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, on DVD, and at YouTube; 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 2025.
* 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
.
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).”
Return to the StephenHicks.org main page.
dear stephen, i am rajesh and i am very much happy to seek a help with you. now i am doing my b.a philosophical study in bangalore. for that i want to submit a thesis. i have chosen a thesis which is comparison of nietzsche’s and aurobindo superman. i have finished first chapter. now i started to write second chapter. when checked the internet i have got your thesis i think that is nietzsche and nazis. it has got good point. so now my valuable request is that can you send that thesis in my email id. thank you.
I will surely read your papers – with respect to whatever you suffered to achieve your PhD degree.
But what do you mean in your title?
Nietzsche and the Nazis – there may never have been an interaction in that direction – the influence is opposit in time – surely. enlighten me, please.
interesting reflections – if a humble comment is in place.
Is “Nietzsche and the Nazis” documentary available for purchase? I do not see it on Netflix any more, and its $75 for a used DVD on Amazon.
It’s listed at $9.99 at Amazon at this page: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000JMJQGS/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all. Thanks for your interest, John.
Why didn’t Nazism happen in the USA ? Are there any writings on this, besides your excellent Youtube lectures?
Thanks. Interesting question, but one I haven’t taken up.
I have never seen such trash and so many false premises as Hicks propagandizes in his Nietzsche and the Nazis DVD. Hicks completely ignores the Cause-and-Effect true definition that Communism was the cause and Nazism the Effect. And then, where Communism should have always been used, Hicks labels it “more politely” as “Liberal Democracy.” Liberal Democracy – democracy always being the front for Communism – was the Cause and Nazism the Effect. To this, Nietzsche and Trotsky (Hitler read both) were subordinate. Communism was/is the left wing and Nazism the right wing on the same Marxist bird of prey. But Nazism wanted a strong Middle Class, whereas Communism wants no Middle Class – and this is why the Middle Class is nearly destroyed in America today. WWII made the world safe for Communism. Striving for no Middle Class, Communism produces a far greater, far heinous, Slave Mentality than Nazism with a strong Middle Class. A strong Middle Class has always been the bulwark of Freedom. Hitler’s SS Occult Bureau and Nazi Occult Bureau, both in Berlin, eliminates Hick’s premise that Hitler spiritually took the best of Christian spiritual values and fused with Nietzschean “values.” Hicks’ “Nietzsche and the Nazis” should be taught in all civics courses as a model of liberal/leftist/naturalistic/Communist propaganda of which the illegal and anti-Constitutional Dept. of Ed aggressively supports. Communism holds to no Absolutes, no afterlife, no good and evil, and is far more Nietzschean on all counts than Nazism. Nietzsche is dead. God lives. Jesus Christ died for the weak and the strong. “Cosmopolitanism” as the DVD depicts it was, in truth, the early socialist-Zionist belief that nationalism is only temporary and must give way to world government. Political and incremental Islam is the proxy for de-stabilizing and de-nationalizing the nations. How utterly ironic Hicks in his Prideful bid to advance the Nietzsche smokescreen, seeks to enslave minds. Illinois is the perfect environment for Hicks.
Part II: The afore mentioned heinous DVD shows Communism murdered 60 million (some say 65 million) and that Hitler murdered 12 million. The Communist murders of 60 million occurred in the 1920s. Has one Hollywood film on this Communist Holocaust been undertaken? No! This figure included 85,000 Christian medical doctors. Do you think for one moment Hitler wasn’t aware of this, as 6 million Communists voted against him in 1932? Communism was the main Cause (not Nietzsche’s philosophy) and Nazism was the Effect. This is true history. Anything else is intellectual dishonesty.
Nietzsche…
The Proto Nazi…
A race of Supermen, don’cha know…
Now they’re all…
Down Below…
Ogden Nash
This is very powerful analysis, and how very relevant it is at the current moment in history. I first saw the documentary on Netflix a few years back. I find myself coming back to these ideas often as everyone is suddenly called a “Nazi” if they don’t reflexively toe a certain party line.
I just finished the audiobook, which was just as insightful as viewing the documentary. The very last lines are terribly haunting: the enemy knows what it stands for; do we?
