Installation

Installation (pronounced in-stuh-ley-shuhn)

(1) Something installed (which can be physical, as in plant or equipment or weightless, as in software).

(2) The act of installing (to install) or the state of being installed.

(3) In military use, any permanent or semi-permanent post, camp, station, base etc, maintained to support operations.

(4) In art, an exhibit (widely defined) where the relation of the parts to the whole and the context of the space where exhibited are sometimes claimed to important to the interpretation of the piece.

(5) A formal ceremony in which an honor is conferred or an appointment made to an office (the state of being so honored or appointed being to be “installed”).

1600–1610: From the Middle French installation, from the Medieval Latin installātiō.  The construct was install + -ation.  The verb install (which was used also as instal and before that enstall) was an early fifteenth century form used to mean “place in ecclesiastical office by seating in an official stall”.  It was from the Middle English installen, from the fourteenth century Old French installer, from the Medieval Latin īnstallō (to install, put in place, establish), the construct being in- (in)- + stallum (stall), from the Frankish stall (stall, position, place), from the Proto-Germanic stallaz (place, position), from the primitive Indo-European stel-, stAlǝn- & stAlǝm- (stem, trunk).  It was cognate with the Old High German stal (location, stall), the Old English steall (position, stall), the Old English onstellan (to institute, create, originate, establish, give the example of), the Middle High German anstalt (institute), the German anstellen (to conduct, employ), the German einstellen (to set, adjust, position), Dutch aanstellen (to appoint, commission, institute) and the Dutch instellen (to set up, establish).  The suffix -ation was from the Middle English -acioun & -acion, from the Old French acion & -ation, from the Latin -ātiō, an alternative form of -tiō (thus the eventual English form -tion).  It was appended to words to indicate (1) an action or process, (2) the result of an action or process or (3) a state or quality.

The mid fifteenth century noun installation (action of installing) was a reference to the processes (both administrative & ceremonial) of appointment to church offices or other positions, and in that sense was from the Medieval Latin installationem (nominative installātiō), the noun of action from past participle stem of installare.  Of machinery (in the sense of plant & equipment), the first known use in print, describing the “act of setting up a machine; placing it in position for use” dates from 1882 but it may by then have for some time been in oral use.  Installation & installationer are nouns and installational & installationlike are adjectives; the noun plural is installations.  Installationism & installationist are non-standard forms used in art criticism.

In computing, an “installation” can be of hardware or software.  With hardware, the point of distinction is an installation is something which is permanent (or, even if temporary, installed in a manner of something permanent), as opposed to a mere connection (such as plugging to a USB cable).  In software, the idea to is transfer from an external source (the internet, a place on a network or transportable media (diskettes, optical discs etc)) onto a device's permanent storage, the installation process usually taken to include putting things into the state where functional use is possible.  Installations can be as simple as copying a single file to a drive to long, interactive processes involving multiple external media and on-line registration or validation procedures.  Some installations are effortless while some are worse than others, as those who have enjoyed the experience of installing the earlier versions of Nvidia’s video drivers for some flavors of Unix can attest.  Especially in software, the terms “pre-installation” and “re-reinstallation” are common although “un-install” is more common than “un-installation” (the terms “failed installation” and “corrupted installation” are also not unknown although in most use, IT nerds usually clip “installation” to “install”).

Installations and Performance Art

It’s now unfashionable, and probably thought reactionary, to attempt to impose definitions on the various expressions of Western art.  There was a time, in living memory, when such distinctions were taken seriously, one squabble about whether an entrant in an Australian portraiture competition could be considered “a portrait” (and by implication the work of “an artist”) or “a mere caricature” (and the thus the scribblings of “a cartoonist”) ending up in the Supreme Court of New South Wales (Attorney-General v Trustees of National Art Gallery of NSW & Another (1945) 62 WN (NSW) 212.).

Portrait or caricature?  Mr Joshua Smith (1943, left), oil on canvas by Sir William Dobell (1899–1970) and Joshua Smith (1905-1995, right).

Wisely, Mr Justice Roper (1901–1958) decided the bench was not a place for amateur art criticism and agreed the work was indeed “a portrait”, holding, inter alia, that “portrait” “…means a pictorial representation of a person, painted by an artist. This definition denotes some degree of likeness is essential and for the purpose of achieving it the inclusion of the face of the subject is desirable and perhaps also essential.”  Of the work in question, he observed it was “…characterised by some startling exaggeration and distortion which was clearly intended by the artist, his technique being too brilliant to admit of any other conclusion.  It bears, nevertheless, a strong degree of likeness to the subject and is think, undoubtedly, a pictorial representation of him.  I find as a fact that it is a portrait…”  Given that, the judge found it unnecessary to consider whether the painting was a “caricature” or a “fantasy” which was a shame, even if it wouldn’t have been something on which the verdict hung.

