Nietzsche’s Influence on Hitler and the Third Reich

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Frederick Nietzsche created a unique understanding of social order and the place of man in the world. Many of his ideas about superpower and man were borrowed and introduced by Adolph Hitler who transformed them into Nazi ideology. Nietzsche’s all-out assault on the entire Western Judeo-Christian cultural and philosophical tradition is one of the most important issues of the abandonment of the faith in progress through the submission of human reason that had been central to the Enlightenment. This turn away from faith in reason was itself one of the most important markers in the turn from utopian to dystopian thinking as a dominant mode in modern imaginative literature. Many of Nietzsche’s descriptions of the sterility and decadence of his contemporary German society anticipate the descriptions of stagnant would-be utopias often found in dystopian literature. In addition, many of Nietzsche’s specific ideas and concepts bear close affinities with those of the writers of literature.

In his writings, Nietzsche develops the concept of Ubermensch based on the rejection of Christianity and of the “slave morality” that it helped to propagate carries resonances of the oppressive power of official ideologies frequently depicted in dystopian fiction. Meanwhile, the radical individualism that informs all of Nietzsche’s thoughts anticipates the opposition between individual freedom and social obedience that is so important to dystopian literature. As a whole, Nietzsche’s philosophical project represents a radical rejection of both Christianity and classical science, the two central discourses of authority in Western history and two of the principal sources of utopian energies in the West. In his writings, Nietzsche argues that politics and power in fact have a great deal in common. Speaking about Ubermensch, Nietzsche strikes out against the growing mechanization of life brought about by the epistemological imperialism of science, deriding science as a new form of religion, worshipping. Nietzsche’s important meditations on language and truth are also of central relevance to dystopian literature, in which language is often a crucial topic. The political regimes often attempt to manipulate language (and perceptions of reality) in ways that recall Nietzsche’s discussions of politics.

Under Ubermensch, Nietzsche implies a superman and strong political power able to control social life. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche explains:

“All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment” (Nietzsche)

Nietzsche’s treatment of Ubermensch, influential for the historical visions of intellectual descendants like Foucault, offers a number of promising possibilities for productive dialogues with the treatment of history in dystopian literature. In the essay that de Man cites Nietzsche discusses three distinctly different modes of approaching the past, which he identifies as monumental, antiquarian, and critical history. Ubermensch involves a view of the past as determined by the great deeds of mighty men. Antiquarian history involves a reverence for all things past, great or not, purely because of their anteriority. Critical history involves an uncompromising, violent, and antagonistic confrontation with the past. Nietzsche supposes that even in a critical history that rejects a mere continuation of the chain of past events, “it is not possible to wholly free oneself from this chain. If we condemn these aberrations and regard ourselves as free of them, this does not alter the fact that we originate in them” (Nietzsche 76). Nietzsche’s main point is that any one of his three modes of history is ultimately destructive if pursued to the exclusion of all others. He himself emphasizes the critical mode largely because he believes that his own contemporary society is being strangled by an overemphasis on the monumental and antiquarian modes of viewing history. He felt that his presence was thus being overwhelmed by the past, causing the past to become the “gravedigger of the present” (Nietzsche 62). Nietzsche claims that the motto of monumental historians might be “let the dead bury the living” (Nietzsche 44) and that a purely antiquarian history “hinders any firm resolve to attempt something new, thus it paralyzes the man of action” (Nietzsche 76). The solution, according to Nietzsche, is not to turn away from the past, but to put it to use in the service of the present. He describes the ability to appropriate the past in this way as the “plastic power” of an individual or of a culture, where plastic power is defined as “the capacity to develop out of oneself in one’s own way, to transform and incorporate into oneself what is past and foreign” (Nietzsche 77). The paralysis cited by Nietzsche has clear affinities that are often associated in dystopian literature with utopian visions. Ubermensch implies the dynamism and ability of society and community to change that is frequently lacking in the societies described in the literature. Still, Nietzsche’s consistent implication that his own work contains “plastic power” and that his project potentially ushers in a new era of human history suggests a positive and even utopian element in his work, creating a mixture of utopian and dystopian energies that can also be found in the work of recent thinkers (Shirer 71).

The idea of Ubermensch was borrowed and adopted by Hitler in order to create a theory of the Aryan race and super nation. From the mid-1920s Hitler regarded himself as the great leader possessed of messianic vision who would lead Germany to victory or death. Germany’s mission, he believed, was the conquest of living space in the East, at the expense of ‘Judeo-Bolshevik’ Russia. Germany’s ability to achieve this goal depended on overcoming its own decadence by breaking with democracy and purging itself of racial enemies. Living space would in turn provide the resources needed to unite the people in a racially pure Germany.

