{"id":72217,"date":"2026-05-07T08:35:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T06:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/?p=72217"},"modified":"2026-05-07T15:31:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T13:31:54","slug":"the-court-poet-of-critical-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/the-court-poet-of-critical-theory\/","title":{"rendered":"The Court Poet of Critical Theory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On the death of the storyteller, author, and filmmaker Alexander Kluge (Feb. 14, 1932\u2013Mar. 25, 2026).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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<\/em> [Black sun] for his DCTP channel on the German television station Sat1.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s belief that he was an incarnation of King Henry I and how he held nightly conversations at the King\u2019s grave in the crypt of Quedlinburg Cathedral. What was special about Kluge was his open-mindedness toward these topics. \u201cOne must study poison,\u201d he said during the interview; true enlightenment must \u201creactualize the necessity of why National Socialism came into the world,\u201d for only \u201cat the site of the battle, at the wound itself, can something heal.\u201d<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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Alexander Kluge (left) in conversation with R\u00fcdiger S\u00fcnner. Still from \u201cTodesstrahlen der Arier. Aus den Giftschr\u00e4nken des Dritten Reichs\u201d [Death Rays of the Aryans. From the poison cabinets of the Third Reich] (see footnote 2).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Kluge, who had collaborated with the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, was not a member of Adorno\u2019s Frankfurt School of thought, unlike the philosopher J\u00fcrgen Habermas who was critical of the so-called \u201cirrational\u201d or \u201catavistic.\u201d 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\u2019t too proud to take the intellectual worlds of Helena Blavatsky or Otto Rahn seriously, without jumping to conclusions, but rather \u201cputting them to the test\u201d and confronting their power of fascination. We spoke quite freely about Blavatsky\u2019s conceptions regarding \u201cAtlantis\u201d or \u201cLemuria\u201d or Otto Rahn\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had a similar experience later during a phone call with him about his plan to adapt Rudolf Steiner\u2019s From the Akashic Records<\/em> for the screen with director Andrei Tarkovsky, a project I intended to write a lengthy essay about for the journal Info3<\/em>.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Here, too, it was astonishing to see how little hesitation the \u201ccourt poet of critical theory\u201d\u2014as Kluge called himself\u2014had regarding anthroposophy and, for example, Steiner\u2019s 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\u2014such 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. \u201cI take Steiner very seriously,\u201d Kluge told me over the phone, \u201ceven when he\u2019s spinning tales.\u201d 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\u2019s 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 \u201cinner Atlantis\u201d 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, \u201cDo 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\u2019re not fixed, more floating than defined? Does not every artist know this \u2018inner Atlantis,\u2019 the atmosphere-like precursor to our ideas and projects\u2014that 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 \u201cprimordial oceans\u201d (Sumer), from the \u201cbreathing void\u201d (India), from \u201cchaos\u201d (Greece), or from the space filled with forces known as \u201cGinnungagap\u201d (Germania)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kluge did not view myths merely as ideologies that obscure reality\u2014as is common today in the media and academic circles in Germany\u2014but took them seriously as humanity\u2019s ancient imaginative heritage, perhaps in the spirit of the philosopher Ernst Cassirer who called humans the \u201canimal symbolicum.\u201d With this perspective, Kluge examined both the mythology of the Nazi era, which led to racial fanaticism and genocide, and Steiner\u2019s mythological conceptions, which he sought to reinterpret cinematically in collaboration with Tarkovsky. After the release of my film Abenteuer Anthroposophie<\/em> [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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I told him about my new project at the time, Das kreative Universum<\/em> [The creative universe], in which I wanted to bring science and spirituality into dialogue, he told me about conversations he\u2019d 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\u2019s 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 \u201cinner Atlantis\u201d remained unfinished. This unfinished state is itself emblematic of Kluge\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Translation <\/strong>Joshua Kelberman
Image <\/strong>Alexander Kluge \u00a9 Markus Kirchgessner<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the death of the storyteller, author, and filmmaker Alexander Kluge (Feb. 14, 1932\u2013Mar. 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. It was during the Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival), and we immersed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22555,"featured_media":72026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10939,8793,9201],"tags":[11791,11792,8824],"class_list":["post-72217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-obituary","category-philosophy","category-religion-en","tag-ausgabe-17-2026-en","tag-english-issue-19-2026","tag-spotlights"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22555"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72217"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72250,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72217\/revisions\/72250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}