SPENGLER, OSWALD

SPENGLER, OSWALD (1880–1936), cultural philosopher; famous for the portentous metaphysical essay Der Untergang des Abendlandes (The Decline of the West), he was deemed ‘‘the philosopher of pessimism'' (he rejected the label). Born to a middle-class home (his father was a postal clerk) in the town of Blankenburg am Harz, he pursued broad studies in mathematics, philosophy, science, and history. After taking a doctorate at Halle in 1904 with a thesis on the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, he taught consecutively in Saarbru¨cken, Du¨sseldorf, and Hamburg until, forsaking teaching (to the regret of faculty and students), he became a private scholar in 1911. Living in Munich, he supplemented a small inheritance with income from articles and reviews. A heart condition and nearsightedness precluded his induction into the army, and he spent most of the next decade on Untergang des Abendlandes; its first volume appeared a month before the Armistice.* Spengler claimed later that the Moroccan Crisis of 1911 inspired Untergang. He was distressed by Germany's prewar foreign policy, and his anxiety matured into a broad historical vision. Reminiscent of Hegel, he traced the morphology of eight historical cultures through six organic phases and then, arguing that western civilization had entered a state of decline, presumed to foretell the future. Using Vico, Herder, Burckhardt, and, especially, Nietzsche as guides, he aimed to show how such modern qualities as rationalism, democracy, technology, and pacifism were undermining the West. Distinguishing between ‘‘culture'' and ‘‘civilization,'' or ‘‘soul'' and ‘‘intellect,'' he stressed that the key to survival was a synthesis between socialism and the ‘‘Prussian spirit.'' Untergang's publication amidst defeat and revolution could not have been better timed. Although the scholarly community maligned it for errors and shallowness, it soon gained public attention (the fiftieth edition was released in 1924) and recast Spengler as Germany's premier living philosopher. Labeling the November Revolution* as a ‘‘revolution of stupidity,'' his 1920 pamphlet Preussentum und Sozialismus launched his participation in the Republic's caustic political debates. Thereafter linked with Arthur Moeller* van den Bruck, he was active on the right-wing lecture circuit. From 1926, however, debilitating headaches interrupted his work; he suffered a mild stroke in 1927. Spengler once alleged that Germany would not produce another Goethe but, rather, a Caesar. Despite authoritarian leanings, he was an opponent of the NSDAP. Ignoring this fact, the Nazis embraced him as a solid rightist thinker. In September 1933, eight months into Hitler's* rule, he published an anti-Nazi polemic, Jahre der Entscheidung (translated as Hour of Decision). Referring to the Nazis as ‘‘everlasting Youths . . . fired by uniforms and badges,'' the book outraged Joseph Goebbels,* who lamented that it had been missed by the censor.