The Conservative Revolutionary movement was a German nationalist literary youth movement, prominent in the years following The First World War. Later, the Nazis claimed the Conservative Revolutionary heritage as their own, although in reality they have had very little to do with it. None of the leading figures in this movement were Nazis. The Conservative Revolutionary school of thought advocated a "new" conservatism and nationalism that was specifically German, or Prussian in particular. Like other conservative movements in the same period, they sought to put a stop to what they saw as a rising tide of socialism, by advocating their own brand of "conservative socialism", which stood in opposition to the actual socialist movement. The Conservative Revolutionaries based their ideas on organic rather than materialistic thinking, on quality instead of quantity and on Volksgemeinschaft ("people-comradeship") rather than class conflict and ochlocracy. These writers produced a profusion of radical nationalistic literature that consisted of war diaries, combat fictional works, political journalism, manifestos, and philosophical treatises outlining their ideas for the transformation of German cultural and political life. The movement had a wide influence among many of Gemany’s most gifted youth, universities and semi-educated middle classes. Nationalism is an ideology that creates and sustains a nation as a concept of a common identity for groups of humans. ... World War I was primarily a European conflict with many facets: immense human sacrifice, stalemate trench warfare, and the use of new, devastating weapons - tanks, aircraft, machineguns, and poison gas. ... The term National Socialism has been used in self-description by a number of different political groups and ideologies, some of which have no connection with the Nazis; see National socialism. ... For conservatism in the United States and Canada, see Conservatism in North America. ... // Nationalism is an ideology which holds that the nation, ethnicity or national identity is a fundamental unit of human social life, and makes certain political claims based on that belief, above all the claim that the nation is the only legitimate basis for the state, and that each nation is... The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Prussia, 1701-1918 The word Prussia (German: Preußen or Preussen, Polish: Prusy, Lithuanian: PrÅ«sai, Latin: Borussia) has had various (often contradictory) meanings: The land of the Baltic Prussians (in what is now parts of southern Lithuania, the Kaliningrad exclave of... The color red and particularly the red flag are traditional symbols of Socialism. ... Volksgemeinschaft was an attempt by the German Nazi Party to establish a national community of unified mind, will and spirit. ... Class conflict is both the friction that accompanies social relationships between members or groups of different social classes and the underlying tensions or antagonisms which exist in society. ... Ochlocracy (Greek: οχλοκρατια; Latin: ochlocratia) is government by mob or a disorganized mass of people. ...

The term "Conservative Revolution" predates the First World War, but the writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the political theorist Edgar Julius Jung were instrumental in making this term an established concept of the Weimar period. World War I was primarily a European conflict with many facets: immense human sacrifice, stalemate trench warfare, and the use of new, devastating weapons - tanks, aircraft, machineguns, and poison gas. ... Hugo von Hofmannsthal (February 1, 1874 - July 15, 1929), was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist. ... Edgar Julius Jung (1894-1934) was born on March 6, 1894 in Ludwigshafen, Germany. ... The period of German history from 1919 to 1933 is known as the Weimar Republic (in German Weimarer Republik). It is named after the city of Weimar, where a national assembly convened to produce a new constitution after the German monarchy was abolished following the nations defeat in World...

The Conservative Revolutionaries, many of whom were born in the last decade of the nineteenth century, were all basically formed by their experiences of the First World War. The war and the German Revolution was for them a clean break from the past, which left them greatly disillusioned. First, the experience of the horrors of trench warfare, the filth, the hunger, the negation of heroism to a man’s effort to stay alive on the battlefield and the random death led to many recognizing that there was no meaning to this war, or to life itself. They also had to contend with the Dolchstoßlegende of the end of the war. Second, in this Kriegserlebnis, they sought to re-establish the Frontgemeinschaft (the frontline camaraderie) that defined their existence on the warfront. They felt that they were "like a puppet which has to dance for the demonic entertainment of evil spirits". They were attracted to nihilist ideas. In their Froschperspektive writings, they sought to give their experience meaning. Revolutionaries at machine gun posts, Berlin, November 1918 The German Revolution describes a series of events that occurred in 1918-1919, culminating in the overthrow of the Kaiser and the establishment of a democratic republic. ... Magazine title from 1924, example of a propaganda illustration in support of the legend The Dolchstoßlegende or Dolchstosslegende, (German dagger-thrust legend, often translated in English as stab-in-the-back legend) refers to a social mythos and persecution-propaganda among bitter post-World War I German nationalists, that... This article is about the Russian cultural and political movement. ...

For the Conservative Revolutionaries, Friedrich Nietzsche was their chief philosophical mentor. A major interpreter of Nietzsche in the Weimar and Nazi periods, Alfred Baeumler, wrote that when one said "Heil Hitler!" to the Nazi youth, one was also greeting Fredrich Nietzsche. (1) Like Nietzsche, Ernst Jünger sees war as inevitable and invigorating. War, for the conservative revolutionaries, was capable of providing new energy for a different spiritual and cultural development of Europe, divorcing it from a moribund and effeminizing Christian morality and culture. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) was an influential German philosopher, psychologist, and philologist. ... The period of German history from 1919 to 1933 is known as the Weimar Republic (Pronounced Vy-mahr, and in German it is known as the Weimarer Republik). It is named after the city of Weimar where a national assembly convened to produce a new constitution after the German monarchy... Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945, standard German pronunciation in the IPA) was the Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. ... Ernst Jünger as a soldier in World War I Ernst Jünger, Juenger or Junger in English, (March 29, 1895 – February 17, 1998) was a German author of novels and accounts of his war experiences. ... Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament writings of his early followers. ...

References

• The Conservative Revolution in the Weimar Republic, pg 29.

Bibliography

• The Conservative Revolution in the Weimar Republic, Roger Woods, St. Martin’s Press, Inc., NY, 1996