Hermann Rauschning

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Hermann Rauschning bigraphy, stories - Historians

Hermann Rauschning : biography

August 7, 1887 – February 8, 1982

Hermann Rauschning (7 August 1887 – February 8, 1982) was a German Conservative RevolutionaryStern,Fritz Richard The politics of cultural despair: a study in the rise of the Germanic ideology University of California Press reprint edition (1974)note to p297 who briefly joined the Nazis before breaking with them.Bosworth, R. J. B. Explaining Auschwitz and Hiroshima: History Writing and the Second World War Routledge (1994) p21 In 1934 he renounced Nazi party membership and in 1936 emigrated from Germany (eventually settling in United States) and began openly denouncing Nazism. Rauschning is chiefly known for his book Gespräche mit Hitler (Conversations with Hitler) US title Voice of Destruction, UK title Hitler Speaks, in which he claimed to have many meetings and conversations with Hitler.

Works by Hermann Rauschning in German

  • Musikgeschichte Danzigs, (Dissertation University of Berlin) Berlin 1911
  • Geschichte der Musik und Musikpflege in Danzig. Von den Anfängen bis zur Auflösung der Kirchenkapellen, Danzig 1931
  • As editor: Posener Drucke, erster Druck: Nicolaus Coppernicus aus Thorn. Über die Umdrehungen der Himmelskörper. Aus seinen Schriften und Briefen Posen 1923
  • Die Entdeutschung Westpreußens und Posens. Zehn Jahre polnische Politik, Berlin 1930. reprinted 1988 with the title Die Abwanderung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus Westpreußen und Posen 1919–1929.
  • 10 Monate nationalsozialistische Regierung in Danzig, (speech) Danzig 1934
  • Die Revolution des Nihilismus. Kulisse und Wirklichkeit im Dritten Reich, Zürich 1938
  • Gespräche mit Hitler, Zürich 1940
  • Die konservative Revolution : Versuch und Bruch mit Hitler New York, 1941
  • Die Zeit des Deliriums, Zürich 1947
  • Deutschland zwischen West und Ost, Stuttgart 1950
  • Ist Friede noch möglich? Die Verantwortung der Macht, Heidelberg 1953
  • Masken und Metamorphosen des Nihilismus – Der Nihilismus des XX. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main / Wien 1954
  • …mitten ins Herz: über eine Politik ohne Angst (with H. Fleig, M. Boveri, J.A. v. Rantzau), Berlin 1954
  • Die deutsche Einheit und der Weltfriede, Hamburg 1955
  • Ruf über die Schwelle. Betrachtungen, Tübingen 1955
  • Der saure Weg, Berlin 1958
  • Mut zu einer neuen Politik, Berlin 1959

Gespräche mit Hitler was also translated into French (Hitler m′a dit).

Writings

Rauschning’s writings that were translated into English deal with National Socialism and the Conservative Revolutionaries’ relation to it, and their role/responsibility for Hitler gaining power. By conservative revolution Rauschning meant “the prewar monarchic-Christian revolt against modernity that made a devil’s pact with Hitler during the Weimar period”.Neaman, Elliot Yale A dubious past: Ernst Jünger and the politics of literature after Nazism University of California Press (1999) p71 Rauschning came “to the bitter conclusion that the Nazi regime represented anything other than the longed-for German revolution”.Bullivant, Keith The Conservative Revolution in Phelan, Anthony (ed) The Weimar dilemma: intellectuals in the Weimar Republic Manchester University press (1985) p66

In Die Revolution des Nihilismus (The Revolution of Nihilism) he wrote that "the National Socialism that came to power in 1933 was no longer a nationalist but a revolutionary movement"Rauschning, Hermann The Revolution of Nihilism, Warning to the West (1939) p16 and, as the books title states, a nihilistic revolution, destroying all values and traditions. He believed that the only alternative to Nazism was the restoration of monarchy.Rauschning, Hermann The Revolution of Nihilism, Warning to the West (1939) p170-172 His book went through seventeen printings in the United States. The book was directed at conservatives in Nazi Germany whom he hoped to warn of the alleged anti-Christian nature of the Nazi revolution.Conway, J.S. Hermann Rauschning as Historian and Opponent of Nazism Canadian Journal of History Vol 8, No 1 (1973) p69-70 He would reiterate the anti-Christian nature of Nazism in Gespräche mit Hitler.