1

Hannah Arendt´s Book on Totalitarianism Within the Context of the

Contemporary Debate

The fact that Hannah Arendt´s “The Origins of Totalitarianism” – thus the title
of the first publication of 19511 - constitutes one of the most influential
intellectual products of the early twenty-first century hardly needs proof. Is
there any other academic work able to provoke a whole series of conferences
on the occasion of its fiftieth birthday?2 Furthermore, it is not to be expected
that the wave of works and debates on Hannah Arendt, that has more or less
swept over the Western democracies since the break-down of the Communist
empire, will come to a standstill. Neither have the problems of transition been
solved, which the post-Communist states are facing and which form the actual
“kairos” (Karl Jaspers) of the revived interest in Hannah Arendt, nor will they
decrease due to the fact that these states will soon become members of the
European Union.

If, thus, a book by no means easy to read has not only remained in the fore,
despite having had to pass several rather steep cliffs of both political and
scientific critique, but has even become quite popular, then a renewed reading
is facing the reverse danger: i.e. the threat that it will reproduce merely that
which is already well known, a clichee ossified in the history of the work´s
reception and impact.
A curiositiy sprung from the modern twilight of science and politics, it has
become a unique specimen: a “modern classic of political thought”. The
ambivalent consequences of this canonization are evident in the astonishing
revitalization of the debate on totalitarianism after 1989. Hannah Arendt is
present throughout the entire debate, but while she hardly intervenes in the

1
...
2
From the point of view of its impact, it has probably outrun the „other“ philosophical classic of emigration
(Horkheimer/Adorno 1947).
 2

primarily technical argumentation in Germany, we find the opposite trend in

France; there, the discourse on totalitarianism appears to be almost
philosophically overdetermined, thus coming up against limiting factors (cf.
Jesse 1996 with Traverso 2001).

II. The context of the emigration of political scientists

What is, in fact, meant by placing Hannah Arendt´s book on totalitarianism
“within the context of the contemporary debate”? If we don´t want to
encourage the fashionable reception which merely smoothes comfortable ways
out of the past into the present, then we have to begin with a solid definition
of what is meant by “contemporary debate”. In order to not get lost in the
jungle of the twentieth century, one could aim at a middle course between two
extremes: we would end up with a much too restricted definition of the
context if it encompassed only the immediate academic reception the
totalitarianism book met with first in the United States, in the 1950s and then,
following its translation into other languages, in the European countries. Yet
again, too wide a context would be created if we considered the rich and broad
history of the book´s impact up to the present day, enquiring into its place in
the history of political ideas of the entire twentieth century.3

In the following, I will assume that Hannah Arendt´s book on totalitarianism

can only be fully understood if the context of its emergence is considered to
consist of at least three phases: “The Origins of Totalitarianism” is (1.) a
product of the political-scientific emigration from Hitler-Germany, in which it
(2.) holds a specific and very siginificant place, through which it (3.) was able
to become a historical moving force behind the political thinking of post-war
times.

3
The immediate American reception is documented in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl (1982: 406-412). A comparative
history of the books influence is lacking, as far as I know. The twentieth-century context is outlined in:
Söllner/Walkenhaus/Wieland (1997) and Traverso (2001: esp. 9-110)
 3

This presupposes a conception of “contemporaneity” which is just as emphatic

as it is complex. For the sake of simplicity, I will posit with Karl Mannheim
(1970:509-565) that the political-scientific emigrants can be considered a
generational group determined by specific, above all political, key experiences.
In our case, there is no need for a complicated deduction in order to determine
the formative experience of the group of German Jewish intellectuals and
scientists born around 1900 and to show how it psychologically radicalized
and at the same time politically clarified the experiences of catastrophes made
by the preceding generation, i.e. the generation of the First World War:

This was of course the experience of political expulsion from Nazi-Germany,-

on the one hand, the last way out of anti-Semitism culminating in genocide
and, on the other, salvation by admission to a country of the Western
hemisphere, which initially guaranteed survival and later allowed for a
psychological and intellectual digestion of these experiences. Here, however,
we are already in need of a chronological differentiation: although this
generational experience is linked to the two corner dates of 1933 and 1945, it
begins well before that time, not least because of the backward projection of
what had been gone through, and it reaches far beyond the end of National
Socialism.

That the political-intellectual emigration was equivalent to an extremely

painful intervention in German and European social and intellectual history
was something the contemporaries were well aware of. However, its extent
and, above all, its long-term consequences were only made clear by the so-
called research on exile and emigration. In the field of social science and the
humanities, an almost global impact of the generation of emigrants is revealed,
 4

which from the geographical point of view, too, reaches far beyond those
countries directly concerned.
Therefore it is no exaggeration to consider scientific emigration, in conncetion
with the subsequent remigration and repercussion, in particular, an important
factor in internationalization as such.4

For a better orientation in this overcomplex field, I would propose to

differentiate between two exemplary topics – today we speak of “political
discourses” – and to link them roughly to the major conflicts in world politics
which dominated the second third of the century: on the one hand, the debate
on fascism and National Socialism of the 1930s and early 1940s, a time at
which the fight against the Hitler-regime and European Fascism determined
political thinking; on the other hand, the theory of totalitarianism, which came
to the fore during the 1950s and which partly continued the discourse on
fascism, but simultaneously established a more general system of thought
harmonizing more or less with the changed constellation of powers of the
Cold War (cf. Söllner 1998: 130-145; on emigration, Söllner 1996).

