Reactionary modernism : technology, culture, and politics in Weimar and the Third Reich

by Jeffrey Herf

In a unique application of critical theory to the study of the role of ideology in politics, Jeffrey Herf explores the paradox inherent in the German fascists' rejection of the rationalism of the Enlightenment while fully embracing modern technology. He documents evidence of a cultural tradition he calls 'reactionary modernism' found in the writings of German engineers and of the major intellectuals of the. Weimar right: Ernst Juenger, Oswald Spengler, Werner Sombart, Hans Freyer, Carl Schmitt, and Martin Heidegger. The book shows how German nationalism and later National Socialism created what Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, called the 'steel-like romanticism of the twentieth century'. By associating technology with the Germans, rather than the Jews, with beautiful form rather than the formlessness of the market, and with a strong state rather than a predominance of economic values and institutions, these right-wing intellectuals reconciled Germany's strength with its romantic soul and national identity.

Genres: History, Politics, Germany, Philosophy, Technology, Nonfiction, European History

251 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Jeffrey Herf is a professor of history at the University of Maryland. His specialty is in 20th-century European intellectual history, especially in Germany. He won the American Historical Association's George Louis Beer Prize in 1998; in September 1996, he was awarded the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History by the Institute of Contemporary History and the Wiener Library in London. He has also published political essays in Partisan Review and reviews in the New Republic, as well as in Die Zeit, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Die Welt, and he has lectured widely in the United States, Europe and Israel. He was a contributing editor to Partisan Review and is a member of the editorial board of Central European History.

Reviews

[sologdin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-upping this review in the wake of the Trump regime's violation of UNC art. 2(4) in Venezuela. The Nuremberg IMT executed fascists because of unlawful invasions, recall. We should expect the matter to be referred to the ICC under the Rome Statute for commission of the crime of aggression.


Very strong presentation of the Weimar rightwing and its transition into the NSDAP.

The study proceeds from Frankfurt School assumptions, and develops a lukewarm critique of Adorno & Horkheimer by book's end. In disagreeing with the general conclusion of Dialectic of Enlightenment, Herf opines that the German rightwing suffered not from too much Enlightenment, but too little, noting the lack of a liberal tradition in Germany, which industrialized without a bourgeois revolution on behalf of the industrialists.

It attempts to explain the NSDAP as romantic anticapitalism from the perspective of medieval pastoral idealism--(i.e., the market is too progressive, too liberal, too international), finding capitalism filled with parasites (foreigners, Jews, bankers, the unemployed, &c.), ugly materialism, ludicrous libertarianism & egalitarianism--but wedded to a dangerous technophilia that normal pastoral conservatives did not possess. NSDAP is explained as expressly irrationalist or antirationalist, unable to make means-ends calculations, relying instead on mystical doctrines regarding the will that arose out of idealist philosophy. (Cf. Lukacs’ Zerstorung.)

It’s interesting that the German rightwing position, inclusive of the NSDAP, was that marxism is merely an extension of "Manchester Liberalism," with a simple change in the law of property to distinguish them. NSDAP anticapitalism would undo all of liberalism's gains, but would not change the ancient property law on which German authoritarianism rested--keep your large estates, keep your means of production in private hands, and so on. The NSDAP accordingly allows the wealthy to maintain their assets and class position, even while denouncing capitalism's other benefits, which the NSDAP equated with marxism. (That is, anyone who draws an equivalence between marxist international socialism and German national socialism is manifestly erroneous.)

The meat of the volume contains the specific readings of Weimar figures, then Junger, Sombart, Heidegger, Schmitt, Spengler, inter alia, as well as of German engineering professional journals, rounding out with NSDAP theorists. Very well accomplished, overall.

It draws out some noteworthy principles: rightwing anticapitalism rests upon a producerist distinction between producers and parasites. Entrepreneurs are producers, as are working workers. Merchants, bankers, the unemployed--all parasites. Rightwing anticapitalism employs Weber's politics of absolute ethics rather than a politics of responsibility--wherein political praxis abhors bargaining, negotiating, governing, and is beneficial simply to the individual, who might demonstrate the authenticity of one's own convictions. Watching the teabaggers drive the US off the alleged fiscal cliff, I can't help but be reminded of Weimar rightwing romanticism. (A fortiori, qanonists and other Trump cultists.)

Also of note: Benjamin's thesis that fascism aestheticizes politics is fully borne out by this text. Technology is seen, in the eponymous synthesis of rightwing romanticism with technophilia, as part of the long tradition of German volkish artisanal efforts; engineers are aesthetic workers, in touch with the pure germanic soul; technology is an immaterialist expression of the Volk; &c. &c. &c. It's all fairly nauseating, but laid out in both gross form and in particular examples.

