This article examines the aesthetic dimension of classical geopolitics in the early twentieth century. Contrary to the assumption that literary and fictional devices were incorporated into geopolitical discourse only retrospectively, it argues that they were intrinsic to it from the outset. Drawing on Karl Haushofer, Adolf Grabowsky, Ewald Banse, Robert Müller, and Samuel P. Huntington, it identifies three interconnected strategies: the sensory and affective representation of geopolitical space, the imaginative projection of future world orders, and the aesthetic popularisation of geopolitical knowledge. Metaphors, speculative scenarios, and “expressionist” maps and diagrams were designed not merely to inform, but to shape perception and political action. Geopolitics thus emerges as a genuinely literary-aesthetic discourse whose persuasive force depends substantially on forms of aesthetic evidence. A literary analysis is therefore not only possible but essential to understanding geopolitical thought.
Disclaimer and Introduction
(A brief disclaimer: When I refer to geopolitics here and in the following, I mean the historical geopolitics of the early 20th century, also referred to as ‘classical geopolitics’. As such, it must be distinguished from so-called critical geopolitics, which only emerged towards the end of the 20th century and is associated with figures such as Yves Lacoste. As Robert Meyer demonstrated (cf. Meyer 2014, 18-27), critical geopolitics has little in common with the older concept of geopolitics; rather, it is designed as a deliberate counter-narrative to classical geopolitics. In sharp contrast to the constructivist starting point of critical geopolitics, which conceive of space as an object available for human planning and transformation, classical geopolitics makes space itself the subject of politics and history. As such, it is of interest here.)
Very few geopolitical scholars are content to write purely factual texts. In the view of its practitioners, geopolitics is a ‘theory of art’. In the true spirit of the Greek τέχνη, it presents itself as a ‘craft’ – a practical science – whilst, as an ‘art’, it is accompanied by the corresponding forms of expression. This article traces how phenomena of literary aestheticisation and fictionalisation were not merely incorporated into geopolitical discourse in the course of later reception, but are inherent to it from the outset. As a genuinely literary-aesthetic discourse, geopolitics is therefore also – and indeed particularly – open to a decidedly literary-scholarly approach; indeed, it calls for one.
I. ‚Aisthetik‘
The aesthetically ambitious nature of geopolitical texts is noted critically by a wide variety of contemporaries. Karl Haushofer’s colleagues criticise him for a penchant for storytelling and an overactive imagination that comes at the expense of any clear conceptual work (cf. Kost 1988, 110 and 126). A reviewer of Haushofer’s early work on Japan (Dai Nihon, 1913) argues that it fails in the most essential task of a scholarly account: „Wahrheit und Dichtung erst im eigenen Kopf, dann in seinem Werk klar und scharf zu sondern“ (Waentig 1914, 391). The primacy of intuition over reason – indeed, the genuinely artistic nature of the representation – is, on the other hand, praised by others as a hallmark of Haushofer’s great role model, Rudolf Kjellén:
Die unleugbar starke Wirkung, die Kjelléns Schriften ausgeübt haben und noch ausüben, liegt nicht allein, wie oben ausgeführt, in den Zeitverhältnissen begründet, sondern beruht auch auf seiner ungemein lebendigen, eindrucksvollen und bilderreichen Sprache. Wenn er etwa von dem ‚kalten Atemhauch‘ (Rußlands) spricht, ‚den Schweden im Gesicht spürt‘ [...] fast auf jeder Seite seiner Schriften lassen sich ähnliche Beispiele finden – so ist es nicht der strenge, mit sauberen, aber farblosen Begriffen arbeitende Gelehrte, sondern der mit intuitiver Schaukraft begabte Künstler, den wir reden hören. (Vogel 126, 212-213)
In his geopolitical descriptions, Haushofer creates a literally ‘aesthetic’ sensibility (from ἡ αἴσθησις, sensory perception), designed to allow the reader to experience the events first-hand; ideally, this sensibility is directly conveyed to the reader. Haushofer thus evokes the notion of a ‘spatially confined pre-war Berlin-Baghdad policy, whose geographical vulnerability has a breath-taking effect when viewed on a world map alone’ (“raumengen Berlin-Bagdad-Politik der Vorkriegszeit, deren räumliche Angreifbarkeit atembeklemmend wirkt, wenn man sie sich nur in einer Weltkarte betrachtet”; Haushofer 1934, 71). Haushofer ultimately sees the purpose of the map as ‘rendering the pain of this situation as vividly as an individual feels it in open wounds’ (“den Schmerz darüber so lebendig zu gestalten, wie ihn der einzelne an offenen Wunden spurt”; Haushofer 1934, 71). Ideally, a nation’s will to defend itself should be fully aligned with the civic consciousness of its inhabitants. This highly sensitive ‘sense of the land’ is most pronounced where ‘the borders of the Reich […] are felt so vividly that [the individual] perceives every dangerous movement […] as a threat to his very skin, and reacts accordingly’ (“die Grenzen des Reichs […] so lebendig empfunden würden, dass [d]er [Einzelne] jede gefährliche Bewegung […] wie eine Bedrohung der eigenen Haut fühle, und entsprechend darauf reagiere”; Haushofer 1979, 551).