The formation of the history of ideas we have thus sketched is of a

contradictory and complex nature; it shows sedimentations and overlappings
and is furthermore subject to rapid change. In order to indicate the framework
into which I want to fit Hannah Arnedt´s book, I have to work with examples;
I will therefore stick to the following four titles:

Ernst Fraenkel, Dual State, first published in 1941

Franz Neumann, Behemoth, first published in 1942
Sigmund Neumann, Permanent Revolution, also 1942
Friedrich/Brzeszinski, Totalitäre Diktatur, 1956/7

4
The results of research on emigration are presented in a concise summary in Krohn (1998).
 5

This list of authors will hardly meet with objection if one admits to its need for
completion and to the special position of Carl J. Friedrich. Doubtless, these
books represent milestones not only of political-scientific emigration, but also
of the historical sequence of both fields of discourse we are concerned with:
the early theory of National Socialism and fascism, on the one hand, and the
later culminating theory of totalitarianism, on the other. A second objection
referring to the factual context and the communicative density of the context
constructed here, is more difficult to parry: is it in fact possible to maintain a
binding discursive connection between these books or their authors.

A simple evaluation of quotations seems to prove rather the contrary:

Hannah Arendt quotes in her book on totalitarianism:
- Fraenkel 1x
- Franz Neumann 2x (1x positively and 1x negatively)
- Sigmund Neumann´s book is not even mentioned
- Friedrich/Brzeszinski is only mentioned starting with the second
edition, and then merely in the bibliography
Reversely, it is only the latest of the books which has the chance to quote all of
the others. Thus, Friedrich/Brzeszinski quote:
- Fraenkel 1x
- Franz Neumann 2x
- Sigmund Neumann 1x
- Hannah Arendt 4x (i.e., as often as all the others taken together)

This finding is remarkable. Yet, first of all it only shows that there existed a
normal scientific community among the emigrants, too; i.e., the reciprocal
perception was also determined by theoretical differences, political barriers,
and even by personal animosities. If one assumes the reverse, however, and
 6

there are good reasons for doing so, namely that the pressure caused by the
need for acculturation and for survival resulted in a particularly high degree
of political self-stylization or theoretical obstinacy, then one shouldn´t be
astonished by the remarkable communalities which existed despite
communication barriers.

So, how can the position and the importance of Hannah Arendt´s book on
totalitarianism, which overnight made a celebrity of her, be sketched within
the framework of the often critical, sometimes taciturn, yet all in all
remarkably constructive discourse of the emigrépolitical scientists? In what
sense can it be said that it held a historical key position on the axis of the
development of the emigrants´discourse, a fact which certainly constitutes an
original phenomenon in the year 1951? And which of the book´s – or, of course,
of the author´s -characteristics could perhaps explain this special effect?

It is obvious that these questions can hardly be discussed exhaustively here –

all the books mentioned presuppose by far too much as regards their
emergence and appear as highly contradictory products: unique in tone and
inner fine structure, but ambiguous or even controversial as to the context of
their influence. We can merely draw some of the central leitmotifs from the
argumentations and link them to the no less complex and often abstract-
philosophical texture of Hannah Arendt – with the aim of pointing out a
common hue of differing facts or, vice versa, a different evaluation of the same
facts. And from this one could, in turn, draw conclusions concerning the
change in the historical-political situation as it is always mirrored in the
scientific and intellectual products.

A grave restriction of my examination, however, has to be pointed out right

from the start, because it simultaneously implies a preliminary methodological
 7

decision regarding the reading of the totalitarianism analysis: I will restrict

myself entirely to the third part of the book, i.e. to that which Hannah Arendt,
in the introduction to the German edition, called the “totalitarian form of
crystallization” and which she distinguished from the “origins and elements”
of the totalitarian regime (Arendt 1991:14). It is just this restriction which is
being given up in the most recent literature on Hannah Arendt: her book on
totalitarianism is increasingly presented as an outline of a general history of
political ideas since European Enlightenment, as part of a theory of modern
age (thus, e.g., Benhabib 1998: 111-168), sometimes it is even stylized into a
tableau from which the heroine of that modern age, the “female genius”, rises
(thus in Kristeva 2001: 167-270).

II. From the juridical to the socio-theoretical construction of National

Socialism – Ernst Fraenkel and Franz L. Neumann
As is well known, National Socialism – just like Italian fascism, which had
emerged 10 years earlier – had, from its early establishment, been the subject
of intensive observation and scientific examination. The resulting literature of
the first hour was inextricably linked with the battle against Mussolini and
Hitler and, later, against European fascism in its entirety. And since the
persecution rage of the new dictatorships was at first primarily directed
against the political left, it was only logical that reflection on these regimes -
be it under the more general category of fascism or under the more specialized
category of National Socialism – was politically highly determined. A sharp
“anti-discourse” developed, which was not exclusively, but primarily a
domaine of the left-wing intelligentsia.5

5
Typical of this genre is the form of the political pamphlet, books are rather the exception: for the social-democratic
left cf. e.g. Heller (1929). At the other end of the democratic spectrum we often find sympathy with the new regimes
(cf. e.g. Leibholz 1933).
 8

A second type is to be distinguished from this initial constellation of political

exile, namely one for which political opposition was no less binding, which,
however, deduced from this a stronger theoretical emphasis, even an
obligation to outline a comprehensive theory. I would like to call this the
heroic phase of the interpretation of fascism and National Socialism in which
the Hitler-regime, in particular, appeared as the inhuman enemy who, due to
his own successes, but also due to the policy of appeasement practiced by the
western powers, became a superhuman opponent. Typical of this second
phase is an almost monomanic fixation on the National Socialist system of rule,
to which corresponds the monographic form of presentation. The books by
Fraenkel and Neumann do not only belong to this context, they also show
what maximum performance could – despite all problems and impediments –
be achieved by the emigréwriters.6