Although Herf does not make the association explicit, this text allows us to shoehorn the NSDAP into the "true socialism" described in the Manifesto of the Communist Party (in section III.1.C).

There's plenty more that might be said here, but I leave off with: Highly Recommended.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes a book succeeds so well in getting its ideas across that in subsequent decades it doesn’t hold the fascination it might once have had. Historian Jeffrey Herf coined the phrase “reactionary modernism” to describe the combination of disdain for rationalism, yearning for the past, fascination with technology, and future-oriented vision that you saw in Nazi ideology. Arguably, he did so well that this is no longer really that odd-seeming to us. The idea that ideology can bend itself to include these seemingly paradoxical elements — like thinking that science disenchants the world but technology re-enchants it — doesn’t really seem that mind-blowing, especially when applied to people like the Nazis.

Herf was writing in the 1980s in a tradition of historical sociology steeped in functionalism. Functionalist history and sociology seemingly en bloc decided that the Nazis were a revolt against modernity, and that’s much of the reason they failed- their form (this whacked out mythologized racial imperialism) failed to correspond with functions (running a modern state). There was (is) much truth to this, but it was more complicated than that, as functionalists like Franz Neumann tried to illustrate. But functionalism came out of root-sociology: Weber, Durkheim, Simmel et all trying to figure out capital-M Modernity. Anti-modern modernism threw their inheritors for a loop.

Herf remains loyal to his roots, sticking with his framework for all its flaws and piously avoiding Marxist and Frankfurt School explanations, which, truth be told, don’t always get to the heart of the matter either. Needless to say, his methodological conservatism doesn’t get him anywhere close to post-structuralism or anything else that might break down the ideology-structure-function relationship. You have to figure the propagation of other ways of looking at the relationship between ideas and power probably helped get the meme of “reactionary modernism” across in the thirty years since this book came out, but Herf wasn’t having any of it.

But he does pretty good anyway. He methodically goes through a number of German intellectuals of the Weimar period — Ernst Junger, Werner Sombart, Carl Schmitt, Oswald Spengler, various others — and examines their attitudes towards different aspects of modernity. The rough lineaments of the “reactionary modernist” attitude he draws from them are like this: German “kultur” is about the superior truth of Life and Will against the technical but lame truth of facts and reason. “Real” worthwhile science (and politics and literature) etc engages this sense of life and defies rationality. The other, lame kind explains away and demystifies thing. The former is associated with Germans, the latter with Americans, French, and above all, you guessed it, the Jews. This creates a dyad of good, German aspects of modernity — technology (a lot of rhapsodizing the power of engines, the clean lines of skyscrapers etc), “productive” entrepreneurship, mechanized warfare — with their bad, vaguely Jewish opposites: abstract science, mere “circulatory” capitalism, parliamentary politics, and so on.

This scheme became widely popular in right-leaning circles in Germany during the Weimar period. It caught on especially well with engineers, who started feeling their political muscle at the time. It got more or less officially interwoven into the ideology of the Third Reich. Among its more famous results was the rejection of the “Jewish physics” of general and special relativity, which would come back to bite the Nazi regime pretty hard.

Sometimes you still get people — people who write about these things, people who should know better — scratching their heads at how avowed despisers of modernity embrace certain aspects of it, especially technology, so hard. This isn’t just the Nazis- the Confederacy, for all of its maudlin rural nostalgia, was very interested in modern capitalism and technological improvement. ISIS fighters may refuse to use toothbrushes, preferring the chewing twig the Prophet and his followers supposedly used, but nothing in their peculiar reading of the holy books says anything about not using social media to recruit more jihadis.

So this stuff shouldn’t surprise us, and Herf’s book has been an important part of helping us all get that. Ironically, people have probably taken it further than Herf himself would like. Herf tried to dunk on both Marxists and the totalitarianism school by insisting that reactionary modernism was a purely German thing, and that proves that the German case of fascism was truly unique, etc. Well, the obvious applicability of the phrase to the contemporary altright, especially in the US, sort of gives the lie to that. Herf went on to become a liberal hawk, Iraq War booster, and his historical work has an increasingly rabid Zionist bent. But now the world has his concept, and we can use it how we like. ****

https://toomuchberard.wordpress.com/2...

[Murtaza]

It was common among Weimar-era German thinkers to believe that technology either threatened or promised to enliven the mystical soul of true Germanness (something like that?) and they spilled much incomprehensible ink grappling with this problem. This book is a somewhat unfair appraisal of Heidegger, Spengler, Jünger and that lot – the last of whom I'm familiar with and who I believe is treated a bit too dismissively in this volume. I didn't really get a good sense of what ideas compromised Nazism other than that it was a lot of mystical nonsense and cultural pessimism. A better book for understanding it would be The Politics of Cultural Despair by Fritz Stern.

