Notre thèse étudie la position et la fonction qu’occupa le philosophe Erich Rothacker (1888-1965) dans le champ philosophique et scientifique allemand de son temps. Elle retrace l’évolution de sa politique intellectuelle de la République de Weimar à l’après-guerre, évolution qu’il faut lire comme un processus de redéfinition de son historisme conservateur face aux contextes historiques successifs. Tandis que son activité sous la République de Weimar fut guidée par sa volonté d’imposer un paradigme d’historisme polémique et idéologisé, l’avènement du national-socialisme l’a conduit, après une phase d’étroite adhésion, à redéfinir cet historisme, qui devint progressivement (et non sans quelques ambiguïtés) un simple paradigme épistémologique désidéologisé. C’est au terme de cette évolution que Rothacker put influencer dans l’après-guerre la réflexion de certains de ses étudiants devenus par la suite célèbres, tels Jürgen Habermas, Karl-Otto Apel et Hermann Schmitz. Outre qu’elle répond à plusieurs questions jusqu’à présent en suspens dans la littérature secondaire sur Rothacker (relatives à son rapport au nazisme, ou encore au rôle – éminent mais paradoxal – qu’il joua au sein du champ théorique de son temps), notre étude de sa politique intellectuelle met ainsi en évidence deux phénomènes qui dépassent le cadre de son analyse stricto sensu : le mouvement – commun à plusieurs penseurs – de radicalisation puis de déradicalisation du conservatisme intellectuel allemand au cours du 20ème siècle, et l’existence d’une ligne de continuité souterraine de la pensée historiste dans l’Allemagne de l’après-guerre en dépit de l’ostracisme dont cette tradition faisait alors l’objet. / Our dissertation investigates the position in, and function of, the german philosopher Erich Rothacker (1888-1965) within the philosophical and scientific fields of his time. It traces the developments in Rothacker’s intellectual politics from the Weimar Republic into the post-war world – a development that can be interpreted as a process of redefining his conservative historicism within the framework of changing historical contexts. While his work was guided by the aim of promoting a polemic and ideologised paradigm of historicism at the time of the Weimar Republic, Rothacker, faced with the national-socialist regime, subsequently redefined this historicism after a period of enthusiastic endorsement with the National-Socialists. Rothacker’s historicism thus gradually developed (though not without remnants of ambiguity) into a purely epistemological paradigm, stripped of all ideology. As a consequence of this development Rothacker succeeded in the post-war era in influencing the thought of several of his students who were to become well-known intellectual figures, such as Jürgen Habermas, Karl-Otto Apel and Hermann Schmitz. Besides offering answers to some questions concerning Rothacker that remain unanswered in critical discourse to this day – such as his relationship to Nazism, or his role within the theoretical field of his time – our analysis provides a picture of two phenomena transcending Rothacker’s own person: the deradicalization of German intellectual conservatism in the course of the twentieth century, and the persistence of historicist thought in post-war Germany despite the ostracism that this tradition was subjected to in the decades following the war.

