Non Fiction Authors From Germany

"The only positive connection between India and National-Socialism would be in the person of Jakob Wilhelm Hauer. (...) Hauer was one of those German Upanishad-lovers in the tradition of Arthur Schopenhauer. There was nothing wrong with his search for a universal religion in which Hinduism would be a major tributary. The point is that the regime was hostile to this project. When he propagated Paganism, he had to clothe it in a verbiage of Germanness, downplaying his Hindu sources. (...) The Nazis mocked him as a failed missionary now making a second soul-winning attempt on the Germans..."

"The oldest building in Jaunpur is the masjid of Ibrahim Naih Barhak in the fort ; it is a long narrow building of the early Bengali type, that is, a simple arcade supported on carved Hindu pillars, with three low domes in the middle."

"Inscription No. XLIV is written in twenty incomplete lines on a white sandstone, broken off at either end, and split in two parts in the middle. It is dated Saṁvat 1241, or A.D. 1184, in the time of Jayachchhandra of Kanauj, whose praises it records for erecting a Vaishṇava temple, from whence this stone was originally brought and appropriated by Aurangzīb in building his masjid known as Tretā-kī-Thākur. The original slab was discovered in the ruins of this Masjid, and is now in the Faizābād Local Museum."

"Even today one finds overall in the realm of the Indo-Aryans and their anthropological and geographical surroundings blond and blue-eyed types, so that we may assume that the dark-haired and dark-eyed ‘north Indians’ became darker partly under the influence of the climate [and] partly through admixture with the dark-skinned pre-Aryan inhabitants of ancient India."

"Bābar‘s Masjid at Ayodhyā was built in A.H. 930, or A.D. 1523, by Mīr Khān, on the very spot where the old temple Janmāsthānam of Rāmachandra was standing."

"It is dated Samvat 1241 or A.D. 1184, in the time of Jaychchandra of Kanauj, whose praises it records for erecting a Vaishnava temple, from whence this stone was originally brought and appropriated by Aurangzeb in building his masjid known as Treta-ki-Thakur. The original slab was discovered in the ruins of this Masjid."

"The old temple of Ramachandra at Janmasthanam must have been a very fine one, for many of its columns have been used by the Musalmans in the construction of Babar's masjid. These are of strong, close-grained, dark-coloured or black stone, called by the natives knsnuti, 'touch-stone slate,' and carved with different devices. They are from seven to eight feet long, square at the base, centre and capital, and round or octagonal intermediately"

"It is locally affirmed that at the Musalman conquest there were three important Hindu temples at Ayodhya: these were the Janma-sthanam, the Svargadvaram, and the Treta-ka-Thakur. On the first of these Mir Khan built a Masjid, in A.H. 930 during the reign of Babar, which still bears his name."

"Today, it is considered settled that the racial traits of the Indo-Aryans link them historically to that race which has had the definitive influence in the Indo-Germanic world, the northern [race]."

"India is universally held to be the land of quiet contemplation, escapist mysticism, dreaming passivity. But whoever knows India knows that this image is onesided. It is true that the Indo-Aryans, very early in their history, turned inward with an exceptional fervor. . . . [But] the urge toward contemplation and a turn away from the world is only one side of the Indo-Aryan essence. Complementing it in a polar tension is an extraordinary activism that worked itself out ever anew through the millennia in gladiatorial battles, and in the building of temples and riches. The powerful northern blood inheritance [nordische Bluterbe] of the Aryans who migrated into India roughly three millennia before Christ did not remain concealed in India."

