Abstract

The following study is a contribution to the history of the ambivalent using of ›fanatisch / Fanatiker / Fanatismus‹ in the 19th and 20th century. The positivemeaning is not only a characteristic indication of the fascistic language. Surprisingly there are several examples in the works of Lion Feuchtwanger, GermanJew and indisputed anti-fascist, so that Klemperers thesis of the only negative meaning by democrats, in the tradition of the Enlightenment, is not true. Using›fanatic‹ in a positive manner, Feuchtwanger himself is standing in the tradition, of Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and other radical democratsand communists. This result shows the diffi culty to defi ne the German fascistic language by lexical meanings.