[dog breath]

Some think that the Nazis were influenced by doing selective interpretations of German philosophers like Hegel and Nietzsche but that does not seem to be very valid. The case for Darwinism influencing them as in the article is much stronger. Hegel while arguing that the divine light of progress moves from nation to nation was a Christian and Nietzsche while a rationalist actually felt the Germans were improved by having Jewish blood. The Nazis believed in a hierarchy of races with the strongest winning. In addition they also believed that might made right. If there was a spiritual influence it would of been a glorification of Germanic paganism as a tribute to war itself as an agent of change. When it comes to people the way ideas and concepts get all twisted about makes it hard to sometimes say one thing alone was the influence of something. The only borrowing from centuries of Christianity I see in Nazi philosophy was the concept of themselves as a chosen people set apart which was something the common German could understand from their Christian upbringings. Nazism wad a tool for men to take power upon themselves by manipulating everything they could. To dignify it as even aberrant Darwinism is giving it perhaps too much credit.

[Olympiad Fisherman]

Many intellectual German got all caught up in the Nazi movement, including Martin Heidegger, the most important philosopher of the 20th century who still has great influence in the halls of academia today. Fascism emphasizes holism, and so the Nazis adopted all kinds of various historical strands from their past into their ideology. Hitler believed that he was the culminating representative of the Volksgemeinschaft. So some of Hegel’s ideas do indeed come into play for the Nazis even though they rejected his basic philosophy since it was too universal. Yet Hegel gave to the Nazis the cult of the state, and that man progresses through warfare (Darwin took Hegel’s philosophy of history and undergirded it with ‘scientific’ biology). Nietzsche was not a rabid anti-Semite, but he was not a friend of the Jews. Nietzsche hated Christiany far more and emphasized an existential will to power ethic which the Nazis adopted into their ideology. The Nazis also adopted Romanticism and much of Ernst Haeckel’s Social Darwinism. Hitler himself loved Arthur Schopenhauer, the original guru of natural existentialism and environmental ethics. Schopenhauer is very difficult reading, but Hitler could quote him verbatim. The SS itself loved the Aryan cult worship, but Hitler was far more political and secular.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

The British Eugenics Socieity, run by Leonard Darwin (Darwin's son) had a vice president named Alfred Ploetz. Ploetz founded the German Society of Race Hygene and drafted Nazi eugenics policies. The connection is pretty clear.

Here: Inbred Science: Darwinism-Eugenics

“As an agency making for progress, conscious selection must replace the blind forces of natural selection; and men must utilize all the knowledge acquired by studying the process of evolution in the past in order to promote moral and physical progress in the future.The nation which first takes this great work thoroughly in hand will surely not only win in all matters of international competition, but will be given a place of honour in the history of the world.”—Leonard Darwin, Presidential address, First International Eugenics Congress, 1912.