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Frederick the Second
Frederick the Second is a biography of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, by the German-Jewish historian Ernst Kantorowicz. Originally published in German as Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite in 1927, it was "one of the most discussed history books in Weimar Germany", and has remained highly influential in the reception of Frederick II. The book depicts Frederick as a heroic personality, a messianic ruler who was "beseeltes Gesetz", the law given soul, but also a charismatic and calculating autocrat—"probably the most intolerant emperor that ever the West begot".
The book has courted controversy since its appearance for various reasons. Critics at the time of its publication objected to its lack of scholarly citations—though Kantorowicz subsequently published an additional volume detailing his sources—and to the book's apparent abandonment of the principles of documentary objectivity that characterised historical positivism. Since World War II, historians have debated the work's connection to Nazism and the broader nationalist milieu in Weimar Germany. Kantorowicz himself refused to approve the re-publication of Frederick the Second after the war on the grounds that it risked encouraging "outmoded nationalism".
The book was a product of Kantorowicz's association with the esoteric literary circle around Stefan George, and stands within a broader tradition of mythically inflected depictions of Frederick II that includes Friedrich Nietzsche's description of him as "the first European". The swastika on the front cover of the book's original German editions was itself a symbol of the George Circle, which they had adopted before and independently of the Nazi Party. Though Kantorowicz would deemphasise the connection, the book also served as background to his later 1957 work, The King's Two Bodies, which developed from a planned sequel concerning the "German interregnum" after Frederick's death.
Frederick the Second presents Emperor Frederick as a heroic figure and early Renaissance man, "statesman and philosopher, politician and warrior, leader of armies and jurist, poet, diplomat, architect, zoologist, mathematician, the master of six or perhaps nine languages". He is a cosmopolitan "Roman German" who embodies the synthesis of the Roman spirit of universal dominion with the cultural and historical role of Germany, and "combines the triple culture of Europe ... of the Church, of the east and the Ancients". Campaigning in Jerusalem, Frederick studies the architecture of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and shows "unlimited admiration for the Arab intellect". Establishing his empire as a legal and bureaucratic state, he becomes lex animata and "high priest" of the law, turning the administration of justice into a mystical sacrament.
On the other hand, Kantorowicz says, Frederick was no "enlightened and tolerant potentate"—in fact he was "probably the most intolerant emperor that ever the West begot". Frederick terms himself the "God of vengeance who punishes the guilt of heretics to the second generation", and his Liber Augustalis begins with the proscription of heresy as treason punishable by death. At the Battle of Parma, "frightful necessity" drives him to a "reign of terror".
The book's account is florid and often exoticist. Kantorowicz frequently invokes an eclectic variety of literary references to enhance his depiction of Frederick, drawing especially on the medieval poetry of Dante and Parzival but also on classical Greek and Roman mythology. Frederick himself appears as a hybrid figure whose "mixed" identity Kantorowicz presents in highly positive terms. He is a monarch able to fulfil his contemporaries' desire to bring together "Muhammad and Christ, Kaiser and Khalif"; who, in a sense, "surrendered to the East". Frederick's government is itself "oriental" and autocratic, invoking but re-evaluating the concept of oriental despotism.
Upon his final excommunication in 1239, for Kantorowicz Frederick becomes at the same time a messianic figure and an Antichrist in the sense described by Nietzsche—proclaiming himself "the Hammer, the Doom of the World", he begins to construct a new church around himself. Frederick's "mysterious power ... sucked the whole globe into the vortex of his strife with Rome". With his death in 1250, however, the emperor's immense power immediately fades away, his plans unfulfilled. Kantorowicz concludes the book in a prophetic tone, pronouncing, "The greatest Frederick—he who his Volk neither grasped nor gratified—until today is not redeemed. 'He lives and lives not' ..."
Frederick the Second was an immediate public success. Its first printing in March 1927 sold out by the end of the year, and 12,000 copies had been bought by the time the fourth edition appeared in 1936—a significant accomplishment during the Great Depression.
