Book Review Part II: The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans

Nietzsche and Wagner
Part II of the Ongoing Critique of:

 The Coming of the Third Reich by Sir Richard J. Evans.

In Part I of this series of this ongoing series of discussions on The Coming of the Third Reich (COTR) from a musicological and philosophical perspective, we started with a critique of the handling of Wagner's historical influence on German culture in the decades leading up to the 1930s. In this second part, we will look at how markedly differently Nietzsche's reputation has been received by posterity compared with Wagner's. Both were adopted as official ideological "icons" of the Third Empire, yet the contrast in the general consensus of popular opinion about them could hardly be more stark.

In this book, Evans claims that Nietzsche was a political liberal:

The self-satisfaction of so many educated and middle-class Germans at the achievement of nationhood in the 1870s was giving way to a variety of dissatisfactions born of a feeling that Germany’s spiritual and political development had come to a halt and needed pushing forward again. These were expressed forcefully by the sociologist Max Weber’s inaugural lecture, in which he dubbed the unification of 1871 a ‘youthful prank’ of the German nation”. The most influential prophet of such views was the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who railed in powerful, punchy prose against the ethical conservatism of his day.  

Evans COTR (Kindle Location 1138)

One thing that made me laugh out loud was the portrayal by Richard J. Evans of Friedrich Nietzsche as "an influence...on the feminist movement" COTR (Kindle location 1145). I know Nietzsche is so fashionable that some feminists, along with some theologians, want to jump on the popular bandwagon to catch a piece of the action for themselves. However, in both cases these trendy writers cannot but look a little ridiculous when you consider the intensity of his diatribes against women and Christianity. This is what happens to you in academia when you posthumously become all the rage—all your declared enemies want to tell you that, really, 'tis they who understand you the best. Let's be honest to ourselves: Nietzsche would be turning in his grave.

The elephant in the room in this case is that Nietzsche is one of the greatest misogynists of world literature. In short:

"Woman, give me your petty truths" said I.
And thus spoke the little old lady:
"You are going to women? Don't forget your whip!"

»Gib mir, Weib, deine kleine Wahrheit!« sagte ich.
Und also sprach das alte Weiblein:
»Du gehst zu Frauen? Vergiß die Peitsche nicht!« – 

Zarathustra: Von alten und jungen Weiblein     Nietzsche-W Bd. 2, 330

Nor is the wholesale acceptance by Evans of Nietzsche apologists' claims about the Will to Power being totally and unequivocally "unpolitical" entirely convincing.

his most famous concepts, such as the 'will to power' and the 'superman' were intended by him to apply only to the sphere of thought and ideas, not to politics and action. 

Evans: Kindle Loc 1149 COTR.

Nietzsche himself never wrote anything clearly stating that "my Überman is an unpolitical concept". Nor is Evans able to come up with a quotation from Nietzsche that fully justify this speculative reading. Just read what Nietzsche says about his praise of war:

You say, does the good cause sanctify war? I say to you: it is the good war, which sanctifies that cause.  

War and courage have done more great things than love of thy neighbour. Not your pity but your bravery will redeem the casualties. 

"What is good?" you ask. To be brave is good. Let the little girls say "good is that which is pretty, and, at the same time, moving." 

Ihr sag, die Sache sei es, die sogar den Krieg heilige? Ich sage euch: der gute Krieg ist es, der jede Sache heiligt. 

Der Krieg und der Mut haben mehr grossen Digne getan, als die Nächstenliebe. Nicht euer Mitleiden, sondern eure Tapferkeit rettete bisher die Verunglückten. 

"Was ist gut?" fragt ihr. Tapfer sein ist gut. Laßt die kleinen Mädchen reden: gut sein ist, was hübsch zugleicht und rührend ist. 

Zarathustra: Von Kriege und Kriegsvolke 

Does Evans seriously want us to believe that Nietzsche is advocating an unpolitical war waged only in "the sphere of thought and ideas"? How does he suppose how these warriors that Nietzsche praises would be in uniform unless they were anything less than real soldiers ready for battle:

I see many soldiers: many men of war do I wish to see! "Uniform" one calls that which they wear: may it not be uniform what they cover up with it!

Ich sehe viel Soldaten: möchte ich viel Kriegsmänner sehn! »Einform« nennt man's, was sie tragen: möge es nicht Ein-form sein, was sie damit verstecken! 

Zarathustra: Vom Krieg und Kriegsvolke     Nietzsche-W Bd. 2, 312

The great irony is that Evans himself brutally exposes the hypocrisy behind the claims about Germans being "unpolitical":

Yet of all the myths of German history that have been mobilized to account for the coming of the Third Reich in 1933, none is less convincing than that of the 'unpolitical' German... Historians of many varieties have claimed that the German middle class had withdrawn from political activity after the debacle of 1848, and taken refuge in money-making or literature, culture and the arts instead. 

Evans: Kindle Loc 338 COTR

Yet Evans himself is the first to fall prey to the idea about the allegedly "unpolitical" Nietzsche.

