The onset of the world war in 1914 produced a wide range of reactions from the intelligentsia of the countries at war. In Germany it was especially the philosophers who felt called upon to explain the meaning of the war in their own domain; their reaction will be the topic of this paper. There are many scholarly works that deal with the general public reaction to the outbreak of the war on the part of the intelligentsia, but less with those thinkers who professed particular “war philosophies."...