# Bernhard Kummer

> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Bernhard_Kummer
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Bernhard_Kummer.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Kummer
> Source revision: 1342535910
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

**Bernhard Kummer** (21 January 1897 in [Leipzig](/source/Leipzig) – 1 December 1962 in [Bad Segeberg](/source/Bad_Segeberg)) was a [Germanist](/source/Germanist) who was appointed to a professorship in the [Nazi era](/source/Nazi_Germany) and whose writings have been influential among postwar [neo-Nazis](/source/Neo-Nazism). He was a prominent representative of [Nordicism](/source/Nordicism), the view that the so-called [Nordic race](/source/Nordic_race) was inherently culturally advanced, and in books including his best known work, *Midgards Untergang*, he argues that the conversion of the [Germanic peoples](/source/Germanic_peoples) from their native [Germanic paganism](/source/Germanic_paganism), particularly the [Christianisation of Scandinavia](/source/Christianization_of_Scandinavia), was detrimental to European culture.

## Career, writing and political activity

Kummer earned his doctorate at the [University of Leipzig](/source/University_of_Leipzig) under the theologian Hans Haas, first publishing *Midgards Untergang* in 1927 as his doctoral thesis.[1] A committed National Socialist, he joined the [Nazi Party](/source/Nazi_Party) in 1928 (member number 87,841), was also a member of the [SA](/source/Sturmabteilung), and wrote articles for Nazi publications beginning in 1927.[2][3] He left the party in 1930 because membership was preventing him from obtaining a public post or scholarship and he was having difficulty providing for his family;[3] [Gustav Neckel](/source/Gustav_Neckel) had applied for a scholarship on his behalf in 1929.[4] He rejoined the party only late in the Third Reich, but for reasons of conflict with other Nazis, not out of lack of commitment to its ideology;[5] he requested readmission beginning in 1933,[6] and was supported by the [Association of National Socialist Dozents](/source/Nationalsozialistischer_Deutscher_Dozentenbund), which he represented in his division of the [University of Jena](/source/University_of_Jena).[5][6] After the Nazis came to power, he lectured widely to party organisations and was a [dozent](/source/Dozent) at the [Deutsche Hochschule für Politik](/source/Deutsche_Hochschule_f%C3%BCr_Politik) in Berlin.[4] From 1938 he belonged to the SA "Working Group for [Weltanschauung](/source/Weltanschauung) and Culture".[7] He never completed his [habilitation](/source/Habilitation) (the two volumes published as *Herd und Altar*—Hearth and Altar—had been intended to serve that purpose)[4] but taught at the University of Jena beginning in October 1936, and on 1 May 1942 was appointed Professor of Old Norse language and culture together with Germanic history of religion.[6][8]

Kummer participated from its inception in 1927 in the *Handwörterbuch des Deutschen Aberglaubens*, a prestigious project.[9] His articles are on the family and sexuality[10] and also on goddesses and other female figures such as [Mother Holle](/source/Mother_Holle).[11] He was an influential proponent of Nordicism, particularly as an important ideologue in the *Nordische Gesellschaft*[12] and as the main author with the *[völkisch](/source/V%C3%B6lkisch)* publishing house of Adolf Klein in Leipzig.[13]

After the war, many of Kummer's works were banned in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany.[14] However, like some other former Nazi academics, he was able to draw on friendships to continue working, emphasising Germanic democracy rather than the "Führer principle" in his postwar publications.[15] He read a paper at the 8th International Congress for the History of Religions, in Rome in 1955.[16] Along with other *völkisch* neopagans including [Herman Wirth](/source/Herman_Wirth), he was active in the [Deutsche Unitarier Religionsgemeinschaft](/source/Deutsche_Unitarier_Religionsgemeinschaft) (German Unitarian Religious Community).[17]

*Midgards Untergang* in particular is still cited by neo-Nazis as scholarly evidence for their views.[18]

