Was heißt totalitär?

Abstract

"The neologism 'Totalitarianism' emerged from the political and intellectual discourses that reflected the fundamental historical crises of the nineteen-thirties, brought about by the rise of novel types of political order on the European continent. As an elaborated concept, 'Totalitarianism' denoted foremost the ontological difference between Western liberal democracy and the new regimes of communism, fascism and national socialism. Research on totalitarianism varied in terms of theoretical focus, empirical approach, methodological research design, and not least of all due to the vicissitudes of political trends. The ongoing controversial debate about the proper conceptualisation of the totalitarian syndrome suggests a theoretical analysis of the totalitarian mind and its key symbols that lay at the root of the totalitarian project and, later, came to the fore in various political forms." (author's abstract)