Hitler's Philosophers
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
Hitler had a dream to rule the world, not only with the gun but also with his mind. He saw himself as a "philosopher-leader" and astonishingly gained the support of many intellectuals of his time. In this compelling book, Yvonne Sherratt explores Hitler's relationship with philosophers and uncovers cruelty, ambition, violence, and betrayal where least expected—at the heart of Germany's ivory tower.
Sherratt investigates international archives, discovering evidence back to the 1920s of Hitler's vulgarization of noble thinkers of the past, including Kant, Nietzsche, and Darwin. She reveals how philosophers of the 1930s eagerly collaborated to lend the Nazi regime a cloak of respectability: Martin Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, and a host of others. And while these eminent men sanctioned slaughter, Semitic thinkers like Walter Benjamin and opponents like Kurt Huber were hunted down or murdered. Many others, such as Theodor Adorno and Hannah Arendt, were forced to flee as refugees. The book portrays their fates, to be dispersed across the world as the historic edifice of Jewish-German culture was destroyed by Hitler.
Sherratt not only confronts the past; she also tracks down chilling evidence of continuing Nazi sympathy in Western Universities today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Oxford academic Sherratt (Adorno's Positive Dialectic) thoroughly examines the thinkers whose ideas Hitler marshaled to his aid before, during, and after the Holocaust, including German philosophers Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche, as well as those whose opinions he sought desperately to silence (e.g., Jewish theorists Edmund Husserl, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor Adorno) in this captivating narrative critical history. The author argues that reputable scholars like jurist Carl Schmitt and philosopher Martin Heidegger readily lent prestige to Hitler, helping him "make men into minions" and "vilify Jews and deify war." Outfitted with this intellectual ammunition, the F hrer went powerfully forward with his "desecrating vision" and "furious will" to indoctrinate a generation of Germans and murder millions. But of the entire cast of characters, none is more compelling than the unsure Hannah Arendt, whose wavering opinions on Judaism and Zionism resulted in her receiving an "unconsecrated" burial in New York State. Ultimately, Sherratt is right to question the value of "the thoughts of men who are unable to reflect critically upon the most brutal of human regimes," and her sobering account reveals how the "racism, war and tyranny" that culminated in the concentration camps originated in the Ivory Tower, and that brutality ever lurks "beneath the surface of apparent civilization." A brilliantly conceived work of genuine scholarship, this book is fascinating and important.
