Julius Langbehn

Julius Langbehn (26 March 1851 – 30 April 1907) was a German far right art historian and philosopher. He was born in Hadersleben, Schleswig (now Haderslev in Denmark), and died in Rosenheim.

Langbehn was born in Hadersleben in what was then the Duchy of Schleswig, on 26 March 1851, the third of four sons. His father, a philologist, was dismissed from his position as the assistant principal at the local gymnasium shortly after Julius's birth, a result of a campaign to suppress German nationalism in southern Denmark following the First Schleswig War and the Revolutions of 1848. The Langbehn family eventually settled in Kiel, where Julius entered the gymnasium in 1863. After graduation, he entered the University of Kiel for a degree in the natural sciences. At the age of 19, he enlisted in the Prussian Army following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. He fought in the battles of Orleans and Le Mans in December 1870 and January 1871, respectively. Langbehn's military service left him with a profound distaste for war.

After the war, Langbehn returned to Kiel to study chemistry, though in 1872 he transferred to the University of Munich with the help of a wealthy merchant. There, he grew bored with chemistry and began to study art and archaeology. After his mother suffered a nervous breakdown, Julius traveled to Venice before returning to Munich in 1875. He studied archaeology under Heinrich Brunn; his doctoral dissertation examined early Greek statues of Nike, the goddess of victory. He worked briefly at the Imperial Archaeology Institute in Rome in 1881. Over the following decade, he traveled throughout Germany, collecting material for his first book, Rembrandt als Erzieher (Rembrandt as Teacher), published in 1890. His work was focused on initiating cultural reform in Germany.

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