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THE POLITICS OF ARENDTIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY: EUROPEAN FEDERATION AND THE ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2014

WILLIAM SELINGER
WILLIAM SELINGER*
Affiliation:
Department of Government, Harvard University E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism is a distinctively international history. It traces Nazism to a “collapse of the nation-state” across Europe, brought on by European anti-Semitism and European imperialism, rather than to specifically German developments. This essay recovers the political meaning of that methodological choice on Arendt's part, by documenting the surprising intersection between Arendt's involvement in political debates over postwar European reconstruction, where she made an intellectual alliance with Resistance groups across Europe and strongly argued for European federation, and her involvement in historiographical debates over the sources of Nazism. I show the explicit connection that Arendt drew between an internationalist historiography of Nazism and the need for an internationalist European politics, in a series of essays she wrote in the mid-1940s. I then argue that this connection continues to play a prominent role in Origins itself, sharply differentiating Arendt from other prominent theorists of Nazism.

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Articles
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Modern Intellectual History , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , August 2016 , pp. 417 - 446
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Greg Conti, Nick Juravich, Madhav Khosla, Rita Koganzon, Patchen Markell, John McCormick, Eric Nelson, Richard Tuck, and Emily Warner for conversations regarding the paper. I am also grateful to Sam Moyn and three anonymous reviewers at Modern Intellectual History for their challenging and perceptive comments.

References

1 See Young-Breuhl, Elizabeth, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (New Haven, 2004), 157, 222–3Google Scholar. A compelling analysis of Arendt's process of writing Origins is Tsao, Roy, “The Three Phases of Arendt's Theory of Totalitarianism,” Social Research, 69 (2002), 579–619Google Scholar.

2 In her book proposal to Houghton Mifflin at the end of 1946, Arendt explained that six out of her nine projected chapters were already written, all of which were either published or forthcoming as articles. See “Outlines and Research Memoranda [1],” Hannah Arendt Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

3 An instructive examination of Arendt's account of the “collapse of the nation state” is Volk, Christopher, “The Decline of Order: Hannah Arendt and the Paradoxes of the Nation-State”, in Benhabib, Seyla, ed., Politics in Dark Times (Cambridge, 2010), 172–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Arendt, Hannah, “Approaches to the ‘German Problem’” (Jan. 1945), in Arendt, Essays in Understanding, ed. Kohn, Jerome (New York, 1994) (hereafter EIU), 106–20, 107–8Google Scholar.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid., 110–12.

7 Ibid., 120.

8 Arendt, Hannah, “Parties, Movements, and Classes,” Partisan Review, 12/4 (1945), 504–13, 505–10Google Scholar.

9 Ibid., 511–12.

10 See Isaac, Jeffrey, Democracy in Dark Times (Ithaca, NY, 1998), 89–97Google Scholar; Birmingham, Peg, Hannah Arendt and Human Rights (Bloomington, 2006), 132–42Google Scholar; and Benhabib, Seyla, “International Law and Human Plurality in the Shadow of Totalitarianism: Hannah Arendt and Raphael Lemkin,” Constellations, 16/2 (2009), 331–50, 342–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This is also Klusmeyer, Douglas's approach in “Hannah Arendt's Case for Federalism,” Publius, 40/1 (2010), 31–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 See Isaac, Democracy in Dark Times, 80–89; Birmingham, Hannah Arendt and Human Rights; and Parekh, Serena, Hannah Arendt and the Challenge of Modernity (New York, 2008)Google Scholar. See also Benhabib, Seyla, The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, Citizens (Cambridge, 2004), 49–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Arendt, Hannah, “The Crisis of Zionism” (Feb. 1943), in Arendt, The Jewish Writings, ed. Kohn, Jerome and Feldman, Ron (New York, 2007) (hereafter JW), 329–37, 335Google Scholar.

13 For historical analyses of these diplomatic attempts see Hewitson, Mark, “The United States of Europe: The European Question in the 1920s,” in Hewitson, Mark and D’Auria, Matthew, eds., Europe in Crisis: Intellectuals and the European Idea, 1917–1957 (New York, 2012), 15–35Google Scholar; and Wim Roobol, “Aristide Briand's Plan: The Seed of European Unification,” in Memno Spiering and Michael Wintle, eds., Ideas of Europe since 1914 (New York, 2002), 32–46, 37–40.

14 Richard Nikolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi, Pan-Europa (Vienna, 1923), 153–4. For a discussion of Coudenhove-Kalergi's thought and influence see Anita Prettenhaler-Ziegerhofer, “Richard Nikolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi, Founder of the Pan-European Union, and the Birth of a ‘New’ Europe,” in Hewitson and D'Auria, Europe in Crisis, 89–110, 92–5.

15 There is a rich and expansive literature on European federalist thought during this period. See, for instance, Fransen, Franz, The Supranational Politics of Jean Monnet (Westport, CT, 2001)Google Scholar; Ernest Schonfield, “The Idea of European Unity in Heinrich Mann's Political Essays of the 1920s and 1930s,” in Hewitson and D'Auria, Europe in Crisis, 257–70, 263–8; Delzell, Charles, “The European Federalist Movement in Italy: First Phase, 1918–1947,” Journal of Modern History, 32 (1960), 241–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Matthew D’Auria, “Junius and the ‘President Professor’: Luigi Einauldi's European Federalism,” in Hewitson and D'Auria, Europe in Crisis, 289–305.

16 See Michael Burgess, “Federate or Perish: The Continuity and Persistence of the Federal Idea in Europe, 1917–1957,” in Hewitson and D'Auria, Europe in Crisis, 305–22, 311–16.

17 Arendt, Hannah and Jaspers, Karl, Briefwechsel 1926–1969, ed. Kohler, Lotte and Saner, Hans (Munich, 1985), 55Google Scholar.

18 Hannah Arendt, “The Minority Question” (1940), in JW, 125–33, 129.

19 Ibid., 130.

20 Arendt, “The Minority Question,” 126.

21 Ibid., 127.

22 Hannah Arendt, “The Crisis of Zionism” (20 Nov. 1942), in JW, 182–5, 184.

23 Hannah Arendt, “The Way toward the Reconciliation of Peoples” (1942), in JW, 258–63, 261.

24 Ibid.

25 Arendt, “Parties, Movements, and Classes,” 505.

26 Arendt, “The Minority Question,” 130.

27 Arendt, “The Crisis of Zionism,” 335.

28 See Hiden, John and Smith, David J., Looking beyond the Nation State: A Baltic Vision for National Minorities between the Wars,” Journal of Contemporary History, 41 (2006), 387–99, 396–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; as well as Hiden, John, Defender of Minorities: Paul Schiemann, 1876–1944 (London, 2004), 172–5Google Scholar. For a larger intellectual and political history see Case, Holly, “The Strange Politics of Federative Ideas in East Central Europe,” Journal of Modern History, 85/4 (2013), 833–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 For extensive critical discussions of Bauer and Renner see Nimni, Ephraim, ed., National Autonomy and Its Contemporary Critics (New York, 2005)Google Scholar.

30 See Bauer, Otto, Die Nationalitätenfrage und die Sozialdemokratie (Vienna, 1924), 353–66Google Scholar.

31 Ibid., 358–63. See also Renner, Karl, Staat und Nation (Vienna, 1899), 34–9Google Scholar.

32 It was noted by Ronald Beiner, however—though without further analysis. See Beiner, Ronald, “Arendt and Nationalism,” in Villa, Dana, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt (Cambridge, 2000), 44–64, 60–61Google Scholar. Gabriel Piterberg, though obviously incorrect in asserting that Arendt was unaware of Bauer's writings, is right to point to Bernard Lazare as another prewar socialist who informed Arendt's federalist views. See Piterberg, Gabriel, “Rebel Daughter of Zion,” New Left Review, 48 (2007), 39–67, 49Google Scholar.

33 Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, 1976), 231–2Google Scholar.

34 Ibid.

35 Hannah Arendt, “The Nation,” in EIU, 206–11, 210, my italics. For Delos's own articulation of this position see Delos, J. T., La nation, vol. 2, Le nationalisme et l’ordre de droit (Montreal, 1944), 173–217Google Scholar.

