Herodotus of Halicarnassus

For some time it has been popular to disparage the works of the infamous German thinker, Friedrich Nietzsche, on the grounds that his thought is dangerous, that it lends itself to totalitarianism and, more specifically, to fascism. The history of Nietzsche's adoption by the forces of National Socialism in Germany has been well documented. Adolf Hitler personally approved of Nietzsche's writings, and upon coming to power he promoted one of Nietzsche's first Nazi disciples, Alfred Baumler, to professor of philosophy in Berlin. During the Nazi period Nietzsche was both widely read and celebrated in Germany. He was considered to be one of the master-thinkers of the Aryan race. After Germany lost the war, Nietzsche's thought fell into disrepute. Martin Heidegger even blamed his involvement in Nazi politics on the influence of Nietzsche. Since that time, however, Nietzsche's work has enjoyed a modest revival. Nevertheless, Nietzsche is still viewed with suspicion in many circles because of a circumstance of history that was beyond his control. Many critics continue to argue that Nietzsche's thinking is at best dangerous or, at worst, downright evil because it leads directly to fascism.

This argument, I contend, is simply untenable given a careful reading of Nietzsche's work. From an examination of his texts, skipping the "approved" Nazi interpretations, one can easily argue that Nietzsche would have certainly opposed his appropriation by National Socialism, particularly its hideous manifestation in Nazi Germany. Here I list but a few of the many arguments that support this view:

1. Nietzsche Distrusted Nationalism

... and especially German nationalism, as he indicates in many places throughout his work. In *Beyond Good & Evil* he describes nationalism as "a plop and relapse into old loves and narrowness" 241. Speaking for "the good Europeans" in *The Gay Science* Nietzsche describes the link between nationalism and Germany while he also expresses his desire to rise above such petty interests:

We are not nearly "German" enough [to be nationalists], in the sense in which the word "German" is constantly being used nowadays, to advocate nationalism and race hatred and to be able to take pleasure in the national scabies of the heart and blood poisoning that now leads the nations of Europe to delimit and barricade themselves against each other as if it were a matter of quarantine. For that we are too openminded, too malicious, too spoiled, also too well informed, too "traveled." GS 377 One must also remember that for Nietzsche the word "German" is distinctly pejorative. Although he was born in Germany, Nietzsche claimed to be descended from Polish aristocracy. His loathing for the Germany of his age is virtually unparalleled. Nationalism, he says, is "desolating the German spirit by making it vain and that is, moreover, petty politics" GS
377. Nazi Germany embodied the nationalism and race hatred that Nietzsche warned against time and again. Nationalism, for Nietzsche, is a sickness that must be overcome.

2. Nietzsche Hated Socialism

... perhaps more than anything else. Some critics have even suggested that much of Nietzsche's work responds directly to the socialist doctrines of Karl Marx who was a contemporary of Nietzsche's and whose work was much more popularly received. Of the socialists Nietzsche says:

How ludicrous I find the socialists, with their nonsensical optimism concerning the "good man," who is waiting to appear from behind the scenes if only one would abolish the old "order" and set all the "natural drives" free. WP 755 Also:

I am opposed to 1. socialism, because it dreams quite naively of "the good, true, and beautiful" and of "equal rights." WP 753 Politically, Nietzsche could be best described as an "aristocratic radical," one who believes in the value of a rigidly stratified social order where the "higher type" rules. He says:

Every enhancement of the type called "man" has so far been the work of an aristocratic society--and it will be so again and again--a society of the type that believes in the long ladder of an order of rank and differences in value between man and man, and that needs slavery in some sense or other. BGE 257 Socialism is anathema to an aristocratic society because it seeks to make everyone equal, whereas Nietzsche argues that social stratification is not only inevitable, but positively beneficial and necessary for the advancement of the species. Nietzsche's writings, then, are a response to the political realities of Europe in the late nineteenth century wherein Nietzsche sees socialism as the wave of the future.

Let us stick to the facts: the people have won--or 'the slaves' or 'the mob' or 'the herd' or whatever you like to call them-- GM 1:9 Socialism, Nietzsche suggests, is a political manifestation of the slave morality that seeks to negate life because "Life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, overpowering of what is alien and weaker; suppression, hardness, imposition of one's own forms, incorporation and at least, at its mildest, exploitation" BGE 258. The socialists want to realize a utopia that Nietzsche says is both unachievable and undesirable. A world in which everyone is peaceful and equal, he says, would produce nothing of value. Everything would be "common." In order for "the good" to show up, there must be some "bad." A world without these values would be a world of "nothingness," of nihilism.

A legal order thought of as sovereign and universal, not as a means in the struggle between power-complexes but as a means of preventing all struggle in general--perhaps after the communistic cliche of Duhring, that every will must consider every other will its equal--would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness.-- GM 1:11 The fact that the socialist perspective is so prevalent, that it has already become dominant, is a source of great weariness for Nietzsche.

The diminution and leveling of European man constitutes our greatest danger, for the sight of him makes us weary. GM 1:11 Besides the leveling and diminution of man promised by socialism, Nietzsche was also aware that socialism gives rise to the most terrible and tyrannical forms of totalitarianism. The very same conditions that will on average lead to the leveling and mediocritization of man--to a useful, industrious, handy, multi-purpose herd animal--are likely in the highest degree to give birth to exceptional human beings of the most dangerous and attractive quality. BGE 242 He continues:

The democratization of Europe is at the same time an involuntary arrangement for the cultivation of tyrants--taking that word in every sense, including the most spiritual. BGE 242 From this perspective it's easy to suggest that Nietzsche would have opposed German national socialism. Nietzsche even predicted that the seemingly "benevolent" socialism of Marx would give rise to the likes of Hitler and Stalin. Nietzsche feared socialism because it weakens the nobility, the "free spirits," and the free-thinkers whose influence is necessary for the advancement of humanity. Socialism strengthens the herd which then becomes a ready instrument, easily bent to the will of a tyrant and a totalitarian regime. From our perspective in the twentieth century we can only admire the clarity of his vision. How right he was!

3. Nietzsche Disliked "Mass" Movements

... and virtually everything related to the masses, the common folk, whom he called "the herd." Nietzsche generally opposed anything on which a great number of people agreed. Perhaps for this reason Ricour describes Nietzsche as a "hermeneute of suspicion." He was fundamentally suspicious of the socialist hysteria that was sweeping through Europe. He distrusted "the masses." He disliked the political philosophy that had already "transvalued values" by making the slaves the masters. German national socialism was a "mass movement" of precisely the type that Nietzsche feared.

Nietzsche, himself, wanted no followers. One of the great assets of the "higher types," the "nobility," is that they have no desire to be "followed." Zarathustra, the great teacher, says, "'This is my way; where is yours?'-- thus I answered those who asked me 'the way.' For the way--that does not exist" (TSZ 3rd part, "On the Spirit of Gravity"). Indeed, the "noble "like Zarathustra are motivated by an excessive individualism, and not by a desire to "lead" the masses. Speaking of "the free spirit" Nietzsche says:

Are these coming philosophers new friends of "truth"? That is probable enough, for all philosophers so far have loved their truths. But they will certainly not be dogmatists. It must offend their pride, also their taste, if their truth is supposed to be truth for everyman--which has so far been the secret wish and hidden meaning of all dogmatic aspirations. "My judgment is my judgment": no one else is easily entitled to it--that is what such a philosopher of the future may perhaps say of himself. BGE 43 He adds:

One must shed the bad taste of wanting to agree with many. "Good" is no longer good when one's neighbor mouths it. And how should there be a "common good"! The term contradicts itself: whatever can be common always has little value. In the end it must be as it always has been: great things remain for the great, abysses for the profound, nuances and shudders for the refined, and in brief, all that is rare for the rare.-- BGE 43 National socialism in Germany, and socialism in general, is noted for its dogmatism. The Nazi regime burned hundreds of thousands of books. It enforced a tenuous national consensus. It advocated a specific set of ideas about which people were generally not allowed to disagree. Dissenters were often severely punished. Nietzsche surely would have railed against this kind of dogmatism as he railed against the dogmatists of his day.

4. National Socialism Springs from Ressentiment

Nietzsche theorizes the concept of "ressentiment" in various places throughout his work. At times he describes it as a spirit of revenge, a drive that festers in the weak who seek vengeance against the strong and the noble. On other occasions it is simply a reactionary state in which "the mass," unable to create values for itself, merely reverses the values of the "higher types." In either case, Nietzsche consistently opposes ressentiment in his work. Nazi Germany, one could argue, was motivated principally by the spirit of ressentiment. Many historians have argued that Germany in the 1920's was ripe for the Nazi revolution because of the severe sanctions leveled on the German people by the allied powers at the end of World War I. Hitler came to power, in part, by feeding on the national resentment that these sanctions created. Hitler's other strategy, playing on German anti-Semitism, also feeds on the ressentement of the people. Nietzsche, undoubtedly, bore little love for the anti-Semites.

"Admit no more Jews! And especially close the doors to the east (and also to Austria)!" thus commands the instinct of a people whose type is still weak and indefinite, so it could easily be blurred or extinguished by a stronger race. The Jews, however, are beyond any doubt the strongest, toughest, and purest race now living in Europe; they know how to prevail even under the worst conditions. BGE 251 Nietzsche even argues that anti-Semitism springs directly from ressentiment:

To the psychologists first of all, presuming they would like to study ressentiment close up for once, I would say: this plant blooms best today among anarchists and anti-Semites--where it has always bloomed, in hidden places, like the violet, though with a different odor. GM 2:11 For Nietzsche, anti-Semitism's odor is distinct--it stinks of ressentiment, as he might argue, did the German Nazi regime. Nietzsche is no friend of national socialism, and though he was appropriated by the Nazis and blamed for Nazi thinking, his works indict the kind of nationalist, socialist, mass-movement that swept through Germany in the early twentieth century.

Alan Taylor the University of Texas at Arlington
1996