I’m quite convinced that the “neo-Nazis” and the “AntiFa” are both two sides of the same collectivist coin. I cannot find much daylight between what the Nazis believed (as told in this work) and what these two groups espouse. On the other side are the individualists among us.
When I first watched Nietzsche and the Nazis, the traditional ideological lines of right/left were still in play. Now that the main ideological battle is collectivist vs. individualist, the analysis and recommendations cannot be more important to understand and incorporate. It is imperative that we understand what the Nazis believed in order for us to prevent their return. I believe that return is imminent if not already upon us, but this time they wear black shirts instead of brown.
Thank you, Dr. Hicks, for this very impressive and profoundly important work.
Dear Dr. Hicks,
only now did I find your book „Nietzsche and the Nazis“ and I would like to thank you for your work and your opinion which is very much appreciated.
Being German, I am trying to find answers to this phenomenon that still provokes feelings of shame and the necessity to understand. I have read as much as I could on the history of the Third Reich from the major and renowned historians. That alone did not provide a real answer, so I later on immersed in psychology trying to figure out what major psychologists or psychiatrists had to say about Hitler himself (like Walter Langer for example) and the whole broader range of authors that emphasize on totalitarianism/authoritarianism (i.e. Hannah Arendt etc.) – Nazism, fascism and communism. Later on I added books that talk about evil and destructiveness itself – everything from Fromm to Buber – including the whole works of Carl Gustav Jung trying to figure out what made us go so low. I am roughly your age – so this topic of my people is accompanying my whole adult life and I still have not found the “definitive” answer to all the questions and maybe never will as it is such a complex and multi-faceted topic.
Still am seeking to shed some more light to that dark side and although it was quite interesting to have read the accounts on Hitler’s personality and his analysis in general, it never satisfied me. It was a bit like the old German saying: Der Führer ist an allem schuld, trying to project all the guilt and responsibility to the sorcerer who hypnotized innocent Germans so-to-speak. I was always more interested in the question: What happened BETWEEN the ‘Führer’ and the ‘Volk’? What was their interaction – conscious or unconsciously? Your book was very useful to me in that respect too and it has also helped me clarify some of Nietzsche’s concepts and crystalize some related points with national socialism. It certainly is another important piece in the big mosaic-like puzzle that I am trying to figure out to get the bigger picture with the help of scholars like you.
THANK YOU!
It is a large puzzle, indeed, Petra, and I too am seeking the fuller picture. Happy that my book helped with parts of it. Thanks.
I appreciate this note, Joshua, and I agree entirely with your two-sides-of-the-same-collectivist-coin point.
Surely German history must be considered? The Peasants War resulted in their defeat and about 120,000 being slaughtered afterwards in reprisals in about 1520. This restablishes serfdom when it is in rapid decline in most of W Europe which loss of freedom. The Thiry Years produces mass slaughter in Germany and knocks back development perhaps by 100 years. The invasions by Lousi XIV and Napoleon shows the German people to be weak, divided into 34 countries/states. Germans were denied freedom longer than other countries and traumatised by four major wars from 1520 to 1815 which results in a craving for order and fear of uncertainty. Nietzsche helps to remove Christian pity, charity and compassion, the logic, sense of balance( physical, emotional and mental ) of the Greeks, emotional and physical perspective of the Renaissance , sense of reason and empiricism of post Francis Bacon, Locke, Newton etc, What is left is Nature, red in tooth and claw, Evolution of survival of the fittest combined with pagan power worship which is first harnessed by the Military Prussian Junkers, then Hitler.It was because the German people were divided into so many states which made them easy targets. Unification under Bismarck provided security. Hitler offers an opportunity to wipe out the humiliation of the past, from the Thirty Years War to the conquest by Napoleon.
Rather than consider Nazism and communism as opposite ends of a line , I consider we exist on a sphere. One pole comprises freedom, private property and democracy , the opposite is tyranny and collectivism and this can be Nazism, Communism or Islamic Terrorism. The person who will kill and torture to impose their views on others is perfectly capable of working for a communist, Nazi or Islamic terrorist regime. Fundmentally it is a question of character. In Germany, communists in the 1920s became Nazis in the 1930s and if they ended up in East Germany, communists once again. Others ended up in Egypt and Syria setting up secret police or scientific units, fighting Israel and some converted to Islam.
