Philosophy in National Socialism

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The research field Philosophy in National Socialism illuminates the role of philosophers in National Socialism . It includes the question of whether “there was a typical Nazi philosophy or just an eclectic hodgepodge of different approaches”.

University professors and students in general

Before the seizure of power only a few philosophy professors joined the NSDAP (these were: Hermann Schwarz , Ernst Bergmann , Carl August Emge , Friedrich Lipsius , Hermann Rudolf Bäcker and Heinrich Hasse ). Before January 30, 1933, the Nazi election appeals were signed by the philosophers Felix Krueger , Alfred Baeumler , Erich Rudolf Jaensch and Erich Rothacker . Politically, there was a tendency towards the German nationalists or the national liberal DVP , whereby differences between the university locations must be taken into account. In contrast, the student body turned to National Socialism at a very early stage and with extraordinary enthusiasm. The NSDStB was already the strongest force in the AStA elections of 1931 . In 1931, 44.6% of all university students opted for National Socialist lists. In 1932 the proportion grew to 49.1%. The turnout was always between 60 and 80%.

At the beginning of the 1930s the universities found themselves in a financial and idealistic crisis: between 1930 and 1932, state funds were cut by more than a third, and on the other hand, the alleged lack of life of the academic world aroused increasing criticism. Furthermore, since the turn of the century the proportion of non-civil servants had increased continuously. In the 1932 summer semester, only 45% of all subjects of 5,000 professors and private lecturers were civil servants.

The number of university professors in philosophy who had qualified as a professor was 180 on the day the National Socialists came to power and between 1933 and 1945 it was 214. Of the 174 university professors who did not emigrate, 45% became members of the NSDAP and 17% members of the SA , and 4 became members the SS (including Hugo Dingler and Hans Lipps ).

Was there a Nazi-specific philosophy?

It is undisputed that before 1933 there were philosophers who were National Socialists, and that after the seizure of power, philosophers joined the NSDAP and supported National Socialism. The question of whether there was a genuine Nazi philosophy is disputed. According to Monika Leske, three basic lines of a National Socialist philosophy can be named:

  1. Activism or voluntarism
  2. Requirement to be realistic
  3. Integrity claim

The Nazi ideology showed a split relationship with the humanities. On the one hand, its representatives rejected academic philosophy as “alien” and contrasted it with a “down-to-earth” and “holistic” way of thinking that was supposed to unite thought and action. On the other hand, an attempt was made to make philosophy responsible for building the National Socialist state.

The security service of the Reichsführer SS recorded ideological assessments of the university professors in the "SD dossiers on philosophy professors", classifying them as denominational , liberal , indifferent , politically positive , explicitly National Socialist philosophers and positive junior staff. In addition to 25 philosophers rated as politically positive from the SS point of view (including Martin Heidegger), 16 more were particularly emphasized - university professors who explicitly created National Socialist philosophy, including Ferdinand Weinhandl , Arnold Gehlen , Heinrich-Josef Nelis and Erwin Metzke , were considered to be Nazi junior staff u. a. Bruno Liebrucks and Theodor Ballauff .

The philosopher and logician Oskar Becker even wrote a "Nordic Metaphysics" (1938) and declared that the rhythm in Nietzsche's Dionysus dithyrambs was identical to the will to power and, specifically in the sense of youth, identical to the marching rhythm of the SA.

With regard to the philosophy of mathematics , the main Nazi line was the so-called German mathematics , which was essentially equated with the intuitionism founded by LEJ Brouwer and mainly represented by Ludwig Bieberbach and Theodor Vahlen . Gustav Doetsch campaigned for a “purely Aryan” German representation in Brouwer's mathematics journal “Compositio Mathematica” . Another interpretation of "German Mathematics" was the direction of mathematician Max Steck , who was part of the thing-related "Gestaltkreis", called mathematical idealism .

emigration

Philosophy was disproportionately affected by the effects of academic “ cleanups ”. Many philosophers, especially leftists and Jews, emigrated . This intellectual bloodletting restricted the intellectual spectrum of German philosophy, a development welcomed by the NSDAP. While there were 56 philosophy professorships at the universities in the Weimar Republic , this number fell to 36 in the Third Reich. The total number of emigrants was 40.

Supportive Philosophers

The thinkers Alfred Baeumler and Ernst Krieck , most frequently named as the philosophers of National Socialism, could not assert themselves against the Nazi ideology under the leadership of Alfred Rosenberg . In Rosenberg's organization " Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur " (or the Nazi cultural community) were Alfred Baeumler (TH Dresden), Otto Friedrich Bollnow (Göttingen), Wilhelm Grebe (Frankfurt / Main), Eugen Herrigel (Erlangen) and Erich Jaensch until 1935 (Marburg), Eugen Kühnemann (Breslau), Richard Oehler (Frankfurt / Main), Hans Rupp (1880–1954, Berlin) and Ferdinand Weinhandl (Kiel). The first philosophical working conference of the Rosenberg office took place in March 1939 at Buderose Castle to explore the philosophy of the young in Rosenberg's sense. Another highlight is Hans Heyse . Heyse became rector of Königsberg in autumn 1933 and editor of the Kant studies in summer 1935 . Against the will of the philosophy faculty there, he was appointed to Göttingen (after the expulsion of the respected full professor, Georg Misch , a student of Dilthey ) and created an academy of sciences for the Nazi Lecturer Association . In 1937 Heyse was head of the German delegation at the 7th International Philosophy Congress in Paris. The völkisch philosophers of the Nazi era (and the Weimar Republic) include in particular the philosophers Max Wundt and Bruno Bauch , who are well-known in the field , as well as the long-time party member Hermann Schwarz . Some famous philosophers were only positive about National Socialism in the initial phase. B. Martin Heidegger , Erich Rothacker and Arnold Gehlen . Gehlen worked in the summer months of 1933 and 1934 on a book on The Philosophy of National Socialism , which, however, did not appear. In Idealism and the Present (1935), Gehlen set himself the task of a “National Socialist philosophy and science theory” (p. 354). By signing the election call for Hitler in the Völkischer Beobachter on July 29, 1932, the philosophers Erich Rothacker, Carl August Emge , Erich Rudolf Jaensch and Ernst Krieck supported National Socialism even before it came to power.

The Martin Heidegger case

→ Heidegger and National Socialism

The most prominent German philosopher who became a supporter of National Socialism was Martin Heidegger . Heidegger was a member of the NSDAP from 1933 to 1945 .

Heidegger's approval of Adolf Hitler's " National Revolution " he publicly expressed for about two years: from 1932 to about 1934. In 1933 he appeared as rector of the University of Freiburg at Nazi events, wore a Nazi party badge , glorified Hitler and announced in November the German students "the complete upheaval of our German existence". In early 1934 he resigned from his position as rector. In a marginal note to his lecture “Die Zeit des Weltbildes” from 1938, which was not presented, Heidegger polemicized against “the laborious manufacture of such absurd products as the National Socialist philosophies are.” According to Otto Pöggeler , it was Friedrich Nietzsche's idea of ​​“great politics “, Which led Heidegger to National Socialism, before Nietzsche then became the medium through which Heidegger criticized National Socialism. A position that was often questioned after the Nazi-influenced Black Issues became known in 2014.

According to Dieter Thomä, the Nazi ideology does not offer a closed, coherent picture, but has an eclectic character. It is a " syndrome " and not a " system ". This is partly reflected in internal struggles for position and power in which Heidegger participated. The resulting differences follow power-political rather than theoretical-systematic questions, which is why "a fixation of National Socialism against which Heidegger's texts can be checked like a litmus test ", says Thomä, is an almost absurd undertaking. Thomä comes to the conclusion that Heidegger, coming from the core of his philosophical work, fit into the Nazi syndrome.

According to Sidonie Kellerer and other authors, it has become clear since 2014 that Heidegger's advocacy for the ideas of National Socialism was by no means only temporary: the Black Booklets - unpublished documents from the time of National Socialism - show how much Heidegger, who in 1939 was relieved of the "earlier [ n] Deception about the essence of National Socialism "and the" necessity of its affirmation "wrote, thought anti-Semitic and National Socialist. In her dissertation in 2013, Kellerer shows how Heidegger brought the insight into his error forward after 1945 and thus deceived his later interpreters. Arpad Sölter (2017) explains Heidegger's commitment to Nastional Socialism from its cultural criticism and alienation, which extends the criticism of the conditio moderna already laid out in his main work "Being and Time" (1927) into a theory of the current age and for serious misperceptions in the field responsible for politics. Rather, Heidegger had "stylized himself as a philosophical advisor to the Führer state, whom he believed he could shape intellectually and possibly tame in a kind of arrogance."

