From another Forum:Or, Nietzsche as WN hero
There has been much said about the relationship between the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the Nazis. Some scholars, such as Walter Kaufmann and Robert Solomon, have argued that Nietzsche would have abhorred the policies of Hitler and that the two were diametrically opposed. Others, such Abir Taha and Anthony M. Ludovici, have maintained that Nietzsche would have had great respect and admiration for how the Nazis had transformed Germany and for what they were attempting to do to the world. So not everyone admits that Nietzsche would have agreed with Hitler. All are on agreement, however, on the fact that the philosophy of Hitler and the Nazi Party were in some way influenced by Nietzsche. To determine who is correct in the matter of what Nietzsche would have thought of the Nazis, it would be best to have an understanding of the life and general philosophy of Nietzsche, then compare his philosophy to that of the Nazis and determined why they used his philosophy. From this, we can interpret his philosophy in a White Nationalist and/or National Socialist light and determine what relevance Nietzsche’s philosophy has to us today, because while I think the relationship between Nietzsche and National Socialist Germany is very interesting, I think that his relevance to our own time and people is even more interesting.
Nietzsche got his start as a philologist, or an expert on Classical literature and civilization. Because of this, at an early age he developed a deep respect and reverence for Greece (especially Sparta) and Rome, which he considered the greatest civilization that ever existed. At an early age Nietzsche read the works of Arthur Shopenhauer, and this would later have tremendous effect on his thought. It was while he was a professor at Basel University that Nietzsche became acquainted with composer Richard Wagner, who’s operas he attended multiple times and who he spent many evenings with in discussion. Eventually, Nietzsche became fed up with the snobbish intellectualism of his fellow philologists and he abandoned philology for philosophy. He wrote many great philosophical works, culminating in what is considered his greatest work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. However, increasing health problems caused him to have a mental breakdown of sorts and he spent the last days of his life under the care of his sister, Elizabeth. Nietzsche died in 1900.
Nietzsche’s philosophy has been difficult to classify mainly due to the fact that his magnum opus was only partially complete when he had his breakdown. Much of his writings are rather disorganized and appear in the form of loosely-connected aphorisms. However, there are some key points that appear again and again in his works and which form a framework for his ideas.
1.) The Will to Power – As I have already said, Nietzsche was initially a great admirer of Arthur Shopenhauer, who’s philosophy held that man’s basic motivation is will to life. This will, he said, is a creative and destructive force in the Universe just as gravity is. However, Nietzsche felt that this was not enough. He recognized that even dogs and birds have this same will to life. Nietzshce said that the fundamental motivating force when it comes to human affairs is Will to Power. To Nietzsche, every decision and action in Man’s life is done out of a desire for power, in whatever form that may come. In this sense, every human is fundamentally self-interested. Even acts of altruism are done out of a desire for recognition by a community, for a reward in the after-life, or for the preservation of one’s species, race, or family. This explains why some people are willing to put their own lives at risk in some situations (surpassing the will to life). The Will to Power extends beyond individuals and applies to racial groups as well; every race desires to have more territory, resources, and control over others. It is only through following this natural Will to Power that a person or race can progress. It is when the Will to Power is abandoned that things go wrong. If an individual chooses to only care about survival, living a pathetic existence of base comfort alone, simply working to live, then that person, to Nietzsche, fails as a human being. He is useless and contributes nothing beyond what keeps him alive, not caring to advance or progress in life. Similarly, if a race loses its identity, or falls into submission to an inherently weaker race out of laziness, or abandons its positions of power, then that race is failing, and can only succeed by regaining its identity and asserting its power. But Nietzsche does say that this Will to Power appears in different degrees in different places. Certain people exemplify the Will to Power better than others, though everyone expresses it in some way, which brings us to Masters and Slaves.
