National Socialist ideologue Ernst Krieck had little patience for the claim that Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy was a forerunner of National Socialist politics.
Frequently Nietzsche came up positively in Nazi speeches and writings. But Krieck scoffed:
“All in all, Nietzsche was an opponent of socialism, an opponent of nationalism, and an opponent of racial thinking. Apart from these bents of mind, he might have made an outstanding Nazi.”[1]
Well said, Ernst! Très amusant!
Yet there is the puzzle still of why so many smart Nazi theoreticians and political activists saw themselves as followers of Nietzsche.
My view is a split decision: In Nietzsche and the Nazis I argue that in many important respects the Nazis and the Nietzsche are opposed — but in several equally important respects the Nazis were Nietzschean.
Source:
[1] Quoted in Max Whyte, “The Uses and Abuses of Nietzsche in the Third Reich: Alfred Baeumler’s ‘Heroic Realism.’” Journal of Contemporary History 43(2) (2008), p. 188. Thanks to R. Kevin Hill for the pointer.