Die rassistische Utopie der Biopolitik - Rütger Esséns De släckta metropolerna

Abstract

Biopolitics is a pillar of right-wing ideology. The family is seen as the people’s, i.e. the Volks core, and therefore the core of the nation which stands as the absolute principle of this ideology. Biopolitics is the means to protect the reproduction of the family which is, allegedly, always threatened in this Weltanschauung. This article will give examples of historical practice of biopolitics in Germany’s national socialist regime and the Scandinavian historical context in order to illuminate parallels in the Swedish novel De släckta metroplerna (Engl.: »The Darkened Metropolises«, 1937), by former diplomat Rütger Essén. Therein, a »racial pure,« acquisitive and intellectually superior group is confronted by a group of outsiders and vagabonds in a post-apocalyptic Stockholm. Racist and eugenic ideas control the decisions and actions of some of the main characters. This paper tries to show by the example of this novel how biopolitics take form in literature and how it plays a commanding role in the novel’s plot.

Keywords

• biopolitics
• germany
• scandinavia
• novel