This approach amounts to an early epistemological form of embodiment, in that abstract political spaces are to be ‘recognised’ in a concrete, bodily way through metaphors that can be experienced physically. Indeed, many of the geopolitical texts written after 1900 are, in their programmatic intent, aimed less at scientific conceptual precision than at a potential for engagement evoked through an intuitive appeal and a sensory intensity. This ‘aestheticisation’ is rooted in a literary aesthetic in which the criteria of the effect on the reader and, consequently, a sensory experience have always been central. From this perspective, geopolitical texts can also be read as a literary form of interpreting the world, with their authors preferring to articulate their own understanding of the world in narrative form.
II. Imagination (Samuel P. Huntington)
For Karl Haushofer, the geopolitical map is a ‘playground for geographical imagination’ (“Tummelplatz geographischer Einbildungskraft”; Haushofer 1922, 17). Haushofer’s geopolitics promises its adherents a ‘training of their spatial […] imagination’ (“Schulung seiner räumlichen […] Phantasie“; Haushofer 1928, 271). In the realm of the imagination, however, one can speculate admirably about future population movements and military conquests. It is not uncommon for the future course of world history to be anticipated in bold preliminary drafts of global scenarios.
This practice is not confined to texts from the immediate circle of the Haushofer School. Even the bible of postmodern geopolitics, the book The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order (1996) by the American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, concludes its final chapter with a bleak outlook: ‘Suppose it is the year 2010’ (“Angenommen, wir haben das Jahr 2010”; Huntington 1996, 515).
China has now decided to invade neighbouring Vietnam in order to bring the entire South China Sea under its control. As a result, India attacks Pakistan, the Arabs attack the Israelis, and Russian and Chinese troops are at war in Central Siberia. An atomic bomb explodes near Marseille. Complicated conflicts in the Balkans add to the turmoil, whilst at the same time NATO is dropping bombs over North Africa. The US, Europe, Russia and India ultimately find themselves at war with China, Japan and ‘most of Islam’ (“den größten Teil des Islam”; Huntington 1996, 520).
It all ends with a deployment of Russian and Western troops in Tiananmen Square – without the end of the war bringing about a return to stability. The post-war world order is dominated by a new, dynamic global player: India, which wisely managed to stay largely out of the 2010 conflict, now has ‘a free hand to set about reshaping the world according to Hindu principles’ (“nunmehr freie Hand, die Umgestaltung der Welt nach hinduistischen Grundsätzen in Angriff zu nehmen”; Huntington 1996, 521). Africa, for its part, can do little to help rebuild the devastated northern hemisphere and ‘instead spews forth hordes of uprooted people who rush to scavenge the ruins’ (“speit statt dessen Heerscharen von entwurzelten Menschen aus, die sich auf die Überreste stürzen”; Huntington 1996, 521). Even as India triumphs, powerful new rivals are already emerging in the Global South: they are Indonesia and Nigeria.
Huntington’s monstrous report from the future draws on genre conventions that have less in common with academic political science texts than with the futuristic novels of the early 20th century. One is reminded here of the geopolitical panoramas of H.G. Wells, for example in his novel War in the Air (1908), or, in German literature, titles such as Anton Steininger’s Weltbrand 1950. Ein utopischer Roman (1932) and Franz Enke’s Der neue Kontinent. Ein Roman von Übermorgen (1931). Overall, it must be noted that a literary style, as evidenced in the writings of a political scientist such as Huntington, is a phenomenon in the discourse examined here that did not emerge only in the course of the history of its reception, but has always been an integral part of the development of geopolitical theory.
c) Popularisation (Adolf Grabowsky, Robert Müller)
Based on what has just been said, two characteristics of a literary aesthetic of geopolitics – which generally overlap within a single text – can be distinguished from one another: the geopoliticians’ aesthetic calculation regarding reception, and the tendency towards far-reaching, speculative future scenarios. A third criterion, in which aesthetic considerations take on a guiding function for disciplinary geopolitics, lies in the overarching aim of a popular presentation.
