Balder Ex-Libris - Spengler OswaldReview of books rare and missing2024-03-16T01:56:42+00:00urn:md5:aa728a70505b2fae05796923271581c2DotclearSpengler Oswald - Selected Essaysurn:md5:940ab042a6ee546c44d3e41c15be1f512012-12-10T19:49:00+00:002012-12-10T20:01:23+00:00balderSpengler OswaldGermanyRussia <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Spengler_Oswald_-_Selected_Essays_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Spengler Oswald</strong><br />
Title : <strong>Selected Essays</strong><br />
Year : 1967<br />
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Introduction. We leave it to the reader to 'read between the lines' of this critical introduction which appeared with this edition of the Essays. Little remains today of the great international Oswald Spengler vogue of the 1920’s and 1930’s. The title of his two-volume magnum opus, The Decline of the West, 1 crops up now and again in a variety of contexts, but one rarely meets people who have actually read the work or even portions of it. It could be argued, of course, that even in the heyday of the Spenglerian cult the readers of his "outline of a morphology of world history" were few, and those who grasped what it was really about, still fewer. The cult was borne, it seems fair to say, by a widespread hunch that the all too palpable ills of the modern world had been accurately diagnosed by this Teutonic doctor-prophet. Spengler, the man of the perpetual scowl, became a whole generation’s symbol for the futility of human endeavor. While scholars were busy ferreting out the many errors of detail that The Decline of the West contains, news of the book’s somber message reached intellectual and pseudo-intellectual circles in all the Western countries and beyond. To participate in the futility rite it was quite unnecessary to have read the book; the mere mention of Spengler’s name sufficed to express a whole mood of resignation in the face of the impersonal cruelty of history. The reasons for the eventual passing of the Spengler cult are, I think, readily apparent. It is not that the historical methodology demonstrated in The Decline of the West has been conclusively judged fallacious or outmoded; historians and philosophers of history still attend to the developmental and "morphological" problems that the book presents, and, while unqualified assent is rare among the professionals, Spengler continues to be a respectable subject for scholarly inquiry. Nor is it true that the intellectual mood in the Western world has changed so fundamentally from that of thirty and forty years ago as to preclude an audience for Spengler’s message. If anything, the pessimism, genuine or feigned, that put his name on thousands of lips in the twenties and thirties has increased rather than subsided since his death. The modern totalitarian state, World War II, the emergence of Soviet Russia as a major world power, the ever more rapid advance of technology - all of which he (however vaguely) foresaw and predicted in his writings - ought to have assured his continued relevance in the Nuclear Age. Aside from the appearance of other writers of imaginative power who have replaced him as spokesmen for the predicament of modern man, a number of external events have obscured Spengler’s significance for the past thirty years. There is, first of all, the fact of his death in 1936, at a time when the regime in his own country had effectively muzzled him and when the remainder of the Western world had once again begun to suspect all things German. Spengler’s disagreement with the National Socialist dictatorship, documented in his booklet Years of Decision (published in the summer of 1933), evoked a government ban on the mention of his name in the German press, and caused Spengler, already a physically broken man, to join the rank of the "inner emigration." Abroad, the image of the brooding Geschichtsphilosoph became linked with the frightening display of political cynicism personified by Hitler, the "new Caesar." The irony of this mistaken image has never been fully realized, despite the efforts of scholars in Germany and elsewhere to recount and explain the last years of Spengler’s life to postwar readers. In fact, little has ever been known outside of Germany of Spengler’s active concern with contemporary politics from the time of publication of The Decline of the West to his death almost twenty years later. Judging from the paucity of translations of his shorter writings, one is inclined to conclude that the world was content with the notion of Spengler as the hermit genius, the Great Mind who stood utterly aloof from his time and society in order to formulate inspired and profound theories of universal history. Perhaps the present selection of essays and speeches will help to alter this oversimplified portrait. Once the overwhelming success of the first volume of The Decline of the West had become apparent, Spengler was frequently asked to write or speak on historical and political subjects. The prediction of future developments was, after all, part of the method propounded in The Decline of the West. Cultures, he had theorized there, had risen and fallen in the past; once it is established precisely where our own contemporary Western culture stands within the recurring pattern of birth, flowering, and decay, it will be possible to foretell, at least in general terms, the course of history in the time that remains at our disposal. Thus, when consulting him for pronouncements on future events and trends, the countless German and foreign clubs, newspapers, institutions, and individuals were in effect simply taking him at his word, and there is some evidence, in his correspondence as well as in the pronouncements themselves, that he was not entirely displeased by his role of popular oracle. And, like all famous oracles, he was most often deliberately vague and ambiguous when telling the future. <strong>...