Obituary - The Court Poet of Critical Theory

On the death of the storyteller, author, and filmmaker Alexander Kluge (Feb. 14, 1932–Mar. 25, 2026).

The death of filmmaker and writer Alexander Kluge particularly touched me because I had the chance to know him personally. Our first encounter was in 1999, when Kluge invited me to Berlin for an interview about my film Schwarze Sonne [Black sun] for his DCTP channel on the German television station Sat1.¹ It was during the Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival), and we immersed ourselves in an intense exchange about the bizarre mythical world of National Socialism, which I had explored in a documentary film.

We met at the Intercontinental Hotel where many directors, actors, film producers, and festivalgoers were staying. Kluge had set up cameras and lights amidst the hustle and bustle of the lobby. But neither the crowds nor the background noise disturbed us, as we were shielded from the outside world by a cocoon of intensity. I explained to Kluge the mythological dimensions behind Nazi and SS ideology, which were entirely unknown to him at the time. I spoke, for instance, about the ritual spaces of Wewelsburg Castle or Heinrich Himmler’s belief that he was an incarnation of King Henry I and how he held nightly conversations at the King’s grave in the crypt of Quedlinburg Cathedral. What was special about Kluge was his open-mindedness toward these topics. “One must study poison,” he said during the interview; true enlightenment must “reactualize the necessity of why National Socialism came into the world,” for only “at the site of the battle, at the wound itself, can something heal.”²

Alexander Kluge (left) in conversation with Rüdiger Sünner. Still from “Todesstrahlen der Arier. Aus den Giftschränken des Dritten Reichs” [Death Rays of the Aryans. From the poison cabinets of the Third Reich] (see footnote 2).

Kluge, who had collaborated with the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, was not a member of Adorno’s Frankfurt School of thought, unlike the philosopher Jürgen Habermas who was critical of the so-called “irrational” or “atavistic.” Rather, Kluge ventured deep into the underground of esoteric-mythological conceptions because, as an artist who thought in images, he knew how powerful metaphors, symbols, and rituals can be. Kluge also wasn’t too proud to take the intellectual worlds of Helena Blavatsky or Otto Rahn seriously, without jumping to conclusions, but rather “putting them to the test” and confronting their power of fascination. We spoke quite freely about Blavatsky’s conceptions regarding “Atlantis” or “Lemuria” or Otto Rahn’s research on the alleged Cathar Grail castle in southern France. Kluge allowed me to let the ideas unfold so I could truly immerse myself in the intellectual atmosphere of the esoteric or folkist conceptions of that time.

I had a similar experience later during a phone call with him about his plan to adapt Rudolf Steiner’s From the Akashic Records for the screen with director Andrei Tarkovsky, a project I intended to write a lengthy essay about for the journal Info3.³ Here, too, it was astonishing to see how little hesitation the “court poet of critical theory”—as Kluge called himself—had regarding anthroposophy and, for example, Steiner’s conceptions about Atlantis. Inspired by Tarkovsky, whose imagination knew no bounds, Kluge developed bold ideas about mysterious places on the Earth where one might still find access to lost underground realms—such as an ancient well near Naples or breathtakingly beautiful gardens in the Hindu Kush said to have been planted according to the oldest traditions of Atlantis. “I take Steiner very seriously,” Kluge told me over the phone, “even when he’s spinning tales.” I thought long and hard about this statement, one that I hardly ever hear from other German intellectuals. I consider it a groundbreaking suggestion to take Steiner’s mythological teachings as imaginative worlds that can expand and fuel our rational thinking rather than interpret them as literal facts. Kluge therefore spoke of an “inner Atlantis” rather than geographically locatable places, as did Tarkovsky, who wanted to film the flows of rivers, streams, and springs to set our rigid concepts in motion. The two directors may have asked themselves, “Do we not still carry such Atlantean moods within us? States wherein we feel both male and female at the same time? States in which we’re not fixed, more floating than defined? Does not every artist know this ‘inner Atlantis,’ the atmosphere-like precursor to our ideas and projects—that phase of conception when things are not yet tangible, but full of energetic potency? Is the artist not secretly connected to the great creation myths wherein the material world emerges from “primordial oceans” (Sumer), from the “breathing void” (India), from “chaos” (Greece), or from the space filled with forces known as “Ginnungagap” (Germania)?

Kluge did not view myths merely as ideologies that obscure reality—as is common today in the media and academic circles in Germany—but took them seriously as humanity’s ancient imaginative heritage, perhaps in the spirit of the philosopher Ernst Cassirer who called humans the “animal symbolicum.” With this perspective, Kluge examined both the mythology of the Nazi era, which led to racial fanaticism and genocide, and Steiner’s mythological conceptions, which he sought to reinterpret cinematically in collaboration with Tarkovsky. After the release of my film Abenteuer Anthroposophie [Adventure anthroposophy], he called and congratulated me on the film, which made me extraordinarily happy. He had so much to do, Kluge told me, that one would have to tie him to a chair to get him to actually watch a film all the way through, but he was able to stay with mine until the very end.

When I told him about my new project at the time, Das kreative Universum [The creative universe], in which I wanted to bring science and spirituality into dialogue, he told me about conversations he’d had with neuroscientists that revolved around similar topics. Since we were releasing our films through the same DVD distributor (Absolut Medien), Kluge even suggested we collaborate on a similar project. For a variety of reasons, I decided to decline. For one thing, I had my hands full with my own film project, but perhaps I was also afraid of being overwhelmed by Kluge’s renown and his artistic intensity. It was certainly the right decision on my part, one that allowed me to continue my filmmaking in complete independence. Later, I sometimes regretted my reluctance and imagined what it would have been like if Kluge and I had continued the Steiner project planned with Tarkovsky. And yet I still find a particular kind of beauty in the fact that the film about the “inner Atlantis” remained unfinished. This unfinished state is itself emblematic of Kluge’s spirit, which moved in fragments and hints, possessing something unique and inspiring, even if everything was not able to be thought through to the very end. I am glad to have encountered this extraordinarily thoughtful and creative person; I will always remember our conversations with gratitude and warmth.

Translation Joshua Kelberman
Image Alexander Kluge © Markus Kirchgessner