Every year, Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe hosts a conference of his Property and Freedom Society at the Hotel Karia Princess in Bodrum, Turkey, which happens to be owned by his wife. Richard was one of the speakers at last year's conference and has written about his experiences there and about Hoppe, his organization, and ideas. Every year Sean Gabb of the U.K.-based Libertarian Alliance diligently films the events of the PFS conference and makes the footage available online. This year was no exception and Sean's video record of the 2011 conference can be viewed here.

I would invite readers of AltRight who are understandably turned off by libertarianism and associate it with globalist, plutocratic, or open borders nonsense to check out the writings of Dr. Hoppe and Dr. Gabb. In the tradition of Nietzsche, Schmitt, or Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Hoppe ranks alonside Alain De Benoist as one of the the fiercest contemporary critics of modern liberal democracy, albeit from a different theoretical premise. I wrote a review of Hoppe's landmark work on the democracy question some years ago which is still available online. Meanwhile, Sean Gabb has emerged as one of the U.K.'s leading critics of Political Correctness and has produced a highly valuable book on the subject which he distributes online for free. It might be said that Sean is for England what Paul Gottfried is for this side of the Atlantic. Suffice to say that Sean Gabb and Hans Hoppe are not your garden-variety U.S.-style libertarians obsessed with conspiracy theories, drugs, and science fiction novels. Indeed, I've always thought that the libertarian movement from outside the United States is of much higher quality than what we Yanks have on our side of the pond, probably due to its smaller size. Quantity often comes at the cost of quality. The Property and Freedom Society and the Libertarian Alliance are the leading lights of non-U.S. based libertarianism and, in my opinion, two of the very best libertarian groups anywhere in the world.

Meanwhile, I would particularly recommend this video of Dr. Gottfried's talk at this year's PFS gathering. What I find personally interesting about Professor Gottfried is that while he originates from the traditional conservative, Buckleyite Right and I came from the Chomskyite Left, we have reached a virtually identical analysis and conclusion concerning the state of our civilization and what the most viable solution to the crisis might be. For those who find Gottfried's speech at PFS interesting, I would also like to suggest this talk given last year by my National-Anarchist colleague Welf Herfurth, a native of Germany who was an activist in German far Right politics in the 1980s and who now resides in Australia. Welf has likewise come to a position not dissimilar to that of Paul Gottfried and myself.

Originally published on the eve of the National Socialist era, Die Stadt (the City) is the German title of Ernst von Salomon’s second novel, recently re-translated and re-published in English by Arktos Media under the title It Cannot be Stormed.

Von Salomon is described as one of the most enigmatic members of the Conservative Revolutionary movement that emerged in Germany during the Weimar Republic. He is most famous for his Der Fragebogen (The Questionaire), a book published in 1951 containing his ironic answers to the 131 questions he was asked while a POW of the Americans, who imprisoned him between 1945-1946. Der Fragebogen was a hot seller and instigated a wide discussion at the time.

From 1913, was a cadet, and, subsequently, from the age of 17, a member of the Freikorps, the volunteer military or paramilitary units that formed in the aftermath of the Great War, out of disillusionment with civilian life and a desire for revenge against the Communist among demobilised soldiers. During the 1920s he survived to prison sentences, the first of which was for his part in the assassination of Walther Rathenau (he provided the car for the assassins).

The author’s background is quite evident in this novel, which is about the end of the Weimar period. Indeed, it permeates the entire narrative, possibly even to the point of determining the language and phraseology—the latter, certainly during the first third of the book, is very structured, with a self-conscious use of phrasal repetition that is not, all the same and despite stereotypes about German seriousness, lacking in humour. The narrative tone and style is also extremely German. It is difficult to convey this to an English-speaking reader who is unfamiliar with the German personality; but if you have known Germans in Germany, and developed a sense of their way of approaching and looking at things, you will immediately recognise it in the text.

Aside from the total absence of political correctness in the characters’ psyche, the story itself remains depressingly contemporary: it begins with the emergence of a farmers’ movement in the face of increasing predations by the taxman at a time when Germany was still struggling to pay reparations for the war; and it continues with the involvement in the movement of Ive, the main character, and his journey as a disaffected intellectual and perennial outsider—from the underground, to the country, and to the city. The intensifying conflict between the movement and the authorities is used to highlight two contrasting mentalities, that of the country versus that of the city. And this in turn is used to explore the restless, anxious, fermenting intellectual, social, and political ambience of the period.

