xvi, 332 p. : 25 cm

Old Dreams of a New Reich, the translation of Jost Hermand's comprehensive study of prefascist and fascist utopias (Der alte Traum vom neuen Reich), examines tracts and futuristic novels crucial to the development and final radicalization of German national sentiments from the second part of the eighteenth century. Scholars and propagandists used the glorified virtues of ancient German tribes to create the cult of Germanic values. These works offer a vivid insight into the public imagination between 1871 and 1945, and into the highly successful media machinations employed by the Right as it used all literary genres - including avant-gardistic works as well as pulp novels and works of science fiction - to manipulate the general public

Includes bibliographical references and index

The Ideal of a Successfully United Fatherland. Progressive Concepts of "Teutonic" Freedom. From the Wars of Liberation to the 1848 Revolution -- Under Bismarck and Wilhelm II. Volkish Opposition after 1871. The Progressive Reaction at the Turn of the Century. Hitler's "Viennese Years of Learning and Suffering" The "Ideas of 1914" and Wilhelminian/Pan-German Annexation Policies -- After the "Shame of Versailles" Hopes for a New Emperor in Religious Visions of the Future. New Advances from the Right. The National Socialist Party's Program for the Future. Redeemer and/or Savior Figures in German-Nationalist Utopias -- During the Relative Stabilization of the Weimar Republic. Volkish Dystopias of a General "Americanization, Negroidization, and Jewification" of Germany. Peasant and Racist Concepts of National Regeneration. Hitler's Mein Kampf -- Ideological Repercussions of the Great Depression of 1929. New Forms of Antidemocratic Nationalism. The "Apocalyptic Struggle for the World" as Literary Vision. Utopian Ideals of a Rejuvenated Germany. The Rise of the National Socialist Party to "Political Respectability" -- Finally at the Helm. Triumph of the National Idea. First Utopias of the New Reich. The Teutonic Cult and the Push for "Nordification" Continuing Forms of a Peasant Mythology. "Beauty" in the Art and Everyday Life of the Third Reich. The Cult of the All-Powerful Fuhrer. Imperial Visions of Knightly Orders and the Holy Grail. Science Fiction Novels in the Service of the German. "Global Mission" -- The Drive for World Power. World War Il as a "Struggle for the Liberation of the German People" Hopes for a "Greater German Reich in the East" Hitler's Final Monologues

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