart and soul into the mysterious depths of
Wagnerian Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
music and philosophy, the
metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
works of the Master probably exercising as strong an influence upon him as the musical dramas". Chamberlain immersed himself in philosophical writings, and became a '' Völkisch'' author, one of those concerned more with a highly racist understanding of art, culture, civilisation and spirit than with quantitative physical distinctions between groups. This is evidenced by his huge treatise on
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
with its comparisons. His knowledge of
Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
is demonstrated in that work (p. 183) and in ''Foundations'' (p. 153n). It was during his time in Dresden that Chamberlain came to embrace ''völkisch'' thought through his study of Wagner, and from 1884 onwards, anti-Semitic and racist statements became the norm in his letters to his family in Britain. In 1888, Chamberlain wrote to his family proclaiming his joy at the death of the Emperor
Friedrich III Frederick III may refer to: * Frederick III, Duke of Upper Lorraine (died 1033) * Frederick III, Duke of Swabia (1122–1190) * Friedrich III, Burgrave of Nuremberg (1220–1297) * Frederick III, Duke of Lorraine (1240–1302) * Frederick III of S ...
, a strong opponent of anti-Semitism whom Chamberlain called a "Jewish liberal", and rejoicing that his anti-Semitic son
Wilhelm II Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor (german: Kaiser) and King of Prussia, reigning from 15 June 1888 until his abdication on 9 November 1918. Despite strengthening the German Empir ...
was now on the throne. June 1888 was an auspicious month for Chamberlain. Besides the death of the "Jew-lover" Friedrich III, June 1888 also saw Chamberlain's first visit to the
Wahnfried Wahnfried was the name given by Richard Wagner to his villa in Bayreuth. The name is a German compound of (delusion, madness) and (peace, freedom). Financed by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, the house was constructed from 1872 to 1874 under Bayr ...
to meet
Cosima Wagner Francesca Gaetana Cosima Wagner ( née Liszt; 24 December 1837 – 1 April 1930) was the daughter of the Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt and Franco-German romantic author Marie d'Agoult. She became the second wife of the German co ...
, the reclusive leader of the Wagner cult. Chamberlain later recalled that Cosima Wagner had "electrified" him as he felt the "deepest love" for Wagner's widow while Wagner wrote to a friend that she felt a "great friendship" with Chamberlain "because of his outstanding learning and dignified character". Wagner came to regard Chamberlain as her surrogate son.Field (1981), p.75 Under her influence, Chamberlain abandoned his previous belief that art was a separate entity from other fields and came to embrace the ''völkisch'' belief of the unity of race, art, nation and politics. Saxony was a center of ''völkisch'' activity in the late 19th century, and in the elections to the Saxon ''Landtag'' in 1893, ''völkisch'' candidates won 6 out of the 16 seats. Chamberlain's status as an immigrant to Germany always meant he was to a certain extent an outsider in his adopted country – a man who spoke fluent German, but always with an English accent. In a classic case of being ''plus royaliste que le roi'' (more royalist than the king), Chamberlain tried very hard to be more German than the Germans, and it was his efforts to fit in that led him to ''völkisch'' politics.Field (1981), p.331 Likewise, his anti-Semitism allowed him to define himself as a German in opposition to a group that allegedly threatened all Germans, thereby allowing him to integrate better into the Wagnerian circles with whom he socialized most of the time. Chamberlain's friend Hermann Keyserling later recalled that Chamberlain was an eccentric English "individualist" who "never saw Germany as it really is", instead having an idealized, almost mythic view of Germany and the Germans.Field (1981), p.320 This was especially the case as initially the German Wagnerites had rejected Chamberlain, telling him that only Germans could really understand Wagner, statements that very much hurt Chamberlain. To compensate, Chamberlain became "überdeutsch", the man who wanted to be more German than the Germans. By this time Chamberlain had met his first wife, the
Prussian Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
Anna Horst, whom he would divorce in 1905 after 28 years of marriage. Chamberlain was an admirer of Richard Wagner, and wrote several commentaries on his works including ''Notes sur Lohengrin '' ("Notes on Lohengrin") (1892), an analysis of Wagner's drama (1892), and a biography (1895), emphasising in particular the heroic Teutonic aspects in the composer's works. Stewart Spencer, writing in ''Wagner Remembered'', described Chamberlain's edition of Wagner letters as "one of the most egregious attempts in the history of
musicology Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...
to misrepresent an artist by systematically censoring his correspondence". In particular, Wagner's lively sex life presented a problem for Chamberlain. Wagner had abandoned his first wife Minna, had an open affair with the married woman Mathilde Wesendonck and had started sleeping with his second wife Cosima while she was still married to her first husband.Field (1981), p.133 Chamberlain in his Wagner biography went to considerable lengths to distort the Master's love-life such as implying that Wagner's relationship with Cosima von Bülow only started after the death of her first husband. During his time in Dresden, Chamberlain like many other ''völkisch'' activists became fascinated with
Hindu mythology Hindu mythology is the body of myths and literature attributed to, and espoused by, the adherents of the Hindu religion, found in Hindu texts such as the Vedic literature, epics like ''Mahabharata'' and ''Ramayana'', the Puranas, and reg ...
and legend, and learned
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
in order to read the ancient Indian epics like the ''
Vedas upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...
'' and the ''
Upanishads The Upanishads (; sa, उपनिषद् ) are late Vedic Sanskrit texts that supplied the basis of later Hindu philosophy.Wendy Doniger (1990), ''Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism'', 1st Edition, University of Chicago Press, , ...
'' in their original form.Field (1981), p.304 In these stories about ancient
Aryan Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ' ...
heroes conquering the Indian subcontinent, Chamberlain found a very appealing world governed by a rigid caste system with social inferiors firmly locked into their place; full of larger-than-life Aryan gods and aristocratic heroes and a world that focused on the spiritual at the expense of the material. Since by this time, historians, archaeologists and linguists had all accepted that the Aryans ("light ones") of Hindu legend were an Indo-European people, Chamberlain had little trouble arguing that these Aryans were in fact Germanic peoples, and modern Germans had much to learn from
Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
, stating "in the night of the inner life ... the Indian ... finds his way in the dark more surely than anyone". For Chamberlain the Hindu texts offered a body of pure Aryan thought that made it possible to find the harmony of humanity and nature, which provided the unity of thought, purpose and action that provided the necessary spirituality for Aryan peoples to find true happiness in a world being destroyed by a soulless materialism. The popularity of the Hindu texts with the ''völkisch'' movement explains why the swastika, an ancient Indian symbol, was adopted by the ''völkisch'' activists as one of their symbols.


Champion of Wagnerism

In 1889, he moved to
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
. During this time it is said his ideas on race began taking shape, influenced by the concept of Teutonic supremacy he believed embodied in the works of
Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
and the French racist writer
Arthur de Gobineau Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (; 14 July 1816 – 13 October 1882) was a French aristocrat who is best known for helping to legitimise racism by the use of scientific racist theory and "racial demography", and for developing the theory of the Ary ...
.Chase, Allan (1977) ''The Legacy of Malthus: The Social Costs of the New Scientific Racism'' New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp.91–92 In his book ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'', the aristocratic Gobineau, who had an obsessive hatred of commoners, had developed the theory of an Aryan master race as a way of bolstering his social standing as he believed that French aristocrats like himself were the descendants of the Germanic Franks who had conquered the Roman province of Gaul while ordinary French people were the descendants of racially inferior Latin and Celtic peoples. Wagner had met Gobineau while on vacation in Rome in 1876, and the two had become friends. Wagner was greatly influenced by Gobineau's theories, but could not accept Gobineau's theory of inevitable racial decay amongst what was left of the "Aryan race", instead preferring the idea of racial regeneration of the Aryans. The Franco-Israeli
historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...
Saul Friedländer Saul Friedländer (; born October 11, 1932) is a Czech-Jewish-born historian and a professor emeritus of history at UCLA. Biography Saul Friedländer was born in Prague to a family of German-speaking Jews. He was raised in France and lived thro ...
opined that Wagner was the inventor of a new type of anti-Semitism, namely "redemptive anti-semitism", a type of ''völkisch'' anti-semitism that could explain all in the world in regards to Jew-hatred and offer a form of "redemption" for the anti-Semitic.Friedländer (1998), p.87 Chamberlain had attended Wagner's
Bayreuth Festival The Bayreuth Festival (german: link=no, Bayreuther Festspiele) is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived ...
in 1882 and struck up a close correspondence with his widow Cosima. In 1908, twenty-five years after Wagner's death, he married Eva von Bülow-Wagner,
Franz Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
's granddaughter and Richard Wagner's daughter (Wagner had started fathering children by Cosima while she was still married to Hans von Bülow – despite her surname, Eva was actually Wagner's daughter). The next year he moved to Germany and became an important member of the "
Bayreuth Circle The Bayreuth Circle (German: ''Der Bayreuther Kreis'') was a name originally applied by some writers to devotees of Richard Wagner's music who attended and supported the annual Bayreuth Festival in the later 19th and early twentieth centuries. As ...
" of German nationalist intellectuals. As an ardent Wagnerite, Chamberlain saw it as his life's mission to spread the message of racial hatred which he believed Wagner had advocated.Friedländer (1998), p.89 Chamberlain explained his work in promoting the Wagner cult as an effort to cure modern society of its spiritual ills that he claimed were caused by capitalism, industrialisation, materialism, and urbanisation. Chamberlain wrote about modern society in the 1890s:
Like a wheel that spins faster and faster, the increasing rush of life drives us continually further apart from each other, continually further from the 'firm ground of nature'; soon it must fling us out into empty nothingness.Field (1981), p.150
In another letter, Chamberlain stated:
If we do not soon pay attention to Schiller's thought regarding the transformation from the state of Need into the Aesthetic State, then our condition will degenerate into a boundless chaos of empty talk and arms foundries. If we do not soon heed Wagner's warning—that mankind must awaken to a consciousness of its "pristine holy worth"—then the Babylonian tower of senseless doctrines will collapse on us and suffocate the moral core of our being forever.
In Chamberlain's view, the purpose of the Wagner cult was nothing less than the salvation of humanity. As such, Chamberlain became engulfed in the "redemptive anti-semitism" that was at the core of both Wagner's worldview and of the Wagner cult.


Vienna years

In September 1891, Chamberlain visited
Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...
as a journalist. In 1878, the Ottoman provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina had been occupied by Austria-Hungary; though the two provinces remained nominally Ottoman until 1908, in practice they were part of the Austrian empire from 1878 onwards. Because Bosnia-Herzegovina was still officially part of the Ottoman Empire, neither province was represented in the Austrian ''Reichsrat'' or the Hungarian Diet, and instead the two provinces were in practice a colony of Austria-Hungary. Chamberlain had been commissioned by the Austrian government to write propaganda glorying its colonial rule of Bosnia-Herzegovina for a Geneva newspaper. Chamberlain's articles about Bosnia reveal his increasing preference for dictatorship over democracy, with Chamberlain praising the Austrians for their utterly undemocratic rule in Bosnia-Herzegovina.Field (1981), p.100 Chamberlain wrote that what he had seen in Bosnia-Herzegovina was the perfect example of Wagner's dictum: "Absolute monarch – free people!" Chamberlain declared that the Bosnians were extremely lucky not to have the shambles and chaos of a democratic "parliamentary regime", instead being ruled by an idealist, enlightened dictatorship that did what was best for them. Equally important in Chamberlain's Bosnian articles was his celebration of "natural man" who lived on the land as a small farmer as opposed to what Chamberlain saw as the corrupt men who lived in modern industrial, urban society.Field (1981), p.101 At the time Chamberlain visited Bosnia-Herzegovina, the provinces had been barely touched by modernization, and for the most part, Bosnians continued to live much as their ancestors had done in the Middle Ages. Chamberlain was enchanted with what he saw, and forgetting for the moment that the purpose of his visit was to glorify Austrian rule, expressed much sadness in his articles that the "westernization" being fostered by the Austrians would destroy the traditional way of life in Bosnia. Chamberlain wrote about the average Bosnian:
he Bosnian peasant He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
builds his house, he makes his shoes, and plough, etc.; the woman weaves and dyes the stuffs and cooks the food. When we have civilized these good people, when we have taken from them their beautiful costumes to be preserved in museums as objects of curiosity, when we have ruined their national industries that are so perfect and so primitive, when contact with us has destroyed the simplicity of their manner—then Bosnia will no longer be interesting to us.
Chamberlain's awe and pride in the tremendous scientific and technological advances of the 19th century were always tempered with an extremely strong nostalgia for what he saw as the simpler, better and more innocent time when people lived on the land in harmony with nature. In his heart, Chamberlain was always a romantic conservative who idealised the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
and was never quite comfortable with the changes wrought by the
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
. In Bosnia, Chamberlain saw an essentially medieval society that still moved to the ancient rhythm of life that epitomized his pastoral ideal. Remembering Bosnia several years later, Chamberlain wrote:
The spirit of a natural man, who does everything and must create everything for himself in life, is decidedly more universal and more harmoniously developed than the spirit of an industrial worker whose whole life is occupied with the manufacturing of a single object ... and that only with the aid of a complicated machine, whose functioning is quite foreign to him. A similar degeneration is taking place amongst peasants: an American farmer in the Far West is today only a kind of subordinate engine driver. Also among us in Europe it becomes every day more impossible for a peasant to exist, for agriculture must be carried out in "large units"—the peasant consequently becomes increasingly like an industrial worker. His understanding dries up; there is no longer an interaction between his spirit and surrounding Nature.
Chamberlain's nostalgia for a pre-industrial way of life that he expressed so strongly in his Bosnia articles earned him ridicule, as many believed that he had an absurdly idealized and romanticized view of the rural life that he never experienced first-hand. In 1893, after receiving a letter from Cosima Wagner telling him that he had to read Gobineau's ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'', Chamberlain, who was fluent in French, duly complied with her request. Chamberlain accepted Gobineau's belief in an Aryan master-race, but rejected his pessimism, writing that Gobineau's philosophy was "the grave of every attempt to deal practically with the race question and left only one honorable solution, that we at once put a bullet through our heads".Buruma (2000), p. 220 Chamberlain's time in
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
shaped his anti-Semitism and Pan-Germanism. Despite living in Vienna from 1889 to 1909, when he moved to
Bayreuth Bayreuth (, ; bar, Bareid) is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtelgebirge Mountains. The town's roots date back to 1194. In the 21st century, it is the capital of U ...
, Chamberlain had nothing but contempt for the multi-ethnic, multi-religious Habsburg empire, taking the viewpoint that the best thing that could happen to the Austrian empire would be for it to be annexed by Germany to end the ''Völkerchaos'' (chaos of the peoples). Vienna had a large Jewish population (until 1938, Vienna was about 10% Jewish), and Chamberlain's time in Vienna may have been the first time in his life when he actually encountered Jews. Chamberlain's letters from Vienna constantly complain about how he was having to meet and deal with Jews, every one of whom he detested. In 1894 after visiting a spa, Chamberlain wrote: "Unfortunately like everything else ... it has fallen into the hands of the Jews, which includes two consequences: every individual is bled to the utmost and systematically, and there is neither order nor cleanliness."Field (1981), p.116 In 1895, he wrote:
However, we shall have to move soon anyway, for our house having been sold to a Jew ... it will soon be impossible for decent people to live in it ... Already the house being almost quite full of Jews, we have to live in a state of continual warfare with the vermin which is a constant and invariable follower of this chosen people even in the most well-to-do classes.
In another letter of 1895, Chamberlain wrote he was still influenced by French anarchist
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Socia ...
's critique of the Jews as mindlessly materialistic, writing that Proudhon was "one of the most acute minds of the century" and "I find many points of contact between the Wagner-Schiller mode of thought and the anarchism of Proudhon." At the same time, Chamberlain's marriage to Anna began to fall apart, as his wife was frequently sick and though she assisted her husband with his writings, he did not find her very intellectually stimulating. Chamberlain started to complain more and more that his wife's frequent illnesses forced him to tend to her and were holding back his career. Though Chamberlain consistently remained supportive of German imperialism, he frequently expressed hostile views towards the
British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
; Chamberlain viewed Britain as world's most frequent aggressor, a view he expressed more vehemently at the tail end of the 19th century. In 1895, Chamberlain wrote to his aunt about the
Hamidian massacres The Hamidian massacres also called the Armenian massacres, were massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the mid-1890s. Estimated casualties ranged from 100,000 to 300,000, Akçam, Taner (2006) '' A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide an ...
in the Ottoman Empire during 1894–96:
The Armenian insurrection f 1894with the inevitable retaliation of massacres and persecution (of course ''enormously exaggerated'' by those greatest liars in creation, backed by their worthy friends the English journalists) was all got up at the precise moment when English politics required a "diversion".
In 1896, Chamberlain wrote to his aunt:
The English press is the most insufferably arrogant, generally ignorant, the most passionately one-sided and narrow-minded in its judgments that I know; it is the universal ''bully'', always laying down the law for everybody, always speaking as if it were umpire of the universe, always abusing everybody all round and putting party spirit in all its judgments, envenoming thus the most peaceful discussions. It is this and this only which has made England hated all the world over. During the whole year 1895, I never opened an English newspaper without finding ''War'' predicated or threatened—No other nation in the world has wanted war or done anything but pray for peace—England alone, the world's bully, has been stirring it up on all sides.
During the 1890s, Chamberlain was an outspoken critic of British policies in
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
, writing to his uncle in 1898: At the time of the
Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...
, Chamberlain privately expressed support for the cause of the
Boers Boers ( ; af, Boere ()) are the descendants of the Dutch-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled this area ...
, although he also expressed regret over "white men" fighting each other at a time when Chamberlain believed that
white supremacy White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
around the world was being threatened by the alleged "
Yellow Peril The Yellow Peril (also the Yellow Terror and the Yellow Specter) is a racist, racial color terminology for race, color metaphor that depicts the peoples of East Asia, East and Southeast Asia as an existential danger to the Western world. As a ...
".Field (1981), p. 357 In July 1900, Chamberlain wrote to his aunt:
One thing I can clearly see, that is, that it is criminal for Englishmen and Dutchmen to go on murdering each other for all sorts of sophisticated reasons, while the Great Yellow Danger overshadows us white men and threatens destruction … The fact that a tiny nation of peasants absolutely untrained in the conduct of war, has been able to keep the whole united empire at bay for months, and has only been overcome—and ''has'' it been overcome?—by sending out an army superior in number to the whole population including women and children, has lowered respect for England beyond anything you can imagine on your side of the water, and will certainly not remain lost on the minds of those countless millions who have hitherto been subdued by our prestige only.
Chamberlain seized upon the fact that some of the Randlords were Jewish to argue in his letters to Cosima Wagner that the war was a case of Anglo-Jewish aggression against the Germanic Afrikaners.Field (1981), pp. 357–58 Wagner wrote back to Chamberlain: "This extermination of one of the most excellent Germanic races is so horrible that I know of nothing I have experienced which is comparable to it." As a leading Wagnerite in Vienna, Chamberlain befriended a number of other prominent Wagnerites, such as Prince Hohenhohe-Langenburg, Ludwig Schemann, Georg Meurer, and Baron
Christian von Ehrenfels Christian von Ehrenfels (also ''Maria Christian Julius Leopold Freiherr von Ehrenfels''; 20 June 1859 – 8 September 1932) was an Austrian philosopher, and is known as one of the founders and precursors of Gestalt psychology. Christian von Eh ...
. The most important friendship that Chamberlain made during his time in Vienna was with German Ambassador to Austria-Hungary,
Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg and Hertefeld, Count of Sandels (german: Philipp Friedrich Karl Alexander Botho Fürst zu Eulenburg und Hertefeld Graf von Sandels; 12 February 1847 – 17 September 1921) was a diplomat and composer of Imperial Germ ...
, who shared Chamberlain's love of Wagnerian music. Besides being a passionate Wagnerite, Eulenburg was also an anti-Semite, an Anglophobe and a convinced enemy of democracy who found much to admire in Chamberlain's anti-Semitic, anti-British and anti-democratic writings.


''Die Grundlagen'' (''The Foundations'')

In February 1896, the Munich publisher
Hugo Bruckmann Hugo Bruckmann (13 October 1863, in Munich – 3 September 1941, in Munich) was a German publisher. Bruckmann was the younger son of the publisher Friedrich Bruckmann. After his father's death in 1898 Hugo and his brother Alphons became the owner ...
, a leading ''völkisch'' activist who was later to publish ''
Mein Kampf (; ''My Struggle'' or ''My Battle'') is a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germ ...
'' commissioned Chamberlain to write a book that was intended to summarize all of the achievements of the 19th century. In October 1899 Chamberlain published his most famous work, ''Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts,'' in German. ''The Foundations'' is a pseudo-scientific "racial history" of humanity from the emergence of the first civilizations in the ancient Near East to the year 1800. It argues that all of the "foundations" of the great 19th century, which saw huge economic, scientific and technological advances in the West, were the work of the "Aryan race".Field (1981), p.180 ''Die Grundlagen'' was only the first volume of an intended three-volume history of the West with the second and third volumes taking up the story of the West in the 19th century and the looming war for world domination in the coming 20th century between the Aryans on one side vs. the Jews, blacks and Asians on the other side. Chamberlain never wrote the third volume, much to the intense annoyance of
Cosima Wagner Francesca Gaetana Cosima Wagner ( née Liszt; 24 December 1837 – 1 April 1930) was the daughter of the Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt and Franco-German romantic author Marie d'Agoult. She became the second wife of the German co ...
, who was upset that ''Die Grundlagen'' stopped in 1800 before Wagner was born, and thus omitted her husband. The book argued that
Western civilisation Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''. image:Plato Pio-Cle ...
is deeply marked by the influence of Teutonic peoples.


Peoples defined as Aryans

Chamberlain grouped all European peoples – not just
Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...
, but
Celts The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancien ...
,
Slavs Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
,
Greeks The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...
, and
Latins The Latins were originally an Italic tribe in ancient central Italy from Latium. As Roman power and colonization spread Latin culture during the Roman Republic. Latins culturally "Romanized" or "Latinized" the rest of Italy, and the word Latin ...
– into the "
Aryan race The Aryan race is an obsolete historical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people of Proto-Indo-European heritage as a racial grouping. The terminology derives from the historical usage of Aryan, used by modern I ...
", a race built on the ancient
Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
culture. In fact, he even included the
Berber people , image = File:Berber_flag.svg , caption = The Berber flag, Berber ethnic flag , population = 36 million , region1 = Morocco , pop1 = 14 million to 18 million , region2 = Algeria , p ...
of North Africa in the Aryan race: "The noble Moor of Spain is anything but a pure Arab of the desert, he is half a Berber (from the Aryan family) and his veins are so full of Gothic blood that even at the present day noble inhabitants of Morocco can trace their descent back to Teutonic ancestors." At the helm of the Aryan race, and, indeed, all races, according to Chamberlain, were the Germanic or Teutonic peoples, who had best preserved the Aryan blood.Field (1981), p.223 Chamberlain used the terms Aryan, Indo-European and Indo-Germanic interchangeably, but he went out of his way to emphasise that purest Aryans were to be found in Central Europe and that in both France and Russia miscegenation had diluted the Aryan blood. The Russians in particular had become a semi-Asian people on the account of the rule of the
Golden Horde The Golden Horde, self-designated as Ulug Ulus, 'Great State' in Turkic, was originally a Mongols, Mongol and later Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century and originating as the northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. With the fr ...
. Much of Chamberlain's theory about the superiority of the Aryan race was taken from the writings of the French aristocrat
Arthur de Gobineau Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (; 14 July 1816 – 13 October 1882) was a French aristocrat who is best known for helping to legitimise racism by the use of scientific racist theory and "racial demography", and for developing the theory of the Ary ...
, but there was a crucial difference in that Gobineau had used the Aryan race theory as a way of dividing society between an Aryan nobility vs. racially inferior commoners whereas Chamberlain used the Aryan racial theory as a way of uniting society around its supposed common racial origins.


Aryan race virtues

Everything that Chamberlain viewed as good in the world was ascribed to the Aryans. For an example, in ''The Foundations'' Chamberlain explained at considerable length that
Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
could not possibly be a Jew, and very strongly implied that Christ was an Aryan. Chamberlain's tendency to see everything good as the work of the Aryans allowed him to claim whoever he approved of for the Aryan race, which at least was part of the appeal of the book in Germany when it was published in 1899. Chamberlain claimed all of the glories and achievements of ancient Greece and Rome as due entirely to Aryan blood. Chamberlain wrote that ancient Greece was a "lost ideal" of beautiful thought and art that the modern Germans were best placed to recover if only the German people could embrace Wagner. Chamberlain praised Rome for its militarism, civic values, patriotism, respect for the law and reverence for the family as offering the best sort of Aryan government.Field (1981), p.182 Reflecting his opposition to
feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
, Chamberlain lamented how modern women were not like the submissive women of ancient Rome whom he claimed were most happy in obeying the wills of their husbands. Chamberlain asserted that Aryans and Aryans alone are the only people in the entire world capable of creating beautiful art and thinking great thoughts, so he claimed all of the great artists, writers and thinkers of the West such as
Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
,
Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...
,
Giotto Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto ( , ) and Latinised as Giottus, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the Gothic/Proto-Renaissance period. Giot ...
,
Donatello Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi ( – 13 December 1466), better known as Donatello ( ), was a Republic of Florence, Florentine sculptor of the Renaissance period. Born in Republic of Florence, Florence, he studied classical sculpture and use ...
,
Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer (; ; hu, Ajtósi Adalbert; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer (without an umlaut) or Due ...
,
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
,
Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Reformation, Protestant Refo ...
,
William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
,
Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...
,
Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
,
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
and
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...
as part of one long glorious tradition of beautiful Aryan art and thought, which Chamberlain planned to have culminate with the life-changing, racially regenerating music of Richard Wagner in the 19th century. As the British historian
George Peabody Gooch George Peabody Gooch (21 October 1873 – 31 August 1968) was a British journalist, historian and Liberal Party politician. A follower of Lord Acton who was independently wealthy, he never held an academic position, but knew the work of histo ...
wrote, here was "a glittering vision of mind and muscle, of large scale organization, of intoxicating self-confidence, of metallic brilliancy, such as Europe has never seen". The antithesis of the heroic Aryan race with its vital, creative life-improving qualities was the "Jewish race", whom Chamberlain presented as the inverse of the Aryan. Every positive quality the Aryans had, the Jews had the exact opposing negative quality. The American historian Geoffrey Field wrote:
To each negative "Semitic" trait Chamberlain counter-posed a Teutonic virtue. Kantian moral freedom took the place of political liberty and egalitarianism. Irresponsible Jewish capitalism was sharply distinguished from the vague ideal of Teutonic industrialism, a romantic vision of an advanced technological society which had somehow managed to retain the ''
Volksgemeinschaft ''Volksgemeinschaft'' () is a German expression meaning "people's community", "folk community",Richard Grunberger, ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 44. "national community", or "racial community", ...
'', cooperation and hierarchy of the medieval guilds. The alternative to Marxism was "ethical socialism", such as that described by
Thomas More Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord ...
, "one of the most exquisite scholars ever produced by a Teutonic people, of an absolutely aristocratic, refined nature". In the rigidly elitist, disciplined society of ''Utopia'' with its strong aura of Christian humanism, Chamberlain found an approximation of his own nostalgic, communal ideal. "The gulf separating More from Marx," he wrote, "is not the progress of time, but the contrast between Teuton and Jew."


The Jewish wars claim

Chamberlain announced in ''The Foundations'' that "all the wars" in history were "so peculiarly connected with Jewish financial operations".Field (1981) p.190 Chamberlain warned that the aim of the Jew was "to put his foot upon the neck of all nations of the world and be Lord and possessor of the whole earth".Field (1981), p.189 As part of their plans to destroy Aryan civilization, Chamberlain wrote: "Consider, with what mastery they use the law of blood to extend their power." Chamberlain wrote that Jewish women were encouraged to marry Gentiles while Jewish men were not, so the male line "remained spotless ... thousands of side-branches are cut off and employed to infect Indo-Europeans with Jewish blood." In his account of the
Punic wars The Punic Wars were a series of wars between 264 and 146BC fought between Roman Republic, Rome and Ancient Carthage, Carthage. Three conflicts between these states took place on both land and sea across the western Mediterranean region and i ...
between "Aryan Rome" and "Semitic Carthage", Chamberlain praised the Romans for their total destruction of Carthage in 146 BC at the end of the
Third Punic War The Third Punic War (149–146 BC) was the third and last of the Punic Wars fought between Carthage and Rome. The war was fought entirely within Carthaginian territory, in modern northern Tunisia. When the Second Punic War ended in 201  ...
as an example of how Aryans should deal with Semites. Later, Chamberlain argued that the Romans had become too tolerant of Semites like the Jews, and this was the cause of the downfall of the Roman empire. Chamberlain argued that it was due to
miscegenation Miscegenation ( ) is the interbreeding of people who are considered to be members of different races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms ''miscere'' ("to mix") and ''genus'' ("race") ...
that the Jews had caused the Aryan
Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
to go into decline and collapse. Chamberlain wrote that the "African half breed soldier emperor"
Caracalla Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Lucius Septimius Bassianus, 4 April 188 – 8 April 217), better known by his nickname "Caracalla" () was Roman emperor from 198 to 217. He was a member of the Severan dynasty, the elder son of Emperor S ...
had granted Roman citizenship to all the subjects in the Empire regardless of race or religion in 212 AD, and as result of this, the Romans had freely mixed with Semitic and African peoples, leading Chamberlain to conclude: "Like a cataract the alien blood poured down into the depopulated city of Rome and soon the Romans ceased to exist." As such, the destruction of the Western Roman Empire by the Germanic peoples was merely an act of liberation from the ''Völkerchaos'' ("Chaos of the Peoples") that the Roman empire had become.


Theories of Jewish conspiracy


Jewish race domination claim

The ultimate aim of the Jew, according to Chamberlain, was to create a situation where "there would be in Europe only a single people of pure race, the Jews, all the rest would be a herd of pseudo-Hebraic mestizos, a people beyond all doubt degenerate physically, mentally and morally."


Catholicism a Jewish invention

As part of their plans to destroy the Aryans, Chamberlain claimed that the Jews had founded the
Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, which only preached a "Judaized" Christianity that had nothing to do with the Christianity created by the Aryan Christ.Field (1981), p.192 At least some historians have argued that ''The Foundations'' are actually more anti-Catholic than anti-Semitic, but this misses the point that the reason why Chamberlain attacked the Catholic Church so fiercely was because he believed the Papacy was controlled by the Jews. Chamberlain claimed that in the 16th century the Aryan Germans under the leadership of
Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Reformation, Protestant Refo ...
had broken away from the corrupt influence of Rome, and so laid the foundations of a "Germanic Christianity".


