The failures of political prophecy: Ernst Kantorowicz’s wartime lectures

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper introduces a series of lectures Ernst Kantorowicz offered to the Army Specialized Training Program in 1943 in order to reconsider the development of his intellectual biography. These “wartime lectures” constitute Kantorowicz’s only sustained discussion of modern German history and his only intellectual engagement with Nazism. Introducing these lectures thus presents an opportunity to re-examine the relationship between Kantorowicz’s early and mature works through his assessment of Nazi Germany. For Kantorowicz, Nazism was the violent result of a German commitment to political prophecy. At the core of Kantorowicz’s lectures was a criticism of political theology and its role in modern history. In making this criticism, Kantorowicz simultaneously distanced himself from the prophetic register of his earlier writings. Moreover, recovering Kantorowicz’s concern with modern political theology is also important in foregrounding the intellectual genealogy of The King’s Two Bodies, a work often separated from its more telling subtitle: A Study in Medieval Political Theology. Together, this paper argues that the most significant changes in Kantorowicz’s writings can be traced to the intellectual circumstances of the Second World War.KEYWORDS: Ernst KantorowiczThe King's Two BodiesGeorge Circleintellectual historyexiled scholars AcknowledgementsI would like to express my gratitude to both Professor Edward Baring and Professor Yair Mintzker for generously offering their feedback to several iterations of this paper, as well as their kind support since my arrival in Princeton. Sincere thanks also goes to Caroline West for both her patience and insight while reading this paper in some of its roughest forms. Though completed in Princeton, this paper began while studying at the University of Cambridge. I am immensely grateful to Dr. Martin Ruehl for not only directing me to Kantorowicz's ASTP lectures, but his continued encouragement and guidance over several years of academic study. I would like to also thank the anonymous reviewers and editors of the Intellectual History Review for their valuable feedback and support, as well as the panel of the Charles Schmitt Prize.Notes1 Dorn, “‘A Woman’s World’”, 535.2 For further context on the Army Specialized Training Program, see Craf, “ASTP”; Keefer, Scholars in Foxholes.3 These lectures may be accessed in the online archives of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, see: “Lectures on German History (English), 1943–1944”, Box 3, Folder III/8/2, Ernst Kantorowicz Collection 1908–1982, Leo Baeck Institute, New York [https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/archival_objects/916117]. From this point on, the “Lectures on German History” will be referred to as L.G.H., the Leo Baeck Institute as L.B.I., and the Ernst Kantorowicz Collection as E.K.C.. When referring to specific lectures from part of a larger series, I will refer to that lecture by its specific title with a “ch.”, followed by the specific page(s) cited within that lecture.4 For a rich discussion of Kantorowicz’s financial struggles, see Lerner, Ernst Kantorowicz, 252–67. Kantorowicz’s financial difficulties were shared by many other refugee scholars, see Epstein, “Schicksalsgeschichte”, 120–1.5 Though this paper focuses on Kantorowicz’s period in Berkeley, this is not to ignore how Kantorowicz had viewed Nazism in the years preceding his emigration to the United States. A discussion of Kantorowicz’s reading of Nazism during these years nevertheless falls beyond the purview of this paper and has already been well covered by other scholars. For a summary of the opposing views of this period, see Lerner, Ernst Kantorowicz, 184–5.6 At present, there are only two instances in which these lectures are discussed. First, a short biographical mention in Lerner, Ernst Kantorowicz, 261. The second is a brief summary of the lecture's core themes in Ulrich Raulff, Kreis ohne Meister: Stefan Georges Nachleben (München: C.H. Beck, 2009), 167–69.7 Though Kantorowicz had learned English as a child, his completed lectures contained several grammatical mistakes and typing errors. To the greatest possible extent, I have opted to leave these mistakes unedited when quoting sections of these lectures.8 To this extent, this paper builds upon Ulrich Raulff’s suggestion that Kantorowicz’s A.S.T.P. lectures can be understood as tackling simultaneously the “Hitlerfrage” and “Georgefrage”. See Raulff, Kreis ohne Meister, 168.9 Kantorowicz, Frederick the Second; Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies.10 