View source for Houston Stewart Chamberlain

{{Short description|British-German racialist philosopher (1855–1927)}}{{Redirect|H. S. Chamberlain|the industrialist|Hiram Sanborn Chamberlain}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| name          = Houston Stewart Chamberlain
| image         = Bundesarchiv Bild 119-1600-06, Houston Stewart Chamberlain.jpg 
| caption       = 
| birth_date    = {{birth date|df=yes|1855|09|09}}
| birth_place   = [[Southsea]], Hampshire, England
| death_date    = {{death date and age|df=yes|1927|01|09|1855|09|09}}
| death_place   = [[Bayreuth]], Bavaria, Weimar Republic
| father        = [[William Charles Chamberlain]]
| citizenship   = {{hlist|United Kingdom|Germany}}
| spouse        = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|Anna Horst|1878|1905|end=div}}
* {{marriage|[[Eva Chamberlain|Eva von Bülow-Wagner]]|1908|1927}}
}}
| relations     = [[Basil Hall Chamberlain]] (brother)
}}
'''Houston Stewart Chamberlain''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|tʃ|eɪ|m|b|ər|l|ɪ|n}}; 9 September 1855 – 9 January 1927) was a British-German philosopher who wrote works about [[political philosophy]] and [[natural science]]. His writing promoted German [[ethnonationalism]], [[antisemitism]], [[scientific racism]], and [[Nordicism]]; he has been described as a "racialist writer".<ref>[[Michael D. Biddiss|Biddiss, Michael]] (ndg) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/32349 "Chamberlain, Houston Stewart"] in ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]''</ref> His best-known book, the two-volume ''Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts'' (''[[The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century]]''),<ref>{{Citation|last=Chamberlain|first=Houston Stewart|title=Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts|year=1899|location=Munich, Germany|publisher=F. Bruckmann|language=de|oclc=27828004}} Electronic copy is available from the [[HathiTrust|Hathi Trust]] Digital Library ([http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3836780 volume 1]) and ([http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3836781 volume 2]).</ref> published in 1899, became highly influential in the [[Pan-Germanism|pan-Germanic]] [[Völkisch movement|''Völkisch'']] movements of the early 20th century, and later influenced the antisemitism of [[Racial policy of Nazi Germany|Nazi racial policy]]. In the early 1920s, Chamberlain met and encouraged [[Adolf Hitler]]: he has been referred to as "Hitler's [[John the Baptist]]".<ref>{{cite book|last=Mitcham|first=Samuel W. Jr. |title=Why Hitler?: The Genesis of the Nazi Reich|publisher=Praeger|year=1996|isbn=978-0-275-95485-7|location=Westport, Connecticut|page=82}}; citing Forman, James D. (1978) ''Nazism'', New York. p. 14.</ref>

Born in [[Hampshire]], he emigrated to [[Dresden]] in adulthood out of an adoration for composer [[Richard Wagner]]. He married [[Eva von Bülow]], Wagner's biological daughter, in December 1908, twenty-five years after Wagner's death.<ref group="notes">Eva von Bulow's mother, [[Cosima Wagner]], was still married to [[Hans von Bülow]] when Eva was born – but her biological father was Wagner.</ref> During [[World War I]], Chamberlain sided with Germany against his country of birth. He took German citizenship in 1916.

==Early life and education==
Houston Stewart Chamberlain was born in [[Southsea]], Hampshire, England, the son of [[Rear Admiral (Royal Navy)|Rear Admiral]] [[William Charles Chamberlain]]. His mother, Eliza Jane, daughter of [[Captain (Royal Navy)|Captain]] [[Basil Hall (naval officer)|Basil Hall]], died before he was a year old, leading to his being brought up by his grandmother in France. His elder brother was professor [[Basil Hall Chamberlain]]. Chamberlain's poor health frequently led him to being sent to the warmer climates of Spain and Italy for the winter. This constant moving about made it hard for Chamberlain to form lasting friendships.

===Cheltenham College===
Chamberlain's education began at a ''[[lycée]]'' in [[Versailles (city)|Versailles]] and continued mostly in continental Europe, but his father had planned a military career for his son. At the age of eleven he was sent to [[Cheltenham College]], an English [[boarding school]] that produced many Army and Navy officers.<ref name="Redesdale, Lord 1913"/> Chamberlain deeply disliked Cheltenham College, and felt lonely and out of place there.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=24–25}} The young Chamberlain was "a compulsive dreamer", more interested in the arts than in the military, and he developed a fondness for nature and a near-[[mysticism|mystical]] sense of self.<ref name="Mosse, George L 1968">Mosse (1968), p.ix</ref>

Chamberlain grew up in a self-confident, optimistic, Victorian atmosphere that celebrated the nineteenth century as the "[[Belle Époque|Age of Progress]]", a world that many Victorians expected to get progressively better with Britain leading the way for the rest of the world.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=20–21}} He was supportive of the [[Liberal Party (United Kingdom)|Liberal Party]], and shared the general values of 19th-century British [[liberalism]] such as a faith in progress, of a world that could only get better, of the greatness of Britain as a liberal democratic and capitalist society.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=23, 27}}
Chamberlain's major interests in his studies at Cheltenham were the natural sciences, especially astronomy.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 24">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=24}}</ref> Chamberlain later recalled: "The stars seemed closer to me, more gentle, more worthy of trust, and more sympathetic – for that is the only word which describes my feelings – than any of the people around me in school. For the stars, I experienced true ''friendship''".<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 24"/>

===Embracing conservativism===
During his youth, Chamberlain – while not entirely rejecting at this point his liberalism – became influenced by the romantic conservative critique of the [[Industrial Revolution]]. Bemoaning the loss of [[Merry England|"Merry Old England"]], this view argued for a return to a highly romanticized period of English history, with the people living happily in harmony with nature on the land overseen by a benevolent, cultured elite.<ref name="Mosse, George L 1968"/> In this critique, the Industrial Revolution was seen as a disaster which forced people to live in dirty, overcrowded cities, doing dehumanizing work in factories while society was dominated by a philistine, greedy middle class.<ref name="Mosse, George L 1968"/>

The prospect of serving as an officer in [[British India|India]] or elsewhere in the [[British Empire]] held no attraction for him. In addition, he was a delicate child with poor health. At the age of fourteen he had to be withdrawn from school. After Cheltenham, Chamberlain always felt out of place in Britain, a society whose values Chamberlain felt were not his values, writing in 1876: "The fact may be regrettable but it remains a fact; I have become so completely un-English that the mere thought of England and the English makes me unhappy".{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=32}} Chamberlain travelled to various [[destination spa|spas]] around Europe, accompanied by a [[Prussia]]n tutor, Mr Otto Kuntze, who taught him German and interested him in [[Culture of Germany|German culture]] and [[History of Germany|history]]. Fascinated by Renaissance art and architecture, Chamberlain learned Italian and planned to settle in Florence for a time.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=36–37}}

===University of Geneva and racial theory===
[[File:Hschamberlain1886wien.jpg|thumb|Chamberlain in 1886.]]
Chamberlain attended the [[University of Geneva]], in [[Romandy|French-speaking Switzerland]]. There he studied under [[Carl Vogt]], who was a supporter of [[Typology (anthropology)|racial typology]],<ref>Bramwell, A., ''Blood and Soil – Richard Walther Darré and Hitler's "Green Party"'', London, 1985, p. 206, {{ISBN|0-946041-33-4}}</ref> as well as under chemist [[Carl Gräbe]], botanist [[Johannes Müller Argoviensis]], physicist and [[Parapsychology|parapsychologist]] Marc Thury, astronomer [[Emile Plantamour]], and other professors. Chamberlain's main interests as a student revolved around systematic botany, geology, astronomy, and later the anatomy and physiology of the human body.<ref name="Redesdale, Lord 1913">Redesdale (1913), p. vi</ref> In 1881, he earned a baccalaureate in physical and natural sciences.
During his time in Geneva, Chamberlain, who always despised [[Benjamin Disraeli]], came to hate his country more and more, accusing the Prime Minister of taking British life down to what Chamberlain considered to be his extremely low level.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 353">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=353}}</ref> During the early 1880s, Chamberlain was still a Liberal, "a man who approached issues from a firmly [[Gladstonian liberalism|Gladstonian]] perspective and showed a marked antipathy to the philosophy and policies of British Conservatism".{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=78}} Chamberlain often expressed his disgust with Disraeli, "the man whom he blamed in large measure for the injection of selfish class interest and [[jingoism]] into British public life in the next decades".{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=80}}

An early sign of his anti-Semitism came in 1881 when he described the landlords in Ireland affected by the Land Bill as "blood-sucking Jews" (''sic''). The main landowning classes in Ireland then were [[gentile]]s. At this stage of his life his anti-Semitic remarks were few and far between.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=79}}
====Botany dissertation: theory of vital force====

In Geneva, Chamberlain continued working towards a doctorate in [[botany]], but he later abandoned that project due to ill health. The text of what would have been Chamberlain's doctoral dissertation was published in 1897 as ''Recherches sur la sève ascendante'' ("Studies on rising [[sap]]"),{{sfnp|Chamberlain|1897}} but this publication did not culminate in any further academic qualifications.<ref name=Powell>{{cite book|last1=Powell|first1=J.|last2=Blakely|first2=D. W.|last3=Powell|first3=T.|name-list-style=amp |title=Biographical Dictionary of Literary Influences: The Nineteenth Century | publisher = [[Greenwood Press]] |year=2001 |pages=82–84 |location=Westport, Connecticut |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3N3uj_wo-_kC&q=recherches+sur+la+seve+ascendante&pg=PA82 |isbn=978-0-313-30422-4 }}</ref>

Chamberlain's book was based on his own experimental observations of water transport in various [[vascular plants]]. Against the conclusions of [[Eduard Strasburger]], [[Julius von Sachs]], and other leading botanists, he argued that his observations could not be explained by the application of the [[fluid mechanics|fluid mechanical]] theories of the day to the motion of water in the plants' [[xylem]] conduits. Instead, he claimed that his results evidenced other processes, associated with the action of living matter and which he placed under the heading of a ''force vitale'' ("[[Élan vital|vital force]]").

Chamberlain summarised his thesis in the book's introduction:
{{blockquote|text=Without the participation of these vital functions it is quite simply impossible for water to rise to heights of 150&nbsp;feet, 200&nbsp;feet and beyond, and all the efforts that one makes to hide the difficulties of the problem by relying on confused notions drawn from [[physics]] are little more reasonable than the search for the [[philosopher's stone]].{{sfnp|Chamberlain|1897|page=8}}}}

In response to Strasburger's complaint that a vitalistic explanation of the ascent of sap "sidesteps the difficulties, calms our concerns, and thus manages to seduce us", Chamberlain retorted that "life is not an explanation, nor a theory, but a fact".{{sfnp|Chamberlain|1897|page=5}} Although most plant physiologists currently regard the ascent of sap as adequately explained by the passive mechanisms of [[transpirational pull]] and [[root pressure]],<ref>Tyree, Melvin T. and Zimmerman, Martin H. (2003). ''Xylem Structure and the Ascent of Sap'' (2nd ed.) Springer. {{ISBN|3-540-43354-6}}</ref> some scientists have continued to argue that some form of active pumping is involved in the transport of water within some living plants, though usually without referring to Chamberlain's work.<ref name="Amin">{{cite journal |last=Amin |first=M |title=Ascent of sap in plants by means of electrical double layers |journal=Journal of Biological Physics |volume=10 |pages=103–109 |date=June 1982 |issue=2 |doi=10.1007/BF01988693|s2cid=93485172 }}</ref><ref name="Meinzer">{{cite journal |last1=Meinzer |first1=Frederick C. |last2=Clearwater |first2=Michael J. |last3=Goldstein |first3=Guillermo |title=Water transport in trees: current perspectives, new insights and some controversies |journal=Environmental and Experimental Botany |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=239–262 |date=19 April 2001 |doi=10.1016/S0098-8472(01)00074-0|pmid=11323032 |bibcode=2001EnvEB..45..239M }}</ref><ref name="Zimmermann">{{cite journal |last1=Zimmermann |first1=Ulrich |last2=Schneider |first2=Heike |last3=Wegner |first3=Lars H. |last4=Haase |first4=Axel |title=Water ascent in tall trees: does evolution of land plants rely on a highly metastable state? |journal=[[New Phytologist]] |volume=162 |issue=3 |pages=575–615 |date=13 May 2004 |doi=10.1111/j.1469-8137.2004.01083.x|pmid=33873767 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2004NewPh.162..575Z }}</ref>

====Support of World Ice Theory====
Chamberlain was an early supporter of [[Hanns Hörbiger]]'s ''[[Welteislehre]]'' ("World Ice Theory"), the theory that most bodies in the [[Solar System]] are covered with ice. Due in part to Chamberlain's advocacy, this became official [[dogma]] during the [[Third Reich]].<ref>{{cite book | last = Herrmann | first =Joachim | title = Das falsche Weltbild | year = 1962 | publisher = Franckhsche Verlagshandlung Kosmos | language = de | location = Stuttgart}}</ref>

====Anti-scientific claims====
Chamberlain's attitude towards the natural sciences was somewhat ambivalent and contradictory – he later wrote: "one of the most fatal errors of our time is that which impels us to give too great weight to the so-called 'results' of science."<ref>{{cite book |last=Chamberlain |first=Houston Stewart |title=The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century |year=1911 |publisher=John Lane, the Bodley Head |page=94 |url=http://www.hschamberlain.net/grundlagen/division2_chapter5.html |location=London |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071223072601/http://www.hschamberlain.net/grundlagen/division2_chapter5.html |archive-date=23 December 2007 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> Still, his scientific credentials were often cited by admirers to give weight to his political philosophy.<ref name="Redesdale, Lord 1913"/> Chamberlain rejected Darwinism, evolution and [[social Darwinism]] and instead emphasized "[[:wikt:gestalt|Gestalt]]" which he said derived from [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]].<ref>see Harrington, Anne (1999) [https://books.google.com/books?id=vUwxW_ZwkgkC&dq=%22Houston+Stewart+Chamberlain%22+darwinism&pg=PA106 ''Reenchanted Science: Holism in German Culture from Wilhelm II to Hitler'']. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p.106</ref>

==Wagnerite==
{{Nazism sidebar|ideologues}}
An ardent [[Francophile]] in his youth, Chamberlain had a marked preference for speaking French over English.<ref name="Buruma, Ian page 219">Buruma (2000) p. 219</ref> It was only at the age of twenty three in November 1878, when he first heard the music of [[Richard Wagner]], that Chamberlain became not only a Wagnerite, but an ardent [[Germanophile]] and [[Francophobe]].<ref name="Buruma, Ian page 219" />{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=53–54}} As he put later, it was then he realized the full "degeneracy" of the French culture that he had so admired compared to the greatness of the German culture that had produced Wagner, whom Chamberlain viewed as one of the great geniuses of all time.<ref name="Buruma, Ian page 219" /> In the music of Wagner, Chamberlain found the mystical, life-affirming spiritual force that he had sought unsuccessfully in British and French cultures.<ref name="Buruma, Ian page 219" /> Further increasing his love of Germany was that he had fallen in love with a German woman named Anna Horst.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 33">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=33}}</ref> As Chamberlain's wealthy, elitist family back in Britain objected to him marrying the lower middle-class Horst, this further estranged him from Britain, a place whose people Chamberlain regarded as cold, unfeeling, callous and concerned only with money.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 33"/> By contrast, Chamberlain regarded Germany as the romantic "land of love", a place whose people had human feelings like love, and whose culture was infused with a special spirituality that brought out the best in humanity.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=33–35}} 

In 1883–1884, Chamberlain lived in Paris and worked as a stockbroker.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=41–43}} Chamberlain's attempts to play the Paris bourse ended in failure as he proved to be inept at business, and much of his hatred of capitalism stemmed from his time in Paris.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=43–44}} More happily for him, Chamberlain founded the first Wagner society in Paris and often contributed articles to the ''[[La Revue wagnérienne|Revue wagnérienne]]'', the first journal in France devoted to Wagner studies.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=60–62, 64–67}} Together with his friend, the French writer [[Édouard Dujardin]], Chamberlain did much to introduce Wagner to the French, who until then had largely ignored Wagner's music.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=64}}
Thereafter he settled in [[Dresden]], where "he plunged heart and soul into the mysterious depths of [[Richard Wagner|Wagnerian]] music and philosophy, the [[metaphysics|metaphysical]] works of the Master probably exercising as strong an influence upon him as the musical dramas".<ref name="Redesdale, Lord 1913"/> Chamberlain immersed himself in philosophical writings, and became a ''[[Völkisch movement|Völkisch]]'' author, one of those concerned more with a highly racist understanding of art, culture, civilisation and spirit than with quantitative physical distinctions between groups.<ref>Bramwell, A. (1985) ''Blood and Soil – Richard Walther Darré and Hitler's "Green Party"'', London. pp. 23 & 40. {{ISBN|0-946041-33-4}}</ref> This is evidenced by his huge treatise on [[Immanuel Kant]]<ref>Chamberlain, Houston Stewart (1905) ''Immanuel Kant: Die Persönlichkeit als Einführung in das Werk''. Bruckmann.</ref> with its comparisons. It was during his time in Dresden that Chamberlain came to embrace ''völkisch'' thought through his study of Wagner, and from 1884 onwards, anti-Semitic and racist statements became the norm in his letters to his family.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=83}} In 1888, Chamberlain wrote to his family proclaiming his joy at the death of the Emperor [[Frederick III, German Emperor|Friedrich III]], a strong opponent of anti-Semitism whom Chamberlain called a "Jewish liberal", and rejoicing that his anti-Semitic son [[Wilhelm II]] was now on the throne.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=90}} 1888 also saw Chamberlain's first visit to the [[Wahnfried]] to meet [[Cosima Wagner]], the reclusive leader of the Wagner cult.<ref>Biddiss (1998), p. 80</ref> Chamberlain later recalled that Cosima Wagner had "electrified" him as he felt the "deepest love" for Wagner's widow while Wagner wrote to a friend that she felt a "great friendship" with Chamberlain "because of his outstanding learning and dignified character".{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=74}} Wagner came to regard Chamberlain as her surrogate son.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 75">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=75}}</ref> Under her influence, Chamberlain abandoned his previous belief that art was a separate entity from other fields and came to embrace the ''völkisch'' belief of the unity of race, art, nation and politics.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 75" />

Chamberlain's status as an immigrant to Germany always meant he was to a certain extent an outsider in his adopted country – a man who spoke fluent German, but always with an English accent. Chamberlain tried very hard to be more German than the Germans, and it was his efforts to fit in that led him to ''völkisch'' politics.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 331">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=331}}</ref> Likewise, his anti-Semitism allowed him to define himself as a German in opposition to a group that allegedly threatened all Germans, thereby allowing him to integrate better into the Wagnerian circles with whom he socialized most of the time.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 331"/> Chamberlain's friend [[Hermann Graf Keyserling|Hermann Keyserling]] later recalled that Chamberlain was an eccentric English "individualist" who "never saw Germany as it really is", instead having an idealized, almost mythic view.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 320">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=320}}</ref> This was especially the case as initially the German Wagnerites had rejected Chamberlain, telling him that only Germans could really understand Wagner, statements that very much hurt Chamberlain.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=58}}

By this time Chamberlain had met Anna Horst, whom he would divorce in 1905 after 28 years of marriage.<ref>Shirer (1959), p.105</ref><ref name=HSCnetTime>{{cite web |url=http://www.hschamberlain.net/timeline/timeline.html |title=Houston Stewart Chamberlain: Timeline 1855–1939 |publisher=HSChamberlain.net |access-date=19 April 2015 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150427110826/http://www.hschamberlain.net/timeline/timeline.html |archive-date=27 April 2015 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> Chamberlain was an admirer of Richard Wagner, and wrote several commentaries on his works including ''Notes sur Lohengrin '' ("Notes on Lohengrin") (1892), an analysis of Wagner's drama (1892), and a biography (1895), emphasising in particular the heroic Teutonic aspects in the composer's works.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia
|title = Houston Stewart Chamberlain.
|encyclopedia = [[Encyclopædia Britannica]]
|url = https://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9022306/Houston-Stewart-Chamberlain
|access-date = 22 December 2007}}
</ref> Stewart Spencer, writing in ''Wagner Remembered'',<ref>London 2000</ref> described Chamberlain's edition of Wagner letters as "one of the most egregious attempts in the history of [[musicology]] to misrepresent an artist by systematically [[Historical revisionism (negationism)|censoring]] his correspondence". In particular, Wagner's lively sex life presented a problem for Chamberlain. Wagner had abandoned his first wife Minna, had an open affair with the married woman Mathilde Wesendonck and had started sleeping with his second wife Cosima while she was still married to her first husband.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 133">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=133}}</ref> Chamberlain in his Wagner biography went to considerable lengths to distort these details.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 133"/>

During his time in Dresden, Chamberlain like many other ''völkisch'' activists became fascinated with [[Hindu mythology]], and learned [[Sanskrit]] to read the ancient Indian epics like the ''[[Vedas]]'' and the ''[[Upanishads]]'' in their original form.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 304">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=304}}</ref> In these stories about ancient [[Aryan]] heroes conquering the Indian subcontinent, Chamberlain found a very appealing world governed by a rigid caste system with social inferiors firmly locked into their place; full of larger-than-life Aryan gods and aristocratic heroes and a world that focused on the spiritual at the expense of the material.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 304"/> Since by this time, historians, archaeologists and linguists had all accepted that the Aryans ("noble ones") of Hindu legend were an Indo-European people, Chamberlain had little trouble arguing that these Aryans were in fact Germanic peoples, and modern Germans had much to learn from [[Hinduism]].<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 304"/> For Chamberlain the Hindu texts offered a body of pure Aryan thought that made it possible to find the harmony of humanity and nature, which provided the unity of thought, purpose and action that provided the necessary spirituality for Aryan peoples to find true happiness in a world being destroyed by a soulless materialism.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=304–305}}

[[File:HSChamberlain cropped.jpg|thumb|right|Chamberlain in 1895]]

==Champion of Wagnerism==
In 1889, he moved to [[Austria]]. During this time it is said his ideas on race began taking shape, influenced by the concept of [[Teutons|Teutonic]] supremacy he believed embodied in the works of Wagner and the French racist writer [[Arthur de Gobineau]].<ref name="CHASE">Chase, Allan (1977) ''The Legacy of Malthus: The Social Costs of the New Scientific Racism'' New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 91–92</ref> In his book [[An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races|''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'']], the aristocratic Gobineau, who had an obsessive hatred of commoners, had developed the theory of an Aryan master race.<ref>Blue, Gregory (Spring 1999) "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the 'Yellow Peril' and the Critique of Modernity" ''[[Journal of World History]]'', vol. 10, iss. 1, p. 99</ref> Wagner was greatly influenced by Gobineau's theories, but could not accept Gobineau's theory of inevitable racial decay amongst what was left of the "Aryan race", instead preferring the idea of racial regeneration of the Aryans.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=152–153}} The Franco-Israeli historian [[Saul Friedländer]] opined that Wagner was the inventor of a new type of anti-Semitism, namely "redemptive anti-semitism".<ref name="Friedländer, Saul page 87">Friedländer (1998), p. 87</ref>

In 1908, twenty-five years after Wagner's death, Chamberlain married Eva von Bülow-Wagner, [[Franz Liszt]]'s granddaughter and Richard Wagner's daughter (Wagner had started fathering children by Cosima while she was still married to Hans von Bülow – despite her surname, Eva was actually Wagner's daughter). The next year he moved to Germany and became an important member of the "[[Bayreuth Circle]]" of German nationalist intellectuals. As an ardent Wagnerite, Chamberlain saw it as his life's mission to spread the message of racial hatred which he believed Wagner had advocated.<ref name="Friedländer, Saul page 89">Friedländer (1998), p. 89</ref> Chamberlain explained his work in promoting the Wagner cult as an effort to cure modern society of its spiritual ills that he claimed were caused by capitalism, industrialisation, materialism, and urbanisation. Chamberlain wrote about modern society in the 1890s:
<blockquote>Like a wheel that spins faster and faster, the increasing rush of life drives us continually further apart from each other, continually further from the 'firm ground of nature'; soon it must fling us out into empty nothingness.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 150">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=150}}</ref></blockquote>

In another letter, Chamberlain stated:

<blockquote>If we do not soon pay attention to Schiller's thought regarding the transformation from the state of Need into the Aesthetic State, then our condition will degenerate into a boundless chaos of empty talk and arms foundries. If we do not soon heed Wagner's warning—that mankind must awaken to a consciousness of its "pristine holy worth"—then the Babylonian tower of senseless doctrines will collapse on us and suffocate the moral core of our being forever.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 150"/></blockquote>

In Chamberlain's view, the purpose of the Wagner cult was nothing less than the salvation of humanity.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 150"/> As such, Chamberlain became engulfed in the "redemptive anti-semitism" that was at the core of both Wagner's worldview and of the Wagner cult.<ref name="Friedländer, Saul page 87" />

==Vienna years==
In September 1891, Chamberlain visited [[Bosnia and Herzegovina]].{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=98}} Chamberlain had been commissioned by the Austrian government to write propaganda glorying its [[Austrian-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina|colonial rule of Bosnia-Herzegovina]] for a Geneva newspaper. Chamberlain's articles about Bosnia reveal his increasing preference for dictatorship over democracy, with Chamberlain praising the Austrians for their utterly undemocratic rule.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=100}}</ref> Chamberlain wrote that what he had seen in Bosnia-Herzegovina was the perfect example of Wagner's dictum: "Absolute monarch – free people!"<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page" /> Chamberlain declared that the Bosnians were extremely lucky not to have the shambles and chaos of a democratic "parliamentary regime", instead being ruled by an idealist, enlightened dictatorship that did what was best for them.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page" /> Equally important in Chamberlain's Bosnian articles was his celebration of "natural man" who lived on the land as a small farmer as opposed to what Chamberlain saw as the corrupt men who lived in modern industrial, urban society.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 101">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=101}}</ref> At the time Chamberlain visited Bosnia-Herzegovina, the provinces had been barely touched by modernization, and for the most part, Bosnians continued to live much as their ancestors had done in the Middle Ages. Chamberlain was enchanted with what he saw, and forgetting for the moment that the purpose of his visit was to glorify Austrian rule, expressed much sadness in his articles that the "westernization" being fostered by the Austrians would destroy the traditional way of life in Bosnia.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=100–101}} Chamberlain wrote:

<blockquote>[The Bosnian peasant] builds his house, he makes his shoes, and plough, etc.; the woman weaves and dyes the stuffs and cooks the food. When we have civilized these good people, when we have taken from them their beautiful costumes to be preserved in museums as objects of curiosity, when we have ruined their national industries that are so perfect and so primitive, when contact with us has destroyed the simplicity of their manner—then Bosnia will no longer be interesting to us.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 101"/></blockquote>

Chamberlain's awe and pride in the tremendous scientific and technological advances of the 19th century were always tempered with an extremely strong nostalgia for what he saw as the simpler, better and more innocent time when people lived on the land in harmony with nature.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 101"/> In his heart, Chamberlain was always a romantic conservative who idealised the [[Middle Ages]] and was never quite comfortable with the changes wrought by the [[Industrial Revolution]].<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 101"/> In Bosnia, Chamberlain saw an essentially medieval society that still moved to the ancient rhythm of life that epitomized his pastoral ideal. Remembering Bosnia several years later, Chamberlain wrote:

<blockquote>The spirit of a natural man, who does everything and must create everything for himself in life, is decidedly more universal and more harmoniously developed than the spirit of an industrial worker whose whole life is occupied with the manufacturing of a single object ... and that only with the aid of a complicated machine, whose functioning is quite foreign to him. A similar degeneration is taking place amongst peasants: an American farmer in the Far West is today only a kind of subordinate engine driver. Also among us in Europe it becomes every day more impossible for a peasant to exist, for agriculture must be carried out in "large units"—the peasant consequently becomes increasingly like an industrial worker. His understanding dries up; there is no longer an interaction between his spirit and surrounding Nature.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 101"/></blockquote>

Chamberlain's nostalgia for a pre-industrial way of life that he expressed so strongly in his Bosnia articles earned him ridicule, as many believed that he had an absurdly idealized and romanticized view of the rural life that he never experienced first-hand.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=102}}

In 1893, Chamberlain received a letter from Cosima Wagner telling him that he had to read Gobineau's ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines''.<ref>Biddiss (1998) p. 81</ref> Chamberlain accepted Gobineau's belief in an Aryan master-race, but rejected his pessimism, writing that Gobineau's philosophy was "the grave of every attempt to deal practically with the race question and left only one honorable solution, that we at once put a bullet through our heads".<ref name="Buruma, Ian page 220">Buruma (2000), p. 220</ref> Chamberlain's time in Vienna shaped his anti-Semitism and Pan-Germanism. Despite living in Vienna from 1889 to 1909, when he moved to [[Bayreuth]], Chamberlain had nothing but contempt for the multi-ethnic, multi-religious Habsburg empire, taking the viewpoint that the best thing that could happen to the Austrian empire would be for it to be annexed by Germany to end the {{lang|de|Völkerchaos}} (chaos of the peoples).{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=114–115}} Vienna had a large Jewish population, and Chamberlain's time in Vienna may have been the first time in his life when he actually encountered Jews. Chamberlain's letters from Vienna constantly complain about how he was having to deal with Jews, every one of whom he detested.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=115–116}} In 1894 after visiting a spa, Chamberlain wrote: "Unfortunately like everything else ... it has fallen into the hands of the Jews, which includes two consequences: every individual is bled to the utmost and systematically, and there is neither order nor cleanliness."<ref name="Field, Geoffrey pages 116">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=116}}</ref> In 1895, he wrote:

<blockquote> However, we shall have to move soon anyway, for our house having been sold to a Jew ... it will soon be impossible for decent people to live in it ... Already the house being almost quite full of Jews, we have to live in a state of continual warfare with the vermin which is a constant and invariable follower of this chosen people even in the most well-to-do classes.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey pages 116"/></blockquote>

In another letter of 1895, Chamberlain wrote he was still influenced by French anarchist [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]]'s critique of the Jews as mindlessly materialistic, writing that Proudhon was "one of the most acute minds of the century" and "I find many points of contact between the Wagner-Schiller mode of thought and the anarchism of Proudhon."{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=81}} At the same time, Chamberlain's marriage to Anna began to fall apart, as his wife was frequently sick and though she assisted her husband with his writings, he did not find her very intellectually stimulating.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=332–333}} Chamberlain started to complain more and more that his wife's frequent illnesses forced him to tend to her and were holding back his career.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=334}}

Though Chamberlain consistently remained supportive of [[German colonial empire|German imperialism]], he frequently expressed hostile views towards the [[British Empire]]; Chamberlain viewed Britain as world's most frequent aggressor, a view he expressed more vehemently at the tail end of the 19th century.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 353" /> In 1895, Chamberlain wrote to his aunt about the [[Hamidian massacres]] in the Ottoman Empire during 1894–96:

<blockquote>The Armenian insurrection [of 1894] with the inevitable retaliation of massacres and persecution (of course ''enormously exaggerated'' by those greatest liars in creation, backed by their worthy friends the English journalists) was all got up at the precise moment when English politics required a "diversion".<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 353" /></blockquote>

In 1896, Chamberlain wrote to his aunt:

<blockquote>The English press is the most insufferably arrogant, generally ignorant, the most passionately one-sided and narrow-minded in its judgments that I know; it is the universal ''bully'', always laying down the law for everybody, always speaking as if it were umpire of the universe, always abusing everybody all round and putting party spirit in all its judgments, envenoming thus the most peaceful discussions. It is this and this only which has made England hated all the world over. During the whole year 1895, I never opened an English newspaper without finding ''War'' predicated or threatened—No other nation in the world has wanted war or done anything but pray for peace—England alone, the world's bully, has been stirring it up on all sides.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=355–356}}</blockquote>

During the 1890s, Chamberlain was an outspoken critic of British policies in [[South Africa]], writing to his uncle in 1898:

{{Blockquote|We are ''the'' heathen nation and race ''par excellence''. War, conquest, commerce, money and above all an eternal readiness to knock every man down who stands in our way. And the only thing thoroughly distasteful to me in England and Englishmen generally, and English politics in particular, is this eternal coquetting with a religion to which every one of their feelings and opinions and acts is in direct contradiction.|Quoted in {{harvp|Field|1981|p=356}}.}}

At the time of the [[Second Boer War]], Chamberlain privately expressed support for the cause of the [[Boers]], although he also expressed regret over "white men" fighting each other at a time when Chamberlain believed that [[white supremacy]] around the world was being threatened by the alleged "[[Yellow Peril]]".<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 357">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=357}}</ref> In July 1900, Chamberlain wrote to his aunt:

<blockquote>One thing I can clearly see, that is, that it is criminal for Englishmen and Dutchmen to go on murdering each other for all sorts of sophisticated reasons, while the Great Yellow Danger overshadows us white men and threatens destruction ... The fact that a tiny nation of peasants absolutely untrained in the conduct of war, has been able to keep the whole united empire at bay for months, and has only been overcome—and ''has'' it been overcome?—by sending out an army superior in number to the whole population including women and children, has lowered respect for England beyond anything you can imagine on your side of the water, and will certainly not remain lost on the minds of those countless millions who have hitherto been subdued by our prestige only.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 357" /></blockquote>

Chamberlain seized upon the fact that some of the [[Randlords]] were Jewish to argue in his letters to Cosima Wagner that the war was a case of Anglo-Jewish aggression against the Germanic Afrikaners.<ref name=Field3578>{{harvp|Field|1981|pp=357–358}}</ref>

As a leading Wagnerite in Vienna, Chamberlain befriended a number of other prominent Wagnerites, such as [[Hermann, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg|Prince Hohenhohe-Langenburg]], [[Ludwig Schemann]], Georg Meurer, and Baron [[Christian von Ehrenfels]].{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=128}} The most important friendship that Chamberlain made during his time in Vienna was with German Ambassador to Austria-Hungary, [[Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg]], who shared Chamberlain's love of Wagnerian music. Eulenburg was also an anti-Semite, an Anglophobe and a convinced enemy of democracy who found much to admire in Chamberlain's anti-Semitic, anti-British and anti-democratic writings.<ref>Buruma (2000) p. 218</ref>

==''Die Grundlagen'' (''The Foundations'')==
{{main|The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century}}

In February 1896, the Munich publisher [[Hugo Bruckmann]], a leading ''völkisch'' activist who was later to publish ''[[Mein Kampf]]'', commissioned Chamberlain to write a book summarizing the achievements of the 19th century.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=169–170}}{{sfnp|Lobenstein-Reichmann|2008|pp=21–22}}

In October 1899, Chamberlain published his most famous work, ''Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts'', in German. ''The Foundations'' is a pseudo-scientific "racial history" of humanity from the emergence of the first civilizations in the ancient Near East to the year 1800. It argues that all of the "foundations" of the 19th century, which saw huge economic, scientific and technological advances in the West, were the work of the "Aryan race".<ref name=Field180>{{harvp|Field|1981|p=180}}</ref> ''Die Grundlagen'' was only the first volume of an intended three-volume history of the West, with the second and third volumes taking up the story of the West in the 19th century and the looming war for world domination in the coming 20th century between the Aryans on one side vs. the Jews, blacks and Asians on the other side.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=171–172}}

Chamberlain never wrote the second or third volumes, much to the intense annoyance of [[Cosima Wagner]], who was upset that ''Die Grundlagen'' stopped in 1800 before Wagner was born, and thus omitted her husband.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=343–345}} The book argued that [[western culture|Western civilisation]] is deeply marked by the influence of [[Teutons|Teutonic]] peoples.

===Peoples defined as Aryans===
Chamberlain grouped all European peoples – not just [[Germanic peoples|Germans]], but [[Celtic people|Celts]], [[Slavic people|Slavs]], [[Greeks]], and [[Latin people|Latins]] – into the "[[Aryan race]]", a race built on the ancient [[Proto-Indo-Europeans|Proto-Indo-European]] culture. In fact, he even included the [[Berber people]] of North Africa.<ref>Chamberlain, Houston Stewart Chamberlain (2005) [1899] ''[[The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century]]''. Adamant Media Corporation. p. 398. {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20071223072601/http://www.hschamberlain.net/grundlagen/division2_chapter5.html ch. 5]}}</ref>

At the helm of the Aryan race, and, indeed, all races, according to Chamberlain, were the Germanic or Teutonic peoples, who had best preserved the Aryan blood.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 223">Field (1981), p. 223</ref> Chamberlain used the terms Aryan, Indo-European and Indo-Germanic interchangeably, but he emphasised that purest Aryans were to be found in Central Europe and that in both France and Russia miscegenation had diluted the Aryan blood.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=191}} Much of Chamberlain's theory about the superiority of the Aryan race was taken from the writings of Gobineau, but there was a crucial difference in that Gobineau had used the Aryan race theory as a way of dividing society between an Aryan nobility vs. racially inferior commoners whereas Chamberlain used the Aryan racial theory as a way of uniting society around its supposed common racial origins.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=223–224}}

===Aryan race virtues===
Everything that Chamberlain viewed as good in the world was ascribed to the Aryans.{{sfnp|Lobenstein-Reichmann|2008|pp=175–185}} For an example, in ''The Foundations'', Chamberlain explained at considerable length that [[Jesus Christ]] could not possibly be a Jew, and very strongly implied that Christ was an Aryan.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=183}}

Chamberlain's tendency to see everything good as the work of the Aryans allowed him to claim whoever he approved of for the Aryan race, which at least was part of the appeal of the book in Germany when it was published in 1899. Chamberlain claimed all of the glories and achievements of ancient Greece and Rome as due entirely to Aryan blood.<ref name=Field180 /> Chamberlain wrote that ancient Greece was a "lost ideal" of beautiful thought and art that the modern Germans were best placed to recover if only the German people could embrace Wagner.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=180–181}}

Chamberlain praised Rome for its militarism, civic values, patriotism, respect for the law and reverence for the family as offering the best sort of Aryan government.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 182">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=182}}</ref> Reflecting his opposition to [[feminism]], Chamberlain lamented how modern women were not like the submissive women of ancient Rome whom he claimed were most happy in obeying the wills of their husbands.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 182" /> Chamberlain asserted that Aryans and Aryans alone are the only people in the entire world capable of creating beautiful art and thinking great thoughts, so he claimed all of the great artists, writers and thinkers of the West as part of one long glorious tradition of Aryan art and thought, which Chamberlain planned to have culminate with the life-changing, racially regenerating music of Richard Wagner in the 19th century.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=196–198}} As the British historian [[George Peabody Gooch]] wrote, here was "a glittering vision of mind and muscle, of large scale organization, of intoxicating self-confidence, of metallic brilliancy, such as Europe has never seen".{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=196}}

The antithesis of the heroic Aryan race with its vital, creative life-improving qualities was the "Jewish race", whom Chamberlain presented as the inverse of the Aryan.{{sfnp|Lobenstein-Reichmann|2008|pp=186–217}} Every positive quality the Aryans had, the Jews had the exact opposing negative quality.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=190–191, 195}} The American historian Geoffrey Field wrote:

<blockquote>To each negative "Semitic" trait Chamberlain counter-posed a Teutonic virtue. Kantian moral freedom took the place of political liberty and egalitarianism. Irresponsible Jewish capitalism was sharply distinguished from the vague ideal of Teutonic industrialism, a romantic vision of an advanced technological society which had somehow managed to retain the ''[[Volksgemeinschaft]]'', cooperation and hierarchy of the medieval guilds. The alternative to Marxism was "ethical socialism", such as that described by [[Thomas More]], "one of the most exquisite scholars ever produced by a Teutonic people, of an absolutely aristocratic, refined nature". In the rigidly elitist, disciplined society of [[Utopia (More book)|''Utopia'']] with its strong aura of Christian humanism, Chamberlain found an approximation of his own nostalgic, communal ideal. "The gulf separating More from Marx," he wrote, "is not the progress of time, but the contrast between Teuton and Jew."{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=195}}</blockquote>

===Jewish wars claim===
Chamberlain announced in ''The Foundations'' that "all the wars" in history were "so peculiarly connected with Jewish financial operations".<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 190">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=190}}</ref> Chamberlain warned that the aim of the Jew was "to put his foot upon the neck of all nations of the world and be Lord and possessor of the whole earth".<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 189">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=189}}</ref>

As part of their plans to destroy Aryan civilization, Chamberlain wrote: "Consider, with what mastery they use the law of blood to extend their power."<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 189" /> Chamberlain wrote that Jewish women were encouraged to marry Gentiles while Jewish men were not, so the male line "remained spotless ... thousands of side-branches are cut off and employed to infect Indo-Europeans with Jewish blood."<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 189" /> In his account of the [[Punic Wars]] between "Aryan Rome" and "Semitic Carthage", Chamberlain praised the Romans for their [[Battle of Carthage (c. 149 BC)|total destruction of Carthage]] in 146 BC at the end of the [[Third Punic War]] as an example of how Aryans should deal with Semites.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 182"/> Later, Chamberlain argued that the Romans had become too tolerant of Semites like the Jews, and this was the cause of the downfall of the Roman empire.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 182" /> As such, the destruction of the Western Roman Empire by the Germanic peoples was merely an act of liberation from the {{lang|de|Völkerchaos}} ("Chaos of the Peoples") that the Roman empire had become.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=184}}

===Theories of Jewish conspiracy===
The ultimate aim of the Jew, according to Chamberlain, was to create a situation where "there would be in Europe only a single people of pure race, the Jews, all the rest would be a herd of pseudo-Hebraic mestizos, a people beyond all doubt degenerate physically, mentally and morally."<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 189" />

As part of their plans to destroy the Aryans, Chamberlain claimed that the Jews had founded the [[Roman Catholic Church]], which only preached a "Judaized" Christianity that had nothing to do with the Christianity created by the Aryan Christ.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 192">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=192}}</ref> Some historians have argued that ''The Foundations'' are actually more anti-Catholic than anti-Semitic, but this misses the point that the reason why Chamberlain attacked the Catholic Church so fiercely was because he believed the Papacy was controlled by the Jews.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 192" /> Chamberlain claimed that in the 16th century the Aryan Germans under the leadership of [[Martin Luther]] had broken away from the corrupt influence of Rome, and so laid the foundations of a "Germanic Christianity".{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=194}}

Chamberlain claimed that the natural and best form of government for Aryans was a dictatorship, and so he blamed the Jews for inventing democracy as part of their plans for destroying the Aryans.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 190" /> In the same way, Chamberlain blamed capitalism – which he saw as a very destructive economic system – as something invented by the Jews to enrich themselves at the expense of the Aryans while at the same time crediting the Jews with inventing socialism with its message of universal human equality as a cunning Jewish stratagem to divert attention away from all the economic devastation wrought by Jewish financiers.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 190" />

Chamberlain had a deep dislike of the Chinese, and in ''The Foundations'' he announced that [[Chinese culture|Chinese civilization]] had been founded by the Jews.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=193}}

===Jewish race – not religion===
The Franco-Israeli historian [[Saul Friedländer]] described ''The Foundations'' – with its theory of two "pure" races left in the world, namely the German and Jewish locked into a war for world domination which could only end with the complete victory of one over the other – as one of the key texts of "redemptive anti-semitism".<ref name="Friedländer, Saul page 89" /> Because Chamberlain viewed Jews as a race, not a religion, Chamberlain argued the conversion of Jews was not a "solution" to the "Jewish Question", stating Jewish converts to Christianity were still Jews.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=311}} Dutch journalist [[Ian Buruma]] wrote:

<blockquote>Wagner himself, like Luther, still believed that a Jew could, as he put it with his customary charm, "annihilate" his Jewishness by repudiating his ancestry, converting and worshiping at the shrine of Bayreuth. So in theory a Jew could be a German ... But to the mystical chauvinists, like Chamberlain, who took a tribal view of Germanness, even radical, Wagnerian assimilation could never be enough: the Jew was an alien virus to be purged from the national bloodstream. The more a Jew took on the habits and thoughts of his gentile compatriots, the more he was to be feared.<ref>Buruma (2000) p. 167</ref></blockquote>

===Leaving "the solution" to the reader===
Chamberlain did not advocate the extermination of Jews in ''The Foundations''; indeed, despite his determination to blame all of the world's problems on the Jews, Chamberlain never proposed a solution to this perceived problem.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 222">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=222}}</ref> Instead, Chamberlain made the cryptic statement that after reading his book, his readers would know best about how to devise a "solution" to the "Jewish Question".<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 222" />

Friedländer has argued that if one were to seriously take up the theories of "redemptive anti-semitism" proposed in ''The Foundations'', and push them to their logical conclusion, then inevitably one would reach the conclusion that genocide might be a perfectly acceptable "solution" to the "Jewish Question".<ref name="Friedländer, Saul page 89" /> Friedländer argued that there is an implied genocidal logic to ''The Foundations'' as Chamberlain argued that Jews were a race apart from the rest of humanity; that evil was embedded within the genes of the Jews, and so the Jews were born evil and remained evil until they died.<ref name="Friedländer, Saul page 89" />

===''The Foundations'' sales, reviews and acceptance===
''The Foundations'' sold well: eight editions and 60,000 copies within 10 years, 100,000 copies by the outbreak of World War I and 24 editions and more than a quarter of a million copies by 1938.<ref>Shirer (1959), p. 107</ref>

The success of ''The Foundations'' after it was published in October 1899 made Chamberlain into a celebrity intellectual.<ref name="Field 1981, p. 227">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=227}}</ref> The popularity of ''The Foundations'' was such that many ''Gymnasium'' (high school) teachers in the Protestant parts of Germany made'' Die Grundlagen'' required reading.<ref name=Field232>{{harvp|Field|1981|p=232}}</ref>

Conservative and National Liberal newspapers gave generally friendly reviews to ''The Foundations''.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=228–229}} {{lang|de|Völkisch}} newspapers gave overwhelming positive reviews to ''The Foundations'', with many {{lang|de|völkisch}} reviewers calling it one of the greatest books ever written.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=229–230}} Liberal and Social Democratic newspapers gave the book extremely poor reviews with reviewers complaining of an irrational way of reasoning in ''The Foundations'', noting that Chamberlain quoted the writings of Goethe out of context in order to give him views that he had not held, and that the entire book was full of an obsessive anti-Semitism which they found extremely off-putting.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=227–228}} Because of Chamberlain's anti-Catholicism, Catholic newspapers all published very hostile reviews of ''The Foundations'', though Catholic reviewers rarely faulted ''Die Grundlagen'' for its anti-Semitism.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=235–236}} More orthodox Protestant newspapers were disturbed by Chamberlain's call for a racialized Christianity.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=236–237}}
German Jewish groups like the ''Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens'' and the ''Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus'' repeatedly issued statements in the early 20th century that the popularity of ''The Foundations'' was a major source of concern for them, noting that ''Die Grundlagen'' had caused a major increase in anti-Semitism with many German Jews now finding themselves the objects of harassment and sometimes violence.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=245–247}}