Similar to Nietzsche’s Ubermensch, Hitler’s Aryan Ubermensch accepts the idea of superman and super nation but applies it to Germany and the Aryan race. In Hitler’s writings, Ubermensch is the Aryan race that should dominate in the world. In themselves these ideas were crude. They were powerful because they issued from the Wagnerian strand in German culture, and derived from 19th-century social politicians, imperialist, and racist ideas which had been dressed up as ‘science’ in certain university faculties and professions, where they informed a host of projects for the engineering of a strong society. Hitler claims:

Without this possibility of using lower human beings, the Aryan would never have been able to take his first steps toward his future culture; just as without the help of various suitable beasts which he knew how to tame, he would not have arrived at technology which is now gradually permitting him to do without these beasts (Hitler)

Hitler’s ideas, including his Jewish obsessions, were not shared by the whole German population, or even by all Nazis. Hitler’s popularity permitted him to implement his radical racial and military schemes. He was certain, too, of the backing of the Nazi hierarchy, linked to him by personal loyalty.

Hitler’s Aryan Ubermensch was based on the sense of national identity. Similar to Nietzsche, Hitler supposes that Aryan identity is always biologically defined. In the early 20th century educated Europeans usually understood race in terms of history and culture. An individual belonged to a nation if she or he inhabited the nation’s historic territory, spoke the national language, or practiced its religion. This racism is less extreme in that it allows for ‘assimilation’ by learning the national language or changing one’s religion. Another complication is that racism has never been the monopoly of the right or extreme right. Racist assumptions, sometimes explicit, sometimes unconscious, have often informed left-wing thought and practice too. The history of left-wing racism lies outside the scope of this book, but it is worth pointing out that left-wing racism differs from fascism in important respects. The left has usually been optimistic about the possibility of assimilation, and it has rarely been believed that racial policy was a panacea for society’s ills. By definition, socialists believe class to be more important than race. The case of Nazism might seem straightforward, were it not for the fact that certain of the approaches deployed by academics have diminished the significance of racism in Nazism (Shirer 65).

Similar to Nietzsche, Hitler rejected other races to accept supernation. For Hitler, the Jews were engaged in a permanent struggle to undermine the Aryan race, especially by promoting cosmopolitan capitalism and communism and encouraging war between ‘healthy’ nations. Hitler also saw prostitution as a means for Jews to corrupt Aryans through the transmission of syphilis. Indeed, all hereditary diseases were said to be spread by Jews. Hence his advocacy of eugenicist solutions to the racial question: selective breeding, sterilization of the unfit, welfare legislation for the sound elements of the population, and encouragement of healthy women to reproduce. Hitler did not speak of extermination, but the language he used to describe Jews – bacilli, leeches, parasites – could, and did legitimate extermination. Antisemitism, eugenicism, anticapitalism, and anticommunism were different aspects of the same policy. Historians have rightly pointed to the fact that during the Nazis’ rise to power, as part of their bid for conservative support, the Jews were only one of several enemies attacked by the Nazis (others included the Poles, Catholics, Communists, and socialists), and that since the Jews were perceived to pose no immediate threat, they were not usually the primary target of Nazis at this time. In Twilight of the Idols. Nietzsche claims:

Our attitude to the “internal enemy” is no different: here too we have spiritualized hostility; here too we have come to appreciate its value. The price of fruitfulness is to be rich in internal opposition; one remains young only as long as the soul does not stretch itself and desire peace (Nietzsche).

This philosophy was adopted by Hitler and could help to explain a negative attitude towards Jews seen as the “internal enemy”. Although the extermination of the Jews was not inevitable at the time of the seizure of power, the Nazis set about implementing their racist designs as soon as they won power. The great credit earned by Hitler as victor over the communists and architects of Germany’s national resurrection permitted him and those who were loyal to him to implement their racist designs. Some of the first measures to follow the passage of the Enabling Act restricted Jewish employment in civil service and professions. In 1935 Jews were forbidden to marry or to have sexual relations with Aryans. Aside from these clearly racial laws and principles, other aspects of legislation and Hitler’s ideas had racial objectives.

In 1935 a certificate of racial fitness was required of all those who wished to marry. Shortly before the war – without any formal legal sanction – there began a program of killing the psychiatrically ill and mentally handicapped. Once the principle that all regulations were racially conditioned was established, subsequent legislation routinely included racial clauses (Shirer 77). All these measures were aspects of a single policy: the creation of a racially pure, physically and mentally healthy population, fit to make war on inferior races and conquer living space in the east (Shirer 87).

Following the ideas of Nietzsche, Hitler stated publicly that the fate of the Jews was to be confined to ghettos. In practice, the hope was that life would become so uncomfortable for Jews that they would emigrate, but the government’s reluctance to let Jews take assets with them, and of foreign governments to accept them, thwarted these hopes. It was followed by state plunder of Jewish wealth. Emigration remained the goal, but ominously the SS was accorded greater power over the Jewish question. Scholars agree that the final radicalization of Nazi policy towards the Jews was precipitated by war in the east. It must be remembered, though, that war against ‘Judeo-Bolshevism’ had long been the Nazis’ goal.

Hitler accepts the idea of cultural superiority and the importance of cultural dominance. Nietzsche claims:

Even a rapid estimate shows that it is not only obvious that German culture is declining but that there is sufficient reason for that. In the end, no one can spend more than he has: that is true of an individual, it is true of a people. If one spends oneself for power, for power politics, for economics, world trade, parliamentarians, and military interests — if one spends in the direction the quantum of understanding, seriousness, will, and self-overcoming which one represents, then it will be lacking for the other direction (Nietzsche).