Democracy a failed Jewish invention

Chamberlain claimed that the natural and best form of government for Aryans was a dictatorship, and so he blamed the Jews for inventing democracy as part of their plans for destroying the Aryans. In the same way, Chamberlain blamed capitalism – which he saw as a very destructive economic system – as something invented by the Jews to enrich themselves at the expense of the Aryans while at the same time crediting the Jews with inventing socialism with its message of universal human equality as a cunning Jewish stratagem to divert attention away from all the economic devastation wrought by Jewish financiers.


Jewish fault for Chinese lack of culture

Chamberlain had a deep dislike of the Chinese, and in ''The Foundations'' he announced that Chinese civilization had been founded by the Jews because just like the Jews the Chinese had "... the total absence of all culture and the one-sided emphasizing of civilization". For Chamberlain, this was more than sufficient proof that the Jews had created Chinese civilization.


Jewish race – not religion

The Franco-Israeli historian
Saul Friedländer Saul Friedländer (; born October 11, 1932) is a Czech-Jewish-born historian and a professor emeritus of history at UCLA. Biography Saul Friedländer was born in Prague to a family of German-speaking Jews. He was raised in France and lived thro ...
described ''The Foundations'' – with its theory of two "pure" races left in the world, namely the German and Jewish locked into a war for world domination which could only end with the complete victory of one over the other – as one of the key texts of "redemptive anti-semitism". Because Chamberlain viewed Jews as a race, not a religion, Chamberlain argued the conversion of Jews was not a "solution" to the "Jewish Question", stating Jewish converts to Christianity were still Jews. In taking this stance, Chamberlain was going beyond his hero Wagner. Dutch journalist
Ian Buruma Ian Buruma (born December 28, 1951) is a Dutch writer and editor who lives and works in the United States. In 2017, he became editor of ''The New York Review of Books'', but left the position in September 2018. Much of his writing has focused on ...
wrote:
Wagner himself, like Luther, still believed that a Jew could, as he put it with his customary charm, "annihilate" his Jewishness by repudiating his ancestry, converting and worshiping at the shrine of Bayreuth. So in theory a Jew could be a German ... But to the mystical chauvinists, like Chamberlain, who took a tribal view of Germanness, even radical, Wagnerian assimilation could never be enough: the Jew was an alien virus to be purged from the national bloodstream. The more a Jew took on the habits and thoughts of his gentile compatriots, the more he was to be feared.


Leaving "the solution" to the reader

Chamberlain did not advocate the extermination of Jews in ''The Foundations''; indeed, despite his determination to blame all of the world's problems on the Jews, Chamberlain never proposed a solution to this perceived problem.Field (1981), p. 222 Instead, Chamberlain made the cryptic statement that after reading his book, his readers would know best about how to devise a "solution" to the "Jewish Question". Friedländer has argued that if one were to seriously take up the theories of "redemptive anti-semitism" proposed in ''The Foundations'', and push them to their logical conclusion, then inevitably one would reach the conclusion that genocide might be a perfectly acceptable "solution" to the "Jewish Question". Friedländer argued that there is an implied genocidal logic to ''The Foundations'' as Chamberlain argued that Jews were a race apart from the rest of humanity; that evil was embedded within the genes of the Jews, and so the Jews were born evil and remained evil until they died, indeed a Jew could never stop being evil even if he or she wanted to; and that for these biological reasons alone, the Jews would never cease their endless attempts to destroy all that was good within the world.


Follow up book by Josef Remier

Inspired by ''The Foundations'', one ''völkisch'' writer, Josef Remier, published ''Ein Pangermanisches Deutschland'' ("A Pan-Germanic Germany") in 1905, which used ''The Foundations'' to advocate that Germany conquer the Russian Empire, after which special commissions of doctors, anthropologists and "breeding experts" were to divide the population into three categories; ethnic Germans, those capable of being "Germanized", and those incapable of "improvement", with all Slavs and Jews being included in the last category.Field (1981), p. 230 Field wrote that Remier's vision anticipated the "war of extermination" that was
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
in 1941 in "many horrifying aspects".


''The Foundations'' sales, reviews and acceptance

''The Foundations'' sold well: eight editions and 60,000 copies within 10 years, 100,000 copies by the outbreak of World War I and 24 editions and more than a quarter of a million copies by 1938. The success of ''The Foundations'' after it was published in October 1899 made Chamberlain into a celebrity intellectual.Field (1981), p. 227 The popularity of ''The Foundations'' was such that many ''Gymnasium'' (high school) teachers in the Protestant parts of Germany made '' Die Grundlagen'' required reading for their students.Field (1981), p. 232 One teacher remembered: "I myself read the whole book in one go when as a young ''Gymnasium'' teacher in Nürnberg it fell into my hands. And with a flushed face I put it aside full of excitement. I can picture the scene today 927and can reawaken the old feeling."Field (1981), p. 132 The book sold very well, but reviews in Germany were very mixed. Conservative and National Liberal newspapers gave generally friendly reviews to ''The Foundations''. ''Völkisch'' newspapers gave overwhelming positive reviews to ''The Foundations'' with many ''völkisch'' reviewers calling ''Die Grundlagen'' one of the greatest books ever written.


Discrimination of Jews following the book

German universities were hotbeds of ''völkisch'' activity in the early 20th century, and ''The Foundations'' was extremely popular on university campuses with many university clubs using ''The Foundations'' as a reason to exclude Jewish students from joining.Field (1981), pp. 231–32 Likewise, military schools were centers of ''völkisch'' thought in the early 20th century, and so ''The Foundations'' was very popular with officer cadets; though since neither the Navy nor the Prussian, Bavarian, Saxon and Württemberg armies accepted Jewish officer candidates, ''Die Grundlagen'' did not lead to Jews being excluded. The only exceptions to the otherwise total exclusion of German Jews from the officer corps were the Bavarian and Saxon armies, which were prepared to accept Jews as reserve officers. Liberal and Social Democratic newspapers gave the book extremely poor reviews with reviewers complaining of an irrational way of reasoning in ''The Foundations'', noting that Chamberlain quoted the writings of Goethe out of context in order to give him views that he had not held, and that the entire book was full of an obsessive anti-Semitism which they found extremely off-putting.


Catholic and Protestant responses

Because of Chamberlain's anti-Catholicism, Catholic newspapers all published very hostile reviews of ''The Foundations'', though Catholic reviewers rarely faulted ''Die Grundlagen'' for its anti-Semitism. Protestant ''völkisch'' newspapers gave ''The Foundations'' very good reviews, while more orthodox Protestant newspapers were disturbed by Chamberlain's call for a racialized Christianity. One Protestant reviewer, Professor Baentsch of Jena, wrote that Chamberlain had systematically distorted the
Book of Job The Book of Job (; hbo, אִיּוֹב, ʾIyyōḇ), or simply Job, is a book found in the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and is the first of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Scholars ar ...
, the
Psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...
, the Prophets, and other books of the Old Testament, leading him to conclude that it was no surprise that Chamberlain found so little common ground between Christianity and Judaism given the way he had misrepresented the entire Old Testament.Field (1981), p. 236


Jewish response

One German Jewish reviewer, the Berlin banker Heinrich Meyer-Cohn, wrote that ''The Foundations'' was "bad, unclear, and illogical in its train of thought and unpleasing in style, full of false modesty and genuine superciliousness, full of real ignorance and false affectation of learning". German Jewish groups like the ''Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens'' and the ''Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus'' repeatedly issued statements in the early 20th century that the popularity of ''The Foundations'' was a major source of concern for them, noting that ''Die Grundlagen'' had caused a major increase in anti-Semitism with many German Jews now finding themselves the objects of harassment and sometimes violence. The German Jewish journalist Moritz Goldstein wrote in 1912 that he had become a Zionist because he believed there was no future for Jews in Germany, and one of the reasons for that belief was: "Chamberlain believes what he says and for that very reason his distortions shock me. And thousands more believe as he does for the book goes one edition after another and I would still like to know if many Germanic types, whose self-image is pleasantly indulged by this theory, are able to remain critical enough to question its countless injustices and errors?" Goldstein added that the case of Chamberlain showed his views as typical of those of "the best spirits, clever, truth-loving men who, however, as soon they speak of Jews, fall into a blind, almost rabid hatred".


Evangelist of race


Visit to England and attack on its Jews

In 1900, for the first time in decades, Chamberlain visited Britain, a place he disparagingly called "the land of the Boer-eaters".Field (1981), p. 359 Writing to
Cosima Wagner Francesca Gaetana Cosima Wagner ( née Liszt; 24 December 1837 – 1 April 1930) was the daughter of the Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt and Franco-German romantic author Marie d'Agoult. She became the second wife of the German co ...
from London, Chamberlain stated sadly that ''his'' Britain, the Britain of aristocratic rule, hard work and manly courage, the romanticized "Merry Old England" of his imagination was no more; it had been replaced by what Chamberlain saw as a materialist, soulless society, atomized into individuals with no sense of the collective purpose and entirely dominated by greed.Field (1981), p. 358 Chamberlain wrote that since the 1880s Britain had "chosen the service of Mammon", for which he blamed the Jews, writing to Wagner: "This is the result, when one has studied politics with a Jew for a quarter century." The "Jew" Chamberlain was referring to was
Disraeli Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a centr ...
, whom Chamberlain had always hated with a passion. Chamberlain concluded: "My old England was nowhere recognizable." Chamberlain declared in his letter that all British businessmen were now dishonest; the middle class, smug and stupid; small farmers and shops were no longer able to compete with Jewish-owned big business; and the monarchy was "irretrievably weakened" by social change. In short, for Chamberlain Britain was no longer his country.


German superiority to rule the world

In the summer of 1900, Chamberlain wrote an essay in the magazine ''Jugend'', where he declared that: "The reign of Wilhelm II has the character of the dawning of a new day." Chamberlain went on to write that Wilhelm was "in fact the first German Kaiser" who knew his mission was to "ennoble" the world by spreading "German knowledge, German philosophy, German art and—if God wills—German religion. Only a Kaiser who undertakes this task is a true Kaiser of the German people." To allow Germany to become a world power, Chamberlain called for the ''Reich'' to become the world's greatest sea power, as Chamberlain asserted that whatever power rules the seas also rules the world.Röhl (2004), p. 1041 Chamberlain wrote that "without a fleet nothing can be done. But equipped with a great fleet, Germany is embarking on the course to which Cromwell showed England the way, and she can and must steer resolutely towards the goal of becoming the first power in the world. She has the moral justification for it and therefore also the duty."


Kaiser Wilhelm II

In early 1901, the German Emperor
Wilhelm II Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor (german: Kaiser) and King of Prussia, reigning from 15 June 1888 until his abdication on 9 November 1918. Despite strengthening the German Empir ...
read ''The Foundations'' and was immensely impressed with the book.Field (1981), p. 249 The Imperial Grand Chamberlain at the court, Ulrich von Bülow, the brother of the Chancellor Prince
Bernhard von Bülow Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin, Prince of Bülow (german: Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin Fürst von Bülow ; 3 May 1849 – 28 October 1929) was a German statesman who served as the foreign minister for three years and then as the chancellor of t ...
, wrote in a letter to a friend in January 1901 that the Kaiser was "studying the book a second time page by page". In November 1901, Chamberlain's friend, the German diplomat and courtier
Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg and Hertefeld, Count of Sandels (german: Philipp Friedrich Karl Alexander Botho Fürst zu Eulenburg und Hertefeld Graf von Sandels; 12 February 1847 – 17 September 1921) was a diplomat and composer of Imperial Germ ...
, who happened to be the best friend of Wilhelm II, introduced Chamberlain to the Kaiser. Chamberlain and Wilhelm first met at Eulenburg's estate at Liebenberg and soon became very good friends, maintaining a regular correspondence which continued until Chamberlain's death in 1927. To reach Liebenberg from Vienna, Chamberlain had first to take a train to Berlin, and then board another train to Liebenberg. Chamberlain's meeting with the Kaiser was considered so important that when Chamberlain reached Berlin, he was met by the Chancellor Prince
Bernhard von Bülow Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin, Prince of Bülow (german: Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin Fürst von Bülow ; 3 May 1849 – 28 October 1929) was a German statesman who served as the foreign minister for three years and then as the chancellor of t ...
, who joined him on the trip to Liebenberg. During the train ride, Bülow and Chamberlain had a long discussion about ''The Foundations'' and then French literature. Upon reaching the gates of Liebenberg in the evening, Chamberlain and Bülow were met by Wilhelm and Eulenburg who were surrounded by servants carrying torches.Field (1981), p. 250 When he met Chamberlain for the first time, Wilhelm told him: "I thank you for what you have done for Germany!" The next day, Eulenburg wrote to a friend that the Emperor "stood completely under the spell of this man hamberlain whom he understood better than any of the other guests because of his thorough study of ''The Foundations''". Until Chamberlain's death, he and Wilhelm had what the American historian Geoffrey Field called "a warm, personal bond", which was expressed in a series of "... elaborate, wordy letters, full of mutual admiration and half-baked ideas". The Wilhelm–Chamberlain letters were full of "the perplexing thought world of mystical and racist conservatism". They ranged far and wide in subject matter: the ennobling mission of the Germanic race, the corroding forces of Ultramontanism, materialism and the "destructive poison" of ''Judentum'' were favorite themes. Other subjects often discussed in the Wilhelm-Chamberlain letters were the dangers posed to the ''Reich'' by the "
Yellow Peril The Yellow Peril (also the Yellow Terror and the Yellow Specter) is a racist, racial color terminology for race, color metaphor that depicts the peoples of East Asia, East and Southeast Asia as an existential danger to the Western world. As a ...
", "Tartarized Slavdom", and the "black hordes". In 1901, Wilhelm informed Chamberlain in a letter that: "God sent your book to the German people, just as he sent you personally to me, that is my unshakably firm conviction."Röhl (2004), p. 205 Wilhelm went on to praise Chamberlain as his "comrade-in-arms and ally in the struggle for Teutons against Rome, Jerusalem, etc." In 1902, Wilhelm wrote another letter in which he told Chamberlain: "May you save our German ''Volk'', our ''Germanentum'', for God has sent you as our helper!" Chamberlain in his turn advised Wilhelm to create "a racially aware ... centrally organised Germany with a clear sense of purpose, a Germany which would 'rule the world'". In 1903, Chamberlain wrote to Wilhelm to claim that as in the last decadent days of Rome, "the ''civis britannicus'' is now become a purely political concept" with no racial content being involved.Buruma (2000) p.221 Chamberlain wrote with disgust how for two shillings and a sixpence, "every Basuto nigger" could now carry a British passport. Chamberlain went on to predict within the next fifty years "the English aristocracy will be nothing but a money oligarchy, without a shred of racial solidarity or relation to the throne." Chamberlain went on to deplore the practice of raising businessmen to the peerage in Britain, contemptuously declaring that in Britain mere "brewers, ink manufacturers and ship-owners" now sat in the House of Lords. Chamberlain ended his letter to the Kaiser by calling the general British public "a herd which has no will and which a few newspapers and handful of politicians manipulate as they wish". Wilhelm's later concept of "Juda-England", of a decaying Britain sucked dried by Jewish capitalists, owed much to Chamberlain. The Dutch journalist
Ian Buruma Ian Buruma (born December 28, 1951) is a Dutch writer and editor who lives and works in the United States. In 2017, he became editor of ''The New York Review of Books'', but left the position in September 2018. Much of his writing has focused on ...
described Chamberlain's letters to the Kaiser as pushing his "… Anglophobic, anti-Semitic, Germanophile ideas to the point of murderous lunacy". The liberal ''Berliner Zeitung'' newspaper complained in an editorial of the close friendship between Wilhelm II and such an outspoken racist and anti-Semite as Chamberlain, stating this was a real cause for concern for decent, caring people both inside and outside Germany.