In any tyranny, intellectuals attracted murderers who enjoyed justifying slaughter for politcal purposes, from the French Revolution onwards. Both lenin and Hitler successfully attracted and used the skills of murderers to terrorise people and impose their will on them.
Even in a democracy, there are criminals who use violence to impose their will on others. I am sure these criminals would be happy to work for any tyranny if they were offered status and a pleasant way of life. Orwell appreciated that for people to sleep peacably in their beds there needs to be rough men standing by ready to do violence on their behalf, which is why we have police officers and prisons.
Nietzsche and the Nazis DVD is not available on Amazon as indicated in previous posted link. Is it available for purchase or rent anywhere?
Looks like it’s out of stock there. An online version is here, if that helps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpjz-wK5lrA.
Why don’t we position nazi as far left instead of far right?. They called themselves socialists and they replicated Soviet policies in softer form toward property.
I agree.
Pingback: Nietzsche: Sheep and Wolves – Sprouts — Free Videos for Schools and Learning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNRBSnZtMRU&t=2666s
What of Nietzsche do we see here?
Hi Stephen, I really enjoy your writing a lot – thank you. Do you have any opinion on the book “The Power Elite and the Secret Nazi Plan”, by Dr. Dennis L. Cuddy, PhD. in History. He has many free articles on the subject at newswithviews.com. He claims the “German General Staff developed a secret plan for the fulfillment of Nazi goals beginning in 2 generations (1990s). High-ranking U.S. government official Sumner Welles described this plan in THE TIME FOR DECISION (1944) as involving gaining “a controlling influence in labor unions, in the banking world, in Chambers of Commerce, and, through these channels, an indirect influence in the press.”” We know from Operation Paperclip, the Rat Lines, etc., that many individual Nazis were not prosecuted at Nuremberg, but aided in their escape and placed in powerful positions outside of Germany. Perhaps their movement was not destroyed either? Cuddy claims the Power Elite in the West were instrumental in bringing the Nazis to power (also the Communists in Russia and China) as a tool for building an eventual world government under the Power Elite’s control. Nazism has occult aspects to it that fit well with occult aspects of the Power Elite, such as the Theosophical Society and the New Age Movement. So, it could be that all the governments in the West are essentially controlled by people sympathetic to Nazism who have enabled Nazism to remain flourishing to this day at the highest levels of influence, and not merely as powerless fringe neo-Nazi populist-type groups.
Hi Ari. I don’t know this book. Thanks for mentioning it.
Hi Stephen,
interesting opinion on the past of my country. It seems to me that you have been there, how else could you be so confident otherwise. You have been reading a lot about Germany and those ugly and devilish Germans. Thanks for informing me about our terrible philosophers and scientists. I was such an ignorant moron, maybe because I have read not only one side but both sides of the story. I am a real idiot.
Btw, Stephen, many of these evil Germans have been killed after the war, so we can be so lucky that these 11 Millions, that were killed after the war, are gone forever. Thank you so much to the allies that they freed us from these 11 Million evil German civilians.
Thanks to the allies for letting die a million, a lot of them still children and teenager, in the Rheinwiesen Lager.
Thanks to the allies for bombing all of our major cities into ashes shortly before the end of war.
Thanks to Bomber Harries for burning down Dresden where almost one million civilians, including many refugees, burned to death.
Thanks to the allies for stealing our patents, books, and all of our intellectual property. That’s more than OK because the US got a golden aera and Bretton Woods designed a fantastic new world order, as we can currently see. That’s so great, thank you.
And very special thanks to the mass rape of women and children in Nemmersdorf. Thanks for cruzifying German women in Nemmersdorf and smashing the skulls of there children. Good that those evil Nazis are finally dead.
I am so glad that the noble allies, that are so liberal and tolerant, and therefore would never do any harm to innocent people, freed us from those evil Nazis. You were so right because every woman and every child was a ugly and evil Nazi monster.
Thank you so much again for occupying us and robbing us from our wealth till today. You are righteous and human people and everything you did to us was justified. Don’t believe those liars who tell you that was done to the Germans were war crimes. Those are nothing more than terrible Nazis, racists, antisemites, and right wingers. Good bless you for destroying my country, I think it’s time to do it again.