The War Against the West

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The War Against the West is a 1938 book by Hungary-born scholar Aurel Kolnai. It is a critical study of National Socialist ideology. The title indicates the author's view of Nazism as profoundly anti-Western (by "the West" he meant the liberal, democratic, capitalist tendencies of countries such as England, France, and America).

The book was published by Victor Gollancz Ltd. (London) as a 711-page hardcover in 1938 with preface by Wickham Steed. The Left Book Club made it an "Additional Book" selection. It has not been in print since the late thirties, although it enjoyed a modest success at the time of publication.

[edit] Overview

During the twenties and thirties, Kolnai, born a Jew who converted to Catholicism under the influence of G.K. Chesterton, read extensively in the German language fascist and national socialist literature. The book compiles and critiques the anti-Enlightenment works of Nazi writers themselves. Kolnai's study was the first comprehensive survey in English of Nazi ideology as a counter-revolution against, what German thinkers saw as, the materialistic, rootless civilizations dominated by comfort-addicted, money-and-security-centered, liberal bourgeois and rootless cosmopolitan Jews; the antithesis of the heroic model of more vital civilizations, prepared to risk their lives, to die for ostensibly "higher" ideals. It is a devastating critique that argues that Nazi ideology is alien to the West and profoundly disturbing and dangerous.

Kolnai saw the war against the West as, in essence, a war of paganism against Christian civilization. In citations from Hitler, Goebbels, and others, Kolnai sought to expose what he saw as "the obsessive Nazi effort to replace Christianity with a crude and barbaric form of pagan religion, to twist the cross of Christ into a swastika."

[edit] Contents

Chapter	Section	Notes
	Preface
	Author's Foreword	Identifies the two outstanding figures who have contributed to the rise of National Socialism as a creed, as Friedrich Nietzsche ("perhaps the greatest Satanist of all times") and Stefan George.
Chapter I. The Central Meaning of the National Socialist Attitude	1. Tribal Egoism versus Humanity and Objective Standards.
	2. The National "Being" versus Mankind.
	3. The Intellectual Height of Anti-Intellectualism.
Chapter II. Community	1. Community beyond Personality.
	2. The "We" Experience.
	3. The Eros of Militarism.
	4. The Universe of the Particular.
	5. Unity and Inequality.
Chapter III. State	1. The Revolt against Liberty.
	2. The Emancipation of Tyranny.
	3. The Vice of Democracy.
	4. Creative Enmity.
	5. The Mystery of Leadership.
	6. The Totalitarian State.
	7. All-Politics, and No-Politics.
Chapter IV. Human Nature and Civilization	1. The Essence of Man: Heroes and Daemons.
	2. "Leib" and Life.
	3. The Revival of Elemental Forces.
	4. The Superstitions of Civilization.
	5. At the Gates of Death.
	6. Male Supremacy and Feminine Undertone.
Chapter V. Faith and Thought	1. The Reletivity of Value—the Absoluteness of Power.
	2. The New Paganism.
	3. Christianity Heathenized.
	4. The God that is Ourselves.
	5. The Call for Mythology.
Chapter VI. Morals, Law and Culture	1. The Expropriation of Reason and Ethics.
	2. The Morals of Greatness and Ruthlessness.
	3. The Romance of Activity.
	4. The Lawless Law.
	5. Irrational Science.
	6. Education for the Nationalist State.
Chapter VII. Society and Economics	1. The Socialist Phrase.
	2. The Revival of Class-Rule.
	3. Inequalitarian Socialism.
	4. The Economics of State-Power.
	5. The Servile Society.
Chapter VIII. Nation and Race	1. The Creed of Nationalism.
	2. The Sacrament of War.
	3. The Ethnic Idol.
	4. The Secret of Race.
	5. Racial Purity.
	6. Racial Hierarchy.
	7. Breeding the Nation.
	8. The Meaning of Anti-Judaism.
Chapter IX. The German Claim	1. The Category of "Germanhood".
	2. The Prussian Drive.
	3. The Central Nation.
	4. Fighting Rome and the West.
	5. The "Master Race".
	6. Nation or Empire.
	7. The Road to Hegemony.
Conclusion. Nazi Germany and the Western World	1. The Failure of the West.
	2. The Fields of Resistance: (a) Facts. (b) Perspectives.
	3. The Soul of the West.
	Bibliography
	Index

[edit] External links

• Transcript of remarks on the book Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies by Ian Buruma, on 8 April 2004, at the Carnegie Council Books for Breakfast.
• Kolnai's Political Memoirs, reviewed by Lee Congdon of James Madison University. Discusses The War Against the West
• 1938: Literature, World from Collier's Year Book.
• The Spirit of Nazism, a review of The War Against the West by Hans Kohn, in The Nation, Vol. 147, 1 October 1938.
• Aurel Kolnai and the Metaphysics of Political Conservatism by John P. Hittinger.