"The Duchess...made court at the accession of the present family, by abusing Queen Anne to the Princess of Wales (afterwards Queen Caroline). One day relating her violent quarrel with her mistress, She said to the Queen, "then, Madam, you mean to bring over your Brother!" The Queen replied, "I wish I was sure he was my Brother!"—This implied two things, that She doubted whether he was genuine; & that if he was, She would bring him over. "And yet, continued the Duchess, the Creature (Caroline was shocked at such an expression used about a Queen—and might have been shocked more at the ingratitude of the Woman who used it), notwithstanding her letters, knew he was her brother." The Princess asked what She meaned by notwithstanding her letters—She meaned those the Queen had writ, and as She owned by her advice, as it was her then beleif, to persuade the Prince and Princess of Orange that Queen Mary of Este was not with child—which after King William came over, they found so much reason to doubt—enough, it is plain, to convince the Duchess that the Cheavlier was King James's Son."

"It is to her the the Duke is chiefly indebted for his greatness and his fall; for above twenty years she possessed, without a rival, the favours of the most indulgent mistress in the world, nor ever missed one single opportunity that fell in her way of improving it to her own advantage. She hath preserved a tolerable court-reputation, with respect to love and gallantry; but three furies reigned in her breast, the most mortal enemies of all softer passions, which were sordid avarice, disdainful pride, and ungovernable rage; by the last of these often breaking out in sallies of the most unpardonable sort, she had long alienated her sovereign's mind, before it appeared to the world. This lady is not without some degree of wit, and hath in her time affected the character of it, by the usual method of arguing against religion, and proving the doctrines of Christianity to be impossible and absurd. Imagine what such a spirit, irritated by the loss of power, favour, and employment, is capable of acting or attempting, and then I have said enough."

"The word CHURCH had never any charm for me, in the mouths of those who made the most noise about it; for I could not perceive that they gave any other distinguishing proof of their regard for the thing than a frequent use of the word, like a spell to enchant weak minds; and a persecuting zeal against Dissenters and against those real friends of the Church who would not admit that persecution was agreeable to its doctrine. And as to Affairs of State: Many of these Churchmen seem to me to have no fixed principles at all, having endeavored during the last reign, to undermine that very government which they had contributed to establish."

"Lady Anne Egerton, the deceased Lady Bridgewater's only daughter, married first Wriothesley Duke of Bedford, and secondly to Lord Jersey. This lady inherited such a share of her grandmother's imperial spirit, as to match her pretty fairly, and insure daggers' drawing as soon as it should find time and opportunity to display itself. But, ere the stormy season set in, the grandame had acquired her picture; which she afterwards made a monument of vengeance, in no vulgar or ordinary mode. She did not give it away; nor sell it to a broker; nor send it up to a lumber-garret; nor even turn its front to the wall. She had the face blackened over, and this sentence, She is much blacker within, inscribed in large characters on the frame. And thus, placed in her usual sitting-room, it was exhibited to all beholders."

"I am told that the secret letters between Queen Anne and the Duchess of Marlborough, in the first glow of their passion, are still extant in a certain house in the Green Park. They used to correspond under feigned and romantic names. When this intense friendship abated, the duchess was certainly more in fault than the queen. Such was the equality produced by their intimacy, that almost the sole remaining idea of superiority remained with her who had the advantage in personal charms—and in this there was unfortunately no comparison. The duchess became so presumptuous that she would give the queen her gloves to hold, and on taking them again would affect suddenly to turn her head away, as if her royal mistress had perspired some disagreeable effluvia!"

"Let me correct a story relating to the great duke of Marlborough. The duchess was pressing the duke to take a medicine, and with her usual warmth said, "I'll be hanged if it do not prove serviceable." Dr. Garth, who was present, exclaimed, "Do take it then my lord duke; for it must be of service, in one way or the other.""

"We all know what an astonishing personality Sarah's was: her beauty, her passionate devotion to her famous husband, her forthrightness, candour and sincerity, her possessiveness and tenacity, the jealous spirit that went with it, her quarrelsomeness and next to impossibility for anybody to live with. She was like a flame that scorched, rather than warmed, everything that came near her. And yet one would forgive her everything for her magnificent answer to the Duke of Somerset: "If I were young and handsome as I was, instead of old and faded as I am, and you could lay the empire of the world at my feet, you should never share the heart and hand that once belonged to John, Duke of Marlborough.""

