The Young Hegelians and the Fracturing of the Hegelian School

Hegel died of cholera in Berlin on November 14, 1831, and within a few years his followers had split into two broad camps. The Right (or Old) Hegelians — including Heinrich Gustav Hotho, Eduard Gans, Karl Rosenkranz, and Kasimir Conradi — stressed continuity between Hegel's system and Lutheran Christian orthodoxy and the existing Prussian state. The Left, or Young Hegelians (Junghegelianer), by contrast, pushed Hegel's dialectical method toward radical religious and political critique, gathering in Berlin's informal 'Doktorklub' and publishing in journals such as the Hallische Jahrbücher, founded by Arnold Ruge in 1838, and its successor the Deutsche Jahrbücher.