Fascist and Anti-Semitic Philosophers (Under Construction)


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Frege

Frege's Anti-Semitic Diaries:

"Diary: written by Professor Dr Gottlob Frege in the time from 10 March to 9 April 1924," by Gottfried Gabriel, Wolfgang Kienzler and Richard L. Mendelsohn, Inquiry (An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy) 1996, v39, n3-4, Dec,, p303(40)

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Heidegger


[From an appeal by Heidegger to the students of Freiburg University, of which he was the Rector--the principle academic administrator. This appeal was on the occasion of Hitler's plebiscite on the withdrawal of Germany from the League of Nations. November 3, 1933]

German Students: The National Socialist revolution is bringing about the total transformation of our German existence [Dasein]....

Let your loyalty and your will to follow be daily and hourly strengthened. Let your courage grow without ceasing so that you will be able to make the sacrfices necessary to save the essence of our Volk and to elevate its innermost strength to the State.

Let not propositions and "ideas" be the rules of your Being [Sein].

The Führer alone is the present and future German reality and its law. Learn to know ever more deeply: from now on every single thing demands decison, and every action responsiblity.

Heil Hitler!
Martin Heidegger, Rector

[This statement was published in the campus newspaper, as were many similar pro-Nazi appeals by Heidegger.]

From Richard Wollin, The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader, M.I.T. Press, 1993, pp. 46-7.

For a biography of Heidegger, see Martin Heidegger : a Political Life, by Hugo Ott ; translated by Allan Blunden, New York, NY : BasicBooks, 1993
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De Man

On De Man's articles praising Italian Fascism:

Quotes from De Man's articles in Le Soir, a Belgian newspaper collaborating with the Nazi occupaton of Belgium. These were published in the Spring of 1941.

"Here one will have the chance to acquire an overview of contemporary Italian poetry and to see how, in the climate of fascism, a beautiful and original poetry has been able to bloom"

"... the fascist regime grants complete freedom to the poet to find his source of inspiration wherever he chooses, even in a domain which seems completely opposed to the civil and warrior spirit dear to the educators of the people."
This article closes with a quotation from Mussolini: "It is above all at the present moment that poetry is necessary to the life of the people."

"The harmonious equilibrium obtained by the concerted actions of these two [Italian educational] institutions corresponds to the fascist principles which demand the creation of good citizens."

All quotations from: Reed Way Dasenbrock, "Paul de Man: The Modernist as Fascist," in Fascism, Aesthetics, and Culture, Richard J. Golsan, ed., University Press of New England, 1992. This book also has articles on Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, Martin Heidegger, and other fascist intellectuals.


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Anti-Semitic Theories from de Man

Excerpts from "The Jews in Contemporary Literature", from Le Soir, March 4, 1941. Translated by David Lehman.

"Since the Jews have, in fact, played an important role in the phoney and disordered existence of Europe since 1920, a novel born in that atmosphere would deserve, up to a certain point, the description enjuivé....

"Their [Jews'] cerebralness, their capacity to assimilate doctrines while maintaining a cold detachment from them, would seem to be very precious qualities for the work of lucid analysis that the novel requires. But in spite of that, Jewish writers have always remained in the second rank ... and so ... are not among the most important figures, and especially not among those who have had some decisive influence on literary genres. This statement is, moreover, comforting for Western intellectuals. That they have been able to safeguard themselves from Jewish influence in a domain as culturally representative as literature proves their vitality. We could not have much hope for the future of our civilization if it had let itself be invaded, without resistance, by a foreign force. In keeping its originality and its character intact, despite Semitic interference in all aspects of European life, our civilization has shown that its fundamental nature is healthy. What's more, one can thus see that solution to the Jewish problem that would lead to the creation of a Jewish colony isolated from Europe would not have, for the literary life of the West, regrettable consequences. It would lose, in all, some personalities of mediocre worth and would continue, as in the past, to develop according to its higher laws of evolution."

From the appendix to David Lehman, Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man, New York, Poseidon Press. 1992.