Frederick “Fritz” Wagner: An Appreciation (Harald Bergbauer)

Appreciation and praise for the initiatives and the work of Mr. Wagner should not be limited to American authors and readers. VoegelinView has, without doubt, also an international readership. Since the publication of my dissertation on Voegelin in 2000, I very often attended the annual meetings of the Eric Voegelin Society (EVS) in the US. It was always a pleasure and intellectual gain to follow the presentations and the exchanges between the participants. Beyond the often passionate presentations, I admired the organizational power and skill of the EVS, something I miss in Germany and large parts of Europe. For a couple of years I cooperated with the “grand seigneur“ of conservatism in Germany, Baron Caspar von Schrenck-Notzing (sorry for that name!), who ran for 30 years the most influential review on conservative thought in Germany (“Criticón“, 1970-2000). It was from him that I learned that good ideas must be spread systematically to fall on fertile ground. This talent of organization is effective in the EVS and preeminently promoted by VoegelinView. I use the website myself, getting often fresh incentives and new ideas, as I recommended it to the members of the German Eric Voegelin Society, whose vice chairman I am. VoegelinView with its breath and diversity is a resounding success and the basis for a (hopefully growing) international “Voegelin family“, to take up David’s term. It is followed in France, the UK, Ireland, Spain, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Germany, to name just a few European countries, and far beyond.

 

Please see tributes from John von Heyking, Paul Caringella, and Glenn Hughes.

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Harald Bergbauer is a Board Member of VoegelinView and has worked for many years as Associate Professor at the Bavarian School of Public Policy at the University of Munich. He is President of the German "Eric Voegelin Gesellschaft" and Lecturer of Business Ethics and Social Policy at the University for Applied Sciences. His publications include the books, Eric Voegelin’s Critique of Modernity (2000), Cultural Theorists Think the State: The State in the Work of Selected Cultural Thinkers of the 20th Century (2013), Reshaping the World of States in the 21st Century: How Secession Creates New Political and Economic Structures (2020); the article, "The West and the Rest - Reissue or Metamorphosis of Friend-Foe-Thinking in the Work of Samuel P. Huntington and Roger Scruton" (2020), and the book on Climate Policy and Economic Growth. Analysis of a Reciprocal Relationship of Tension (2024). All his works are published in German.

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