ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the acts proceeding roughly in reverse chronological order, starting with the role that intellectuals played in the extermination process and ending with their origin during the Enlightenment. Intellectuals have proved themselves both fascinated by and prone to radical evil in all kinds of societies and historical contexts. Radical intellectuals of various types were active in the transition from idealism to ideology and from ideology to exterminism. It was the intellectuals of the more revolutionary and activist type who transformed these into the ideologies of mass political movements. The French Revolution of 1789 initiated the triumph of the intellectuals while the Russian Revolution of 1917 began the consequent tragedy. The tragedy of the intellectuals had more or less played itself out and there was only the satyr play to follow. There was to be no revolution such as the intellectuals had initiated in 1789 in their hour of triumph.
