I This essay examines the poetic and political aspirations of Stefan George and his circle.¹ I focus in particular on “the secret Germany” (das geheime Deutschland) that the George Circle claimed both to inaugurate and to embody as a whole. Indeed, this emphasis on physical embodiment, on the poetic Gestalt of true life as opposed to its reified manifestation in modern bourgeois society, will be a central theme throughout my reflections. The expression itself—“das geheime Deutschland”—was coined by Karl Wolfskehl in his programmatic essay entitled “Die Blätter für die Kunst und die neuste Literatur,” which appeared in the inaugural print…