First Things RSS Feed - Thomas C. Kohler https://www.firstthings.com/author/thomas-c-kohler en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:55:22 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/thomas-c-kohler 60 Rebuilding Democracy https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/11/rebuilding-democracy https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/11/rebuilding-democracy Sat, 01 Nov 2014 00:00:00 -0400 Never was the future in Germany so little foreseeable, nor the chaos so ubiquitous as in the spring of 1945.” So observes the noted German historian Heinrich August Winkler. By the end of the terrible war it had unleashed, Germany was a Zusammenbruchsgesellschaft , a “collapsed society.” Its cities lay in ruins, foreign armies divided and occupied its territories, millions of people were in flight and without shelter; the entire population faced starvation. The legal, economic, and political order had evaporated completely. The evocative term sometimes used to refer to this fateful historical moment, the Stunde Null , the “zero hour,” captures the sense of existential emptiness, disorientation, uncertainty, and fear that pervaded it.

Continue Reading »

]]> Infernal Counsel https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/11/infernal-counsel https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/11/infernal-counsel Fri, 01 Nov 1991 00:00:00 -0500 Dear Cachexia,

Continue Reading »

]]>