4 ms·

"Hitler took Neitzche more seriously than he deserved." Curious, I've never heard of this link/reason before. Care to elaborate a little, or some links, please

by zo1 12y ago

"Hitler took Neitzche more seriously than he deserved." Curious, I've never heard of this link/reason before. Care to elaborate a little, or some links, please?

niels_olson 12y ago
My reading of Nietzche left me with the sense that he was about as conceited and anti-egalitarian as they come. https://www.google.com/search?q=hitler%20nietzsche%20philosophy https://www.google.com/search?q=hitler%20nietzsche%20philoso...
- Amezarak 12y ago
  > My reading of Nietzche left me with the sense that he was about as conceited and anti-egalitarian as they come. Nietzsche was anti-democratic and anti-socialist, yes. In most of his works he goes to extreme lengths (almost pathetic lengths) to rant against German nationalism and German antisemitism. Nietzsche was, without a shadow of a doubt, one hundred percent opposed to the Nazis. Indeed this was the primary reason for his split with (and apparent hatred of) his sister. The Nazis may have co-opted Nietzsche but they hardly be said to have taken him seriously. From a draft letter to his sister: After I read the name Zarathustra in the anti-Semitic Correspondence my forbearance came to an end. I am now in a position of emergency defense against your spouse's Party. These accursed anti-Semite deformities shall not sully my ideal!!" From Gay Science: [...]we are not nearly "German" enough, in the sense in which the word "German" is constantly being used nowadays, to advocate nationalism and race hatred and to be able to take pleasure in the national scabies of the heart and blood poisoning that now leads the nations of Europe to delimit and barricade themselves against each other as if it were a matter of quarantine. For that we are too open-minded, too malicious, too spoiled, also too well-informed, too "traveled": we far prefer to live on mountains, apart, "untimely," in past or future centuries, merely in order to keep ourselves from experiencing the silent rage to which we know we should be condemned as eyewitnesses of politics that are desolating the German spirit[...] We who are homeless are too manifold and mixed racially and in our descent, being "modern men," and consequently do not feel tempted to participate in the mendacious racial self-admiration and racial indecency that parades in Germany today Indeed Nietzsche went so far as to deny he was German at all but rather of Polish descent even though this was almost certainly not true and he almost certainly would have known it, simply because of his opposition to the German nationalism and anti-semitism that had overtaken Germany - basically in a big F U.
pervycreeper 12y ago
It's nonsense. While his sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche did promote a distorted version of his work in order to promote fascism, there is no reason why Nietzsche should not be given consideration of the highest kind. Furthermore, his ideas themselves undermine fascist ideology. See the writings of Walter Kaufman on this topic for more details.
AnimalMuppet 12y ago
Hitler may not have followed all of Neitzche, but he almost certainly took the "will to power" idea from him. It also seems to me that Hitler took the "superman" idea - the man who is above morality and can do whatever he wishes to those below him - but I'm less certain of that.
- Amezarak 12y ago
  > Hitler may not have followed all of Neitzche, but he almost certainly took the "will to power" idea from him. Hitler reinterpreted Nietzsche's will to power, yes. > It also seems to me that Hitler took the "superman" idea - the man who is above morality and can do whatever he wishes to those below him - but I'm less certain of that. The ubermensch is not a moral nihilist who can do whatever he wants, he's the answer to the moral nihilism that is the inevitable consequence of the death of god. This is very hard to reconcile with Nazi ideology which promoted (their version) of Christian Protestantism and genocide for racial reasons, which Nietzsche maligned.
  - AnimalMuppet 12y ago
    A bit more research shows that Hitler reinterpreted the "Ubermensch" (superman or above-man) idea as well. > The ubermensch is not a moral nihilist who can do whatever he wants, he's the answer to the moral nihilism that is the inevitable consequence of the death of god. Yes and no. The ubermensch comes into a situation where there is no god, and therefore there is nihilism - there is no moral authority. The ubermensch creates a moral authority. But because there is no god and therefore no external moral authority, there really is nothing constraining the ubermensch to create any particular moral standard. The moral standard created is therefore essentially arbitrary. That is, by his choice of morality, he can proclaim that it is moral to do anything to others. (Now, true, Neitzche said that the morality was supposed to be life-affirming, as opposed to other-world centered moralities that were not. But in a nihilistic context, there are few constraints on what "life affirming" might mean, and in practice it will come to mean anything the ubermensch might wish. Anyone wishing to say otherwise must not be coming from a nihilistic position, which means they must be either pre-death-of-god, or be ubermensch themselves.)

by zo1 12y ago

"Hitler took Neitzche more seriously than he deserved." Curious, I've never heard of this link/reason before. Care to elaborate a little, or some links, please?

niels_olson 12y ago

My reading of Nietzche left me with the sense that he was about as conceited and anti-egalitarian as they come. https://www.google.com/search?q=hitler%20nietzsche%20philosophy https://www.google.com/search?q=hitler%20nietzsche%20philoso...