Perhaps it would be easiest to graps the characteristic traits of that book which
was published in the United States in 1941 under the title of “The Dual State”
by calling to mind the highly memorable history of its emergence: Ernst
Fraenkel, who had worked as union jurist, had collected the material while
still working as lawyer (although that work was already severely impeded)
and had had to smuggle the manuscript out of Germany before he himself
managed to flee from the Nazi henchmen in 1938.7

This finds more or less direct expression in the theoretical construction of the
“Dual State”: Fraenkel concentrates on the changes of the juridical theory and
practice since 1933 and posits the thesis that the development in Nazi-
Germany was characterized by the coexistence of two contradictory legal
systems: the “measure state” on the one hand, which dissolves step by step the

6
Other examples from the same period, which can however not be analyzed here, are: Loewenstein (1939) and
Ebenstein (1943). Almost every emigrépolitical scientist has at one stage written at least one essay against Hitler!
7
The emergence of the dual state is now documented in detail (by Brünneck 1999:7-32).
 9

old legal structures and guarantees, and the “norm state” on the other, which
is on the retreat and the function of which is finally reduced to keeping up the
capitalist production and to orientate it towards arms production.8 The
National Socialist movement has consolidated itself and is firmly in the saddle
of political power, because it has successfully removed constitutional and legal
barriers limiting police power and other institutional power and has brought
jurisdiction under its control. It has rid itself of its enemies by means of direct
force, shattered the autonomy of the social groups and enforced the
gleichschaltung of society; furthermore, it has used the perversion of the legal
and administrative guarantees for turning rascist propaganda into reality, i.e.
for robbing the minorities discriminated against, especially the Jews, of their
legal and social position (cf. esp. Fraenkel 1999b:53-155).

The most humiliating aspect of this analysis, however, was that proof which,
for a university-educated and committed jurist, must have been the most
painful,- a proof for which Fraenkel, however, gave minute evidence: namely,
that quite a large number of the juridical elites and authorities who had been
brought up in the tradition of positivism and who had practiced their belief in
legality during the Weimar Republic, worked in the service of the state of
injustice or had even before been active as anti-democratic writers and had
used jurisprudence to delegitimize the democratic order.

The prime example for this is the constitutional jurist Carl Schmitt, who is
presented by Fraenkel as one of those who helped the National Socialists to
come to power and, at the same time, as the most astute mentor of the
National Socialist conception of politics. The anti-Semitic racial policy of the
national state, thus Fraenkel summarizes his line of reasoning, is nothing but
the translation into practice of Schmitt´s theory of the political enemy. All

8
While this thesis of political science is itself retained, its class-theoretical foundation is weakened on the way from
the German „primary dual state“ (Fraenkel 1999a) to the American „Dual State“ (Fraenkel 1941).
 10

these perversions, however, were only made possible by the long effective loss
of the tradition of rational natural law, of the legal guarantees and of the
corresponding concepts of the inalienable rights of man – the programmatic
anti-liberalism of the National Socialist ideologists was, from this point of
view, merely a final, gruesome disillusionment.9

Fraenkel´s focus on the development from a legal to an injust system as well as

his normative return to natural law may be taken as starting point for an
illustration of how and in what direction the analysis of the “Behemoth”,
published in 1942, surpasses this. At the time of the Weimar Republic,
Neumann had been Fraenkel´s juridical partner; however, he had had to leave
Germany as early as 1933 and had completed a second course of political
science in England (with Harold Laski and Karl Mannheimer) (cf.
Dubiel/Söllner 1984). In the late 1930s, he was furthermore integrated into the
Institute of Social Research, which had had to emigrate too, and within the
framework of the research carried out there, he managed to strengthen a
modified Marxism.

While these were the decisive factors as regards the history of science, the
publication of the “Behemoth” was also an important event from the political
point of view because it analyzed the inner structure of National Socialism at a
time when the United States decided to enter the war against the Axis powers
and when everything depended upon revealing in its entirety the aggressive
dynamism and the destructive potential of the enemy they had to overcome.
Starting from an intensive and self-critical depiction of the Weimar Republic,
Neumann was so convincing in his attempt that, even today, the “Behemoth”
is still considered the first comprehensive interpretation of National Socialism,
which, since then, quite a large number of researchers on contemporary

9
Carl Schmitt is, throughout the „Dual State“, the major opponent (esp. Fraenkel 1999b: 191-201 and 251-259).
 11

history have taken as benchmark for their own work.10 Three large
argumentative steps have to be differentiated:

The analysis of the political system of National Socialism relies on a thesis

which already constitutes the exposition of Neumann´s comprehensive
interpretation: although the ideological battle against liberalism and
democracy had been dominant in the establishment of National Socialism and
had been wrapped in the rhetorics of the “totalitarian state”, this did not imply
that the National Socialist movement´s claim to the subordination of the
authority of the state had been put into effect without impediments. Rather,
state and party entered into a symbiosis hard to define which was in need of
strongly fought for compromises, on the basis of which alone it was possible to
achieve a gleichschaltung of both political and social life (cf. esp. Fraenkel
1999b: 68-113).

It is easiest for Neumann to describe this new construct of everyday power

and beaurocratic rationality by sticking to Weber´s concept of charismatic
leadership and by adding to this an extensive stock-taking of the ideological
formation and the practical application of National Socialist ideology.
Accordingly, Neumann reconstructs the origins of the concepts of people and
race in 19th-century Germany as well as their “modernization” towards anti-
Semitism; above all, however, he is interested in their use for legal and
economic discrimination against Jews. To the inwards directed declaration of
the enemy correspond the outwards directed theories of the “German
lebensraum” and of the superiority of the Germanic race which not only
destroyed international law, but were turned into terrible reality during the
Second World War.11

10
I quote from the German translation of the second edition of 1944 (Neumann 1977). On the origins/emergence of the
Behemoth cf. Gert Schäfer (1977: 633-776).
11
The pertinent chapters III-VI of the first part (Neumann 1977:114-268) have long been overlooked in the economist
interpretation of the Behemoth.
 12

The analysis of the economic system is a matter of great concern to Neumann.

