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Ernst Kantorowicz: A Life
The first complete biography of an influential historian whose dramatic life intersected with many great events and thinkers of the twentieth century
This is the first complete biography of Ernst Kantorowicz (1895–1963), an influential and controversial German-American intellectual whose colorful and dramatic life intersected with many of the great events and thinkers of his time. A medieval historian whose ideas exerted an influence far beyond his field, he is most famous for two books―a notoriously nationalistic 1927 biography of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and The King's Two Bodies (1957), a classic study of medieval politics.
Born into a wealthy Prussian-Jewish family, Kantorowicz fought on the Western Front in World War I, was wounded at Verdun, and earned an Iron Cross; later, he earned an Iron Crescent for service in Anatolia before an affair with a general’s mistress led to Kantorowicz being sent home. After the war, he fought against Poles in his native Posen, Spartacists in Berlin, and communists in Munich. An ardent German nationalist during the Weimar period, Kantorowicz became a member of the elitist Stefan George circle, which nurtured a cult of the "Secret Germany." Yet as a professor in Frankfurt after the Nazis came to power, Kantorowicz bravely spoke out against the regime before an overflowing crowd. Narrowly avoiding arrest after Kristallnacht, he fled to England and then the United States, where he joined the faculty at Berkeley, only to be fired in 1950 for refusing to sign an anticommunist “loyalty oath.” From there, he “fell up the ladder” to Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, where he stayed until his death.
Drawing on many new sources, including numerous interviews and unpublished letters, Robert E. Lerner tells the story of a major intellectual whose life and times were as fascinating as his work.
This is the first complete biography of Ernst Kantorowicz (1895–1963), an influential and controversial German-American intellectual whose colorful and dramatic life intersected with many of the great events and thinkers of his time. A medieval historian whose ideas exerted an influence far beyond his field, he is most famous for two books―a notoriously nationalistic 1927 biography of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and The King's Two Bodies (1957), a classic study of medieval politics.
Born into a wealthy Prussian-Jewish family, Kantorowicz fought on the Western Front in World War I, was wounded at Verdun, and earned an Iron Cross; later, he earned an Iron Crescent for service in Anatolia before an affair with a general’s mistress led to Kantorowicz being sent home. After the war, he fought against Poles in his native Posen, Spartacists in Berlin, and communists in Munich. An ardent German nationalist during the Weimar period, Kantorowicz became a member of the elitist Stefan George circle, which nurtured a cult of the "Secret Germany." Yet as a professor in Frankfurt after the Nazis came to power, Kantorowicz bravely spoke out against the regime before an overflowing crowd. Narrowly avoiding arrest after Kristallnacht, he fled to England and then the United States, where he joined the faculty at Berkeley, only to be fired in 1950 for refusing to sign an anticommunist “loyalty oath.” From there, he “fell up the ladder” to Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, where he stayed until his death.
Drawing on many new sources, including numerous interviews and unpublished letters, Robert E. Lerner tells the story of a major intellectual whose life and times were as fascinating as his work.
424 pages, Hardcover
Published January 3, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 26, 2018
According to the blurb, “This is the first complete biography of Ernst Kantorowicz (1895-1963), an influential and controversial German-American intellectual whose colorful and dramatic life intersected with many of the great events and thinkers of his time”. At first glance, this biography certainly does look complete, but overall, I feel there is something missing. We follow Kantorowicz (who named himself Eka in his correspondence, which the author took up) through the course of his tumultuous life.
Kantorowicz was the author of two noted works of Medieval History, Kaiser Friedrich II. (infamous) and The King’s Two Bodies (famous). Both books are now dated, but were ground-breaking in their own way. Kantorowicz was also a nationalistic Jew, who fought for Germany in the First World War and voluntarily joined the Freikorpsen and took up arms in the Weimar era. He was a member of The Secret Germany, a group of somewhat esoteric nationalistic academics and artists, and his biography of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen was a favourite among Nazi’s. He managed to escape from Nazi Germany less than a year before the start of World War II, enjoying an academic career at Berkeley and Princeton.
So where did I feel things were missing? The author had access to a wealth of letters written both by Kantorowicz and to Kantorowicz and some people who had known Kantorowicz in real life consented to interviews. Yet for all Kantorowicz’s flamboyance, he doesn’t really jump out at you. I feel something more could have been done with a person with such searing wit and fiery opinions. Sometimes this comes through, but most of the time this book feels a bit like reading an encyclopaedia. The details are there, there are inferences and deductions, but it’s all a bit stale. Conclusion: good and informative, but not gripping.
Kantorowicz was the author of two noted works of Medieval History, Kaiser Friedrich II. (infamous) and The King’s Two Bodies (famous). Both books are now dated, but were ground-breaking in their own way. Kantorowicz was also a nationalistic Jew, who fought for Germany in the First World War and voluntarily joined the Freikorpsen and took up arms in the Weimar era. He was a member of The Secret Germany, a group of somewhat esoteric nationalistic academics and artists, and his biography of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen was a favourite among Nazi’s. He managed to escape from Nazi Germany less than a year before the start of World War II, enjoying an academic career at Berkeley and Princeton.
