Nietzsche reception under National Socialism

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The reception of Nietzsche under National Socialism is an object of research in the history of philosophy. It deals with the question of what influence the work of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had on National Socialism. The Nietzsche archive plays a special role in this .

Institutional Nietzsche reception

In February 1932 Hitler presented Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche with a bouquet of roses in Weimar. Nietzsche's sister later reciprocated by giving Hitler Nietzsche's walking stick. However, Nietzsche was never mentioned in Hitler's public or private speeches, and in this respect National Socialism was limited to symbolic gestures.

In 1934 Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra was laid down in the grave vault of the Tannenberg monument next to Alfred Rosenberg's The Myth of the 20th Century and Hitler's Mein Kampf .

In 1935 Hitler appeared in the Nietzsche Archives for the funeral service for the late Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche.

In 1934 the idea of ​​building a Nietzsche memorial hall came up. Hitler donated RM 50,000 from his private fortune for the project  . The project was particularly supported by Fritz Sauckel . In 1937 construction began on the neighboring property of the Nietzsche Archive, but could not be completed after the outbreak of war. From 1935 to 1941 a total of 557,000 RM was made available, only the Propaganda Ministry and the Reich Ministry of Education expressly refused to support the construction. At Georg Lüttke's request, Mussolini sent a Dionysus statue, which did not arrive until 1944 and could no longer be erected because the Nietzsche Hall was now being used by the Thuringian government and police.

1944 marked the hundredth anniversary of Nietzsche's birthday. Anniversary editions were planned, but were not realized due to adverse circumstances. Rosenberg's address was given at the commemoration hour on October 15, 1944 in Weimar. There were commemorations not only in Weimar. Heinrich Härtle gave a lecture in Wilhelmshaven, Hans Frank in Krakow.

Individual Nietzsche reception

Alfred Baeumler , in particular, endeavored to gain Nietzsche reception . Baeumler concluded his essay on Nietzsche and National Socialism with the words: “And when we call out to these young people: Heil Hitler! - so we greet Friedrich Nietzsche with this call at the same time. ”(Baeumler, in: National Socialist monthly issue, issue 49 April 1934, 5th year)

Hans Joachim Falckenberg took Nietzsche as the author of a new ideal of science: "To be truthful means to recognize that there is nothing that is absolutely valid or unchangeable for everyone, that is, no 'truth' [...] And let's take Nietzsche as the spiritual guide to a new culture, so we may, yes, we must say: German culture is a unity; that means all parts must be German. And thus also science. ”(Falckenberg: Nietzsche and political science . In: Volk im Werden , 2, 1934, p. 457)

Fritz Giese welcomed the “present” as the “true fulfillment” of Nietzsche's philosophy. (Giese: Nietzsche, the fulfillment . Tübingen 1934, p. 2)

Hermann Glockner contradicts in his article "The Philosophy in the Spiritual Movement of the New Germany" (1934) efforts to fix the philosophical discourse in National Socialism on Nietzsche. He does not want to deny the merits of Nietzsche, but Glockner opposes the idea that Nietzsche should be made into "the philosopher of National Socialism". (Glockner, in: Völkische Kultur, February 1934, p. 46) Instead, he advocated making Hegel a Nazi philosopher.

From Martin Heidegger's Nietzsche lectures from 1936 onwards, according to his later self-interpretation and several interpreters, he saw in Nietzsche's work no justification for the ideology of National Socialism and was against a National Socialist appropriation of Nietzsche's philosophy. From 1936 on, Heidegger worked as a member of the scientific committee of the Nietzsche Archive on a new edition of Nietzsche's estate. During this time, he was critical of attempts to exert influence from the Rosenberg office. In 1942 he resigned from his activities at the Nietzsche Archives without any further reason being known.

The war mission of the humanities , started in 1940 , had a positive effect on Nietzsche. The two works published in this project each contained an essay on Nietzsche, in the first volume a contribution by Günther Lutz : Nietzsche , in the second the idea of ​​war in Goethe, Hölderlin, Nietzsche by Kurt Hildebrandt .