The German Jewish journalist Moritz Goldstein wrote in 1912 that he had become a Zionist because he believed there was no future for Jews in Germany, and one of the reasons for that belief was: <blockquote>Chamberlain believes what he says and for that very reason his distortions shock me. And thousands more believe as he does for the book goes one edition after another and I would still like to know if many Germanic types, whose self-image is pleasantly indulged by this theory, are able to remain critical enough to question its countless injustices and errors?<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 236">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=236}}</ref></blockquote>
===Discrimination of Jews following the book===

German universities were hotbeds of {{lang|de|völkisch}} activity in the early 20th century, and ''The Foundations'' was extremely popular on university campuses, with many university clubs using ''The Foundations'' as a reason to exclude Jewish students.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey pp. 231-232">{{harvp|Field|1981|pp=231–232}}</ref>

Likewise, military schools were centers of ''völkisch'' thought in the early 20th century, and so ''The Foundations'' was very popular with officer cadets; though since neither the Navy nor the Prussian, Bavarian, Saxon and Württemberg armies accepted Jewish officer candidates, ''Die Grundlagen'' did not lead to Jews being excluded.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey pp. 231-232"/>

[[File:Franz von Lenbach Portraitstudie Chamberlain.jpg|left|thumb|Portrait by [[Franz von Lenbach]], {{circa|1902}}]]

==Evangelist of race==
===Visit to England and attack on its Jews===
In 1900, for the first time in decades, Chamberlain visited Britain.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 359">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=359}}</ref> Writing to [[Cosima Wagner]] from London, Chamberlain stated sadly that ''his'' Britain, the Britain of aristocratic rule, hard work and manly courage, the romanticized [[Merry England|"Merry Old England"]] of his imagination was no more; it had been replaced by what Chamberlain saw as a materialist, soulless society, atomized into individuals with no sense of the collective purpose and dominated by greed.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 358">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=358}}</ref> Chamberlain wrote that since the 1880s Britain had "chosen the service of Mammon", for which he blamed the Jews, writing to Wagner: "This is the result, when one has studied politics with a Jew for a quarter century."<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 359" /> The "Jew" Chamberlain was referring to was [[Benjamin Disraeli|Disraeli]], whom Chamberlain had always hated.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 359" /> Chamberlain declared in his letter that all British businessmen were now dishonest; the middle class, smug and stupid; small farmers and shops were no longer able to compete with Jewish-owned big business; and the monarchy was "irretrievably weakened" by social change.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 359" />

===German superiority to rule the world===
In the summer of 1900, Chamberlain wrote an essay in the magazine ''Jugend'', where he declared that: "The reign of Wilhelm II has the character of the dawning of a new day."<ref>Röhl (2004), p. 1040</ref> Chamberlain went on to write that Wilhelm was "in fact the first German Kaiser" who knew his mission was to "ennoble" the world by spreading "German knowledge, German philosophy, German art and—if God wills—German religion. Only a Kaiser who undertakes this task is a true Kaiser of the German people."<ref>Röhl (2004), pp. 1040–1041</ref> To allow Germany to become a world power, Chamberlain called for the ''Reich'' to become the world's greatest sea power, as Chamberlain asserted that whatever power rules the seas also rules the world.<ref name="Röhl, John 1041">Röhl (2004), p. 1041</ref>

===Kaiser Wilhelm II===
In early 1901, the German Emperor [[Wilhelm II, German Emperor|Wilhelm II]] read ''The Foundations'' and was immensely impressed.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 249">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=249}}</ref> The Imperial Grand Chamberlain at the court, Ulrich von Bülow, wrote in a letter to a friend in January 1901 that the Kaiser was "studying the book a second time page by page".<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 249"/> In November 1901, Chamberlain's  friend, the German diplomat and courtier [[Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg]], who happened to be the best friend of Wilhelm II, introduced Chamberlain to the Kaiser.<ref name="Buruma, Ian page 219" /> 

Chamberlain and Wilhelm first met at Eulenburg's estate at Liebenberg.<ref name="Buruma, Ian page 219" /> To reach Liebenberg from Vienna, Chamberlain had first to take a train to Berlin, and then board another train to Liebenberg.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 249"/> Chamberlain's meeting with the Kaiser was considered so important that when Chamberlain reached Berlin, he was met by the Chancellor Prince [[Bernhard von Bülow]], who joined him on the trip to Liebenberg.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 249"/> During the train ride, Bülow and Chamberlain had a long discussion about ''The Foundations''.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 250">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=250}}</ref> When he met Chamberlain for the first time, Wilhelm told him: "I thank you for what you have done for Germany!"<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 250"/> The next day, Eulenburg wrote to a friend that the Emperor "stood completely under the spell of [Chamberlain], whom he understood better than any of the other guests because of his thorough study of ''The Foundations''".<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 250"/>
Until Chamberlain's death, he and Wilhelm had what the American historian Geoffrey Field called "a warm, personal bond", which was expressed in a series of "elaborate, wordy letters".<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 250"/> The Wilhelm–Chamberlain letters were full of "the perplexing thought world of mystical and racist conservatism". They ranged far and wide in subject matter: the ennobling mission of the Germanic race, the corroding forces of [[Ultramontanism]], materialism and the "destructive poison" of {{lang|de|Judentum}} were favorite themes.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=250–251}} Other subjects often discussed in the Wilhelm-Chamberlain letters were the dangers posed to the {{lang|de|Reich}} by the "[[Yellow Peril]]", "Tartarized Slavdom", and the "black hordes".{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=252}} Wilhelm's later concept of "Juda-England", of a decaying Britain sucked dry by Jewish capitalists, owed much to Chamberlain.<ref name="Buruma, Ian p. 221">Buruma (2000) p. 221</ref> In 1901, Wilhelm informed Chamberlain in a letter that: "God sent your book to the German people, just as he sent you personally to me, that is my unshakably firm conviction."<ref name="Röhl, John p. 205">Röhl (2004), p. 205</ref> Wilhelm went on to praise Chamberlain as his "comrade-in-arms and ally in the struggle for Teutons against Rome, Jerusalem, etc."<ref name="Röhl, John p. 205"/>

The Dutch journalist [[Ian Buruma]] described Chamberlain's letters to the Kaiser as pushing his "Anglophobic, anti-Semitic, Germanophile ideas to the point of murderous lunacy".<ref name="Buruma, Ian page 220"/> The liberal ''Berliner Zeitung'' newspaper complained in an editorial of the close friendship between Wilhelm II and such an outspoken racist and anti-Semite as Chamberlain, stating this was a real cause for concern for decent, caring people both inside and outside Germany.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=251}}

For Wilhelm, all pride about being German had a certain ambivalence, as he was in fact half-British.<ref name="Buruma, Ian pp. 210-211">Buruma (2000) pp. 210–211</ref> In an age of ultra-nationalism with identities being increasingly defined in racial terms, his mixed heritage imposed considerable psychological strain on Wilhelm, who managed at one and the same time to be both an Anglophile and Anglophobe; he was a man who both loved and hated the British, and his writings about the land of his mother displayed both extreme admiration and loathing.<ref name="Buruma, Ian pp. 210-211"/> Buruma observed that for all his much-vaunted beliefs in public about the superiority of everything German, in private Wilhelm often displayed signs of an inferiority complex to the British, as if he really felt deep down that it was Britain, not Germany, that was the world's greatest country.<ref name="Buruma, Ian pp. 210-211"/> For Wilhelm, someone like Chamberlain, the Englishman who came to Germany to praise the Fatherland as the world's greatest nation, and who had "scientifically" proven that "fact" in ''The Foundations'', was a "dream come true" for him.<ref>Buruma (2000) pp. 219–220</ref> Writing about the Chamberlain-Wilhelm relationship, Field stated:

<blockquote>Chamberlain helped place Wilhelm's tangled and vaguely formulated fears of Pan Slavism, the black and yellow "hordes", Jews, Ultramontanes, Social Democrats, and free-thinkers to a global and historical framework copiously footnoted and sustained by a vast array of erudite information. He elevated the Emperor's dream of a German mission into an elaborate vision of divinely ordained, racial destiny. The lack of precision, the muddle, and logical flaws that are so apparent to modern readers of ''The Foundations'' did not bother Wilhelm: he eagerly submitted to its subjective, irrational style of reasoning. ... And if the Kaiser was a Prussian with an ingrained respect for English values and habits, Chamberlain was just as much an Englishman who was deeply ambivalent about his own birthplace and who revered German qualities and Prussian society. Almost unconsciously, as his vast correspondence shows, he adopted an obsequious, scraping tone when addressing the lowliest of Prussian army officers. If Wilhelm was drawn to the very Englishness of Chamberlain, the author of ''The Foundations'' saw in the Hohenzollern prince—at least until the World War—the very symbol of his idealized {{lang|de|Deutschtum}}.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=254, 261}}</blockquote>

Chamberlain frequently wrote to an appreciative and admiring Wilhelm telling him that it was only the noble "German spirit" which was saving the world from being destroyed by a "deracinated Yankee-Anglo-Jewish materialism".<ref>Buruma (1998), p. 219</ref> Finally, Wilhelm was also a Wagnerite and found much to admire in Chamberlain's writings praising Wagner's music as a mystical, spiritual life-force that embodied all that was great about the "German spirit".<ref name="Buruma, Ian page 219" />

==='The Foundations' book success===
The success of ''The Foundations'' made Chamberlain famous all over the world. In 1906, the Brazilian intellectual [[Sílvio Romero]] cited Chamberlain together with [[Otto Ammon]], [[Georges Vacher de Lapouge]] and [[Arthur de Gobineau]] as having proved that the blond "dolichocephalic" people of northern Europe were the best and greatest race in the entire world, and urged that Brazil could become a great nation by a huge influx of German immigrants who would achieve the [[Racial whitening|''embranquecimento'']] (whitening) of Brazil.<ref>Skidmore, Thomas (1993) ''Black Into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought'', Durnham: Duke University Press. p. 56</ref> Chamberlain received invitations to lecture on his racial theories at [[Yale University|Yale]] and [[Johns Hopkins University|Johns Hopkins]] universities, but turned them down on the grounds that he had no wish to visit what he viewed as a culturally and spiritually debased nation like the United States.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 360"/>

When the book was first published, there was much fevered speculation in the German press as to whether Chamberlain was related to [[Joseph Chamberlain]], the British Colonial Secretary who, as the principal author of the British forward policy in South Africa, was one of the most detested men in the ''Reich''.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 182" /> Several German magazines mistakenly printed pictures of Joseph Chamberlain's sons, [[Austen Chamberlain]] and [[Neville Chamberlain]], identifying them as the author of ''The Foundations''.<ref name="Field 1981, p. 227"/> Many Germans breathed a sigh of relief when it was established that Houston Stewart Chamberlain was not related to the Chamberlain family of [[Birmingham]].<ref name="Field 1981, p. 227"/>

===Chamberlain circle===
After the success of ''The Foundations'', a Chamberlain ''Kreis'' (circle) appeared in Vienna that comprised the [[Indology|Indologist]] [[Leopold von Schroeder]], Count Ulrich von Bülow; Countess [[Melanie Metternich-Zichy]], Countess Marietta von Coudenhove, Baroness Emma von Ehrenfels, the music critic and Wagnerite Gustav Schonaich, Count [[Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau]], Count [[Hermann Graf Keyserling|Hermann Keyserling]] and [[Rudolf Kassner]] who met weekly at Chamberlain's home to discuss his racial theories.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=321}}

===Personal life and financials===
It was during this period that Chamberlain had an affair with Baroness von Ehrenfels, the wife of his friend Baron [[Christian von Ehrenfels]] and another affair with a Viennese showgirl, Lili Petri.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=348}} In 1906, his marriage to Anna ended in divorce.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=336}}

Besides the income from sales of ''The Foundations'' and the essays he was constantly writing for newspapers and journals, Chamberlain was supported financially by a wealthy German piano-manufacturer, August Ludowici (who liked Chamberlain so much that he purchased a house for him), and by the Swiss industrialist Agénor Boissier, giving an annual income of about 30,000–40,000 marks (by contrast a German school-teacher had an annual income of 1,000 marks, while a professor made about 12,000 marks per year).{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=337–338<}} In 1908, after [[Cosima Wagner]] suggested the match, Chamberlain married Wagner's daughter Eva von Bülow.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=347–350}}

===Chamberlain's character===
Chamberlain saw himself as a prophet, writing to the Kaiser: "Today, God relies only on the Germans. That is the knowledge, the sure truth, which has filled my soul for years; I have sacrificed my peace in serving it; for it I shall live and die."{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=325}} Eulenburg recalled that under his quiet demeanor Chamberlain had a "fiery spirit with those eyes and looks which speak volumes".<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 320" /> The few who knew Chamberlain well described him as a quiet, reserved man full of urbane erudition and charm; a modest, genial character with elegant manners dressed in expensive suits who could talk brilliantly and with much wit about a great number of subjects for hours.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 320" /> But under his polished surface, Chamberlain had a "fanatical and obsessive" side. His copious notebooks and letters show a man with "a profoundly irrational mind", a markedly sadistic and deeply paranoid individual who believed himself to be the victim of a monstrous worldwide Jewish conspiracy to destroy him.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey pp. 325-326">{{harvp|Field|1981|pp=325–326}}</ref> Chamberlain's status as a semi-recluse came about because of his fear that the Jews were plotting his murder.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey pp. 325-326"/>

===German world dominance by race===
A strong imperialist, Chamberlain was naturally a fervent supporter of ''[[Weltpolitik]]'', under which Germany sought to become the world's dominant power, which he justified on racist grounds.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 223" /> In 1904, when the German government committed the [[Herero and Nama Genocide]] against the Herero and Nama peoples in [[German South-West Africa]], Chamberlain congratulated Wilhelm in a letter for his genocidal policies, praising the Kaiser for his "war of extermination", which was "a fine example" of how Aryans should deal with "niggers".<ref>Fraser (January 1990), p. 414</ref> In a 1906 letter to Wilhelm, Chamberlain announced that due to [[miscegenation]] caused by the Jews, Britain, France, Austria and Russia were all declining powers, and only the "pure" German ''Reich'' was capable of protecting the "life-giving center of Western Europe" from the "Tartarized Russians, the dreaming weakly mongrels of Oceania and South America, and the millions of blacks, impoverished in intellect and bestially inclined, who even now are arming for the war of the races in which there will be no quarter given".<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 223" /> Thus, Chamberlain wrote to Wilhelm, German ''Weltpolitik'' was a "sacred mission" to protect the superior races and cultures from the inferior.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey page 223" />

===Harden–Eulenburg affair===
In 1908, the [[Harden–Eulenburg affair]] badly damaged Wilhelm's reputation when Wilhelm's and Chamberlain's mutual friend Eulenburg was exposed in the press as a homosexual. Since Eulenburg had been the Emperor's best friend since 1886, the scandal led to much gossip all over the ''Reich'' about whether Wilhelm and Eulenburg had been more than just best friends.<ref>Röhl (2004), pp. 61–62</ref> Chamberlain was never as close to Eulenburg as Wilhelm was, and seemed genuinely shocked to learn of the allegations that Eulenburg was homosexual.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=260}} During the scandal, practically the entire ''völkisch'' movement came out in support of Eulenburg whom they portrayed as an Aryan heterosexual framed by false allegations of homosexuality by the Jews [[Max Bernstein]] and [[Magnus Hirschfeld]].<ref>Domeier (2015), p. 169</ref> The German journalist [[Theodor Wolff]] wrote in 1906 about Eulenburg's role as one of Germany's chief anti-Semites:

<blockquote>I bet you ten to one that it was that ''skald'' [Eulenburg], the friend and admirer of Gobineau, who first pointed his other friend, the Kaiser towards the racial prophet's most eager disciple, Houston Stewart Chamberlain. The mystical notion of the "race that will bring order to the world" found its way from Gobineau via Eulenburg and Chamberlain to the Kaiser, and this notion in turn gave rise to the thought that "the world should be healed by the German spirit."<ref>Domeier (2015) p. 172</ref></blockquote>

