ABSTRACT
Thetypeofpoliticsdiscussedinthisbookisnotreally ..politics"intheunpretentiousAmericansenseofthe wordbutisbestdescribedas-well,thereisnoordinary Englishwordforit-asMetapolitik:metapolitics.No EnglishwordexpressessowelltheWeltanschauung whichHitlerhasinstilledintoGermanyouthandwhich, backedbyGermanmilitaryandeconomicefficiency,is themenaceofthehourtoallfreepeoples.Thecomposer
Richard Wagner's .. Circle .. of nationalists was the first to use this word M etapolitik as Germany· s political ideal. Among Wagner's letters from ardent admirers one from a prominent nationalist offered a singularly startling suggestion: ''To be genuinely German, politics must soar to metapolitics. The latter is to commonplace pedestrian politics as metaphysics is to physics." 2
As if abashed by the audacity of his own imagination, this correspondent surged patriotically on without stopping to define the word he had coined. The word is here borrowed advisedly; it expresses, more adequately than any existing dictionary term, the highfalutin mysticism welding the political, economic, and national philosophy of Wagner and Hitler into a unity very much its ownand very German.