Admiring England and loathing it

For Wilhelm, all pride about being German had a certain ambivalence, as he was in fact half-British.Buruma (2000) pp. 210–11 In an age of ultra-nationalism with identities being increasingly defined in racial terms, his mixed heritage imposed considerable psychological strain on Wilhelm, who managed at one and the same time to be both an Anglophile and Anglophobe; he was a man who both loved and hated the British, and his writings about the land of his mother displayed both extreme admiration and loathing. Buruma observed that for all his much-vaunted beliefs in public about the superiority of everything German, in private Wilhelm often displayed signs of an inferiority complex to the British, as if he really felt deep down that it was Britain, not Germany, that was the world's greatest country. For Wilhelm, someone like Chamberlain, the Englishman who came to Germany to praise the Fatherland as the world's greatest nation, and who had "scientifically" proven that "fact" in ''The Foundations'', was a "dream come true" for him. Writing about the Chamberlain-Wilhelm relationship, Field stated:
Chamberlain helped place Wilhelm's tangled and vaguely formulated fears of Pan Slavism, the black and yellow "hordes", Jews, Ultramontanes, Social Democrats, and free-thinkers to a global and historical framework copiously footnoted and sustained by a vast array of erudite information. He elevated the Emperor's dream of a German mission into an elaborate vision of divinely ordained, racial destiny. The lack of precision, the muddle, and logical flaws that are so apparent to modern readers of ''The Foundations'' did not bother Wilhelm: he eagerly submitted to its subjective, irrational style of reasoning. ... And if the Kaiser was a Prussian with an ingrained respect for English values and habits, Chamberlain was just as much an Englishman who was deeply ambivalent about his own birthplace and who revered German qualities and Prussian society. Almost unconsciously, as his vast correspondence shows, he adopted an obsequious, scraping tone when addressing the lowliest of Prussian army officers. If Wilhelm was drawn to the very Englishness of Chamberlain, the author of ''The Foundations'' saw in the Hohenzollern prince—at least until the World War—the very symbol of his idealized ''Deutschtum''.
Chamberlain, who in the words of Buruma was "an English fetishist of German blood" who wrote long pseudo-scientific articles about how "Germanic racial genius" manifested itself in the cultural works of
Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
,
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...
,
Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
, and
William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
(Chamberlain considered Shakespeare to be a "Germanic playwright" who properly belonged to Germany), was the "perfect match" for Wilhelm. Chamberlain frequently wrote to an appreciative and admiring Wilhelm telling him that it was only the noble "German spirit" which was saving the world from being destroyed by a "deracinated Yankee-Anglo-Jewish materialism". Finally, Wilhelm was also a Wagnerite and found much to admire in Chamberlain's writings praising Wagner's music as a mystical, spiritual life-force that embodied all that was great about the "German spirit".


'The Foundations' book success

The success of ''The Foundations'' made Chamberlain famous all over the world. In 1906, the Brazilian intellectual
Sílvio Romero Sílvio Vasconcelos da Silveira Ramos Romero (April 21, 1851 – June 18, 1914) was a Brazilian " Condorist" poet, essayist, literary critic, professor, journalist, historian and politician. He founded and occupied the 17th chair of the Brazilian ...
cited Chamberlain together with Otto Ammon,
Georges Vacher de Lapouge Count Georges Vacher de Lapouge (; 12 December 1854 – 20 February 1936) was a French anthropologist and a theoretician of eugenics and Racialism (racial categorization), racialism. He is known as the founder of anthroposociology, the anthropologi ...
and
Arthur de Gobineau Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (; 14 July 1816 – 13 October 1882) was a French aristocrat who is best known for helping to legitimise racism by the use of scientific racist theory and "racial demography", and for developing the theory of the Ary ...
as having proved that the blond "dolichocephalic" people of northern Europe were the best and greatest race in the entire world, and urged that Brazil could become a great nation by a huge influx of German immigrants who would achieve the ''embranquecimento'' (whitening) of Brazil. Chamberlain received invitations to lecture on his racial theories at
Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
and
Johns Hopkins Johns Hopkins (May 19, 1795 – December 24, 1873) was an American merchant, investor, and philanthropist. Born on a plantation, he left his home to start a career at the age of 17, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland where he remained for most ...
universities, but turned them down on the grounds that he had no wish to visit what he viewed as a culturally and spiritually debased nation like the United States.


Not family with Joseph and Neville Chamberlain

When the book was first published, reviewers often asked who this Chamberlain was, and there was much fevered speculation in the German press as to whether Chamberlain was related to
Joseph Chamberlain Joseph Chamberlain (8 July 1836 – 2 July 1914) was a British statesman who was first a radical Liberal, then a Liberal Unionist after opposing home rule for Ireland, and eventually served as a leading imperialist in coalition with the Cons ...
, the British Colonial Secretary who, as the principal author of the British forward policy in South Africa, was one of the most detested men in the ''Reich''. Several German magazines mistakenly printed pictures of Joseph Chamberlain's sons,
Austen Chamberlain Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain (16 October 1863 – 16 March 1937) was a British statesman, son of Joseph Chamberlain and older half-brother of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer (twice) and was briefly ...
and
Neville Chamberlain Arthur Neville Chamberlain (; 18 March 18699 November 1940) was a British politician of the Conservative Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. He is best known for his foreign policy of appeasemen ...
, identifying them as the author of ''The Foundations''. Many Germans breathed a sigh of relief when it was established that Houston Stewart Chamberlain was not related to the famous Chamberlain family of
Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
.


The Chamberlain circle

After the success of ''The Foundations'', a Chamberlain ''Kreis'' (circle) appeared in Vienna that comprised the
Indologist Indology, also known as South Asian studies, is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent, and as such is a subset of Asian studies. The term ''Indology'' (in German, ''Indologie'') is o ...
Leopold von Schroeder Leopold von Schroeder (December 24, 1851, Tartu – February 8, 1920, Vienna) was a German Indologist. He studied at the universities of Dorpat, Jena and Tübingen. Having worked as lecturer in Indology at Dorpat since 1882, then as an assist ...
, Count Ulrich von Bülow; Countess
Melanie Metternich-Zichy Princess Melanie Marie Pauline Alexandrine von Metternich-Zichy (Vienna, 27 February 1832 — Vienna, 16 November 1919) was an Austrian aristocrat. Biography A member of the House of Metternich, she was the daughter of Austrian diplomat and polit ...
, Countess Marietta von Coundenhove, Baroness Emma von Ehrenfels, the music critic and Wagnerite Gustav Schonaich, Count
Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau Ulrich Karl Christian Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau (29 May 1869 – 8 September 1928) was a German diplomat who became the first Foreign Minister of the Weimar Republic. In that capacity, he led the German delegation at the Paris Peace Conference ...
, Count Hermann Keyserling and
Rudolf Kassner Rudolf Kassner (11 September 1873 Velké Pavlovice – 1 April 1959 Sierre Switzerland) was an Austrian writer, essayist, translator and cultural philosopher. Although stricken as an infant with poliomyelitis, Kassner traveled widely to norther ...
who met weekly at Chamberlain's home to discuss his racial theories.


Personal life and financials

It was during this period that Chamberlain had an affair with Baroness von Ehrenfels, the wife of his friend Baron
Christian von Ehrenfels Christian von Ehrenfels (also ''Maria Christian Julius Leopold Freiherr von Ehrenfels''; 20 June 1859 – 8 September 1932) was an Austrian philosopher, and is known as one of the founders and precursors of Gestalt psychology. Christian von Eh ...
and another affair with a Viennese showgirl, Lili Petri. In 1906, his marriage to Anna ended in divorce. Besides the income from sales of ''The Foundations'' and the essays he was constantly writing for newspapers and journals, Chamberlain was supported financially by a wealthy German piano-manufacturer, August Ludowici (who liked Chamberlain so much that he purchased a house for him), and by the Swiss industrialist Agénor Boissier, giving an annual income of about 30,000–40,000 marks (by contrast a German school-teacher had an annual income of 1,000 marks, while a professor made about 12,000 marks per year). In 1908, after
Cosima Wagner Francesca Gaetana Cosima Wagner ( née Liszt; 24 December 1837 – 1 April 1930) was the daughter of the Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt and Franco-German romantic author Marie d'Agoult. She became the second wife of the German co ...
suggested the match, Chamberlain married Wagner's daughter Eva von Bülow. He was extremely happy to be married to the daughter of his hero Wagner.


Chamberlain's character

Chamberlain, the self-proclaimed "Evangelist of Race", saw himself as a prophet, writing to the Kaiser: "Today, God relies only on the Germans. That is the knowledge, the sure truth, which has filled my soul for years; I have sacrificed my peace in serving it; for it I shall live and die." Eulenburg recalled that under his quiet demeanor Chamberlain had a "fiery spirit with those eyes and looks which speak volumes". The few who knew Chamberlain well described him as a quiet, reserved man full of urbane erudition and charm; a modest, genial character with elegant manners dressed in expensive suits who could talk brilliantly and with much wit about a great number of subjects for hours. But under his polished surface, Chamberlain had a "fanatical and obsessive" side. His copious notebooks and letters show a man with "a profoundly irrational mind", a markedly sadistic and deeply paranoid individual who believed himself to be the victim of a monstrous worldwide Jewish conspiracy to destroy him.Field (1981), pp. 325–26 Chamberlain's status as a semi-recluse came about because of his fear that the Jews were plotting his murder.


German world dominance by race

A strong imperialist, Chamberlain was naturally a fervent supporter of ''
Weltpolitik ''Weltpolitik'' (, "world politics") was the imperialist foreign policy adopted by the German Empire during the reign of Emperor Wilhelm II. The aim of the policy was to transform Germany into a global power. Though considered a logical conseq ...
'', under which Germany sought to become the world's dominant power, which he justified on racist grounds. In 1904, when the German government committed the
Herero and Namaqua Genocide The Herero and Namaqua genocide or the Herero and Nama genocide was a campaign of ethnic extermination and collective punishment waged by the German Empire against the Herero (Ovaherero) and the Nama in German South West Africa (now Namibia). ...
against the Herero and Namaqua peoples in
German South-West Africa German South West Africa (german: Deutsch-Südwestafrika) was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 until 1915, though Germany did not officially recognise its loss of this territory until the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. With a total area of ...
(modern
Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
), Chamberlain congratulated Wilhelm in a letter for his genocidal policies, praising the Kaiser for his "war of extermination", which was "a fine example" of how Aryans should deal with "niggers". In a 1906 letter to Wilhelm, Chamberlain announced that due to
miscegenation Miscegenation ( ) is the interbreeding of people who are considered to be members of different races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms ''miscere'' ("to mix") and ''genus'' ("race") ...
caused by the Jews, Britain, France, Austria and Russia were all declining powers, and only the "pure" German ''Reich'' was capable of protecting the "life-giving center of Western Europe" from the "Tartarized Russians, the dreaming weakly mongrels of Oceania and South America, and the millions of blacks, impoverished in intellect and bestially inclined, who even now are arming for the war of the races in which there will be no quarter given". Thus, Chamberlain wrote to Wilhelm, German ''Weltpolitik'' was a "sacred mission" to protect the superior races and cultures from the inferior. Chamberlain concluded his letter that the ideas of white supremacy had "not only justified the vast aggressions of Russia and England in the 19th century, but it also sanctions beforehand all that Germany may choose to appropriate in the twentieth".


Antisemite Eulenburg's homosexuality

In 1908, the
Harden–Eulenburg affair The Eulenburg affair, described as "the biggest homosexual scandal ever", was the public controversy surrounding a series of courts-martial and five civil trials regarding accusations of homosexual conduct, and accompanying libel trials, among pro ...
badly damaged Wilhelm's reputation when Wilhelm's and Chamberlain's mutual friend Eulenburg was exposed in the press as a homosexual. Since Eulenburg had been the Emperor's best friend since 1886, the scandal led to much gossip all over the ''Reich'' about whether Wilhelm and Eulenburg had been more than just best friends. Eulenburg was quite open about being homosexual when he was in the company of his closest friends, and he and Wilhelm had been the very best of friends for 22 years, leading the British historian
John C. G. Röhl John C. G. Röhl (born 31 May 1938) is a British historian notable for his work on Imperial Germany and European history. Early life John Charles Gerald Röhl was born in the German Hospital in Dalston, east London, on 31 May 1938 to a German ...
to conclude it was very unlikely that Wilhelm was ignorant of Eulenburg's sexual orientation as he claimed after Eulenburg was outed. After Eulenburg was exposed, the Kaiser wrote him a very cold letter saying that he could not stand the company of homosexuals, as such their friendship was now over and he never wanted to see or hear from Eulenburg again. Chamberlain was never as close to Eulenburg as Wilhelm was, and seemed genuinely shocked to learn of the allegations that Eulenburg was homosexual. The Eulenburg affair played a role in Germany very similar to the
Dreyfus affair The Dreyfus affair (french: affaire Dreyfus, ) was a political scandal that divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francop ...
in France, except that the victim in this case was the prominent anti-Semite Eulenburg. During the scandal, practically the entire ''völkisch'' movement came out in support of Eulenburg whom they portrayed as an Aryan heterosexual framed by false allegations of homosexuality by the Jews Max Bernstein and
Magnus Hirschfeld Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a German physician and sexologist. Hirschfeld was educated in philosophy, philology and medicine. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Com ...
. The German journalist
Theodor Wolff Theodor Wolff (2 August 1868 – 23 September 1943) was a German writer who was influential as a journalist, critic and newspaper editor. He was born and died in Berlin. Between 1906 and 1933 he was the chief editor of the politically liberal new ...
wrote in 1906 about Eulenburg's role as one of Germany's chief anti-Semites:
I bet you ten to one that it was that ''skald'' ulenburg the friend and admirer of Gobineau, who first pointed his other friend, the Kaiser towards the racial prophet's most eager disciple, Houston Stewart Chamberlain. The mystical notion of the "race that will bring order to the world" found its way from Gobineau via Eulenburg and Chamberlain to the Kaiser, and this notion in turn gave rise to the thought that "the world should be healed by the German spirit."
In a letter to Chamberlain, Wilhelm wrote that entire scandal had emerged because of "Jewish cheek, slander and lies".Röhl (2004), p. 206 In the same letter, an enraged Wilhelm told Chamberlain that
Maximilian Harden __NOTOC__ Maximilian Harden (born Felix Ernst Witkowski, 20 October 1861 – 30 October 1927) was an influential German journalist and editor. Biography Born the son of a Jewish merchant in Berlin he attended the '' Französisches Gymnasium'' u ...
, the German Jewish convert to Lutheranism and the journalist who had
outed Outing is the act of disclosing an LGBT person's sexual orientation or gender identity without that person's consent. It is often done for political reasons, either to instrumentalize homophobia in order to discredit political opponents or to com ...
Eulenburg was a "loathsome, dirty Jewish fiend" and a "poisonous toad out of the slime of hell, a disgraceful stain on our ''Volk''". However, despite his strongly held anti-Semitism and his frequently expressed wish to expel the entire German Jewish community, the Kaiser held back under the grounds that if he expelled all of the Jews from Germany, it would set the German economy back by a century, and as such, he had to grudgingly tolerate his Jewish subjects.