===Toning down attacks on Catholicism===
As a part of his role as the "Evangelist of Race", Chamberlain toned down his anti-Catholicism in the first decade of the 20th century, realizing belatedly that his attacks on the Catholic Church in ''The Foundations'' had alienated the German Catholic community from his message.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=307–309}}

===Themes: German unity and German science and philosophy===
As a well-known public intellectual, Chamberlain wrote on numerous subjects in a vast array of newspapers and magazines. Besides attacking the Jews, one of the chief themes of Chamberlain's essays was the unity of German culture, language, race and art, and the need for the unity of German art with a racialized "Germanic Christianity".{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=310–311}}

The other major theme of Chamberlain's work was science and philosophy. Chamberlain was always keenly interested in modern science and saw himself as a scientist, but he was deeply critical of the claim that modern science could explain everything, believing there was a spiritual side to humanity that science could not explain.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=280–281}} As such, Chamberlain believed that modern Germany was being destroyed by people losing their spiritual aspects owing to the materialist belief that science could explain all.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=281}}

In his 1905 biography of one of his heroes, the philosopher [[Immanuel Kant]], Chamberlain argued that Kant had shown the limits of rationalism and reason for understanding the world.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 283">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=283}}</ref> Instead, Chamberlain argued that Kant had shown that the instinctive approach based on intuition was a far more valid way of understanding the world.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 283" /> Chamberlain's "Kantian" way of understanding science was used to attack the Jews, with Chamberlain writing:

{{blockquote|text=In order to understand Kant we must ... begin by once and for all getting rid of the heavy burden of inherited and indoctrinated Jewish conceptions.|source={{sfnp|Field|1981|p=284}}}}

Chamberlain's 1912 biography of another of his heroes, [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]], was used to pass on the same message. Chamberlain depicted Goethe as a "Kantian" man who had correctly embraced both the rational, scientific approaches to life and the instinctive, mystical approach to achieve a synthesis that embraced the best of both worlds.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=287–290}} Again, Chamberlain used Goethe as a way of attacking the Jews, with Chamberlain claiming that Goethe had favored banning sexual relations between Aryans and Jews and was a man who would not have "suffered among us" the Jewish artists, journalists, and professors of modern Germany.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 290">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=290}}</ref>

The German Jewish journal ''Im deutschen Reich'' wrote in a review of ''Goethe'' that Chamberlain had appropriated Goethe in "a polemic about race politics, racial hygiene and racial worth from the standpoint of a monomaniacal Judeophobia".<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 290"/>

===Embracing Treitschke===
The policies of ''Weltpolitik'', especially the [[Tirpitz Plan]], brought about a period of Anglo-German tension in the first years of the 20th century. Chamberlain, who detested the land of his birth, had no trouble taking sides in the emerging Anglo-German antagonism.<ref name=Field3578 /> Chamberlain, who came to hate Britain, expressed his approval of the writings of the Anglophobic and anti-Semitic German historian [[Heinrich von Treitschke]], whose view of Britain as a grasping, greedy nation of cheap traders dishonestly vacuuming up the world's wealth was the same as his own.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 358"/>

===Necessary German power===
Chamberlain declared to Wilhelm that Germany now had to become the world's greatest power, both for its own good and for the good of the rest of the world.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 360">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=360}}</ref> In his letter, Chamberlain dismissed France as a second-rate nation that could only fall further; Russia was a nation of "stupid" Slavs which was only just being held together because Nicholas II had German blood; without the German blood in the House of Romanov "nothing would remain but a decaying ''matière brute''" in Russia; and Britain was clearly declining into a bottomless pit of greed, ineffective democratic politics and unrestrained individualism.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey pp. 359-360">{{harvp|Field|1981|pp=359–360}}</ref> Chamberlain called the United States a "Dollar dynasty", writing:

<blockquote>From dollars only dollars can come, nothing else; spiritually America will live only so long as the stream of European spiritual power flows there, not a moment longer. That part of the world, it may be proven, creates sterility, it has as little of a future as it has a past.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 360"/></blockquote>

Chamberlain concluded his letter to Wilhelm that: "The future progress of mankind depends on a powerful Germany extending far across the earth."<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 360"/> To this end, Chamberlain advocated German expansionism both in Europe and all over the world; building the [[High Seas Fleet]] which would break the British mastery of the seas; and restructuring German society along the lines advocated by the extreme right-wing ''völkisch'' [[Pan-German League]].{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=360–361}}

[[File:Bust of Houston Stewart Chamberlain.jpg|thumb|Bust of Chamberlain ({{circa|1914}}), from an unfinished clay model for a bust by Joseph Hinterbeher]]

==Propagandist of the World War==

=== Health and paralysis ===
In August 1914, he started suffering from a progressive [[paralysis]] of the limbs.<ref name="Otness">{{cite web |url=http://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1841&context=open_access_etds |title=H. S. Chamberlain and the Bayreuth "Kulturkreis": A Study in Ideology |author=Otness, David George |publisher=Portland State University |date=1 January 1976 |pages=173, 207 |quote=Chamberlain was almost entirely paralyzed from the end of the war until his death in 1927. He dictated letters in a hoarse mutter only his loyal wife could interpret. |access-date=19 April 2015 }}</ref><ref name="LetterHitler">{{cite book |chapter=An Adolf Hitler [To A.H.], 7. Oktober 1923|title=Briefe 1882—1924|trans-title=Correspondence 1882–1924|last=Chamberlain|first=Houston Stewart|year=1928 |volume=2 |location=Munich |publisher=F. Bruckmann |pages=124–126 |url=http://www.hschamberlain.net/briefe/briefe2.html#An%20Adolf%20Hitler |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021016203945/http://www.hschamberlain.net/briefe/briefe2.html#An |url-status=usurped |archive-date=16 October 2002 |access-date=19 April 2015 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> At the end of the war, Chamberlain's paralysis had already befallen much of his body; his chronically bad health had reached its final stage.<ref name="Otness" />

=== Taking Germany's side ===
When [[World War I]] started in 1914, Chamberlain tried to enlist in the German Army, but was turned down on account of his age (then 58) and bad health.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=363}} In August 1914, Chamberlain wrote a letter to his brother, Basil Hall Chamberlain, explaining why he had sided with his adopted country: <blockquote>No war has ever been simpler than this; England has not for a moment reduced her efforts to do everything humanly possible to bring it about and to destroy every peaceful impulse. ... Germany's victory will not be England's ruin; quite the contrary, it is the only hope for England's rescue from the total ruin in which she now stands. England's victory will be terrible for the whole world, a catastrophe.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=352}}</blockquote> The same month, Chamberlain published an essay celebrating Wilhelm II as an "Aryan soldier-king" and as a "Siegfried" who had embraced the "struggle against the corroding poison of Jewry".<ref name="Röhl, John p. 207">Röhl (2004), p. 207</ref> Chamberlain went on to call the war "a life-or-death struggle ... between two human ideals: the German and the un-German".<ref name="Röhl, John p. 207" /> Accordingly, the ''Reich'' must "for the next hundred years or more" strengthen all things German and carry out "the determined extermination of the un-German".<ref name="Röhl, John p. 207" />

Chamberlain happily welcomed the war, writing in September 1914 to his friend Prince Max of Baden: "I thank God that I have been allowed to experience these two exaltations—1870 and 1914—and that I was both times in Germany and saw the truth with my own eyes."<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 381">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=381}}</ref> In his 1914 essay, "Whose Fault Is the War?", Chamberlain blamed the war on France, Russia and especially Britain.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=365}} Initially Chamberlain expected the war to be over by the end of 1914, and was very disappointed when that did not occur.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 381" /> In 1916 he also acquired [[German citizenship]].<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=1927-01-24 |title=Milestones: Jan. 24, 1927 |language=en-US |magazine=Time |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,786703,00.html |access-date=2023-01-14 |issn=0040-781X}}</ref> He had already begun propagandising on behalf of the German government and continued to do so throughout the war. His vociferous denunciations of his land of birth, it has been posited, were the culmination of his rejection of his native England's capitalism, in favour of a form of German [[Romanticism]] akin to that which he had cultivated in himself during his years at [[Cheltenham College|Cheltenham]].<ref>[[Theodor W. Adorno|Adorno, Theodor W.]] (1985) "On the Question: "What is German?", Levin, Thomas Y. (trans.) in ''New German Critique'', No. 36. 1985. p. 123</ref>

=== Wartime Essays ===
During World War I, Chamberlain published several propaganda texts against his country of birth—''Kriegsaufsätze'' (Wartime Essays). In the first four tracts, he maintained that Germany is a nation of peace; England's political system is a sham, while Germany exhibits true freedom; German is the greatest and only remaining "living" language; and the world would be better off doing away with English and French-styled [[parliamentary government]]s in favour of German rule "thought out by a few and carried out with iron consequence". The final two discuss England and Germany at length.<ref>Chamberlain, Houston Stewart (1915) [https://archive.org/details/ravingsofrenegad00chamuoft ''The Ravings of a Renegade: Being the War Essays of Houston Stewart Chamberlain.''] Charles H. Clark (trans.). London: Jarrold and Sons</ref>

Chamberlain's basic argument was that democracy was an idiotic system as equality was a myth—humans were very different with different abilities and talents, so democratic equality where the opinions of one voter mattered much as the opinions of the next was a completely flawed idea.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=368–369}} Quoting the French scientist [[Gustave Le Bon]], Chamberlain wrote the vast majority of people were simply too stupid to properly understand the issues, and as such Germany with its rule by elites was a much better governed nation than France.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=369}} In Germany, Chamberlain asserted, true freedom existed, as freedom came from the state alone which made it possible for society to function, not the individual as was the case in Britain and France, which Chamberlain claimed was a recipe for chaos.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 368">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=368}}</ref> Field summarized Chamberlain's thesis: <blockquote>the essence of German freedom was the willing submission as a matter of conscience to legitimately constituted authorities; it implied duty more than rights and was something spiritual and internal for which each moral being had to strive. Consigning 'liberty' to an inner, 'nonpolitical' moral realm, Chamberlain closed off any discussion of the specific conditions for a free society and simply asserted that freedom was perfectly compatible with an authoritarian system of government.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 368" /></blockquote>

Chamberlain argued that in democratic states, it was always big business that was really in charge; as such democracy was a fraud and democratic governments only served the rich; and democratic states only existed "to further the interests of money making all over the globe".{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=367–371}}

=== Attacks on democracy ===
Chamberlain's attacks on democracy as a sham designed to allow "Jewish plutocrats" to rule the world were not only very anti-British and anti-French, but also anti-American.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=368–371}} From the start of the war, Chamberlain attacked all democratic governments in the world including the neutral United States as a fraud perpetrated by the Jews.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=370–371}} Chamberlain wrote that America "is a hellish whirlpool, in which all the contradictions of the world, all the greed, envy and lust brew and simmer; a wild struggle of millions of ignorant egotists, men without ideas, ideals, or traditions, without shared values, without any capacity for sacrifice, an atomic chaos endowed with no true power of nature".<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 371">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=371}}</ref> Until the United States entered the war in 1917, the [[Foreign Office (Germany)|''Auswärtiges Amt'']] worked hard to prevent Chamberlain's essays with their strong anti-American content from appearing abroad out of the fear that they would offend opinion in America.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 371" /> Chamberlain's wartime writings also gained much attention – albeit of a highly negative sort – in his native Britain, with ''[[The Times Literary Supplement]]'' declaring: "The most ignorant of the Germans has not written greater nonsense."<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 366">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=366}}</ref> In 1915, an unauthorised translation of Chamberlain's wartime essays was published in London under the title of ''The Ravings of a Renegade''.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 366" />

=== Germany versus England ===
In his 1915 pamphlet ''Deutschland und England'' (''Germany and England''), Chamberlain vigorously took the side of his adopted land against the land of his birth.<ref name="Buruma, Ian page 220" /> Chamberlain explained the British were once noble Aryans like the Germans who lived in a perfect rigidly hierarchical, romantically rural "unmixed" society, but then starting in the 16th century capitalism had corrupted the English.<ref name="Buruma, Ian page 220"/> Capitalism had turned the English into an urban nation dominated by a vulgar money-grabbing, philistine middle class incapable of culture.<ref name="Buruma, Ian page 220"/> The beautiful English countryside, which Chamberlain claimed was once the home of an idyllic agrarian society, had become an ugly urban landscape full of polluting factories owned by greedy Jewish capitalists. Even worse in Chamberlain's opinion, capitalism had led the English into a process of racial degeneration, democracy and rule by the Jews.<ref name="Buruma, Ian page 220" /> Chamberlain wrote with disgust how the sons of the English aristocracy "disappear from society to make money", leading to a warped "moral compass" on their part in contrast to Germany where the {{lang|de|[[Junker]]s}} either tended to their estates or had careers in the Army.<ref name="Buruma, Ian page 220"/> Chamberlain's discussion of Britain ended with the lament that his idealised [[Merry England|"Merry Old England"]] no longer existed, with Chamberlain writing:

<blockquote>We were merry, we are merry no longer. The complete decline of country life and the equally complete victory of God Mammon, the deity of Industry and Trade, have caused the true, harmless, refreshing merriness to betake itself out of England.<ref name="Buruma, Ian pp. 220-221" /></blockquote>

Germany by contrast in Chamberlain's view, had preserved its racial purity and by having an authoritarian government and a welfare state, had avoided both ''laissez-faire'' capitalism and Jewish rule.<ref name="Buruma, Ian pp. 220-221">Buruma (200), pp. 220–221</ref> It was for this reason that Chamberlain alleged that Britain had started World War I in 1914 to destroy Germany.<ref name="Buruma, Ian pp. 220-221" />

Chamberlain received the [[Iron Cross]] from the [[Kaiser]], with whom he was in regular correspondence, in 1916.<ref>Shirer (1959), p. 108</ref> By this time, Chamberlain's obsessive anti-Semitism had reached the point that Chamberlain was suffering from nightmares in which he was kidnapped and sentenced to death by the Jews.<ref name="Friedländer, Saul page 89" /> In 1915, Chamberlain wrote proudly in a letter to a friend that: "My lawyer friend in Munich tells me there is no living being whom the Jews hate more than I."<ref name="Friedländer, Saul page 89" /> In another essay, Chamberlain wrote the "pure Germanic force" had to be saved from the "disgusting worm" (the phrase "disgusting worm" was often used by Wagner to describe the Jews).<ref name="Röhl, John p. 207"/> Chamberlain wrote the purpose of this "struggle" was "salvation from the claws of the un-German and anti-German", going on to quote from Wagner's 1850 anti-Semitic essay ''[[Das Judenthum in der Musik]]'' that "Against this devil's brood stands Germany as God's champion: Siegfried against the worm!"<ref name="Röhl, John p. 207"/>

=== War aims ===
During the war years, Chamberlain was one of the "annexationists" who wanted the war to end with Germany annexing most of Europe, Africa and Asia to give the ''Reich'' the "world power status" he believed it deserved.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey pp. 381-382">{{harvp|Field|1981|pp=381–382}}</ref> As such, Chamberlain worked closely with the [[Pan-German League]], the [[German Conservative Party|Conservatives]] and the ''völkische'' groups to mobilise public support for the maximum war aims he sought.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey pp. 381-382" /> Chamberlain was a founding member of the Independent Commission for a German Peace, and in July 1915 he signed the Address of the Intellectuals, a petition signed by 1,347 teachers, writers, professors, and theologians asking the government to win the war in order to annex as much territory as possible.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey pp. 381-382" /> Much of this propaganda including Chamberlain's essays in support of the maximum war aims had a very strong anti-Semitic character, as Chamberlain claimed that it was the entire German Jewish community who were supposedly seeking a compromise peace to end the war, and were preventing the full mobilization of Germany's power that would allow the ''Reich'' to win the war.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 382">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=382}}</ref> In a letter to his friend [[Prince Maximilian of Baden]], Chamberlain wrote:

