In Hitler’s Philosophers, researcher Yvonne Sherratt attempts to “tell the story of how philosophy became implicated in genocide.” She provides a summary of the backgrounds and perspectives of some of the major (and minor) philosophers who contributed to the development of Hitler’s toxic weltanschauung.  

Sherratt’s opening section, titled “Hitler: The Bartender of Genius,” surveys the philosophical influences supposedly underpinning Hitler’s world view. The “bartender” of the chapter title refers to Hitler’s propensity for mixing and matching the opinions of a variety of thinkers to produce the desired philosophical “cocktail.” The second section, “Poisoned Chalice,” provides capsule summaries of each philosopher’s background followed by a précis of his or her major ideas, and explains how Hitler incorporated some of these into his attitude toward political, social and racial questions as expressed in, for example, public pronouncements or “table talk” recorded by sycophants like Martin Bormann. 

The inclusion of Walter Benjamin, Theodore Adorno, Hannah Arendt and Kurt Huber — the last of whom was executed by the Nazis — in a book titled Hitler’s Philosophers is simply baffling. All of these thinkers opposed the regime and were therefore in no sense “Hitler’s philosophers.” Interesting as their stories are, the consideration of these individuals adds nothing to an explanation of how “philosophy became implicated in genocide.”   

Among the book’s virtues, Sherratt presents plenty of evidence that odious racial prejudice — the core of Nazi ideology — was not merely the province of mediocre hacks like the reptilian Alfred Rosenberg, Hitler’s “expert” on race issues and a leading National Socialist “philosopher.” From the perspective of sheer philosophical heft, the two most outstanding among the plethora of thinkers considered here as influences on Hitler are Kant and Nietzsche. There is no dispute that Hitler read widely in works by both philosophers. 

Nietzsche’s “somewhat ambivalent attitude toward the Jews” (easily construed as anti-Semitic), advocacy of the Übermensch, titanic creative struggle and worship of the artist as ideal made Nietzsche a natural foundational choice for Nazism. As for Kant, consider the following comment: 

“The Palestinians [Jews] who live among us owe their not undeserved reputation for cheating (at least the majority of them) to their spirit of usury which has possessed them ever since their exile. Certainly it seems strange to conceive of a nation of cheats. …”

That one of the towering intellects of Western philosophy, a man of staggering erudition and deeply humane temperament, could write such words reminds us of the easy way prejudice can color the thoughts of even the best minds. 

Another virtue of the book is Sherratt’s treatment of Heidegger. For years, the latter’s defenders attempted to whitewash his chummy relationship with the Nazi elite, going so far as to claim that this man, who was an immensely intelligent and subtle thinker, did not fully understand Nazism. Sherratt is refreshingly unequivocal: Heidegger was a collaborator and a Nazi (he joined the party early and enthusiastically). Sherratt details with painful clarity the philosopher’s  betrayal of his early mentor and champion, Edmund Husserl, and the way in which he was always careful, while using Hannah Arendt as a sexual outlet, to maintain outward respectability and a decorous home life. 

Sherratt’s book raises several issues that should be considered by prospective readers. 

First, Hitler was certainly influenced by a variety of philosophers. The degree to which Hitler’s ideas reflected an accurate assimilation of complex philosophical arguments is less clear. Hitler, like Stalin, was a voracious reader; unlike Stalin, he was not a very careful one. Hitler had a habit of skimming difficult texts and larding his speeches with partially digested concepts, nostrums worshipfully absorbed by the Nazi faithful. Therefore, the suggestion that “philosophy” is or could be implicated in genocide is problematic; certain concepts unequivocally were.

Additionally, there is a difference between a philosopher and someone who merely puts forward a set of ideas. Not all the “thinkers” — I use the term advisedly — surveyed here, such as Wagner and Darwin, for example, can really be called philosophers, certainly not in the Platonic sense. 

Finally, Sherratt tells us that the book was written as a “docudrama … in a narrative style which aims to transport the reader to the vivid and dangerous world of 1930s Germany.” I was concerned when I read those words; I had reason to be. Descriptions of serious ideas are sandwiched between irrelevancies — as one of many examples, an extended and somewhat poetic evocation of Darwin’s childhood home — that can at times be jarring. 

More seriously, there are slips that no editor — certainly not one from Yale University Press —should have let pass. In a description of Walter Benjamin we are told he has a “slightly Jewish profile.” This observation is, frankly, appalling. What constitutes a Jewish profile? I suppose Alfred Rosenberg could explain. Sherratt also tells us what is going on in Benjamin’s mind: “From the secrecy of his interior the man was trying not to dwell on his own family. …”

I leave the reader to contemplate the viability of this approach even in a “docudrama.” 

All this said, Sherratt has done us a great service in bringing together between two covers a substantial amount of interesting material on Hitler’s reading and the life history and ideas of many of the philosophers who may have had an impact on Hitler’s thinking. 

Robert Swan teaches history and philosophy in the International Baccalaureate program at a high school in the Washington area.

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