Year later, in an essay he titled The White Bird (1987), the English painter & art critic John Berger (1926–2017) would discuss the relationship between artist, artwork & viewer and the tension between accurate depiction (“imitation” as he sometimes called it, a growing trend in modern portraiture) and creative expression: “The notion that art is the mirror of nature is one that only appeals in periods of scepticism.  Art does not imitate nature; it imitates a creation, sometimes to propose an alternative world, sometimes simply to amplify, to confirm, to make social the brief hope offered by nature.  Art is an organised response to what nature allows us to glimpse occasionally. Art sets out to transform the potential recognition into an unceasing one.”  With that, one suspects Mr Justice Roper would have concurred.

Finding legal proceedings tiresome, the art industry solved the problem of what does and does not belong in galleries by embracing “installations” and “performance art”, two categories without definitional boundaries and thus able to accommodate anything which can’t be squeezed into one of the traditional slots.  In retrospect, it is course easy to identify stuff stretching back many centuries which could be classified as either but in the modern age, there’s certainly a perception curators are now artistically more promiscuous.  It thus both impossible and pointless to try to define “installation” and “performance art” but some characteristics certainly are identifiable.

Installation art tends to be three-dimensional, is often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space in which it exists and the range of materials used is unlimited, the genre notable especially for the use of everyday objects, video & audio content and often, interactive components.  Installation art has encompassed unmade beds so there’s some scope.  Just as there’s no one type of installation, nor are there defined parameters for the mode of display: installations have been hung from ceilings, wrapped around buildings and sat on the seabed.  In gallery spaces however, the most frequently seen installations are those on the floor with sufficient room surrounding them for the viewer to walk around, experiencing the work from multiple angles and perspectives.  Installations can be temporary or permanent or even in some way vanish, decay or be destroyed during the exhibition and in more than one case, the “installation” didn’t actually exist.

The context of location can also dictate the definition.  Wax figures of Lindsay Lohan & Paris Hilton might be all or part of an installation if exhibited in a gallery but when on display at Madame Tussauds in New York City (left), they are a tourist attraction.  More typically, installations combine artistic technique with social or political comment: Gabriel Dawe's (b 1973) Plexus series (centre) was made with a reputed 60 miles (97 km) of embroidery thread hooked from floor to ceiling in a repeating overlay while Judy Chicago’s (b 1939) The Dinner Party, 1974-79 (right) was a feminist piece but one which later attracted criticism because some degree of “ethnic exclusionism” was detected.

Performance art, as the term implies, is a form of “live art” where “something happens”, the actions of the artist or performers components of the work.  Perhaps best thought of as a form of encapsulated theatre, performance art would seem to depend on movement, sound, color and sometimes text although, being art, some performance art has been wholly static.  For that reason, Empire (1965), Andy Warhol’s (1928–1987) eight-hour, slow-motion film of an unchanging view of the Empire State Building must be considered performance art although, given the nature of the experience, it really must be the viewer who is thought the subject.  Performance art is of course intrinsically ephemeral and Empire played with that idea, each moment of the production seemingly the same yet in tiny ways different, rather like the exercise in textual definitional philosophy lecturers like to give students to ponder: “Is the river the ‘same’ river from one day to the next when almost all the molecules of water are different?”

The muse as performing installation: US rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, hip hop identity & fashion designer Ye (formerly the artist known as Kanye West (b 1977)) and Australian architect & model Bianca Censori (b 1995), annual Grammy Awards, Los Angeles, 2 February 2025.

The recent, much publicized appearances by Mr Ye and Ms Censori attracted all sorts of comments and the consensus was the project (one presumably restricted to the warmer months) was a promotional device for him and to some extent that seems to have worked, despite Mr Ye being mostly unnoticed while in the presence of his photogenic muse.  Although there are references to the pair being “married”, it’s not clear if that is their legal status and in artistic terms that may be significant.  What is of interest is whether in these appearances Ms Censori should be thought a “performance artist” or Mr Ye’s “installation”; both have been suggested and there’s no reason why the two states can’t be simultaneous.  Most intriguing has been the suggestion Ms Cansori is being paid by Mr Ye on a "per outfit" basis and is thus a kind of "walking installation".  That would make it a very "modern" marriage and one of which not all would approve but there have been relationships (artistic and otherwise) based on more dubious arrangements.   

Mr Ye & Ms Cansori at Paris Fashion Week, June 2024, the latter in character as an installation.

In the decadent West, when considering the sometimes dubious artistic merit of installations, professional and amateurs critics alike both usually focus on the work but ever since 1917 when a porcelain urinal appeared in an art gallery, the matter of location has had to be considered: "If something (including a porcelain urinal) is exhibited in an art gallery, is it thus a 'work of art'?"  The question was by most treated as an absurdity but it troubled some critics and went on to sustain the pop-art movement. remaining a staple for post-modernists (they still exist), "cultural commentators" and such.  For decades, the manifests of art galleries have included many items few prior to the modern era would have been prepared to call "art".  

Kim Jong-un (right) looking at Jang Song-thaek (left).

