Nietzsche and Nazism

Essay from the year 2005 in the subject Philosophy - Philosophy of the 19th Century, grade: A- (1,7), University of Auckland (Department of Philosophy), course: Lecture, language: English, abstract: ¿Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, daß er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.¿

The German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844 in Röcken bei Lützen near Leibzig. His father was a Lutheran church minister. After his secondary schooling he went to the University of Bonn to study Theology and Philosophy. But he was not really interested in these subjects so he changed to Philology. Nietzsche was also very interested in music. In his early years he read the German romantic writer Friedrich Hölderlin and later on Schopenhauer. Friedrich Nietzsche began very early with his writings, mostly commentaries about ancient Greek philosophers. In January 1971 he started with one of his own big works, Geburt der Tragödie. Untill his physical collapse, Nietzsche wrote a lot of books and gave us a huge body of philosophical work. In his writings he proclaimed the death of god and a new kind of human super being; he wanted to establish a new moral understanding without a Christian background. When we read his books we often hear about Übermensch, Wille zur Macht und Umstürzung aller Werte. Hitler used these and other early writings about Jewish people to justify his ideology and his genocide. We do not know if Hitler ever read Nietzsche but there is a similarity between his writings and the writings of Nietzsche. Nazi philosophers and anti-Nazi philosophers have argued over Nietzsche. Who was right? Throughout history a lot of people have wanted to establish whether Nietzsche can be blamed for Nazism or not.