For the purposes of persuasion and popularisation, geopoliticians make targeted use of techniques designed to create aesthetic evidence. In the programmatic introduction to his Weltpolitische Bücherei of 1929, the Berlin-based geopolitician Adolf Grabowsky sets out the objectives of the book series for which he was responsible. In it, Grabowsky presents the “contributors to the Weltpolitische Bücherei” as “recognised experts”:
Fachleute aber, die keine Fachwissenschaft bieten im Sinne der Geheimwissenschaft, sondern die selbst das Verlangen haben, ihre Stoffe vor einem größeren Publikum auszubreiten. Fachleute, die auch in der Form den Anforderungen einer großen Leserschaft genügen werden: in Klarheit und Durchsichtigkeit des Stils und Geschlossenheit der Darstellung. (Grabowsky 1927, 7-8)
Compared to the content being conveyed, the demand for popularity represents a considerable additional effort, the culmination of which, according to Grabowsky, lies in a ‘new way of seeing’:
Dies ist ein neues Sehen und ein neues Denken, ein neues Denken, weil ein neues Sehen. Ein plastisches Denken, so möchte ich es nennen. Daß dazu nicht nur das Wort gehört, sondern auch die Karte und das Diagramm, versteht sich von selbst. Freilich müssen Karte und Diagramm für den neuen Zweck hergerichtet werden: ein neuer Typus der Karte, eine Karte des Wesentlichen ist zu schaffen oder doch auszugestalten, und eine neue Art Diagramm ist immer charakteristischer zu formen. (Grabowsky 1927, 6-7)
The shift towards a ‘new way of seeing’ at the convergence of textual and visual art essentially aligns, in terms of expression, with the visual poetics of modernism (cf. Görner 2007) – albeit with the striking shift that the ‘new way of seeing’ by a perceiving subject has been replaced by a global political overview of the geopolitical map.
The affinity with the visual worlds of modern art – an affinity that is by no means unique to Grabowsky – is undoubtedly deliberate, yet it is not entirely without foundation. Within the Berlin working group centred on Adolf Grabowsky and the Hochschule für Politik, there was a conscious effort to integrate artistic methods into their own map-making. In 1926, during a discussion of Paul Rohrbach’s Die Länder und Völker der Erde, Grabowsky lamented “the lack of geopolitical sketches, ‘expressionist’ maps in the modern sense” (Grabowsky 1926, 191). The instrumental artistic character of the map was emphasised once again in the same Berlin circle two years later: “What we need, by contrast, are, as Grabowsky puts it, ‘expressionist maps’” (Markull1928, 750). It becomes clear that talk of ‘Expressionism’ is not merely an empty phrase when one considers the leading Expressionists’ reinterpretation of geopolitics. For the Austrian Robert Müller, the principle of dynamism that he found in the geopolitical teachings of the Viennese geographer Erwin Hanslik corresponded to the restlessness in contemporary art:
Dasselbe [d.i. die ‚Umwälzungen‘ der Zeit] im Politischen. An die Stelle des starren Staates tritt der Relativitätsstaat, die knochigen Mammutstaaten sterben aus, die Katzenstaaten kommen auf, diese gelenken Sammelwesen, wie England und Österreich. In der Ferne wirkt dieses Elastizitätswunder Europa sichtbar. Auf diesem Gebiete sind sehr originelle Gedanken von dem Wiener Geologen Prof. Erwin Hanslik gedacht worden. (Müller 1982, 138)
It is telling that Müller draws on Erwin Hanslik, a leading figure in Viennese geopolitics, to derive an expressionist art – Oskar Kokoschka, Johannes Fischer and Egon Schiele are mentioned in this context – from the circumstances of the time. Here, the geopolitical geography of the eventful, in its dynamism, corresponds to the modern artistic self-image of a leading expressionist. In Grabowsky’s own words, written in 1933, regarding the “web of lines and arrows” on the geopolitical map – which, as he admits, sometimes strikes even him as “a little odd” –:
Die Heraushebung der Dynamik bedingt, daß diese Karte [d.i. die geopolitische Karte] nicht vollständig ist, sondern wesentlich, nicht impressionistisch, sondern expressionistisch. Die bewegte Welt wird geschildert und nur die Vibration in dieser Welt. […] In der Tat, das Weltbild mit seiner Dynamik sollte hier in der dynamischen Karte sein Abbild finden. (Grabowsky 1933, 800)
A decade earlier, the geographer Ewald Banse had called on his discipline to engage not only with art in general, but with literature in particular. Thus, in his 1920 pamphlet “Expressionism and Geography”, Banse recommends that geographers studying Russia should “consider Dostoevsky and his work” (Banse 1920, 17), those studying Switzerland should look to “Gottfried Keller’s work” (Banse 1920, 18) and, with regard to India, “Rudyard Kipling’s poetry!” (Banse 1920, 18) – so Banse writes.