<blockquote>I learned today from a man who is especially well-placed to observe these things—even when they go on secretly—that the Jews are completely intoxicated by their success in Germany—first from the millions they have gained through the war, then because of the praise showered on them in all official quarters, and thirdly from the protection they and their machinations enjoy from the censor. Thus, already they are beginning to lose their heads and reach a degree of insolence which may allow us to hope for a flood-tide of reaction. May God grant it!.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 382"/></blockquote>

=== Wartime intrigues ===
In support of a harder line both in the war and on the home front, Chamberlain involved himself in the intrigues to oust [[Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg]] as Chancellor and replace him with the "hard man", Admiral [[Alfred von Tirpitz]].<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 383">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=383}}</ref> In Chamberlain's opinion, if only Germany were to wage the war more ruthlessly and brutally, then the war would be won.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=383–384}} Chamberlain loathed Bethmann Hollweg whom he saw as an inept leader who simply did not have the will to win.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 381"/> Chamberlain had an unbounded confidence in the ability of the Army and Navy to win the war, but on the home front, Chamberlain believed the ''Reich'' was "leaderless" as he viewed Bethmann Hollweg as a Jewish "puppet" unwilling and unable to stop defeatism, corruption or the demand for more democracy.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 382"/> Besides supporting Tirpitz as Chancellor, Chamberlain was all for adopting unrestricted submarine warfare—even at the risk of provoking the United States into the war—as the best way of starving Britain into surrender.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 384">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=384}}</ref> Chamberlain was also a very public supporter of [[Zeppelin]] raids to destroy British cities.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 384"/> After a discussion with his friend and admirer, Count [[Ferdinand von Zeppelin]], Chamberlain published a newspaper essay in July 1915 complaining that the government had imposed far too many restrictions on Zeppelin raids in order to save innocent British lives, and he argued that his country should bomb British cities with no concern for lives of civilians as ordinary British people deserved to die.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 384"/>

The campaign by the annexationists against Bethmann Hollweg was in large part motivated by the fact that the annexationists believed that Bethmann Hollweg was not one of them. Had Chamberlain or any of the other annexationists been aware of the secret [[Septemberprogramm|September Programme]] of 1914 which laid out Germany's war aims under the assumption that Paris would soon fall, they would have had a different opinion of him.<ref name="Fraser pp. 410-424">Fraser (January 1990), pp. 410-24</ref> The aims included making a vassal state of Belgium, annexing Luxembourg and portions of France, expanding [[German colonies in Africa]] and increasing German influence in Eastern Europe at the expense of the [[Russian Empire]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=The September Memorandum (September 9, 1914) |url=https://ghdi.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=980 |access-date=25 January 2023 |website=GHDI – German History in Documents and Images}}</ref> Bethmann Hollweg's refusal to support the annexationists in public was due to pragmatic political considerations, namely, his need for majority Social Democratic co-operation in the ''Reichstag'' as opposed to being against the annexationists as Chamberlain mistakenly believed.<ref name="Fraser p. 410">Fraser (January 1990), p. 410</ref>

Much of Chamberlain's strident, aggressive and embittered rhetoric reflected the fact that the annexationists were a minority in Germany, albeit a significant, vocal, well organised minority with many influential members inside and outside the government, but a minority nonetheless.<ref name="Fraser419">Fraser (January 1990), p. 419</ref> Chamberlain regarded the refusal of the democratic parties like the left-wing SPD, the right-of-the-centre ''[[Centre Party (Germany)|Zentrum]]'' and the liberal [[Progressive People's Party (Germany)|Progressives]] to join the annexationist movement as essentially high treason. By 1917 Bethmann Hollweg had turned against the idea of annexations. At the 23 April Kreuznach conference on war aims, when Hindenburg and Ludendorff pressured him to agree to annexations in France, Belgium and Russia, he refused.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Kreuznach |url=https://www.dhm.de/mediathek/en/ida/kreuznach-en/ |access-date=25 January 2023 |website=Deutsches Historisches Museum}}</ref> In July 1917 Hindenburg and Ludendorff, with the support of a significant portion of the ''Reichstag'', successfully [[Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg#Resignation and retirement|maneuvered to have Bethmann Hollweg dismissed]] and replaced with [[Georg Michaelis]] as Chancellor. Chamberlain's preferred candidate as Chancellor, Admiral Tirpitz, was passed over. Tirpitz was an intelligent, media-savvy, charismatic political intriguer with a desperate hunger for political power, but the duumvirate of Hindenburg and Ludendorff regarded Tirpitz as Chancellor as too much of a threat to their own power. The [[Reichstag Peace Resolution]] of July 1917—in which the SPD, ''Zentrum'' and the Progressives all joined forces to vote for a resolution asking the government to start peace talks at once on the basis of a return to the status quo of 1914—"inflamed the paranoia and desperation of the right. The annexationists prepared for a war to the knife against ... domestic "traitors"."<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 388">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=388}}</ref> Chamberlain was disappointed that Tirpitz had not been appointed Chancellor; however, he was overjoyed with Bethmann Hollweg's resignation and welcomed the increased power of Hindenburg and Ludendorff in political affairs as giving Germany the sort of government it needed.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 389">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=389}}</ref> Chamberlain was always inclined to hero worship, and for him, Hindenburg and Ludendorff were the greatest of a long line of German heroes.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 389" /> Chamberlain wrote in 1917 that: "Had Hindenburg and Ludendorff stood on the first day in their rightful place, the peace would in all probability have been dictated in Paris before the end of 1914."<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 389" />

=== Postwar vision ===
Besides being an annexationist who wanted to see the war end with Germany as the world's greatest power, Chamberlain also advocated a set of wide-ranging changes to German society intended to achieve a "rebirth" of Germany.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 377">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=377}}</ref> Chamberlain wanted to see the [[Spirit of 1914]] made permanent, to convert the wartime ''Burgfrieden'' ("peace within a castle under siege") into a peacetime ''[[Volksgemeinschaft]]'' (people's community).<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 377"/> He also wanted a new economic and social system that would be a "third way" between capitalism and socialism to bring about the ''Volksgemeinschaft'' organized along [[Corporatism|corporatist]] lines.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 371"/> To achieve this, Chamberlain called for the end to any remaining democratic features the constitution of 1871 still possessed and the creation of a pure dictatorship; for the end of the capitalist system with the state to nationalize huge sections of the economy while at the same time respecting the right to private property; and for the militarization of society on a new scale.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=371–177}} Chamberlain was somewhat vague about how this corporatist society would work in practice, but what he wanted was rule by an oligarchy of aristocrats, intellectuals, bureaucrats and military officers who would run a "planned economy" via "scientific management".<ref name="Field, Geoffrey pp. 373-374">{{harvp|Field|1981|pp=373–374}}</ref> The entire German people (except for the Jews, whom Chamberlain believed did not belong in Germany) were to be united by a common loyalty to the Emperor. A fanatical monarchist, Chamberlain saw the monarchy as the bedrock of German life, writing in his 1915 book ''Politische Ideale'': "Whoever speaks of a republic in Germany belongs on the gallows; the monarchical idea is here a holy law of life."{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=372}} At the same time, Chamberlain envisioned a Germany that would somehow remain the leading industrial power at the forefront of modern technology while at the same time become a romantic, agrarian society where ordinary people would work the land and retain their traditional deference to the aristocracy.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=371–373}} Chamberlain was also vague about how this could be achieved, writing only that a "planned economy", "scientific management" and an economically interventionist state committed to social reforms would make it all possible.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey pp. 373-374"/>

=== Tensions with Wilhelm ===
After Germany's diplomatic defeat in the [[Second Moroccan Crisis]] in 1911, Wilhelm II became the ''Schattenkaiser'' (the "Shadow Emperor"), an increasingly reclusive figure who was seen less and less in public. The war further reinforced Wilhelm's tendency to avoid the public spotlight as much as possible. In private, Chamberlain grew disillusioned with his friend, complaining that instead of being the "Aryan soldier king" leading the ''Reich'' to victory, the Kaiser was a weak leader as the "Shadow Emperor" was hiding himself away in deep seclusion at his hunting lodges.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 382"/> As a monarchist, Chamberlain was worried about how Wilhelm was hurting his own reputation, and often vainly urged the Kaiser to appear in public more often. Chamberlain wrote in 1916 that Wilhelm had an "absolute incapability for judging character" and was now being "forced to obey a Frankfurt pimp", the last being a disparaging reference to Bethmann Hollweg.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 382"/> Chamberlain was always very careful to avoid attacking Wilhelm in public, but his violent press attacks against Bethmann Hollweg caused something of a rift with the Kaiser who felt Chamberlain's very public criticism of the Chancellor was also an indirect attack on him.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 383"/> Nonetheless, despite the strains the war imposed on their friendship, Chamberlain and Wilhelm continued to write throughout the war, but pointedly did not meet in person anymore, though Chamberlain's increasing paralysis also played a part. Wilhelm wrote to Chamberlain on 15 January 1917, stating:

<blockquote>The war is a struggle between two {{lang|de|Weltanschauungen}}, the Teutonic-German for morality, right, loyalty and faith, genuine humanity, truth and real freedom, against ... the worship of Mammon, the power of money, pleasure, land-hunger, lies, betrayal, deceit and—last but not least—treacherous assassination! These two {{lang|de|Weltanschauungen}} cannot be reconciled or tolerate one another, one must be ''victorious'', the other must ''go under''!<ref>Röhl (2004), p. 208</ref></blockquote>

Chamberlain wrote back to Wilhelm on 20 January 1917:

<blockquote>England has fallen totally into the hands of the Jews and the Americans. A person does not understand this war unless he realizes that it is in the deepest sense the war of ''Judentum'' and its near relative Americanism for the control of the world—a war against Christianity, against ''Bildung'', moral strength, uncommercial art, against every idealist perspective on life, and for the benefit of a world that would include only industry, finance, and trade—in short, unrestricted plutocracy. All the other additional factors—Russian greed, French vanity, Italian bombast, the envious and cowardly spirit of the neutrals—are whipped up, made crazy; the Jew and the Yankee are the driving forces that operate consciously and in a certain sense have hitherto been victorious or at all events successful ... It is the war of modern mechanized "civilization" against the ancient, holy and continually reborn culture of chosen races. Machines will crush both spirit and soul in their clutches.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 384"/></blockquote>

=== Obsession with the "inner enemy" ===
Chamberlain continued to believe until the end of the war that Germany would win only if the people willed victory enough, and this sort of ideological war between "German idealism" vs. "Jewish materialism" could only end with one side utterly crushing the other.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 388" /> In the last two years of the war, Chamberlain became obsessed with defeating the "inner enemy" that he believed was holding Germany back.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 389" /> In this regard, Chamberlain frequently asserted that Germany was not one nation, but two; on one side, the "patriots" like Admiral [[Alfred von Tirpitz]], General [[Erich Ludendorff]], Field Marshal [[Paul von Hindenburg]], [[Wolfgang Kapp]], [[J. F. Lehmann]] and [[Ernst Graf zu Reventlow|Count von Reventlow]]; and on the other, the "traitors" which included people like [[Philipp Scheidemann]], [[Eduard David]] and [[Matthias Erzberger]].<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 389" /> No compromise between these two Germanies was possible or desirable, Chamberlain argued, and one would have to be destroyed.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 389" /> Chamberlain's wartime writings against the "inner enemy" anticipated the "[[stab-in-the-back legend]]" which emerged after 1918.

Chamberlain was a founding member of both the extreme-right, anti-Semitic ''Deutschlands Erneuerung'' newspaper, and of the [[German Fatherland Party|Fatherland Party]] in 1917.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 389" /> The character of the Fatherland Party was well illustrated by an infamous incident in January 1918 when at a Fatherland Party rally in Berlin, a group of disabled war veterans were invited to debate the Fatherland Party's speakers.<ref name="Evans, Richard J. p. 68">Evans (2005), p. 68</ref> The wounded veterans all declared that they were now against the war and had become pacifists.<ref name="Evans, Richard J. p. 68" /> The crippled veterans deplored the Fatherland Party's militarism and demand for war to go until victory, regardless of how many more would have to die or end up living with destroyed bodies.<ref name="Evans, Richard J. p. 68" /> The ultra-nationalists of the Fatherland Party were so enraged by what the crippled veterans had to say that the audience stormed the stage, and beat the disabled veterans senseless.<ref name="Evans, Richard J. p. 68" /> Chamberlain, who lived in Bayreuth. was not present during the Berlin rally, but expressed his approval of what had happened.

During the war, most Germans saw Britain as the main enemy, and so Chamberlain's status as the Englishman who supported the ''Reich'' made him an even more famous celebrity in Germany than he had been before 1914.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 366" /> Chamberlain's wartime essays were widely read. The first set of essays sold 160,000 copies within six months of publication while the second set sold 75,000 copies within six weeks of publication.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 390">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=390}}</ref> Between 1914 and 1918 about 1 million copies of Chamberlain's essays were sold, making Chamberlain one of Germany's best read writers during the war.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 390" /> In December 1915, it was estimated that between the direct sales of Chamberlain's essays and reprints in newspapers, at least 3 million people had read Chamberlain's war-time writings.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 390" />

Such was the power of Chamberlain as a public figure that in August 1916 the German Jewish industrialist [[Walther Rathenau]]—whom Chamberlain had often accused of profiteering—mailed Chamberlain a copy of his bank balance sheets, which showed that Rathenau was in fact getting poorer as a result of the war, and politely asked Chamberlain to stop accusing him of [[war profiteering]].{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=391–392}} Rathenau's appeal made no impression, and Chamberlain continued to accuse Rathenau of war profiteering right until he was assassinated in 1922.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 392">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=392}}</ref>

In 1917 Chamberlain wrote about the liberal ''[[Frankfurter Zeitung]]'' newspaper: "No knowledgeable person, can doubt that the enemy is at work among us ... whenever England has something up her sleeve against the interests of Germany, she uses the ''Frankfurter Zeitung''."<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 392" /> Bernhard Guttmann, the editor of the ''Frankfurter Zeitung'' sued Chamberlain for libel about that article.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 392" /> In August 1918, the sensational libel trial which attracted much media attention opened. Chamberlain was defended by [[Heinrich Class]] and Adolf Jacobsen.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=392–393}} On 16 August 1918, the trial ended with the judge ruling that Chamberlain was guilty of libel and fined him 1,500 marks.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=393}} The guilty verdict set off a storm in right-wing circles, who quickly held several successful fund-raisers to pay Chamberlain's fine.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=394}}

==Hitler's mentor==

=== November Revolution ===
In November 1918, Chamberlain was completely shattered by Germany's defeat in the war, a defeat he believed to be impossible, as well as by the [[German Revolution of 1918–19|November Revolution]], which had toppled his beloved monarchy.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=396–397}} Adding to his bitterness, Chamberlain was now so paralyzed that he could no longer leave his bed, something that he believed to be the result of poisoning by the British secret service.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=397}} Chamberlain saw both the defeat and the revolution as the work of the Jews, writing in 1919 that Germany was now under the "supremacy of the Jews".{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=401}} In his last years, Chamberlain's anti-Semitic writings grew ever more violent and bloodthirsty.

