From Humanism to Nazism: Antiquity in the Work of Houston Stewart Chamberlain

Abstract

Houston Stewart Chamberlain was a social Darwinist and a true racist. He also had quite a vast cultural knowledge for a self-made man. Both an art lover and a dilettante, he was welcomed into Richard Wagner’s larger circles when he became his son-in-law. In 1899, his Foundations of the 19th Century allowed him to reach public fame. In it, he provides his readership with a new approach to Western history in relation to the question of race and the necessary rise of Germanic power. Greek and Roman antiquity play an essential part in his argumentation. He was therefore read and admired by the major figures of the Nazi ideology―one of whom was Hitler―and became, just before he died, in the 1920’s, one of the leading minds of their movement.

Keywords

• racism
• völkisch
• humanities
• social Darwinism
• national-socialism