The sharp methodological plea for the primacy of the economy and,
accordingly, for the continual capitalist character of economic activities under
National Socialism (cf. esp. Neumann 1977: 271-286 and 307-313) does,
however, not lead to a misjudging of the great upheavals of the 1930s and 40s.
Taking the reorganization of the economy within the interplay between state
and major industry as an example, he shows in detail that the immense boom
moved within the fusion and juxtaposition of two large circles: while the
private capitalist sector was characterized mainly by processes of
concentration and rapid monopolization, which triggered an undreamt-of
dynamism due to the fact that the dirigiste interventions by the state
(especially compulsory cartels, price control, and, not least, the regulation of
the labor market) were employed to increase profit seeking, the state sector
functioned directly as “command economy”, however, without transforming
the entire economy into a planned economy.12

On the contrary, the main point of Neumann´s argumentation, which is the

more captivating for its closeness to empiricism, allowing it to stick to Marxist
theoretical premises, is that the state´s theft of property following from the
logics of the racial ideology, i.e. the”Aryanization” of Jewish assets and the
“Germanization” of foreign industries, benefited primarily the private tycoons.
In the book´s second edition of 1944, he considers, in view of the advanced war
economy, not so much the reversal of this idea but, rather, he states the fusion
of politics and economy in the collective crime: “The practitioners of violence
increasingly become the entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurs become the
practitioners of violence” (Neumann 1977: 660).

12
Accordingly, the two chapters on monopoly economy (Neumann 1977: 307-347) and command economy (Neumann
1977: 348-422) remain integral parts of the overall thesis of „totalitarian monopoly capitalism“.
 13

The third part of the “Behemoth” spells out what this means sociologically and,
to this end, develops a combined theory of classes and elites, which later
became known as the “polycratic theory”: according to Neumann, a new and
sharply defined structure of power has emerged in Germany, which was
pushed through by direct violence and could only be maintained by
aggressive means, by using terror and propaganda. Still, the ruling class
appears not so much as a unified formation but, rather, as a wild
conglomeration of political, social, and economic “lumps of power”, whose
interest-related rivalry is hardly concealed by the national ideology, which in
turn is without concrete shape, – the ruling powers concur only in their
relentless use of violence both inwards and outwards (Neumann 1977: 423-
463).

The mass of the population is powerless and helpless in the face of the four
organizational pillars of the National Socialist regime: Neumann differentiates
between party, ministerial beaurocracy, army, and economic leadership. Just
as the suppression of the democratic institutions lead to the destruction of
autonomous social milieus in Germany, thus the working class, which had still
been the strongest political force in the Weimar Republic, now is at the mercy
of the direct dictate of the capital and of the authoritarian state beaurocracy,–
compulsory organizations such as the “Deutsche Arbeiterfront” (the German
workers´front), which had been newly created by National Socialism, are
merely a glistening faade behind which reductions in wage levels and slavery
take place.13

The fact that Neumann´s comprehensively designed structural analysis of the

National Socialist social system finally lead to a juridical and state-theoretical
treatise also illustrates his career from union lawyer to political scientist. The

13
Being a former union lawyer, this aspect was of special interest to Neumann (cf. esp. Neumann 1977:464-530).
 14

thesis that the raison d´ètre of the National Socialist regime was above all
tangible in the destruction of the legally guaranteed liberties and that the
resulting vacuum of fear was filled by propaganda and terror was given a
both fundamental and negative final phrasing in the “Behemoth”, behind the
pathos of which was nothing less than the vaguely suspected mass murder of
the European Jews. Neumann described National Socialism as a “none-state”,
thus emphasizing the chaotic, the rational and simultaneously atavistic
elements which gave the regime its incredible destructiveness. The myth of the
“Behemoth” from the Old Testament meant just that (Neumann 1977: 531-550).

III. From historical sociology to typological political science – Sigmund

Neumann and Carl Joachim Friedrich

In the following sketch of the theory of totalitarianism I will commit a faux pas
a historian could normally not afford. I will try to characterize the well-known
concept of totalitarianism by reversing to some degree the diachronic principle
and by questioning the canonical finalization of the theoretical development.
While it is a commonplace in the history of the concept of totalitarianism that
its both temporal and factual point of culmination lies in the 1950s and that its
classic formulation is most tangible in Friedrich´s and Brzeszinski´s book
published in English in 1956 and translated into German in 1957, I would like
to focus on another author of the 1940s – Sigmund Neumann –, who
furthermore occupies a rather heterodox position in the debate on
totalitarianism.

Contrary to the debate on fascism, we are relatively well informed about the
history of the emergence of the conept of totalitarianism, which extends from
the liberal opponents of Mussolini-fascism in the 1920s to a small number of
mostly conservative emigrants such as Waldemar Gurian and Eric Voegelin in
 15

the 1930s and which, in the first years of the Second World War, became a
topos also of the leftist liberal and social democratic emigration. Characteristic
of the latter group are, for instance, the publications of the former Communist
Franz Borkenau, who, however, hardly gets beyond a crude, mainly politically
intended equation of “red fascism” and “Nazi Bolshevism”.14

For the late 1940s, however, secondary literature shows a certain

embarrassment often covered up by assuming a sort of breathing time in
research on totalitarianism, which is explained by the Soviet Union´s entry
into the anti-Hitler coalition. Finally, the 1950s are placed under the paradigm
of the scientification of the concept of totalitarianism, thus seemingly leading
to an organic integration of the development of ideas into the dicipline of
political science. Here, again, the theory of Friedrich and Brzeszinski becomes
the both normative and evolutionary destination almost everything runs up
to. Their book becomes a “classic of the theory of totalitarianism” and political
science is turned into the stadium in which the relay race between the
researchers on totalitarianism ends. The only remaining relevant counterpart
is Hannah Arendt´s book on totalitarianism – but to that we will come later!15

As regards Sigmund Neumann, one should begin by pointing out a general

discrepancy: while he fits into the history of the emigration of political
scientists in a highly significant manner, his work, with the exception of the
older description of the Weimar party system (Neumann 1932), has so far
hardly been acknowledged. This is true above all of that work which he
himself considered his most important, the “Permanent Revolution”. Where
should this book, which was published in 1942, the same year Franz
Neumann´s magnum opus appeared in the United States, be placed in the

14
Franz Borkenau has written a number of books in exile in England. The best known is: The Totalitarian Enemy
(1940). The social democratic context is conprehensively analyzed by William David Jones (1999).
15
It is interesting that a description such as the one by Abbot Gleason (1995), which is not interested in the history of
theory, remains free of this finalization.
 16

development of the concept of totalitarianism? This is by no means a

rhetorically question, since this book - more than any other of the specimen
from the thesaurus of intellectual emigration - has drifted into oblivion,
despite the fact that it has not only formulated, but also solved the
methodological problems posed by the theory of totalitarianism in an
exemplary manner (cf. Söllner 1997: 53-73).

This assessment may well be ventured if one takes as a benchmark the

pronounced appreciation of the difficulties and the methodological care
applied in “Permanent Revolution”. In fact, in Sigmund Neumann´s work, just
about everything revolves around a question which is, almost
programmatically, taken as starting point, namely the question of how a
comparative analysis of entire social systems is made feasible. Actually, the
comparative approach as a methodological problem is at the center of
attention right from the start, also because Neumann assumes that Italian
fascism, German National Socialism, and Russian Bolshevism are by no means
prima facie identical.16

It is only on the basis of three case studies illustrating the different starting
positions, that he develops in a second step - which could by called historical-
inductive - a set of five problem areas to which totalitarian regimes react with
the same or similar strategies. Neumann speaks of the “premise of stability”,
“action instead of program”, the “quasi-democratic foundation” of politics, of
“war psychology”, and of the “leadership principle” (cf. esp. Neumann 1965:1-
43). This program is carried out by adhering step by step to the comparative
method, with the broadly and masterfully consulted material being joined
together in a historical mosaic of the three countries, which gives credit to both
the communalities and the differences.

16
In the following, I quote from the second edition edited by Hans Krohn (Neumann 1965), which contains an
extended bibliography.
 17

Still, at the end it is the common factors which culminate,as it were, and the
careful synthesis of which gives a clear outline to the concept of totalitarian
regime. In this respect it is noteworthy that Neumann does not restrict himself
to the three contemporary totalitarianism “candidates”, to Italy, Germany, and
Russia, but that he also includes the Western democracies in his comparison –
a specific method which he calls “definition by contrast” (Neumann 1965: 44-
45). For the inner structure of totalitarian regimes the following aspects are of
outstanding importance: the installation of the leadership principle, which,
however, is not conceived as purely monocratic but, rather, implies the strong
participation of a group executing power which Neumann refers to as
“political lieutenants”. These are facing a more or less amorphous mass which
is a daughter product of the dissolving bourgeois society and is socio-
psychologically described as “mob” (cf. Neumann 1965: 73-95).

The institutional centre of the totalitarian regime is the “One Party State”,
which, on the one hand, produces the political elite and, on the other, educates
and controls the masses, thus establishing the communication between state
and society (Neumann 1965: 118-141). While the institutional maintenance of
rule also uses thoroughly conventional means such as plebiscitarian will
formation and bureaucratization, as well as militarization and state control
over education, the specific quality of the technique of totalitarian leadership
lies in the use of “fear as political weapon”, including the increasingly effective
steering of the masses through propaganda,- war propaganda, in particular
(Neumann 1965: 198-203).

The curve described by this analysis closes in view of the war of aggression
started by Hitler and initially tolerated by Stalin, but only up to the point
when the Soviet Union joined the other side and became itself a hostile war
 18

party. This movement, meant to be of duration, - the “permanent revolution” -

was in a regime-specific state of tension which would lead with inner necessity
to an “international total war”, as is shown by Neumann in the final chapter
(Neumann 1965: 230-310) – in the year 1942, mark you. This contemporary
signal ought to be be the starting point for a comprehensive reflection on the
contradictions and anachronisms of which political emigration abounds.

In the case of Sigmund Neumann, it is obvious that the crude comparison of

the totalitarian and the democratic principles of order, on which the book
closes, actually had to get into diametrical opposition to the military lines of
conflict. And here we can find probably one of the main reasons why
“Permanent Revolution” was of almost no effect during the 1940s: it simply
did not fit into the then current simultaneously highly politicized and
internationally conditioned situation, with the Soviet Union becoming the
most important ally in the battle against the fascist Axis powers, whose defeat
was by no means in sight.

If one risks jumping from here right into the middle of the 1950s, looking at
Friedrich´s and Brzeszinski´s book on totalitarianism (Friedrich/Brzezinski
1956)17 from the perspective of the crunch question of the analysis of
totalitarianism, so vividly formulated by Sigmund Neumann, i.e. the question
of the methodological feasability of a systems comparison, the question is
raised which changes reveal themselves and how they are linked to the
pretension of “scientification” radiating from political science, in particular, to
the analysis of totalitarianism? What progress can be noticed – or is there also
retrogression, which perhaps was the price to be paid for “scientification”?

17
I here quote from the German translation, for which Friedrich alone signed responsible (Friedrich 1957).
 19

The answer to these questions is rather obvious; one simply has to look at the
much greater amount of historical and empirical material on which the
authors of the mid-1950s could draw. This does not only refer to the largely
increased flood of sources, documents, and analyses of National Socialism, but
even more so to the greater distance which it was possible to keep to the
developments in the Soviet bloc after Stalin´s death and following the
disclosures of the twentieth party convention. To this must be added the fact
that Brzezinski was an expert on Russian dominated societies, a renowned
Sovietologist. Yet, can the same positive assessment simply be transferred to
the subtlety of the theoretical construction and to the methodological
procedure of the analysis of totalitarianism?

I cannot answer this question in detail, here18, but I would like to at least
scratch at the smooth surface of this classic of political science by sketching the
following three reflections:
The first of these considerations refers to the status of the six “general
characteristics” of totalitarian regimes which, as is well known, are listed
bright and cheerfully right at the beginning of the book, in its introduction
(Friedrich 1957:13-23), but which do not really explain how they can form the
basis for the type of totalitarian dictatorship, also because, simultaneously, the
thesis is supported that the totalitarian form of rule is a regime type sui
generis and represents a true historical novelty.

The second consideration is linked to the first, but refers more to the
theoretical and empirical justification of the assumption of monopolization as
it is evident, first, in the leading role of the united party, later becoming over-
dominant in the final three systems characteristics (communications monopoly,
arms monopoly, and economic monopoly). Is this perhaps the expression of a

18
A comprehensive answer is given in the historical work by Hans J. Lietzmann (1999).
 20

problematic tradition of political science, namely its state-centeredness, which

would then, in turn, come into conflict with the initial thesis of the novelty of
totalitarianism, – or is a theoretical model, plausible in the case Bolshevism,
simply projected back onto National Socialism?

Finally, the entire line of reasoning shows an insistent trend towards a

concentration on the methods of rule, i.e. a trend towards a technicist
interpretation which is partly grounded on the assumption of the increasing
significance of technology in modern society, but partly also linked to the
(unfounded) affinity of the science ideal presupposed here to the instrumental
rationality of totalitarian nationalization.19

IV. “The superfluousness of man” – Hannah Arendt´s philosophical

interpretation of totalitarianism

The contemporary context in which Hannah Arendt´s book on totalitarianism

has its place is certainly an ambiguous and contradictory web, and it does not
entirely lose its amorphous character by setting the corner dates in the early
1940s and at the end of the 1950s and by laying down the relationship between
science and politics as the factual framework. If one wants to use this as a
starting point for an analysis and assessment of the book itself, then this
furthermore means to “fit” a singular phenomenon into a historical continuum.
Yet, it is here that the misunderstandings start, because, obviously, the book´s
extraordinary impact was due exactly to the fact that it did not “fit”. The
opposite is to be assumed: Hannah Arendt´s book on totalitarianism appeared

19
It is no accident that the momentous updatings of the concept of totalitarianism are connected with the withdrawal of
the technicist ideal of knowledge. Thus in Hans Maier (1996/7; cf. also Siegel 1997).
 21

on the intellectual stage of the post-war period as a downright surprise coup

which compels one to draw conclusions about the author and the subject!20

Thus, the dry scenario of the history of science and of political theory would
have to be dramaturgically rebuilt, e.g., as follows: what is being played is a
scene from American intellectual life of the early 1950s; the scenery consists,
on the one side, of the huge massif composed of the theories of fascism and
National Socialism, which had progressed from juridical analysis to social
theory and in which the totalitarian system of rule appeared as a functional
component of a machine, orientated to war and destruction, which could only
be overpowered by military means. On the other side, we have the open plain
of the debate on totalitarianism, to which new political life had been brought
by the ideological needs of the Cold War, but which was tied to the
imperatives of scientification by both the comparative perspective and the
integration into the development of political science as a discipline. 21

In what consisted the shock effects when, suddenly, a more or less unknown
New York essayist entered the scene with a book which joined – as it were,
from the ambush of far-away socio-historical studies on Europe during the 19th
century – a debate which was politically just as explosive as it was
theoretically undecided? I would like to distinguish three of these shock
effects:

1. The thesis of the singularity and the novelty of totalitarianism

From time to time it had already been asserted that totalitarian regimes are a
phenomenon sui generis and that they represent a new development in

20
That insight has to do with the “breaking up of the historical continuum” was one of the basic maxims of Walter
Benjamin, with whom Hannah Arendt was well acquainted in Paris during the 1930s.
21
On the rank of the theory of totalitarianism in the context of the Cold War cf. Abbott (1995); on the development of
the discipline of American political science cf. Raymond Seidelman (1985).
 22

political history.22 But Hannah Arendt has – in a manner she was later feared
for – given extraordinary sharpness and pith to this assertion, thus necessarily
attracting attention: in her argumentation, totalitarianism appeared as
something “completely new” in the history of mankind, even as an outrageous
and shocking phenomenon which did by no means allow for historical or
scientific detachment. However, her thesis was turned into a downright
provocation only through two complications, which were connected with the
peculiar construction of the book itself and which unexpectedly turned a
gesture of disarming naivety into an attack on the foundations of the
established historical and social sciences.

Hannah Arendt questioned the two basic convictions of scientific research,

namely the belief in the continuity and the belief in the causality of historical
and social processes, and she did so without worrying in any way about the
complex methodological and theoretical prerequisites she thus touched. And
secondly, she ran into a rather obvious contradiction as regards the historical
design of her book for, according to the conventions of the historian´s trade,
the chapters on anti-Semitism and on imperialism, no matter how
comprehensive and important they were, could only appear as previous
history which probably had paved the way for the emergence of totalitarian
rule.

