Foreign policy thought in Weimar’s ‘conservative revolution’: realpolitik or a question of being?

Abstract

This article illuminates a neglected aspect of conservative revolutionary ideology: namely, foreign policy. It shows that the conservative revolution was united by more than opposition to political liberalism, while simultaneously considering the different tendencies and tensions at work within the current. It proves that the foreign political agendas championed by conservative revolutionaries share the cultural impulses and metaphysical basis that characterize their ideals in other spheres. This elucidates the relationship between the ‘spiritual’ and the ‘political’ that permeates conservative revolutionary thinking. These aims are achieved through a close, comparative analysis of original texts, in concert with a thematic approach.