ABSTRACT
In 1938, the Viennese political scientist and philosopher Eric1 Voegelin
(1901-85) wrote Die politischen Religionen.2 This work was formative for the concept of political religions. The period of his life when he wrote this essay
was filled with tension; the terror of the National Socialists forced him to
emigrate to the United States a short time later. Although Voegelin himself
did not regard Die politischen Religionen as central to his later work,3 the
text nonetheless offers a first, direct glimpse into Voegelin’s perspective on
the twentieth-century totalitarian regimes.
