The Philosophy of Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg is the least known of all the major National Socialists, yet his works, notably The Myth of the Twentieth Century, are among the most profound of the German contributions to the philosophical underpinnings of the National Socialist ideology.
Rosenberg conceived The Myth as the sequel to Houston Stewart Chamberlain's immensely influential The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. The Myth was first published in 1930 when Rosenberg was elected to the Reichstag as NS Deputy for Hassen-Darmstadt. By 1942 it had sold more than a million copies.
Rosenberg's ideas were heavily influenced by a number of theologians and philosophers, some dating back to the pre-Christian era. Justin Martyr, who first argued that Christianity was not a Jewish sect, figured prominently in Rosenberg's thought, as did the heterodox religious movements of the Manicheans, Bogomili and Cathars, which argued that the old Testament was a story of the Devil's people and which denied the supremacy of the Pope.
Meister Eckhart, who first conceived of the elevated uniqueness of the Nordic soul, and Friedrich Nietzsche, who argued that the Jews were the anti-Christ and that men could become supermen, profoundly affected Rosenberg's own outlook.
Rosenberg's wing of the National Socialist party preferred traditional Nordic folklife to the modern urban culture. It taught that art should reflect the racial soul of its creators and audience, and sought to aid the individual in self-fulfillment — but only as a member of his race. Nordic Christianity, it held, must be devoid of any Semitic, Roman, Etruscan or Asiatic roots or influence.
In this book, Professor Whisker has condensed Rosenberg's vast and often abstract rhetoric to a manageable, comprehensible level—presenting a highly readable introduction to the man, his complex thought, and its contribution to the origins of the National Socialist myth.
