Moeller van den Bruck: Inventor of the “Third Reich”

In December, 1922, a resident of Berlin finished the manuscript of a book which, although far from becoming a best-seller, was destined to make history, if only through its title. The book was Das Dritte Reich, and its author, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, was a German intellectual, then in his forties, who had a theory purporting to explain Germany's downfall as well as a vision of her recovery and return to a leading position in the world.One may well be uncertain as to whether Moeller, had he lived, would have found himself altogether in agreement with the policies and methods of the régime for which he accidentally furnished so attractive a label, or whether he would have found himself among the dead on the morrow of June 30, 1934; but there can be little doubt that the author of Das Dritte Reich belongs among the contributors to the creed in the name of which Germany is ruled today.Moeller van den Bruck was born in 1876 in the Rhineland, the son of a middle-class architect and Prussian official whose family went back to Lutheran pastor stock in Saxony. From his mother's side he inherited Dutch-Spanish blood and, from her Dutch maiden name, the more romantic-sounding portion of his pen name. His formal education was never completed after he was expelled from the Gymnasium at Düsseldorf as penalty for his indifference in class, resulting from his preoccupation with modern German literature (social lyrics) and philosophy (Nietzsche), which to the lad of sixteen seemed of vastly greater “social significance” than what his teachers had to offer.