TheyLovedBloodand Soil but Not the Mind 221well.... TheBundstructure... appearedas an alternativeto bothMarxismand capitalist
classsociety... basingitselfon... Volk... andcommunity.TheYouthMovement’s
conceptof theBundwasto remaina constantinspiration.. .” As Mossephrasesit, Hans
Breuer,anotherleaderof the GermanYouthMovement,believedthat“the age of science
andreason... haddoneGermanyseriousinjury.. .” Resultantly,Breuerturned,as his
guide,to a writerwhosolidifiedthe philosophicmainstream’s revoltagainstinductive
reason.Breuer,writesMosse,“citedKant... in his appealfor a Volkishcommitment.The
philosopher’s principlesof civicdutywerereadas Volkishculturalimperatives.”
Thissamebookof Riehl’s thatGeorgeL. Mossedescribes—Placesand People—was
held,by the GermanGreenPartyat the timeof its foundingin 1980,as one of the main
inspiration’s for the party’s politicalphilosophy.On accountof theirreverencefor the
undevelopedlandscape,the Volkishwriters—as withlate-twentieth-centuryenviron-
mentalists—appropriatedthe tree as the symbolfor theirmovement.^140 In Mosse’s words,
Paulde Lagardebelievedthatman“shouldlistento the treesof the wood.. .”^141 Riehl,
JuliusLangbehn,andLagardeeachpreachedthathumanitycouldfindno fulfillment
exceptfor emotionallysubordinatingtheirowninterestsin modernconveniencesto their
appreciationof the untouchedwilderness.
RecallthatLagarde’s publisher,EugenDiederichs,alsoinfluencedthe Volkishmove-
ment.Diederichs’s volkishidealism,writesGeorgeL. Mosse,wouldnot “tolerateincreas-
ing industrialization.... Thesoil,the earth,the Volkwerethe componentparts” of the
granderwhole.“The soil was oncemoreequatedwiththe Volk.”^142
“I have,” Diederichsexplained,“alwaysfelt closeto mothernature.”^143 Likewise,Ar-
thurMoellervan den Bruck’s politicalviewsinformedthoseof OttoStrasser,the ideologi-
cal ally of JosephGoebbelsduringhis earlydaysatNationalSocialistBriefings.^144 Rudolf
Steiner’s anthroposophyand biodynamicenvironmentalismalso playeda role,ultimately
influencingthe Nazis’ agriculturepoliciesas it one wouldday laterinformthe protocols
of organicfarmingin the late-twentieth-centuryUSA.Therewas,notesPeterStaudenmai-
er, “convergencebetweenbiodynamicphilosophyand the tenetsof bloodand soil,some
of themstemmingfromcommonrootsin pre-Naziculture.”^145
It was also the Romanticmovementthat spawnedthe nineteenthcentury’s first animal
activists,whocalledthemselvesanti-vivisectionists.Then,as in the present,theypro-
testedscientificexperimentson animals.Despitetheirdifferences,wherethe governist
movementsand Romanticmovementsoverlappedwastheiroppositionto capitalismand
middle-classbusinesspeople.Ultimately,fromthe 1800sto the turnof the twentiethcen-
tury,the twomovementsfusedintoone.Thenew,unifiedmovementembraced the
governists’ prescriptionsfor governmentalcontrolof industry.Likewise,it adoptedthe
Romanticistnotionthatthe non-sapientwildernesswasmorallysuperior(1) to inductive
reasonand(2) to inductivereason’s practicalconsequence,industrialtechnology.At the
startof the 1800s,Hegelweddedtogetherfideism,collectivism,andgovernism.Still,it
tooksometimefor the fideism-collectivism-governismtrifectato catchon. Thistrifecta
neverlostpopularityin the Weimaryears,pursuantto Germany’s defeatin the First
WorldWar.Hitlerand scoresof otherGermansremainedloyalto this philosophyin the
Weimaryears,andthusimplementedthe trifectaunderthe Naziregime.In effect,the
ThirdReichinheritedits fideism,environmentalism,animalactivism,societalcollecti-
vism,andgovernismfromthe SecondReich.Therefore,notesJoachimFest,the Reich
chancellorcameto fear“Americantechnology,... big cities,‘industrializationas unre-
strictedas it is harmful,’ the ‘economizationof the nation,’ corporations,” and“the ‘mo-
rass of metropolitanamusementculture’... ”^146 Muchof the Germanromantics’ aversion
to capitalismoriginatedfromtheiraversionto the sourcesof the capitalistprofitmotive:
individualismand peaceableself-interest.TheseGermanromanticsfaultedthe Enlighten-