The ‘expressionist’ techniques employed by geopoliticians were by no means an end in themselves; the abbreviated representation of reality in the propaganda map served the purpose of popularisation, as Grabowsky makes clear in the programmatic preface to his own 1928 atlas, Deutschland und das Weltbild der Gegenwart:
Genau wie die expressionistische Kunst nicht abzielt auf realistische Vollständigkeit, sondern auf Erfassung des Wesentlichen, ebenso hat die für die Politik in Betracht kommende Geographie nicht die Aufgabe, alles zu geben, sondern weniges, und zwar Hauptsächliches. Es sind, wie man sagen kann, expressionistische Karten, die verlangt werden. (Grabowsky 1928, 3)
Grabowsky emphasises that maps are therefore not merely a supplement: “Addition is not really the right word, for the expressionist map in the geopolitical representation is not intended to be a mere addition, but an indispensable part of the text” (Grabowsky 1928, 3). Grabowsky is concerned with impact; once again, he identifies his aim as fostering a “vivid perception of world politics, a preparation for a vivid perception of the world in general” (Grabowsky 1928, 3). Artistically speaking, at least in terms of their aspirations, these works are certainly on a par with modern art. In Grabowsky’s work, a pictorial language and the actual use of images, graphics and other visual media combine to achieve the overarching goal of “the clarity we strive for” (Grabowsky 1927, 6). Karl Haushofer had already recommended the map, on which state organisms strangle one another, as an effective tool for shaping a world view as early as 1923:
Leicht fließt, Unsicheres verhüllend, das diplomatische und geopolitische Wort, leichter noch gleitet die öffentliche Meinung in der Presse über ungeklärte Stellen hinweg. In allen solchen Fällen überzeugt nur die kartographische Darstellung von ganz vertrauenswürdiger Hand. (Haushofer 1923, 411)
This passage highlights the high standards of excellence expected of the populariser of geopolitics, who must always also function as an artist. As late as his farewell lecture in Munich in 1939, Haushofer declared: “For the genius of drawing geopolitical maps is a gift from God and cannot be taught to its fullest extent” (Haushofer 1979, 176). Conversely, the literary substance of Haushofer’s own writing is also evident in these formulated requirements. The boundaries between an individual text by Karl Haushofer and a specific literary text regularly become blurred. Haushofer, for example, provides a commentary on the series of stories Landschaftsbilder (1931) by the poet-geographer Josef Ponten (Haushofer 1933) – and conversely, Colin Ross, who himself published in the Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, prefaces his travel report Zwischen USA und dem Pol (1934) with a motto by Haushofer, which he then seamlessly elaborates upon and continues. Here, a reciprocal influence becomes apparent, in which geopoliticians and poets engage directly with each other’s texts and are able to continue them seemingly seamlessly:
´Wir müssten Späher mit der Scharfsicht hungernder Raben auf den weltpolitischen Zäunen sitzen haben.´ (Karl Haushofer) Ein solcher weltpolitischer Zaun führt quer durch den amerikanischen Kontinent. Wenn ich mich für eine Weile auf diesen Zaun hocke […] (Ross, 1934)
Aesthetic techniques, as should be clear from my previous examples, form part of the fundamental persuasive arsenal of geopolitical texts (not only) from the interwar period. This aestheticisation is just as central to the substance of geopolitical texts as it is to their popularisation. It is precisely in the interplay with the literary forms examined here that it becomes clear how closely geopolitical theory and artistic modes of expression are interwoven. As a literary and aesthetic phenomenon, the discourse structure commonly referred to as ‘German geopolitics’ thus also necessitates a literary analysis.