In March 1920, Chamberlain supported the [[Kapp Putsch]] against the [[Weimar Republic]], which he called the ''Judenrepublik'' ("Jewish Republic"), and was even more embittered by its failure.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 417">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=417}}</ref> The Kapp putsch was defeated by a general strike called by the Social Democrats which shut down the entire German economy. A young {{lang|de|völkisch}} activist Josef Stolzing-Cerny and a Chamberlain protégé who had participated in the Kapp putsch wrote to Chamberlain after its failure: "Unfortunately Kapp was not all 'the man with the lion heart', much rather the man with the beer heart, for he continually used all his energies befuddling his brain with alcohol. ... In the same situation a Bismarck or a Napoleon would have hunted the whole Jewish-socialist republic to the devil."<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 417" /> Stolzing-Cerny went on to criticize Kapp for not unleashing the ''[[Freikorps]]'' [[Marinebrigade Ehrhardt]] which had taken Berlin against the Jews of Berlin, instead ordering the ''Freikorps'' to keep order.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 417" /> After the failure of the putsch, Chamberlain no longer considered [[Wolfgang Kapp]] to be one of his heroes, and instead damned him as a weak-willed coward all too typical of German conservatives who talked tough, but never followed up their words with action.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 417" /> More importantly, the failure of the Kapp putsch to a certain extent discredited traditional German conservatism in Chamberlain's eyes, and led him on the search for a more radical alternative, a type of "German socialism" that would offer a "third way" between capitalism and socialism.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=419}}

=== Admiring Hitler ===
[[File:Hitler (Rol) - btv1b53120531p.jpg|thumb|Adolf Hitler in 1923]]
In January 1921, Stolzing-Cerny, who joined the NSDAP in December 1920, wrote to Chamberlain about the new man on the political scene, "one [[Adolf Hitler]], an Austrian worker, a man of extraordinary oratorical talents and an astonishingly rich political knowledge who knows marvelously how to thrill the masses".{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=421}} Initially, Chamberlain was hesitant about Hitler, believing that he might be another Kapp, but after the "battle of Coburg", in which Hitler had personally fought with his followers in a street battle against the Communists, Chamberlain started to see Hitler as someone who practised what he preached. From that time onwards, Chamberlain started to closely follow and admire Hitler, whom he saw as "Germany's savior".<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 422">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=422}}</ref> Hitler in his turn had read ''The Foundations'', Chamberlain's biography of Wagner, and many of his wartime essays, and was much influenced by all that Chamberlain had written.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=452}} British historian Sir [[Ian Kershaw]], a biographer of Hitler, writes that Hitler "drew heavily for his ideas" from the writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, as well as from other antisemitic authors such as [[Adolf Wahrmund]] and [[Theodor Fritsch]].<ref>[[Ian Kershaw|Kershaw, Ian]] (1998) ''Hitler: 1889-1936: Hubris''. New York: Norton. p. 151</ref> 

The fact that Hitler was an ardent Wagnerite who adored Wagner's music gave Chamberlain and Hitler a mutual ground for friendship beyond their shared hatred of the Jews.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 422"/> Likewise, [[Joseph Goebbels]] had been converted to the {{lang|de|völkisch}} ideology after reading Chamberlain's books and essays, and came to the conclusion on the basis of Chamberlain's writings that the West could only be saved by removing the Jews from German society.<ref>Evans (2005), p. 204</ref> During this period, Chamberlain, who was practically a member of the Wagner family, started to push for the [[Bayreuth Festival]] to become openly identified with {{lang|de|völkisch}} politics, and to turn the previously apolitical festival into a {{lang|de|völkisch}} rally.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=428–429}}

Despite his paralysis, Chamberlain whose mind was still sharp, remained active as a writer, maintaining a correspondence with a whole gamut of figures from Admiral [[Alfred von Tirpitz]] to the radical anti-Semitic journalist [[Theodor Fritsch]], the leader of the ''völkisch'' [[Reichshammerbund|''Hammerbund'']] ("Hammer League").{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=429}} From his exile in the Netherlands, the former Kaiser wrote to Chamberlain in 1922 to tell him that thanks to his essays, he had become a [[Marcionism|Marcionist]] and now rejected the Old Testament.<ref name="Röhl p. 209">Röhl (2004), p. 209</ref> Wilhelm claimed that on the basis of Chamberlain's work, he now knew that what had become the Old Testament was in fact a [[Zoroastrianism|Zoroastrian]] text from ancient [[Persia]] and was therefore "Aryan".<ref name="Röhl p. 209"/> The former Kaiser claimed that the Jews had stolen and rewritten this sacred text from the Aryan Persians, ending his letter: "Let us free ourselves from the ''Judentum'' with its Jawe!"<ref name="Röhl p. 209"/> In 1923, Wilhelm wrote to tell Chamberlain of his belief that not only were the Jews "not our religious forebears", but that Jesus was "not a Jew", was instead an Aryan "of exceptional beauty, tall and slim with a noble face inspiring respect and love; his hair blond shading into chestnut brown, his arms and hands noble and exquisitely formed".<ref name="Röhl p. 209"/>

In 1923 Chamberlain met Adolf Hitler in Bayreuth, and in September he sat in his wheelchair next to Hitler during the ''völkisch'' [[Bayreuth#To the end of the Weimar Republic (1900–1933)|"German Day"]] paramilitary parade. In September 1923 he wrote a grateful and highly admiring open letter to the [[Nazi Party|NSDAP]] leader.<ref name=LetterHitler/> Chamberlain, paralysed and despondent after Germany's losses in World War I, wrote to Hitler after his first visit in September 1923:
{{blockquote|text= Most respected and dear Hitler, ... It is hardly surprising that a man like that can give peace to a poor suffering spirit! Especially when he is dedicated to the service of the fatherland. My faith in Germandom has not wavered for a moment, though my hopes were—I confess—at a low ebb. With one stroke you have transformed the state of my soul. That Germany, in the hour of her greatest need, brings forth a Hitler—that is proof of her vitality ... that the magnificent [[Erich Ludendorff|Ludendorff]] openly supports you and your movement: What wonderful confirmation! I can now go untroubled to sleep ... May God protect you!<ref name=NaziSources/>}} Chamberlain's letter—which made him into the first celebrity to endorse the NSDAP—caused a media sensation in Germany and led Hitler to rejoice "like a child" at the news.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=438}} When Hitler staged the Munich [[Beer Hall Putsch]] in November 1923, Chamberlain wrote an essay for the ''Völkischer Beobachter'' entitled "God Wills It!" calling on all Germans who love Germany to join the ''putsch''.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 439">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=439}}</ref><ref name=HSCnetTime/> After the failure of the Munich Putsch, Chamberlain wrote: "We are deeply affected by this tragic fate, Jew and Jesuit can now triumph again!".<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 439"/>

=== Joining the Nazis ===
Chamberlain joined the [[Nazi Party]] and contributed to its publications. Its primary journal, the ''[[Völkischer Beobachter]]'', dedicated five columns to praising him on his 70th birthday, describing ''The Foundations'' as the "gospel of the National Socialist movement".<ref>Shirer (1959), p. 109</ref> In January 1924, Chamberlain published an essay praising Hitler as one of the "rare beautiful beings... a man of genuine simplicity with a fascinating gaze" whose words "always come directly from the heart".{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=440}} Chamberlain praised Hitler for embarking upon a "{{lang|de|Vernichtungskrieg}}" ("war of destruction") against all of Germany's enemies.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=441}} Chamberlain further wrote about Hitler—whom he viewed as the greatest of all his heroes—that:

<blockquote>Because he [Hitler] is no mere phrasemonger, but consistently pursues his thought to an end and draws his conclusions from it, he recognizes and proclaims that one cannot simultaneously embrace Jesus and those that crucified him. That is the splendid thing about Hitler—his courage! ... In this respect he reminds one of Luther. And whence come the courage of these two men? It derives from the holy seriousness each has for the cause! Hitler utters no word he does not mean in earnest; his speeches contain no padding or vague, provisional statements ... but the result of this is that he is decried as a visionary dreamer. People consider Hitler a dreamer whose head is full of impossible schemes and yet a renowned and original historian called him "the most creative mind since Bismarck in the area of statecraft." I believe ... we are all inclined to view those things as impractical that we do not already see accomplished before us. He, for example, finds it impossible to share our conviction about the pernicious, even murderous influence of Jewry on the German ''Volk'' and not to take action; if one sees the danger, then steps must be taken against it with utter dispatch. I daresay everyone recognizes this, but nobody risks speaking out; nobody ventures to extract the consequences of his thoughts for his actions; nobody except Hitler. ... This man has worked like a divine blessing, cheering hearts, opening men's eyes to clearly seen goals, enlivening their spirits, kindling their capacity for love and for indignation, hardening their courage and resoluteness. Yet we still need him badly: May God who sent him to us preserve him for many years as a "blessing for the German Fatherland!"{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=441–442}}</blockquote>
[[File:Houston Stewart Chamberlain, fascistische schrijver, historicus en filosoof, Duitsland, 1926, SFA003008695.jpg|thumb|Chamberlain in 1926]]
After the failure of the Munich Putsch, Hitler was convicted of high treason and imprisoned. When the 1924 Bayreuth Festival opened, Chamberlain's efforts to identify the festival with {{lang|de|völkisch}} politics finally bore fruit.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 443">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=443}}</ref> The [[Bayreuth Festspielhaus]] opera house and the way leading up to it were decorated with {{lang|de|völkisch}} symbols like the swastika, parades by the nationalist {{lang|de|Verbände}} were held outside the {{lang|de|Festspielhügel}}, prominent {{lang|de|völkisch}} leaders like General [[Erich Ludendorff]] appeared on the stage to give a speech attacking the Weimar Republic before one of the operas was performed, and a petition was offered to the audiences demanding that Hitler be pardoned.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 443"/> The 1924 festival led to 10,000 people in one night signing the petition asking for Hitler's release.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 443"/> From his prison cell at Landsberg prison, Hitler wrote to [[Siegfried Wagner]] expressing his sorrow about being unable to attend his beloved Bayreuth Festival and to express his thanks to the entire Wagner family and Chamberlain for turning the Bayreuth festival into a {{lang|de|völkisch}} rally, adding that when he got out of prison, he would come to Bayreuth as "the first witness and herald" of Germany's rebirth.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=443–444}} Hitler stated this would be the best medicine for Chamberlain's health as "the road to Berlin" started in Bayreuth.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=444}} In May 1926, one year before Chamberlain's death, Hitler and Goebbels visited him in Bayreuth.<ref name=HSCnetTime/> Chamberlain assured Hitler of his belief that he was the "chosen one" destined to lead Germany back to greatness after the defeat of 1918, to make the ''Reich'' a world power, and finally smash the Jews.{{sfnp|Field|1981|p=445}} Much of Hitler's genuine affection for Chamberlain was due to the fact that Chamberlain never lost his faith in Hitler's potential, even at time in the mid-1920s when the NSDAP was faring very poorly.{{sfnp|Field|1981|pp=441–445}}

=== Death ===
Chamberlain continued living in [[Bayreuth]] until his death in 1927.<ref>Mosse (1968), pp. xi, xiv</ref><ref>Degener, Herrmann A. L. (ed.) (1928) ''Wer Ist's?'' (the German ''Who's Who''), Berlin. vol. 9, p. 1773 records the death on 9 January 1927, of "Houston Stewart Chamberlain, writer, Bayreuth".</ref> Chamberlain died on 9 January 1927 and his ashes were buried at the Bayreuth cemetery in the presence of Hitler along with several highly ranked members of the Nazi Party.<ref>{{cite news |title=Der Todestag des Schriftstellers Houston Stewart Chamberlain, 9. Januar 1927 |author=[[Westdeutscher Rundfunk]] |language=de |date=1 January 2003 |url=http://www.lernzeit.de/sendung.phtml?detail=830362 |access-date=20 December 2007}}</ref>

==Impact of ''The Foundations''==
During his lifetime Chamberlain's works were read widely throughout Europe, and especially in Germany. His reception was particularly favourable among Germany's conservative elite. [[Wilhelm II of Germany|Kaiser Wilhelm II]] patronised Chamberlain, distributing copies of ''The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century'' among the [[German Army (German Empire)|German Army]], and seeing that ''The Foundations'' was carried in German libraries and included in the school curricula.<ref name="CHASE"/><ref name=NaziSources>{{cite book|last=Stackelberg |first=R. |author2=Winkle, S. A.|name-list-style=amp | title = The Nazi Germany Sourcebook: An Anthology of Texts | publisher = Routledge | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_e6z2wN0oDoC&pg=PR22 |year=2002 |pages=84–85 |isbn=978-0-415-22213-6 }}</ref> In 1932 in an essay entitled "Anti-Semitics" denouncing antisemitism, the "homeless left" German journalist [[Carl von Ossietzky]] wrote: <blockquote>Intellectual anti-Semitism was the special prerogative of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who, in ''The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century'', concretized the fantasies of Count Arthur de Gobineau, which had penetrated to Bayreuth. He translated them from the language of harmless snobbery into [the language] of a modernized, seductive mysticism.<ref name="Ossietzky 1994, p. 280">Ossietzky (1994), p. 280</ref></blockquote> Ossietzky ended his essay with the warning: "Today there is a strong smell of blood in the air. Literary anti-Semitism forges the moral weapon for murder. Sturdy and honest lads will take care of the rest."<ref name="Ossietzky 1994, p. 280"/>

''The Foundations'' would prove to be a seminal work in German nationalism. Due to its success, aided by Chamberlain's association with the Wagner circle, its ideas of [[Aryan]] supremacy and a struggle against [[Jewish]] influence spread widely across the German state at the beginning of the century. If it did not form the framework of later [[Nazism|Nazi]] ideology, at the very least it provided its adherents with a seeming intellectual justification.<ref>Mosse (1968), xvi.</ref> Many of Chamberlain's ideas such as his emphasis on a racial struggle between Aryans vs. Jews for world domination; his championing of "world power status" for Germany; his call for a "planned economy" (something realized in 1936 when Hitler brought in the First [[Four Year Plan]] which saw the German state take over the economy); his vision of Germany becoming the ''[[Volksgemeinschaft]]'' (people's community"); his demand for a "third way" between capitalism and socialism; his total opposition to democracy; and his nostalgia for an agrarian lifestyle were central to Nazism.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 449">{{harvp|Field|1981|p=449}}</ref> The only Nazi idea that Chamberlain missed was ''[[Lebensraum]]'' (living space), the perceived need for Germany to colonize Eastern Europe while displacing the existing population to make room for Aryan colonists. However, there were differences in that Chamberlain was always a monarchist and believed that when his friend Hitler came to power, he would restore the monarchy and put his other friend Wilhelm II back on the throne.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 449"/> Moreover, Chamberlain was just one of the many ''völkische'' thinkers who influenced Hitler.<ref name="Field, Geoffrey p. 449"/>

Adolf Hitler, while still growing as a political figure in Germany, visited him several times (in 1923 and in 1926, together with Joseph Goebbels) at the Wagner family's property in [[Bayreuth]].<ref name= NaziSources/> Chamberlain's ideas particularly influenced [[Alfred Rosenberg]], who became the Nazi Party's in-house philosopher. In 1909, some months before his 17th birthday, Rosenberg picked up a copy of Chamberlain's ''The Foundations'' and wrote of the moment: "I felt electrified; I wrote down the title and went straight to the bookshop." In 1930 Rosenberg published ''[[The Myth of the Twentieth Century]]'', a homage to and continuation of Chamberlain's work.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Hecht |first=J. M. |title=Vacher de Lapouge and the Rise of Nazi Science |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |volume=61 |issue=2 |pages=285–304 |date=April 2000 |doi=10.1353/jhi.2000.0018 |jstor=3654029 |s2cid=170993471 }}</ref> Rosenberg had accompanied Hitler when he called upon Wagner's widow, Cosima, in October 1923 when he met her son-in-law. Hitler told the ailing Chamberlain he was working on [[Mein Kampf|his own book]] which, he intended, should do for Weimar-era Germany what Chamberlain's book had done for [[German Empire|Imperial Germany]].<ref>[[Robert Cecil (British diplomat)|Cecil, Robert]] (1972) ''The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology'', London. p. 12–13. {{ISBN|0-7134-1121-X}}</ref>

