Table Of ContentTotalitarianism and Political Religions,
Volume III
Available for the first time in English language translation, the thirdvolume
of Totalitarianism and Political Religions completes the set. It provides a
comprehensive overviewof key theories and theorists of totalitarianism and
of political religions, from Hannah Arendt and Raymond Aron to Leo
StraussandSimoneWeill.EditedbytheeminentProfessorHansMaier,this
represents a major study, examining how new models for understanding
political history arose from the experience of modern despotic regimes.
Where volumes I and II were concerned with questioning the common
elements between twentieth-century despotic regimes – communism,
fascism,NationalSocialism,Maoism–thisvolumedrawsageneralbalance.
It brings together the findings of research undertaken during the decade
1992–2002 with the cooperation of leading philosophers, historians and
social scientists for the Institute of Philosophy at the Universityof Munich.
FollowingthedemiseofItalianfascism(1943–45),GermanNationalSocial-
ism (1945) and Soviet communism (1989–91), a comparative approach to the
threeregimesispossible.Abroadfieldofinterpretationoftheentirephenom-
enonoftotalitarianandpoliticalreligionsopensup.Thiscomprehensivestudy
examinesavasttopicwhichaffectsthepoliticalandhistoricallandscapeofthe
wholeofthelastcentury.Moreover,dictatorshipsandtheirmotivationsarestill
presentincurrentaffairs,todayinthetwenty-firstcentury.Thethreevolumesof
TotalitarianismandPoliticalReligionsareavitalresourceforscholarsoffascism,
Nazism,communism,totalitarianism,comparativepoliticsandpoliticaltheory.
Hans Maier, born in 1931 in Freiburg im Breisgau, is Professor Emeritus in
Political Science and the Theory of Religion at the University of Munich.
He was Bavarian Minister of Culture and Science from 1970 to 1986 and
President of the Central Committee of German Catholics from 1976 to
1986. Major publications include Revolution und Kirche (1959), in English,
Revolution and Church: The Early History of Christian Democracy, 1789–
1901 (1969). Also Die a¨ltere deutsch Staats-und Verwaltungslehre (1966), Die
christliche Zeitrechnung (1991); Politische Religionen (1995); Welt ohne
Christentum–waswa¨reanders?(1999);andDasDoppelgesichtdesReligio¨sen:
Religion – Gewalt – Politik (2004).
Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions
Series Editors: Michael Burleigh, Washington and Lee University, Virginia,
and Robert Mallett, Universityof Birmingham
This innovative new book series will scrutinise all attempts to totally refa-
shion humankind and society, whether these hailed from the left or the
right, which, unusually, will receive equal consideration. Although its pri-
mary focus will be on the authoritarian and totalitarian politics of the
twentieth century, the series will also provide a forum for the wider discus-
sion of the politics of faith and salvation in general, together with an
examination of their inexorably catastrophic consequences. There are no
chronologicalorgeographicallimitationstothebooksthatmaybeincluded,
and the serieswill include reprints of classic works and translations, aswell
as monographs and collections of essays.
International Fascism, 1919–45 Fascism as a Totalitarian Movement
Edited by Gert Sorensen and Robert Roger Griffin
Mallett
The Italian Road to Totalitarianism
Totalitarian Democracyand After Emilio Gentile
International Colloquium in Translated by Robert Mallett
Memory of Jacob Talmon
Edited by Yehoshua Arieli and Religion, Politics and Ideology in
Nathan Rotenstreich the Third Reich
Selected Essays
The Seizure of Power Uriel Tal, with in memoriam by
Fascism in Italy 1919–29 Saul Friedla¨nder
Adrian Lyttelton
Totalitarianism and Political
The French and Italian Communist Religions, Volume I
Parties Concepts for the Comparison of
Comrades and Culture Dictatorships
Cyrille Guiat Edited by Hans Maier
Foreword by David Bell Translated by Jodi Bruhn
The Lesser Evil Stalinism at the Turn of the
Moral Approaches to Genocide Milennium
Practices Russian and Western Views
Edited by Helmut Dubiel and John Keep and Alter Litvin
Gabriel Motzkin
Totalitarianism and Political Totalitarianism and Political
Religions, Volume II Religions, Volume III
Concepts for the Comparison of Concepts for the Comparison of
Dictatorships Dictatorships: Theory and History
Edited by Hans Maier with Michael of Interpretation
Scha¨fer Edited by Hans Maier
Translated by Jodi Bruhn Translated by Jodi Bruhn
Totalitarianism and Political
Religions, Volume III
Concepts for the comparison of dictatorships:
theory and history of interpretation
Edited by Hans Maier
Translated by Jodi Bruhn
OriginallypublishedinGermanbyVerlagFerdinandScho¨ninghGmbH,
Paderborn,underthetitleTotalitarismusundPolitischeReligionen:
KonzeptedesDiktaturvergleichs,volsI,IIandIII
#1996(vol.I),1997(vol.II),2003(vol.III)byFerdinandScho¨ningh,
Paderborn
FirstpublishedinEnglishlanguagetranslation#2007
byRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
SimultaneouslypublishedintheUSAandCanada
byRoutledge
270MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
orutilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,
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orinanyinformationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissionin
writingfromthepublishers.
