Nietzsche, Hitler and the Superman

Both men were anti-democratic. They believed in the rule of “the best”. Nietzsche is vitriolic about those he calls “the rabble”. The rabble, he says, only contaminate everything and to deal with them is a betrayal by the rulers. He goes on to say. “And on the rulers turned I my back, when I saw what they now call ruling, to traffic and bargain for power with the rabble.” (Thus Spake Zarathustra, p.149. See also p.255.)

Hitler and Nietzsche, then, were themselves remarkably similar. It might be possible for someone with the expertise to go into the psychopathology of these two strange and terrifying persons. They glorified war, they were elitist and the despised the common people and democracy. They both had some measure of musical and artistic talent and believed in a similar aristocratic social system and in a subservient position for women. Both men had serious personality flaws and both compensated for these with aggressive, even deranged behaviour. Both of them fiercely believed in their own wisdom and rectitude and so were authoritarians of the worst sort.

Indeed it could be argued that Hitler in his career and his personality is the most damning condemnation of the ideas promulgated by Nietzsche that it is possible to find. That both men were born into the same race and nation may say something about the social psychology of that nation or it may be coincidence, I do not think so.