Amezarak 12y ago
> My reading of Nietzche left me with the sense that he was about as conceited and anti-egalitarian as they come. Nietzsche was anti-democratic and anti-socialist, yes. In most of his works he goes to extreme lengths (almost pathetic lengths) to rant against German nationalism and German antisemitism. Nietzsche was, without a shadow of a doubt, one hundred percent opposed to the Nazis. Indeed this was the primary reason for his split with (and apparent hatred of) his sister. The Nazis may have co-opted Nietzsche but they hardly be said to have taken him seriously. From a draft letter to his sister: After I read the name Zarathustra in the anti-Semitic Correspondence my forbearance came to an end. I am now in a position of emergency defense against your spouse's Party. These accursed anti-Semite deformities shall not sully my ideal!!" From Gay Science: [...]we are not nearly "German" enough, in the sense in which the word "German" is constantly being used nowadays, to advocate nationalism and race hatred and to be able to take pleasure in the national scabies of the heart and blood poisoning that now leads the nations of Europe to delimit and barricade themselves against each other as if it were a matter of quarantine. For that we are too open-minded, too malicious, too spoiled, also too well-informed, too "traveled": we far prefer to live on mountains, apart, "untimely," in past or future centuries, merely in order to keep ourselves from experiencing the silent rage to which we know we should be condemned as eyewitnesses of politics that are desolating the German spirit[...] We who are homeless are too manifold and mixed racially and in our descent, being "modern men," and consequently do not feel tempted to participate in the mendacious racial self-admiration and racial indecency that parades in Germany today Indeed Nietzsche went so far as to deny he was German at all but rather of Polish descent even though this was almost certainly not true and he almost certainly would have known it, simply because of his opposition to the German nationalism and anti-semitism that had overtaken Germany - basically in a big F U.

pervycreeper 12y ago

It's nonsense. While his sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche did promote a distorted version of his work in order to promote fascism, there is no reason why Nietzsche should not be given consideration of the highest kind. Furthermore, his ideas themselves undermine fascist ideology. See the writings of Walter Kaufman on this topic for more details.

AnimalMuppet 12y ago

Hitler may not have followed all of Neitzche, but he almost certainly took the "will to power" idea from him. It also seems to me that Hitler took the "superman" idea - the man who is above morality and can do whatever he wishes to those below him - but I'm less certain of that.

Amezarak 12y ago
> Hitler may not have followed all of Neitzche, but he almost certainly took the "will to power" idea from him. Hitler reinterpreted Nietzsche's will to power, yes. > It also seems to me that Hitler took the "superman" idea - the man who is above morality and can do whatever he wishes to those below him - but I'm less certain of that. The ubermensch is not a moral nihilist who can do whatever he wants, he's the answer to the moral nihilism that is the inevitable consequence of the death of god. This is very hard to reconcile with Nazi ideology which promoted (their version) of Christian Protestantism and genocide for racial reasons, which Nietzsche maligned.
- AnimalMuppet 12y ago
  A bit more research shows that Hitler reinterpreted the "Ubermensch" (superman or above-man) idea as well. > The ubermensch is not a moral nihilist who can do whatever he wants, he's the answer to the moral nihilism that is the inevitable consequence of the death of god. Yes and no. The ubermensch comes into a situation where there is no god, and therefore there is nihilism - there is no moral authority. The ubermensch creates a moral authority. But because there is no god and therefore no external moral authority, there really is nothing constraining the ubermensch to create any particular moral standard. The moral standard created is therefore essentially arbitrary. That is, by his choice of morality, he can proclaim that it is moral to do anything to others. (Now, true, Neitzche said that the morality was supposed to be life-affirming, as opposed to other-world centered moralities that were not. But in a nihilistic context, there are few constraints on what "life affirming" might mean, and in practice it will come to mean anything the ubermensch might wish. Anyone wishing to say otherwise must not be coming from a nihilistic position, which means they must be either pre-death-of-god, or be ubermensch themselves.)