For some, professional careers have been built exploring the implication of the question while for most, it's all been variously annoying or amusing but there are places in which where an object sits can be critical and choosing a "shady" rather than "sunny" spot can be a capital offence.  In the DPRK (Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea)), Jang Song-thaek (1946-2013) was married to Kim Kyong-hui (b 1946; believed still alive), only daughter Kim Il-sung (1912-1994; Great Leader of DPRK 1949-1994) and only sister of (1941-2011; Dear Leader of DPRK; 1994-2011). He was thus the uncle (by marriage) of Kim Jong-un (b circa 1983; Supreme Leader of DPRK since 2011).  Within the party, he had a mixed career but ups and downs within the structure were not unusual and later in the reign of the Dear Leader, he emerged as a important figure in both the political and military machines around which things in the DPRK revolve.  His position appeared to be strengthened when the Supreme Leader assumed power but in 2013 he was accused of being a counter-revolutionary, was expelled from the party, dismissed from his many posts and was un-personed by having his photograph and mention of his name digitally erased from all official records.  In December that year, the KCNA (Korean Central News Agency, the regime's energetic and highly productive state media organization) announced his execution.

Obviously guilty as sin: Jang Song-thaek (left) being brought before the court (right).

On the basis of the official statement issued by the KCNA, he must have been guilty, highlights of the press release including confirmation he was “an anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional element and despicable political careerist and trickster…, a traitor to the nation for all ages who perpetrated anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts in a bid to overthrow the leadership of our party and state and the socialist system”.  It noted that despite receiving much trust and benevolence by the “peerlessly great men … The Great Leader, The Dear Leader and The Supreme Leader”, he behaved “worse than a dog, perpetrated thrice-cursed acts of treachery in betrayal of such profound trust and warmest paternal love”.  Of note was his subversion of interior decorating, preventing “the Taedonggang Tile Factory from erecting a mosaic…” as a monument to the Great Leader, not in its deserved place in the sun but “…in a shaded corner”.  Perhaps worse of all, he “let the decadent capitalist lifestyle find its way to our society by distributing all sorts of pornographic pictures among his confidants since 2009. He led a dissolute, depraved life, squandering money wherever he went.”  In summary, the release added Jang was a “thrice-cursed traitor without an equal in the world” and that “history will eternally record and never forget the shuddering crimes committed by Jang Song Thaek, the enemy of the party, revolution and people and heinous traitor to the nation”.

Details of such matters are hard to confirm so it’s not known if the rumors of him being executed by anti-aircraft gun fire or a flame-thrower are true.  Nor is it known if whatever remained of the corpse was thrown to a pack of wild dogs but the KCNA's press release did add: “…the revolutionary army will never pardon all those who disobey the order of the Supreme Commander and there will be no place for them to be buried even after their death” so the dog-food theory was at least plausible.

KCNA’s official photograph, commemorating the Supreme Leader’s tour of “inspection and field guidance” of the Taedonggang Tile Factory, September 2012.  Included in the Supreme Leader’s entourage was Jang Song-thaek (in army uniform on top platform).

The Supreme Leader learned in detail about factory operations including the processes used in the microlite shop and artificial marble tile shop, the latter able to produce tiles in the same colors and patterns as those of natural marble.  Addressing the workers, the Supreme Leader underlined the need to continue directing big efforts to improving the quality of products, noting that the quality of tiles depends on plane and right angle tolerable numerical value, contraction rate, intensity and resistance to cold.  When seeing tiles of diverse colors and sizes, he expressed great satisfaction that, figuratively speaking, “all clothes and underwear are locally made”, a thoughtful observation which attracted much applause.  It was on this visit the Supreme Leader became aware of the subversive and treasonous order from Jang Song-thaek that the mosaic erected as a monument to the Great Leader must be installed not in its deserved place in the sun but in a shaded corner.

Discreet & Discrete

Discreet (pronounced dih-skreet)

(1) Judicious in conduct or speech, especially with regard to respecting privacy or maintaining silence about delicate matters; prudent; circumspect.

(2) Showing prudence and circumspection; decorous.

(3) Modestly unobtrusive; unostentatious.

1325–1375: From the Middle English discret, from the Anglo-French & Old French discret (prudent, discerning), from the Medieval Latin discrētus (separated), past participle of discernere (to discern), the construct being dis- + crē- (separate, distinguish (variant stem of cernere)) + -tus, the Latin past participle suffix.  The dis prefix was from the Middle English dis-, from the Old French des from the Latin dis, from the proto-Italic dwis, from the primitive Indo-European dwís and cognate with the Ancient Greek δίς (dís) and the Sanskrit द्विस् (dvis).  It was applied variously as an intensifier of words with negative valence and to render the senses “incorrect”, “to fail (to)”, “not” & “against”.  In Modern English, the rules applying to the dis prefix vary and when attached to a verbal root, prefixes often change the first vowel (whether initial or preceded by a consonant/consonant cluster) of that verb. These phonological changes took place in Latin and usually do not apply to words created (as in Modern Latin) from Latin components since the language was classified as “dead”.  The combination of prefix and following vowel did not always yield the same change and these changes in vowels are not necessarily particular to being prefixed with dis (ie other prefixes sometimes cause the same vowel change (con; ex)).  The Latin suffix –tus was from the Proto-Italic -tos, from the primitive Indo-European -tós (the suffix creating verbal adjectives) and may be compared to the Proto-Slavic –tъ and Proto-Germanic –daz & -taz.  It was used to form the past participle of verbs and adjectives having the sense "provided with".  Latin scholars caution the correct use of the –tus suffix is technically demanding with a myriad of rules to be followed and, in use, even the pronunciation used in Ecclesiastical Latin could vary.  Discreet, discreeter, discreetest & discretionary are adjectives, discreetness & discretion are nouns and discreetly is an adverb; the noun plural is discretions.  Such is the human condition, the derived form "indiscretion" is in frequent use.

