Eric Voegelin and Austria’s Authoritarian Regime: A Reappraisal

• In Event: Enlargement of Liberal Horizons

Abstract

In recent years, several publications have focussed on the political background of Eric Voegelin’s works before World War II, often in a polemical way. Against what their authors perceive as a blind spot of the reception, they call into question Voegelin’s critique of national socialism before his exile in 1938. Several elements show, according to this view, that his opposition to national socialism was not as steadfast as commonly supposed. The purpose of this paper is to challenge this criticism while at the same time acknowledging that the analysis of this period is still unsatisfactory - especially of Voegelin’s relationship to the Ständestaat, also known as “Austrofascism”, which is central in order to understand the political context of his early works. By using archives and unpublished materials, I will analyze his relationship to the “Fatherland Front” as well as to the Austrian authoritarian regime in general.

Author

• Bruno Godefroy, University of Tours