Headquarters of the army of concepts?

One episode of the famous American cartoon »Southpark« is entitled »The Stick of Truth«. In German, this becomes Stab, Stab der Wahrheit. Of course Benjamin, when in his unfortunate »Origin of the German Mourning Play« he writes about a Stab von Begriffen, he does not mean a »stick of concepts«, which could also be nice and efficient as a weapon. He makes use of the second meaning of Stab: the commanding group of officers in an army. This makes the reader rightly think of conceptual war, underlined by the verb dienen: »which serves to the representation«.

The English translation (John Osborne, 2003) proposes »a set of concepts which assist«: which is both: correct as a translation and totally wrong.

If we read on, we will encounter sentences as

»If ideas do not incorporate phenomena, and if they do not become functions of the law of phenomena, the "hypothesis", then ...«

But Benjamin does not say »phenomena become …« –

Wenn sie die Phänomene weder durch Einverleibung in sich enthalten, noch sich in Funktionen, in das Gesetz der Phänomene, in die »Hypothesis« verflüchtigen, so …

Benjamin says: verflüchtigen sich, they »evaporate«, vanish into the hypothesis, like perfumes do into the air, becoming barely perceptible.

Today we are used to consider philosophy part of the university teaching. But the period when great philosophers were also university professors has been very short, it starts with Wolff (1706) and ends with Hegel (1831) – not very much compared to nearly 3000 years of philosophical activities. Do not ask university lecturers if you need the translation of thoughts, ask poets.