[pt] Com o fim da II Guerra e a queda do III Reich, ganha ímpeto um ataque jusnaturalista ao positivismo jurídico sob o fundamento de que ele foi o pensamento jurídico predominante na Alemanha da República de Weimar e que continuou sendo durante o regime nazista. Desta forma, o positivismo teve responsabilidade tanto pela queda da república quanto pelo funcionamento genocida do regime de Hitler. Iniciando-se com um artigo de Gustav Radbruch, tais ataques prosseguiram nas vozes de diversos antipositivistas e neoconstitucionalistas como Fuller, Dworkin, Alexy e, mais recentemente, David Dyzenhaus, jurista com quem a presente tese procura debater. Contra estes argumentos, pretende-se aqui refutá-los a partir das categorias fantasmagoria e hostilidade, extraídas do pensamento político-jurídico de Thomas Hobbes. A primeira procura demonstrar que o pensamento jurídico nazista era calcado em uma forma transcendental e eseencialista de pensar, implicando uma concepção do direito como algo já dado e que deveria ser realizado. A segunda determinava que, para realizar esta fantasmagoria, a forma jurídica poderia ser completamente afastada, de modo que o regime nazista, na verdade, seria antipositivista. Com isto, tanto a partir da teoria de Hobbes quanto de exemplos históricos, a presente tese procura afastar tal mito sobre o positivismo, afirmando que, ao contrário, o pensamento jurídico nazista era mais próximo do jusnaturalismo, e que as teses antipositivistas e neoconstitucionalistas de abertura do direito à moral, ao contrário do que pretendem, podem acabar por fornecer meios de ascensão de regimes autoritários, de modo que uma interpretação formal do direito deve ser vista como mais adequada do que uma jurisprudência de princípios. / [en] With the end of World War II and the fall of the Third Reich, a jusnaturalist attack on legal positivism gained momentum on the ground that it was the predominant legal thought in the German Weimar Republic and continued to be so during the Nazi regime. In this way, positivism was responsible both for the fall of the republic and for the genocidal functioning of the Hitler regime. Starting with an article by Gustav Radbruch, such attacks continued in the voices of several antipositivists and neo-constitutionalists such as Fuller, Dworkin, Alexy and more recently David Dyzenhaus, a jurist whose arguments this thesis intends to debate. Against these arguments, the objective here is to refute them with the help of the concepts of phantasmagoria and hostility, extracted from the political-juridical thought of Thomas Hobbes. The first concept seeks to demonstrate that Nazi legal thinking was modeled on a transcendental and essentialist way, implying a conception of law as an a priori that should be realized. The second concept determined that in order to realize this phantasmagoria, the legal form could be completely removed. Thus, the Nazi regime, in fact, would be anti-positivist. Thereby, both with the help of Hobbes s theory and historical examples, this thesis aims to dispel such a myth about positivism, stating that, on the contrary, Nazi legal thought was closer to natural-law, and that the anti-positivist and neo-constitutionalist theses, contrary to what intend or claim, may ultimately provide help to authoritarian regimes seize power. Thus, a formalist law interpretation must be seen as more appropriate than an interpretation based on principles.

TITLE: Two brothers. The literary activity and the political inolvement of Thomas and Heinrich Mann between 1918 - 1933 ABSTRACT: This diploma thesis compares the literary activity of Thomas and Heinrich Mann with their political opinions. The comparison of the literary activity and opinions is based on their two books. There is the novel Der Untertan in case of Heinrich Mann and the short story from Thomas Mann Mario und der Zauberer in the second case. KEY WORDS: Thomas Mann, Heinrich Mann, policy, Weimar Republic, Wilheminism, fascism, democracy, dictatorship

Die Dissertation ist dem politischen Denken Max Schelers gewidmet. Die Darstellung und Analyse von Schelers politischem Denken zwischen Kaiserreich und Weimarer Republik ist um die zentralen Begriffe Wert und Elite strukturiert. Schelers Bemühen um eine Stabilisierung der politisch-gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse mit metapolitischen Mitteln ist das Resultat seiner Zeitdiagnostik. Er warnt angesichts der Entwicklung zu einer individualistischen Gesellschaft vor den damit einhergehenden Dissoziierungstendenzen. Seine Überlegungen zur Elite ziehen sich wie ein roter Faden durch sein Werk und prägen sein Politikverständnis. Durch die synchrone und diachrone Darstellungsweise wird der Umkreis jener elitetheoretischer Erörterungen einbezogen, die bis heute der Ausgangspunkt mancher Diskurse bilden. Entgegen der Tendenz den komplexen Elitebegriff der stratifizierten Gesellschaft, in der Macht-, Funktions- und Wertelite koinzidierten, auf seine funktionale Komponente zu reduzieren, in der Funktion und Leistung von Werten und Orientierung entkoppelt werden, hält Scheler an dem komplexen Elitebegriff fest und erklärt insbesondere die Bedeutung von Wertvermittlung und Sinnstiftung zum Nukleus seines Elitebegriffs. / This dissertation is dedicated to Max Scheler's political thinking. The representation and analysis of Scheler's political thinking between German Empire and Weimar Republic is structured around the central concepts of value and elite. Scheler's endeavour to stabilize the political and social conditions by meta-political means comes as the result of his time-diagnosis warning of dissociation tendencies that come along with the development towards an individualistic society. Reflections on elite is the central theme of his work and mark his concept of politics. The synchronic and diachronic reprensentation involves the vicinity of those theoretical elite discussions that even today form the basis of some discourses. Contrary to the tendency to reduce the complex elite concept of stratified society, in which elite of power, function and value coincided, to its functional component, in which function and performance are being uncoupled from value and orientation, Scheler sticks to the complex concept of elite and particularly emphasizes the meaning of imparting value and sense as the nucleus of his elite term.