36 Arendt, “The Minority Question,” 130.

37 Arendt, “The Crisis of Zionism,” 334–5.

38 Hannah Arendt, “The Return of Russian Jewry [II]” (11 Sept. 1942), in JW, 174–6, 174.

39 Ibid.

40 Arendt, “The Minority Question,” 130.

41 Hannah Arendt, “Zionism Reconsidered” (1944), in JW, 343–74, 367.

42 See Arendt, “The Nation,” 208–10.

43 See Arendt, “The Minority Question,” 131.

44 See, for instance, Hannah Arendt, “French Political Literature in Exile” (26 Feb. 1943), in JW, 186–9.

45 Arendt, “The Crisis of Zionism,” 335.

46 Hannah Arendt, “Can the Jewish–Arab Question Be Solved?[I]” (17 Nov. 1943), in JW, 193–6, 196.

47 Arendt, “The Crisis of Zionism,” 335.

48 Arendt, “Approaches to the ‘German Problem’,” 114.

49 See Raz-Krakotzkin, Amnon, “Jewish Peoplehood, ‘Jewish Politics,’ and Political Responsibility: Arendt on Zionism and Partitions,” College Literature, 38 (2011), 57–74Google Scholar; Jacobson, Eric, “Why Did Hannah Arendt Reject the Partition of Palestine?”, Journal for Cultural Research, 17 (2013), 358–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Butler, Judith, Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism (New York, 2013), 114–51Google Scholar.

50 Arendt, “Can the Jewish–Arab Question Be Solved?[I],” 195, 196.

51 Hannah Arendt, “Can the Jewish–Arab Question Be Solved?[II]” (31 Nov. 1943), in JW, 196–8, 197.

52 Ibid.

53 Arendt, “Approaches to the ‘German Problem,’” 114.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid., 115.

56 See Burgess, “Federate or Perish.”

57 Lipgens, European Federation in the Political Thought of Resistance Movements during World War II, 11–12. Historians have questioned Lipgen's heavy prioritizing of federalism in Resistance thought. Milward, Alan, in The European Rescue of the Nation State (New York, 2000), 15–17Google Scholar; and Mazower, Mark, in Dark Continent (New York, 2000), 202Google Scholar, note that nationalist arguments were also quite present. Nonetheless, federalism was undeniably widespread—if not quite so hegemonic as Arendt contends. For a more recent articulation of this point see Michael Burgess, “The Continuity and Persistence of the Federal Idea in Europe, 1917–1957”

58 Lipgens, History, 190–214.

59 Ibid., 154–214.

60 For discussions of the highly complex politics of European political unity in this moment see Mark Hewitson, “Europe and the Fate of the World: Crisis and Integration in the Late 1940s and 1950s,” in Hewitson and D'Auria, Europe in Crisis, 35–63; and Loth, Wilfred, “Sources of European Integration: The Meaning of Failed Interwar Politics and the Role of World War II,” in Kühnhardt, Ludger, ed., Crises in European Integration: Challenges and Responses, 1945–2005 (New York, 2011), 19–33Google Scholar.

61 Arendt, “Approaches to the ‘German Problem’,” 120.

62 Ibid., 114.

63 Ibid.

64 Hannah Arendt, “The Seeds of a Fascist International” (June 1945), in EIU, 140–50, 143.

65 Ibid.

66 Arendt, “Approaches to the ‘German Problem’,” 110–11.

67 Arendt, “The Seeds of a Fascist International,” 149–50.

68 Arendt, “Parties, Movements, and Classes,” 504.

69 Arendt, “Approaches to ‘the German Problem’,” 118.

70 Arendt, “Parties, Movements, and Classes,” 512.

71 Arendt, “Approaches to ‘the German Problem’,” 120.

72 Arendt expressly analogizes de Gaulle's efforts to reassert French national power to “the course embarked upon by the European peoples many decades ago when they adopted imperialist methods and programs.” Arendt, “Parties, Movements, and Classes,” 504

73 For an account of the Morgenthau plan, and the military and economic considerations that ultimately led to its defeat in the United States government's postwar planning discussions, see Lewkowicz, Nicholas, The German Question and the Origins of the Cold War (Milan, 2008)Google Scholar.

74 Arendt, “Approaches to ‘the German Problem’,” 113, 115–17.

75 Ibid., 107.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid.

78 Ibid., 108–11.

79 “German Emigrés,” n.d., Hannah Arendt Papers, Manuscript Divison, Library of Congress.

80 Ibid.

81 Ibid.

82 She wrote to Jaspers at the time, “I have only written about the German problem when, in view of mounting hatred and mounting nonsense, it became impossible to remain silent, especially if one is a Jew.” Arendt and Jaspers, Briefwechsel, 59.

83 Röpke, Wilhelm, Die Deutsche Frage (Zurich, 1945), 108Google Scholar.

84 Ibid., 108–9.

85 Ibid., 172–217.

86 Ibid.,153–70.

87 Ibid., 116–35, 139–50.

88 Ibid., 239–252.

89 Röpke, WilhelmThe German Question, tr. E. W. Dickes (London, 1946), 12Google Scholar. See also Hayek, Friedrich, The Road to Serfdom (Chicago, 2007), 181–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

90 Arendt, “Approaches to ‘the German Problem’,” 108.

91 See Mann, Thomas, Addresses Delivered at the Library of Congress, ed. Tolzmann, Don Heinrich (Bern, 2003), 30–35, 47–66Google Scholar. Despite Arendt's profound appreciation for Mann as a novelist, she stated her disgust with Mann's opinions about Germany to Jaspers. See Arendt and Jaspers, Briefwechsel, 68.