Beyond the Kaiser and the NSDAP, assessments were mixed. The French Germanic scholar [[Edmond Vermeil]] considered Chamberlain's ideas "essentially shoddy", but the anti-Nazi German author [[Konrad Heiden]], despite objections to Chamberlain's racial ideas, described him as "one of the most astonishing talents in the history of the German mind, a {{not a typo|mine}} of knowledge and profound ideas".<ref>Shirer (1959), pp. 105–106</ref> In a 1939 work [[Martin Heidegger]] (himself a former Nazi) dismissed Chamberlain's work as presenting a subjective, individualistic {{lang|de|Weltanschauung}} (fabricated worldview).<ref>[[Martin Heidegger|Heidegger, Martin]] ''Besinnung'', complete edition, vol. 66, Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main, 1997, p. 402, section 131, "Metaphysik und Weltanschauung": "Die 'Weltanschauung' ist eine neuzeitliche Verunstaltung der Metaphysik, ihr Maßstab ist die Öffentlichkeit, in der Jedermann Jedes zugänglich findet und auf solche Zugänglichlichkeit einen Anspruch erhebt; dem widerstreitet nicht, daß 'Weltanschauungen' dann sehr 'persönlich' und auf den 'Einzelnen' zugeschnitten sind; diese Einzelnen fühlen sich als die abseitigen Jedermänner, als Menschen, die auf sich gestellt für sich ein Welt-Bild, die Welt als Bild vor-stellen und eine Art des Sichzurechtfindens (Charakter) sich zustellen (z.B. Houston Stewart Chamberlain)."</ref>

==Works==
* (1892). ''Das Drama Richard Wagners. Eine Anregung'', Breitkopf & Härtel.
* (1895). ''Richard Wagner'', F. Bruckmann.
* (1899). ''Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts'', Bruckmann.
* (1903). ''Dilettantismus - Rasse - Monotheismus - Rom'', Bruckmann.
* (1905). ''Arische Weltanschauung'', Bruckmann.
* (1903). ''Heinrich von Stein und seine Weltanschauung'', Georg Heinrich Meyer.
* (1905). ''Immanuel Kant. Die Persönlichkeit als Einführung in das Werk'', Berlin, Bard, Marquardt & Co.
* (1912). ''Wehr und Gegenwehr. Vorworte zu dritten und zur vierten Auflage der Grundlagen des 19. Jahrhunderts'', Bruckmann.
* (1913). ''Parsifal-Märchen'', Bruckmann.
* (1912). ''Goethe'', Bruckmann.
* (1914). ''Kriegsaufsätze'', Bruckmann.
* (1915). ''Worte Christi'', Bruckmann.
* (1915). ''Who is to blame for the War?'', New York : German-American Literary Defense Comittee
* (1915). ''Wer hat den Krieg verschuldet?'', Wiesbaden : Volksbildungsverein
* (1915). ''Politische Ideale'', Bruckmann.
* (1915). ''England und Deutschland'', Bruckmann.
* (1915). ''Die Zuversicht'', Bruckmann.
* (1915). ''Who is to blame for the war?'', The German-American Literary Defense Committee.
* (1915). ''Neue Kriegsaufsätze'', Bruckmann.
* (1915). ''Bühnendichtungen'', Bruckmann.
* (1916). ''Deutsches Wesen'', Bruckmann.
* (1916). ''Ideal und Macht'', Bruckmann.
* (1916). ''Hammer oder Ambos'', Bruckmann.
* (1916). ''Demokratie und Freiheit'', Bruckmann.
* (1916). ''Der Wille zum Sieg'', Hamburg : Deutschnationale Buchhandlung
* (1918). ''Rasse und Nation'', München : I. F. Lehmanns Verlag
* (1918). ''Der demokratische Wahn : Zeugnisse aus England, Frankreich, den Vereinigten Staaten, Deutschland'', Bruckmann.
* (1919). ''Lebenswege meines Denkens'', Bruckmann.
* (1921). ''Mensch und Gott'', Bruckmann.
* (1922). ''Herrn Hinkebein's Schädel : Gedankenhumoreske'', Bruckmann.
* (1923). ''Drei Vorworte'', Bruckmann.
* (1923). ''Rasse und Persönlichkeit'', Bruckmann.
* (1928). ''Natur und Leben'', Bruckmann.
* (1928). ''Briefe 1882-1924 und Briefwechsel mit Kaiser Wilhelm II'', 2 Bände, Bruckmann.
* (1933). ''Chamberlain der Seher des dritten Reiches: das Vermächtnis H. S. Chamberlain an das Deutsche Volk in einer Auslese aus seinen Werken'', Bruckmann.
* (1934). ''Houston Stewart Chamberlain - Auswahl aus seinen Werken'', Breslau : Ferdinand Hirt
* (1937). ''Mein Weg nach Bayreuth. Mit Einleitung von Paul Bülow'', Bruckmann.

===Works in English translation===
* (1897). ''Richard Wagner'', J.M. Dent & Co. (translated by G. Ainslie Hight)
* (1911). ''[[The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century]]'', 2 vols., John Lane, The Bodley Head (translated by John Lees)
** [https://archive.org/stream/modernpoliticali00ingrim#page/352/mode/2up "Foundations of the Nineteenth Century."] In ''Modern Political Ideologies'', Oxford University Press, 1959.
* (1914). ''Immanuel Kant'', 2 vols., John Lane, The Bodley Head (translated by [[Bertram Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale|Lord Redesdale]]). {{ISBN|978-1293035108}}
* (1923). ''The Wagnerian Drama'', John Lane, The Bodley Head. {{ISBN|978-1909606029}}
* (1915). ''The Ravings of a Renegade'', Jarrold & Sons (translated by Charles H. Clarke) {{ISBN|978-1331004073}}
* (2005). ''Political Ideals'', [[University Press of America]] (translated by Alexander Jacob) {{ISBN|978-0761829126}}
* (2012). ''Aryan World View'', Aristeus books. {{ISBN|978-1479223039}}
* (2012). ''The Ravings of a Renegade'', Aristeus Books (translated by Charles H. Clarke) {{ISBN|978-1479231584}}
* (2014). ''Richard Wagner'', Aristeus Books (translated by G. Ainslie High) {{ISBN|978-1502494689}}

==See also==
*[[Oswald Mosley]]
*[[Wagner family tree]]
*[[William Patrick Stuart-Houston]]

==References==
'''Informational notes'''
{{reflist|group=notes}}

'''Citations'''
{{Reflist}}

'''Sources'''
{{div col|colwidth=45em}}
* [[Michael D. Biddiss|Biddiss, Michael]] (1998), "History as Destiny: Gobineau, H. S. Chamberlain and Spengler," ''Transactions of the Royal Historical Society'', Vol. VII, Sixth Series, Cambridge University Press.
* [[Ian Buruma|Buruma, Ian]] (2000) ''Anglomania: A European Love Affair'' New York: Vintage Books. {{isbn|0375705368}}
* {{cite book|last=Chamberlain|first=Houston Stewart|title=Recherches sur la sève ascendante|year=1897|publisher=Attinger Frères|location=Neuchâtel}}
* Domeier, Norman (2015) ''The Eulenburg Affair: A Cultural History of Politics in the German Empire'', Rochester: Boydell & Brewer. {{isbn|9781571139122}}
* [[Richard J. Evans|Evans, Richard J.]] (2005) ''[[The Coming of the Third Reich]]'', London: Penguin Books. {{isbn|0143034693}}
* {{Citation |last=Field |first=Geoffrey G. |year=1981 |title=Evangelist of Race: The Germanic Vision of Houston Stewart Chamberlain |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York|isbn=978-0-231-04860-6 }}
* Fraser, David (January 1990) "Houston Stewart Chamberlain Revolutionary or Reactionary?" in ''Journal of 20th Century History'', Volume 20, #1, pp.&nbsp;410–424
* [[Saul Friedländer|Friedländer, Saul]] (1998) ''Nazi Germany and the Jews: Volume 1: The Years of Persecution 1933–1939'', New York: Harper Perennial. {{isbn|0060928786}}
* {{cite book|last=Lobenstein-Reichmann|first=Anja|author-link=:de:Anja Lobenstein-Reichmann|year=2008|title=Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Zur textlichen Konstruktion einer Weltanschauung. Eine sprach-, diskurs- und ideologiegeschichtliche Analyse|series=Studia linguistica; vol. 95|publisher=De Gruyter|location=Berlin|isbn=978-3-11-020957-0}}
* Mosse, George L. (1968) "Introduction to the 1968 Edition" to Chamberlain, Houston Stewart ''[[The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century]]'' Vol. I. Lees, John (trans.) New York: Howard Fertig Inc.
* [[Carl von Ossietzky|Ossietzky, Carl von]] (1984) "Anti-Semites" in Kaes, Anton; Jay, Martin; and Dimendberg, Edward (eds.) ''The Weimar Republic Sourcebook''. Los Angeles: University of California Press. pp.&nbsp;276–280
* [[Bertram Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale|Redesdale, Lord]] (1913) "Introduction" to Chamberlain, Houston Stewart ''[[The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century]]'' (4th English language impression). London.
* [[John C. G. Röhl|Röhl, John]] (2004) ''Wilhelm II: The Kaiser's Personal Monarchy, 1888–1900''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{isbn|0521819202}}
* [[William L. Shirer|Shirer, William L.]] (1985) [1959] ''[[The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich]]''. Book Club Associates.
* [[Wolfram Wette|Wette, Wolfram]] (2006) ''The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality'', Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p.&nbsp;33 {{isbn|9780674025776}}
{{div col end}}

==Further reading==
{{div col|colwidth=45em}}
* [[Jacques Barzun|Barzun, Jacques]] (1937), ''Race: A Study in Modern Superstition'', Taylor & Francis.
* [[Michael D. Biddiss|Biddiss, Michael D.]] "Houston Stewart Chamberlain: Prophet of Teutonism", ''History Today'' (January 1969), vol. 19, iss. 1, pp.&nbsp;10–17, online.
* {{Citation |last=Carr |first=Jonathan |author-link=Jonathan Carr (writer) |year=2007 |title=The Wagner Clan: The Saga of Germany's Most Illustrious and Infamous Family |publisher=Atlantic Monthly Press |location=New York |page=409 |isbn=978-0-87113-975-7 |ref=none}}
* {{Citation |last=Hadow |first=Sir W. H. |year=1934 |title=Richard Wagner |publisher=T. Butterworth, Ltd. |location=London |ref=none}}
* {{Citation |last=Hilmes |first=Oliver |year=2009 |title=Cosimas Kinder: Triumph und Tragödie der Wagner-Dynastie (Cosima's Children: Triumph and Tragedy of the Wagner Dynasty) |publisher=Siedler Verlag |location=Munich, Germany |language=de |page=319 |isbn=978-3-88680-899-1 |ref=none}}
* Kelly, Alfred (1981), ''The Descent of Darwin: The Popularization of Darwinism in Germany, 1860–1914'', University of North Carolina Press.
* {{ill|Anja Lobenstein-Reichmann|de|lt=Lobenstein-Reichmann, Anja}} (2009): "Houston Stewart Chamberlains Rassentheoretische Geschichts'philosophie{{'"}}. In: [[Werner Bergmann]], Ulrich Sieg (eds.): ''Antisemitische Geschichtsbilder.'' (Antisemitismus. Geschichte und Strukturen: Bd.&nbsp;5). Essen: Klartext Verlag. p.&nbsp;139–166. {{isbn|978-3-8375-0114-8}}
* Lobenstein-Reichmann, Anja (2013): "Kulturchauvinismus. Germanisches Christentum. Austilgungsrassismus. Houston Stewart Chamberlain als Leitfigur des deutschnationalen Bürgertums und Stichwortgeber Adolf Hitlers". In: [[Hannes Heer]] (ed.): ''Weltanschauung en marche. Die Bayreuther Festspiele und die Juden 1876 bis 1945''. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, p.&nbsp;169–192. {{isbn|978-3-8260-5290-3}}
* Lobenstein-Reichmann, Anja (2017): "Houston Stewart Chamberlain". In: ''Handbuch der völkischen Wissenschaften. Akteure, Netzwerke, Forschungsprogramme''. Vol. 1: Biographies. Michael Fahlbusch / Ingo Haar / Alexander Pinwinkler (eds). 2nd completely revised edition. Boston / Berlin: de Gruyter. p.&nbsp;114–119.
* Mather Jr., F. J. (1915), [https://archive.org/stream/unpopularreview03newy#page/196/mode/2up "Ethnic Darwinism: A New-Old Fallacy,"] ''The Unpopular Review'', Vol. III, No. 5.
* Newman, Ernest (1931), [https://archive.org/stream/factfictionabout1931newm#page/162/mode/2up "The Case of Ferdinand Praeger."] In ''Fact and Fiction about Wagner'', Alfred A. Knopf.
* [[C. Northcote Parkinson|Parkinson, C. Northcote]] (1958), [https://archive.org/stream/evolutionofpolit00park#page/270/mode/2up "The Theory of Dictatorship."] In ''Evolution of Political Thought'', Part IV, ch. 22, Houghton Mifflin Company.
* [[Ferdinand Praeger|Praeger, Ferdinand]] (1892) ''[https://archive.org/stream/cu31924022354199#page/n5/mode/2up Wagner as I Knew Him]'' London: Longman, Green & Co.
* {{Citation |last=Real |first=Jéan |contribution=The religious conception of race: Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Germanic Christianity |editor-last=Vermeil |editor-first=Edmond |date=1955 |title=The Third Reich: Essays on the National-Socialist Movement in Germany |pages=243–286 |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |location=London |oclc=753252220 |ref=none}}
* Redesdale, Lord (1914), [https://archive.org/stream/edinburghreview49smitgoog#page/n84/mode/2up "Houston Stewart Chamberlain,"] ''The Edinburgh Review'', Vol. CCXIX, No. 447.
* {{Citation |last=Scholz |first=Dieter |year=1997 |title=Ein deutsches Mißverständnis. Richard Wagner zwischen Barrikade und Walhalla |publisher=Parthas Verlag |location=Berlin |isbn=978-3932529139 |ref=none}}
* Snyder, Louis L. (1939), [https://archive.org/stream/racehistoryofmod00snyd#page/130/mode/2up "Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Teutonic Nordicism."] In ''Race, A History of Modern Ethnic Theories'', Chap. VIII, Longmans, Green and Co.
* Stein, Ludwig (1918), [https://archive.org/stream/philosophicalcur01steiuoft#page/134/mode/2up "The Neo-Romantic Movement."] In ''Philosophical Currents of the Present Day'', Chap. V. The University of Calcutta.
* Williamson, Roger Andrew (1973), ''Houston Stewart Chamberlain: A Study of the Man and His Ideas, 1855–1927'', University of California, Santa Barbara.
* Pieter Jan Verstraete (2016) ''Houston Stewart Chamberlain: rassenideoloog en wegbereider van nationaalsocialisme.'' Soest: Uitgeverij Aspekt. ISBN 978 94 6338 013 3
* Voegelin, Eric (1940), "The Growth of the Race Idea," ''The Review of Politics'', Vol. 2, No. 3.
* Voegelin, Eric (1997), ''Race and State'', University of Missouri Press.
{{div col end}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Houston Stewart Chamberlain}}
{{wikiquote}}
*{{Internet Archive author |sname=Houston Stewart Chamberlain}}
*[http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Search/Home?type%5B%5D=author&lookfor%5B%5D=%22Chamberlain%2C%20Houston%20Stewart%2C%201855-1927.%22&page=1&ft=ft Works by Houston Stewart Chamberlain], at [[Hathi Trust]]
*[http://www.bartleby.com/56/8.html Theodore Roosevelt's review of ''The Foundation of the 19th Century'']
*{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20030203122354/http://www.hschamberlain.net/index.html Houston Stewart Chamberlain biography and transcriptions]}} – online compendium arranged by an admirer
*[[Aurel Kolnai|Kolnai, Aurel]], ''[[The War Against the West]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20170224095759/http://www.savageleft.com/poli/watw-five.html Chapter V – Faith And Thought 5. The Call for Mythology: Confrontation of Creed and Mythology]
*Jewish Encyclopedia: [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4224-chamberlain-houston-stewart Chamberlain, Houston Stewart]
* {{PM20|FID=pe/003124}}

{{Historical definitions of race}}
{{Nazism|state=collapsed}}
{{NSDAP}}
{{Richard Wagner|state=collapsed}}
{{Authority control}}

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