After 1945

Ernst Krieck died in an internment camp in 1947 , Baeumler and Heyse never returned to an academic position. After the “ denazification ”, Rothacker worked for a long time at the University of Bonn . With him were Jurgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel doctorate .

See also

literature

Primary literature

  • Otto Dietrich : The philosophical foundations of National Socialism. A call to arms of the German spirit. Dresden 1935.
  • Hermann Schwarz: National Socialist Weltanschauung. Free contributions to the philosophy of National Socialism from the years 1919–1923. Berlin 1933.
  • Hermann Schwarz: On the philosophical foundation of National Socialism. Berlin 1936.
  • Hermann Schwarz: Basics of a History of Art-German Philosophy. Junker u. Dunnhaupt, Berlin 1937.

Secondary literature

  • W. Bialas, M. Gangl (Ed.): Intellectuals in National Socialism. Frankfurt am Main 2000.
  • Volker Böhnigk: Kant and National Socialism. Some programmatic remarks on National Socialist philosophy. Bonn 2000.
  • Volker Böhnigk: cultural anthropology as race theory. National Socialist cultural philosophy from the perspective of the philosopher Erich Rothacker. Wurzburg 2002.
  • Emmanuel Faye: Heidegger, the introduction of National Socialism into philosophy. Berlin 2009.
  • Emmanuel Faye: Heidegger, le sol, la communauté, la race. Paris 2014.
  • Marion Heinz, Goran Gretic (ed.): Philosophy and Zeitgeist in National Socialism. To the matter of thinking. Würzburg 2006.
  • Manfred Hantke: Geistesdämmerung. The philosophical seminar at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen 1918 - 1945. Dissertation, Tübingen 2015
  • Ilse Korotin: "The best minds of the nation". Philosophy and National Socialism. Vienna 1994.
  • Monika Leske: Philosophers in the "Third Reich". Study on higher education and philosophy in fascist Germany. Berlin 1990.
  • Thomas Laugstien: Philosophy Relationships in German Fascism. Hamburg 1990.
  • Georg Lukács: The Destruction of Reason.
  • Hans J. Sandkühler (Ed.): Philosophy in National Socialism. Meiner-Verlag, 2009.
  • Claudia Schorcht: Philosophy at the Bavarian Universities 1933–1945.
  • Imke Schröder: On the legitimation function of legal philosophy in National Socialism.
  • Arpad Sölter: Mirrors of Evil. Cultural Criticism, Critique of Modernity, and Anti-Semitism in Heidegger's Thought. In: Daniel Pedersen (Ed.): Cosmopolitism, Heidegger, Wagener - Jewish Reflections. Stockholm: Judisk kultur i Sverige / Jewish Culture in Sweden 2017. pp. 125–142.
  • Christian Tilitzki: The German university philosophy: In the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich. 2 volumes. 2001.
Essays
  • Gösta Gantner: The end of the "German philosophy". Caesuras and traces of a new beginning with Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger and Theodor W. Adorno. In: Hans von Braun, Uta Gerhardt, Everhard Holtmann (eds.): The long zero hour. Managed social change in West Germany after 1945. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2007, pp. 175–202.
  • Gereon Wolters: The "Führer" and his thinkers. On the philosophy of the "Third Reich". In: German magazine for philosophy. 47 (1999), pp. 223-251.
  • Hans-Joachim Dahms: Philosophy. In: Frank-Rutger Hausmann (ed.): The role of the humanities in the Third Reich 1933–1945. Munich 2002, pp. 193-228.
  • Ernst Nolte: Philosophy and National Socialism. In: A. Gethmann-Siegert, O. Pöggeler (Ed.): Heidegger and the practical philosophy. Frankfurt am Main 1988.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Joachim Dahms, in: Frank-Rutger Hausmann (Ed.): The role of the humanities in the Third Reich, 1933–1945. Munich 2002, p. 194.
  2. ↑ George Leaman: Heidegger in context: general overview of the Nazi engagement of university philosophers. (= Ideological powers in German fascism. Volume 5). From the American by Rainer Alisch and Thomas Laugstien. Verlag Argument, Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-88619-205-9 , p. 99.
