The God That Won: Eugen Kogon and the Origins of Cold War Liberalism

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2020-04

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<jats:p> Eugen Kogon (1903–87) was one of the most important German intellectuals of the late 1940s. His writings on the concentration camps and on the nature of fascism were crucial to West Germany’s fledgling transition from dictatorship to democracy. Previous scholars of Kogon have focused on his leftist Catholicism, which differentiated him from the mainstream. This article takes a different approach, asking instead how Kogon, a recovering fascist himself, came to have so much in common with his peers in West Germany and in the Cold War West. By 1948, he fluently spoke the new language of Cold War liberalism, pondering how human rights and liberal democracy could be saved from totalitarianism. He did not do so, the article argues, because he had decided to abandon his principles and embrace a militarized anti-Communist cause. Instead, he transitioned to Cold War liberalism because it provided a congenial home for a deeply Catholic thinker, committed to a carceral understanding of Europe’s fascist past and a federalist vision for its future. The analysis helps us to see how European Catholics made the Cold War their own – an important phenomenon, given that Christian Democrats held power almost everywhere on the continent that was not controlled by Communists. The analysis reveals a different portrait of Cold War liberalism than we usually see: less a smokescreen for American interests, and more a vessel for emancipatory projects and ideals that was strategically employed by diverse actors across the globe. </jats:p>

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10.1177/0022009419833439

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Chappel, James (2020). The God That Won: Eugen Kogon and the Origins of Cold War Liberalism. Journal of Contemporary History, 55(2). pp. 339–363. 10.1177/0022009419833439 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/22935.

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Chappel

James Gregory Chappel

Gilhuly Family Associate Professor

James Chappel is the Gilhuly Family Associate Professor of History at Duke University. He works on the intellectual history of modern Europe and the United States, focusing on themes of religion, gender, and the family. He has published two books and published widely in both scholarly and non-scholarly sites (The New York TimesThe Nation, and more). At Duke, he is committed above all to History undergraduates, especially majors, and to the pursuit of prison engagement opportunities. He is currently co-chair of the Prison Engagement Initiative at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, and founded the Duke-in-Prison lecture series. 

His most recent book is called Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age (Basic Books, 2024). It is a history of aging, health, and disability in the USA from 1920 to the present. It appeared in November 2024 and has been widely reviewed in outlets like The New Yorker and the Los Angeles Times

His first book, Catholic Modern (Harvard, 2018), asks about the transformation of the Catholic Church in 20th century Europe. How did Catholics, long affiliated with monarchism and anti-Semitism, come to accept liberal democracy and capitalism? How, in a word, did Europe's Catholics become modern? The book argues that the major transformation took place in the 1930s and 40s. In those crucial years of violence and war, Catholics decided to stop trying to conquer society as a whole, and start trying to salvage "the family" as the source of moral authority and political order. The book thus explains how and why Catholics became buttresses of the postwar democratic order, and also explains the new centrality of gender and family ethics to Catholic life, thought, and policymaking.

His current research project concerns C.S. Lewis and the Second World War. This brings together previous interests in religion, war, and family. 

For more information, visit his personal website.


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