"Bishop Burnet's absence of mind is well known. Dining with the duchess of Marlborough, after her husband's disgrace, he compared this great general to Belisarius. "But," said the Duchess, eagerly, "how came it that such a man was so miserable, and universally deserted?"—"Oh, madam (exclaimed the distrait prelate), he had such a brimstone of a wife!""

"The beauty of the Duchess of Marlborough had always been of the scornful and imperious kind, & her features and air announced nothing that her temper did not confirm; both together, her beauty & temper, enslaved her heroic Lord. One of her principal charms was a prodigious abundance of fine fair hair. One day at her toilet in anger to him she cut off these commanding tresses and flung them in his face. Nor did her Insolence stop there; nor stop till it had totally estranged and worn out the patience of the poor Queen her Mistress. The duchess was often seen to give her Majesty her fan & gloves & turn away her own head, as if the Queen had offensive smells."

"I asked her Lady Suffolk] about the Queen's loving to see the Duchess of Marlboro—She said, as I have heard from others too, that the Latter always behaved rudely & yet making Court by abusing queen Anne. Lady Suffolk says she was so disgusted with this meanness, that She said to the Queen, "now, Madam, woud it be worse, if all these Stories were mere Invention?" She says, the Duchess was persuaded that by the very time Queen Anne came to the Crown, She had lost her favour, & only governed Her by her Timidity. Towards the end of her life, Queen Anne had had an operation in her back—the Duchess used to wait in the outward room, and say, I will not go in till that Nasty Thing is over—no wonder with so many Enemies, this was reported to the Queen."

"Incapable of due respect to superiors, it was no wonder she treated her children & inferiors with supercilious contempt. Her eldest Daughter, & She were long at variance & never reconciled. When the younger Duchess exposed herself by placing a monument & silly epitaph of her own composition & bad spelling to Congreve in Westminster abbey, her Mother, quoting the words, said, "I know not what pleasure She might have in his company, but I am sure it was no honour." With her youngest daughter the Duchess of Montagu old Sarah agreed as ill—"I wonder, said the Duke of Marlborough to them, that you cannot agree, you are so alike!" Of her grand-daughter the Duchess of Manchester daughter of the Duchess of Montagu, She affected to be fond. One day she said to her, "Dss of Manchester, you are a good creature & I love you mightily—but you have a mother!" "and She has a Mother!" answered the Manchester, who was all Spirit, justice, and honour, & could not suppress sudden truth."

"Lady Bateman struck the first stroke, and persuaded her Brother to marry a handsome young Lady, who unluckily was daughter of Lord Trevor, who had been a bitter enemy of his Grandfather the victorious Duke. The Grandam's rage exceeded all bonds. Having a portrait of Lady Bateman She blackened the face and wrote on it, "now her outside is as black as her inside". The Duke She turned out of the little Lodge in Windsor park, and then pretending that the new Duchess & her female cousins, eight Trevors, had stripped the house and garden, She had a puppet-show made with waxen figures representing the Trevors tearing up the Shrubs, and the Duchess carrying off the chicken-coop under her arm. Her fury did but increase when Mr Fox prevailed on the Duke to go over to the Court. With her coarse intemperate humour She said, "That was the Fox that had stolen her Goose". Repeated injuries at last drove the Duke to go to law with her. Fearing that even no Lawyer would come up to the Billingsgate with which She was animated herself, She appeared in the court of justice, and with some wit and infinite abuse treated the laughing public with the spectacle of a Woman who had held the reins of empire metamorphosed into the Widow Blackacre. Her Grandson in his suit demanded a sword set with diamonds given to his Grandsire by the Emperor. "I retained it said the Beldame, lest he should pick out the diamonds and pawn them.""

"Man is a self-conscious Nothing."

"And if my friends refused to listen to me, then the walls had to hear me or the stones in the fields and the trees of the forests."

"[The self is divided within itself], willing what it does not will and not willing what it wills."