Toning down attacks on Catholicism

As a part of his role as the "Evangelist of Race", Chamberlain toned down his anti-Catholicism in the first decade of the 20th century, realizing belatedly that his attacks on the Catholic Church in ''The Foundations'' had alienated the German Catholic community from his message.


Themes: German unity and German science and philosophy

As a well-known public intellectual, Chamberlain wrote on numerous subjects in a vast array of newspapers and magazines. Besides attacking the Jews, one of the chief themes of Chamberlain's essays was the unity of German culture, language, race and art, and the need for the unity of German art with a racialized "Germanic Christianity". The other major theme of Chamberlain's work was science and philosophy. Chamberlain was always keenly interested in modern science and saw himself as a scientist, but he was deeply critical of the claim that modern science could explain everything, believing there was a spiritual side to humanity that science could not explain. As such, Chamberlain believed that modern Germany was being destroyed by people losing their spiritual aspects owing to the materialist belief that science could explain all. In his 1905 biography of one of his heroes, the philosopher
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
, Chamberlain argued that Kant had shown the limits of rationalism and reason for understanding the world.Field (1981), p. 283 Instead, Chamberlain argued that Kant had shown that the instinctive approach based on intuition was a far more valid way of understanding the world. Inevitably, Chamberlain's "Kantian" way of understanding science was used to attack the Jews, with Chamberlain writing: ::"In order to understand Kant we must ... begin by once and for all getting rid of the heavy burden of inherited and indoctrinated Jewish conceptions." In the same way, Chamberlain's 1912 biography of another of his heroes,
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...
, was used to pass on the same message. Chamberlain depicted Goethe as a "Kantian" man who had correctly embraced both the rational, scientific approaches to life and the instinctive, mystical approach to achieve a synthesis that embraced the best of both worlds. Again, Chamberlain used Goethe as a way of attacking the Jews, with Chamberlain claiming that Goethe had favored banning sexual relations between Aryans and Jews and was a man who would not have "suffered among us" the Jewish artists, journalists, and professors of modern Germany.Field (1981), p. 290 The German Jewish journal ''Im deutschen Reich'' wrote in a review of ''Goethe'' that Chamberlain had appropriated Goethe in "a polemic about race politics, racial hygiene and racial worth from the standpoint of a monomaniacal Judeophobia".


Embracing Treitschke

The policies of ''Weltpolitik'', especially the
Tirpitz Plan Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz's design for Germany to achieve world power status through naval power, while at the same time addressing domestic issues, is referred to as the Tirpitz Plan. Politically, the Tirpitz Plan was marked by the Fleet Acts of ...
, brought about a period of Anglo-German tension in the first years of the 20th century. Chamberlain, who detested the land of his birth, had no trouble taking sides in the emerging Anglo-German antagonism. Chamberlain, who came to hate Britain, expressed his approval of the writings of the Anglophobic and anti-Semitic German historian
Heinrich von Treitschke Heinrich Gotthard Freiherr von Treitschke (; 15 September 1834 – 28 April 1896) was a German historian, political writer and National Liberal member of the Reichstag during the time of the German Empire. He was an extreme nationalist, who favo ...
, whose view of Britain as a grasping, greedy nation of cheap traders dishonestly vacuuming up the world's wealth was the same as his own. In another letter to Wilhelm, Chamberlain wrote: "There are periods, when history is, as it were, woven on a loom ... in such a way that the warp and woof are established and are essentially unalterable; but then come times when the threads are introduced for a new fabric, when the time of material and the design must first be determined. ... We find ourselves in such a time today."Field (1981), pp .359–60


Necessary German power

Chamberlain declared to Wilhelm that Germany now had to become the world's greatest power, both for its own good and for the good of the rest of the world.Field (1981), p. 360 In his letter, Chamberlain dismissed France as a second-rate nation that could only fall further; Russia was a nation of "stupid" Slavs which was only just being held together because Nicholas II had German blood; without the German blood in the House of Romanov "nothing would remain but a decaying ''matière brute''" in Russia; and Britain was clearly declining into a bottomless pit of greed, ineffective democratic politics and unrestrained individualism. Chamberlain was very anti-American and called the United States a "Dollar dynasty", writing:
From dollars only dollars can come, nothing else; spiritually America will live only so long as the stream of European spiritual power flows there, not a moment longer. That part of the world, it may be proven, creates sterility, it has as little of a future as it has a past.
Chamberlain concluded his letter to Wilhelm that: "The future progress of mankind depends on a powerful Germany extending far across the earth." To this end, Chamberlain advocated German expansionism both in Europe and all over the world; building the
High Seas Fleet The High Seas Fleet (''Hochseeflotte'') was the battle fleet of the German Imperial Navy and saw action during the First World War. The formation was created in February 1907, when the Home Fleet (''Heimatflotte'') was renamed as the High Seas ...
which would break the British mastery of the seas; and restructuring German society along the lines advocated by the extreme right-wing ''völkisch'' Pan-German League.