2.) Masters and Slaves – Nietzsche was convinced that every individual, tribe, racial group, and species can be assigned to either one of two classes: masters or slaves. Each class develops its own system of morality, so that we have Master moralities and Slave moralities. Masters are naturally assertive, dominating, creative, proud, strong, brave, and noble. Their morality glorifies ambition, mastery, conquest and triumph. To the Masters, that which increases power is good, while that which decreases power is bad. The Masters, according to Nietzsche, are best represented as a group by the ancient Romans. Slaves, on the other hand, are submissive, cowardly, weak, self-loathing, and pathetic. Their morality glorifies meekness, servitude, compassion towards those less fortunate, and self-sacrifice. The Slaves are best represented, in Nietzsche’s own words, by the Jews. Each class follows its own morality because it is best suited to their survival and progress and ultimately the Will to Power governs them. In the Masters this is obvious, but in the Slaves this is less apparent. By creating a mythology in which compassion towards others, self-sacrifice, denial of material and worldly pleasures, and submission to those above you (whether worldly or spiritual) will be rewarded by a perfect after-life, the slaves are able to justify suffering and stagnation in “this” life. Similarly, anyone who is selfish, dominating, prideful, or given to worldly pleasures is wicked and will suffer an eternity in a place of torment after death. In this way, the Slaves are practicing their Will to Power by the assurance that in the after-life things will be better for them than for the Masters, who exemplify the things the Slaves condemn. Their own Will to Power is expressed as a resentment of the Masters. (This was all, of course, Nietzsche’s explanation of Judaism). But then the question arises, how is it that Christianity (which Nietzsche, rightly or wrongly, said was a system of slave-morality in the same line as Judaism) came to have so much power and influence and eventually enveloped the Roman state and Western Civilization? Nietzsche implied in his writing that Christianity was a creation of the Jews with the purpose of rotting and destroying the Roman state, to make the Romans slaves to the Jews and flip the sides of the struggle. Judaism says that the Jews are the “chosen people” of God and involves the already-mentioned moral system. Mainstream Christianity maintains both of these ideas, but is a sort of import of Judaism for non-Jews and serves as a means of control by the Jews upon non-Jews. As long as the Romans (or any other non-Jewish people) subscribe to the Jews’ created Christianity, they will not harm the Jews and will, in fact, revere and praise them. This not only removes the shackles from the Jewish people, it makes any future threat to the Jews be perceived as a total sin and disgrace. Any crime against Jews (hint hint) becomes the utmost evil and is lauded as such to future generations. Thus was spawned, to Nietzsche, what we today call the Zionist Conspiracy or Agenda. However, Nietzsche said that things go wrong when the Slaves occupy the natural position of the Masters or where the Masters have adopted the morality of the Slaves. Stagnation, degeneracy, and ultimately failure ensue.
(Note: I am NOT necessarily saying that Nietzsche was all correct here. I know there are some ideas that the White Race are the real Hebrews of the Bible and that the Jews stole what we call Judaism from them, that the Jews hate Christianity and that they killed Jesus, etc. I have heard all of this many times before, so there is no need to repeat it here. This is simply what Nietzsche thought and it is possible to see how the Nazi Party was influenced by this)
3.) God is Dead – Contrary to popular opinion, Nietzsche’s famous proclamation that God is Dead is not an appraisal of atheism. What Nietzsche was saying with this scathing statement was that to most modern people, the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and personal daddy-figure in the sky had become impossible to believe due to discoveries in science and experiences in everyday life. This was, until the advent of the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, the popular idea of God, but it was simply no longer acceptable. Nietzsche said WE had killed Him. What Nietzche was primarily concerned with here was the effect that this had on society and culture. Specifically, with the ‘Death of God’ came a sudden lack of meaning or purpose in life to most people. Religion had supplied this meaning, but now religion was gone. Humans were no longer the special creation of a divine being but were a chemical accident in a random and chaotic universe. Admittedly, Nietzsche did not deny these claims of science, though he maintained that the fact that there is no personal God did not mean that life had to be meaningless. Nietzsche said that something was needed to fill this void of meaning, something to motivate people to continue the struggle of life and progress. Thus was born the idea of the Ubermensch.