[Andrew]

An up-close look at the intellectuals who glommed onto the far right during the Weimar Republic, thus providing a large amount of the intellectual justification for Nazism, largely by claiming that Hitler reconciled modern technology with primeval mysticism, and often making really, really, really ridiculous claims (the Jews like, you know, abstract thought because they're, like, from the desert and shit) of the spitballing early social science type. While Herf does, in the epilogue, hazard the notion that these ideas formed the basis of Nazism, he does seem to be a bit too reliant on that notion. Rather, these thinkers just provided props for the thuggish irrationalism already in place.

[AC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed, with ample bibliography, Herf tries to distinguish the radical anti-modernism that helped to produce Nazism from the anti-Enlightenment, Romantik, anti-modernism, that nonetheless accepted technology (Technik) as an essential component not of bourgeois Zivilization, but of Germanic, Romantik Kultur. Those Conservative Revolutionaries of the Weimar period who qualified as what Herf calls “Reactionary Modernists”, then include Ernst Jünger, Sombart, Spengler, and others. The bibliographical essay at the end of the book is especially valuable.

[Mina]

Quite fascinating doctrine that elevated the idea of beauty over normative standards and interpreting technology as the embodiment of will and beauty...

[noblethumos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jeffrey Herf’s *Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich* (1984) offers an illuminating analysis of the paradoxical relationship between technological advancement and conservative ideology within Germany in the early 20th century. Through this work, Herf seeks to challenge traditional narratives that oppose modernity and reactionary political movements, particularly in the context of Nazi ideology. His central thesis suggests that the Nazi embrace of technological innovation was not incompatible with their reactionary and anti-Enlightenment values, a stance Herf terms “reactionary modernism.”


The book’s core argument hinges on the idea that Nazi ideology uniquely reconciled a commitment to modern technology with a vehement rejection of Enlightenment rationality, liberal democracy, and the humanistic values often associated with technological progress. Herf presents this synthesis of modernity and reaction as a defining feature of National Socialism and its intellectual milieu. He contends that prominent right-wing intellectuals and ideologues, such as Ernst Jünger and Martin Heidegger, combined an embrace of industrial and technological progress with anti-democratic, anti-liberal, and anti-rationalist ideologies.

Herf's work is structured into several key sections. He first situates the emergence of "reactionary modernism" in the broader context of Weimar intellectual culture, tracing how conservative thinkers came to celebrate technology while rejecting many social and political ideals associated with modernity. He then delves into the Nazi period, examining how this peculiar ideological framework influenced the policies of the Third Reich. Herf presents detailed studies of how this synthesis played out in the realms of architecture, industry, and propaganda, demonstrating how the Nazis’ embrace of industrial and military technologies was informed by the reactionary modernist worldview.


One of the book’s primary intellectual contributions is its challenge to simplistic categorizations of Nazi ideology as purely backward-looking or anti-modern. Herf’s nuanced analysis underscores the complexity of the Nazi project, showing that it was not solely a reaction against modernity, but rather a selective appropriation of certain elements of modernity—particularly technology and industrial power—for reactionary ends. This argument expands upon previous studies that viewed the Nazi regime as essentially a reactionary response to modernity, emphasizing instead how it co-opted and redefined modern tools in pursuit of its political goals.

Herf’s engagement with the writings of figures like Jünger and Heidegger provides an in-depth examination of how German intellectuals shaped the contours of this ideological synthesis. Jünger’s glorification of technological warfare and Heidegger’s critique of modern subjectivity serve as key examples of how reactionary modernism gained intellectual coherence. Herf persuasively argues that Nazi leaders were deeply influenced by this intellectual context, allowing them to marry the technological achievements of the modern world with their racial and authoritarian vision.


Herf’s methodological approach is rooted in intellectual and cultural history. He carefully reconstructs the intellectual debates of the Weimar era and the Nazi period, drawing on a wide range of primary sources, including philosophical works, political speeches, and propaganda materials. His interdisciplinary approach—integrating political history, philosophy, and technological studies—adds depth to his analysis, allowing him to trace the cross-currents between intellectual culture and political practice.

However, some critics may argue that Herf’s focus on intellectual history risks overemphasizing the coherence of Nazi ideology. The Nazi movement was, in many respects, ideologically eclectic and driven by practical concerns rather than strictly adhering to any philosophical system. While Herf acknowledges this point, his analysis sometimes gives the impression that Nazi leaders were more influenced by intellectual debates than they likely were, particularly figures like Hitler, who seemed more motivated by pragmatic goals than by any sophisticated ideological synthesis.