A discussion on the methodological foundations of Hannah Arendt´s book on

totalitarianism is not our matter of concern.23 I therefore refrain from
reconstructing the belated justifications such as the differentiation between the
“origins and elements” of totalitarian rule and their “form of crystallization”,
which is certainly doubtful (Arendt 1991: 13-14); likewise, one ought to

22
E.g. by the historian Carlton J.H. Hayes (1940) at the conference “The Novelty of Totalitariansim in the History of
Western Civilization (1939), Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (82).
23
An attempt in that direction is made by Seyla Benhabib (1998; 111ff); a critical position is now taken by Richard
Wolin (2001: 31-69).
 23

examine the impression that it was because of the attention she received in
scientific circles that Hannah Arendt increased the emphasis on the thesis of
the singularity and novelty of totalitarianism. A very good starting point for
that investigation would be the text ”Ideologie und Terror” (“Ideology and
Terror”), written in 1953 for the Jasper-festschrift, which later replaced the
final chapter of the first American edition. This most frequently quoted text,
however, also reveals a reverse movement, suggesting that Hannah Arendt
wanted to dam again and re-integrate into the history of ideas the
unprecedented fright she had caused with her book.

Thus, this text features formulations such as: “Das Entsetzen gilt nicht dem
neuen schlechthin, sondern der Tatsache, dass dies Neue den
Kontinuitätszusammenhang unserer Geschichte und die Begriffe und Kategorien
unseres politischen Denkens sprengt. Wenn wir sagen: Dies hätte nicht geschehen
dürfen, so meinen wir, dass wir dieser Ereignisse mit den großen und durch große
Tradition geheiligten Mitteln unserer Vergangenheit weder im politischen Handeln
noch im geschichtlich-politischen Denken Herr werden können..” (Arendt 1991: 705)
On the other hand, directly following this passage, she tries to place the
phenomenon of totalitarianism into the framework of the traditional doctrine
of types of state, in this case Montesquieu´s typology of political ethics,- thus
coming to the well-known conclusion that the ”actual novelty” of totalitarian
rule resides not so much in the quantitative increase, but, rather, in a new
quality of ideology and terror, in its elevation to the level of the central
constituents of political control as such.24

It is obvious that, with such considerations, Hannah Arendt achieved a new

literary quality in the debate on the phenomenon of totalitarianism; however,
the present context reaveals what Hannah Arendt, as it were, missed when she

24
The famous passages (Arendt 1991: 711-724) show a new intensity in the formulations, too, compared to the
previous chapters on the secret police and the concentration camps!
 24

formulated her specific philosophical version of the theory of totalitarianism.

She thus neglected, for instance, as is made clear by looking at the work of the
two Neumanns, the significant and thoroughly accessible explanatory
potential which was offered in the more recent traditions of sociological theory
for the topicalization of the inner cohesion and the functional differentiation of
totalitarian regimes, be it in the form of the Marxist social doctrine or in the
form of humanistic structural sociology, in which Sigmund Neumann had his
roots, as is well known. She furthermore neglected the arsenal of methods of
comparative social and political research, which pushed for relativization and
detachment,- a line of research which, at the end of the 1940s, was certainly
only in an embryonic stage, but which, from today´s point of view, constitutes
an indispensable basis for every approach to the theory of totalitarianism. 25

2. General interpretation in the spirit of the German existential philosophy

That leads us to a second and probably even stronger shock effect of the book
on totalitarianism. How could Hannah Arendt so blithely cast to the winds
these preliminary works and by what were they replaced? Or, in other words,
- because asking after a “gap” does not fit the temperament of this writer, even
with regard to her debut - where did the power and the intensity come from,
which made her totalitarianism analysis so distinctive, right from the
beginning? Or do we have to go even further and suggest that the analysis´
special effect lay in revealing the limits of science confronting the phenomenon
of totalitarianism and in that Hannah Arendt insisted that one not only had to
speak of this phenomenon, but also had to take it as a starting point for a new
and universal mode of speaking and thinking?

25
That is the irrevocable conviction of all updatings of the totalitarianism debate, of the more sceptical, because socio-
scientifically oriented, one as well as of the hunanistic one, which tunes positively into the philosophical tenor. With
regard to the first cf. esp. Juan J. Linz (2000); with regard to the second cf. Hans Maier (1996/7).
 25

That her specific way of arguing and her literary elegance had to do with a
pronounced philosophical talent was already evident during the early 1950s.
However, where this remarkable gift stemmed from and what the preparation,
the philosophical fine-tuning of the applied instruments of interpetation
consisted in we know in detail only now, due to the intensive biographical
research Hannah Arendt has attracted in recent years. She distinguishes
herself through her individualization not only from the broad, collective-
biographical research on exile and emigration; she also has turned a small
scientific wonder into a great fashion with an international aura, which does
not shy away from scandalization.26

Regardless of how one judges this literature in its endearing glorification – the
parallel historio-philosophical approach has shown in an entirely convincing
manner that the remarkable dynamism which had driven Hannah Arendt´s
political thinking since the 1950s is in fact best understood if one recognizes
that here basic concepts are at work which had obviously been adapted
straight from the German existentialist philosophy of the Weimar Republic, in
concrete terms, from Martin Heidegger and – somewhat toned down – from
Karl Jaspers. Of course, one has to add immediately that this adaptation
amounted, from the very beginning, to a transformation of these basic
concepts; this was, on the one hand, due to Hannah Arendt´s specific personal
history of learning and, on the other, was the result of drawing a serious
philosophical lesson from the totalitarianist experience. Her book on
totalitarianism is nothing less than the first distressing monument on this
difficult path.27

26
The book by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl (1982) still was a solid political-intellectual biography. The dramatization
started when the romance between Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger became known: Elzbieta Ettinger (1995).
The glorification reached its peak with Julia Kristeva (2001).
27
Most convincing in this respect is – following several earlier essays – Seyla Benhabib (1998: esp. 96-103 and 169-
192):
 26