Hitler claims to be ‘anti-racist’ on the grounds that it favors equal rights for all races. Yet it demands the application of racial principles to immigration and social policy and favors the departure of those considered racially undesirable. The lesson of history is perhaps that the goal of racial homogenization is difficult to realize in practice, requires enormous compulsion and a radical break with democratic values. Even the Nazi regime’s actions had contradictory results. To exterminate the Jews, the Nazis had to mobilize enormous resources and negate everything hitherto considered decent. Even then, they failed to make Germany racially homogeneous. The war machine’s desire for labor dictated the importation of seven million foreign workers and slaves by 1944. Although these laborers were subject to unimaginably harsh treatment, the regime could not prevent loving relations between Germans and foreigners. Paranoia about the effects of racial mixing simply drove the regime to greater, but equally futile, excess.

The Third Reich and the Nazis set themselves up as representatives of ‘the people’ and claimed to express popular opposition to a corrupt and foreign political establishment – potentially a very broad appeal indeed. They were able to channel the resentment of small shopkeepers into attacks on ‘Jewish’ department store owners. They won the support of many workers by incorporating the symbols used by the left – such as red flags modified with swastikas, or the grinning, gluttonous, top-hatted, cigar-smoking capitalist – into a nationalist and anti-Semitic program. They told workers that their enemy was not business, but Jewish business. This nationalist anticapitalism had the advantage of being relatively attractive to many employers, too, for it potentially spared German capitalists the blame for the workers’ plight. The Nazi conception of the nation was influenced by conscious and unconscious ‘biases’. Many Nazis saw Germany as intrinsically Protestant or even pagan, a view that excluded Catholics from their electorate.

These human facts are objective, but they do not stand alone. The structure of nature with which the human body is associated bears the imprint of the same laws. Man must defend himself against the brute, and in doing so he must adopt the weapons of the brute. Hitler explains: “The reason why the Jew decides suddenly to become a ‘German ‘ is obvious. He feels that the power of the princes is slowly tottering and therefore tries at an early time to get a platform beneath his feet” (Hitler). So, for Hitler success of the Aryans is the primary aim of the moral agent, and success means the promotion of the interests of self. There is first an aggressive and concentrated purpose that does not falter before the difficult tasks confronting it. The particular price which most men will be obliged to pay is a state of fear. Fear is a tremendous lever in the pursuit of moral values; it “holds by the apprehension of punishment” (Nietzsche 99). Hitler supposes that the man will build up a reputation for hard and stern dealings. Reputation counts in the long run; it is not what a man really in his heart is, but what he can coerce others into believing that he is, that makes him influential. This is the same as moral goodness. In the course of his progress towards success, it may be essential to concede certain ends, for example, one’s religious beliefs. It does no harm to go with the group in these matters, provided the desired result is accomplished. Intuitionism supposes moral concepts to exist as eternal and immutable truths. This implies that a true idea must exist whether or not the object embodying it does or ever will exist. The crude realism of the previous historical period still keeps a stranglehold over certain types of minds. The fact is that truth grows with experience, and this is proven by the attitude of the social mind towards moral formulas. Men’s conceptions of honor, honesty, veracity, generosity, are fluid, not fixed.

The analysis shows that Hitler accepts the ideas of Nietzsche and transformed them into a new theory of Aryan dominance. Thus, retaliation is defined today in terms both of Christian ethics and of the creed of Nietzsche. Similar to Nietzsche, Hitler supposes that the superman, conscious of his individual superiority, regards his fellows as chattel slaves, mere sheep and oxen who exist for the purpose of promoting his personal interests. Here retaliation can take but one form, condign and inescapable punishment, not only pains of the body but the exacerbating stings of soul. Politics, economics, education, religion, social intercourse, entertain conflicting judgments, moral principles that can be united by no logical issue. The law of the nation was to be converted into the law of social intercourse. The state had said, there is to be no ownership of human bodies; the individual must say, there is to be goodwill in dealing with human creatures inferior in mind and in the social background but equal in rank before the law. Only the broadest maxim, such as sympathy for the disabled, could be summoned to satisfy the terms of the new situation. Obviously, duty is not the mere execution of the law; it is the execution of law in such a way that the true ends of human behavior will be accepted. Hitler assumes that only a person of sovereign intelligence is fit to offer to his equal some word which, while it is a promise in form, is in substance a command upon his own will. The principles developed by Nietzsche permit racists to adapt their racism to whatever purpose they espouse. Earlier in the century, it was customary to evoke the fundamentally different characteristics of Aryans.

Works Cited

Hitler, A. Mein Kampf. 2009.

Nietzsche, F. Twilight of the Idols. 2000.

Nietzsche, F. Basic Writings of Nietzsche (Modern Library Classics). Modern Library; Modern Library edition, 2000.

Nietzsche, F. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 2009.

Shirer, W. L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. Simon & Schuster; 1st Touchstone edition, 2000.

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Nietzsche’s Influence on Hitler and the Third Reich

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