Wurd: la Dea germanica del destino. Genealogia di una costruzione culturale (1835-1945)

Abstract

This essay reconstructs the genealogy of the Germanic belief in fate (germanischer Schicksalsglaube), the cultural device through which, between 1835 and 1945, German philology and linguistics progressively constructed, rather than discovered, the idea that heroic fatalism constituted the essence of the Germanic spirit. The analysis examines three phases: a foundational phase (1835–1931) beginning with Jacob Grimm; a phase of overt ideological instrumentalization (1933–1945), exemplified by Hans Naumann; and a phase of dismantling (1955–1978), culminating with Gerd Wolfgang Weber, who demonstrates that Wyrd/Urðr as a pagan goddess of fate never existed.