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Hitler was also a voracious reader with a private library of some 2000 books. Surprisingly, Schopenhauer appears to have been Hitler's favorite reading rather t
by Zuider 5y ago
Hitler was also a voracious reader with a private library of some 2000 books. Surprisingly, Schopenhauer appears to have been Hitler's favorite reading rather than those books of Nietzsche which proclaim the right of the amoral Superman to impose his will on all, or the repulsive racist theories of Alfred Rosenberg and Houston Stuart Chamberlain which surface in Mein Kamph.
Maybe it was Schopenhauer's notion of the noumenal will being the prime mover that gave Hitler the notion that anything could be achieved if only it was willed strongly enough, hence the title of the infamous Nazi propaganda movie, Triumph Of The Will. Hitler was found to have developed a system of annotating passages with a system of colored pencils. Presumably there was a lot of angry red.
- oh_sigh 5y agoI wonder if those books were just for show, or for merely confirming/justifying his pre-existing beliefs. Hitler apparently loved to hold after-dinner "discussions"(mostly soliloquies), and by all reports his viewpoints on the topics that he himself was obsessed with were extremely banal and unsophisticated.
- Zuider 5y agoHitler does appear to have actually read the books as evidenced by the passages marked by coloring pencil. There is not any ready evidence that he gleaned any deep wisdom or moral edification from his reading, and it is far more likely, given his temperament, that he only read to reinforce his prejudices, and that he would become furiously impatient with anything he did not readily understand. Given that, it is one of history's great disappointments that Martin Heidegger never met his hero. One could imagine Der Fueherer's face twitching in increasing rage as Heidegger effused about the great leader's seminal position in the hierarchy of being-in-the-world, leading in short order to a defenestration.
- rob74 5y agoI'm far from a fan of Hitler, but I wonder why it's possible to talk about Stalin as an inspiring figure when the number of people he has killed is comparable (if not greater) than Hitler's victims (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin#Total_number_of_victims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet...)? Ok, they were mostly "his own" people, but arguably that makes it even worse, not better?
- FredPret 5y agoNietzsche was staunchly against nationalism, socialism, and Prussian militarism. Pretty much the anti-Hitler.
- panick21_ 5y agoHis sister modified his works and tried to make it famous in Nazi Germany. This is the reason for the association.
- Zuider 5y agoNietzsche was also contemptuous of anti-Semitism. Like Machiavelli, his ideas and motivations were misunderstood and reduced to caricatures in the popular mind. It did not help that Elizabeth Nietzsche, his sister who survived him, was a fanatical supporter of Hitler, who edited his books to make them appear supportive of National Socialist ideology. For this reason, the older editions of Nietzsche's works available free online from such sites as Project Gutenberg are worthless.
- recuter 5y agoHe is one of those frequently quoted, rarely read, often misunderstood - and this association is unfortunate, unfair, and not accidental.
- faffernot 5y agoHe rails against Nihilism, but is the poster boy for being a nihilist. Ironic.
- Claude_Shannon 5y agohttps://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1626069-4chan https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1626069-4chan I just can't help but share this meme from 4chan about Nietzche here.
- FredPret 5y agoIf you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you
- spaetzleesser 5y agoI remember reading somewhere (Speer's autobiography?) that Hitler had a photographic memory for books. He could recall whole sections of books and knew on what pages of a book these pages were.