Abstract

This research article aims to deliver an analytical representation of the intellectual environment of the culture journal Die Kreatur (1926–1930), a religious-dialogical quarterly edited by Martin Buber, Joseph Wittig, and Viktor von Weizsäcker and enlivened by some of the most prominent figures of German-Jewish interwar culture (among others W. Benjamin, H. S. Bergman, E. Rosenstock-Huessy, F. Rosenzweig, E. Simon, and L. Strauss). Building on a recognition of the problematic relationship between the dialogical model claimed in the programmatic foreword of the journal and the group narratives enacted by its key contributors, the study attempts to outline the formation process of the intellectual plexus of the journal and to provide a differentiated analysis of its singular constituents via a sociologically informed framework. The representation of the intellectual network of Die Kreatur in accordance with the model of a “circle of circles” provides insight into the elusive dialectic of interaction and divergence that determines the relations between the main actors of the journal and thus contributes to unfold the interplay of biographical intersections and conceptual synergies, as well as incongruities, frictions, and contradictory instances that determines its editorial and philosophical profile.