Discrete (pronounced dih-skreet)

(1) Apart or detached from others; separate; non-continuous; distinct; that which can be perceived individually and not as connected to, or part of something else.

(2) Consisting of or characterized by distinct or individual parts; discontinuous; that which can be perceived individually, not as connected to, or part of, something else.

(3) In mathematics, of a topology or topological space, having the property that every subset is an open set; defined only for an isolated set of points; using only arithmetic and algebra; not involving calculus.

(4) In mathematics, consisting of or permitting only distinct values drawn from a finite, countable set.

(5) In statistics (of a variable), having consecutive values not so infinitesimally close, so that its analysis requires summation rather than integration.

(6) In electrical engineering, having separate electronic components (diodes, transistors, resisters etc) as opposed to integrated circuitry (IC).

(7) In audio engineering, having separate and independent channels of audio, as opposed to multiplexed stereo, quadraphonic (also as quadrasonic) or other multi-channel sound.

(8) In linguistics, disjunctive, containing a disjunctive or discretive clause.

(9) In angelology, the technical description of the hierarchies and orders of angels.

1350–1400: Middle English from the Latin discrētus (separated; set apart) past participle of discernō (divide), the construct being dis- + cernō (sift); a doublet of discreet.  The Middle English adoption came via the Old French discret.  The common antonym is indiscrete (never hyphenated) but nondiscrete (also non-discrete), while synonymous in general used, is often used with specific meanings in mathematics & statistics.  Discrete is an adjective, discreteness is a noun and discretely is an adverb.  

Strange words

An etymological tangle, it was the influence of the Middle French discret (prudent, discerning) which saw discreet evolve to mean “wise person” in Anglo-French.  The Latin source was discrētus (past participle of the verb discernere (to discern; to separate, distinguish, mark off, show differences between)) and in post-Classical Latin discrētus also acquired the sense “prudent, wise,” possibly arising from association with the noun discrētiō, which shows a similar semantic development: physical separation, to discernment, to capacity to discern, the the notion of a "discreet person" being able to "pick" their way, setting "apart" the good from the bad, (dis- being "apart" & cerno "pick").

Discrete (apart or detached from others; separate; distinct) was originally a spelling doublet of discreet, sharing meanings, both derived from the same Latin source.  The spelling discrete is closer in form to the Latin discrētus and was probably a deliberate attempt to differentiate "discreet" from "discrete" (a courtesy to users English doesn't always extend) and one has always been more prolific than the other, dictionaries for centuries tending to offer some five times the citations for “prudent, circumspect” compared with the sense “separate or distinct” although the history of the latter is long in statistics, angelology, astronomy, and mathematics.  It wasn’t until the late sixteenth century that discrete became restricted to the now familiar meanings, leaving the spelling discreet to predominate in its own use.  In a way not uncommon in English, pre-modern spellings proliferated: discreyt, discrite, discreit, discreete and others existed but, by the late sixteenth century, the standard meanings became discrete in the sense of “individual” and discreet in the sense of “tactful”.  Had the usual convention been followed it would have been the other way around because in English the Latin ending –etus usually becomes –ete.  Even into the mid-twentieth century, there were style & usage guides which recommended different pronunciations for discrete & discreet the former accented dĭ'-krē’t rather than dĭs-krē’t, the rationale being it was both “natural in English accentuation” (the example of the adjectival use of “concrete” cited) and helpful in distinguishing the word from “discreet”.  The modern practice however is to use the same pronunciation for both, leaving the labor of differentiation to context.

Artistic angelology: The Assumption of the Virgin (1475-1476), by Francesco Botticini (1446–1498), tempera on wood panel, National Gallery, London.  Commissioned as the altarpiece for a Florentine church, it portrays Mary's assumption and shows the discrete three hierarchies and nine orders of angels.

The noun discretion means (1) the power or right to decide or act according to one's own judgment; freedom of judgment or choice and (2) the quality of being discreet, especially with reference to one's own actions or speech; prudence or decorum.  Discretion dates from 1250–1300 and was from the Middle English discrecioun, from the Anglo-French & Old French discrecion, from the Late Latin discrētiōnem-(stem of discrētiō (separation)).  The special use in English law as the “age of discretion” began in the mid-fourteenth century as dyscrecyounne (ability to perceive and understand) meaning one was deemed to have attained “moral discernment, ability to distinguish right from wrong”.  It thus implied “prudence, sagacity regarding one's conduct”.  The meanings of the later forms came from the Medieval Latin (discernment, power to make distinctions), which evolved from the use in Classical Latin (separation, distinction).

The Age of Discretion

The familiar phrase “at one’s discretion” seems not to have been in use until the 1570s although “in one's discretion” was documented by the late fourteenth century.  The use in English common law meaning “power to decide or judge; the power of acting according to one's own judgment” was reflected in the legal principle “the age of discretion which was part of law since the late fourteenth century when the age was deemed to be fourteen years, the age William Shakespeare (1564–1616) chose for the star-cross'd lovers in Romeo and Juliet (1597).

Historically, the “age of discretion” referred to the age at which a child was considered to be capable of making certain decisions and understanding the consequences of their actions.  Typically, was typically around seven years old, the point at which a child was deemed to have enough understanding to be responsible for certain actions, such as committing a crime or making religious decisions.  Gradually, the age crept up, especially as it applied to doli incapax (the age under which a child was presumed incapable of committing a crime) until it became established law a child between seven and fourteen was presumed not to have criminal intent unless it could be proven otherwise, the evidential onus of proof resting wholly with the prosecutor (almost always the Crown (ie some agent of the state)).  The generalized idea of an “age of discretion” influenced later developments in law such as the age of criminal responsibility, at which one could enter into legally enforceable contracts, enjoy a testamentary capacity or (lawfully) have sex.  Between jurisdictions the relevant age for this and that does vary and changes are not always without controversy: under the Raj, when Lord Lansdowne (1845–1927; Viceroy of India 1888-1894) raised the age of sexual consent for girls from ten to twelve, the objections from men united the castes like few other issues.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

For their purposes, the Church preferred seven and habitually declared children this age were capable of making their own decisions regarding religious practices, such as confession and communion and the phrase “give me the child until the age of seven and I will give you the man” is attributed usually to the Spanish priest Saint Ignatius of Loyola 1491-1556) who founded the religious order of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits).  It’s no longer thought wise to leave children alone with priests but the social media platforms well-understood the importance of gaining young converts and for years did nothing to try to enforce their minimum age requirements for account creation.  The consequences of this have of late become understood and the debate about the wisdom of “giving children access to the internet” is now being framed as the more ominous “giving the internet access to children”.

Discreet Allure: “Discreet” is here used in the sense of “modestly unobtrusive; unostentatious” and was in reference to the displayed clothing lines which were designed to be acceptable (halal (حلال)) under the Sharia (شَرِيعَة).  Lindsay Lohan at London Modern Fashion Week, February 2018.

Reich

Reich (pronounced rahyk or rahykh (German))

(1) With reference to Germany or other Germanic agglomerations, empire; realm; nation.

(2) The German state, especially (as Third Reich) during the Nazi period.

(3) A term used (loosely) of (1) hypothetical resurrections of Nazi Germany or similar states and (2) (constitutionally incorrectly), the so-called “Dönitz government (or administration)” which existed for some three weeks after Hitler’s suicide. 

(4) Humorously (hopefully), a reference to a suburb, town etc with a population in which German influence or names of German origin are prominent; used also by university students when referring to departments of German literature, German history etc. 

(5) As a slur, any empire-like structure, especially one that is imperialist, tyrannical, racist, militarist, authoritarian, despotic etc.

1871: From the German Reich (kingdom, realm, state), from the Middle High German rīche, from the Old High German rīhhi (rich, mighty; realm), from the Proto-West Germanic rīkī, from the Proto-Germanic rīkijaz & rikja (rule), a derivative of rīks (king, ruler), from the Proto-Celtic rīxs and thus related to the Irish rí.  The influences were (1) the primitive Indo-European hereǵ- (to rule), from which is derived also the Latin rēx and (2) the primitive Indo-European root reg (move in a straight line) with derivatives meaning "to direct in a straight line", thus "to lead, rule".  Cognates include the Old Norse riki, the Danish rige & rig, the Dutch rike & rijk, the Old English rice & rich, the Old Frisian rike, the Icelandic ríkur, the Swedish rik, the Gothic reiki, the Don Ringe and the Plautdietsch rikj.  The German adjective reich (rich) is used with an initial lower case and as a suffix is the equivalent of the English -ful, used to form an adjective from a noun with the sense of “rich in”, “full of”.  As a German noun & proper noun, Reich is used with an initial capital.

Reich was first used in English circa 1871 to describe the essentially Prussian creation that was the German Empire which was the a unification of the central European Germanic entities.  It was never intended to include Austria because (1) Otto von Bismarck's (1815-1989; Chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890) intricate series of inter-locking treaties worked better with Austria as an independent state and (2) he didn't regard them as "sufficiently German" (by which he would have meant "Prussian": Bismarck described Bavarians as "halfway between Austrians and human beings".  At the time, the German Empire was sometimes described simply as “the Reich” with no suggestion of any sense of succession to the Holy Roman Empire.  “Third Reich” was an invention of Nazi propaganda to “invent” the idea of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) as the inheritor of the mantle of Charlemagne (748–814; (retrospectively) the first Holy Roman Emperor 800-814) and Bismarck.  The word soon captured the imagination of the British Foreign Office, German “Reichism” coming to be viewed as much a threat as anything French had ever been to the long-time British foreign policy of (1) maintaining a balance of power in a Europe in which no one state was dominant ("hegemonic" the later term) and (2) avoid British involvement in land-conflicts on "the continent".

The term "Fourth Reich" had been around for a while when it was co-opted by Edwin Hartrich’s (1913-1995) for his book The Fourth and Richest Reich (MacMillan 1980), a critique both of the modern German state and its influence on the European Economic Community (the EEC (1957) which by 1993 would morph into the European Union (EU).  The term is still sometimes used by those criticizing the German state, the not so subtle implication being Berlin gradually achieving by other means the domination of Europe which the Third Reich attempted by military conquest.  Fourth Reich is also sometimes used, erroneously to describe the two-dozen day “administration” of Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (1891–1980; German head of state 30 April-23 May 1945) who in Hitler’s will was appointed Reich President (and therefore head of state); the so-called “Flensburg Government”.  That’s wrong and the only difference of opinion between constitutional theorists is whether it was (1) the mere coda to the Third Reich or (2) a charade, the German state ceasing to exist by virtue of events on the ground, a situation the finalization of the surrender arrangements on 8 May merely documented.  The latter view certainly reflects reality and in a legal sense the formal existence of a German state was required to ensure the validity of the surrender and other administrative acts; the consensus is the German state ceased to exist on 8 May 1945.  That the Allied occupying forces allowed the obviously pointless “Dönitz administration” to “function” for some three weeks has been the subject of historical debate.  Some have suggested there were those in London & Washington who contemplated using (at least temporarily) the “Flensburg Government” as a kind of “administrative agent” and it's true Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) did briefly flirt with the idea.  However, what's more plausible was it was so unexpected and no planning (military or political) had been had undertaken to deal with such a thing: "Hitler in his bunker was one thing, an admiral in Flensburg was another".

Hartrich’s thesis was a particular deconstruction of the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle), the unexpectedly rapid growth of the economy of the FRG (the Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany) in the 1950s and 1960s which produced an unprecedented and widespread prosperity.  There were many inter-acting factors at play during the post-war era but what couldn’t be denied was the performance of the FRG’s economy and Hartrich attributed it to the framework of what came to be called the Marktwirt-schaft market economy with a social conscience), a concept promoted by Professor Ludwig Erhard (1897–1977) while working as a consultant to the Allied occupying forces in the immediate aftermath of the war.  When the FDR was created in 1949, he entered politics, serving as economy minister until 1963 when he became Chancellor (prime-minister).  His time as tenure was troubled (he was more technocrat than politician) but soziale Marktwirtschaft survived his political demise and it continues to underpin the economic model of the modern German state.

Lindsay Lohan on the cover of the German edition of GQ (Gentleman's Quarterly) magazine, August 2010.  Although published in the Fourth Reich, the photo-shoot by photographer Ellen Von Unwerth (b 1954) took place on Malibu Beach, California during June 2010.  Sommerlust is not as exciting as it may sound to English-speaking ears; it translates as “summer pleasure”

Hartrich was a neo-liberal, then a breed just beginning to exert its influence in the Western world, but he also understood that the introduction of untrammelled capitalism to Europe was likely to sow the seeds of its own destruction but he insists the “restoration” of the “…profit motive as the prime mover in German life was a fundamental step…” to economic prosperity and social stability.  Of course the unique circumstances of the time (the introduction of the Deutsche Mark which enjoyed stability under the Bretton Woods system (1944), the outbreak of the Cold War, the recapitalization of industry and the provision of new plant & equipment with which to produce goods to be sold into world markets under the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (1947)) produced conditions which demand attention but the phenomenal growth can’t be denied.  Nor was it denied at the time; within the FRG, even the socialist parties by 1959 agreed to build their platform around “consumer socialism”, a concession Hartrich wryly labelled “capitalism's finest hour”.  The Fourth and Richest Reich was not a piece of economic analysis by an objective analyst and nor did it much dwell on the domestic terrorism which came in the wake of the Wirtschaftswunder, the Baader-Meinhof Group (the Red Army Faction (RAF)) and its ilk discussed as an afterthought in a few pages in an epilogue which included the bizarre suggestion Helmut Schmidt (1918–2015; FRG Chancellor 1974–1982) should be thought a latter-day Bismarck; more than one reviewer couldn’t resist mentioning Hitler himself had once accorded the same honor to the inept Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945).