Likewise, the claim that Nietzsche was mainly interested in enhancing individual freedom is sadly unsupported by a reading of his texts: this is a dubious, currently faddish interpretation forced onto Evans by the hordes of Nietzsche apologists currently in academia. I used to be one of them—but, not even I would have been so starry eyed as to have ever entertained the fantastic nation that he was an advocate for the universal enhancement of individual liberty. Take his diatribes against the rise of the lower class, and the slave revolt by the untouchable chandalas, whose "slave morality" is raised up as the morality of the new revolutionary order:

Who do I hate most among the rabble today? The socialist rabble, the chandala apostles, who undermine the instinct, the pleasure, the worker's sense of satisfaction with his small existence — who would make him envious, who teaches him revenge... Injustice never lies in unequal rights, it comes from the demand for "equal" rights...What is bad? I will definitely say it: everything that arises out of weakness, out of envy and out of vengeance.

The Antichrist (57) 

Wen hasse ich unter dem Gesindel von Heute am besten? Das Sozialisten-Gesindel, die Tschandala-Apostel, die den Instinkt, die Lust, das Genügsamkeits-Gefühl des Arbeiters mit seinem kleinen Sein untergraben – die ihn neidisch machen, die ihn Rache lehren... Das Unrecht liegt niemals in ungleichen Rechten, es liegt im Anspruch auf »gleiche« Rechte... Was ist schlecht? Aber ich sagte es schon: alles, was aus Schwäche, aus Neid, aus Rache stammt.
Das Antichrist (57)     Nietzsche-W Bd. 2, 1228

And again:

Aryan humanity, quite pure, quite primordial -- we learn that the concept of "pure blood" is the opposite of a harmless concept. On the other hand, it becomes clear in which people the hatred—the Chandala hatred—towards this "humanity" has eternalised itself, where it has become religion, or become genius. Seen in this perspective, the Gospels represent a document of prime importance; especially the Book of Enoch. Christianity, sprung from Jewish roots and comprehensible only as an outgrowth of this soil, represents the counter-movement to any morality of breeding, of race, privilege—it is the anti-Aryan religion par excellence. Christianity—the revaluation of all Aryan values, the victory of Chandala values, the gospel preached to the poor and base, the general revolt of all the downtrodden, the wretched, the failures, the less favoured, against "race": undying Chandala vengeance as the religion of love.

Twilight of the Idols: The "Improvers" of Humanity 4

Diese Verfügungen sind lehrreich genug: in ihnen haben wir einmal die arische Humanität, ganz rein, ganz ursprünglich – wir lernen, daß der Begriff »reines Blut« der Gegensatz eines harmlosen Begriffs ist. Andrerseits wird klar, in welchem Volk sich der Haß, der Tschandala-Haß gegen diese »Humanität« verewigt hat, wo er Religion, wo er Genie geworden ist...Unter diesem Gesichtspunkte sind die Evangelien eine Urkunde ersten Ranges; noch mehr das Buch Henoch. – Das Christentum, aus jüdischer Wurzel und nur verständlich als Gewächs dieses Bodens, stellt die Gegenbewegung gegen jede Moral der Züchtung, der Rasse, des Privilegiums dar – es ist die antiarische Religion par excellence: das Christentum die Umwertung aller arischen Werte, der Sieg der Tschandala-Werte, das Evangelium den Armen, den Niedrigen gepredigt, der Gesamt-Aufstand alles Niedergetretenen, Elenden, Mißratenen, Schlechtweggekommenen gegen die »Rasse« – die unsterbliche Tschandala-Rache als Religion der Liebe...

Götzendämmerung: Die »Verbesserer« der Menschheit     Nietzsche-W Bd. 2, 982

Notice the words "religion of love" also has strongly Wagnerian overtones. That is because, Nietzsche polemics here—as virtually always—have an intensely anti-Wagnerian character. Wagner's thinking had a strongly socialist character that embraced a Schillerian utopian vision as expressed in the Ode to Joy:

All mankind shall be brothers, ...
Be embraced O millions!
This kiss is for the whole wide world! 

Alle Menschen werden Brüder, ...
Seid umschlungen, Millionen!
Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!

Nietzsche wants us to know that this is a lot of codswallop, a socialist-Chandala cult of effeminate Love. If Wagner's Ring is a struggle between Love and Power, where redemption comes ultimately from Love, then Nietzsche wants to turns this on its head, and exult the supremacy of Masculine Power over Feminine Love. Whatever Wagner says, Nietzsche merely turns on its head.

Christ is the Chandala that the priests rejected .... the Chandala who redeemed himself. 

Therefore the French Revolution is the daughter and advocate of Christianity... It sets instinct against castes, against the nobility, and against privileged..  

From The Will to Power; Chapter 13 [184]

Der Christ ist der Tschandala, der den Priester ablehnt ... der Tschandala, der sich selbst erlöst... 