"[On Hegel's panlogism offers] no asylum for lawless vagabonds (sinners against the logical order), no free playground granted by the master of the world in his good humor to each of these kobolds, where they might have the privilege of moving about and of enjoying themselves in a manner unrelated to the rational worldpurpose-until their day also came and the broomstick of the courtmaster would sweep them out into the sanctum."

"The conclusion of the Realdialektik is: 'It does not suffice' either for complete annihilation or for full satisfaction. The child of Gaia is born between heaven and hell, now ready to camp with the lightshunning creatures of the Chthonic darkness, now ready to flutter upwards to the heights of splendor."

"[On Spinoza's necessity of the world's process:] The inability to resign oneself to the necessary order, is also a necessity and the pain is on that account no less!""

"[On Schopenhauer:] I went away conscious that I had seen not only a genius-of ideas, but also a character of the most genuine sublimity . . I felt myself . . . transported into a new existence. Francis of Assisi and the other heroes of asceticism had become my ideals."

"The longer I live, the more I feel that the simplest formula for the constancy of my fate is: on a lost watch."

"What in all the world has courage to do with hope?"

"The greatest pain of all, Bahnsen maintains, comes from the death of a loved one. When we lose someone we cherish, someone in whom we have invested all our heart, we are shattered into a thousand pieces; our inner world is filled with “the infinity of nothingness". The most desolate emptiness of them all is “the dark feeling of loneliness” that comes with the loss of our nearest and dearest. In a world without providence, redemption or immortality, this loss is complete, eternal and irredeemable. There cannot be any comfort, there cannot be any compensation, for the loss. Of course, time heals all wounds; but we fear the dead becoming dead for us, because we know that, should we forget them, we too will be dead in our own best part."

"During the winter and spring of 1933, the Nazis made a strenuous effort to present themselves as in harmony with conservative German and Prussian traditions, or even as the natural result and outgrowth of these traditions. The nazis made the conservative Prussian past serviceable to their need for political legitimation to an extent hitherto unprecedented. Long before the Second World War, Prussian values became National Socialist values, judged to epitomize the German character, and help up as models to emulate: austerity, thrift, tenacity in the pursuit of one's goals, a preparedness for personal sacrifice, and a willingness to lay down one's life in the service of a higher cause that would win out in the end, even in the face of overwhelming odds. Above all, there was the concept of duty; it was imperative to "fulfill" one's duty of the ' and the . Among other things, made the Prussian past and the values it imputed to it palpable in the form of Grand historic films that enjoyed mass audiences. It was already during the period of the seizure of power that conservatives lost the Deutungshoheit, that is, the prerogative to interpret the great traditions and historical figures of the past, to the Nazis. From 1933 onwards, the Nazis acted as self-appointed guardians of the national heritage. And they did this with greater aplomb, audacity, and-in many instances-more skill than conservative propagandists during the before them."

"The concept of conservatism cannot easily be described by traditionalistic definitions and refuse to pose as just another 'ism'. The Pope on his return to Rome in 1814 outlawed all street lighting because it was in his view a 'revolutionary innovation'. In stating this opinion he gave a remarkable definition of what conservatism wants to avoid. Conservatism is, however, not necessarily opposed to change. Modern , though frequently called , may have a quite progressive . The Fascist regimes in Germany and Italy became the most violent rationalistic modernisers of their respective countries in spite of ideological commitments to an . Modern definitions of right-wing extremism are still based on the traditional criterion for differentiating between conservatives and reactionaries: conservatives try to maintain the , right-wing extremists want to restore the . A second criterion has been added, however: the envisaged restoration may, if necessary, be achieved by the use of force. This latter criterion may be better applied to fascism and neo-fascism than to traditionalist reactionary movements."

"Anarchism had belonged to the most active resistance fighters against , and their numbers had been decimated by the ruthless National Socialist persecution. Between 1919 and 1923 there had been approximately 1500,000 anarchists in . By the end of the Weimar Republic, about 50,000 activists remained. In 1945 their numbers were down to 15,000, and many of those were seriously ill as consequence of torture and persecution. Hence, anarchist groups in the immediate post-war period had no more than about 5,000 members. In its pre-1933 centres such as , , /, Berlin, and groups were formed who tried to rivive German anarchism organisationally and intellectually. In the Soviet zone of occupation, they soon clashed with the Soviet military authorities and the SED. Their leading figures such as Alfred Weiland or Willi Jelinek were kidnapped by the and imprisoned on trumped-up charges. Whether Jelinek's death in Bautzen prison had natural causes or was murder is still unclear today. By 1948-49 there subsequent waves of persecution had uprooted anarchism in the Soviet zone to such an extent that it was organisationally extinct. In the West, the 1950s saw maany attempts to unite the diverse groups into one German federation. The absence of the leading intellects on the movement's ability to regenerate its energies. Many, like , had been murdered by the Nazis. Others, like Rudolf Rocker or , were still in exile. Furthermore, Rocker was arguably more influential in Spain than in Germany, ant the same can be said in relation to Souchy and Latin America. Despite the many organisational and ideological fissures which characterised post-war German anarchism, an attempt to the movement finally succeeded at a conference in Neviges in August 1959. Yet the emerging Association of Free Socialist and Anarchists was not successful in reviving the fortunes of German anarchism. It failed to overcome the strong ideological differences between the diverse anarchist groups leading a rather shadowy existence in subsequent years. By the mid-1960s, anarchism was marginal political phenomenon in the Federal Republic, and the very words 'anarchism' and 'anarchic' had become bywords for disorganisation rather than signifying one of the few genuine alternatives which had existed in the history of the German left to reformist Social Democracy on the one hand and authoritarian Communism on the other."

"Leopold von Schroeder's interest in the problem of the Aryan came from completely different sources than that of Heinrich Zimmer and would be worth a more detailed presentation. ... In his lectures on "India's Literature and Culture in Historical Development" (1887) he presents Indian culture from this perspective. However, he is far removed from the German-ethnic view of history that was increasingly practiced in the capital of the German Empire at the time, and initially leans much more towards its antipodes in Basel. He took his cue from Jakob Burckhardt and Friedrich Nietzsche, who do not focus on the national community but on the individual, the new Dionysian human being, and deny the state, as well as traditional church education, the ability to form this new human being and perfect him for his task in history. However, what is meant in a generally philosophical sense by Burckhardt and Nietzsche becomes very consciously German in Schroeder's implementation...."

"Hereafter, we will have to reckon again and again with Japan, indeed, with the Orient as a whole. Orientalistik will become a practical field of study, no longer what it was previously, a scrupulously avoided domain of dry as dust pedants. A chair for Japanology will soon be created [actually, the first came in 1914]. But chairs are not the only thing — and they are not the most important thing in the world. In hundreds and thousands of canals the life blood of the peoples is flowing back and forth. From now on will it circulate in a totally different, powerful way, between the Orient and Occident ... and not only will the Occident act on the Orient, but the Orient will also act on the Occident."

"If we consider the results obtained together, we will not be able to doubt the conclusion to be drawn from them. The ancient priestly geometry of the Indians not only knew the Pythagorean theorem, but it even played the main role in their calculations; with its help, they constructed elements that the Greeks found in a completely different way; with its help, they also found the irrational quantities. And it was precisely these two things that Pythagoras introduced into the Greek-Italian world; these two things, according to the Greeks, he invented. Indeed, even more! The way in which Pythagoras proved his theorem was also, in all likelihood, the same as that which we find in the Vedic Shulba Sutras. After examining the Shulba Sutras, we could have said: If Pythagoras really was in India, as we previously suggested, and initiated himself into the priestly wisdom of the Brahmins, then he could have brought precisely these theorems of geometric science to Greece; — and history has been telling us for several millennia now that this was indeed the case!"

"Nearly all the philosophical and mathematical doctrines attributed to Pythagoras are derived from India."

