Houston Stewart Chamberlain

Houston Stewart Chamberlain
Chamberlain in 1886
Born(1855-09-09)9 September 1855
Southsea, Hampshire, England
Died9 January 1927(1927-01-09) (aged 71)
Citizenship
  • United Kingdom
  • Germany
Spouses
Anna Horst
(m. 1878; div. 1905)
(m. 1908⁠–⁠1927)
FatherWilliam Charles Chamberlain (1818–1878)
RelativesBasil Hall Chamberlain (brother)

Houston Stewart Chamberlain (/ˈmbərlɪn/; 9 September 1855 – 9 January 1927) was a British philosopher who wrote works about political philosophy and natural science. His writing promoted German ethnonationalism, antisemitism, scientific racism, and Nordicism; he has been described as a "racialist writer".[1] His best-known book, the two-volume Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century),[2] published 1899, became highly influential in the pan-Germanic Völkisch movements of the early 20th century, and later influenced the antisemitism of Nazi racial policy. Indeed, Chamberlain has been referred to as "Hitler's John the Baptist".[3]

Born in Hampshire, Chamberlain emigrated to Dresden in adulthood out of an adoration for composer Richard Wagner, and was later naturalised as a German citizen. He married Eva von Bülow, Wagner's daughter, in December 1908, twenty-five years after Wagner's death.[notes 1]

  1. ^ Biddiss, Michael (ndg) "Chamberlain, Houston Stewart" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  2. ^ Chamberlain, Houston Stewart (1899), Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (in German), Munich, Germany: F. Bruckmann, OCLC 27828004 Electronic copy is available from the Hathi Trust Digital Library (volume 1) and (volume 2).
  3. ^ Mitcham, Samuel W. Jr. (1996). Why Hitler?: The Genesis of the Nazi Reich. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. p. 82. ISBN 978-0-275-95485-7.; citing Forman, James D. (1978) Nazism, New York. p. 14.


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