177 Y “Young Hellerau” – a symbol of German “Janus-facedness” The “Janus-faced” nature of German history is reflected in the historical macrocosm of the entire 20th century, but also in small-town microcosms such as Weimar and Hellerau. Like Weimar – where Goethe, Schiller and Herder, important representatives of German humanism, lived and worked; where, in 1900, Friedrich Nietzsche died, mentally deranged; where, in 1919, the Bauhaus was founded; but also where, from 1937 to 1945, the Buchenwald concentration camp was located on the Ettersberg and thus in the immediate vicinity of the city – “Young Hellerau” was also a place where this burdensome ambivalence was manifested. In the case of “Young Hellerau”, it was primarily Bruno Tanzmann, a Hellerau resident for three decades starting in 1910, who brought a völkisch-minded educational institute and a völkisch settlement society to life in the garden city by establishing the Deutsche Bauernhochschule (German Peasants’ College) as an institution there in 1921, and by founding the Bund der Artamanen (Artaman League). Latest historical research indicates that it was none other than this same Tanzmann who – through his writings and publishing operations,1 his Bauernhochschule and his Artamanen – effectively co-founded the Blut-und-Boden-Ideologie2 (blood-and-soil ideology) which, a decade later, would constitute a fundamental ideological cornerstone of the Nazi worldview. The völkisch movement – an explanation of terms The völkisch movement, which sought influence in Germany after the end of the First World War and in the early 1920s, was not an original product of the war or the Weimar Republic. The roots of this multi-dimensional movement lay in the Wilhelmine Empire. However, in contrast to Austria, the völkisch associations in Germany – with the exception of the Alldeutscher Verband (Pan-German League) – operated extra-parliamentarily until the outbreak of the First World War. As a result, although numerous independently operating völkisch federations and associations were founded, they remained insignificant in the late phase of the German Empire and also during the Weimar Republic. The decisive difference between the völkisch ideology and the ideologies of the National Right in the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic was not racism, which was already at that time manifesting its most aggressive form in racism-based anti-Semitism. Nor was it the derivation of a conception of “nation” from the blood-and-descent community and from cultural history. What differentiated them was the particular mix of such political guidelines combined with a hybridisation of both progressive and regressive contemporary trends. It was in this respect that the völkisch movement also distinguished itself from similar ideologies held by the Lebensreform movement.3 One example of this is the Heimland (Homeland) settlement near Zechlin, founded in 1909 by Leipzig publisher Theodor Fritsch4 as a völkisch counter- model to the garden city of Hellerau, which itself was being founded during that same year. But there were also significant overlaps between Lebensreform and völkisch movements. For example, around 1900, the völkisch movement defined itself – as did the Lebensreform movement, and as does today’s neo-völkisch movement – as a cultural counter-movement, in their case against the “power of the Jewish-capitalist press and [against] journalism guided by financial interest”5 as well as against the prevailing “liberal spirit of the age”.6 However, the rejection of political liberalism and restriction of basic humanistic values that the völkisch movement approved of remained alien sentiments to most people in the Lebensreform movement. Furthermore, those followers of the völkisch movement that were based in Dresden and the Upper Lusatia region before and after the turn of the last century also promoted a rigorous anti-Slavic sentiment.7 This rigour, often exposed in public displays of anti-urbanism, also characterised the negative attitude towards Hellerau of influential representatives of the völkisch movement like Fritsch and Heinrich Pudor.8 Fritsch – who was rejected by Nietzsche in a letter from 29 March 1887 due to his excessive anti-Semitism – accused the
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTMyNjA1