Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler[a] (29 May 1880 – 8 May 1936) was a Germanphilosopher whose areas of interest includedhistory,philosophy,mathematics,science, andart, as well as their relation to his organic theory of history. He is best known for his two-volume workThe Decline of the West (Der Untergang des Abendlandes), published in 1918 and 1922, coveringhuman history. Spengler's model ofhistory postulates that humancultures andcivilizations are akin to biological entities, each with a limited, predictable, anddeterministic lifespan.
Spengler predicted that about the year 2000,Western civilization would enter the period of pre‑death emergency which would lead to 200 years ofCaesarism (extra-constitutional omnipotence of theexecutive branch of government) before Western civilization's final collapse.[11]
Spengler is regarded as aGerman nationalist and a critic ofrepublicanism, and he was a prominent member of theWeimar-eraConservative Revolution.[4]: 3–30, 63 [5][3] While the Nazis had viewed his writings as a means to provide a "respectable pedigree" to their ideology,[12] Spengler later criticizedNazism for what he considered to be excessiveracialist andantisemitic elements. He sawBenito Mussolini, andentrepreneurial types, like the mining magnateCecil Rhodes,[13] as examples of the impending Caesars of Western culture—later showcasing his disappointment in Mussolini's colonialist adventures.[14]
Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler was born on 29 May 1880 inBlankenburg,Duchy of Brunswick,German Empire, the oldest surviving child of Bernhard Spengler (1844–1901) and Pauline Spengler (1840–1910),née Grantzow, the descendant of an artistic family.[15][16] Oswald's elder brother was born prematurely in 1879, when his mother tried to move a heavy laundry basket, and died at the age of three weeks. Oswald was born ten months after his brother's death.[17] His younger sisters were Adele (1881–1917), Gertrud (1882–1957), and Hildegard (1885–1942).[15] Oswald's paternal grandfather, Theodor Spengler (1806–1876), was a metallurgical inspector (Hütteninspektor) inAltenbrak.[18]
Spengler's maternal great-grandfather, Friedrich Wilhelm Grantzow, a tailor's apprentice in Berlin, had three children out of wedlock with a Jewish woman named Bräunchen Moses (c. 1769–1849) whom he later married, on 26 May 1799.[19] Shortly before the wedding, Moses was baptized as Johanna Elisabeth Anspachin; the surname was chosen after her birthplace—Anspach.[20] Her parents, Abraham and Reile Moses, were both deceased by then. The couple had another five children,[19] one of whom was Spengler's maternal grandfather, Gustav Adolf Grantzow (1811–1883)—a solo dancer and ballet master in Berlin, who in 1837 married Katharina Kirchner (1813–1873), a solo dancer from a Munich Catholic family;[20] the second of their four daughters was Oswald Spengler's mother Pauline Grantzow.[21] Like the Grantzows in general, Pauline was of aBohemian disposition, and, before marrying Bernhard Spengler, accompanied her dancer sisters on tours. In appearance, she was plump. Her temperament, which Oswald inherited, was moody, irritable, and morose.[22]
When Oswald was ten years of age, his family moved to the university city ofHalle. Here he received a classical education at the localGymnasium (academically oriented secondary school), studying Greek, Latin, mathematics and sciences. Here, too, he developed his propensity for the arts—especially poetry, drama, and music—and came under the influence of the ideas ofJohann Wolfgang von Goethe andFriedrich Nietzsche.[1] At 17, he wrote a drama titledMontezuma.[16]
After his father's death in 1901, Spengler attended several universities (Munich,Berlin, andHalle) as a private scholar, taking courses in a wide range of subjects. His studies were undirected. In 1903, he failed hisdoctoral thesis onHeraclitus—titledDer metaphysische Grundgedanke der heraklitischen Philosophie (The Fundamental Metaphysical Thought of the Heraclitean Philosophy) and conducted under the direction ofAlois Riehl—because of insufficient references. He took thedoctoral oral exam again and received hisPhD from Halle on 6 April 1904. In December 1904, he began to write the secondary dissertation (Staatsexamensarbeit) necessary to qualify as a high school teacher. This becameThe Development of the Organ of Sight in the Higher Realms of the Animal Kingdom (Die Entwicklung des Sehorgans bei den Hauptstufen des Tierreiches), a text now lost.[23] It was approved and he received his teaching certificate. In 1905, Spengler suffered anervous breakdown.