There is an enormous amount of deep philosophical lucubration in this novel, which is progressively mired in ever-denser text as the plot slows down and sinks into ever more fuliginous paragraphs of monumental length, tight print, and epic sentences. Thus, the leaden effect created by the reliance on reported speech and near absence of dialogue in the earlier parts of the book is progressively compounded by the subsequent reliance on heavy theoretical monologues. Had Kafka been a Weimar-era German Conservative Revolutionary, he would have written this way.

Still, there is a logic to all this, as it follows the convolution of Ive’s intellectual odyssey.

Of special interest are the scenes involving the National Socialists and their Communist opponents. Von Salomon had an ambiguous relationship with the former: initially sympathetic, he did not support them after 1933, but neither did he speak against them and indeed he spent the remainder of the National Socialist era writing film scripts. In the novel Ive has a chance to observe them up close while one of his former collaborators and acquaintances from the farmers’ movement (who changes his stripes, and his name, with nonchalant frequency) is involved with the SA. As readers we are even witnesses to one of the famous beer hall brawls.

Overall this is an intriguing work of fiction, rich with historical value (both because of the anguished intellectual ferment it reproduces and the backdrop against which the action unfolds) as well as unusual characters—or rather caricatures, because the characterisation betrays a certain Dickensian taste for humorous stereotypes. It is well worth reading if you enjoy a thoughtful and challenging novel and / or are interested in the time period and perhaps also the German character.

You can get Ernst von Salomon’s It Cannot be Stormed here (UK) and here (US).

The dreadful concept of the vampire is common to many cultures, but the version that is most familiar is Dracula – the Anglo-Irish author Bram Stoker’s groundbreaking conflation of central European folk beliefs, exaggerated stories about the mediaeval Wallachian princeling Vlad “The Impaler” Tepes, and 19th century obses­sions with sex, syphilis, Gothicism and occultism. The idea of a nocturnal, blood-drinking creature that is nei­ther alive nor dead still crawls in the shadows of Europe’s imagination.

Yet vampire-themed films tend to be underwhelming. It may be because we are so saturated with the concept that we cannot usually take it seriously. Bela Lugosi was risible as the Count – although he was at least more innocently employed in Hollywood than he had been in his former incarnation as minister of culture in Hungary’s bloodthirsty Bela Kun regime). Hammer was just hammy, and even Francis Ford Coppola could not make us afraid of Gary Oldman’s Count. Some vampiric variations on the theme were more successful (like Dreyer’s 1932 Vampyr) but most film fans would probably agree that the genre leader in this admittedly small field is Prana Films’ 1922 Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens (“Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror”).

Nosferatu is preeminent not just because it has the spontaneity of having been the first vampire film, but because of the carefully-constructed cinematography and the lyrical script, which we relish all the more because we are not distracted by approximations of Romanian accents. Darkly Expressionist direction by F. W. Murnau ensures that every frame pulsates with feeling, like the human prey whose life-force Max Schreck’s cadaverous “Count Orlok” seeks so urgently. The distinct eccentricity of the film's chief progenitors must also have contributed subtly to the film’s outré quality. Murnau was an occultist, a fanatic and an overt homosexual. Schreck was so reclusive that many thought he was not a real person; one of the few who knew him reported that he was always in “a remote and strange world” and enjoyed long, solitary walks in forests – a suitably Mitteleuropaisch fixation. (Coincidentally, the German verb schreck means to frighten.) In Shadow of the Vampire (2000), a film about the making of Nosferatu, John Malkovich camps it up creditably as the unbalanced Murnau, so desperate to ensure authenticity that he employs a real vampire (Willem Dafoe) to take Shreck’s role.

RE: Angela Merkel's epiphany.

So, finally, a Western politician publicly acknowledges the obvious -- what the majority of the long-suffering electorate, who never asked, never wanted, and was never given the opportunity to vote on the issue of multiculturalism, has known for decades.

Very well, then. But if multiculturalism has 'utterly failed', Who will now compensate German -- and for that matter, European -- citizens for the damage that was done to European societies while this ridiculous social experiment was pursued by a tiny clique of politicans, mediacrats, and Left-wing intellectuals? Who will now clean up the mess?