Karl Otto Schmidt ranked Nietzsche, who was "more German than the Germans of his time", in the Nazi ancestral gallery. (Schmidt: Liebe Dein Schicksal! Des Übermenschen Morgenröte. Nietzsche and the German Renewal; Pfullingen 1933, p. 8) “The leadership that Nietzsche longed for has now found its political realization in National Socialism and its spiritual realization in the Neugeist . Here are the 'new commanders' and the 'new philosophers' whom he called ”(Schmidt 1933, p. 6). From the love of fate (Nietzsche's Amor fati ), Schmidt derives two imperatives to adapt: ​​“Either match the conditions to you or you to the conditions” (Schmidt 1933, p. 15), “learn to recognize the 'secret order' in everything that happens and to recognize you To align order. If you cannot have what you love, love what you have; love your fate as it is - the greater the abundance of strength and happiness that wells up in your life. ”(Schmidt p. 16) In addition, Schmidt considered Nietzsche and Christianity to be compatible. With Nietzsche he tries to expose the “real” Christianity as a “Christianity of action” that has been falsified by the church. (Schmidt 1933, p. 16)

In contrast to Falckenberg, Heinrich Weinstock and Nietzsche warned against subordinating education to leaders and the state. "Nietzsche fiercely defends himself against the fact that the state has access to education and has to establish the real need for education [...] This Prussian 'subordination of all educational efforts to state purposes', which is responsible for the educationally destructive nonsense of the authorization system, Nietzsche contrasts the ancient state system. [...] Here, sixty years ago, the doctrine of the total state, which, of course, had its healthy and startling meaning in a time when the state was not in power, was seen through as heresy ”(Weinstock 1934, p. 84).

Friedrich Würzbach combined Nietzsche's word about the “good Europeans” with an invitation to reflect on “national peculiarities”: “By now, right now, again reflecting on our national virtues and resolutely trying to eliminate everything that does not belong to us, we are on the way to good Europeanism, to a united Europe ”.

National Socialist Nietzsche critic

As early as 1937, Oscar Levy pointed out that the image of Nietzsche was split under National Socialism. There were critics of Nietzsche who vehemently rejected the philosopher as incompatible with National Socialism.

In Nietzsche today (1935) Hans Goebel turns against Rosenberg, Giese and Baeumler. He wants to prove that Nietzsche cannot be the mastermind of the Nazi state, because for him there was only the good European. Nietzsche is also an enemy of Christianity and German nationality. Where Nietzsche wants the superman, the empire promotes “healthy and strong national comrades”. Nietzsche lacks any positive conception of the state.

Curt von Westernhagen said that Nietzsche was wrongly portrayed as a champion of Nazi ideas, but rather turned the goat into a gardener. Nietzsche is not only not an enemy of the Jews, but the most skillful lawyer they have ever had. (Westernhagen: Nietzsche, Jews, Anti-Jews! Weimar 1937)

Wilhelm Michel , who tries to defend Christianity from the perspective of a Catholic existentialism in Nietzsche in our century (1939), comes to a rejection of Nietzsche's philosophy and all attempts to make him the philosopher of the Third Reich. The moral and religious criticism of Nietzsche identified Michel as Nietzsche's Marxist ideas. (Michel: Nietzsche in our century . Berlin 1939, p. 38)

Martin Löpelmann ( Nietzsche National Socialist? In: NSEn , 2nd year, No. 28 of December 23, 1933 pp. 497f.) Rejected Nietzsche as a National Socialist guide or spiritual hero. He knew how to rave about power and strength because he never had them himself. He chalked Nietzsche hostility to Germany, Jewish-friendly sentiments and opposition to socialism. He had "never had understanding for the workers question."

The philosopher and educator Ernst Krieck explained about the Nazi reception of Nietzsche, quoting an article in the French newspaper Le Temps : “All in all: Nietzsche was an opponent of socialism, an opponent of nationalism and an opponent of racialism. If you disregard these three schools of thought, he might have made an excellent Nazi. "

Simultaneous non-National Socialist Nietzsche reception

Karl Jaspers wrote a Nietzsche monograph in 1936, which he judged retrospectively in the foreword in 1946: “My book wants to be an interpretation that is factually valid regardless of the moment of its creation. But in that moment of 1934 and 1935 the book wanted to call against the National Socialists at the same time the world of thought of those whom they had declared to be their philosopher. ”(Jaspers 1946, foreword) Hermann Zeltner (1937, p. 256) and Gerhard Lehmann, who for the Rosenberg office and Baeumler Institute of political education was working, but praised the book. Horkheimer accused Jaspers of suppressing Nietzsche's statements against anti-Semitism, nationalism and against the Germans. (Horkheimer. In: Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung , Vol. 6, 1937) In the Federal Republic, Walter Kaufmann renewed this accusation. Jaspers provides an “antithesis to Baeumler's Nazi depiction of Nietzsche”, but does not do Nietzsche himself justice. (Kaufmann: Jaspers' relationship with Nietzsche . 1957, p. 419)

Oscar Levy wrote in the 1930s, sometimes under the pseudonym Defensor Fidei , essays on Nietzsche and National Socialism, in which he delimited the philosopher from a National Socialist interpretation. Levy pointedly: "With these views, that is quite certain, Nietzsche would be in a concentration camp or in the misery of emigration today" (Oscar Levy [Defensor Fidei]: A Nazi contra Nietzsche (1937), in: Levy 2005, p . 260)

Harry Graf Kessler used Nietzsche to correct socialist economic and social models, which he also saw widespread in the National Socialist camp. He sums up the Reichstag elections of July 1932 as “three quarters of all German Reichstag voters declared themselves in a secret ballot for 'socialism'” (Kessler: Staat Wirtschaft und Sozialordnung bei Nietzsche . In: Evangelisch-Sozial , 38, 1933 p. 7). Kessler wants to counter this development with the “antidotes of the great lonely aristocrat”: “Nietzsche is coming again! - For fourteen years the masses have been idolized in Germany, whether in the 'Workers and Soldiers' Council', in the 'Red Front' or in the 'Brown Army', makes little difference ”(Kessler 1933, p. 7).

The German-Jewish philosopher Karl Löwith made it clear at the 8th International Philosophy Congress in 1934 that Nietzsche was incompatible with fascist ideology. However, Löwith judged Nietzsche's philosophy after the World War critically, even if he also viewed the use of his writings under National Socialism as abuse: “With an enormous harshness and ruthlessness, which he was never capable of in his personal living conditions, he coined maxims that were then translated into the public consciousness rushed to be practiced for twelve years: the maxim of the dangerous life, the contempt for compassion and the longing for happiness and the determination to a decided nihilism of action, according to which one should also push what falls. " […] “Nietzsche's writings created an intellectual climate in which certain things became possible, and the topicality of their mass circulation during the Third Reich was no mere coincidence. In vain did Nietzsche emphasize that his “will to power” was exclusively a book for thinking; because his idea was the will to power, which he knew would be perfectly understandable to the Germans as a principle. Anyone who speaks the “language of those who rule the world” and knows himself, like Nietzsche, as a European fate cannot avoid taking this fate “into his own hands” to prove that it is him. The attempt to exonerate Nietzsche of his historically effective guilt is therefore just as wrong as the reverse attempt to impose on him every subordinate misuse of his writings. "

Research assessment

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Among Marxists and left-wing liberals , it is Wolfgang Harich , Georg Lukács , SF Oduev and S. Breuer, whom Nietzsche is regarded as a visionary of fascism and one of the people responsible for the rise of National Socialism. Some conservative thinkers such as K. Algermissen, Ernst Barthel (Nietzsche as seducer, 1947), O. Flake, Alfred von Martin and Ernst Sandvoss share this view.

Nietzsche experienced rehabilitation in France and Italy in particular. Deleuze, Guattari, Laruelle, Bataille, Montinari, etc. a. stood up for Nietzsche and saw a falsification by the National Socialists. After 1945, German philosophy struggled with Nietzsche. From the 1980s a new Nietzsche boom began, which made Nietzsche the philosopher who is most widely published about today. Current Nietzsche research in Germany is almost unanimous in assuming that Nietzsche was abused. B. Hans-Martin Gerlach .

literature

Nietzsche reception at the time of National Socialism (selection of monographs)

  • Ernst Gutfreund: The Decline of the Nordic Race or National Socialism in the Light of Nietzsche . Vienna 1932.
  • Heinrich Härtle : Nietzsche and National Socialism Munich 1937.
  • Erich Heintel : Nietzsche's "system" in its basic terms. A principal investigation. Meiner, Leipzig 1939.
  • Kurt Liebmann: Nietzsche's struggle and downfall in Turin. Nietzsche and Mussolini. Leipzig 1934.
  • Richard Oehler : Friedrich Nietzsche and the German future. Leipzig 1935.
  • J. Müller-Rathenow: Nietzsche's longing for the coming leader. Leipzig 1936.
  • Gottlieb Scheuffler: Friedrich Nietzsche in the Third Reich. Erfurt 1933.
  • Friedrich Würzbach: Nietzsche and German fate. Leipzig 1933.

Secondary literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See e.g. B. the letter to Mr. S. Zemach in Jerusalem on March 18, 1968: "Finally I would like to refer to my Nietzsche lecture from 1936 to 1940, which every listener clearly understood as a fundamental critical examination of National Socialism." Petra Jaeger: Epilogue . In: Heidegger: Introduction to Metaphysics . GA 40 . Klostermann, Frankfurt / M. 1983, pp. 231-234, here p. 233.
  2. ↑ Cf. Frank HW Edler: Philosophy, Language and Politics. Heidegger's Attempt to Steal the Language of the Revolution in 1933-34 . In: Social Research , 57, 1990, pp. 197-238. Hannah Arendt even goes so far as to put the "Kehre" Heidegger's " as a concrete autobiographical event precisely between volume I and volume II " of the Nietzsche volumes. See Hannah Arendt: The Life of the Mind. New York 1977/1978, Volume 2 (Willing), p. 172 f.
  3. ^ Marion Heinz, Theodore Kiesel: Heidegger's relationships with the Nietzsche archive in the Third Reich . In: Hermann Schäfer (Ed.): Approaches to Martin Heidegger . Campus, Frankfurt 1996, pp. 103-136
  4. ↑ Zapata Galindo, p. 101.
  5. ↑ Ernst Krieck: The ancestors of National Socialism . In: Ernst Krieck (Ed.): Volk im Werden No. 3, 1935, pp. 182–184, here 183 f., Translation from the article Nietzsche et le troisième Reich [Nietzsche and the Third Reich.] In: Le Temps , France, October 22, 1934, number 26714, p. 6 ; Original version of the quote: “En résumé, Nietzsche fut antisocialiste, antinationaliste et antiraciste. Si l'on fait abstraction de ces trois tendances, il aurait peut-ȇtre pu faire un excellent nazi. »Reproduced in: Manfred Riedel: Nietzsche in Weimar. A German drama . Reclam. Leipzig 2000, p. 131, reproduced below in: Rüdiger Safranski : Nietzsche. Biography of his thinking . Hanser, Munich / Vienna 2000, p. 355.
  6. ^ Karl Löwith: Nietzsche the philosopher of our time . In: All Writings VI: Nietzsche . Stuttgart 1987; first in: Actes du 8e Congrès de Philosophie à Prague , 2-7 September 1934; Prague 1936
  7. ^ Karl Löwith: Collected treatises. On the critique of historical existence, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1960, 130 and 131