One of the many Völkische movements active in Germany during the era of the Weimar Republic. Members of the Tatkreis (Action Circle) were neoconservatives of the radical right who considered themselves 'conservative revolutionaries.' Combining nationalism and racialism, they attacked modern democray as outmoded. They were opposed to the equality of classes and religions, to "disputatious and irresponsible parliaments," and anything connected with the Weimar Republic ("corrupt and sterile beyond repair"). They denounced traditional reason and discussion as obsolete and welcomed political chaos as 'inevitable,' because this was the only way there could be "freedom and rebirth" in the German fatherland.

In place of a disintegrating liberal and democratic society, the Tatkreis called for an intellectual élite open to talent but isolated from popular pressures. Members were quite willing to lead the coming national revolution themselves. They made an elborate attempt to combine the Mittelstand (Eng equiv. - economic middle class of independent German shopkeepers and craftsmen; subsequently the NSDAP's most ardent followers) which comprised ca. 45% of the German people. The Tatkreis extolled youth as the model upon which the future German society would be built. Adherents called for the end of capitalism and its replacement by a planned national economy, a neomercantalist self-sufficiency that would put an end to German obligations to outsiders.

In the 1920s the Takreis rallied around its official publication, Die Tat (Action). The periodical's guiding spirit was Hans Zehrer, who became editor in 1928 and raised its circulation from 1,000 to 30,000. Die Tat became the best-known völkisch publication in Germany.

Hitler, who regarded his own movement of National-Socialism as basically völkisch was strongly influenced by the Tatkreis, especially by its right-wing élitism and anti-capitalism. For their part, members of Tatkreis were at first not enamoured with this lower-class Austrian, and many were convinced that the disruption of the Nazi party in 1932 signified a permanent trend. When Hitler assumed political power in 1933 some members of the Tatkreis were disillusioned, and several lost their lives in opposing the Nazis. Zehrer, disgusted with Nazi excess, resigned as editor of Die Tat. Many other members of the Tatkreis, pleased that Hitler had accepted at least some of their demands, recognised the National-Socialist régime by becoming Party members. Along with the Thule Geßellschaft and the remaining völkisch organisations, the Tatkreis gradually disintegrated in the milieu of Nazi Gleichschaltung ('Co-ordination').

• Macmillan Dictionary of Historical Terms (The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1983)
• Dr. Louis L. Snyder, Encyclopedia of the Third Reich (McGraw-Hill Inc., 1976)
• A.J. Nicholls, "Germany" in S.J. Woolf (ed.), Fascism in Europe. (Methuen & Co. Ltd. 1981), pp. 65-91.