"[2] "Die Wandlung is predicated on a radical break with the past, whereas "Lancelot" [,a contemporary equivalent journal that appeared in France between 1947 and 1950,] places emphasis on the French cultural heritage, along with a certain enduring humanistic tradition in Germany.
Die Wandlung was founded by the philosophers Karl Jaspers and Dolf Sternberger, the linguist-culturalist Werner Krauss and the sociologist-economist Alfred Weber.
Appearing directly after the twelve Nazi years, the publication aspired to feed a spiritual renewal for Germans, both in the western and Soviet occupation zones.
[3] Along with the journal's founders, contributors included Hannah Arendt, T. S. Eliot, Marie Luise Kaschnitz, Gerhard Storz, Wilhelm E. Süskind and Viktor von Weizsäcker.
[4] In 1957 twenty-eight definitional contributions from Sternberger, Storz and Süskind were collected and published in a volume under the title "Aus dem Wörterbuch des Unmenschen" ("From the Dictionary of Inhumanity").