Lerner, “Kantorowicz and Continuity”, 104–23.11 By “political theology”, I am not referring to Carl Schmitt’s use of the term. Though many scholars have already questioned the Schmitt–Kantorowicz connection, I choose to avoid this debate given the lack of direct evidence for Kantorowicz having ever read Schmitt. Following Kantorowicz’s understanding, I describe political theology as the invocation of transcendental categories by a secular political authority.12 Kantorowicz began his studies at Berlin University in 1918, transferred to the University of Munich after less than two semesters in early 1919, and then finally settled in Heidelberg by the year’s end.13 For a discussion of the ritualistic dimensions of the Circle, see Reiser, Totengedächtnis in den Kreisen um Stefan George.14 For the gospel-like status of George’s poetry, see Ruehl, “Aesthetic Fundamentalism in Weimar Poetry”, 245.15 For a discussion of the changes in George’s late verse, see Beßlich, “Vates in Vastitate”, 198–219.16 Malkiel, “Ernst H. Kantorowicz”, 172. For a long-form history of the Circle through George’s biography, see Norton, Secret Germany.17 Winkler, “Master and Disciples”, 145–60.18 See Yarrow, “Humanism and Deutschtum”, 1–11.19 For a nuanced reading of the Circle’s relationship to national politics during the Weimar period, see Ruehl, “Aesthetic Fundamentalism in Weimar Poetry”.20 Braungart, Literatur und Religion in der Moderne, 333–60.21 Norton, Secret Germany, 193.22 For a discussion of the cosmopolitan extent of the Circle’s nationalism, see Lane and Ruehl, “Introduction”, 5–7.23 Norton, Secret Germany, 681.24 For a further discussion of the life of the Circle post-1933, see Raulff, Kreis ohne Meister.25 For an overview of the controversy, see Mali, “Ernst H. Kantorowicz”, 19–22.26 Kantorowicz, Frederick the Second, 689.27 Mali, “Ernst H. Kantorowicz”.28 For the conservative politics of Kantorowicz’s biography, see especially Ruehl, “‘In This Time without Emperors’”, 187–242.29 See also Norton, Secret Germany, 670.30 Jordan, “Preface (1997)”, xxx–xxxi.31 Lerner, Ernst Kantorowicz, 5.32 Cantor, Inventing the Middle Ages; Malkiel, “Ernst H. Kantorowicz”; Grünewald, “Übt an uns mord und reicher blüht was blüht!”, 77–93.33 Giesey, “Ernst H. Kantorowicz”, 191–202; Benson, “Kantorowicz on Continuity and Change in the History of Medieval Rulership”, 202–11; Lerner, Ernst Kantorowicz, 388. It is important to note that Lerner, though having met Kantorowicz in his days as a Princeton graduate student, was not a direct student of Kantorowicz, see Lerner, Ernst Kantorowicz, 5.34 Lerner, “Kantorowicz and Continuity”.35 Fleming, “Bodies”, 228.36 Lerner, Ernst Kantorowicz, 347.37 The full contents can be found on the first page of the lecture notes. Although unnumbered, the page is directly before the first lecture on “East: Colonization”.38 Giesey donated Kantorowicz’s papers to the Leo Baeck Institute in 1993.39 L.G.H., ch. “Ralph Giesey’s Archival Introduction [1993]”, E.K.C., L.B.I.40 For an excellent discussion of the varied lives of German-speaking academic refugees, see Epstein, “Schicksalsgeschichte: Refugee Historians in the United States”. For Epstein’s biographic catalog of German academic refugees, see Epstein, A Past Renewed.41 Kantorowicz’s correspondence with other A.S.T.P. lecturers suggests as much. In a letter dated 30 December 1943, Prof. Max Laistner of Cornell University wrote to Kantorowicz describing his complaints about the haphazard teaching requirements of the A.S.T.P. Though a leading authority on Europe in the late antique period, Laistner was requested to lecture on modern American history for Cornell’s army training program. See “Correspondence and miscellaneous material related to EHK’s first jobs in the USA … ”, Box 3, Folder III/7/2, E.K.C., L.B.I.42 L.G.H., ch. “East: Colonization”, 1–7.43 Capitalized following Kantorowicz’s usage. L.G.H., ch. “East: Colonization”, 3.44 L.G.H., ch. “East: Colonization”, 4.45 L.G.H., ch. “Papal Revolution & Imper. Counter-Revol.”, 1–14.46 Kantorowicz’s discussion of revolution within this lecture reappears in the Medieval Institutions lecture series offered in 1942. There, Kantorowicz placed Nazism in a revolutionary history beginning with the Papal Revolution of Pope Gregory VII. See “Lectures for Course, ‘Medieval Institutions II’, 1942”, Box 3, Folder III/9/2, E.K.C., L.B.I., 211.47 L.G.H., ch. “Papal Revolution & Imper. Counter-Revol.”, 1.48 L.G.H., ch. “Papal Revolution & Imper. Counter-Revol.”, 1.49 L.G.H., ch. “Papal Revolution & Imper. Counter-Revol.”, 6.50 L.G.H., ch. “Papal Revolution & Imper. Counter-Revol.”, 7.51 L.G.H., ch. “The Peasants”, 6.52 L.G.H., ch. “The Peasants”, 7.53 L.G.H., ch. “The Peasants”, 8.54 “Joe Smith” is most probably a reference to Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism and the Latter-Day Saint Movement. L.G.H., ch. “The Peasants”, 8.55 “Lectures for Course, ‘The Thirteenth Century’, 1948”, Box 5, Folder V/9/11, E.K.C., L.B.I., 249. Henceforth “The 13th Century”.56 Original emphasis. L.G.H., ch. “Nazism and Rebarbarization”, 11–12.57 For example, see Briefs, “The Dualism of German Culture”, 321–4. Briefs, an outspoken Catholic theologian, was also a refugee scholar who fled to the United States. Briefs’s use of “dualism” strongly resembles Kantorowicz’s, though there is no evidence that Kantorowicz was familiar with Briefs or his work.58 Mayer, “The State of the Dukes of Zähringen (1935)”, 176.59 A view echoed by many of Mayer’s – and Kantorowicz’s (former) – colleagues. See Mitteis, Lehnrect und Staatsgewalt, 415–63; Brackmann, “Der mittelalterliche Ursprung der Nationalstaaten”, 128–39.60 Mayer, “The Historical Foundations of the German Constitution (1933)”, 1.61 For a classic discussion, see Pitkin, The Concept of Representation.62 Original emphasis. L.G.H., ch. “Dualisms”, 6.63 L.G.H., ch. “Dualisms”, 5.64 L.G.H., ch. “Dualisms”, 5.65 L.G.H., ch. “Dualisms”, 7.66 L.G.H., ch. “Dualisms”, 4–5.67 L.G.H., ch. “Dualisms”, 8.68 L.G.H., ch. “Dualisms”, [3c].69 Emphasis added. L.G.H., ch. “Nazism and Rebarbarization”, 12.70 L.G.H., ch. “Dualisms”, 7.71 L.G.H., ch. “Dualisms”, 7.72 L.G.H., ch. “Dualisms”, 7.73 L.G.H., ch. “Nazism and Rebarbarization”, 12.74 Rendered verbatim with original typing errors. L.G.H., ch. “Nazism and Rebarbarization”, 12.75 L.G.H., ch. “Nazism and Rebarbarization”, 7.76 For this interpretation, see Raulff, Kreis ohne Meister, 169.77 It is important to note Kantorowicz offered “The Secret Germany” as an inaugural lecture in defense of a counter-mythology to Nazism. Though Kantorowicz had originally attempted to distinguish the Circle’s brand of political prophecy from Nazism, this effort no longer characterized his discussion of political theology within his Berkeley lectures and writings. Kantorowicz, “Das Geheime Deutschland (1933)”, 79.78 Kantorowicz, Frederick the Second, 689.79 For a contrasting discussion of prophecy and the present in Nazi philosophies of history, see Geroulanos, “The Temporal Assemblage of the Nazi New Man”, 173–200.80 Kantorowicz, “Das Geheime Deutschland (1933)”, 78. Kantorowicz’s reference to “tiefe Zuverzicht” was quoted from an essay by Karl Wolfskehl in the 1910 edition of the Jahrbuch für die geistige Bewegung, the George Circle’s literary and cultural journal. For a further discussion, see Grünewald, “Übt an uns mord und reicher blüht was blüht!”, 65.81 Lichtenberger, The Third Reich, 181.82 Koselleck, Futures Past, 19.83 Heron, “The Superhuman Origins of Human Dignity”, 427–52.84 For a summary of the debates over this chapter see Heron, “The Superhuman Origins of Human Dignity”, 427–8.85 Giesey, “Ernst H. Kantorowicz”.86 Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies:, 463.87 Heron, “The Superhuman Origins of Human Dignity”, 432.88 Heron, “The Superhuman Origins of Human Dignity”, 432.89 “Lectures for Course, ‘The Renaissance’, 1945–1948”, Box 5, Folder V/9/13, E.K.C., L.B.I. Henceforth “The Renaissance”.90 “The Renaissance”, ch. “Introduction”, 4.91 “The Renaissance”, 201b.92 “The Renaissance”, ch. “Introduction”, 5.93 “The Renaissance”, ch. “Blueprint for the Renaissance”, 9.94 “The Renaissance”, ch. “Blueprint for the Renaissance”, 9.95 Kantorowicz, “Das Geheime Deutschland (1933)”, 79.96 “Humanities and History”, Box 1, Folder I/2/12, E.K.C., L.B.I. Though undated, it is highly likely that Kantorowicz completed this essay sometime during his years in Berkeley. For a further discussion, see Ralph Giesey’s introductory note to the archival entry.97 Kantorowicz had held this position before. In a series of methodological debates with Albert Brackmann following the publication of Frederick II, Kantorowicz defended an interpretation of history as “image-making”. For a discussion, see Norton, Secret Germany, 667–70.98 “Humanities and History”, 5.99 “Humanities and History”, 2.100 Emphasis added. “Humanities and History”, 2.101 Emphasis added. “Humanities and History”, 2.102 Lerner, Ernst Kantorowicz, 347.103 Lerner, “Kantorowicz and Continuity”.104 Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, xxxiv.Additional informationNotes on contributorsBennett NagtegaalBennett is a second-year Ph.D. student at Princeton University working in the field of European intellectual history. Bennett completed his B.A. at the University of York, and his M.Phil. in Political Thought and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge.