Prophet in the (degrowth) wilderness: Storytelling Herbert Gruhl as a far-right environmental lieu de mémoire

In this article, we further the understanding of the contemporary far right’s politics of the environment by analysing the (re)construction of a key figure in the history of the modern environmental movement in Germany, Herbert Gruhl (1921–1993). The latter co-founded the Green party and, subsequently, two further right green organizations, as well as authoring bestselling books on the environmental crisis. Articulating themes also found in today’s degrowth movement, Gruhl eschewed green capitalism, ‘globalism’, and technological fixes while advocating for a relationship between humans and the environment consistent with traditional conservative principles of moderation and rootedness. Focusing on the far right’s storytelling of Gruhl-as-unheard-prophet—Gruhl as a lieu de mémoire of the contemporary German far right—we offer a first systematic interrogation of stories regarding the prophet as a type in far-right environmental communication more generally and, more specifically, on how his memorialization as a ‘sacred center’ reproduces contemporary far-right (eco-)politics, that is, the legitimation of such an agenda and the identities built through it. In so doing, we illuminate the far right’s story of the lost opportunity for a conservative/far-right ecology, one which was betrayed by the left-wing Greens, as well as its own vision of an alternative eco-future.