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Frederick the Second
Frederick the Second is a biography of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, by the German-Jewish historian Ernst Kantorowicz. Originally published in German as Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite in 1927, it was "one of the most discussed history books in Weimar Germany", and has remained highly influential in the reception of Frederick II. The book depicts Frederick as a heroic personality, a messianic ruler who was "beseeltes Gesetz", the law given soul, but also a charismatic and calculating autocrat—"probably the most intolerant emperor that ever the West begot".
The book has courted controversy since its appearance for various reasons. Critics at the time of its publication objected to its lack of scholarly citations—though Kantorowicz subsequently published an additional volume detailing his sources—and to the book's apparent abandonment of the principles of documentary objectivity that characterised historical positivism. Since World War II, historians have debated the work's connection to Nazism and the broader nationalist milieu in Weimar Germany. Kantorowicz himself refused to approve the re-publication of Frederick the Second after the war on the grounds that it risked encouraging "outmoded nationalism".
The book was a product of Kantorowicz's association with the esoteric literary circle around Stefan George, and stands within a broader tradition of mythically inflected depictions of Frederick II that includes Friedrich Nietzsche's description of him as "the first European". The swastika on the front cover of the book's original German editions was itself a symbol of the George Circle, which they had adopted before and independently of the Nazi Party. Though Kantorowicz would deemphasise the connection, the book also served as background to his later 1957 work, The King's Two Bodies, which developed from a planned sequel concerning the "German interregnum" after Frederick's death.
Frederick the Second presents Emperor Frederick as a heroic figure and early Renaissance man, "statesman and philosopher, politician and warrior, leader of armies and jurist, poet, diplomat, architect, zoologist, mathematician, the master of six or perhaps nine languages". He is a cosmopolitan "Roman German" who embodies the synthesis of the Roman spirit of universal dominion with the cultural and historical role of Germany, and "combines the triple culture of Europe ... of the Church, of the east and the Ancients". Campaigning in Jerusalem, Frederick studies the architecture of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and shows "unlimited admiration for the Arab intellect". Establishing his empire as a legal and bureaucratic state, he becomes lex animata and "high priest" of the law, turning the administration of justice into a mystical sacrament.
On the other hand, Kantorowicz says, Frederick was no "enlightened and tolerant potentate"—in fact he was "probably the most intolerant emperor that ever the West begot". Frederick terms himself the "God of vengeance who punishes the guilt of heretics to the second generation", and his Liber Augustalis begins with the proscription of heresy as treason punishable by death. At the Battle of Parma, "frightful necessity" drives him to a "reign of terror".
The book's account is florid and often exoticist. Kantorowicz frequently invokes an eclectic variety of literary references to enhance his depiction of Frederick, drawing especially on the medieval poetry of Dante and Parzival but also on classical Greek and Roman mythology. Frederick himself appears as a hybrid figure whose "mixed" identity Kantorowicz presents in highly positive terms. He is a monarch able to fulfil his contemporaries' desire to bring together "Muhammad and Christ, Kaiser and Khalif"; who, in a sense, "surrendered to the East". Frederick's government is itself "oriental" and autocratic, invoking but re-evaluating the concept of oriental despotism.
Upon his final excommunication in 1239, for Kantorowicz Frederick becomes at the same time a messianic figure and an Antichrist in the sense described by Nietzsche—proclaiming himself "the Hammer, the Doom of the World", he begins to construct a new church around himself. Frederick's "mysterious power ... sucked the whole globe into the vortex of his strife with Rome". With his death in 1250, however, the emperor's immense power immediately fades away, his plans unfulfilled. Kantorowicz concludes the book in a prophetic tone, pronouncing, "The greatest Frederick—he who his Volk neither grasped nor gratified—until today is not redeemed. 'He lives and lives not' ..."
Frederick the Second was an immediate public success. Its first printing in March 1927 sold out by the end of the year, and 12,000 copies had been bought by the time the fourth edition appeared in 1936—a significant accomplishment during the Great Depression.