Constructing Hegemony: Germany's New Right and Its Intellectual Foundations

For a political movement to prosper, at least a minimum of institutionalised intellectual work to underpin its actions is helpful. The post-WWII New Right in Germany is no exception. However, within the context of Germany’s history the New Right has had difficulties when it comes to developing such an intellectual foundation. However, this does not mean that all ideas which characterise the 'Old Right' are unsuitable for the 21^st century New Right in Germany. Authoritarianism, a cult around the ‘Volk’, the rejection of modernity and ‘Western civilisation’ (including individualism and the rule of law) and many more tropes are alive in New Right thinking.

The New Right acts as a ‘hinge’ (Gessenharter) between the extreme right and mainstream conservatism, while trying to shift the ‘Overton Window’ in its favour. A set of organisations with the characteristics of think tanks have been actively involved in these efforts to shift ‘what can be said and done’. They have been set up, in true Gramscian spirit, with the strategic objective of gaining intellectual hegemony and have acted as nodal points in networks connecting diverse actors from the extreme right, the New Right and conservative circles. This paper explores these organisations and their networks; for example the Institut für Staatspolitik and the Studienzentrum Weikersheim, but also newspapers such as the junge freiheit and COMPACT, and academics, politicians and ‘free-floating’ intellectuals. By doing so, most recent developments regarding New Right, PEGIDA and Alternative für Deutschland will be taken account of, too.