The word "Reich" does sometimes confuse non-specialists who equate it with the German state, probably because the Third Reich does cast such a long shadow.  Murdoch journalist Samantha Maiden (b 1972) in a piece discussing references made to the Nazis (rarely a good idea except between consenting experts in the privacy of someone don's study) by a candidate in the 2022 Australian general election wrote:

The history of the nation-state known as the German Reich is commonly divided into three periods: German Empire (1871–1918) Weimar Republic (1918–1933) Nazi Germany (1933–1945).

It's an understandable mistake and the history of the German Reich is commonly divided into three periods but that doesn't include the Weimar Republic.  The point about what the British Foreign Office labelled "Reichism" was exactly what the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) as a "normal" democratic state, was not.  The Reich's three epochs (and there's some retrospectivity in both nomenclature and history) were the Holy Roman Empire (1800-1806), Bismarck's (essentially Prussian) German Empire (1871-1918) & the Nazi Third Reich (1933-1945).  

The First Reich: the Holy Roman Empire, 800-1806

The Holy Roman Empire in the sixteenth century.

The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the early Middle Ages, the popular identification with Germany because the empire’s largest territory after 962 was the Kingdom of Germany.  On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III (circa 760-816; pope 795-816) crowned Charlemagne (747–814; King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of the Romans (and thus retrospectively Holy Roman Emperor) from 800)) as Emperor, reviving the title more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.  Despite the way much history has been written, it wasn’t until the fifteenth century that “Holy Roman Empire” became a commonly used phrase.

Leo III, involved in sometimes violent disputes with Romans who much preferred both his predecessor and the Byzantine Empress in Constantinople, had his own reasons for wishing to crown Charlemagne as Emperor although it was a choice which would have consequences for hundreds of years.  According to legend, Leo ambushed Charlemagne at Mass on Christmas day, 800 by placing the crown on his head as he knelt at the altar to pray, declaring him Imperator Romanorum (Emperor of the Romans), in one stroke claiming staking the papal right to choose emperors, guaranteeing his personal protection and rejecting any assertion of imperial authority by anyone in Constantinople.  Charlemagne may or may not have been aware of what was to happen but much scholarship suggests he was well aware he was there for a coronation but that he intended to take the crown in his own hands and place it on his head himself.  The implications of the pope’s “trick” he immediately understood but, what’s done is done and can’t be undone and the lesson passed down the years, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815) not repeating the error at his coronation as French Emperor in 1804.

Some historians prefer to date the empire from 962 when Otto I was crowned because continuous existence there began but, scholars generally concur, it’s possible to trace from Charlemagne an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, describing a gradual assumption of the imperial title and role.  Not all were, at the time, impressed. Voltaire sardonically recorded one of his memorable bon mots, noting the “…agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."  The last Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II (1768–1835; Holy Roman Emperor 1792-1806) dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806, after Napoleon's creation of the Confederation of the Rhine.

The Second Reich: the Prussian Hohenzollern dynasty, 1871-1918

German Empire, 1914.

The German Empire existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the abdication of Wilhelm II (1859–1941; German Kaiser (Emperor) & King of Prussia 1888-1918) in 1918, when Germany became a federal republic, remembered as the Weimar Republic (1918-1933).  The German Empire consisted of 26 constituent territories, most ruled by royal families.  Although Prussia became one of several kingdoms in the new realm, it contained most of its population and territory and certainly the greatest military power and the one which exercised great influence within the state; a joke at the time was that most countries had an army whereas the Prussian Army had a country.

To a great extent, the Second Reich was the creation of Prince Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898; chancellor of the North German Confederation 1867-1871 and of the German Empire 1871-1890), the politician who dominated European politics in the late nineteenth although his time in office does need to be viewed through sources other than his own memoirs.  After Wilhelm II dismissed Bismarck, without his restraining hand, the empire embarked on a bellicose new course that led ultimately to World War I (1914-1918), Germany’s defeat and the end the reign of the House of Hohenzollern and it was that conflict which wrote finis to the dynastic rule of centuries also of the Romanovs in Russia, the Habsburgs in Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans in Constantinople.  Following the Kaiser’s abdication, the empire collapsed in the November 1918 revolution and the Weimar Republic which followed, though not the axiomatically doomed thing many seem now to assume, was for much of its existence beset by political and economic turmoil.  

The Third Reich: the Nazi dictatorship 1933-1945

Nazi occupied Europe, 1942.

“Nazi Germany” is in English the common name for the period of Nazi rule, 1933-1945.  The first known use of the term “Third Reich” was by German cultural historian Moeller van den Bruck (1876-1925) in his 1923 book Das Dritte Reich (The Third Reich).  Van den Bruck, a devotee of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) and a pan-German nationalist, wrote not of a defined geographical entity or precise constitutional arrangement.  His work instead explored a conceptualized (if imprecisely described) and idealized state of existence for Germans everywhere, one that would (eventually) fully realize what the First Reich might have evolved into had not mistakes been made, the Second Reich a cul-de-sac rendered impure by the same democratic and liberal ideologies which would doom the Weimar Republic.  Both these, van den Bruck dismissed as stepping stones on the path to an ideal; Germans do seem unusually susceptible to being seduced by ideals.