In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that the book´s chapter on totalitarianism

represents a great philosophical success, the remarkable unity and –
inseperably linked to that – the linguistic urgency of which is revealed when
paying attention to the intonation and the leitmotif-like reappearance of basic
anthropological concepts such as ”Verlassenheit” (“solitariness”),
“Weltlosigkeit” (“worldlessness”), and “Zerstörung der menschlichen Natur”
(“destruction of human nature”). Already in the introductory chapter, a
philosophical wide-shot is taken by diagnosing the state of the individual in
mass society as the “Zerstörung des Weltbezugs” (“destruction of the
connections to the world”) (Arendt 1991: 523-4). This motif continues to be
used in the description of totalitarian propaganda and of the totalitarian
organization, which in fact become “totalitarian” precisely through the
destruction of the connections to the world and of the relations between
people and by replacing them with an “iron bond”.

The description of totalitarian rule in the narrow sense then sort of pushes
aside the traditional institutions of the monopoly of power – the apparatus of
state and the military -, in order to illustrate, with the secret police, the actual
totalitarian instruments of rule: ideology as the total destruction of reality and
terror as the practical translation of the same principle. In the concentration
and extermination camps, finally, Hannah Arendt detects “die eigentliche
zentrale Institution des totalen Macht- und Organisationsapparates” (“the actual
central institution of the totalitarian apparatus of power and organization”)
(Arendt 1991: 677) and, thus, the core of the essence of totaliatrian rule, which
eludes functional analysis because what is practiced here is neither violent
sadism nor annihilation of the enemy, but, rather, a demonstration of the
“Überflüssigkeit des Menschen “ (“superfluousness of man”) (Arendt 1991: 688-9).
 27

3. The factual benefit of the “philosophical exaggerations” for the analysis of

totalitarianism
Even the sharpest critics have had to concede that, with her first publication in
the United States, Hannah Arendt presented a highly original work, the
intellectual urgency of which was above all connected with the dynamism of
her philosophical mode of speech. Simultaneously, the contemporary critique
often suggested that the existentialist philosophical emphasis, which
characterizes the entire diction of the book, did perhaps not harm the clarity of
her argumentation, but did in fact cover up severe empirical deficits. Thus it
was argued that Hannah Arendt, who accepted only National Socialism and
Stalinism as totalitarian regimes in the strict sense (and not Italian fascism, nor
the Socialist regimes after Stalin), did not have sufficient knowledge of the
Soviet development or that she had not paid enough attention to the inner
structures of National Socialism, to the role of the economy, in particular.

Yet, this same train of thought, which feeds on the mistrust between
philosophy and science, could well be reversed and it could be asked whether
it had not in fact been the “philosophical exaggerations” to which research –
then just as much as nowadays – owes important insights into the inner logic
of totalitarianism of both fascist and Bolshevik style. With regard to our
context, it is of special interest to ask whether Hannah Arendt´s philosophical
approach had supported or, rather, impeded the factual, i.e. the historical and
the socio-scientific research on totalitarian societies. In the weighing of this
question I suspect the third shock effect, which Hannah Asrendt´s book on
totalitarianism triggered perhaps not so much at the time of its appearance,
but rather from today´s point of view.
 28

I finally would like to simply list some of the achievements of the

totalitarianism book, restricting myself to the corner points of our context, in
order to point to a perspective for a detailed comparison:
a) The juridical-theoretical analysis, which became binding for Fraenkel,
as well as the polycratic theory, binding for Franz Neumann, are also
present in Hannah Arendt´s work, though in a rudimentary and
toned-down form, but more clearly than is expressed by the
quotations.
b) The focus on the permanent mobility and the institutional integration
of the “mob” into the practice of rule, characteristic of Sigmund
Neumann, is just as crucial to Hannah Arendt.
c) Highly original – and of great significance for the analyses of both
National Socialism and Stalinism – is Hannah Arendt´s observation
that the actual aggravation of terror did not come first and was not
directed so much against the political opponents, but rather, that it
started only after the regimes had established themselves and was
therefore directed “potentially against everyone”.
d) As regards the key role of the secret police in securing political
power, Friedrich/Brzezinski have not only felt themselves to be
inspired by Hannah Arendt, but even had to accept being corrected
by her (in greater detail in Lietzmann 1999: 131-141).
e) What remains is the large complex of mass extermination, which has
since then increasingly become the focus of attention of politics and
science, in concrete terms: the gulag and the Jewish genocide. In this
respect, Hannah Arendt´s place in the history of science seems to be
characterized by a certain ambivalence. On the one hand, her book
on totalitarianism has turned this aspect, through its powerful
existentialist interpretation, into something that can clearly not be
overlooked or neglected by research, not least because of the
 29

pugnacious – and up this day controversial – thesis of the total

economic anti-rationality of the holocaust, in particular. On the other
hand, it is obvious that the consequent, i.e. the historically detailed
and sociologically momentous study of the holocaust was not
primarily inspired by Hannah Arendt, but, as is shown by the work
of Raul Hilber, in particular, rather by the structural theory of Franz
Neumann (cf. Hilberg/Söllner 1988: 175-200).

It would be just as childish and inappropriate, in Germany, in particular, to

create a retrospective competition between the authorities of the contemporary
historical consciousness, as it would be provocative - and by no means
irreverent – to ask whether Hannah Arendt would have supported the
inflationary remembrance policy which has latched on to the metaphor of the
“singularity of the holocaust”. Would she perhaps also have contradicted this
mixing of politics and science, and would she have done so by means of just
that obstinacy of philosophical reflection in face of a retrogressive public, in
which critique and public morals become indistinguishable, which was to
become so important in her entire future work?