Gottfried Benn's speeches and essays demonstrate the authority of the great poet with rhetorical mastery. Just as he unconditionally created expression as a poet, he also draws boundaries here with his unique linguistic power, sets milestones of temporal consciousness, and defines the positions of the spirit in the final stage of its Western crisis. Benn speaks ruthlessly as a cultural critic, as a despiser of the establishment, and as an opponent of all restorations. He takes a sharp stance against history and counters it with the aesthetic manifesto of the law of form. Against the meaninglessness of history, he places art, a concept of art that is once again anchored in metaphysical depths and rooted in that unwavering belief that only as an aesthetic phenomenon does the world justify itself. Nietzsche, the great role model, speaks through the essays and speeches as a transformed figure.