  3. ^ Michael Grüttner: Universities in the National Socialist Dictatorship State of Research . In: Livia Prüll, Frank Hüther, Christian George: Writing University History: Contents - Methods - Case Studies , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2019, p. 92
  4. ^ A b Michael Grüttner : University and Science in the National Socialist Dictatorship. In: Hans Jörg Sandkühler (Ed.): Philosophy in National Socialism. P. 32f.
  5. ↑ George Leaman: Heidegger in context: general overview of the Nazi engagement of university philosophers. (= Ideological powers in German fascism. Volume 5). From the American by Rainer Alisch and Thomas Laugstien. Verlag Argument, Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-88619-205-9 , p. 108.
  6. ↑ Hans Joachim Dahms, in: Frank-Rutger Hausmann (Ed.): The role of the humanities in the Third Reich, 1933–1945. Munich 2002, p. 204.
  7. ↑ Peter Vogt: “These few professors, totally a shame.” Insight and corruption: Was there a genuine National Socialist philosophy? In: FAZ. September 27, 2000.
  8. ↑ cf. Monika Leske: Philosophies in the "Third Reich". Study on higher education and philosophy in fascist Germany. Berlin 1990, p. 117.
  9. ↑ Georg Leaman, Gerd Simon: German philosophers from the point of view of the security service of the Reichsführer SS. In: Year book for sociology history. 1992, pp. 261-292.
  10. ↑ Hans Jörg Sandkühler (Ed.): Philosophy in National Socialism. F. Meiner Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-7873-1937-4 .
  11. ^ Karl Löwith: My life in Germany before and after 1933: A report. Verlag JB Metzler, 2007, ISBN 978-3-476-02181-6 .
  12. ↑ Brouwer himself was judged by Rudolf Hess as "politically reliable". Source: Olli Lehto: Korkeat maailmat. Rolf Nevanlinnan elämä. Otava 2001, ISBN 951-1-17200-X .
  13. ↑ "MATHEMATICIANS AT WAR: POWER STRUGGLES IN NAZI GERMANY'S MATHEMATICAL COMMUNITY: GUSTAV DOETSCH AND WILHELM SÜSS" , VOLKER R. REMMERT. Revue d'histoire des mathématiques. p. 7-59. 1999. Société Mathématique de France . 1999. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
  14. ^ Eckart Menzler-Trott : Logic's Lost Genius: The Life of Gerhard Gentzen. American Mathematical Society, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8218-3550-0 .
  15. ↑ Hans Joachim Dahms, In: Frank-Rutger Hausmann (Ed.): The role of the humanities in the Third Reich, 1933-1945. Munich 2002, p. 202.
  16. ^ Philosophy in the Nazi regime
  17. ↑ Norbert Kapferer : The Nazification of Philosophy at the University of Breslau 1933-1945. LIT Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-8258-5451-5 .
  18. ↑ Hans Joachim Dahms, in: Frank-Rutger Hausmann (Ed.): The role of the humanities in the Third Reich, 1933–1945. Munich 2002, p. 222.
  19. ↑ Hans Joachim Dahms, in: Frank-Rutger Hausmann (Ed.): The role of the humanities in the Third Reich, 1933–1945. Munich 2002, p. 215.
  20. ↑ Thomas Laugstien, Philosophy Relationships in German Fascism , Argument-Verlag 1990, p. 63
  21. ^ Otto Pöggeler: Nietzsche, Hölderlin and Heidegger. In: Peter Kemper (ed.): Martin Heidegger - fascination and fear . Frankfurt am Main / New York 1990, p. 179.
  22. ↑ Dieter Thomä: Heidegger and National Socialism. In: Dieter Thomä (Ed.): Heidegger Handbook. Stuttgart 2003, pp. 146/147.
  23. ↑ See Eggert Blum: Die Heidegger. In: The time . November 29, 2014; Thomas Assheuer : Heidegger's Black Books - The Poisoned Legacy. In: The time. March 21, 2014.
  24. ^ Sidonie Kellerer: Zerrissene Moderne. Descartes with the Neo-Kantians, Husserl and Heidegger. Konstanz University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-3-86253-031-1 , p. 229; (Review by Reiner Wimmer)
  25. ↑ Carl Kraus , Hannes Obermair (ed.): Myths of dictatorships. Art in Fascism and National Socialism - Miti delle dittature. Art nel fascismo e nazionalsocialismo . South Tyrolean State Museum for Cultural and State History Castle Tyrol, Dorf Tirol 2019, ISBN 978-88-95523-16-3 , p. 54 .
  26. ↑ Hans Joachim Dahms, In: Frank-Rutger Hausmann (Ed.): The role of the humanities in the Third Reich, 1933-1945. Munich 2002, p. 227.