[419] a matter of ultimate concern. And those movements which fulfill this demand were the totalitarian movements, both Nazism^a and Communism^b. These movements realized this very early. Their main power of strength was just this, that they felt the younger generation wants to have something of unconditional character, and they GAVE it to them, with great strictness and severity, and the younger generation, many of them, [submitted] to it. And they became later on the storm troopers of Fascism, Nazism and Communism.

At the same time, and especially after the breakdown of these movements (or of two of them) in Western Europe, many people turned to another sphere of ultimate concern, of complete commitment, namely the Roman Church^c. And we had a wave of conversions from humanism and Protestantism to the Roman Church for the same reason, because there was a "Whereto?" that answered. Now let me see how the situation is here, in this country. Perhaps everything comes here (according to historical destiny) a little bit later than in Europe^d, in terms of the decisive spiritual movements. There still was the acceptance of a religious, political and cultural

conformism^e, when I came to this country 20 years ago. But it was already shaken on some points. It was shaken by the great crisis in the thirties. It was shaken by the results of the First World War^f, which surely and almost visibly led to the Second World War.^g It was shaken by the outcome of the Second World War, which produced a third so-called "Cold War^h." And it was shaken by the inner emptiness of the beliefs of the twenties into the identity of technical progressⁱ with a program towards a fulfillment of human existence.