Erik Ritter Von Kuehnelt-Leddihn Life Work Sayings & Quotables

Kuehnelt-Leddihn was born in AustriaAustria is a landlocked country in Central Europe, a federation of nine states. Austria is bordered by Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the. At the age of 16, he was the Vienna correspondent of the Spectator (London), a distinguished weekly founded by Addison and Steele. From then on, he didn't stop writing. He studied civil and canon law at the University of ViennaThe University of Vienna ( German: Universitat Wien was founded in 1365 by Rudolph IV and hence named Alma mater Rudolphina''. It is the largest university in Austria and the oldest German-speaking university in the world. Nobel-prize winners who taught a at the age of eighteen. From there, he went to the University of BudapestThis article is about Eotvos Lorand University which is often referred to as University of Budapest . If you are looking for another university in Budapest, see the page List of universities in Budapest''. The University of Budapest or ELTE is the oldest and received an M.A. in economics and his doctorate in political sciencePolitical science is the study of politics. It involves the study of structure and process in government or any equivalent system that attempts to assure safety, fairness, and closure across a broad range of risks and access to a broad range of commons fo. Moving back to Vienna, he took up studies in theologyTheology is literally rational discourse concerning God ( Greek θεος, theos "God", + λογος, logos "rational discourse"). By extension, it also refers to the study of other religious topics.. In 1935Events January January 1 Italian colonies of Tripoli and Kyrenaika are joined together as Libya January 7 World War II: Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French foreign minister Pierre Laval conclude agreement in which each power undertakes not to oppo, von Kuehnelt-Leddihn travelled to England to become Master at Beaumont College. Following the First World War, he moved to the United States, where he was to remain until after the Second World War, at which point he resettled in Austria, where he lived until his death. From 1938 to 1943, he was appointed head of the History Department in St. Peter's College, New Jersey.

His travels took him everywhere. He visited the USSR in 1930 to 1931 and has been to every state in the United States. Since 1957, he took trips every year either around the world or south of the Equator.

Von Kuehnelt-Leddihn taught at Georgetown and Fordham University during his life; he had also written for a variety of publications, including London Spectator and The Catholic World . He also worked with the Acton Institute , who declared him after his death "a great friend and supporter".

2 Work

His socio-political writings deal with the origins and the philosophical and cultural currents that formed Nazism. He endeavored in his work to explain the intricacies of monarchist concepts and the systems of Europe, cultural movements such as Hussitism and Protestantism, and what he perceived as the disastrous effects of American policy derived from anti-monarchical feelings and ignorance of European culture and history. Some of his significant critiques are of Wilsonian foreign policy activism (of which traces can be seen again in the policies of Roosevelt all the way to the presidency of George W. Bush today), which seemed to him to stipulate that democracy was the premier political system and misunderstanding of much Central European culture, including but not only the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was one of the contributing factors that led to the rise of National Socialism (as Nazism was formally known). He also highlights characteristics of the German society and culture (especially the influences of both Protestant and Catholic mentalities) and attempts to explain the sociological undercurrents of National Socialism.

Contrary to the common historical view, Von Kuehnelt-Leddihn claims that National Socialism was a leftist, democratic movement rising out of the French Revolution that unleashed forces of egalitarianism, identitarianism , materialism and centralization. He essentially stipulated that Nazism, Fascism and Communism are all basically democratic movements, which are all based upon motivating the masses to revolution and which include the destruction of the old forms of society. Furthermore, he claims that all democracy is basically totalitarian and that all democracies turn into dictatorships. His research is diagrammed here: and .

In Liberty or Equality , his flagship work, Von Kuehnelt-Leddihn contrasts monarchy with democracy and offers his opinions regarding the superiority of monarchy (all his points are naturally hotly contested by other historians). His contentions include that diversity is upheld better in monarchical countries than in democracies; monarchism is not based on party rule; and that monarchism "fits organically into the ecclesiastic and familistic pattern of Christian society". Thus he argues that monarchical government is actually more "liberal" (using the European definition of liberalism, which he preferred, and which would more likely be called conservatism in the United States, emphasizing tradition, order and capitalism).

As modern life becomes increasingly complicated across many different sociopolitical levels, Kuehnelt-Leddihn submits that the Scita — the political, economic, technological, scientific, military, geographical, psychological knowledge of the masses and of their representatives — and the Scienda — the knowledge in these matters that is necessary to reach logical-rational-moral conclusions — is incessantly and cruelly widening and that democratic governments are totally inadequate for the job.

3 Sayings & Quotables

"Right is right and Left is wrong".
"Man is rather stupid than wicked". Liberty or Equality, pg 189
"The three fundamentally leftist revolutions, those that spawned France's democracy, Russian's international socialism, and Germany's national socialism, formed and fashioned the history of the last two hundred years and established the 'Centuries of the G' — guillotines, gaols, gallows, gas chambers, and gulags". Leftism Revisited, pg xvii

4 Writings

4.1 Novels

Gates of Hell
Night Over the East
Moscow 1979
Black Banners

4.2 Socio-political works

The Menace of the Herd (under the pseudonym of "Francis S. Campell"), The Bruce Publishing Co., Milwaukee, l943.
Liberty or Equality, Christendom Press, Front Royal, Virginia, l952, l993.
The Timeless Christian
The Intelligent American's Guide to Europe
Leftism, From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse, Arlington House, Publishers, New Rochelle, NY, 1974.
Leftism Revisited, From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot, Regenery Gateway, Washington, D.C., l990.

5 Miscellania

Marcel Déat, the author of Révolution française et révolution allemande (Paris, 1943) also concludes that "All of Hitler's political ideas had their origin in the Enlightenment". quoted by Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism 1914-1945, pg 203.

6 Related Topics

7 External Links

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1 Life