92 Dulles, Allen, “Alternatives for Germany,” Foreign Affairs, 25 (1947), 421–32, 429CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

93 “German Emigrés.”

94 Strauss, Leo, “The Re-education of Axis Countries Concerning the Jews,” Review of Politics, 69 (2007), 530–38, 532–3Google Scholar.

95 Ibid., 534.

96 Arendt, “The Seeds of a Fascist International,” 147–8.

97 Arendt, “Approaches to ‘the German Problem’,” 112.

98 Ibid., 110–11.

99 Ibid.

100 Arendt, “The Seeds of a Fascist International,” 140. This claim was something of a reversal from Arendt's views in the late 1930s, when she had believed that the foundations of European anti-Semitism were German. See Hannah Arendt, “Antisemitism” (1937–8), in JW, 46–121 , 60–65.

101 Arendt, “The Seeds of a Fascist International,” 140–44.

102 Ibid., 150.

103 Arendt, “Parties, Movements, and Classes,” 511–12.

104 The critique of German parliamentary politics from Weber to Schmitt to Neumann, which I summarize in this part of the essay, has been explored in more depth by Duncan Kelly. See Kelly, Duncan, The State of the Political: Conceptions of Politics and the State in the Thought of Max Weber, Carl Schmitt and Franz Neumann (Oxford, 2003), 113–33, 200–57, 264–98Google Scholar. Kelly persuasively argues that despite the clear political differences between these three figures, they constitute a single theoretical tradition based in their rejection of an abstract conception of the state. This is a common feature of both their juridical thought and their concrete political reasoning about twentieth-century Germany.

105 Weber, Max, Gesammelte Politische Schriften, ed. Winckelmann, Johannes (Tübingen, 1971), 311–20, 339–51Google Scholar.

106 Ibid., 360–69.

107 For Weber's role in the drafting of Weimar, and the theoretical path to Schmitt, see Mommsen, Wolfgang, Max Weber and German Politics 1890–1920, tr. Michael Steinberg (Chicago, 1920), 332–90Google Scholar. See also Mccormick, John, Carl Schmitt's Critique of Liberalism: Against Politics as Technology (Cambridge, 1999), 175–206Google Scholar.

108 See Schmitt, Carl, Verfassunglehre (Munich, 1928), 338–42Google Scholar; as well as Schmitt, , Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlamentarismus (Munich, 1996)Google Scholar.

109 Schmitt, Carl, Legalität und Legitimität (Munich, 1932), 97Google Scholar. See also Schmitt, Verfassunglehre, vii–xi, 28–36, 221–82. For an account of Schmitt's complex theory of popular sovereignty see Kelly, Duncan, “Carl Schmitt's Political Theory of Representation,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 65 (2004), 113–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

110 Schumpeter, Joseph, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York, 1976), 291Google Scholar.

111 Neumann, Franz, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism 1933–1944 (New York, 1963), 7–10Google Scholar. See also Neumann, , “The Decay of German Democracy,” in Scheuerman, William, ed., The Rule of Law under Siege: Selected Essays of Franz L. Neumann and Otto Kircheiner (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1996), 29–43, 29, 31Google Scholar.

112 Neumann, Behemoth, 13.

113 Ibid., 24, 30.

114 Ibid., 29–33.

115 Neumann does suggest that anti-Semitism had been especially endemic to German thought and literature since Luther. Ibid., 108–9.

116 Christian Volk does emphasize the degree to which Arendt breaks with Schmitt and Weber (indeed with Weimar constitutional thought generally) in her broad approach to the problem of political order and legitimacy. See Volk, “The Decline of Order,” 174. Alfons Söllner also distinguishes Arendt's more “philosophical” conception of the nature of totalitarianism from the precise juridical and sociological theory of Neumann—as well as of several other theorists. See Söllner, Alfons, “Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism in Its Original Context,” European Journal of Political Theory, 3 (2004), 219–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

117 Because the version found in Origins is more easily accessible, I will cite that one for passages appearing in both.

118 Arendt, Origins, 254.

119 Ibid., 252.

120 Neumann, Behemoth, 11.

121 Arendt, Origins, 230–31. See also Arendt, ““Parties, Movements, and Classes,” 505.

122 Neumann, Behemoth, 104–8.

123 Ibid. Though Istvan Hont does not mention him, Neumann is very much in the tradition of Sieyès and the Girondin, whose embrace of the democratic national state Hont contrasts against Saint-Just, Robespierre, and Arendt. See Hont, Istvan, Jealousy of Trade (Cambridge, 2005), 447–527Google Scholar.