Of course, no one. After all the colossal sums of money wasted in promoting multiculturalism, subsidising its malfunctioning, and patching up the consequences of its malfunctioning; after all the grief caused by this nefarious policy; after all that, the legacy remains.

And it remains because Merkel, not too unlike Gordon Brown once did before her, now talks about 'integration' and having immigrants learn German. But wasn't integration, or assimilation, the approach that existed prior to multiculturalism? And was that not also found lacking? It's worth asking, because had either approach been successful, a change would not have been felt necessary.

Keith Preston joins Richard to discuss the life and work of Carl Schmitt.

Keith's recent pieces on Schmitt can be read here, here, here, and here. 

What is most remarkable about Germany's Thilo Sarrazin controversy is the fact that its outcome is still undecided. Usually arguments that challenge the beliefs of the mainstream and the ruling class are quickly silenced, and the heretics burned alive on the media stake. Here is a man who broke almost every political taboo imaginable -- who spoke honestly about the high economic cost of immigration, the failure of integration, the decay of the educational system, the incompatibilty of Islam and the West, and the alarming demographics of the German people who in a few decades will be a minority in their own country.

All this wasn't news to readers of the website, nor to anyone who has studied these matters thoroughly. Since the 1970s conservatives, sociologists, demography specialists -- and even several members of Sarrazin's Social Democratic Party -- have predicted the desperate situation Germany finds itself in today. Their warnings were suppressed, their views defamed, their voices silenced.

The response to Serrazin’s comment and new book might very well reveal that the Zeitgeist is finally shifting -- though it might already be five past twelve.

Books that point out leftist and liberal failures are becoming top bestsellers in Germany. The once highly popular talk-show host Eva Herman was fired by her TV-station after she wrote a book about the damages caused to the family by feminism; Herman survived the vicious media witch-hunt that ensued and struck back with a highly successful book exposing media manipulations. A few weeks before the publication of her explosive report on immigrant crime, juvenile magistrate Kirsten Heisig was found dead in a forest near Berlin. The official story of her suicide has been seriously questioned ever since, especially in the blogosphere; in any case, her book, too, became a well-received bestseller. Meanwhile German media intensely discuss the possibility of a new center-right, conservative party apart from Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which is constantly losing its traditional conservative supporters. Some observers, including the well known and respected philosopher Norbert Bolz, even call for a rehabilitation of the notion of the “Right,” which in left-wing dominated Germany is generally defamed as “Nazism” and “extremism.”

We should appreciate German Chancellor Angela Merkel's honesty: she's willing to say explicitly that she'll tolerate no rightward drift of the CDU/CSU and is more eager to work with her left-wing coalition partners than build a conservative party.

From the Deutsche Welle:  

Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected calls for a political change of course to right for her Christian Democrat Party (CDU) on Sunday.

The chancellor told a meeting of the CDU's steering committee that such a move would go against the broad political tradition of the party.

"I will once again stress that we are a party with three roots. Liberal, Conservative and influenced by Christian ethics."

"None of these roots can be neglected," said Merkel.

Merkel was reacting to misgivings about the direction that the CDU is taking, with concerns that the party is not positioned sufficiently to the right on the political spectrum.

Disgruntled CDU member Erika Steinbach, who stood down from the national executive of the party on Thursday, has said there is room for a "new, really conservative party."

No room for radicalism

Merkel added that she saw herself in the tradition of never allowing a "party with a radical character" to exist to the right of the CDU and its Bavarian sister party the CSU.

Steinbach is head of Germany's Federation of Expellees, which represents ethnic Germans who fled eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War.

She resigned after a comment about Polish mobilization of troops ahead of the German invasion of the country, prompting accusations that she was trying to rewrite history.

Merkel's office defended her on Friday, saying that the statement had been distorted.

However, Steinbach called the present direction of the CDU into question on Saturday and threatened to leave. She also claimed a new right-wing protest party would easily exceed the 5 percent percentage of votes needed to enter parliament.

Horst Seehofer, leader of the CSU, has also expressed concern that conservative values are being abandoned.

It makes one wonder whether the primary function of the Christian Democratic Party was always to prevent the rise of a real traditionalist, right-wing alterantive. It makes one wonder...