Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Tomko, Helena M.

Titel

Beyond reception: understanding Theodor Haecker's Kierkegaardian authorship in the Third Reich

Ist Teil von

• International journal of philosophy and theology, 2019-10, Vol.80 (4-5), p.307-325

Ort / Verlag

Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Taylor & Francis Current Content Access

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Theodor Haecker's translation and reception of Kierkegaard exerted a strong influence on interwar German readings of Kierkegaard. Recent scholarship has drawn renewed attention to Haecker's World War I Kierkegaardian polemics and the dampening of his enthusiasm for Kierkegaard after his conversion to Catholicism in 1921. This article offers a twofold refinement of current accounts of Haecker's Kierkegaard reception. First, it shows that Haecker's attempt to describe a Catholic theological anthropology after 1931 was less a turn away from Kierkegaard and more a turning of Kierkegaard toward the Catholic intellectual tradition. Second, the article shows how this anthropological project collided with the ideology and censorship of the Third Reich, where Haecker became a key voice in the Catholic 'inner emigration.' Revisionist methodologies in German studies have modelled how to retrieve the resonance of inner-emigration texts - literary, philosophical, theological, etc. - that were written against the grain of dictatorship. As inner emigrant, Haecker draws instinctively on Kierkegaard's authorship, life, and thought as a paradigm for his own regime-critical writing and existence. With the claim that Haecker's inner-emigration writings depend on his ongoing encounter with Kierkegaard, this article offers new access to Haecker's late thought for philosophers, theologians, and literary scholars alike.