This is an analysis of the contributions of Richard Wagner's ideas to the development of Adolf Hitler as seen by various historians. This author has consulted the works of many different authors to attempt to find the ideological roots of Adolf Hitler. The ideology of Richard Wagner, as seen by some of the most pre-eminent historians of this period, has been applied to the ideas of Hitler to find any continuity between these two men. All historians consulted thought Wagner was, for some more, others, less, a contributor to the development of Adolf Hitler and National Socialism. This author has concluded that Wagner was a contributor, but that Hitler's personal environment was more important to the development of National Socialism. This thesis explores an area into which no one has really delved in depth. Hopefully, this thesis can be a springboard for further research into this area.

This thesis explores the representation of prostitution in German Weimar films between 1919 and 1933. It theorizes that prostitutes are illustrated through characters who are public women. The women who step out of their homes to enter public, or who are somehow introduced to strangers without leaving their homes are public women. The public women in these films, as public women living in Germany, were in danger of being identified as prostitutes and becoming prostitutes. A woman’s public position made her vulnerable to the male sexualized gaze. The male sexualized gaze ultimately led to a woman’s prostitution. The thesis analyzes 4 films to demonstrate woman’s depiction as a prostitute. The first film, Nosferatu, depicts a seemingly virtuous woman whose husband begins to prostitute her, but ultimately she prostitutes herself in exchange for the service of a supernatural law. The film symbolically discusses social issues regarding prostitution, family life, and venereal disease. The second film, Metropolis, protects its public female character from the sexualized gaze with religion and motherhood at the beginning of the film. However, as the film progresses the main character, Maria, is unwillingly prostituted by the head of the society in exchange for a robot that looks like her. The robot employs the male sexualized gaze and her position as a prostitute to overturn society as a vagina dentata. The third and fourth films are The Blue Angel and Variety respectively. Both of these films depict women in public positions who use their sexuality for gain. These women prostitute themselves. They are not victims as Maria and Ellen are in the two previous films. The women in this chapter use their sexuality and prostitution as a way to attain agency. The women in these films I label as vagina dentata because they purposefully destroy men for their own gain. These women use public sexuality to find and engage their male prey as patrons before they emasculate them. The thesis views the women of Weimar films differently than other scholars have by making her the focus of the film and interpreting her public exposure as her gateway to prostitution.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Osnabrück, 1993.

