Julius Evola (1898-1974) is known today as a major exponent of the movement that has come to be called Traditionalism and the author of several important works on Hermeticism, Buddhism and Yoga. In the thirties, he also published pamphlets on subjects that had come into prominence since the establishment of the Third Reich, namely, the Aryan mythos and the Jewish Question.
In his earliest publications on politics, such as notably the Imperialismo pagano of 1928, he criticised the Italian Fascist state as a soulless entity that did not rise above petty populism and nationalism to the transcendental sources of an ideal hierarchical society.
Touching on Evola’s relation to Fascism, A. James Gregor, in Mussolini’s Intellectuals (p. 198), wrote:
With respect to Fascism, he advocated a total rejection of any notion of a ‘totalitarian state’ that rested on a nationalism that required obedience and commitment. Terms that had become familiar to Fascists, such as ‘hierarchy,’ ‘leadership,’ ‘elitism,’ the ‘state,’ ‘imperialism,’ and ‘myth’ all had their meanings transmogrified in the lexicon of Evola’s ‘traditional Mediterranean vision.’
Evola even published a work detailing his own racial ideology, Sintesi di dottrina della razza (1941), which decried all biological racialism and raised the notions of spiritual race and of racial souls above it. In his discussion of degenerate races, he significantly does not specify the Jewish race but generally designates the ‘Semites’ — along with sub-Saharan Africans — as inferior racial types. Evola concludes by suggesting that the National Socialist racial doctrines are a hopeful sign of the possible recreation of the original superior race that inhabited the lofty world of Tradition.
Everything in Evola’s doctrine is based on the primacy of spirit so that the racial question too cannot be determined by reference to biological realities but rather to spiritual ones. He considers race itself to be a spiritual condition first, then a question of ethnic identity (Clauß’ racial soul), and finally an individual biological phenomenon.
In official SS circles, Evola’s lectures were subjected to close scrutiny and a more or less negative evaluation. According to Goodrick-Clarke, already in early 1938, the SS started to investigate his ideas and Karl Maria Wiligut (also known as Weisthor when he joined the SS in 1933) — the seer who became Himmler’s spiritual ‘guru’— was asked to comment on a lecture delivered by Evola at Berlin in December 1937. Three further lectures were given by Evola in June 1938 and again Himmler referred the matter to Weisthor, with the additional request that he review Evola’s book on pagan imperialism from the perspective of his own traditions. As Goodrick-Clarke recounts, Weisthor replied that:
Evola worked from a basic Aryan concept but was quite ignorant of prehistoric Germanic institutions and their meaning. He also observed that this defect was representative of the ideological differences between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany and could ultimately prejudice the permanency of their alliance.
As Dr Kurt Hancke, SS-Hauptsturmführer and consultant in the SD main office, wrote:
Evola’s doctrine […] is neither National Socialism nor Fascism. […] There is no reason for National Socialism to serve Baron Evola. His political plans of a Roman-German empire are of a utopian character and, moreover, likely to cause ideological confusions. Since E. is only tolerated and hardly promoted even by Fascism, it is also not tactically necessary to accommodate his tendencies here.
It is therefore recommended:
- 1. not to grant any concrete support to the present efforts of E. aimed at the establishment of a secret supra-political Order and the foundation of a newspaper designed for it;
- 2. to curb his public influence in Germany after this lecture series by not taking any special measures;
- 3. to prevent his approach to leading positions in the party and the state;
- 4. to have his propagandistic activity in the neighbouring countries monitored.
About the Author
Alexander Jacob obtained his Master’s in English Literature from the University of Leeds and his Ph.D. in the History of Ideas from the Pennsylvania State University. His post-doctoral research was conducted at the University of Toronto while he was a Visiting Fellow at its departments of Political Science, Philosophy and English Literature.