In this day and age, when the alarms of war are once again sounding their mournful message of death—when the postwar vision of a peaceful and united Europe seems as distant as the utopian hopes surrounding the first League of Nations—it might seem strange to write about an obscure German professor of Romance Languages who never held a significant public office until the last few weeks before his death. Hermann Platz was a humble man of grand ideas, yet he never lived to see even the first inklings of his plans unfold, as he died after a botched throat operation. His name has been consigned to the most obscure corner of academic history, forgotten by most of the people whose lives were shaped by his vision. Yet his message of unity and peace founded on man’s supernatural calling endures even today.
Platz’s search for a vision for European unity began early in 1912, as he discussed various political theories with members of the Katholische Akademikerverband (Catholic Association of Academics) in Düsseldorf. Among the frequent attendees of these meetings, which later came to be known as the Carolingian International, were the Thomist philosopher Alois Dempf and the Alsatian politician Robert Schuman. The outbreak of the First World War disrupted the Akademikerverband, and between 1917 and 1918, Platz served as a lieutenant and translator on the Russian Front, where he was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class. His experience of the horrors of war forever shaped his vision for the future.
1923 was a pivotal year for this philologist turned political philosopher when he attended the Third International Peace Conference at Freiburg, organized by the French politician and writer Marc Sangnier. There, his friend Dempf suggested that they start a journal together, which would become an outlet for Catholic and European thought. Within two years, the first issue of Abendland: A Monthly Journal for European Culture, Politics, and Economy was printed in Cologne, coinciding with the signing of the Locarno Treaties, a momentous diplomatic coup that reestablished friendship between war-torn France and Germany.
It is in the pages of Abendland that one can find the clearest expression of the Catholic vision for European peace and unification promoted by Platz. The Europe of Abendland rejects the petty nationalisms that caused the carnage of the Great War in favor of interconnected and interdependent communities rooted in history and common geographical spaces, communities that viewed the person and not the nation as the primary moral actor. Equally opposed to communist collectivism and Western individualism, Platz argued that only through cultural and spiritual renewal could the West recover its lost solidarity.
This renewal would come from the Rhine, once the border between two hostile nations, but in past centuries the fount from which had sprung the great unifier of Europe, Charlemagne and his Holy Roman Empire. This empire was a symbol and a model for the future peace of Europe, as Platz wrote: “[T]he cornerstones of this Empire, its essential content, are peace and justice.” The greatest illustration of these principles could be found in the medieval Pax Dei movement, particularly in the conduct of Holy Roman Emperor Henry III, who, inspired by the teachings of Christ, rejected all personal feuds and resentments as an example to his subjects.
The peaceful unification of Europe that Hermann Platz sought to bring about on the model of medieval Christendom was unfortunately out of reach during his lifetime. The rise of violent totalitarian regimes in Russia, Italy, and Germany meant that another World War loomed on the horizon, and Abendland ceased publishing in 1930. But the vision that inspired Platz would not be forgotten by his friend Robert Schuman when he sought to launch the initiative that would bring France and Germany together as friends once again, nor would it be forgotten by Otto von Habsburg, the heir of the Carolingian heritage, to which many of Abendland’s contributors and readers looked for leadership. In their legacies, Platz’s vision lives on and may yet be brought to fruition when Europe returns once more to her ancient faith.
