A Personal View by Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

Ockham’s Razor Publishing, 2006, 2010.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is famous for his statement that “God is dead” — and for the fact that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis claimed Nietzsche as one of their great inspirations.

* Were the Nazis right to do so — or did they misappropriate Nietzsche’s philosophy?

* What were the key elements of Hitler and the National Socialists’ political philosophy?

* How did the Nazis come to power in a nation as educated and civilized as Germany?

* What was Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy — the philosophy of “Live dangerously” and “That which does not kill us makes us stronger”?

* And to what extent did Nietzsche’s philosophy provide a foundation for the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis?

Editions

* Hardcover book version published August 2010.

* Kindle version at Amazon published 2011.

* Audiobook edition published 2013. MP3 and YouTube links below.

* 2:45-hour documentary at Netflix and on DVD at Amazon; published 2006.

* Polish translation by Izabela Kłodzińska (Chojnice, Poland: Fundacji Fuhrmanna, 2014). Preface in English. Przemysław Zientkowski’s foreword.

* Persian translation by Mohsen Mahmoudi (Tehran, Iran: Bourgeois Publishing, 2015).

* Russian translation (Mariupol, Ukraine: Mariupol State University Press, 2016).

* Spanish translation by Luis Kofman (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Babarroja Ediciones, 2016.)

* Second Polish edition (Gdańsk, Poland: Museum of World War II, 2019). Translated by Izabela Kłodzińska. Introductions by Dr. Karol Nawroki and Dr. Marek Szymaniak. Summary by Dr. Piotr Kostylo.

* Portuguese translation forthcoming in 2020.

* Samples of the manuscript are below in PDF format.

Table of Contents [PDF]

Part 1. Introduction: Philosophy and History [PDF] [MP3] [YouTube]

1. Fascinated by history

2. What is philosophy of history?

.

Part 2. Explaining Nazism Philosophically [PDF] [MP3] [YouTube]

3. How could Nazism happen?

4. Five weak explanations for National Socialism

5. Explaining Nazism philosophically

Part 3. National Socialist Philosophy [MP3] [YouTube]

6. The Nazi Party Program

7. Collectivism, not individualism

8. Economic socialism, not capitalism

9. Nationalism, not internationalism or cosmopolitanism

10. Authoritarianism, not liberal democracy

11. Idealism, not politics as usual

12. Nazi democratic success

Part 4. The Nazis in Power [MP3] [YouTube]

13. Political controls

14. Education [PDF]

15. Censorship

16. Eugenics

17. Economic controls

18. Militarization

19. The Holocaust

20. The question of Nazism’s philosophical roots

Part 5. Nietzsche’s Life and Influence [MP3] [YouTube]



21. Who was Friedrich Nietzsche? [PDF]

22. God is dead

23. Nihilism’s symptoms

24. Masters and slaves

25. The origin of slave morality

26. The Overman

Part 6. Nietzsche against the Nazis [MP3] [YouTube]

27. Five differences

28. On the “blond beast” and racism

29. On contemporary Germans

30. On anti-Semitism

31. On the Jews

32. On Judaism and Christianity

33. Summary of the five differences

Part 7. Nietzsche as a Proto-Nazi [MP3] [YouTube]

34. Anti-individualism and collectivism

35. Conflict of groups

36. Instinct, passion, and anti-reason

37. Conquest and war

38. Authoritarianism

39. Summary of the five similarities

Part 8. Conclusion: Nazi and Anti-Nazi Philosophies [MP3] [YouTube]

40. Hindsight and future resolve

41. Principled anti-Nazism

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Part 9. Appendices

42. Appendix 1: NSDAP Party Program [PDF]

43. Appendix 2: Quotations on Nazi socialism and fascism [PDF]

44. Appendix 3: Quotations on German anti-Semitism [PDF]

45. Appendix 4: Quotations on German militarism [PDF]

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

.

Supplemental:

Covers of the various editions and translations (at right).

Reviews: Tibor Machan, Ph.D. Piotr Kostyło, Ph.D. Lorenzo Warby. Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. Dan Schneider. James Henderson. Mike Lumish, Ph.D. Magdalena Wędzińska.

Nietzsche and the Nazis — documentary screenshots.

The brochure with the full table of contents [PDF].

The first several minutes of the documentary are posted at YouTube:

On a lighter note: Ricky Gervais’s “Politics (Hitler interprets Nietzsche).”

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