Germany's Prophet: Paul de Lagarde and the Origins of Modern Antisemitism

Recognized in his own time and also today as a leading scholar of the origins and development of the Septuagint and its sources, Paul de Lagarde (1827–1891) was a vituperative German nationalist and an antisemite whose writings inspired the National Socialist (Nazi) ideology. An influential and controversial public thinker, he invoked an authentic Germanness that encompassed religion and a national ethos to counter the threat posed by the Jews and liberalism. His appeals to a “secret Germany” eventually resonated with modern conservative revolutionaries and notable antisemites from Julius Langbehn and Houston Stewart Chamberlain to Alfred Rosenberg and Adolf Hitler himself.