Nazis and Nietzsche

Nazis and Nietzsche

During the latter parts of the Nineteenth Century, the German existentialist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote a great deal on his ideas of morality, values, and life. His writings were controversial, but they greatly affected European thought. It can be argued that Nietzschean philosophy was a contributing factor in the rise of what is considered our world's most awful empire, the Third Reich.

‹Such a stance is based on the fact that there are very similar currents in thought between the philosophy and the empire.

‹ For example, history will, one would hope, never forget the atrocity that was the Holocaust. The notion that a civilized nation could choose to hate one group so much, to the point of barbaric genocide, seems unconscionable to most. However, the anti-Semitism that prompted the Holocaust had a fairly long history in Europe as a whole. Nietzsche, though he wrote of rethinking or rejecting the values and beliefs of the society, held to a fierce anti-Semitic viewpoint. Nietzsche, in "Beyond Good and Evil," quotes Tacitus in saying that the Jews were born for slavery, and claims that Jews as a whole have inverted any and all proper values. Indeed, he seems to blame Judaism for what he would call the upside-down values of the world, saying:

‹ life on earth has acquired a novel and dangerous

‹ attraction for a couple of millenia: their prophets

‹ have fused `rich,' `godless,' `evil,' `violent,' and

‹ `sensual' into one and were the first to use the

‹ word `world' as an opprobrium. This inversion of

‹ values (which include using the word `poor' as

‹ synonymous with `holy' and `friend') constitutes the

‹...

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...rld War II, Hitler chose to blame

‹the people of Germany, saying that they had let him down. However, if the believer is weak, had he not weakened them intentionally, so that he might gain power, and be the distinguished overman? Or had he weakened by believing in his own invincibility?

‹ One can see where many pieces of the Nietzschean philosophy of the late 1800's could have been the underpinnings of much of Nazi thought and propaganda. If indeed Hitler was fighting the battle for dominion of the earth, than his loss is a loss for the overmen everywhere. If, on the other hand, Hitler was an insane man, as Nietzsche became, than the victory over totalitarianism and tyranny is a sweeping victory for the freedom for mankind, and a defeat for the philosophies of Nietzsche. But of course, as Nietzsche said, there are no facts, only interpretations.