## Views and dispute with Otto Höfler

Beginning with *Midgards Untergang*, Kummer propounded a view of ancient Germanic culture, influenced by [Vilhelm Grønbech](/source/Vilhelm_Gr%C3%B8nbech), as marked by a dualism reminiscent of [Zoroastrian](/source/Zoroastrianism) thought, between life-affirming *[Midgard](/source/Midgard)* and life-endangering *[Utgard](/source/%C3%9Atgar%C3%B0ar)*.[19] He argued that the [Eddic poems](/source/Eddic_poems) already represented a weakened form of [Germanic paganism](/source/Germanic_paganism) because of both Christian influence and the adoption of [Odin](/source/Odin), an originally alien god, and that these divisive inroads by Utgard made possible the success of missionaries in converting the Germanic peoples:[19] "the Norse Odin of the waning days of heathendom [constituted] a bridge between Germanic piety and Christian devil-belief".[20] He regarded the conversion as a catastrophe, causing cultural decay[21] and the eventual downfall (*Untergang*) of Midgard; hence his title recalling [Oswald Spengler](/source/Oswald_Spengler)'s *[The Decline of the West](/source/The_Decline_of_the_West)* or *The Downfall of the Occident* (*Der Untergang des Abendlandes*).[19][22] His views were influenced by significant anti-Catholicism; in his view, the ancient Teutons "and [their] gods coexisted in a relationship of mutual trust"[23] and their ethics were based on custom and conscience, as opposed to dogma (as in Catholicism) or law (as in Judaism).[19] He referred to Catholics as "the [Praetorian Guard](/source/Praetorian_Guard) of Rome".[24] In contrast to the [Ariosophists](/source/Ariosophy), he regarded superstition and belief in witches as primitive traits imported into Germanic culture via Catholicism, rather than repositories of ancient native thought.[20]

Kummer's publications show both deep knowledge and an increasingly strident political approach.[10] In *Midgards Untergang* (1927) his main focus is on what can be learned of ancient Germanic culture from the sources; in *Mission als Sittenwechsel* (1933) he examines the effect of the "collective mental injury" of conversion and loss of culture; and in *Der Machtkampf zwischen Volk, König und Kirche im alten Norden* (Volume 2 of *Herd und Altar*, 1939), he ascribes to the conversion all the ills of his own time as he saw them: "usury, homelessness, mass culture, [loss of dignity], treason against blood and army, cowardice, the disregard of ancestral heritage, [failure to resist] the enticements of the day, corruption, disrespect of national interests, a [morality] of adultery, poverty among children, degeneration of motherly love, and intellectual disbelief."[25] He acquired the deprecatory nickname "Germanenbernhard", which "hints at his character as a pettifogging and self-opinionated polemicist".[26]

Kummer's academic career was retarded by a conflict with [Otto Höfler](/source/Otto_H%C3%B6fler) which became part of the conflict between the [Ahnenerbe](/source/Ahnenerbe) and the [Amt Rosenberg](/source/Amt_Rosenberg), with which Kummer was affiliated.[27][28] Höfler originally fanned the flames of their disagreement with a dismissive treatment of Kummer's work in his *Kultische Geheimbünde der Germanen* (1934), but Kummer fought back "with almost every weapon he could get."[27] Kummer attacked Höfler's version of the [Germanic Continuity Theory](/source/Germanic_Continuity_Theory) as based on the equation of the ancient Teutons with primitives and therefore inherently denigratory.[29] He accused the Catholic Höfler, whose work emphasises initiatory cults and secret societies, of "an un-Nordic predilection for strange rites and ecstatic practices".[30] Höfler was able to point out the potential destructiveness of such sectarianism in the Third Reich,[30] and his viewpoint easily supported the notion of National Socialism as the culmination of Germanic history, whereas Kummer had to resort to a reawakening of suppressed cultural forces.[21] [Heinrich Himmler](/source/Heinrich_Himmler) intervened in the quarrel and Kummer was forced to withdraw his attacks on Höfler and resign from the journal *Nordische Stimmen*, which he had founded;[31] only then did his academic career advance.[32]