Spengler briefly served as a teacher inSaarbrücken then inDüsseldorf. From 1908 to 1911 he worked at a grammar school (Realgymnasium) inHamburg, where he taught science, German history, and mathematics. Biographers report that his life as a teacher was uneventful.[24]
In 1911, following his mother's death, he moved toMunich, where he lived for the rest of his life. While there, he was a cloistered scholar, supported by his modest inheritance. Spengler survived on very limited means and was marked by loneliness. He owned no books, and took work as a tutor and wrote for magazines to earn additional income. Due to a severe heart problem, Spengler was exempted from military service.[16] During the war, his inheritance was useless because it was invested overseas; thus, he lived in genuine poverty for this period.[citation needed][original research?]
He began work on the first volume ofThe Decline of the West intending to focus on Germany within Europe. However, theAgadir Crisis of 1911 affected him deeply, so he widened the scope of his study. According to Spengler the book was completed in 1914, but the first edition was published in the summer of 1918, shortly before the end ofWorld War I.[25] Spengler wrote about the years immediately prior to World War I inDecline:
At that time the World-War appeared to me both as imminent and also as the inevitable outward manifestation of the historical crisis, and my endeavor was to comprehend it from an examination of the spirit of the preceding centuries—not years. ... Thereafter I saw the present—the approaching World-War—in a quite other light. It was no longer a momentary constellation of casual facts due to national sentiments, personal influences, or economic tendencies endowed with an appearance of unity and necessity by some historian's scheme of political or social cause-and-effect, but the type ofhistorical change of phase occurring within a great historical organism of definable compass at the point preordained for it hundreds of years ago.[26]
When the first volume ofThe Decline of the West was published, it was a wild success.[b] Spengler became an instant celebrity.[25] The national humiliation of theTreaty of Versailles (1919), followed byeconomic depression in 1923 andhyperinflation, seemed to prove Spengler right.Decline comforted Germans because it could be used as a rationale for their diminished pre-eminence, i.e. due to larger world-historical processes. The book met with wide success outside of Germany as well, and by 1919 had been translated into several other languages.[citation needed]
The second volume ofDecline was published in 1922. In it, Spengler argued that Germansocialism differed fromMarxism; instead, he said it was more compatible with traditional German conservatism. Spengler declined an appointment as Professor of Philosophy at theUniversity of Göttingen, saying he needed time to focus on writing.[citation needed]
The book was widely discussed, even by those who had not read it. Historians took umbrage at his unapologetically non-scientific approach. NovelistThomas Mann compared reading Spengler's book to readingArthur Schopenhauer's works for the first time. Academics gave it a mixed reception. SociologistMax Weber described Spengler as a "very ingenious and learned dilettante", while philosopherKarl Popper called the thesis "pointless". The first volume ofDecline was published in English byAlfred A. Knopf in 1926, the second in 1928.[27]
In 1924, following the social-economic upheaval andhyperinflation, Spengler entered politics in an effort to bringReichswehr GeneralHans von Seeckt to power as the country'sleader. The attempt failed and Spengler proved ineffective in practical politics.[citation needed]
A 1928Time review of the second volume ofDecline described the immense influence and controversy Spengler's ideas enjoyed during the 1920s: "When the first volume ofThe Decline of the West appeared in Germany a few years ago, thousands of copies were sold. Cultivated European discourse quickly became Spengler-saturated. Spenglerism spurted from the pens of countless disciples. It was imperative to read Spengler, to sympathize or revolt. It still remains so".[28]
In 1931, he publishedMan and Technics, which warned against the dangers oftechnology andindustrialism to culture. He especially pointed to the tendency of Western technology to spread to hostile "Colored races" which would then use the weapons against the West.[29] It was poorly received because of its anti-industrialism.[citation needed] This book contains the well-known Spengler quote "Optimism is cowardice".[30]
Despite voting forHitler overHindenburg in 1932, Spengler found the Führer vulgar. He met Hitler in 1933 and after a lengthy discussion remained unimpressed, saying that Germany did not need aheroic tenor but a realhero ". He quarreled publicly withAlfred Rosenberg, and his pessimism and remarks about the Führer resulted in isolation and public silence. He further rejected offers fromJoseph Goebbels to give public speeches. However, Spengler did become a member of the German Academy that year.[citation needed]
