Herrschaft des Schwindels. Wie der Hochstapler zur Sozialfigur wurde

Abstract

The article explores how the social imaginary takes shape through the emergence of social figures—a process in which individual perceptions are transformed into symbolic formations that structure social experience. Focusing on the impostor or con artist in the Weimar Republic, it argues that this type crystallized as a key social figure of the interwar period. The analysis foregrounds literature as a laboratory of the social imaginary, tracing how the impostor circulates across discourses and undergoes semantic transformations—from the charming rogue to the cynical power broker of emerging fascism. By examining these shifts, the article shows how the interwar period came to recognize itself in the impostor’s practices of pretense, deception, and propaganda, and how literature actively contributed to the production and dissemination of this social imaginary.