*Reactionary Modernism* occupies a significant place within the historiography of National Socialism and modernity. Herf’s work builds on earlier scholarship, such as the works of George Mosse and Fritz Stern, which explored the relationship between conservatism and modernity in German thought. However, Herf departs from these historians by focusing specifically on the technological dimension of this relationship, thereby adding an important layer to our understanding of Nazi ideology.

Herf’s concept of “reactionary modernism” has had lasting resonance in subsequent scholarship. It has been applied to various other right-wing movements that similarly combine elements of modernity with reactionary political agendas. In this sense, Herf’s work provides a useful conceptual framework for analyzing the complexities of modernity and authoritarianism beyond the specific context of Nazi Germany.


While *Reactionary Modernism* is widely regarded as a seminal text, it is not without its limitations. One critique is the relative lack of attention given to the social and economic dimensions of Nazi technology policy. Herf’s focus is primarily on intellectual history and ideological discourse, which sometimes obscures the more pragmatic aspects of technological development under the Third Reich. The book could have benefited from a more detailed exploration of how economic and industrial interests influenced the Nazis’ use of technology, as well as how ordinary Germans experienced the regime’s modernization efforts.

Additionally, some may question Herf’s characterization of Nazi ideology as a coherent synthesis of reactionary and modern elements. The Nazis were notoriously opportunistic in their appropriation of ideas, and some aspects of their ideology—such as their racial theory—seem difficult to reconcile with the technological rationality they promoted. While Herf acknowledges these contradictions, his analysis sometimes underplays the tensions within Nazi ideology.


Jeffrey Herf’s *Reactionary Modernism* is an important and thought-provoking contribution to the study of National Socialism and the broader relationship between modernity and reactionary politics. By highlighting the ideological synthesis of technological modernity and conservative anti-Enlightenment thought, Herf deepens our understanding of the intellectual underpinnings of the Nazi regime. Despite some limitations, his work remains a valuable resource for historians and scholars seeking to explore the complex intersections of technology, politics, and culture in the 20th century.

GPT

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dense but very engaging exploration of the pre-WWII German right's attempts to embrace technology while rejecting both the Enlightenment and capital. The book is sadly far more relevent than it should be in 2025 (certainly more relevent than the author could have imagined as he wrote it in 1984), and it was fascinating--in a horrifying way--to see the echoes of the German right in the 1930s (particularly with its focus on aesthetics, national will, and supposedly immutable racial characteristics) in the Western right today.

My read before this was Fischer's Capitalist Realism: Is There No Escape? which was a critique of capital from the left, and it proved to be a good primer for this read, because fascism is a critique of capital from the right. Many of the critiques are the same when it comes to capital's effect on the arts, culture, and spirit, but where Fischer (and by extension, the left in general) tends to look at it as corrosive to the human spirit, the German right worried about capital's corrosion on those things at the national/racial level. The critiques are similar but the differences are incredibly significant.

Overall, this is a necessary read for anyone interested in the history of the period, non-materialist critiques of capitalism, or the history of fascism in the West. It's also a good read for serious observers of the American reactionaries right, as many of the "reactionary modernists" of the title such as Schmitt and Junger are cited by name today in modern American fascists or fellow travellers like Peter Thiel, Steve Bannon, Michael Anton, and Steven Miller.

[DVDMSN · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read on the subject (that is, on Nazism and/or Modernity).

[Don G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

half-read

[Mz · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://www.bookpress.gr/kritikes/ide...

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides an interesting look at the ideological currents that (if not causing it directly) helped National Socialism take root in Germany.

The most interesting and valueable part of this book, in my opinion, is Herf's insightful commentary on the right wing intellectuals of the Weimar Republic, including Ernst Jünger, Oswald Spengler, and Carl Schmitt.

Although part of Herf's thesis is that the conditions leading to the Nazis were unique to their German context, I think that to identify when similar coditions are developing elsewhere, it is important to first understand what happened in Germany. Herf's thoughful and well-researched book is a good starting point to do just that.

[B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Herf temeljno i dobro opskrbljeno činjenicama obrazlaže svoju tezu da je, uprkos težnji nemačkih nacionalista da istaknu antitetičnost nemačke kulture i zapadnjačke, tehnološki napredne i kosmopolitske civilizacije, zapravo, kako pre, tako i nakon dolaska nacista na vlast, došlo i do stapanja antimodernističkih, romantičarskih ideja zastupljenih u nemačkom nacionalizmu sa racionalnošću moderne tehnologije.

Uzgred, zabrinjavajuće je to što argumentacija nemačkih naci[onali]sta neodoljivo podseća na uvrežene stavove u savremenoj Srbiji.