Georges Bataille, André Breton und die Gruppe Contre-Attaque

On October 7, 1935 Georges Bataille and André Breton founded Contre-Attaque, a group of revolutionary intellectuals. Positioned against the French Third Republic, fascism, capitalism but also against French communism, the group developed a significant and unique way of thinking about revolution, which in the words of Lévi-Strauss could be labelled “savage”. Despite its short existence, Contre-Attaque had an outstanding importance for the intellectual past of France. The history of the group aligns Hegel, Marx and psychoanalysis with Nietzsche, de Sade, Krafft-Ebing and the cinema in order to form a complex knowledge system, which has inspired France’s intellectual culture in a sustainable manner. This study examines the history of the group, its theoretical influences, its quick collapse as well as its unfathomable reception in the age of terrorism.