4.) The Ubermensch – The Ubermensch (or Overman, Superman) is Nietzsche’s answer to the void of meaning. This concept has been debated heavily, and there is no clear answer to exactly what Nietzsche meant by it (if only he had finished his last book!). Therefore, I will present my own interpretation of the Ubermensch from my White Nationalist / National Socialist perspective and from my readings of Nietzsche. The Ubermensch is the perfect representation of the Master on Earth. Man is to the Ubermensch as an ape is to Man. To Nietzsche’s own mythology, the Ubermensch is the very “meaning of the Earth”, and all of the energy and efforts of Man should be put toward this goal. The progress of each generation is measured by how much closer that generation comes to the Ubermensch, and thus eugenics, selective breeding, and other methods of cleansing will be necessary to attain this goal. To Nietzsche, this gives meaning to life again because it is totally in line with nature. It is the ultimate expression of the Will to Power, the desire to create the elite and few Race of Masters, or Master Race. There have been some who have said that Nietzsche meant a single Ubermensch, not a race of Ubermenschen. Honestly, it is hard to tell which is right from Nietzsche’s unedited writings.
There are several other prominent ideas within Nieitzsche’s philosophy, such as the relativity of morality, the epistemological idea of perspectivism, and the metaphysical idea of eternal recurrence, but I do not want to make the explanation of Nietzsche’s philosophy any longer than it already is. If anyone would like me to give my interpretation of these other concepts in a White Nationalist light, I would be happy to. For now, I move on to the relevance of Nietzsche’s philosophy to the National Socialism of Germany (as if it is not obvious already).
In order to fully understand this relationship, it is necessary to fully understand National Socialism. The textbooks would have us think that Nazism was simply a racist popular political movement, with no esoteric elements. The reality, however, is that there were two versions, if you will, of Nazism: exoteric and esoteric. The exoteric side was that viewed by the public and expressed in the rallies, speeches, and the Feurer’s masterpiece, Mein Kampf. The esoteric side was reserved to a few elite, specifically the tops of the SS and Hitler’s inner circle. On the exoteric view, Nazism was about material things; making better working and living conditions for Germans, expanding Germany’s territory, and eradicating the repugnant Jewish threat. On the esoteric view, Nazism was about (for lack of a better word) spiritual things; the re-creation of the perfect Aryan race on Earth, a back-to-the-earth revival of Germanic paganism, and cleansing Humanity of weakness in order to get it back on its natural path. Both sides, I feel, must be considered in a proper understanding of National Socialism. This explains why Hitler referenced Christian ideas in his public speeches and writings and condemned Christianity in his private life. He was not stupid. He realized that the vast majority of Germans were Christian and not ready for the Esoteric, non-Christian side of his philosophy.
It should be clear that Nietzsche had much influence on the esoteric side of National Socialism. The Will to Power and Nietzsche’s explanation of the Jews through the Master-Slave concept provide justification for National Socialism’s actions. There was nothing wrong about what they did. They were simply following the Will to Power to its logical conclusion. Particularly, the idea of the Aryan Master Race is virtually identical to Nietzsche’s idea of the Ubermensch. The use of selective breeding of Aryan stock and sterilization and extermination of non-Aryan individuals was a measure to bring nature back into human life; a re-institution of survival of the fittest after 2000 years of “equality”, “compassion”, and “pity” had left the Aryan race corrupted, suppressed, and nearly extinct and had allowed inferior individuals to survive and reproduce when they should have died. National Socialism wanted to give human civilization the necessary push back into what is according to Nietzsche the natural state, where the strong survive and the weak perish and the Will to Power rules all. By the destiny of nature, The Aryans are to be the Master-Race, the Ubermenschen, while the other, inferior races are to be the slaves, or Untermenschen. This is the Nietzschean-Nazi idea.