"Schroeder wrote in 1887, responding to the conventional philhellenist insistence that the Greeks were able to form everything in their own image: “But the whole cultural evolution of the Indians can be said to be unique and autonomous to a higher degree than that of the Greeks, who were, already very early on, influenced by the Egypt, Phoenicia and other countries.’’"

"The Indians are the nation of romanticists of antiquity. The Germans are the romantics of modem times. SentImentality and feelings for Nature are common to both German and Indian poetry."

"In the 1930s, numerous Indologists sought to anchor Nazi racial theory in ancient "Aryan" history and literature, including Erich Frauwallner, Hermann Güntert, Hermann Lommel, Paul Thieme, and Ludwig Alsdorf."

"The fact that proto-Aryan *ai and *au are replaced in Indo-Aryan by e and o, while in Iranian they are preserved as ai and au and that ai and au regularly appear on the Anatolian documents (eg. Kikkuli‘s aika), is unfortunately inconclusive. It is quite possible that at the time of our oldest records (the hymns of the Rigveda) the actual pronunciation of the sounds developed for *ai and *au spoken and written by the tradition as e and o, was still ai and au. The e and o can be a secondarily introduced change under the influence of the spoken language or the scholastic recitation."

"“An example of this more sophisticated orientalism is the work of Paul Thieme”... esp. his “analysis of the Sanskrit word ārya, where at the end he adverts to the main point of his research: to go beyond India in order to catch the ‘distant echo of Indo-germanic customs’.”"

"“The discovery of ‘Aryan’ looking names of (Mitanni) princes on cuneiform documents in Akkadian from the second half of the second millennium BC (chiefly tablets from Bogazkoy and El-Amarna), several doubtlessly Aryan words in Kikkuli’s treatise in Hittite on horse training (numerals: aika- ‘one’, tera- ‘three’, panza- ‘five’, satta – ‘seven’, na(ya) – ‘nine’; appellatives: varttana – ‘circuit’, course (in which horses move when being trained),’ aliya – ‘horse’), and, finally, a series of names of Aryan divinities on a Mitanni-Hatti and a Hatti-Mitanni treaty (14th century BC), poses a number of problems that have been reportedly discussed since the beginning of the century.”"

"“All the Dravidian languages known to us fairly bristle with loans from Sanskrit and the Aryan vernaculars. Dravidian literature in South India came into existence under the impulse and influence of Sanskrit literature and speech. Wherever there is a correspondence in the vocabularies of Sanskrit and Dravidian, there is a presumption, to be removed only by specific argument, that Sanskrit has been the lender, Dravidian the borrower.” ....“If a word can be explained easily from material extant in Sanskrit itself, there is little chance for such a hypothesis”."

"In a list of names of gods with Babylonian equivalents we find a sun-god Suriyas (rendered Samas) which must clearly be identified with Skt Surya. In addition, Maruttas the war-god (rendered En-Urta) has been compared with Skt Marut ... Among the kings of this dynasty one has a name which can be interpreted as Aryan: Abhirattas: abhi-ratha ñ ëfacing chariots in battleí."

"Ranke did not stop at concrete description but attempted to pierce the deepest and most mysterious movements of life."

"Leopold von Ranke is not only beyond all comparison the greatest historical scholar alive, but one of the very greatest historians that ever lived. Unrivalled stores of knowledge, depth of research, intimate acquaintance with the most recondite sources, have been, in his case, supplemented by everything which could be conferred by a long life, continuous study, close association with the great political actors and thinkers of the greatest part of the most eventful century of the world's history."

"Though standards vary, greatness remains; indeed it is the true mark of greatness that it can survive changing standards. Shakespeare was great to Johnson; great to Coleridge; is great to us. Ranke was a historian of the same grandeur – great to his contemporaries, still great after the passage of a century; if not the greatest of historians, securely within the first half-dozen. Great as a scholar, great as a master of narrative, Ranke has the special claim of having achieved something more than his work; he founded a school, the school of scientific historians, which has dominated all historical thinking since his time, even when in reaction against it."