German emigration after 1933 and the development of political theory in the United States - does this comprise a single topic? Indeed, it does. A number of prominent names come immediately to mind, names of German Jews who, banished by National Socialism, found refuge in the United States, where they became engaged in the development of philosophy and the theory of politics, making significant, indeed definitive contributions. The list includes not only Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss, of course, but also Herbert Marcuse and Hans Morgenthau - to name only the four most influential of these refugee intellectuals.

These scholars have more in common than merely their German-Jewish origin, the fate of being expelled from Germany, their new home in America, and the significance that they achieved as political theorists and philosophers in the United States. All of them had already completed their academic education in Germany (Hannah Arendt, the youngest of the group, was twenty-six years old in 1932; Leo Strauss was seven years older) and thus brought with them the imprint of the educational traditions of their native country and continent. But all of them, starting at different levels, attained their characteristic intellectual profile only after emigration. Their contributions to the history of political thought in the twentieth century were all published in the United States.

PETER GRAF KIELMANSEGG: I propose to begin with questions concerning the intellectual and cultural background, that is, the origins, roots, and connections between Hannah Arendt's and Leo Strauss's thinking. Next, we could revisit the question of what could be called the Americanization of Arendt and Strauss, that is, the question of the extent to which the books they wrote in this country reflect the fact that these authors have become Americans. And third, I suggest that we take up a topic of more general relevance, namely, the relationship of Arendt and Strauss to democracy. They experienced the failure of democracy in Germany, had an existential encounter with a totalitarian dictatorship, and eventually became citizens of a successful republic. Many of our questions could be brought into this context, by which I do not mean that their biographies are necessarily the most important factors in explaining their attitudes toward democracy; but it is perhaps one way of looking at the problem.