</strong></p>Spengler Oswald - Prussianism and Socialismurn:md5:27cf676c564784fdb33479ddfbf32cee2012-12-10T19:46:00+00:002012-12-10T19:46:00+00:00balderSpengler OswaldCommunismGermanyRevolution <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Spengler_Oswald_-_Prussianism_and_Socialism_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Spengler Oswald</strong><br />
Title : <strong>Prussianism and Socialism</strong><br />
Year : 1920<br />
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This essay is based on notes intended for the second volume of The Decline of the West. The notes comprise, at least in part, the germinal stage in the development of the entire thesis presented in that work. The word "socialism" designates the noisiest, if not the most profound, topic of current debate. Everyone is using it. Everyone thinks it means something different. Into this universal catchword everyone injects whatever he loves or hates, fears or desires. Yet no one is aware of the scope and limitations of the word’s historical function. Is socialism an instinct, or a planned system? Is it a goal of mankind, or just a temporary condition? Or does the word perhaps refer simply to the demands made by a certain class of society? Is it the same thing as Marxism? People who aim to change the word continually fall into the error of confusing what ought to be with what shall be. Rare indeed is the vision that can penetrate beyond the tangle and flux of contemporary events. I have yet to find someone who has really understood this German Revolution, who has fathomed its meaning or foreseen its duration. Moments are being mistaken for epochs, next year for the next century, whims for ideas, books for human beings. Our Marxists show strength only when they are tearing down; when it comes to thinking or acting positively they are helpless. By their actions they are confirming at last that their patriarch was not a creator, but a critic only. His heritage amounts to a collection of abstract ideas, meaningful only to a world of bookworms. His "proletariat" is a purely literary concept, formed and sustained by the written word. It was real only so long as it denied, and did not embody, the actual state of things at any given time. Today we are beginning to realize that Marx was only the stepfather of socialism. Socialism contains elements that are older, stronger, and more fundamental than his critique of society. Such elements existed without him and continued to develop without him, in fact contrary to him. They are not to be found on paper; they are in the blood. And only the blood can decide the future. But if socialism is not Marxism, then what is it? The answer will be found in these pages. Some people already have an idea of what it is, but they are so diligently involved with political "standpoints," aims, and blueprints that no one has dared to be sure. When faced with decisions, we have abandoned our former position of firmness and adopted milder, less radical, outmoded attitudes, appealing for support to Rousseau, Adam Smith, and the like. We take steps against Marx, and yet at every step we invoke his name. Meanwhile the time for fashioning ideologies has passed. We latecomers of Western civilization have become skeptics. We refuse to be further misled by ideological systems. Ideologies are a thing of the previous century. We no longer want ideas and principles, we want ourselves. Hence we now face the task of liberating German socialism from Marx. I say German socialism, for there is no other. This, too, is one of the truths that no longer lie hidden. Perhaps no one has mentioned it before, but we Germans are socialists. The others cannot possibly be socialists. What I am describing here is not just another conciliatory move, not a retreat or an evasion, but a Destiny. It cannot be escaped by closing one’s eyes, denying it, fighting it, or fleeing from it; such actions would merely be various ways of fulfilling it. Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt. The spirit of Old Prussia and the socialist attitude, at present driven by brotherly hatred to combat each other, are in fact one and the same. This is an incontrovertible fact of history, not just a literary figment. The elements that make up history are blood, race—which is created by ideas that are never expressed—and the kind of thought which coordinates the energies of body and mind. History transcends all mere ideals, doctrines, and logical formulations. For the work of liberating German socialism from Marx I am counting on those of our young people who are sound enough to ignore worthless political verbiage and scheming, who are capable of grasping what is potent and invincible in our nature, and who are prepared to go forward, come what may. I address myself to the German youth in whom the spirit of the fathers has taken on vital forms, enabling them to fulfill a Destiny which they feel within themselves, a Destiny which they themselves are. They must be willing to accept obligations despite hardship and poverty; they must possess a Roman pride of service, modesty in the exercise of authority, and the willingness to take on duties readily and without exception rather than demand rights from others. These conditions once met, a silent sense of awareness will unite the individual with the totality. Such potential awareness is our greatest and most sacred asset. It is the heritage of anguished centuries, and it distinguishes us from all other people—us, the youngest and last people of our culture. It is to these representatives of German youth that I turn. May they understand what the future expects of them. May they be proud to accept the challenge. <strong>...</strong></p>Spengler Oswald - The Hour of Decisionurn:md5:eba0c6e52685540f844544f865990e192012-12-10T19:41:00+00:002012-12-10T19:41:00+00:00balderSpengler OswaldGermanyThird Reich <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Spengler_Oswald_-_The_Hour_of_Decision_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Spengler Oswald</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The Hour of Decision Germany and World Historical Evolution</strong><br />
Year : 1933<br />
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No one can have looked forward to the national revolution of this year with greater longing than myself. The sordid Revolution of 1918 I detested from its first day, for it was the betrayal by the inferior part of our people of that strong, live part which had risen up in 1914 in the belief that it could and would have a future. Everything of a political nature that I have written since then has been directed against the forces which had entrenched themselves, with our enemies' help, on the mountain of our misery and misfortune in order to render this future impossible. Every line that I wrote was meant to contribute to their overthrow, and I hope that it has done so. Something had to come in one form or another to release the deepest instincts in our blood from that load, if we were, like others, to have a voice and to act in the coming world-crises and not merely be their victim. The great game of world politics is not over. Only now are the highest stakes being played for. Every living nation must rise to greatness or go under. But the events of this year allow us to hope that the decision in our case has not yet been made - that we, as in Bismarck's day, shall sooner or later again be subjects and not mere objects of history. The decades in which we live are stupendous - and accordingly terrifying and void of happiness. Greatness and happiness are incompatible and we are given no choice. No one living in any part of the world of today will be happy, but many will be able to control by the exercise of their own will the greatness or insignificance of their life-course. As for those who seek comfort merely, they do not deserve to exist. The man of action is often limited in his vision. He is driven without knowing the real aim. He might possibly offer resistance if he did see it, for the logic of destiny has never taken human wishes into account. But much more often he goes astray because he has conjured up a false picture of things around and within him. It is the great task of the historical expert (in the true sense) to understand the facts of his time and through them to envisage, interpret, and delineate the future - which will come whether we will or no. An epoch so conscious of itself as the present is impossible of comprehension without creative, anticipating, warning, leading criticism. I shall neither scold nor flatter. I refrain from forming any estimate of those things which are only just coming into being. True valuation of an event is only possible when it has become the remote past, and the definitive good or bad results have long been facts: which is to say, when some decades have passed. No ripe understanding of Napoleon was possible before the end of last century, and even we can as yet have no final opinion about Bismarck. Facts alone stand firm, judgments waver and change. In sum, a great event has no need of a contemporary estimate. History itself will judge it when its contemporaries are no longer living. So much, however, can be said already: the national revolution of 1933 was a mighty phenomenon and will remain such in the eyes of the future by reason of the elemental, super-personal force with which it came and the spiritual discipline with which it was carried through. Here was something Prussian through and through, just as was the uprising of 1914, which transformed souls in one moment. The German "dreamers" stood up with a calm imposing naturalness to open a way into the future. But all the more must those who took part realize that this was no victory, for opponents were lacking. The force of the rising was such that everything that had been or was still active was swept away in it. It was a promise of future victories that have yet to be won by hard fighting, and merely cleared the ground for these. The leaders bear the full responsibility therefor, and it is for them to know, or to learn, the significance of it all. The task is