On Political Mythology during the First World War: What had Fichte (allegedly) to say?

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Germany witnessed a particularly strong “Fichte revival”. This paper analyzes the phenomenon and argues that it stemmed from a selective and functional interpretation of some Fichte’s political accounts. Some of his issues, in particular those expressed in the Addresses to the German nation, were judged suitable to fulfill the cultural and political expectations raised by the First World War. The paper focuses on two of the issues which helped the transformation of Fichte into a national German myth: his theories about the language and the past. Identifying the elements with which twentieth-century nationalist interpreters were able to build the image of Fichte as the founder of the German nation shows how representative the case of Fichte is for the interconnection of politics, political mythology, and philosophical interpretation. Concurrently, this case exemplifies how selective the use of cultural stances and philosophical accounts for political goals has been and how decisive the functional selection of philosophical elements for political myths can be.