On August 8, 1914, Walter Benjamin suffered a horrific loss. His close friends Fritz Heinle and Rika Seligson committed suicide in protest against the First World War. Reflecting on their death, Benjamin wrote a letter to his childhood friend, the future composer Ernst Schoen. In it, he spoke of the need for a transformed radicalism in the face of the growing European catastrophe. “No one is equal to this situation,” he lamented.

During the period immediately leading up to the First World War, social and political withdrawal characterized Benjamin’s intellectual life. Turning inward, he occupied himself with an “invisible radicalism.” In these early writings, the young Benjamin was heavily influenced by his mentor, the educational reformer and philosopher Gustav Wyneken.

Following his teacher, Benjamin argued that self-transformation based on cultivating the “deepest solitude” would lead to social transformation. However, Wyneken’s call in November 1914 for German youth to join the war effort in defense of the “fatherland” dampened the young Benjamin’s faith in his teacher’s ideas.