## Selected publications

- *Midgards Untergang: Germanischer Kult und Glaube in den letzten heidnischen Jahrhunderten*. Veröffentlichungen des Forschungsinstituts für Vergleichende Religionsgeschichte an der Universität Leipzig ser. 2 vol. 7. Leipzig: Pfeiffer, 1927. OCLC [3764058](https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3764058). Rev. ed. Leipzig: Klein, 1935. OCLC [250137354](https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/250137354). 3rd enlarged ed. 1937.
- *Mission als Sittenwechsel. Mit einer Antwort an Prof. D. Rückert: ′Die kulturelle und nationale Bedeutung der Missionierung Germaniens für das deutsche Volk′*. Reden und Aufsätze zum nordischen Gedanken 1. Leipzig: Klein, 1933. OCLC [257425847](https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/257425847)
- *Herd und Altar. Wandlungen altnordischer Sittlichkeit im Glaubenswechsel*. Volume 1 *Persönlichkeit und Gemeinschaft*. Leipzig: Klein, 1934. Volume 2 *Der Machtkampf zwischen Volk, König und Kirche im alten Norden*. Leipzig: Klein, 1939. OCLC [46635994](https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/46635994)
- *Germanenkunde im Kulturkampf: Beiträge zum Kampf um Wissenschaft, Theologie und Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts*. Reden und Aufsätze zum nordischen Gedanken 25. Leipzig: Klein, 1925. OCLC [29104451](https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/29104451)
- *Gefolgschaft, Führertum und Freiheit. Vom Grundgesetz der Demokratie in alter Zeit*. Zeven: Lienau, 1956. OCLC [73517235](https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/73517235)

## See also

- [Edmund Mudrak](/source/Edmund_Mudrak)

## References

1. Fritz Heinrich, "Bernhard Kummer (1897–1962): The Study of Religions Between Religious Devotion for the Ancient Germans, Political Agitation, and Academic Habitus" in Horst Junginger, ed., *The Study of Religion under the Impact of Fascism*, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2008, ISBN 978-90-04-16326-3, pp. 229–62, [p. 233 and note 18](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=methodical+deconstruction).

1. Hans-Jürgen Lutzhöft, *Der Nordische Gedanke in Deutschland 1920–1940*, Kieler historische Studien 14, Stuttgart: Klett, [1971], ISBN 9783129054703, [p. 51](https://books.google.com/books?id=qeQAAAAAMAAJ&q=Kummer) (in German)

1. Heinrich, [p. 245](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=Jena%27s+Philosophy+Department).

1. Heinrich, [p. 250 and note 92](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=Neckel+applied+for+a+scholarship+in+behalf).

1. Heinrich, [p. 246](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=different+interpretations+of+a+disparate+ideology).

1. Willy Schilling, "NS-Dozentenschaft und Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Dozentenbund an der Universität Jena", in Uwe Hossfeld (ed.), *Kämpferische Wissenschaft: Studien zur Universität Jena im Nationalsozialismus*, Cologne: Böhlau, 2003, ISBN 9783412041021, pp. 180–201, [p. 190](https://books.google.com/books?id=bJCxIkTe1gYC&q=Vertreter+des+NSDDB+an+der+Philosophischen+Fakult%C3%A4t) (in German)

1. Annett Hamann, "'Männer der kämpfenden Wissenschaft': die 1945 geschlossenen NS-Institute der Universität Jena", in Hossfeld, ed., pp. 202–34, [p. 228, note 93](https://books.google.com/books?id=bJCxIkTe1gYC&q=SA%2C+Arbeitskreis+f%C3%BCr+Weltanschauung+und+Kultur) (in German)

1. Heinrich, [pp. 252–53](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=Nordic+language+and+culture+and+history+of+the+old+German+religion).

1. Heinrich, [p. 251](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=deutschen+Aberglaubens).

1. Heinrich, [p. 252](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=on+family+matters).

1. Elisheva Baumgarten, *Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe*, Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the ancient to the modern world, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University, 2004, ISBN 9780691091662, [p. 216, note 17](https://books.google.com/books?id=70nKVvkj5Y4C&dq=Bernhard+Kummer&pg=PA216); see also the list in the bibliography of Heinrich's article, [p. 260](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=deutschen+Aberglaubens).