Propagandist of the World War

In August 1914, he started suffering from a progressive
paralysis Paralysis (also known as plegia) is a loss of motor function in one or more muscles. Paralysis can also be accompanied by a loss of feeling (sensory loss) in the affected area if there is sensory damage. In the United States, roughly 1 in 50 ...
of the limbs. At the end of the war, Chamberlain's paralysis had already befallen much of his body; his chronically bad health had reached its final stage. By the time
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
started in 1914, Chamberlain remained British only by virtue of his name and nationality. When the war started, Chamberlain tried to enlist in the German Army, but was turned down on the account of his age (then 58) and bad health. In August 1914, Chamberlain wrote a letter to his brother, Basil Hall Chamberlain, explaining why he had sided with his adopted country that read: "No war has ever been simpler than this; England has not for a moment reduced her efforts to do everything humanly possible to bring it about and to destroy every peaceful impulse. ... Germany's victory will not be England's ruin; quite the contrary, it is the only hope for England's rescue from the total ruin in which she now stands. England's victory will be terrible for the whole world, a catastrophe." The same month, Chamberlain published an essay celebrating Wilhelm II as an "Aryan soldier-king" and as a "Siegfried" who had embraced the "struggle against the corroding poison of Jewry".Röhl (2004), p. 207 Chamberlain went on to call the war "a life-or-death struggle ... between two human ideals: the German and the un-German". Accordingly, the ''Reich'' must "for the next hundred years or more" strengthen all things German and carry out "the determined extermination of the un-German". Chamberlain happily welcomed the war, writing in September 1914 to his friend Prince Max of Baden: "I thank God that I have been allowed to experience these two exaltations—1870 and 1914—and that I was both times in Germany and saw the truth with my own eyes."Field (1981), p. 381 In his 1914 essay, "Whose Fault Is the War?", Chamberlain blamed the war on France, Russia and especially Britain. Chamberlain argued though St. Petersburg and Paris were both seeking war, it was London who had masterminded the war, and the French and Russians were just British puppets. Initially Chamberlain expected the war to be over by the end of 1914, and was very disappointed when that did not occur. In 1916 he also acquired
German citizenship German nationality law details the conditions by which an individual holds German nationality. The primary law governing these requirements is the Nationality Act, which came into force on 1 January 1914. Germany is a member state of the Europ ...
. He had already begun propagandising on behalf of the German government and continued to do so throughout the war. His vociferous denunciations of his land of birth, it has been posited, were the culmination of his rejection of his native England's capitalism, in favour of a form of German
Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
akin to that which he had cultivated in himself during his years at
Cheltenham Cheltenham (), also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral s ...
. The British historian
John C. G. Röhl John C. G. Röhl (born 31 May 1938) is a British historian notable for his work on Imperial Germany and European history. Early life John Charles Gerald Röhl was born in the German Hospital in Dalston, east London, on 31 May 1938 to a German ...
wrote the war made the "brutality in general and anti-Semitism in particular" of people like the Kaiser and Chamberlain "more intense". During World War I, Chamberlain published several propaganda texts against his country of birth—''Kriegsaufsätze'' (Wartime Essays). In the first four tracts, he maintained that Germany is a nation of peace; England's political system is a sham, while Germany exhibits true freedom; German is the greatest and only remaining "living" language; and the world would be better off doing away with English and French-styled
parliamentary government A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of t ...
s in favour of German rule "thought out by a few and carried out with iron consequence". The final two discuss England and Germany at length. Chamberlain's basic argument was that democracy was an idiotic system as equality was a myth—humans were very different with different abilities and talents, so democratic equality where the opinions of one voter mattered much as the opinions of the next was a completely flawed idea. Quoting the French scientist
Gustave Le Bon Charles-Marie Gustave Le Bon (; 7 May 1841 – 13 December 1931) was a leading French polymath whose areas of interest included anthropology, psychology, sociology, medicine, invention, and physics. He is best known for his 1895 work '' The Crow ...
, Chamberlain wrote the vast majority of people were simply too stupid to properly understand the issues, and as such Germany with its rule by elites was a much better governed nation than France. In Germany, Chamberlain asserted, true freedom existed, as freedom came from the state alone which made it possible for society to function, not the individual as was the case in Britain and France, which Chamberlain claimed was a recipe for chaos.Field (1981), p. 368 Field summarized Chamberlain's thesis "... the essence of German freedom was the willing submission as a matter of conscience to legitimately constituted authorities; it implied duty more than rights and was something spiritual and internal for which each moral being had to strive. Consigning 'liberty' to an inner, 'nonpolitical' moral realm, Chamberlain closed off any discussion of the specific conditions for a free society and simply asserted that freedom was perfectly compatible with an authoritarian system of government." Quoting—sometimes wildly out of context—various British, French and American authors, such as
John Richard Green John Richard Green (12 December 1837 – 7 March 1883) was an English historian. Early life Green was born on 12 December 1837, the son of a tradesman in Oxford, where he was educated, first at Magdalen College School, and then at Jesus C ...
,
William Edward Hartpole Lecky William Edward Hartpole Lecky (26 March 1838 – 22 October 1903) was an Irish historian, essayist, and political theorist with Whig proclivities. His major work was an eight-volume ''History of Ireland during the Eighteenth Century''. Early ...
,
John Robert Seeley Sir John Robert Seeley, KCMG (10 September 1834 – 13 January 1895) was an English Liberal historian and political essayist. A founder of British imperial history, he was a prominent advocate for the British Empire, promoting a concept of Grea ...
,
John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...
,
Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy. Born in Ecclefechan, Dum ...
,
Paul Bourget Paul Charles Joseph Bourget (; 2 September 185225 December 1935) was a French poet, novelist and critic. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times. Life Paul Bourget was born in Amiens in the Somme ''département'' of P ...
, Francis Delaisi, James Bryce, John Burgess,
Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
, and
H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''
Field (1981), p. 371 Until the United States entered the war in 1917, the ''Auswärtiges Amt'' worked hard to prevent Chamberlain's essays with their strong anti-American content from appearing abroad out of the fear that they would offend opinion in America. Chamberlain's wartime writings also gained much attention – albeit of a highly negative sort – in his native Britain, with ''
The Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication i ...
'' declaring: "The most ignorant of the Germans has not written greater nonsense."Field (1981), p. 366. In 1915, an unauthorised translation of Chamberlain's wartime essays was published in London under the unflattering title of ''The Ravings of a Renegade''. In his 1915 pamphlet ''Deutschland und England'' (''Germany and England''), Chamberlain vigorously took the side of his adopted land against the land of his birth. Chamberlain explained in ''Germany and England'' how the British were once noble Aryans like the Germans who lived in a perfect rigidly hierarchical, romantically rural "unmixed" society, but then starting in the 16th century capitalism had corrupted the English. Capitalism had turned the English into an urban nation dominated by a vulgar money-grubbing, philistine middle class incapable of any sort of culture. The beautiful English countryside, which Chamberlain claimed was once the home of an idyllic agrarian society, had become an ugly urban landscape full of polluting factories owned by greedy Jewish capitalists. Even worse in Chamberlain's opinion, capitalism had led the English into a process of racial degeneration, democracy and rule by the Jews. Chamberlain wrote with disgust how the sons of the English aristocracy "disappear from society to make money", leading to a warped "moral compass" on their part in contrast to Germany where the ''Junkers'' either tended to their estates or had careers in the Army. Chamberlain's discussion of Britain ended with the lament that his idealised "Merry Old England" no longer existed, with Chamberlain writing:
We were merry, we are merry no longer. The complete decline of country life and the equally complete victory of God Mammon, the deity of Industry and Trade, have caused the true, harmless, refreshing merriness to betake itself out of England.
Germany by contrast in Chamberlain's view, had preserved its racial purity and by having an authoritarian government and a welfare state, had avoided both ''laissez-faire'' capitalism and Jewish rule.Buruma (200), pp. 220–221 It was for this reason that Chamberlain alleged that Britain had started World War I in 1914 to destroy Germany. For all these reasons Chamberlain stated he had come to hate Britain and love Germany, as Germany had preserved everything that Chamberlain considered to be noble in humanity while Britain had long since lost its nobility of spirit. Chamberlain received the
Iron Cross The Iron Cross (german: link=no, Eisernes Kreuz, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). King Frederick William III of Prussia est ...
from the
Kaiser ''Kaiser'' is the German word for "emperor" (female Kaiserin). In general, the German title in principle applies to rulers anywhere in the world above the rank of king (''König''). In English, the (untranslated) word ''Kaiser'' is mainly ap ...
, with whom he was in regular correspondence, in 1916. By this time, Chamberlain's obsessive anti-Semitism had reached the point that Chamberlain was suffering from nightmares in which he was kidnapped and sentenced to death by the Jews. In 1915, Chamberlain wrote proudly in a letter to a friend that: "My lawyer friend in Munich tells me there is no living being whom the Jews hate more than I." In another essay, Chamberlain wrote the "pure Germanic force" had to be saved from the "disgusting worm" (the phrase "disgusting worm" was often used by Wagner to describe the Jews). Chamberlain wrote the purpose of this "struggle" was "salvation from the claws of the un-German and anti-German", going on to quote from Wagner's 1850 anti-Semitic essay '' Das Judenthum in der Musik'' that "Against this devil's brood stands Germany as God's champion: Siegfried against the worm!" During the war years, Chamberlain was one of the "annexationists" who wanted the war to end with Germany annexing most of Europe, Africa and Asia to give the ''Reich'' the "world power status" he believed it deserved.Field (1981), pp. 381–82 As such, Chamberlain worked closely with the Pan-German League, the
Conservatives Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
and the ''völkische'' groups to mobilise public support for the maximum war aims he sought. Chamberlain was a founding member of the Independent Commission for a German Peace, and in July 1915 he signed the Address of the Intellectuals, a petition signed by 1,347 teachers, writers, professors, and theologians asking the government to win the war in order to annex as much territory as possible. Much of this propaganda including Chamberlain's essays in support of the maximum war aims had a very strong anti-Semitic character, as Chamberlain claimed that it was the entire German Jewish community who were supposedly seeking a compromise peace to end the war, and were preventing the full mobilization of Germany's power that would allow the ''Reich'' to win the war.Field (1981), p. 382 In a letter to his friend
Prince Maximilian of Baden Maximilian, Margrave of Baden (''Maximilian Alexander Friedrich Wilhelm''; 10 July 1867 – 6 November 1929),Almanach de Gotha. ''Haus Baden (Maison de Bade)''. Justus Perthes (publishing company), Justus Perthes, Gotha, 1944, p. 18, (French). a ...
, Chamberlain wrote:
I learned today from a man who is especially well-placed to observe these things—even when they go on secretly—that the Jews are completely intoxicated by their success in Germany—first from the millions they have gained through the war, then because of the praise showered on them in all official quarters, and thirdly from the protection they and their machinations enjoy from the censor. Thus, already they are beginning to lose their heads and reach a degree of insolence which may allow us to hope for a flood-tide of reaction. May God grant it!.
In October–November 1916, the so-called '' Judenzählung'' ("Jew count") was held by the German Army to examine the popular anti-Semitic claim that German Jews were "shirking" their duty to the Fatherland by avoiding war service.Field (1981), pp. 386–87 The "Jew count" revealed that in fact German Jews were disproportionately over-represented in the front-line units, as most German Jews were anxious to prove their German patriotism and love of the Fatherland by volunteering for front-line duty. Many young German Jewish men wished to rebut the anti-Semitic canard that they were not real Germans by fighting for the Fatherland, and thus showing that they loved Germany as much as their Gentile neighbors, hence the disproportionate number of German Jews on the front-line compared to their share of the German population. As the results of the "Jew count" did not please the two men in charge of High Command, namely Field Marshal
Paul von Hindenburg Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (; abbreviated ; 2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a German field marshal and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany fro ...
and General
Erich Ludendorff Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff (9 April 1865 – 20 December 1937) was a German general, politician and military theorist. He achieved fame during World War I for his central role in the German victories at Liège and Tannenberg in 1914. ...
, the latter a "fanatical anti-Semite" who had been expecting the "Jew Count" to reveal that German Jews were disproportionally underrepresented on the front-line, the High Command issued a facetious statement saying that for the safety of the German Jewish community the "Jew count" could not be made public, as it would endanger the lives of German Jews. The implication that if people could see just how far German Jews were allegedly "shirking" their duty to the Fatherland, then pogroms would break out in Germany led to a major upsurge in anti-Semitism, which Chamberlain was quick to exploit. In support of a harder line both in the war and on the home front, Chamberlain involved himself in the intrigues to oust
Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg Theobald Theodor Friedrich Alfred von Bethmann Hollweg (29 November 1856 – 1 January 1921) was a German politician who was the chancellor of the German Empire from 1909 to 1917. He oversaw the German entry into World War I. According to biog ...
as Chancellor and replace him with the "hard man", Admiral
Alfred von Tirpitz Alfred Peter Friedrich von Tirpitz (19 March 1849 – 6 March 1930) was a German grand admiral, Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval Office, the powerful administrative branch of the German Imperial Navy from 1897 until 1916. Prussi ...
.Field (1981), p. 383 In Chamberlain's opinion, if only Germany were to wage the war more ruthlessly and brutally, then the war would be won. Chamberlain loathed Bethmann-Hollweg whom he saw as an inept leader who simply did not have the will to win. Chamberlain had an unbounded confidence in the ability of the Army and Navy to win the war, but on the home front, Chamberlain believed the ''Reich'' was "leaderless" as he viewed Bethmann-Hollweg as a Jewish "puppet" unwilling and unable to stop defeatism, corruption or the demand for more democracy. Besides supporting Tirpitz as Chancellor, Chamberlain was all for adopting unrestricted submarine warfare—even at the risk of provoking the United States into the war—as the best way of starving Britain into surrender.Field (1981), p. 384 Chamberlain was also a very public supporter of
Zeppelin A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...
raids to destroy British cities. After a discussion with his friend and admirer, Count
Ferdinand von Zeppelin Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (german: Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin; 8 July 1838 – 8 March 1917) was a German general and later inventor of the Zeppelin rigid airships. His name soon became synonymous with airships a ...
, Chamberlain published a newspaper essay in July 1915 complaining that the government had imposed far too many restrictions on Zeppelin raids in order to save innocent British lives, and he argued that his country should bomb British cities with no concern for lives of civilians as ordinary British people deserved to die. The campaign by the annexationists against Bethmann-Hollweg was in large part motivated by the fact that the annexationists believed that Bethmann-Hollweg was not one of them. Had Chamberlain or any of the other annexationists been aware of the secret September Programme of 1914, where Bethmann-Hollweg planned to announce his intentions for annexing much of Europe and Africa after the soon to be expected fall of Paris, they would have had a different opinion of Bethmann-Hollweg.Fraser (January 1990), pp. 410-24 Under the constitution of 1871, the ''Reichstag'' had limited powers, but one of those was the right to vote on the budget. In the 1912 ''Reichstag'' elections, the anti-militarist
Social Democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...
had won the largest number of seats in the ''Reichstag''. Thus Bethmann-Hollweg had to work with the SPD to get the budgets passed to finance the war. In August 1914, the government had been able to persuade the majority of the SPD to support the war on the grounds that Russia was supposedly about to attack Germany. The SPD broke into two; the Majority Social Democrats supported the war while the minority Independent Social Democrats stayed true to their pacifist beliefs and opposed the war. The Majority Social Democrats agreed to support the war to the extent it was portrayed as a defensive struggle against Russia, but the Majority SPD wanted nothing to do with the annexationists. Hence, Bethmann-Hollweg's refusal to support the annexationists in public was due to pragmatic political considerations, namely, his need for majority Social Democratic co-operation in the ''Reichstag'' as opposed to being against the annexationists as Chamberlain mistakenly believed.Fraser (January 1990), p. 410 If the parties supporting annexationists, such as the Conservatives, National Liberals and Free Conservatives, had done better in the 1912 elections, Bethmann-Hollweg would almost certainly have taken a different line in public regarding the demands of the annexationists. Much of Chamberlain's strident, aggressive and embittered rhetoric reflected the fact that the annexationists were a minority in Germany, albeit a significant, vocal, well organised minority with many influential members inside and outside the government, but a minority nonetheless.Fraser (January 1990), p. 419 The majority of the German people did not support the annexationists. Chamberlain regarded the refusal of the democratic parties like the left-wing SPD, the right-of-the-centre '' Zentrum'' and the liberal
Progressives Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, techno ...
to join the annexationist movement as essentially high treason. In August 1916, there occurred what amounted to a military coup d'état when Field Marshal
Paul von Hindenburg Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (; abbreviated ; 2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a German field marshal and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany fro ...
and General
Erich Ludendorff Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff (9 April 1865 – 20 December 1937) was a German general, politician and military theorist. He achieved fame during World War I for his central role in the German victories at Liège and Tannenberg in 1914. ...
informed Wilhelm and Bethmann-Hollweg that henceforward the Army would no longer obey either the Kaiser or the government, and that from now the Emperor and the Chancellor would now obey the Army. In July 1917 Hindenburg and Ludendorff had Bethmann-Hollweg dismissed and replaced with
Georg Michaelis Georg Michaelis (8 September 1857 – 24 July 1936) was the chancellor of the German Empire for a few months in 1917. He was the first (and the only one of the German Empire) chancellor not of noble birth to hold the office. With an economic ba ...
as Chancellor. Chamberlain's preferred candidate as Chancellor, Admiral Tirpitz, was passed over. Tirpitz was an intelligent, media-savvy, charismatic political intriguer with a desperate hunger for political power, but the duumvirate of Hindenburg and Ludendorff regarded Tirpitz as Chancellor as too much of a threat to their own power. In response to the firing of Bethmann-Hollweg, the democratic parties decided to protest by passing a peace resolution. The
Reichstag Peace Resolution The Reichstag Peace Resolution was passed by the '' Reichstag'' of the German Empire on 19 July 1917 by 212 votes to 126. It was supported by the Social Democrats, the Catholic Centre Party and the Progressive People's Party, and was opposed by th ...
of July 1917—in which the SPD, ''Zentrum'' and the Progressives all joined forces to vote for a resolution asking the government to start peace talks at once on the basis of a return to the status quo of 1914—"inflamed the paranoia and desperation of the right. The annexationists prepared for a war to the knife against the Chancellor and domestic "traitors"."Field (1981), p. 388 Chamberlain was disappointed that Tirpitz had not been appointed Chancellor; however, he was overjoyed with Bethmann-Hollweg's sacking and welcomed the military dictatorship of Hindenburg and Ludendorff as giving Germany the sort of government it needed.Field (1981), p. 389 Chamberlain was always inclined to hero worship, and for him, Hindenburg and Ludendorff were the greatest of a long line of German heroes. Chamberlain wrote in 1917 that: "Had Hindenburg and Ludendorff stood on the first day in their rightful place, the peace would in all probability have been dictated in Paris before the end of 1914." Besides being an annexationist who wanted to see the war end with Germany as the world's greatest power, Chamberlain also advocated a set of wide-ranging changes to German society intended to achieve a "rebirth" of Germany.Field (1981), p. 377 Chamberlain wanted to see the
Spirit of 1914 The Spirit of 1914 (German: Augusterlebnis) was the alleged jubilation in Germany at the outbreak of World War I. Many individuals remembered that euphoria erupted on 4 August 1914, after all the political parties in the Reichstag, including the ...
made permanent, to convert the wartime ''Burgfrieden'' ("peace within a castle under siege") into a peacetime ''
Volksgemeinschaft ''Volksgemeinschaft'' () is a German expression meaning "people's community", "folk community",Richard Grunberger, ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 44. "national community", or "racial community", ...
'' (people's community). He also wanted a new economic and social system that would be a "third way" between capitalism and socialism to bring about the ''Volksgemeinschaft'' organized along
corporatist Corporatism is a collectivist political ideology which advocates the organization of society by corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, business, scientific, or guild associations, on the basis of their common interests. The ...
lines. To achieve this, Chamberlain called for the end to any remaining democratic features the constitution of 1871 still possessed and the creation of a pure dictatorship; for the end of the capitalist system with the state to nationalize huge sections of the economy while at the same time respecting the right to private property; and for the militarization of society on a new scale. Chamberlain was somewhat vague about how this corporatist society would work in practice, but what he wanted was rule by an oligarchy of aristocrats, intellectuals, bureaucrats and military officers who would run a "planned economy" via "scientific management".Field (1981), pp. 373–74 The entire German people (except for the Jews, whom Chamberlain believed did not belong in Germany) were to be united by a common loyalty to the Emperor. A fanatical monarchist, Chamberlain saw the monarchy as the bedrock of German life, writing in his 1915 book ''Politische Ideale'': "Whoever speaks of a republic in Germany belongs on the gallows; the monarchical idea is here a holy law of life." At the same time, Chamberlain envisioned a Germany that would somehow remain the leading industrial power at the forefront of modern technology while at the same time become a romantic, agrarian society where ordinary people would work the land and retain their traditional deference to the aristocracy. Chamberlain was also vague about how this could be achieved, writing only that a "planned economy", "scientific management" and an economically interventionist state committed to social reforms would make it all possible. After Germany's diplomatic defeat in the
Second Moroccan Crisis The Agadir Crisis, Agadir Incident, or Second Moroccan Crisis was a brief crisis sparked by the deployment of a substantial force of French troops in the interior of Morocco in April 1911 and the deployment of the German gunboat to Agadir, a ...
in 1911, Wilhelm II became the ''Schattenkaiser'' (the "Shadow Emperor"), an increasingly reclusive figure who was seen less and less in public. The war further reinforced Wilhelm's tendency to avoid the public spotlight as much as possible. In private, Chamberlain grew disillusioned with his friend, complaining that instead of being the "Aryan soldier king" leading the ''Reich'' to victory as he wanted and expected him to be, the Kaiser was a weak leader as the "Shadow Emperor" was hiding himself away in deep seclusion from the rest of Germany at his hunting lodges. Wilhelm's hiding himself away from his own people during the war did immense damage to the prestige of the monarchy, and if the Kaiser's seclusion did not make the November Revolution of 1918 inevitable, it at least made it possible. As a monarchist, Chamberlain was worried about how Wilhelm was hurting his own reputation, and often vainly urged the Kaiser to appear in public more often. Chamberlain wrote in 1916 that Wilhelm had an "absolute incapability for judging character" and was now being "forced to obey a Frankfurt pimp", the last being a disparaging reference to Bethmann-Hollweg. Chamberlain was always very careful to avoid attacking Wilhelm in public, but his violent press attacks against Bethmann-Hollweg caused something of a rift with the Kaiser who felt Chamberlain's very public criticism of the Chancellor was also an indirect attack on him. Nonetheless, despite the strains the war imposed on their friendship, Chamberlain and Wilhelm continued to write throughout the war, but pointedly did not meet in person anymore, though Chamberlain's increasing paralysis also played a part. Wilhelm wrote to Chamberlain on 15 January 1917, stating:
The war is a struggle between two ''Weltanschauungen'', the Teutonic-German for morality, right, loyalty and faith, genuine humanity, truth and real freedom, against ... the worship of Mammon, the power of money, pleasure, land-hunger, lies, betrayal, deceit and—last but not least—treacherous assassination! These two ''Weltanschauungen'' cannot be reconciled or tolerate one another, one must be ''victorious'', the other must ''go under''!
In response, Chamberlain wrote back to Wilhelm on 20 January 1917, declaring:
England has fallen totally into the hands of the Jews and the Americans. A person does not understand this war unless he realizes that it is in the deepest sense the war of ''Judentum'' and its near relative Americanism for the control of the world—a war against Christianity, against ''Bildung'', moral strength, uncommercial art, against every idealist perspective on life, and for the benefit of a world that would include only industry, finance, and trade—in short, unrestricted plutocracy. All the other additional factors—Russian greed, French vanity, Italian bombast, the envious and cowardly spirit of the neutrals—are whipped up, made crazy; the Jew and the Yankee are the driving forces that operate consciously and in a certain sense have hitherto been victorious or at all events successful ... It is the war of modern mechanized "civilization" against the ancient, holy and continually reborn culture of chosen races. Machines will crush both spirit and soul in their clutches.
Chamberlain continued to believe right up until the end of the war that Germany would win only if the people willed victory enough, and this sort of ideological war between "German idealism" vs. "Jewish materialism" could only end with one side utterly crushing the other. In the last two years of the war, Chamberlain became obsessed with defeating the "inner enemy" that he believed was holding Germany back. In this regard, Chamberlain frequently asserted that Germany was not one nation, but two; on one side, the "patriots" like Admiral
Alfred von Tirpitz Alfred Peter Friedrich von Tirpitz (19 March 1849 – 6 March 1930) was a German grand admiral, Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval Office, the powerful administrative branch of the German Imperial Navy from 1897 until 1916. Prussi ...
, General
Erich Ludendorff Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff (9 April 1865 – 20 December 1937) was a German general, politician and military theorist. He achieved fame during World War I for his central role in the German victories at Liège and Tannenberg in 1914. ...
, Field Marshal
Paul von Hindenburg Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (; abbreviated ; 2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a German field marshal and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany fro ...
,
Wolfgang Kapp Wolfgang Kapp (24 July 1858 – 12 June 1922) was a German civil servant and journalist. A strict nationalist, he is best known for being the leader of the Kapp Putsch. Early life Kapp was born in New York City where his father Friedrich Kapp ...
, J. F. Lehmann and Count von Reventlow; and on the other, the "traitors" which included people like
Philipp Scheidemann Philipp Heinrich Scheidemann (26 July 1865 – 29 November 1939) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In the first quarter of the 20th century he played a leading role in both his party and in the young Weimar ...
,
Eduard David Eduard Heinrich Rudolph David (11 June 1863 – 24 December 1930) was a German politician. He was an important figure in the history of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and of the German political labour movement. After the German Re ...
and
Matthias Erzberger Matthias Erzberger (20 September 1875 – 26 August 1921) was a German writer and politician (Centre Party), the minister of Finance from 1919 to 1920. Prominent in the Catholic Centre Party, he spoke out against World War I from 1917 and as a ...
. No compromise between these two Germanies was possible or desirable, Chamberlain argued, and one would have to be destroyed. Chamberlain's wartime writings against the "inner enemy" anticipated the " stab-in-the-back legend" which emerged after 1918. Chamberlain was a founding member of both the extreme-right, anti-Semitic ''Deutschlands Erneuerung'' newspaper, and of the Fatherland Party in 1917. The character of the Fatherland Party was well illustrated by an infamous incident in January 1918 when at a Fatherland Party rally in Berlin, a group of disabled war veterans were invited to debate the Fatherland Party's speakers.Evans (2005), p. 68 The wounded veterans, including men who were paralyzed, blinded, missing limbs, etc. all declared that they were now against the war and had become pacifists. The crippled veterans deplored the Fatherland Party's militarism and demand for war to go until victory, regardless of how many more would have to die or end up living with destroyed bodies. The ultra-nationalists of the Fatherland Party were so enraged by what the crippled veterans had to say that the audience stormed the stage, and savagely beat the disabled veterans senseless. Chamberlain, who lived in Bayreuth. was not present during the Berlin rally, but expressed his approval of what had happened when he heard of it. During the war, most Germans saw Britain as the main enemy, and so Chamberlain's status as the Englishman who supported the ''Reich'' made him an even more famous celebrity in Germany than he had been before 1914. Chamberlain's wartime essays were widely read. The first set of essays sold 160,000 copies within six months of publication while the second set sold 75,000 copies within six weeks of publication.Field (1981), p. 390 Between 1914 and 1918 about 1 million copies of Chamberlain's essays were sold, making Chamberlain one of Germany's best read writers during the war. In December 1915, it was estimated that between the direct sales of Chamberlain's essays and reprints in newspapers, at least 3 million people had read Chamberlain's war-time writings. Such was the power of Chamberlain as a public figure that in August 1916 the German Jewish industrialist
Walther Rathenau Walther Rathenau (29 September 1867 – 24 June 1922) was a German industrialist, writer and liberal politician. During the First World War of 1914–1918 he was involved in the organization of the German war economy. After the war, Rathenau s ...
—whom Chamberlain had often accused of profiteering—mailed Chamberlain a copy of his bank balance sheets, which showed that Rathenau was in fact getting poorer as a result of the war, and politely asked Chamberlain to stop accusing him of
war profiteering A war profiteer is any person or organization that derives profit (economics), profit from warfare or by selling weapons and other goods to parties at war. The term typically carries strong negative connotations. General profiteering (business), ...
. Rathenau's appeal made no impression, and Chamberlain continued to accuse Rathenau of war profiteering right until he was assassinated in 1922.Field (1981), p. 392 In 1917 Chamberlain wrote about the liberal '' Frankfurter Zeitung'' newspaper: "No knowledgeable person, can doubt that the enemy is at work among us ... whenever England has something up her sleeve against the interests of Germany, she uses the ''Frankfurter Zeitung''." Bernhard Guttmann, the editor of the ''Frankfurter Zeitung'' sued Chamberlain for libel about that article. In August 1918, the sensational libel trial which attracted much media attention opened. The ''Frankfurter Zeitungs lawyers were Conrad Haussmann and Hertz while Chamberlain was defended by
Heinrich Class Heinrich may refer to: People * Heinrich (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Heinrich (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) *Hetty (given name), a given name (including a list of peo ...
and Adolf Jacobsen. On 16 August 1918, the trial ended with the judge ruling that Chamberlain was indeed guilty of libel and fined him 1,500 marks. The guilty verdict set off a storm in right-wing circles, who quickly held several successful fund-raisers that raised the necessary 1,500 marks to pay Chamberlain's fine.


Hitler's mentor

In November 1918, Chamberlain was completely shattered and horrified by Germany's defeat in the war, a defeat he believed to be impossible, as well as by the November Revolution, which had toppled his beloved monarchy. Adding to his bitterness, Chamberlain was now so paralyzed that he could no longer leave his bed, something that he believed to be the result of poisoning by the British secret service. Chamberlain saw both the defeat and the revolution of 1918 as the work of the Jews, writing in 1919 that Germany was now under the "supremacy of the Jews". In his last years, Chamberlain's anti-Semitic writings grew ever more violent and bloodthirsty as Chamberlain became even more intensely anti-Semitic than he had been before 1918. In March 1920, Chamberlain supported the
Kapp Putsch The Kapp Putsch (), also known as the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch (), was an attempted coup against the German national government in Berlin on 13 March 1920. Named after its leaders Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz, its goal was to undo th ...
against the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
, which he called the ''Judenrepublik'' ("Jewish Republic"), and was even more embittered by its failure.Field (1981), p. 417 The Kapp putsch was defeated by a general strike called by the Social Democrats which shut down the entire German economy. A young ''völkisch'' activist Josef Stolzing-Cerny and a Chamberlain protégé who had participated in the Kapp putsch wrote to Chamberlain after its failure: "Unfortunately Kapp was not all 'the man with the lion heart', much rather the man with the beer heart, for he continually used all his energies befuddling his brain with alcohol. ... In the same situation a Bismarck or a Napoleon would have hunted the whole Jewish-socialist republic to the devil." Stolzing-Cerny went on to criticize Kapp for not unleashing the ''
Freikorps (, "Free Corps" or "Volunteer Corps") were irregular German and other European military volunteer units, or paramilitary, that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenary or private armies, regar ...
''
Marinebrigade Ehrhardt The Marinebrigade Ehrhardt, also known as the Ehrhardt Brigade, was a Freikorps unit of the early Weimar Republic. It was formed on 17 February 1919 as the Second Marine Brigade from members of the former Imperial German Navy under the lead ...
which had taken Berlin against the Jews of Berlin, instead ordering the ''Freikorps'' to keep order. After the failure of the putsch, Chamberlain no longer considered
Wolfgang Kapp Wolfgang Kapp (24 July 1858 – 12 June 1922) was a German civil servant and journalist. A strict nationalist, he is best known for being the leader of the Kapp Putsch. Early life Kapp was born in New York City where his father Friedrich Kapp ...
to be one of his heroes, and instead damned him as a weak-willed coward all too typical of German conservatives who talked tough, but never followed up their words with action. More importantly, the failure of the Kapp putsch to a certain extent discredited traditional German conservatism in Chamberlain's eyes, and led him on the search for a more radical alternative, a type of "German socialism" that would offer a "third way" between capitalism and socialism. In January 1921, Stolzing-Cerny, who joined the NSDAP in December 1920, wrote to Chamberlain about the new man on the political scene, "one
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
, an Austrian worker, a man of extraordinary oratorical talents and an astonishingly rich political knowledge who knows marvelously how to thrill the masses". Initially, Chamberlain was hesitant about Hitler, believing that he might be another Kapp, but after the "battle of Coburg", in which Hitler had personally fought with his followers in a street battle against the Communists, Chamberlain started to see Hitler as someone who practiced what he preached. From that time onwards, Chamberlain started to closely follow and admire Hitler, whom he saw as "Germany's savior".Field (1981), p. 422 Hitler in his turn had read ''The Foundations'', Chamberlain's biography of Wagner, and many of his wartime essays, and was much influenced by all that Chamberlain had written. British historian Sir
Ian Kershaw Sir Ian Kershaw (born 29 April 1943) is an English historian whose work has chiefly focused on the social history of 20th-century Germany. He is regarded by many as one of the world's leading experts on Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, and is pa ...
, a biographer of Hitler, writes that
... Hitler drew heavily for his ideas from well known anti-Semitic tracts such as those by Houston Stewart Chamberlain,
Adolf Wahrmund Adolf Wahrmund (; 10 June 1827 – 15 May 1913) was an Austrian-German orientalist. Biography He was born in Wiesbaden, Germany, and died in Vienna. He studied at Göttingen and Vienna. From 1853 until 1861, he was at the Hofbibliothek in Vienna. ...
and especially, the arch-popularizer
Theodor Fritsch Theodor Fritsch (born Emil Theodor Fritsche; 28 October 1852 – 8 September 1933), was a German publisher and journalist. His antisemitic writings did much to influence popular German opinion against Jews in the late 19th and early 20th c ...
(one of whose emphasis was the alleged sexual abuse of women by the Jews)...
The fact that Hitler was an ardent Wagnerite who adored Wagner's music gave Chamberlain and Hitler a mutual ground for friendship beyond their shared hatred of the Jews. Likewise, Joseph Goebbels had been converted to the ''völkisch'' ideology after reading Chamberlain's books and essays, and came to the conclusion on the basis of Chamberlain's writings that the West could only be saved by removing the Jews from German society. During this period, Chamberlain, who was practically a member of the Wagner family, started to push for the
Bayreuth Festival The Bayreuth Festival (german: link=no, Bayreuther Festspiele) is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived ...
to become openly identified with ''völkisch'' politics, and to turn the previously apolitical festival into a ''völkisch'' rally. Despite his paralysis, Chamberlain whose mind was still sharp, remained active as a writer, maintaining a correspondence with a whole gamut of figures from Admiral
Alfred von Tirpitz Alfred Peter Friedrich von Tirpitz (19 March 1849 – 6 March 1930) was a German grand admiral, Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval Office, the powerful administrative branch of the German Imperial Navy from 1897 until 1916. Prussi ...
to the radical anti-Semitic journalist
Theodor Fritsch Theodor Fritsch (born Emil Theodor Fritsche; 28 October 1852 – 8 September 1933), was a German publisher and journalist. His antisemitic writings did much to influence popular German opinion against Jews in the late 19th and early 20th c ...
, the leader of the ''völkisch'' Reichshammerbund, ''Hammerbund'' ("Hammer League"). From his exile in the Netherlands, the former Kaiser wrote to Chamberlain in 1922 to tell him that thanks to his essays, he had become a Marcionism, Marcionist and now rejected the Old Testament.Röhl (2004), p. 209 Wilhelm claimed that on the basis of Chamberlain's work, he now knew that what had become the Old Testament was in fact a Zoroastrianism, Zoroastrian text from ancient Persia (modern Iran) and was therefore "Aryan". The former Kaiser claimed that the Jews had stolen and rewritten this sacred text from the Aryan Persians, ending his letter: "Let us free ourselves from the ''Judentum'' with its Jawe!" In 1923, Wilhelm wrote to tell Chamberlain of his belief that not only were the Jews "not our religious forebears", but that Jesus was "not a Jew", was instead an Aryan "of exceptional beauty, tall and slim with a noble face inspiring respect and love; his hair blond shading into chestnut brown, his arms and hands noble and exquisitely formed". In 1923 Chamberlain met with Adolf Hitler in Bayreuth, and in September he sat in his wheelchair next to Hitler during the ''völkisch'' Bayreuth#To the end of the Weimar Republic (1900–1933), "German Day" paramilitary parade. In September 1923 he wrote a grateful and highly admiring open letter to the Nazi Party, NSDAP leader. Chamberlain, paralysed and despondent after Germany's losses in World War I, wrote to Hitler after his first visit in September 1923: Chamberlain's letter—which made him into the first celebrity to endorse the NSDAP—caused a media sensation in Germany and led Hitler to rejoice "like a child" at the news. When Hitler staged the Munich Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923, Chamberlain wrote an essay for the ''Völkischer Beobachter'' entitled "God Wills It!" calling on all Germans who love Germany to join the ''putsch''.Field (1981), p. 439 After the failure of the Munich Putsch, Chamberlain wrote: "We are deeply affected by this tragic fate, Jew and Jesuit can now triumph again!". Chamberlain joined the Nazi Party and contributed to its publications. Its primary journal, the ''Völkischer Beobachter'', dedicated five columns to praising him on his 70th birthday, describing ''The Foundations'' as the "gospel of the National Socialist movement". In January 1924, Chamberlain published an essay praising Hitler as one of the "rare beautiful beings... a man of genuine simplicity with a fascinating gaze" whose words "always come directly from the heart". Chamberlain praised Hitler for embarking upon a "''Vernichtungskrieg''" ("war of destruction") against all of Germany's enemies. Chamberlain further wrote about Hitler—whom he viewed as the greatest of all his heroes—that:
Because he [Hitler] is no mere phrasemonger, but consistently pursues his thought to an end and draws his conclusions from it, he recognizes and proclaims that one cannot simultaneously embrace Jesus and those that crucified him. That is the splendid thing about Hitler—his courage! ... In this respect he reminds one of Luther. And whence come the courage of these two men? It derives from the holy seriousness each has for the cause! Hitler utters no word he does not mean in earnest; his speeches contain no padding or vague, provisional statements ... but the result of this is that he is decried as a visionary dreamer. People consider Hitler a dreamer whose head is full of impossible schemes and yet a renowned and original historian called him "the most creative mind since Bismarck in the area of statecraft." I believe ... we are all inclined to view those things as impractical that we do not already see accomplished before us. He, for example, finds it impossible to share our conviction about the pernicious, even murderous influence of Jewry on the German ''Volk'' and not to take action; if one sees the danger, then steps must be taken against it with utter dispatch. I daresay everyone recognizes this, but nobody risks speaking out; nobody ventures to extract the consequences of his thoughts for his actions; nobody except Hitler. ... This man has worked like a divine blessing, cheering hearts, opening men's eyes to clearly seen goals, enlivening their spirits, kindling their capacity for love and for indignation, hardening their courage and resoluteness. Yet we still need him badly: May God who sent him to us preserve him for many years as a "blessing for the German Fatherland!"
After the failure of the Munich Putsch, Hitler was convicted of high treason and imprisoned. When the 1924 Bayreuth Festival opened, Chamberlain's efforts to identify the festival with ''völkisch'' politics finally bore fruit.Field (1981), p. 443 The Bayreuth Festspielhaus, ''Festspielhügel'' opera house and the way leading up to it were decorated with ''völkisch'' symbols like the swastika, parades by the nationalist ''Verbände'' were held outside the ''Festspielhügel'', prominent ''völkisch'' leaders like General
Erich Ludendorff Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff (9 April 1865 – 20 December 1937) was a German general, politician and military theorist. He achieved fame during World War I for his central role in the German victories at Liège and Tannenberg in 1914. ...
appeared on the stage to give a speech attacking the Weimar Republic before one of the operas was performed, and a petition was offered to the audiences demanding that Hitler be pardoned. The 1924 festival led to 10,000 people in one night signing the petition asking for Hitler's release. From his prison cell at Landsberg prison, Hitler wrote to Siegfried Wagner expressing his sorrow about being unable to attend his beloved Bayreuth Festival and to express his thanks to the entire Wagner family and Chamberlain for turning the Bayreuth festival into a ''völkisch'' rally, adding that when he got out of prison, he would come to Bayreuth as "the first witness and herald" of Germany's rebirth. Hitler stated this would be the best medicine for Chamberlain's health as "the road to Berlin" started in Bayreuth. In May 1926, one year before Chamberlain's death, Hitler and Goebbels visited him in Bayreuth. Chamberlain assured Hitler of his belief that he was the "chosen one" destined to lead Germany back to greatness after the defeat of 1918, to make the ''Reich'' a world power, and finally smash the Jews. Much of Hitler's genuine affection for Chamberlain was due to the fact that Chamberlain never lost his faith in Hitler's potential, even at time in the mid-1920s when the NSDAP was faring very poorly. Chamberlain continued living in
Bayreuth Bayreuth (, ; bar, Bareid) is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtelgebirge Mountains. The town's roots date back to 1194. In the 21st century, it is the capital of U ...
until his death in 1927. Chamberlain died on 9 January 1927 and his ashes were buried at the Bayreuth cemetery in the presence of Adolf Hitler. His gravestone bears a verse from the Gospel of Luke, which he considered to spell out the essential difference between his ideal type of Christianity, and Judaism and Catholicism as he saw them: "The Kingdom of God is within you." ()


