Was it Nietzsche's fault that the Holocaust happened?
Asked by
gmac1994 (
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December 11th, 2012
Hitler was apparently a fan of Nietzsche’s work and was influenced by him…what do you think?
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13 Answers
I don’t think so.
Was it the Beatle’s fault the Manson Family killed Sharon Tate and the LaBianca family?
Welcome to Fluther.
To answer your question: No. I don’t think you can blame the Inquisition on Jesus, either.
No.
Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon and then sat down to read The Catcher in the Rye, but nobody blamed J. D. Salinger.
No. The anti-Semitic drivel in Will to Power (the manuscript Hitler was obsessed with) was planted in there by Nietzsche’s sister while she cared for him as he lay dying of syphilis. She was a crazy lady who lived in a Nazi commune in Brazil for a while. Unfortunately, this vandalism rendered the Will difficult to use in a productive philosophical way, because there is disagreement on how to parse the text even after her nastiness got subtracted – Nietzsche hadn’t really put it together; it was just a bunch of notes.
Regardless of the above, Nietzsche’s ideas certainly could have helped Hitler solidify whatever insane justifications he used. But that’s neither here nor there – as the other posters state, artists should not be held responsible for their audience’s interpretations of their work.
To add @wildpotato‘s answer, Nietzsche was entirely against nationalism and his friendship with Wagner (Hitler’s favorite composer) fell apart
From what I read it was the USA fault. Hitler had visited the South and seen how shabby the African Americans were treated and no one, not even our own government intervened enough to put a stop to that foolishness. It gave him the idea that if you can get a body of people seen as pariahs and useless animals, you can do to them as you please and no one will make much of an effort to come to their rescue.
^^^ Um, No. Pure fantasy.
Hitler never visited the US.
I think it’s a little late to try to figure out Hitler’s motives. We have the information we have. I don’t think we can blame anyone else for Hitler. Hitler was his own person. He chose to do what he did on his own. He was not forced into it. This is not a situation we can prevent by preventing other individuals.
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