Many political leaders of the 20th century were at least superficially familiar with Nietzsche's ideas. However, it is not always possible to determine whether or not they actually read his work.
Regarding Hitler, for example, there is a debate. Some authors claim that he probably never read Nietzsche, or that if he did, his reading was not extensive.[6] Hitler more than likely became familiar with Nietzsche quotes during his time in Vienna when quotes by Nietzsche were frequently published in pan-German newspapers.[7]
Nevertheless, others point to a quote in Hitler's Table Talk, where the dictator mentioned Nietzsche when he spoke about what he called "great men", as an indication that Hitler may have been familiarized with Nietzsche's work.[8]
Other authors like Melendez (2001) point out to the parallels between Hitler's and Nietzsche's titanic anti-egalitarianism,[9] and the idea of the "übermensch",[10] a term which was frequently used by Hitler and Mussolini to refer to the so-called "Aryan race", or rather, its projected future after fascist engineering.[11] Alfred Rosenberg, an influential Nazi ideologist, also delivered a speech in which he related National Socialism to Nietzsche's ideology.[11][12]
Broadly speaking, despite Nietzsche's hostility towards anti-semitism and nationalism, the Nazis made very selective use of Nietzsche's philosophy, and eventually, this association caused Nietzsche's reputation to suffer following World War II.[13]
Nietzsche and fascism?[edit]
See also: Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche § Criticism of Anti-Semitism and nationalism
The Italian and German fascist regimes were eager to lay claim to Nietzsche's ideas, and to position themselves as inspired by them. In 1932, Nietzsche's sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, received a bouquet of roses from Adolf Hitler during a German premiere of Benito Mussolini's 100 Days, and in 1934 Hitler personally presented her with a wreath for Nietzsche's grave carrying the words "To A Great Fighter".
Also in 1934, Elisabeth gave to Hitler Nietzsche's favorite walking stick, and Hitler was photographed gazing into the eyes of a white marble bust of Nietzsche.[23] Heinrich Hoffmann's popular biography Hitler as Nobody Knows Him (which sold nearly a half-million copies by 1938) featured this photo with the caption reading: "The Führer before the bust of the German philosopher whose ideas have fertilized two great popular movements: the national socialist of Germany and the fascist of Italy."[24]
Nietzsche was no less popular among French fascists, perhaps with more doctrinal truthfulness, as Robert S. Wistrich has pointed out
The "fascist" Nietzsche was above all considered to be a heroic opponent of necrotic Enlightenment "rationality" and a kind of spiritual vitalist, who had glorified war and violence in an age of herd-lemming shopkeepers, inspiring the anti-Marxist revolutions of the interwar period.
According to the French fascist Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, it was the Nietzschean emphasis on the autotelic power of the Will that inspired the mystic voluntarism and political activism of his comrades.
Such politicized readings were vehemently rejected by another French writer, the socialo-communist anarchist Georges Bataille, who in the 1930s sought to establish (in ambiguous success) the "radical incompatibility" between Nietzsche (as a thinker who abhorred mass politics) and "the fascist reactionaries."
He argued that nothing was more alien to Nietzsche than the pan-Germanism, racism, militarism and anti-Semitism of the Nazis, into whose service the German philosopher had been pressed.[25] Bataille here was sharp-witted but combined half-truths without his customary dialectical finesse.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