The Hour of Decision, published in 1933, was a bestseller, but was later banned for its critique ofNational Socialism. Spengler's criticisms ofliberalism[31] were welcomed by the Nazis, but Spengler disagreed with their biological ideology andanti-Semitism.[32] While racial mysticism played a key role in his own worldview, Spengler had always been an outspoken critic of the racial theories professed by the Nazis and many others in his time, and was not inclined to change his views during and after Hitler's rise to power.[33] Although a German nationalist, Spengler viewed the Nazis as too narrowly German, and notoccidental enough to lead the fight against other peoples. The book also warned of a coming world war in which Western Civilization risked being destroyed, and was widely distributed abroad before eventually being banned by theNational Socialist German Workers Party in Germany. ATime review ofThe Hour of Decision noted Spengler's international popularity as a polemicist, observing that "When Oswald Spengler speaks, many a Western Worldling stops to listen". The review recommended the book for "readers who enjoy vigorous writing", who "will be glad to be rubbed the wrong way by Spengler's harsh aphorisms" and his pessimistic predictions.[34]
In the introduction toThe Decline of the West, Spengler citesJohann W. von Goethe andFriedrich Nietzsche as his major influences. Goethe's vitalism and Nietzsche's cultural criticism, in particular, are highlighted in his works.[38]
I feel urged to name once more those to whom I owe practically everything: Goethe and Nietzsche. Goethe gave me method, Nietzsche the questioning faculty…[39]
Spengler was also influenced by the universal and cyclical vision ofworld history proposed by the German historianEduard Meyer.[38] The belief in the progression of civilizations through an evolutionary process comparable with living beings can be traced back to classical antiquity, although it is difficult to assess the extent of the influence those thinkers had on Spengler:Cato the Elder,Cicero,Seneca,Florus,Ammianus Marcellinus, and later,Francis Bacon, who compared different empires with each other with the help of biological analogies.[40]
The concept of historical philosophy developed by Spengler is founded upon two assumptions:
the existence of social entities called 'Cultures' (Kulturen) and regarded as the largest possible actors in human history, which itself had no metaphysical sense,
the parallelism between the evolution of those Cultures and the evolution of living beings.
Spengler enumerates nine Cultures:Ancient Egyptian,Babylonian, Indian, Chinese,Greco-Roman or 'Apollonian', 'Magian' (including Zoroastrianism, Judaism and earlyByzantine Christianity and Islam), Mexican,Western or 'Faustian', and Russian. They interacted with each other in time and space but were distinctive due to 'internal' attributes. According to Spengler, "Cultures are organisms, and world-history is their collective biography."[41]
'Mankind'… has no aim, no idea, no plan, any more than the family of butterflies or orchids. 'Mankind' is a zoological expression, or an empty word. … I see, in place of that empty figment of one linear history which can only be kept up by shutting one’s eyes to the overwhelming multitude of the facts, the drama of a number of mighty Cultures, each springing with primitive strength from the soil of a mother region to which it remains firmly bound throughout its whole life-cycle; each stamping its material, its mankind, in its own image; each having its own idea, its own passions, its own life, will and feeling, its own death.[42]
Spengler also compares the evolution of Cultures to the different ages of human life, "Every Culture passes through the age-phases of the individual man. Each has its childhood, youth, manhood and old age." When a Culture enters its late stage, Spengler argues, it becomes a 'Civilization' (Zivilisation), a petrified body characterized in the modern age by technology, imperialism, and mass society, which he expected to fossilize and decline from the 2000s onward.[43] The first-millenniumNear East was, in his view, not a transition betweenClassical Antiquity,Western Christianity, andIslam, but rather an emerging new Culture he named 'Magian (Zoroastrian priest)', explaining messianic Judaism,early Christianity,Gnosticism,Mandaeism,Zoroastrianism, and Islam as different expressions of a single Culture sharing a unique worldview.[44]
The great historian of antiquityEduard Meyer thought highly of Spengler, although he also had some criticisms of him. Spengler's obscurity, intuitiveness, and mysticism were easy targets, especially for thepositivists andneo-Kantians who rejected the possibility that there was meaning in world history. The critic and aesthete CountHarry Kessler thought him unoriginal and rather inane, especially in regard to his opinion onNietzsche. PhilosopherLudwig Wittgenstein, however, shared Spengler's cultural pessimism. Spengler's work became an important foundation forsocial cycle theory.[45]
