Edgar J. Jung (1894–1934) was the mastermind of the „Young Conservatives“ in the Conservative Revolutionary movement in Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Jung’s voluminous work, The Rule of the Inferior (1927/30), in which he outlines his autoritarian weltanschauung, is a radical rejection of democracy and egalitarianism. Instead, Jung evokes the myth of the eternal Reich, the foundations of which he sees not in blood, like the Nazis, but in spirit.
But Jung was not content with giving intellectual guidelines. Quite the contrary, he intended to interfere in politics. Franz von Papen, the German vice-chancellor, for whom Jung wrote political speeches, seemed to be an ideal mouthpiece for Jung’s ideas. In Marburg, on June 17th, 1934 von Papen gave a speech which was of Jung’s making. The so-called “Marburg Speech“ attacked the German government and was meant to break loose a national conservative uprising.
But Jung had underestimated the general well-esteem among the German people of the NS government, and, moreover, bad timing made Jung’s attempt to take over power coincide with the Röhm-Putsch, the failed coup d’état of SA leader Ernst Röhm.
Jung was arrested, and on July 1st, 1934 his body was found shot near Berlin. With Edgar J. Jung one of the outstanding protagonists of the Conservative Revolutionary school of thought was dead.
In this scholarly study in German, the author, Sebastian Maass, traces Jung’s way and puts focus on his radical weltanschauung and thought, as laid down particularly in The Rule of the Inferior. Jung’s intellectual work is portrayed in detail and carefully judged in a non-leftist way. The book has nearly 300 footnotes and the appendix contains the complete text of the infamous “Marburg Speech.“
In his preface, Dr. Karlheinz Weissmann stresses the importance of this thoroughly researched work for the understanding of the Conservative Revolutionary movement.
Die andere deutsche Revolution
Edgar Julius Jung und die metaphysischen Grundlagen der Konservativen Revolution
Author: Sebastian Maass
Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: Regin Verlag
Language: German
Product Dimensions: 14,5 x 22,5 cm
ISBN: 978-3-941247-20-8
The book is available through Regin Verlag website.