In the difficult conditions which prevailed in Germany at the time of the book’s publication, it didn’t reach a wide audience, the inaccessibility of his text not suitable for a general readership but, calling for a synthesis of the particularly Prussian traditions of socialism and nationalism and the leadership of a Übermensch (a idea from Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883) which describes a kind of idealized man who probably can come into existence only when a society is worthy of him), his work had obvious appeal to the Nazis.  It was said to have been influential in the embryonic Nazi Party but there’s little to suggest it contributed much beyond an appeal to the purity of race and the idea of the “leader” (Führer) principle, notions already well established in German nationalist traditions.  The style alone might have accounted for this, Das Dritte Reich not an easy read, a trait shared by the dreary and repetitive stuff written by the party “philosopher” Alfred Rosenberg (1893-1946).  After Rosenberg was convicted on all four counts (planning aggressive war, waging aggressive war, war crimes & crimes against humanity) by the IMT (International Military Tribunal) at the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) and sentenced to death by hanging, a joke circulated among the assembled journalists that it would have been fair to add a conviction for “crimes against literature”, a variation on the opinion his fellow defendant Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974; head of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) 1931-1940 & Gauleiter (district party leader) and Reichsstatthalter (Governor) of Vienna (1940-1945) should also have been indicted for “crimes against poetry”.  Von Schirach though avoided the hangman's noose he deserved.        

A book channeling Nietzsche wasn’t much help for practical politicians needing manifestos, pamphlets and appealing slogans and the only living politician who attracted some approbation from van den Bruck was Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime minister of Italy 1922-1943).  The admiration certainly didn’t extend to Hitler; unimpressed by his staging of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch (8–9 November 1923), van den Bruck dismissed the future Führer with a unusually brief deconstruction, the sentiment of which was later better expressed by another disillusioned follower: “that ridiculous corporal”.  The term “Third Reich” did however briefly enter the Nazi’s propaganda lexicon and William L Shirer (1904–1993) in his landmark The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960) reported that in the 1932 campaign for the presidency, Hitler in a speech at Berlins's Lustgarten (a place which, again perhaps disappointing some, translates as “pleasure garden”) used the slogan: “In the Third Reich every German girl will find a husband”.  Shirer's book is now dated and some of his conceptual framework has always attracted criticism but it remains a vivid account of the regime's early years, written by an observer who actually was there. 

The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich (German Empire) between 1933-1943 and Großdeutsches Reich (Greater German Empire) between 1943 to 1945 but so much of fascism was fake and depended for its effect on spectacle so the Nazis were attracted to the notion of claiming to be the successor of a German Empire with a thousand year history, their own vision of the Nazi state being millennialist.  After they seized power, the term “Third Reich” occasionally would be invoked and, more curiously, the Nazis for a while even referred to the Weimar Republic as the Zwischenreich (Interim Reich) but as the 1930s unfolded as an almost unbroken series of foreign policy triumphs for Hitler, emphasis soon switched to the present and the future, the pre-Beer Hall Putsch history no longer needed.  It was only after 1945 that the use of “Third Reich” became almost universal although the earlier empires still are almost never spoken of in that way, even in academic circles.

Van den Bruck had anyway been not optimistic and his gloominess proved prescient although his people did chose to walk (to destruction) the path he thought they may fear to tread.  In the introduction to Das Dritte Reich he wrote: “The thought of a Third Empire might well be the most fatal of all the illusions to which they have ever yielded; it would be thoroughly German if they contented themselves with day-dreaming about it. Germany might perish of her Third Empire dream.”  He didn’t live to see the rise and fall of the Third Reich, taking his own life in 1925, a fate probably not unknown among those who read Nietzsche at too impressionable an age and never quite recover.

Wilhelm Reich, Hawkwind and the Orgone Accumulator

Sketch of the orgone accumulator.

Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) was a US-based, Austrian psychoanalyst with a troubled past who believed sexual repression was the root cause of many social problems.  Some of his many books widely were read within the profession but there was criticism of his tendency towards mono-causality in his analysis, an opinion shared by Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) in his comments about Reich’s 1927 book Die Funktion des Orgasmus (The Function of the Orgasm), a work the author had dedicated to his fellow Austrian.  Freud sent a note of thanks for the personally dedicated copy he’d been sent as a birthday present but, brief and not as effusive in praise Reich as had expected, it was not well-received.  Reich died in prison while serving a sentence imposed for violating an injunction issued to prevent the distribution of a machine he’d invented: the orgone accumulator.

The Space Ritual Alive in Liverpool and London (United Artists UAD 60037/8; referred to usually as Space Ritual) (1973).

The orgone accumulator was an apparently phoney device but one which inspired members of the science fiction (SF) flavored band Hawkwind to write the song Orgone Accumulator which, unusually, was first released on a live recording, Space Ritual, a 1973 double album containing material from their concerts in 1972.  Something of a niche player in the world of 1970s popular music Hawkwind, perhaps improbably, proved more enduring than many, their combination of styles attracting a cult following which endures to this day.