Prussianism and Socialism (German:Preußentum und Sozialismus[ˈpʁɔʏsn̩tuːmʔʊntzotsi̯aˈlɪsmʊs]) is a 1919 book by Oswald Spengler originally based on notes intended for the second volume ofThe Decline of the West, in which he argues for "Prussian" socialism, characterized by an emphasis on social roles rather than capital, in contrast to mainstream socialism, which he refers to as "English" socialism.[46][47]
Spengler responded to the claim that socialism's rise in Germany had not begun with theGerman revolution of 1918–1919, but rather in 1914 when Germany waged war, uniting the German nation in a national struggle that he claimed was based on socialistic Prussian characteristics, including creativity, discipline, concern for the greater good, productivity, and self-sacrifice.[48] Spengler claimed that these socialistic Prussian qualities were present across Germany and stated that the merger of German nationalism with this form of socialism while resisting Marxist andinternationalist socialism would be in the interests of Germany.[49]
Spengler claimed that socialistic Prussian characteristics existed across Germany that included creativity, discipline, concern for the greater good, productivity, and self-sacrifice.[48]He described socialism outside of aclass conflict perspective and said "The meaning of socialism is that life is controlled not by the opposition between rich and poor, but by the rank that achievement and talent bestow. That isour freedom, freedom from the economic despotism of the individual."[50] Spengler addressed the need of Germans to accept Prussian socialism to free themselves from foreign forms of government:
Prussiandom and socialism standtogether against the inner England, against the world-view that infuses our entire life as a people, crippling it and stealing its soul…The working class must liberate itself from the illusions of Marxism.Marx is dead. As a form of existence, socialism is just beginning, but the socialism of the German proletariat is at an end.For the worker, there is only Prussian socialism or nothing... For conservatives, there is only conscious socialism or destruction. But we need liberation from the forms of Anglo-French democracy. We have our own.[50]
Spengler went further to demonstrate the difference between priorities held in England and Prussia:
Spengler claimed thatFrederick William I of Prussia became the "first conscious socialist" for having founded Prussian tradition of military and bureaucratic discipline.[51] He also claimed thatOtto von Bismarck's social policies were socialist in nature, and that they complemented his conservative policies rather than contradicted them as claimed by others.[51]
Spengler denouncedMarxism for having developedsocialism from an English perspective, while not understanding Germans' socialist nature.[51] In the pamphlet, a central argument is that the corrupt forces promoting English socialism in his country comprised an "invisible English army, which Napoleon had left behind on German soil after theBattle of Jena."[52]
Spengler accused Marxism of following the British tradition in which the poor envy the rich:
The socialism of aFichte would accuse [those who don't work] of sloth, it would brand them as irresponsible, dispensable shirkers and parasites. But Marxian instinct envies them. They are too well-off, and therefore they should be revolted against. Marx has inoculated his proletariat with a contempt for work.[51]
He claimed that Marxism sought to train the proletariat to "expropriate the expropriator", the capitalist, so that the proletariat could live a life of leisure on this expropriation.[51] In summary, Spengler concluded that "Marxism is the capitalism of the working class" and not true socialism.[51]
In contrast to Marxism, Spenglerclaimed that "true socialism" in its German form "does not mean nationalization through expropriation or robbery."[51] Spengler justified this claim by saying:
In general, it is a question not of nominal possession but of the technique of administration. For a slogan’s sake to buy up enterprises immoderately and purposelessly and to turn them over to public administration in the place of the initiative and responsibility of their owners, who must eventually lose all power of supervision—that means the destruction of socialism. The old Prussian idea was to bring under legislative control the formal structure of the whole national productive force, at the same time carefully preserving the right of property and inheritance, and leaving scope for the kind of personal enterprise, talent, energy, and intellect displayed by an experienced chess player, playing within the rules of the game and enjoying that sort of freedom which the very sway of the rule affords….Socialization means the slow transformation—taking centuries to complete—of the worker into an economic functionary, and the employer into a responsible supervisory official.[53]
True socialism according to Spengler would take the form of acorporatism in which "local corporate bodies organized according to the importance of each occupation to the people as a whole; higher representation in stages up to a supreme council of the state; mandates revocable at any time; no organized parties, no professional politicians, no periodic elections."[51]
