A hush eventually settles among the collection of students, instructors and professors: the Old Germanic master has arrived. The Viennese welcome someone from the New World, but Prussians remain a plague. The student converses in the hall a while with a North German colleague. It is spring 1959 and the young Australian has been invited to a celebration of the latest work of the Viennese master of his field. A young doctoral student makes his way to the University-he has been advised to leave behind the Heuriger this evening and take instead the opportunity to experience a literary event, one not to be missed. The trees of the Ringstraße are all green buds and white flowers, and the setting sun now daubs them in pinks and lilacs too. In intellectual history the cranks and fools are important too Martin Green But this is what makes the area so sharp, so fraught and often so crucial too, and the largely forgotten blackletter culture that informed so much of the intellectual debate of the time such an important part of the twentieth-century history of ideas. The broader Western intellectual tradition is notoriously difficult to navigate where the Holocaust and the years of Nazi rule in Central Europe are concerned. Yet the deeper theoretical questions and understandings I developed while writing this study seem to me still of particular relevance to a proper understanding of the key intellectual currents of the previous century. I have recently begun teaching a course in another part of intellectual history-at RMIT University, a place that seems very far away from the world of ancient sun symbols and spears investigated in this work. Research for the work was undertaken in Germany, England, the United States and Australia, and I must also acknowledge here theįinancial support of the Diebold Foundation as well as those who found the time to help me with many and varied matters along the way, particularly Reinhold Bollmus, Jutta and Klaus Burghard, Thomas L. The manuscript was also improved by the input of three referees who were gracious enough to pass useful comment on it: Malachi H. Ann Trindade and the late Ian Robertson for their valuable support, encouragement and advice over the course of the last ten years or so. Martin-and I should also acknowledge Bernard Muir, W. Other teachers and colleagues at the University who had considerable influence on the current work include Tim Mehigan, Ronald T. I owe considerable gratitude for the help and guidance of my doctoral supervisor Steven R. In writing this book I used knowledge that I gained from my University of Melbourne doctoral dissertation on Sinnbildforschung, submitted in 2001. Once these things were especially popular in universities other than just in Central Europe, and they thus represent a key, albeit murky chapter in the history of Western ideas. This book is an investigation into that old world of philological and historical study, of old literatures, old symbols, pots and bones. Indeed last year the University of Melbourne abolished the teaching of Viking Studies, bringing to a close a teaching tradition of some 50 fruitful years-the university’s former associations with eugenics, Sanskrit and Gothic are even longer forgotten. They represent the remnant of a tradition that is largely now lost, its last memory quickly receding. There was a time when such writings were considered essential additions to any proper liberal arts collection. Hidden away in the stacks of many Western libraries are a range of works printed in German blackletter: on Vikings, dead languages, skull shapes and runes. Nationalism- Germany-History-20th century. Includes bibliographical references and index. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mees, Bernard (Bernard Thomas) The science of the swastika / Bernard Mees. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the permission of the Publisher. © 2008 by Bernard Mees Published in 2008 by Central European University Press An imprint of the Central European University Share Company Nádor utca 11, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary Tel: +36- or 327-3000 Fax: +36- E-mail: Website: 400 West 59th Street, New York NY 10019, USA Tel: +1-21 Fax: +1-64 E-mail: All rights reserved. Central European University Press Budapest New York
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