Impact of ''The Foundations''

During his lifetime Chamberlain's works were read widely throughout Europe, and especially in Germany. His reception was particularly favourable among Germany's conservative elite. Wilhelm II of Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II patronised Chamberlain, maintaining a correspondence, inviting him to stay at his court, distributing copies of ''The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century'' among the German Army (German Empire), German Army, and seeing that ''The Foundations'' was carried in German libraries and included in the school curricula. In 1932 in an essay entitled "Anti-Semitics" denouncing antisemitism, the "homeless left" German journalist Carl von Ossietzky wrote: "Intellectual anti-Semitism was the special prerogative of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who, in ''The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century'', concretized the fantasies of Count Arthur de Gobineau, which had penetrated to Bayreuth. He translated them from the language of harmless snobbery into [the language] of a modernized, seductive mysticism."Ossietzky (1994), p. 280 Ossietzky ended his essay with the warning: "Today there is a strong smell of blood in the air. Literary anti-Semitism forges the moral weapon for murder. Sturdy and honest lads will take care of the rest." ''The Foundations'' would prove to be a seminal work in German nationalism. Due to its success, aided by Chamberlain's association with the Wagner circle, its ideas of
Aryan Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ' ...
supremacy and a struggle against Jewish influence spread widely across the German state at the beginning of the century. If it did not form the framework of later Nazism, Nazi ideology, at the very least it provided its adherents with a seeming intellectual justification. Many of Chamberlain's ideas such as his emphasis on a racial struggle between Aryans vs. Jews for world domination; his championing of "world power status" for Germany; his call for a "planned economy" (something realized in 1936 when Hitler brought in the First Four Year Plan which saw the German state take over the economy); his vision of Germany becoming the ''
Volksgemeinschaft ''Volksgemeinschaft'' () is a German expression meaning "people's community", "folk community",Richard Grunberger, ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 44. "national community", or "racial community", ...
'' (people's community"); his demand for a "third way" between capitalism and socialism; his total opposition to democracy; and his nostalgia for an agrarian lifestyle were central to Nazism.Field (1981), p. 449 The only Nazi idea that Chamberlain missed was ''Lebensraum'' (living space), the perceived need for Germany to colonize Eastern Europe while displacing the existing population to make room for Aryan colonists. However, there were differences in that Chamberlain was always a monarchist and believed that when his friend Hitler came to power, he would restore the monarchy and put his other friend Wilhelm II back on the throne. Moreover, Chamberlain was just one of the many ''völkische'' thinkers who influenced Hitler. Chamberlain himself lived to see his ideas begin to bear fruit. Adolf Hitler, while still growing as a political figure in Germany, visited him several times (in 1923 and in 1926, together with Joseph Goebbels) at the Wagner family's property in
Bayreuth Bayreuth (, ; bar, Bareid) is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtelgebirge Mountains. The town's roots date back to 1194. In the 21st century, it is the capital of U ...
. Later, in January 1927, Hitler, along with several highly ranked members of the Nazi Party, attended Chamberlain's funeral. Chamberlain's ideas particularly influenced Alfred Rosenberg, who became the Nazi Party's in-house philosopher. In 1909, some months before his 17th birthday, Rosenberg went with an aunt to visit his guardian where several other relatives were gathered. Bored, he went to a book shelf, picked up a copy of Chamberlain's ''The Foundations'' and wrote of the moment: "I felt electrified; I wrote down the title and went straight to the bookshop." In 1930 Rosenberg published ''The Myth of the Twentieth Century,'' a homage to and continuation of Chamberlain's work. Rosenberg had accompanied Hitler when he called upon Wagner's widow, Cosima, in October 1923 when he met her son-in-law. Hitler told the ailing Chamberlain he was working on Mein Kampf, his own book which, he intended, should do for Weimar-era Germany what Chamberlain's book had done for German Empire, Imperial Germany. Beyond the Kaiser and the NSDAP, assessments were mixed. The French Germanic scholar Edmond Vermeil considered Chamberlain's ideas "essentially shoddy," but the anti-Nazi German author Konrad Heiden, despite objections to Chamberlain's racial ideas, described him as "one of the most astonishing talents in the history of the German mind, a mine of knowledge and profound ideas". In a 1939 work Martin Heidegger (himself a former Nazi) dismissed Chamberlain's work as presenting a subjective, individualistic "''Weltanschauung''" (fabricated worldview).Martin Heidegger, Heidegger, Martin ''Besinnung, Gesamtausgabe, Band 66, Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main, 1997, p. 402, section 131, "Metaphysik und Weltanschauung. "Die 'Weltanschauung' ist eine neuzeitliche Verunstaltung der Metaphysik, ihr Maßstab ist die Öffentlichkeit, in der Jedermann Jedes zugänglich findet und auf solche Zugänglichlichkeit einen Anspruch erhebt; dem widerstreitet nicht, daß 'Weltanschauungen' dann sehr 'persönlich' und auf den 'Einzelnen' zugeschnitten sind; diese Einzelnen fühlen sich als die abseitigen Jedermänner, als Menschen, die auf sich gestellt für sich ein Welt-Bild, die Welt als Bild vor-stellen und eine Art des Sichzurechtfindens (Charakter) sich zustellen (z.B. Houston Stewart Chamberlain).''"


Works

* (1892). ''Das Drama Richard Wagners. Eine Anregung'', Breitkopf & Härtel. * (1895). ''Richard Wagner'', F. Bruckmann. * (1899). ''Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts'', Bruckmann. * (1905). ''Arische Weltanschauung'', Bruckmann. * (1903). ''Heinrich von Stein und seine Weltanschauung'', Georg Heinrich Meyer. * (1905). ''Immanuel Kant. Die Persönlichkeit als Einführung in das Werk'', Berlin, Bard, Marquardt & Co. * (1912). ''Goethe''. Bruckmann. * (1914). ''Kriegsaufsätze'', Bruckmann. * (1915). ''Politische Ideale'', Bruckmann. * (1915). ''England und Deutschland'', Bruckmann. * (1915). ''Die Zuversicht'', Bruckmann. * (1915) '' Who is to blame for the war?'', The German-American literary Defense Committee. * (1916). ''Deutsches Wesen'', Bruckmann. * (1916). ''Idealund Macht'', Bruckmann. * (1919). ''Lebenswege meines Denkens'', Bruckmann. * (1921). ''Mensch und Gott'', Bruckmann. * (1928). ''Natur und Leben''. Bruckmann.


Works in English translation

* (1897). ''Richard Wagner'', J. M. Dent & Co. (translated by G. Ainslie Hight) * (1911). ''
The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century ''The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century'' (''Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts,'' 1899) is a book by British-born German philosopher Houston Stewart Chamberlain. In the book, Chamberlain advances various racialist and especially ''v ...
'', 2 Vol., John Lane, The Bodley Head (translated by John Lees) *
"Foundations of the Nineteenth Century."
In ''Modern Political Ideologies'', Oxford University Press, 1959. * (1914). ''Immanuel Kant'', 2 Vol., John Lane, The Bodley Head (translated by Algernon Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale, Lord Redesdale). * (1915). ''The Wagnerian Drama'', John Lane, the Bodley Head. * (1915). ''The Ravings of a Renegade'', Jarrold & Sons (translated by Charles H. Clarke) * (2005). ''Political Ideals'', University Press of America (translated by Alexander Jacob) * (2012). ''Aryan World View'', Aristeus books. * (2012). ''The Ravings of a Renegade'', Aristeus Books (translated by Charles H. Clarke) * (2014). ''Richard Wagner'', Aristeus Books. (translated by G. Ainslie High)


See also

*Oswald Mosley *Wagner family tree *William Patrick Stuart-Houston


References

Informational notes Citations Bibliography * Michael Biddiss, Biddiss, Michael (1998), "History as Destiny: Gobineau, H. S. Chamberlain and Spengler," ''Transactions of the Royal Historical Society'', Vol. VII, Sixth Series, Cambridge University Press. * Ian Buruma, Buruma, Ian (2000) ''Anglomania: A European Love Affair'' New York: Vintage Books. * * Domeier, Norman (2015) ''The Eulenburg Affair: A Cultural History of Politics in the German Empire'', Rochester: Boydell & Brewer. * Richard J. Evans, Evans, Richard J. (2005) ''The Coming of the Third Reich'', London: Penguin Books. * * Fraser, David (January 1990) "Houston Stewart Chamberlain Revolutionary or Reactionary?" in ''Journal of 20th Century History'', Volume 20, #1, pp. 410–24 * Saul Friedländer, Friedländer, Saul (1998) ''Nazi Germany and the Jews: Volume 1: The Years of Persecution 1933–1939'', New York: Harper Perennial. * * * Lobenstein-Reichmann, Anja (2008): ''Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Zur textlichen Konstruktion einer Weltanschauung. Eine sprach-, diskurs- und ideologiegeschichtliche Analyse.'' (Studia linguistica; Bd. 95). De Gruyter, Berlin: de Gruyter.. * Lobenstein-Reichmann, Anja (2009): ''Houston Stewart Chamberlains Rassentheoretische Geschichts„philosophie“''. In: Werner Bergmann (Soziologe), Werner Bergmann, Ulrich Sieg (Hrsg.): ''Antisemitische Geschichtsbilder.'' (Antisemitismus. Geschichte und Strukturen: Bd. 5). Essen: Klartext Verlag. p. 139–166. * Lobenstein-Reichmann, Anja (2013): ''Kulturchauvinismus. Germanisches Christentum. Austilgungsrassismus. Houston Stewart Chamberlain als Leitfigur des deutschnationalen Bürgertums und Stichwortgeber Adolf Hitlers''. In: Hannes Heer (Hrsg.): ''Weltanschauung en marche. Die Bayreuther Festspiele und die Juden 1876 bis 1945''. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, p. 169–192. * Lobenstein-Reichmann, Anja (2017): ''Houston Stewart Chamberlain''. In: Handbuch der völkischen Wissenschaften. Akteure, Netzwerke, Forschungsprogramme. Band 1: Biographien. Hrsg. von Michael Fahlbusch / Ingo Haar / Alexander Pinwinkler. 2. vollständig überarbeitete Auflage. Boston / Berlin: de Gruyter. p. 114-119. * Mosse, George L. (1968) "Introduction to the 1968 Edition" to Chamberlain, Houston Stewart ''
The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century ''The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century'' (''Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts,'' 1899) is a book by British-born German philosopher Houston Stewart Chamberlain. In the book, Chamberlain advances various racialist and especially ''v ...
'' Vol. I. Lees, John (trans.) New York: Howard Fertig Inc. * Carl von Ossietzky, Ossietzky, Carl von (1984) "Anti-Semites" in Kaes, Anton; Jay, Martin; and Dimendberg, Edward (eds.) ''The Weimar Republic Sourcebook''. Los Angeles: University of California Press. pp. 276–80 * Ferdinand Praeger, Praeger, Ferdinand (1892)
Wagner as I Knew Him
' London: Longman, Green & Co. * * Algernon Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale, Redesdale, Lord (1913) "Introduction" to Chamberlain, Houston Stewart ''
The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century ''The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century'' (''Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts,'' 1899) is a book by British-born German philosopher Houston Stewart Chamberlain. In the book, Chamberlain advances various racialist and especially ''v ...
'' (4th English language impression). London. * John C. G. Röhl, Röhl, John (2004) ''Wilhelm II: The Kaiser's Personal Monarchy, 1888–1900''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * * William L. Shirer, Shirer, William L. (1985) [1959] ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich''. Book Club Associates. * Wolfram Wette, Wette, Wolfram (2006) ''The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality'', Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 33 *Pieter Jan Verstraete (2016) ''Houston Stewart Chamberlain: rassenideoloog en wegbereider van nationaalsocialisme.'' Soest: Uitgeverij Aspekt. ISBN 978 94 6338 013 3 Further reading * Jacques Barzun, Barzun, Jacques (1937), ''Race: A Study in Modern Superstition'', Taylor & Francis. * Biddiss, Michael D. "Houston Stewart Chamberlain: Prophet of Teutonism," ''History Today'' (Jan 1969), Vol. 19 Issue 1, pp 10–17, online. * Kelly, Alfred (1981), ''The Descent of Darwin: The Popularization of Darwinism in Germany, 1860–1914'', University of North Carolina Press. * Mather Jr., F. J. (1915)
"Ethnic Darwinism: A New-Old Fallacy,"
''The Unpopular Review'', Vol. III, No. 5. * Newman, Ernest (1931)
"The Case of Ferdinand Praeger."
In ''Fact and Fiction about Wagner'', Alfred A. Knopf. * C. Northcote Parkinson, Parkinson, C. Northcote (1958)
"The Theory of Dictatorship."
In ''Evolution of Political Thought'', Part IV, Chap. 22, Houghton Mifflin Company. * Redesdale, Lord (1914)
"Houston Stewart Chamberlain,"
''The Edinburgh Review'', Vol. CCXIX, No. 447. * Snyder, Louis L. (1939)
"Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Teutonic Nordicism."
In ''Race, A History of Modern Ethnic Theories'', Chap. VIII, Longmans, Green and Co. * Stein, Ludwig (1918)
"The Neo-Romantic Movement."
In ''Philosophical Currents of the Present Day'', Chap. V. The University of Calcutta. * Williamson, Roger Andrew (1973), ''Houston Stewart Chamberlain: A Study of the Man and His Ideas, 1855–1927'', University of California, Santa Barbara. * Voegelin, Eric (1940), "The Growth of the Race Idea," ''The Review of Politics'', Vol. 2, No. 3. * Voegelin, Eric (1997), ''Race and State'', University of Missouri Press.


External links

*
Works by Houston Stewart Chamberlain
at Hathi Trust
Theodore Roosevelt's review of ''The Foundation of the 19th Century''
– online compendium arranged by an admirer *Aurel Kolnai, Kolnai, Aurel, ''The War Against the West''
Chapter V – Faith And Thought 5. The Call for Mythology: Confrontation of Creed and Mythology
*Jewish Encyclopedia
Chamberlain, Houston Stewart
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Chamberlain, Houston Stewart 1855 births 1927 deaths 19th-century English writers 19th-century German writers 19th-century German male writers 19th-century philosophers 20th-century English writers 20th-century English male writers 20th-century German writers British anti-capitalists British expatriates in France British expatriates in Germany British expatriates in Switzerland British fascists Critics of the Catholic Church English people of Scottish descent English political philosophers German anti-capitalists German Fatherland Party politicians German fascists German monarchists German nationalists Nazi Party politicians German people of British descent German-language writers Naturalized citizens of Germany Nazis from outside Germany People educated at Cheltenham College People educated at Stubbington House School People from Southsea Proponents of scientific racism University of Geneva alumni Victorian writers Wagner family