1. Hamann, [p. 209](https://books.google.com/books?id=bJCxIkTe1gYC&q=Wirken+in+der+Nordischen+Gesellschaft).

1. Felix Wiedemann, *Rassenmutter und Rebellin: Hexenbilder in Romantik, völkischer Bewegung, Neuheidentum und Feminismus*, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2007, ISBN 9783826036798, [p. 151](https://books.google.com/books?id=WCClZEzq1G8C&q=wichtigen+Adolf+Klein) (in German)

1. Deutsche Verwaltung für Volksbildung in der sowjetischen Besatzungszone, *Liste der auszusondernden Literatur*, Berlin: Zentralverlag, 1946, [K, pp. K, 203–39](http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-k.html) (transcript)

1. Hamann, [p. 219](https://books.google.com/books?id=bJCxIkTe1gYC&q=sondern+%C3%BCber+die+demokratische+Grundz%C3%BCge+bei+den+Germanen).

1. Horst Junginger, "From Buddha to Adolf Hitler: Walther Wüst and the Aryan Tradition" in *The Study of Religion under the Impact of Fascism*, pp. 108–77, [p. 163 and note 142](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=not+only+Wirth%2C+also+a+Bernhard+Kummer). Otto Höfler also presented a paper.

1. Wiedemann, [p. 188](https://books.google.com/books?id=WCClZEzq1G8C&q=Ideologen+wie+die+behandelten+Bernhard+Kummer).

1. Heinrich, [p. 230 and note 4](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&dq=Midgards+Untergang+neo-nazis&pg=PA230).

1. Wiedemann, [p. 152](https://books.google.com/books?id=WCClZEzq1G8C&q=dramatische+Schilderung+des+Niedergangs).

1. Wiedemann, [p. 153](https://books.google.com/books?id=WCClZEzq1G8C&q=christlichem+Teufelsglauben), quoting from "Frau / Weib", *Handwörterbuch des Deutschen Aberglaubens*, col. 1737: "Brücke zwischen germanischer Frömmigkeit und christlichem Teufelsglauben".

1. Horst Junginger, "Introduction" in *The Study of Religion under the Impact of Fascism*, pp. 1–103, [p. 50](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=had+caused+their+steady+decay).

1. Bernard Thomas Mees, *The Science of the Swastika*, Budapest/New York: Central European University Press, 2008, ISBN 9789639776180, [pp. 121–22](https://books.google.com/books?id=hLNUx6YK9RIC&dq=%22Bernhard+Kummer%22+Midgards+Untergang&pg=PA121).

1. Georges Dumézil, *Gods of the Ancient Northmen*, Berkeley: University of California, 1973, ISBN 9780520020443, [p. xxi](https://books.google.com/books?id=rurD1yd0Ok0C&dq=%22Bernhard+Kummer%22+Midgards+Untergang&pg=PR21).

1. In *Mission als Sittenwechsel* (1933); Heinrich, [p. 240 and note 49](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=Kummer+used+this+term+to+name+the+followers+of+the+Catholic+Church).

1. Heinrich, [p. 234 and note 20](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=mass+culture%2C+people%27s+indignity), where the German is quoted.

1. Junginger, "Introduction", [p. 51](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=Germanenbernhard).

1. Heinrich, [p. 254](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=rationalistic+and+unhistorical).

1. Wiedemann, [pp. 170](https://books.google.com/books?id=WCClZEzq1G8C&q=ins+Stocken), [176](https://books.google.com/books?id=WCClZEzq1G8C&q=Auch+Kummer+selbst%2C+der+inszwischen).

1. Heinrich, [pp. 254–55](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=primitives).

1. Junginger, "Introduction", [p. 52](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=strange+rites+and+ecstatic+practices).

1. Mees, [p. 122](https://books.google.com/books?id=hLNUx6YK9RIC&q=Nordische+Stimmen).

1. Junginger, "Introduction", pp. 50–[51](https://books.google.com/books?id=dNAvnlrvrE0C&q=made+it+possible+for+him+to+eventually+get+a+chair).

## Further reading

- [Lee M. Hollander](/source/Lee_M._Hollander). "Observations on Bernhard Kummer's Midgards Untergang". *[The Journal of English and Germanic Philology](/source/The_Journal_of_English_and_Germanic_Philology)* 33.2, April 1934, pp. 255–69.

## External links

- [Books by and about Bernhard Kummer](https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?query=Woe%3D116609834&method=simpleSearch) in the catalogue of the [German National Library](/source/German_National_Library)

---
Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Bernhard Kummer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Kummer) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Kummer?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.