So where did I feel things were missing? The author had access to a wealth of letters written both by Kantorowicz and to Kantorowicz and some people who had known Kantorowicz in real life consented to interviews. Yet for all Kantorowicz’s flamboyance, he doesn’t really jump out at you. I feel something more could have been done with a person with such searing wit and fiery opinions. Sometimes this comes through, but most of the time this book feels a bit like reading an encyclopaedia. The details are there, there are inferences and deductions, but it’s all a bit stale. Conclusion: good and informative, but not gripping.
September 1, 2017
For anyone with an interest in the extraordinary contribution made by German Jewish creative spirits to the cultures of the various countries they emigrated to, this book cannot fail to be impressive. Ernst Kantorowicz made his first reputation in Germany at the age of thirty-two with a study of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. The immense range of information and depth of understanding achieved in this book made it seem like the work of an elderly scholar bringing together all the resources gathered over a life of study, except for the fact that it was written with the liveliness and wit of a fresh young mind. Together with a second volume on its sources and related archival materials it is one of the finest works of Medieval European studies ever written.
It would have assured its author a fine academic career, were it not for the rise of Nazism, which placed him outside the mainstream of German life - a painful circumstance for a man who had been a German nationalist throughout the Weimar Republic and whose work was a study of the complex world that preceded the formation of a German nation.
In short, Kantorowicz went into exile, first to Oxford and later to universities and research institutes in the USA. This sentence, though true, disguises a huge complexity of difficulties for a scholar who was German at a time when Germans were treated with suspicion and also a Jew in a country, or continent, where Jews had always been outsiders, often treated with hostility. Robert E. Lerner traces in detail the struggle to achieve academic tenure in the face of a system that recognised Kantorowicz's talent and achievements but, sometimes out of jealousy, resisted offering him security.
The scholar's other great book is The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (1957), which offers surprising insights into the medieval mind. Although its theme seems narrow - the contrast between the king's mortal, human body, subject to the ills of any other man, with his immortal, divine character whose life is continued through the bodies of successive kings - in fact it casts light into many aspects of thought and feeling. The second chapter, for example, is indispensable for readers struggling with the complexities and seeming alienation of Shakespeare's Richard II.
Lerner also reveals that behind these books, was a man who lived with great intensity - a lover of men and women and of fine food and wine; a bon vivant but also a man of integrity. Although he was anything but a communist, he withdrew from his academic position in protest against the persecution of communist and associated intellectuals and creative spirits during the McCarthy era.
From his membership in the austere conservative "Circle" around Stefan George in the early twentieth century to his courageous stance as an icon of academic freedom in the fifties, Ernst Kantorowicz was always a charismatic figure who could arouse enthusiastic support and angry denunciation but never indifference in those who encountered him. He also wrote books and papers of lasting value, still read by people working in his area of specialisation. Lerner's book is sometimes technical but has never a dull moment.
It would have assured its author a fine academic career, were it not for the rise of Nazism, which placed him outside the mainstream of German life - a painful circumstance for a man who had been a German nationalist throughout the Weimar Republic and whose work was a study of the complex world that preceded the formation of a German nation.
In short, Kantorowicz went into exile, first to Oxford and later to universities and research institutes in the USA. This sentence, though true, disguises a huge complexity of difficulties for a scholar who was German at a time when Germans were treated with suspicion and also a Jew in a country, or continent, where Jews had always been outsiders, often treated with hostility. Robert E. Lerner traces in detail the struggle to achieve academic tenure in the face of a system that recognised Kantorowicz's talent and achievements but, sometimes out of jealousy, resisted offering him security.
The scholar's other great book is The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (1957), which offers surprising insights into the medieval mind. Although its theme seems narrow - the contrast between the king's mortal, human body, subject to the ills of any other man, with his immortal, divine character whose life is continued through the bodies of successive kings - in fact it casts light into many aspects of thought and feeling. The second chapter, for example, is indispensable for readers struggling with the complexities and seeming alienation of Shakespeare's Richard II.
Lerner also reveals that behind these books, was a man who lived with great intensity - a lover of men and women and of fine food and wine; a bon vivant but also a man of integrity. Although he was anything but a communist, he withdrew from his academic position in protest against the persecution of communist and associated intellectuals and creative spirits during the McCarthy era.
From his membership in the austere conservative "Circle" around Stefan George in the early twentieth century to his courageous stance as an icon of academic freedom in the fifties, Ernst Kantorowicz was always a charismatic figure who could arouse enthusiastic support and angry denunciation but never indifference in those who encountered him. He also wrote books and papers of lasting value, still read by people working in his area of specialisation. Lerner's book is sometimes technical but has never a dull moment.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews