Summer 1941
Old Series · Volume 3, No. 3

the nazis purge philosophy

In view of the universal occupation with the threatening military and diplomatic activities of present day Germany, even those whose particular business it is to keep a sharp and expectant eye on the philosophic scene, namely the philosophers, may be pardoned for having failed to follow carefully the feverish activity of the German National-Socialist philosophers. There is the further excuse that Hitler's Mein Kampf and Rosenberg's Der Mythus seemed so extravagant in thought and so unprofessional in method that we American philosophers, who are on the whole a very serious and sober lot, did not really expect any appreciable number of our German colleagues to "rally around" these semi-hysterical leaders and to make so concerted and so extensive an attempt to provide the National-Socialist party with a philosophy. The fact is, however, that literally dozens of philosophers have for the last five or six years been producing numerous volumes, the sole purpose of which seems to have been to provide National Socialism not merely with a philosophy but with an officially acceptable one. In truth, dialectical as well as industrial machinery has been working at top speed in Germany. It is no wonder, therefore, that the product has some of the characteristics of a "Blitz-philosophie."

My attention was first called to the more systematic writings of the leading National-Socialist philosophers by Dutch and Belgian writers and particularly by a long article in a number of a Dutch philosophical journal.(1) It was to be expected that the philosophers of these small countries, living as they do in the threatening shadow of the Imperium Teutonicum, would be particularly alert to the development of such an unfriendly philosophy. From these Netherlands sources, and from others, I have obtained the information and the material on which this article is based. I hasten to acknowledge that in consequence of this limited material at my command, my picture is necessarily incomplete and my comments must necessarily be tentative.

Foreign observers of the contemporary philosophical scene in Germany seem for the most part agreed that there is something unusual and abnormal about the intense activity of the National-Socialist philosophers. The new systems and pseudo-systems are of course to some extent a logical though extreme culmination of certain familiar tendencies in he history of German thought. They also constitute the intellectual counterpart of a violent political and social crisis, as did the writings of the French Encyclopedists. They can also to some extent be explained as a natural manifestation of the fondness and need for system-making, so characteristic of German thinkers. But these explanatory principles hardly account for the "unusual" and the "abnormal" in this or in any other philosophical eruption. It seems clear that the feverish character of the National-Socialist philosophy is largely due to the following causes: 1) the fact that German philosophers to some extent have been and are being subjected to official pressure by the party leaders; 2) the a priori determination to develop a strictly racial and nationalistic philosophy; and 3) the fact that, in consequence, these philosophers know full well that what Germany is thinking, as well as what Germany is doing, is sorely in need of defense.

The assertion that German philosophers have been subjected to official pressure by the party leaders is supported not only by the notorious epidemic of dismissals of professors of philosophy who refused to produce a National-Socialist philosophy on demand and of substitutions of colleagues who would do so, but also by frank and unashamed statements by party leaders and officially accepted philosophers, indicating what was demanded of the thinkers of the new Germany. For example, Otto Dietrich, the editor of the three-volume party "platform," uses a statement from Husserl's letter to the Eight International Congress of Philosophy for this purpose. Husserl had written: "The problem of being requires a radically new restatement."(2) Dietrich employs this to put all German philosophers on notice. Where Husserl so intended it, I can not say. Much more specific and more official is Hitler's statement in Mein Kampf: "The race question is not only the key to world history but also to human culture in general." And clear and unmistakable is the threatening tone of a statement by a Dr. Ruthke in the official party journal, National-sozialistische Monatshefte, March 1938: "Every attempt at (philosophical) interpretation and clarification, which does not wish to experience condemnation and refusal, must proceed from the race concept." Such pronouncements and threats by officials and representatives of an autocratic government are bound to produce feverish activity, even in philosophers, especially when they are accompanied by the determination to practise "elimination of the unworthy heirs" and "selection of the worthy heirs," to use Hitler's own phrases.

Whatever the motives, the development of a pure German philosophy seemed the proper task of the philosophers in the new German state and to this task they applied themselves diligently. first of all, they undertook to "purge" those of their contemporaries who seemed unwilling or unable to accept the fundamental doctrines of National-Socialism and were thus unfitted to participate in the glorious task of providing it with a philosophy. Next they undertook to trace a "pure" German philosophic strain as far back as there were German philosophers, taking care of identify and to read out of the philosophical family those thinkers who, though German, had ignorantly or wilfully introduced non-German, i.e., foreign or "bastard" elements into German philosophy. Finally, they undertook to demonstrate the pre-determined, hopeless, and eternal unfitness of non-German philosophies to express the character of German blood and soil, to identify the unique values inherent in German character, and to comprehend the destiny of the German people to be the Herrenvolk of the western world.

The general scope of the purge is outlined by Ernst Krieck.(3) He insists on the dismissal from the lecture room of the philosophies of the "epigonen," of classical philosophy, of German idealism, of the mechanism of Descartes, Galileo, and Newton, of mechanistic Darwinism, of all dualisms, of rationalism, individualism, universalism, and humanism, o9f the concept of purpose on the biological level, of the traditional notion of reason, and of such sentimental notions as those of goodness, the freedom of man, and the rights of the individual. The new philosophy, says he, will not have its origin at the study desk, as all these did, but in "the political struggle, in association with comrades and fellow fighters."

But what criteria are to be applied in determining what philosophers and philosophies must be purged? The official spokesmen of the new German philosophy seem agreed on three fundamental principles which are to be used as the test of orthodoxy: the dogma of blood and race, that is, racial particularism; the dogma of the pure political existence of the individual; and the dogma of "organisches Denken." The dogma of blood and race asserts that the ultimate world-ground, confusingly called God by many of the writers, particularizes itself in several distinct races, each of which has its own peculiar blood-essence, its own Mythus, and each of which, if it is to live in accordance with natural (i.e., Divine) law, must not allow itself to become mixed with any other race, for such mixing will automatically result in its destruction. The dogma of the purely political existence of the individual is the familiar totalitarian doctrine that, since an individual owes the essence of his being to his racial inheritance, he exists solely as a bearer, that is, as a particular representative of the racial blood-essence, and thus has no duty except to serve the cause of the race. The dogma of "organisches Denken" asserts that the reason is merely the expression of the racial blood-essence. Thought must follow the determinants of the action, that is, the racial instinct and will, for in these the racial soul finds its basic expression. Truth and value are thus pre-determined and dictated by the blood essence; they are discovered but not justified by reason.

In applying these criteria the first concern of the official philosophers seems to have been to identify and label certain outstanding heretics, domestic and foreign, who had previously been looked upon as heroic figures in the history of philosophy; the second, to establish a pure German "philosophic succession," from the time of Meister Eckhardt to the present. In this essay there is time for only a brief discussion of each of these ambitious enterprises.

At one time, Hegel was accepted as a pure German philosopher by the National Socialists, largely because of two doctrines: first, the flattering doctrine that the German state was, to date, the highest expression of the Absolute, and secondly, the comfortable and promising doctrine that any state which was conquered had ipso facto demonstrated that the Absolute had finished with it. However, Rosenberg in his Mythus seems to have given the cue to a reappraisal of Hegel by mentioning him only twice and both times unfavorably.(4) He criticizes Hegel for the following reasons: Hegel advanced a "blutfremde Machtlehre," that is, a theory of the supremacy of the state not founded on superiority of German blood and race, with the result that the Marxist easily transformed his theory into a theory of class rule; secondly, his doctrine of the State as the manifestation of the universal Absolute is contrary to the National-Socialist doctrine that the state is merely a medium for the expression of the racial genius and the realization of the racial destiny; thirdly, because he exp0ressed contempt for the people, whereas the people, at least if they are racially pure, are the primary manifestation of the ultimate world-ground.

Franz Böhm, considered by European observers as the most systematic and one who is likely to become the most influential of National-Socialist philosophers, attacks Hegel on much more fundamental grounds and definitely expunges him from the roll of acceptable German philosophers. In his work, 1938, Böhm points out that Hegel's doctrine of the Absolute implies universal humanism, a doctrine directly opposed to the National-Socialist doctrine of racial particularism.

Moreover, Hegel's doctrine of universal history would have it that the who9le history of philosophy, German as well as non-German, is the development of a single principle of truth, the dialectical unfolding of one universal reason, whereas for National-Socialist philosophy there are as many truths as there are races.

However, Hegelianism is merely the culmination of a tradition, the real founders of which are Aristotle, Thomas, and Descartes, all of them, fortunately, non-Germans. These are the three leading exponents of Western universalism. Of these Descartes is the nearest in point of time and influence, and, particularly because of his influence on German idealism, the arch-enemy of National-Socialist philosophy. Cartesian rationalism, with its basic doctrine of universal reason as the source of knowledge and the judge of truth, is irreconcilable with the fundamental doctrine of the new German philosophy, according to which the only truth for Germans can be truth for Germans alone, since it is pre-determined by German blood and manifested in German instinct, will, and action. Thus Germans can no longer accept Hegel's dialectical pseudo-struggle of the reason to manifest itself but are rather compelled to believe in the real struggle of the German racial soul against foreign racial souls.

The objections of the National-Socialist philosophers to Kant are more varied and less consistent. They range from those of Bergmann, who does not accept the doctrine of race in its extreme form and merely disagrees with Kant on technical points, as any non-Kantian of any race might do(5), to those of Ernst Krieck, whose criticism takes the characteristic official turn. Krieck begins with approval of Kant's doctrine of the active contributing intelligence, modifies this by insisting that reality cooperates with the ego in the experience of knowledge (6), then flatly denies that the forms of the sensibility and the reason are universal and necessary. Man is the measure of all things, he says, but only in the sense that he is a participant in the whole, in the "all," and particularly in the "Gemeinschaft" which he knows and recognizes. The truth of his experience, the right of his existence, and the goodness of his acts rest on this this. Finally, with a suddenness and illogic characteristic of the official philosophers, he insists that the predetermining factors are not referable to universal traits of spirit but only to specific traits determined by blood and race. Hence the following astonishing pronouncement: "There is no truth which would be the same for Germans, Chinese, Hindus, Jews, Negroes, or Indians—not even in mathematics and in the realm of natural law;" the same truth exists only "for members of the same race, for people who live in racial community and under the same destiny." Therefore Kant, also, can not be considered a pure German philosopher and must be thoroughly renovated, if not "purged."

The attacks on Hegel, Descartes, and Kant are examples of the negative phase of the National-Socialist enterprise to establish, historically, a pure German philosophy. The positive phase, the attempt to establish a kind of "apostolic succession" of German philosophers who in the past have truly represented the spirit of German blood and race, has not progressed very far. The general principle of selection seems to be this: given one of the basic "must" doctrines of National Socialism, determine who of the German philosophers of the past have contributed to the development of this doctrine.

There is time here for only two examples. Applying the test of "anti-universalism," the following definitely qualify according to Franz Böhm: Albertus Magnus, Meister Eckhardt, Paracelsus, Bruno, Leibniz, Hamann, Fichte, Schelling, Schleiermacher. Another test applied by this writer is his doctrine of Intensität und Welweite. According to this doctrine the true German philosophy must recognize the principle of polarity, microcosmos and macrocosmos, individual and universe. Concentration on the first will give German philosophy a specially intensive character, concentration on the other a specially extensive character. Using these two requirements as a test, we find that one line of succession, that of intensity, is constituted of Meister Eckhardt, Cusanus, Luther, Leibniz, Kant, Hamann, Fichte, Jacobi and Lagarde; the other, that of extensity, is constituted of Albertus Magnus, Paracelsus, Jakob Boehme, Goethe, Hölderlin, Schelling, Schleiermacher and Nietzsche.

A few remarks in conclusion: It seems clear even from this brief discussion that the characterization of National-Socialist philosophical activity as feverish and abnormal is well justified. The explanation lies no doubt in the fact that the motives of these thinkers are to a large extent not philosophical and that as a consequence the arguments advanced are noticeably ex parte. Possibly students of philosophy should therefore not take these thinkers too seriously. However, it is not safe to take them too lightly, for we must not forget that probably never before in history have the actions of a nation and the doctrines of its philosophers been so completely in agreement. Moreover, no matter what the outcome of the war may be, National-Socialist philosophy will remain to be considered and refuted. Meanwhile, for the present at least, it seems useless to expect a hearing in Germany for the opposition. Göbbels, the German Minister of Propaganda, wrote in his Wesen and Gestalt des Nationalsozialismus of 1935, "National Socialism has simplified the thinking of the German people and has led it back to its primitive forms."

Let us hope the German people, as well as their philosophical leaders, will discover a hidden and unintended meaning in this statement and thus be led to a critical reexamination of their present blatant, hysterical, and brutal nationalism.
 

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