124 Neumann, Behemoth, 4.

125 Ibid., 102–8. It is striking that Arendt gives practically an identical account about the role of racial thinking in the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires, but explicitly distinguishes them from Germany, which she categorizes as a traditional nation state by comparison (Arendt, Origins, 227–9, 236–7, 259–61).

126 Arendt, Origins, 250–56.

127 Ibid., 255.

128 Arendt, Origins, 250.

129 Ibid.

130 Ibid., 258–9.

131 Ibid., 259.

132 Ibid., 262.

133 Ibid., 261–3. See also Hannah Arendt, “Parties, Movements, and Classes,” 505–6.

134 Arendt, Origins, 264.

135 Ibid., 263–4.

136 Ibid., 263.

137 Arendt, “Parties, Movements and Classes,” 512.

138 Ibid.

139 Ibid.,

140 Arendt, Origins, 266.

141 Ibid.

142 Ibid.

143 Neumann, Franz, “The Treatment of Germany,” in Laudani, Raffaele, ed., Secret Reports on Nazi Germany (Princeton, NJ, 2013), 436–50, 440Google Scholar.

144 Ibid., 440–45.

145 Ibid., 441.

146 Ibid., 445–7.

147 Ibid., 446–7.

148 Neumann, Franz, “German Democracy 1950” (1950), in International Issues for the Year (New York, 1950), 249–96, 291Google Scholar.

149 See Iakovou, Vicky, “Totalitarianism as a Non-state: On Hannah Arendt's Debt to Franz Neumann,” European Journal of Political Theory, 8 (2009), 429–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

150 Neumann, Franz, “The Concept of Political Freedom” (Nov. 1953), in Marcuse, Herbert, ed., The Democratic and the Authoritarian State: Essays in Legal and Political Theory (Glencoe, IL, 1957) (hereafter TDAS), 160–200, 181–3Google Scholar.

151 Ibid., 183.

152 It should be noted that while Arendt supported international federalism, she was strongly opposed to a world state that could exercise sovereign power. Arendt makes this distinction in her essay “Karl Jaspers: Citizen of the World,” in Arendt, Men in Dark Times (New York, 1968), 81–94, 81–3, 92–5.

153 Franz Neumann, “On the Theory of the Federal State” (1955), in TDAS, 216–32, 216–27.

154 Ibid., 226–8. See also Neumann, “German Democracy 1950,” 258–60.

155 See Neumann, “The Concept of Political Freedom,” 190–92; and Neumann, “Economics and Politics in the Twentieth Century” (1951), in TDAS, 257–69, 268–9.

156 See Arendt, Hannah, On Revolution (New York, 1977), 150–206Google Scholar.

157 See ibid., 238–70, 279–85; Arendt, Men in Dark Times, 81–95; Arendt, , The Promise of Politics, ed. Kohn, J. (New York, 2005), 177–91Google Scholar.

158 See Arendt, On Revolution, 270–81. For an analysis of Arendt's criticisms of representative democracy see Kateb, George, Hannah Arendt: Politics, Conscience, Evil (Totowa, NJ, 1984), 115–32Google Scholar.

159 Hannah Arendt, “Power Politics Triumphs” (Dec. 1945), 156–7.

160 Ibid.

161 See Arendt, “The Nation,” 210–11; Hannah Arendt, “The Aftermath of Nazi Rule” (Oct. 1950), EIU, 248–69, 269; and Arendt, “Dream and Nightmare” (10 Sept. 1954), EIU, 409–17, 416.

162 For discussions of the 1950s American context of the Origins of Totalitarianism see Bloom, Alexander, Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals and Their World (New York, 1986), 209–73Google Scholar; Baehr, Peter, Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism and the Social Sciences (Stanford, 2010), 35–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Young-Breuhl, Hannah Arendt, 250–78; and Ascheim, Steven, “Nazism, Culture and The Origins of Totalitarianism: Hannah Arendt and the Discourse of Evil,” New German Critique, 70 (1997), 117–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.