Melissa S. Lane & Martin A. Ruehl 
A Poet’s Reich [PDF ebook] 
Politics and Culture in the George Circle

A re-examination of the George Circle in the cultural and political contexts of Wilhelmine, Weimar, and Nazi Germany.


Stefan George (1868-1933) was one of the most important figures in modern German culture. His poetry, in its originality and impact, has been ranked with that of Goethe and Hölderlin. Yet George’s reach extended beyond the sphereof literature. In the early 1900s, he gathered around himself a circle of disciples who subscribed to his vision of comprehensive cultural-spiritual renewal and sought to turn it into reality. The ideas of the George Circle profoundly affected Germany’s educated middle class, especially in the aftermath of the First World War, when their critique of bourgeois liberalism, materialism, and scholarship (
Wissenschaft) as well as their call for new formsof leadership (
Herrschaft) and a new Reich found wider resonance. The essays collected in the present volume critically re-examine these ideas, their contexts, and their influence. They provide new perspectives on the intersection of culture and politics in the works of the George Circle, not least its ambivalent relationship to National Socialism.

Contributors: Adam Bisno, Richard Faber, Rüdiger Görner, Peter Hoffmann, Thomas Karlauf, Melissa S. Lane, Robert E. Lerner, David Midgley, Robert E. Norton, Ray Ockenden, Ute Oelmann, Martin A. Ruehl, Bertram Schefold.


Melissa S. Lane is Professor of Politics at Princeton University. Martin A. Ruehl is Lecturerin German Thought and Fellow of Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge.

Table of Content

Introduction – Melissa S. Lane and Martin A. Ruehl

The George Circle: From Künstlergesellschaft to Lebensgemeinschaft – Ute Oelmann

Stefan George’s Homoerotic Erlösungsreligion, 1891-1907 – Adam Bisno

The Secret Germany of Gertrud Kantorowicz – Robert Lerner

The Poet as Idol: Friedrich Gundolf on Rilke and Poetic Leadership – Ruediger Goerner

Kingdom of the Spirit: The Secret Germany in Stefan George’s Later Poems – Ray Ockenden

The Absentee Prophet: Public Perceptions of George’s Poetry in the Weimar Period – David Midgley

The Platonic Politics of the George Circle: A Reconsideration – Melissa S. Lane

Political Economy as Geisteswissenschaft: Edgar Salin and Other Economists around George – Bertram Schefold

‘Imperium transcendat hominem’: Reich and Rulership in Ernst Kantorowicz’s Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite – Martin A. Ruehl

Third Reich and Third Europe: Stefan George’s Imperial Mythologies in Context – Richard Faber

From Secret Germany to Nazi Germany: The Politics of Art before and after 1933 – Robert E. Norton

The George Circle and National Socialism – Peter Hoffmann

Stauffenberg: The Search for a Motive – Thomas Karlauf

Notes on the Contributors

Index