Croce as Reviewer of Simmel’s War Writings

This essay studies a little known episode concerning the reception by his contemporaries of the writings of Georg Simmel: Benedetto Croce’s review of Der Krieg und die geistigen Entscheidungen: Reden und Aufsätze. The essay examines the reasoning behind the negative judgement expressed by Croce, highlighting the rhetorical devices and citation strategies employed by the Italian philosopher to slate his German colleague’s war writings and cultural stature. In this review Benedetto Croce, in a manipulative manner, chooses to cast his critical eye above all on only one of the four essays in the collection: the first, dated 1914, in which Simmel’s patriotic enthusiasm and his philosophical effort to find positive aspects in the war, was most manifest. Avoiding commenting sufficiently on Simmel’s other writings on the war, Croce in fact did not take into consideration the heartfelt evolution of Simmel’s thought: from the initial emotive war involvement and ensuing support during the first months of the conflict, to the increasingly anguished and critical glance when Simmel, from March 1915 onwards, had a clear vision of the civil and cultural suicide that Europe was going to commit. Lastly, with the aim of placing the genesis of the Der Krieg review in the historical, political and cultural context of the age, the essay comments on the different personal and professional situations of their lives during the war: Croce was free to convey his thought in Italy, with the strength and prestige of someone who does not worry about critique; while Simmel, a German Jew, animated as Croce was by sincere patriotic ideas, was also tightly bound by the obligations of his role of newly appointed full professor, invited to give a contribution to the national war propaganda, but limited in its freedom of speech from the imperial apparatus of control and censorship. From this comparison, it will emerge a deeper understanding of Simmel’s choices and writings during the Great War.