fraught with immense dangers, and its sphere lies not within the boundaries of Germany but beyond, in the realm of wars and catastrophes where world politics alone speak. Germany is, more than any other country, bound up with the fate of all the others. Less than any can it be directed as though it were a thing unto itself. And, moreover, it is not the first national revolution that has taken place here - there have been Cromwell and Mirabeau - but it is the first to occur in a politically helpless and very dangerously situated land, and this fact enhances incalculably the difficulty of its tasks. These tasks are, one and all, only just emerging, are barely grasped and not solved. It is no time or occasion for transports of triumph. Woe betide those who mistake mobilization for victory! A movement has just begun; it has not reached its goal, and the great problems of our time have been in no wise altered by it. They concern not Germany alone, but the whole world, and are problems not of a few years, but of a century. The danger with enthusiasts is that they envisage the situation as too simple. Enthusiasm is out of keeping with goals that lie generations ahead. And yet it is with these that the actual decisions of history begin. The seizure of power took place in a confused whirl of strength and weakness. I see with misgiving that it continues to be noisily celebrated from day to day. It were better to save our enthusiasm for a day of real and definitive results - that is to say, of successes in foreign politics, which alone matter. When these have been achieved the men of the moment, who took the first step, may all be dead - or even forgotten and scorned, until at some point posterity recalls their significance. History is not sentimental, and it will go ill with any man who takes himself sentimentally! In any movement with such a beginning there are many possible developments of which the participants are not often fully aware. The movement may become rigid from excess of principles and theories; it may go under in political, social, or economic anarchy, or it may double back upon itself in futility. In Paris in 1793 it was definitely felt "que ça changerait." The intoxication of the moment, which often ruins coming possibilities at the outset, is usually followed by disillusionment and uncertainty as to the next step. Elements come into power which regard the enjoyment of that power as an event in itself and would fain perpetuate a state of things which is tenable for moments only. Sound ideas are exaggerated into self-glorification by fanatics, and that which held promise of greatness in the beginning ends in tragedy or comedy. Let us face these dangers in good time, and soberly, so that we may be wiser than many a generation in the past. But if a stable foundation is to be laid for a great future, one on which coming generations may build, ancient tradition must continue effective. That which we have in our blood by inheritance - namely, wordless ideas - is the only thing which gives permanence to our future. "Prussianism" (Preußentum), as I called it years ago, is important - it is this, precisely, that has just been tested - but "Socialism," of whatever description, is not. We need educating up to the Prussian standard, which manifested itself in 1870 and 1914 and still sleeps in the depths of our soul as a permanent potentiality. It is to be reached only through the living example and moral self-discipline of a ruling class, not by a flow of words or by force. The service of an idea demands mastery of ourselves and readiness for inward sacrifices to conviction. To confuse this with the intellectual compulsion of a program is to be ignorant of the whole issue. And this brings me back to the book: Prussianism and Socialism, 1 in which, in 1919, I began to point out this moral necessity without which there can be no permanent building. All other nations of the world have inherited a character from their past. We had no educative past and have therefore still to awaken, develop, and train the character which lies dormant in our blood. (1. Oswald Spengler, Preußentum und Sozialismus, Munich: C. H. Beck.) The work of which this volume is the first part is written with the same object. I do as I have always done. That is, I offer no wish-picture of the future, still less a program for its realization - as is the fashion amongst us Germans - but a clear picture of the facts as they are and will be. I see further than others. I see not only great possibilities but also great dangers, their origin and perhaps the way to avoid them. And if no one else has the courage to see and to tell what it is he sees, I mean to do so. I have a right to criticism since by means of it I have repeatedly demonstrated that which must happen because it will happen. A decisive series of facts has been set in train. Nothing that has once become a fact can be withdrawn - we are all thereafter obliged to walk in the particular direction, whether we will or not. It would be short-sighted and cowardly to say no. What the individual will not do, that History will do with him. But to say yes presupposes comprehension, and this book is here to help in comprehension. It is a danger-signal. Dangers are always there. Everyone who acts is in danger. Danger is life itself. But those who link the fate of States and nations with their own must meet these dangers seeingly - and to see requires possibly the most courage of all. The present book arose out of a lecture: Germany in Danger, 2 which I delivered at Hamburg in 1929, without meeting with much comprehension. In November 1932 I began to develop the theme, still in terms of the existing situation in Germany. By the 30th January 1933 it was printed up to page 106. I have altered nothing in it, for I write not for a few months ahead or for next year, but for the future. What is true cannot be made null by an event. The title alone I have changed, so as to avoid misunderstandings. It is not the national seizure of power which is a danger; the dangers were there - some of them dating from 1918, others from much further back - and they still persist, since they cannot be got rid of by an isolated event which before taking effect against them must undergo a long development in the right direction. Germany is in danger. My fear for Germany has not grown less. The March victory was too easy to open the eyes of the victors to the extent of the danger, its origin, and its duration. (2. Deutschland in Gefahr, Munich: C. H. Beck.) No one can know what forms, situations, and personalities will arise out of this upheaval, or the reactions which may result from outside. Every revolution makes the external situation of a country worse, and that fact alone requires statesmen of Bismarck's order to deal with it. We stand, it may be, close before a second world war, unable to gauge the distribution of forces or to foresee its means or aims - military, economic, revolutionary. We have no time to limit ourselves to home politics; we have to be "in form" to deal with any conceivable occurrence. Germany is not an island. If we fail to see our relation to the world as - for us in particular - the important problem, fate - and what a fate! - will submerge us without mercy. Germany is the key country of the world, not only on account of her geographical situation on the borders of Asia (which is today the most important continent in world policy), but also because Germans are still young enough to experience world-historical problems, to form them and solve them, inwardly, while other nations have become too old and rigid to do more than raise defences. But in tackling great problems, as in other matters, it is the attack that holds the greater promise of victory. It is of this that I have written. Will it have the effect I hope for? Munich, July 1933. <strong>...</strong></p>Spengler Oswald - Man and Technics A Contribution to a Philosophy of Lifeurn:md5:e582338dfba503f5d6c5cd81e67d33712012-12-10T19:11:00+00:002012-12-10T19:11:00+00:00balderSpengler OswaldEuropeGermany <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Spengler_Oswald_-_Man_and_Technics_A_Contribution_to_a_Philosophy_of_Life_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Spengler Oswald</strong><br />
Title : <strong>Man and Technics A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life</strong><br />
Year : 1931<br />
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In the following pages I lay before the reader a few thoughts that are taken from a larger work on which I have been engaged for years. It had been my intention to use the same method which in The Decline of the West I had limited to the group of the higher Cultures, for the investigation of their historical pre-requisite — namely, the history of Man from his origins. But experience with the earlier work showed that the majority of readers are not in a position to maintain a general view over the mass of ideas as a whole, and so lose themselves in the detail of this or that domain which is familiar to them, seeing the rest either obliquely or not at all. In consequence they obtain an incorrect picture, both of what I have written and of the subject-matter about which I wrote. Now, as then, it is my conviction that the destiny of Man can only be understood by dealing with all the provinces of his activity simultaneously and comparatively, and avoiding the mistake of trying to elucidate some problem, say, of his politics or his religion or his art, solely in terms of particular sides of his being, in the belief that, this done, there is no more to be said. Nevertheless, in this book I venture to put forward some of the questions. They are a few among many. But they are interconnected, and for that reason may serve, for the time being, to help the reader to a provisional glimpse into the great secret of Man’s destiny. <strong>...</strong></p>Spengler Oswald - The decline of the westurn:md5:62838efb066816571cd882b3867338cb2012-03-20T16:05:00+00:002014-05-07T21:24:06+01:00balderSpengler OswaldEuropeFirst World WarJewNorth America <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Spengler_Oswald_-_The_decline_of_the_west_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Spengler Oswald</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The decline of the west Form and Actuality</strong><br />
Year : 1926<br />