He also posited that the West will spend the next and last several hundred years of its existence in a state ofCaesarian socialism, when all humans will besynergized into a harmonious and happy totality by a dictator, like an orchestra is synergized into a harmonious totality by itsconductor.[54]
Spengler was an important influence on Nazi ideology. He "provided skeletal Nazi ideas" to the early Nazi movement "and gave them a respectable pedigree".[12] Key parts of his writings were incorporated into Nazi Party ideology.[12]
Spengler's criticism of the Nazi Party was taken seriously by Hitler, and Carl Deher credited him for inspiring Hitler to carry out theNight of the Long Knives in whichErnst Röhm and other leaders of theSturmabteilung (SA) were executed.[12] In 1934, Spengler pronounced the funeral oration for one of the victims of the Night of the Long Knives and retired in 1935 from the board of the highly influentialNietzsche Archive which was viewed as opposition to the regime.[33]
Spengler consideredJudaism to be a "disintegrating element" (zersetzendes Element) that acts destructively "wherever it intervenes" (wo es auch eingreift). In his view, Jews are characterized by a "cynical intelligence" (zynische Intelligenz) and by "money thinking" (Gelddenken).[55] Therefore, they were incapable of adapting to Western culture and represented a foreign body in Europe. He also clarifies inThe Decline of the West that this is a pattern shared in all civilizations: He mentions how the ancient Jew would have seen the cynical, atheistic Romans of the late Roman empire the same way Westerners today see Jews. Alexander Bein argues that with these characterizations Spengler contributed significantly to the enforcement of Jewish stereotypes in pre-WW2 German circles.[56]
Spengler viewed Nazi antisemitism as self-defeating, and personally took anethnological view of race and culture.[12] In his private papers, he remarked upon "how much envy of the capability of other people in view of one's lack of it lies hidden in anti-Semitism!", and arguing that "when one would rather destroy business and scholarship than see Jews in them, one is an ideologue, i.e., a danger for the nation. Idiotic."[32]
Spengler, however, regarded the transformation of ultra-capitalist mass democracies into dictatorial regimes as inevitable, and he had expressed acknowledgement forBenito Mussolini and theItalian Fascist movement as a first symptom of this development.[33]
Der metaphysische Grundgedanke der heraklitischen Philosophie [The Fundamental Metaphysical Idea of the Philosophy of Heraclitus] (in German), 1904
Der Untergang des Abendlandes: Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte [The Decline of the West: Outlines of a Morphology of world history], Gestalt und Wirklichkeit; Welthistorische Perspektiven (in German), 1918–22, 2 vols. –The Decline of the West; an Abridged Edition by Helmut Werner (tr. by C.F. Atkinson).[60][61]
Reden und Aufsätze, 1937 (ed. by Hildegard Kornhardt) –Selected Essays (tr. Donald O. White).
Gedanken, c. 1941 (ed. by Hildegard Kornhardt) –Aphorisms (translated by Gisela Koch-Weser O'Brien).
Briefe, 1913–1936, 1963 [The Letters of Oswald Spengler, 1913–1936] (ed. and tr. by A. Helps).
Urfragen; Fragmente aus dem Nachlass, 1965 (ed. by Anton Mirko Koktanek and Manfred Schröter).
Frühzeit der Weltgeschichte: Fragmente aus dem Nachlass, 1966 (ed. by A. M. Koktanek and Manfred Schröter).
Der Briefwechsel zwischen Oswald Spengler und Wolfgang E. Groeger. Über russische Literatur, Zeitgeschichte und soziale Fragen, 1987 (ed. by Xenia Werner).
^The original Preface is dated December 1917 and ends with Spengler expressing hope that "his book would not be unworthy of German military achievements".
^Protevi, John (2006).A Dictionary of Continental Philosophy.Yale University Press. p. 355.ISBN9780300116052.Lebensphilosophie became a fashionable and quickly worn-out term after the end of the First World War, when it was given a vitalistic and even racist direction. It was employed by thinkers such as Oswald Spengler who developed neo-conservative and culturally pessimistic critiques of the decline of the vitality of the West in its growing modernity, rationality and technology. This popularised and vulgarised Lebensphilosophie is part of the context for the emergence of European fascism.
^Vrahimis, Andreas (2022).Bergsonism and the History of Analytic Philosophy. Springer. p. 237.ISBN9783030807559.The voice that had most prominently brought elements of Lebensphilosophie to the broader public was not, however, Heidegger's. It came from outside academia, in the work of Oswald Spengler. With the publication of his Untergang des Abendlandes in 1918, Spengler became a kind of minor extra-academic celebrity in the Germanophone world. Spengler's mainly historical work develops an account of the rise and fall of cultures and the phenomena that emerge within them. Its overgeneralisations about the downfall of Western civilisation are based on dubious historical accounts of the emergence and decline of human cultures. Its broad span ranges from the history of art to the history of science and mathematics.
^Ashman, Keith; Barringer, Phillip (2005).After the Science Wars: Science and the Study of Science.Taylor & Francis. p. 158.ISBN9781134616176.The irrational at zenith Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West (1918) is unquestionably a classic of modern irrationalism. Few books have been equally popular. [...] Spengler's appeal was so broad that he was equally popular among industrialists and rebel youth." This "powerful and strange man," as Golo Mann called him, was the brightest star of the "conservative revolution" in thought and a trusted ally of right-wing politicians. Overall, Ernest Manheim writes (1948: 365), "Spengler's effect on German postwar nationalism can hardly be overestimated."
^The Decline of the West, Alfred A. Knopf. Volume 1, page 37, Atkinson's Translation.
^Letters of Oswald Spengler page 305, Alfred A. Knopf, 1966, Translation Arthur Helps. Here Spengler is quite critical ofMussolini's involvement inAbyssinia, saying: "Mussolini has lost the calm statesmanlike superiority of his first years...".
^Spengler, Oswald; Atkinson, Charles Francis (1932).Man and technics; a contribution to a philosophy of life; translated from the German by Charles Francis Atkinson. A.A. Knopf.
^Tate, Allen (1934). "Spengler's Tract Against Liberalism,"The American Review April 1934.
^Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig. V. 17, 1968, p. 71
^MitteilungenArchived 5 April 2023 at theWayback Machine. Deutsche Akademie, 1936, p. 571. "Dr. Oswald Spengler, München, Senator der Deutschen Akademie"
^abEric D. Weitz. Weimar Germany: promise and tragedy. Princeton, New Jersey, USA: Princeton University Press, 2007. pp. 336-337.
^abEric D. Weitz. Weimar Germany: promise and tragedy. Princeton, New Jersey, USA: Princeton University Press, 2007. p. 337.
^abcHeinrich August Winkler, Alexander Sager. Germany: The Long Road West. English edition. Oxford, England, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 414.
^abcdefghiH. Stuart Hughes.Oswald Spengler. New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA: Transaction Publishers, 1992. p. 108.
^Ulrich Wyrwa: Spengler, Oswald. In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus. Bd. 2: Personen. De Gruyter Saur, Berlin 2009, ISBN978-3-598-44159-2
Chisholm, A. R. (September 1942). "No Decline of the West: Sorokin's Reply to Spengler".Australian Quarterly.14 (3):99–103.doi:10.2307/20631045.JSTOR20631045.
Hughes, H. Stuart (1991).Preface to the Present Edition".The Decline of the West: An Abridged Edition, by Oswald Spengler. New York:Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-506751-4.
Kidd, Ian James. "Oswald Spengler, Technology, and Human Nature: 'Man and Technics' as Philosophical Anthropology". InThe European Legacy, (2012) 17#1 pp 19–31.
Kroll, Joe Paul. "'A Biography of the Soul': Oswald Spengler's Biographical Method and the Morphology of History"German Life & Letters (2009) 62#1 pp 67-83.
Baltzer, Armin.Philosoph oder Prophet? Oswald Spenglers Vermächtnis und Voraussagen [Philosopher or Prophet?], Verlag für Kulturwissenschaften, 1962.
Caruso, Sergio.La politica del Destino. Relativismo storico e irrazionalismo politico nel pensiero di Oswald Spengler [Destiny's politics. Historical relativism & political irrationalism in Oswald Spengler's thought]. Firenze: Cultura 1979.
Caruso, Sergio. "Minoranze, caste e partiti nel pensiero di Oswald Spengler". InPolitica e società. Scritti in onore di Luciano Cavalli, ed. by G. Bettin. Cedam: Padova 1997, pp. 214–82.
Felken, Detlef.Oswald Spengler; Konservativer Denker zwischen Kaiserreich und Diktatur. Munich: CH Beck, 1988.
Messer, August.Oswald Spengler als Philosoph, Strecker und Schröder, 1922.
Reichelt, Stefan G. "Oswald Spengler". In:Nikolaj A. Berdjaev in Deutschland 1920–1950. Eine rezeptionshistorische Studie. Universitätsverlag: Leipzig 1999, pp. 71–73.ISBN3-933240-88-3.
Schroeter, Manfred.Metaphysik des Untergangs: eine kulturkritische Studie über Oswald Spengler, Leibniz Verlag, 1949.