References:
Banse, Ewald. 1920. Expressionismus und Geographie. Braunschweig.
Grabowsky, Adolf. 1926. “Paul Rohrbach, Die Länder und Völker der Erde.” Zeitschrift für Politik 15, 191.
Grabowsky, Adolf. 1927. “Einführung zur ‘Weltpolitischen Bücherei’.” Staat und Raum. Grundlagen räumlichen Denkens in der Weltpolitik. Berlin, 5-8.
Grabowsky, Adolf. 1928. Deutschland und das Weltbild der Gegenwart. Berlin.
Grabowsky, Adolf. 1933. “Das Problem der Geopolitik.” Zeitschrift für Politik 2, 765-802.
Görner, Rüdiger. 2007. “Sehen Lernen! Bemerkungen zum Manifest-Charakter der Moderne.” Literarische Moderne. Begriff und Phänomen. Ed. by Sabina Becker and Helmuth Kiesel. Berlin / New York, 113-128.
Hahnemann, Andy. 2010. Texturen des Globalen. Geopolitik und populäre Literatur in der Zwischenkriegszeit 1918-1939. Heidelberg.
Haushofer, Karl. 1922. “’Die suggestive Karte’?.” Die Grenzboten 81(1), 17-19.
Haushofer, Karl. 1923. “Werkzeuge zur Weltbild-Gestaltung.” Das Deutsche Buch: Monatsschrift für die Neuerscheinungen deutscher Verleger 3, 410-411.
Haushofer, Karl. 1928. “Geopolitik und Kaufmann”. Bausteine zur Geopolitik. Ed. by Karl Haushofer, Erich Obst, Hermann Lautensach and Otto Maull. Berlin, 270-283.
Haushofer, Karl. 1933. “Nachwort.” Josef Ponten: Aus griechischer Landschaft (=Landschaftsbilder II). Leipzig, 73-77.
Haushofer, Karl. 1934. Raumüberwindende Mächte. Leipzig/Berlin.
Haushofer, Karl. 1979. “Abschiedsvorlesung vom Februar 1939.” Karl Haushofer: Leben und Werk. Vol. 1: Lebensweg 1869-1946 und Ausgewählte Texte zur Geopolitik. Ed. by Hans Adolf Jacobsen. Boppard am Rhein, 173-178.
Haushofer, Karl. 1979. “Zur Geopolitik.” Karl Haushofer: Leben und Werk. Band 1: Lebensweg 1869-1946 und Ausgewählte Texte zur Geopolitik. Ed. by Hans Adolf Jacobsen. Boppard am Rhein, 542-552.
Huntington, Samuel P. 1996. Kampf der Kulturen. The Clash of Civilizations. Die Neugestaltung der Weltpolitik im 21. Jahrhundert. München/Wien.
Kost, Klaus. 1988. Die Einflüsse der Geopolitik auf Forschung und Theorie der Politischen Geographie von ihren Anfängen bis 1945. Bonn.
Markull, Wilhelm. 1928. “Adolf Grabowsky, Deutschland und das Weltbild der Gegenwart.” Zeitschrift für Politik 17, 749-751.
Meyer, Robert. 2014. Europa zwischen Land und Meer. Geopolitisches Denken und geopolitische Europamodelle nach der ‚Raumrevolution‘. Göttingen.
Müller, Robert. 1982: “Die Zeitrasse” (first 1917) Expressionismus. Manifeste und Dokumente zur deutschen Literatur 1910-1920. Ed. by Thomas Anz and Michael Stark. Stuttgart: Reclam 1982, 135-138.
Ross, Colin. 1934. Zwischen USA und dem Pol. Leipzig.
Vogel, Walther.1926. “Rudolf Kjellén und seine Bedeutung für die deutsche Staatslehre.” Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft 81, 193-241.
Waentig, Heinrich. 1914. “Dai Nihon. Betrachtungen über Großjapans Wehrkraft, Weltstellung und Zukunft. Von Karl Haushofer.” Jahrbuch für Nationalökonomie und Statistik 102, 386-391.