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
TotalitarismusundpolitischeReligionen.English.
Totalitarianismandpoltiicalreligions:conceptsforthecomparisonof
dictatorships–theoryandhistoryofinterpretation/editedbyHansMaier
;translatedbyJodiBruhn.
p.cm.–(Totalitarianmovementsandpoliticalreligions)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Totalitarianism.2.Dictatorship.3.Religionandpolitics.I.Maier,
Hans,1931-II.Bruhn,Jodi.III.Title.
JC481.T6725152007
320.53–dc22
2007019153
ISBN 0-203-41352-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN13:978-0-415-44711-9(hbk)
ISBN13:978-0-203-94245-1(ebk)
Contents
Notes on contributors ix
Foreword xi
Part I
Introduction 1
1 On the interpretation of totalitarian rule 1919–89 3
HANSMAIER
Part II
The classical understanding 23
2 The classical understanding: tyranny and despotism 25
HELLAMANDT
Part III
The new approaches 101
3 Early uses of the concept ‘political religion’: Campanella, Clasen
and Wieland 103
HANSOTTOSEITSCHEK
4 The thinkers of the total: Ernst Ju¨nger, Carl Schmitt and Erich
Ludendorff 114
MICHAELSCHA¨FER
5 The interpretation of totalitarianism as religion 121
HANSOTTOSEITSCHEK
6 Eschatological interpretations: Vondung, Talmon 164
HANSOTTOSEITSCHEK
viii Contents
7 Supplementary approaches: Leo Strauss and Hannah Arendt 176
KATRINMEY
Part IV
On the concept and theory of political religions 195
8 Political religion – state religion – civil religion – political
theology: distinguishing four key terms 197
HANSMAIER
9 On the instrumentalisation of religion in modern systems of rule 202
KARL-JOSEFSCHIPPERGES
10 Excursis: Eric Voegelin’s voncept of ‘gnosis’ 214
HANSOTTOSEITSCHEK
Part V
Fascism and non-democratic regimes 223
11 Fascism and non-democratic regimes 225
JUANJ.LINZ
Part VI
Interpreters of totalitarianism 293
12 Interpreters of totalitarianism: a lexicographical survey 295
Bibliography 356
Index 400
Notes on contributors
Juan Jose Linz was born in 1926 in Bonn. He studied political science and
economics as well as jurisprudence from 1943 to 1948 in Madrid, took
his doctorate in sociology in 1959 with aworkon the social basis of the
political parties in West Germany, and since 1989 has been Sterlin Pro-
fessorfor Politics and Social Sciences atYale University,NewHaven.He
has produced numerous publications on electoral behaviour, the social
foundations of politics, and religion and politics; as well as on the
transformations of democracy into authoritarian and totalitarian forms
in the Europe of the period after 1918 and after 1945; he holds guest
professorships in the USA, Spain and Germany, and has received
numerous international honours and distinctions.
Hans Maier was born in 1931 in Freiburg. He studied history and social
sciences in Freiburg, Munich and Paris, and took his doctorate in 1957
with a work on the early history of Christian democracy; from 1962 to
1988 he was Professor of Political Science at the University of Munich;
from 1988 to 1999 Professor of Christian Weltanschauung, Theory of
Religion and Culture. From 1970 to 1986 he served as Bavarian Minister
of Culture and Education. He has published on religion and politics,
GermanandFrenchconstitutionalandbureaucratichistories,thepolitics
of culture, and music.
Hella Mandt took her doctorate in 1969 in Hamburg, and became a pro-
fessorin 1979 in Trier.From 1969 to1971 shewasFellowatthe Seminar
for Political Science in Freiburg; from 1972 to 1978, Assistant Professor
of Political Science at the University of Trier; from 1978 to 2000, Pro-
fessor of Political Science at the University of Trier. Her research areas
include: theory and critique of liberalism in intra-cultural and inter-cul-
tural comparison; fundamentalism in politics; and political theory as a
discipline of political science. Her publications include: Tyrannislehre und
Widerstandsrecht. Studien zur deutschen politischen Theorie des 19. Jahr-
hunderts(Darmstadt,1974);Die ZukunftderBu¨rgergesellschaft inEuropa
(ed.) (Baden-Baden, 1994); ‘Die offene Gesellschaft und die Wurzein des
zeitgeno¨ssischenFundamentalismus’,StaatswissenschaftenundStaatspraxis
