With reference to the 'case' of German Dante reception, the study examines the historical developments undergone by German Romance studies in the first half of the 20th century. A central focus is on the question of continuity in the thematic and methodological approach to Dante from the 1920s to the Nazi regime. Associated with this is an inquiry into the extent to which Dante research in the 1920s prepared the ground for the image of Dante as a 'leader figure' propagated in the period of the Berlin-Rome axis.