Deshalb ist die französische Revolution die Tochter und Fortsetzerin des Christentums... sie hat den Instinkt gegen die Kaste, gegen die Vornehmen,
gegen die letzten Privilegien
                                                                             
Der Wille zur Macht I - Kapitel 13     Nietzsche-W Bd. 3, 697 [184] 

It goes to show that to understand Nietzsche properly you have to first study Wagner. After dismissing Wagner's socialist ideals based on universal love and brotherhood, Nietzsche next attacks democracy as mob rule by the Chandala herd:

The Christian movement, as a European movement, was from the start no more than a complete movement consisting of all sorts of outcast and rubbish elements (—these now aspire to power in the name  of Christianity). It does not represent the decay of a race; it represents, on the contrary, a conglomeration of décadence forms from everywhere, forced together, and seeking one another out. It was not, as has been thought, the corruption of antiquity, of noble antiquity, which made  Christianity possible; one cannot too sharply challenge the learned imbecility which today maintains that theory. At the time when the sick and decaying Chandala classes in the whole empire were Christianised, the very opposite type, the nobility, attained its finest and ripest form. The majority became master; the democratism of the Christian instincts triumphed.... 

The Antichrist: Chapter 7 (51) (my translation)

Die christliche Bewegung, als eine europäische Bewegung, ist von vornherein eine Gesamt-Bewegung der Ausschuß- und Abfalls-Elemente aller Art (– diese wollen mit dem Christentum zur Macht). Sie drückt nicht den Niedergang einer Rasse aus, sie ist eine Aggregat-Bildung sich zusammendrängender und sich suchender décadence Formen von überall. Es ist nicht, wie man glaubt, die Korruption des Altertums selbst, des vornehmen Altertums, was das Christentum ermöglichte: man kann dem gelehrten Idiotismus, der auch heute noch so etwas aufrechterhält, nicht hart genug widersprechen. In der Zeit, wo die kranken, verdorbenen Tschandala-Schichten im ganzen imperium sich christianisierten, war gerade der Gegentypus, die Vornehmheit, in ihrer schönsten und reifsten Gestalt vorhanden. Die große Zahl wurde Herr; der Demokratismus der christlichen Instinkte siegte... 

Das Antichrist: Kapitel 7 (51)     Nietzsche-W Bd. 2, 1217

This last text goes some way towards partly contradicting what Evans claims here:

His concept of an ideal human being, freed from moral constraints and triumphing through will-power over the weak, could be appropriated without too much difficulty by those who believed, as he did not, in the breeding of the human race according to racial and eugenic criteria. 

Evans: Kindle ed. loc 1146 COTR

Though Nietzsche never advocated anything so extreme as state sponsored eugenic breeding programmes, he certainly did like to talk about good "breeding", while distinguishing between noble and decaying breeds.

The overly sanitised interpretations of Nietzsche that Evans comes up with sound like something that a Nietzsche apologists from the philosophy department would have told him over lunch in the university common room. Hence no supportive references required!

If Wagner had uttered anything remotely like the sorts of things that routinely roll off Nietzsche's tongue, polemicists would be jumping all over them ranting endlessly about the Eternal Truth of their Nazified interpretations of Wagner. As it happens, the hoards of Nietzsche apologists have been so successful that the best even Köhler could muster against Nietzsche was an idiotic book suggesting that he because Nietzsche is a misogynist he must therefore be gay, and that gay ways of thinking pervade his philosophical thought. For Köhler, if Wagner is to be dismissed as a Nazi, then Nietzsche is to be dismissed as a queer! I certainly recommend Dieter David Scholtz's review of Köhler's book (in German, but just readable if you run it through Google translator).

Unfortunately, part of the Nietzsche apologists' success story is that they have managed to use Wagner as a scapegoat for all of Nietzsche's sins. Walter Kaufmann certainly helped to lead the way here, and with the subsequent explosive popularity of Deconstructionism, given the respect that Derrida had for Nietzsche, this scapegoating of Wagner became epidemic. The other trouble is that Wagner simply isn't all the popular rage in academia. The only really transiently fashionable thinker in academia who really admired Wagner was Claude Lévi-Strauss, whose influence came to be eclipsed by the rise of Deconstructionism.

Once unfashionable, then you are then damned to have your advocacy of "assimilation" of Jews to forever interpreted as "extermination" on the basis of it being "just so":

Although Wagner, advocated "assimilation" of the Jews, it has come to be universally accepted by people who never read Wagner that this somehow reads as "extermination". 

On the one hand, if you are all the rage, then you can be as misogynistic as you like and you will be praised as a "feminist".  Extoll the glory of war, be as dismissive of socialism or democracy all you want because you will be hailed a progressive champion of liberty.

Only the other hand, you are damned if you fail to make it into the popular "cool kid's" club in academia. Passionately expound your feminist, pacifist and socialist ideals and you can be guaranteed that some clever fool will tell you that the "real" meaning behind this is that you are a warmongering Nazi, without ever properly studying a single theoretical work you wrote.