Paracelsus – Autor der Archidoxis Magica?

after the German collapse in its second edition of 1919. Here he argued from the point of view of bourgeois European culture in favour of saving civilization by a union of European states, including all those other nations whose culture derives directly or indirectly from Europe's. Nicolai's Eurocentrism even went so far that he declared genocide to be understandable in the case of a Mongolian threat because in his opinion Asians were the natural enemies of the white man in the contest between the races to rule the world. This point might indicate that rationality in itself could lead to rather strange results. Probably this is part of the explanation of why Nicolai is virtually forgotten in Germany, another part being his bourgeois attitude which sometimes tended to be not far from arrogance towards possible co-fighters for peace and a better and more rational world. One is inclined to subscribe to Zuelzer's judgement that Nicolai was his own worst enemy. But his peculiarities certainly should not be taken as an excuse for continuing to neglect him as an uncompromising pacifist and European humanist who tried so hard to dig out traditions of tolerance, humanitarianism, idealism, and liberalism from German history. The story of Nicolai's failure and shortcomings immediately after 1918 provides a depressing picture of the political atmosphere in which a first attempt was undertaken to establish democracy in Germany. Hans-Gerhard Husung German Historical Institute, London