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Wenn im Unendlichen dasselbe Sich wiederholend ewig ftiesst, Das tausendfaltige Gewolhe Sich kraftig ineinander schliesst; Stromt Lehenslust aus allen Dingen, Dem kJeinsten wie dem grossten Stem, Und alles Drangen, alles Ringen Ist ewige Ruh in Gott dem Herm. - GOETHE. PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION. AT the close of a.n undertaking which, from the first brief sketch to the final shaping of a complete work of quite unforeseen dimensions, has spread itself over ten years, it will not be out of place to glance back at what I intended and what I have achieved, my standpoint then and my standpoint to-day. In the Introduction to the 1918 edition - inwardly and outwardly a fragment I stated my conviction that an idea had now been irrefutably formulated which no one would oppose, once the idea had been put into words. I ought to have said: once that idea had been understood. And for that we must look - as I more and more realize - not only in this instance but in the whole history of thought - to the new generation that is hom with the ability to do it. I added that this must be considered as a first attempt, loaded with all the customary faults, incomplete and not without inward opposition. The remark was not taken anything like as seriously as it was intended. Those who have looked searchingly into the hypotheses of living thought will know that it is not given to us to gain insight into the fundamental principles of existence without conflicting emotions. A thinker is a person whose part it is to symbolize time according to his vision and understanding. He has no choice; he thinks as he has to think. Truth in the long run is to him the picture of the world which was born at his birth. It is that which he does not invent but rather discovers within himself. It is himself over again: his being expressed in words; the meaning of his personality formed into a doctrine which so far as concerns his life is unalterable, because truth and his life are identical. This symbolism is the one essential, the vessel and the expression of human history. The learned philosophical works that arise out of it are superfluous and only serve to swell the bulk of a professional literature. I can then call the essence of what I have discovered .. true II - that is, true for me, and as I believe, true for the leading minds of the coming time; not true in itself as dissociated from the conditions imposed by blood and by history, for that is impossible. But what I wrote in the storm and stress of those years was, it must be admitted, a very imperfect statement of what stood clearly before me, and it remained to devote the years that followed to the task of correlating facts and finding means of expression which should enable me to present my idea in the most forcible form. To perfect that form would be impossible - life itself is only fulfilled in death. But I have once more made the attempt to bring up even the earliest portions of the work to the level of definiteness with which I now feel able to speak; and with that I take leave of this book with its hopes and disappointments, its merits and its faults. The result has in the meantime justified itself as far as I myself am concerned and - judging by the effect that it is slowly beginning to exercise upon extensive fields of learning - as far as others are concerned also. Let no one expect to find everything set forth here. It is hilt one side of what I see before me, a new outlook on history and the philosophy of destiny - the first indeed of its kind. It is intuitive and depictive through and through, written in a language which seeks to present objects and relations illustratively instead of offering an army of ranked concepts. It addresses itself solely to readers who are capable of living themselves into the word-sounds and. pictures as they read. Difficult this undoubtedly is, particularly as our awe in face of mystery - the respect that Goethe felt - denies us the satisfaction of thinking that dissections are the same as penetrations. Of course, the cry of "pessimism" was raised at once by those who live eternally in yesterday (Ewiggestrigen) and greet every idea that is intended for the pathfinder of to-morrow only. But I have not written for people who imagine that delving for the springs of action is the same as action itself; those who make definitions do not know destiny. By understanding the world I mean being equal to the world. It is the hard reality of living that is the essential, not the concept of life, that the ostrichphilosophy of idealism propounds. Those who refuse to be bluffed byenunciations will not regard this as pessimism; and the rest do not matter. For the benefit of serious readers who are seeking a glimpse at life and not a definition, I have - in view of the far too great concentration of the text - mentioned in my notes a number of works which will carry that glance into more distant realms of knowledge. And now, finally, I feel urged to name once more those to whom lowe practically everything: Goethe and Nietzsche. Goethe gave me method, Nietzsche the questioning faculty - and if I were asked to find a formula for my relation to the latter I should say that I had made of his •• outlook" (AushUck) an .. overlook" (UberhUck). But Goethe was, without knowing it, a disciple of Leibniz in his whole mode of thought. And, therefore, that which has at last (and to my own astonishment) taken shape in my hands I am able to regard and, despite the misery and disgust of these years, proud to call a German philosophy. Blankenburg am Harz, December, I922. OSWALD SPENGLER. <strong>...</strong></p>