Abstract

Alexandre Kojève had traveled via Peking. The high official of the French Ministry of the Economy stopped off in Berlin in order to speak to the heads of the German Socialist Student Association. In the Hotel Berliner Hof on Lake Diana, the Parisian guest advised Dutschke & Co. that the most important thing they could do would be to learn Greek. Such an answer to the question “What is to be done?” was not expected from this famous man, whose legendary seminars on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit in the Thirties had inspired an entire generation of French scholars and intellectuals. Kojève's long-standing acquaintance, who looked after his guest during his stay in Berlin, was no less baffled to hear from the Hegelian that his next stop was Plettenberg. “Where else should one travel to in Germany? Carl Schmitt is after all the only one with whom it is worthwhile to talk.”