Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) studied and taught at the University of Vienna until his flight from the National Socialists in 1938. His work in Vienna was interrupted by stays in Germany, the USA, and France, which significantly contributed to his intellectual development. Max Weber was a crucial reference point for him during these years of scientific development. In his texts from the 1920s and 1930s, Voegelin identified the crisis of positivism as the calamity of the intellectual condition, particularly in Central Europe. The political phenomena of totalitarian movements prompted him to radically rethink the relationship between politics and religion in modernity. Shortly before his escape, he published "Political Religions," perhaps his most important book, in which he laid the foundation for all his subsequent work. In it, he analyzes the totalitarian dictatorships of fascism and National Socialism as secularized religions that perverted Christian notions of salvation into worldly utopias.