Contents -- Editors' Introductions -- I. Eric Voegelin's "Hitler and the Germans" Lectures in the Context of the Germans' Treatment of Their Nazi Past -- II. The Philosophical Context of the "Hitler and the Germans" Lectures -- Editors' Note -- contents -- Part I Descent into the Abyss -- 1. Central Experiential Problem: Hitler's Rise to Power -- 2. The Experiential Occasion of the Lectures: Schramm's "Anatomy of a Dictator" -- 3. The Stupidity of a Whole People: The "Buttermelcher Syndrome" -- 4. Present-day German Laxity toward Former Nazis -- 5. The Cliché of the "Unmastered Past" versus the "Presence under God" -- 6. The Cliché of "Collective Guilt" and the Representation of a Society -- 7. Clichés of "State" and "Democracy" -- 8. Philosophical and Biblical Understanding of Humanity and of Radical Stupidity -- 9. Karl Kraus's Dritte Walpurgisnacht on Lies and Propaganda -- 10. Robert Musil on Simple and Intelligent Stupidity -- 11. Carl Amery on Bourgeois "Propriety" as Secondary Virtue Eclipsing Primary Virtues -- 12. Criminal Stupidity and Loss of Experience of Reality in a Disordered Society -- 13. Schramm's Conceptual and Stylistic Incomprehension of Hitler -- 14. Hitler's "Aura" -- 15. Hitler and Christianity -- 16. Hitler's Views on Religion -- 17. Hitler and Women -- 18. Hitler and His Entourage -- 19. Hitler and "The Art of Reading" -- 20. Hitler's Social Darwinism -- 21. Conclusion: Schramm's Spiritual Illiteracy Contrasted with Alan Bullock's Diagnosis of Hitler -- 22. Lack of a Theoretical Articulation of "Church" -- 23. Intellectual and Spiritual Decline in the German Churches -- 24. Evangelical Church's Participation in Nationalistic- Völkisch Ideology -- 25. Theological Opinions Regarding Race Laws -- 26. Anti-Semitic Tendencies in Land Bishop Wurm and Pastor Niemöller.

27. Anti-Semitic Residues in Present- day Evangelical Church -- 28. Theoretical Inquiry into Romans 13 -- 29. Layout of the "Hitler and the Germans" Lectures -- 30. Difference between Catholic and Evangelical Attitudes toward Nazism -- 31. Dehumanized Response of Catholic Church to State Authority and to Persecution of Those outside the Church -- 32. Karl Kraus on Concentration Camp Life -- 33. Catholic Resistance to Dehumanization: Alfred Delp -- 34. "Guidelines" for German Clerics and Theologians -- 35. Tension between the Church as Social Institution and as Community of Universal Humanity under Christ -- 36. Advances and Regressions in Differentiation of Knowledge of the Presence under God -- 37. The Church's Representation of Universal Humanity: Its Duty and Its Failure -- 38. The Rechtsstaat as a Specifically German Concept -- 39. Con ict between Hierarchical Legal Systems and Separation of Powers, as in the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz) -- 40. Legal Positivism, Judge-made Law, and Authoritarian Rule -- 41. Historical Background to Closed Legal Systems -- 42. "Positive Law" and "Natural Law": Primacy of the Moral Substance of Society -- 43. The Question of Morality in German War- Crime Trials -- Part II Toward a Restoration of Order -- 44. Don Quixote's Second Reality as Divertissement -- 45. Divertissement-character of Modern Logic -- 46. Musil and Doderer on the Refusal to Apperceive Reality -- 47. Unmasking of Passions of the Age by Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Weber -- 48. Nonexperience of Transcendence Leading to Dehumanization -- 49. Weber's Unresolved Tension toward Transcendence -- 50. Weber as Intellectual Mystic -- Index.