It is impossible to deny that Nietzsche influenced the Nazis. Hitler had a bust of Nietzsche in his private study and personally attended the funeral of Nietzsche’s sister, Elizabeth, after he had become Feurer. A large number of the SS carried copies of Thus Spoke Zarathustra to battle with them along with Mein Kampf. Above all, the esoteric, “big scale” ideas of the Nazis directly mirror the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Some have said that Nietzsche actually hated Germany, politics, and nationalism and that there is thus no way that he would have supported Hitler and the Nazis. This is an incomplete statement…actually, it is downright false. True, Nietzsche abhorred the condition into which Germany had fallen in his time. But he knew that there was a time when Germany and German minds were great and mighty, very Master-like. He said, though, that various social conditions had caused Germany to become weak. They had lost their natural spirit and had succumbed to nihilism, or meaninglessness, which to him was a tragedy. Nietzsche said that all such a society needs in order to get back on track is a Great Man who understands the Will to Power. This is pretty much exactly what Hitler thought on every level. The reason Nietzsche disliked politics was because he saw its current state of affairs as ineffectual and stagnant. Nothing ever got done and everything was falling into depression and disrepair. This is in direct contrast to the massive dynamism and improvements of the National Socialist state, which he would have been overjoyed to see. On Nationalism, what Nietzsche disliked was more of a loyalty to one’s government simply because they are the government. Saying that Nietzsche was opposed to Nationalism would be like saying that those who are today opposed to the Zionist government hate America. Just because you question the government does not mean you hate your people because there is not necessarily a connection between the two.
So, what does Nietzsche have to do with us, today? Nietzsche can both explain how we got into the sorry state of affairs we are in today and how we can get out of it. Nietzsche would say that the main reason behind all the degeneracy, stagnation, and corruption in society today is the triumph of the Slave morality together with the occupation of the natural position of the Masters (Aryans) by the Slaves (Jews). At some point, the Slave morality made an unnatural triumph. Because of this, our society is governed by “political correctness”, “equality”, “compassion” towards those less fortunate, and otherideas that are unnatural to Masters. Selfishness, pursuit of power over others, eugenics-related concepts, and any ideas of inequality (all parts of Master morality) are condemned on all sides, even though they are natural. Racial mixing (because of the Slave idea of equality) and allowing the weak, defected, and deformed to survive and reproduce (because of the Slave idea of compassion) have marred beyond recognition the very character of the Aryan people. This has caused humanity to sort-of devolve away from the Ubermensch, instead of progressing towards it. Nietzsche would say that this is the expression of true Evil because, as already mentioned, to him the very meaning of the Earth is the formation of the Ubermensch. So, what can be done about it? The only way that this state of affairs can be reversed is for the rightful masters to wake up, realize that they are the natural Masters, and re-assert their Mastery over the natural Slaves. They must first abandon the Slave morality and re-adopt the Master morality in order for this to happen. Those who do not do this will continue to be the enemies of the rightful Master Race. Nietzsche would say to the Aryan people that we must leave Christian morlality behind us and see that it has ultimately been the main cause of our own destruction. He would say that what has happened today is that the Christian theology has been abandoned by most (thus explaining the Death of God) while the Christian morality has been retained, making matters in many ways even better for the Slaves/Jews. If we had never adopted a Slave morality, the Slaves would never have gained so much power, and we would not be in our current position. We need a Great Man, a Ubermensch, to spark this revolution and cause the Aryan race to re-establish its identity and its power. This is simply how Nietzsche would explain our current position. I am not saying that a Nietzschean interpretation is totally correct, though I do think that there is some truth to it.
If you would like to look further into the relevance of Nietzsche to our people and our time, I would suggest the works of Anthony Ludovici (which are all available online for free at
http://www.anthonymludovici.com/texts.htm#nonfiction), Nietzsche, Prophet of Nazism by Abir Taha, and The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche by H.L. Mencken. If you plan to read Nietzsche’s works themselves, my suggestion would be that you first read Mencken’s book (it is VERY relevant to White Nationalism and National Socialism), then I would suggest that you start with the Twilight of the Idols, then the Antichrist, then the Geneology of Morals. Save the Will to Power for last .
[url]
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=6344371&postcount=1[/url]
