Adolf Hitler And Nietzsche Comparison

The Führer, on the other hand, had a more nebulous relationship with Nietzsche’s writings. While Hitler appropriated Nietzsche’s ideas into his ideology, he never actually read his works personally. There were, however, stories and rumors spread throughout Germany regarding the two. Viennese actress Rosa Albach-Petty, for example, reportedly heard a story from a friend of a young workman named Adolf Hitler who asked to borrow Thus Spoke Zarathustra and another book by Nietzsche, saying, “‘almost solemnly,’” “‘I promise you ma’am, that I will cherish the books like life itself.’” Stories like this, while untrue, served a valuable purpose in Germany. They constructed a connection, albeit a fabricated one, between the Führer and the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who was viewed as a great German man. In reality, Hitler learned of Nietzsche and other philosophers through secondary sources such as newspapers and Elisabeth’s “essential sayings” that were reinterpreted and distorted from their original form. Clearly, not having read works such as Thus Spoke Zarathustra in context, Hitler was able to mold Nietzsche’s words to his will. Even if he did have a better understanding of Nietzsche’s intent behind concepts such as the Übermensch, kraft, and macht, it is unlikely that the Führer would have been bothered by this knowledge. As Stanley Corngold and …show more content…
Joseph Goebbels referenced Nietzsche in speeches, and professor Ernst Bertram characterized him as a “‘legend of a man’” who pursued “‘the Holy Grail of spiritual salvation.’” Language such as this, that depicts Nietzsche as a safeguard of German culture, begins to show hints of his influence on National Socialist conceptions of masculinity. This was also shown when Alfred Rosenberg, the Minister of Culture, gave a talk in October 1944 at the Nietzsche Archives and stated the