The Origins of Totalitarianism

In this chapter, Arendt credits the pan-movements with contributing to the birth of Nazism and Bolshevism. The pan-movements swept through Eastern and Central Europe from the 1920s to the 1940s. These movements emphasized ideas of ethnic or religious across and outside the nation-state. For example, pan-Germanism meant a unity of ethnic Germans, not a unity of the residents of Germany. Pan-movements sought to create continental empires. This differed from imperialism which set out to conquer a people and dominate them for continued economic expansion. Continental imperialism abandoned the need for the nation-state and had vague goals based in mostly racist ideologies rather than economic advancement. For this reason, Arendt refers to pan-movements as a kind of “tribal nationalism” (226). Groups of people, regardless of country of occupation, could unite under the umbrella of tribal nationalism and feel unified. These movements paved the way for totalitarian groups.

Continental imperialism was ruled by the mob. Pan-movements used emotional appeals, glorifying the past to collect and retain sympathizers and employing