Contemporary American visual culture is saturated with animation, from websites and advertisements to adult and children's television programs. Animated films have dominated the American box office since Toy Story (1995) and show no signs of relenting, as demonstrated by Up (2009) and Alice in Wonderland (2010). Scholarly interest in animation has paralleled the steady rise of the popularity of the medium. Publications addressing animation have migrated from niche journals, such as such as Animation Journal and Wide Angle, to one of the most mainstream English-language publications, the Modern Language Association's Profession, which included Judith Halberstam's article "Animation" in 2009, in which she discusses the potential of animation to transcend outdated notions of disciplinary divides and to unify the sciences and humanities. However, the origins of the animated feature film remain obscured. My dissertation clarifies this obscurity by recovering Lotte Reiniger, the inventor of the multiplane camera and producer of the first animated feature film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926). Because of the international and interdisciplinary qualities of animation, my project draws upon a wide array of disciplines including film theory, historiography, and criticism; European modernisms; animation studies; early German culture; folklore; and literary adaptation. In order to explore such diverse subject matter I utilize feminist, discourse, Marxist/cultural, and film theories. My first chapter demonstrates inconsistencies concerning the development of the animated film throughout animation scholarship despite the recent proliferation of publications. Most of the scholarship misattributes the innovations of Reiniger, including her invention of the multiplane camera and the animated feature film, to the Disney Company. The related scholarship reveals a suspicious omission, or passing mention, of Reiniger. The conflicting and sparse scholarship prompts my inquiry into the causes of her critical marginalization. In the second chapter I historically and culturally contextualize Reiniger by examining contemporaneous writers and artists, as well as the early German film industry. I argue that (German) national identity negatively impacted her and the film's discourse position. I contextualize Prince Achmed within Expressionism, Bauhaus, Constructivism, Dada, Surrealism, and the New Objectivity and measure it by contemporaneous critical standards represented by Kracauer, Balazs, and Arnheim. An analysis of the film as an adaptation of a popular literary text highlights its formal singularity: its status as an independent animated feature. Despite initial critical acclaim and use of elements from celebrated visual movements, the very elements that are unique to the film have historically contributed to its critical neglect. I posit that 1926, the year of Prince Achmed's Berlin and Parisian releases, was a particularly difficult time for the German film industry. The difficulties of this era were intensified for independent productions, such as Prince Achmed. Hollywood had established hegemony after targeting its only competition, the German film industry. Americanism dominated Weimar culture, resulting in domestic critical neglect of German film. Anti-German sentiment abounded internationally. The convergence of these events coincided with the release of Prince Achmed and further damaged its critical legacy. In chapter three I consider the influence of gender on the discourse positions of Reiniger and Prince Achmed. An overview of contemporaneous female artists and filmmakers elucidates the complicated relationships between women and film and women and modernity. Invoking Guyatri Chakravorty Spivak's interrelated concepts of the "politics of interpretation," "cultural marginalia," and "masculist centrality/feminist marginality," I posit Prince Achmed as a feminist celebration of handicraft and a critique of modern culture. Reiniger embraces her relegation to the private/domestic/feminine realm by revolutionizing silhouette cutting in the form of animated (feature) film. In Prince Achmed she critiques the contradiction between imagery of the New Woman and the actual plight of women in modernity. After situating animated film within the larger genre of film, in chapter four I reflect upon the scholarly tendency to relegate film to a status subordinate to traditional visual media, thereby further marginalizing animation. In this chapter I also define and debunk the Disney myth, which includes widespread misconceptions that Disney invented the multiplane camera and pioneered the animated feature film. I highlight contributing factors such as a noticeable lack of animation scholarship (Edera; Pilling) and a gap in interwar German history during which Prince Achmed was produced (Kracauer; Arnheim; Edera). The concept of "historical imaginary" developed by Elsaesser and Foucauldian "mechanisms of power" assist an understanding of the creation and nearly century-long perpetuation of the Disney myth, which has lost relevance to contemporary critical discourse. Having established primary and tertiary causes of the marginalization of Reiniger and Prince Achmed, I determine that this is a timely project since, according to Walter Benjamin, all images become intelligible only in later corresponding epochs. This "synchronicity" renders Prince Achmed comprehensible to critics in contemporary American animation-saturated culture. Because each chapter focuses on an element of otherness, my project illuminates the individual and culminating effects of national identity, gender, and genre on film history and discourse. By restoring Lotte Reiniger and Prince Achmed to their rightful discourse positions, my dissertation challenges existing understandings of the origins of animated film and development of the medium of film. Furthermore, my project encourages interdisciplinary scholarship, ongoing recovery of women and other historically overlooked groups, and interrogations of literary and other canonization.

This paper explores Alexanderplatz during the Weimar Period in Berlin. It is looked at from three different perspectives: historical urban plans, Alfred Döblin's novel Berlin Alexanderplatz, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1980's film adaptation of Berlin Alexanderplatz. Through these three mediums, an argument forms that Alexanderplatz functioned as both a major transit space for movement of transportation and pedestrians, but also the transit space for the movement of ideas and information.

The diploma thesis deals with the tertiary education of Weimar Republic, specifically with the Czechoslovak students of German nationality who studied in Germany between years 1919 and 1933. The main goals of the text are to evaluate to what extent the tertiary education served propaganda and cultural diplomacy, which methods were used to influence the students during their studies and how the students were introduced to the positive image of Germany, which found itself in international isolation after the First World War. The thesis is based on primary sources from German and Czech archives and on foreign and Czech secondary sources and literature.