Author: Daniel Gasman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351474545
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Get Book
Book Description
Many studies of the origins of National Socialism claim that the vo;lkisch and proto-Nazi movement arose largely as a reaction to the materialistic ideas of nineteenth-century science and especially to the naturalistic philosophy of Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League. Using hitherto unexplored material, Daniel Gasman calls this generalization into question. Arguing that the importance of science has been relatively neglected in accounts of the intellectual origins of Nazism, he attempts to show that Haeckel's "scientific" Darwinism, and his movement, the German Monist League, were proto-Nazi in character. Contrary to popular belief, Haeckel's type of social Darwinism actually played a critical role in the formation of National Socialist ideology. In his new introduction, Gasman notes that recent research goes far to confirm Haeckel's role as an ideological progenitor of fascist ideology. This is true not only for Germany, but also for the birth of fascist thought in Italy and France. In general, Gasman claims, the history of science plainly reveals how Haeckel's social Darwinism nourished the roots of fascism no less than avant-garde modernism. When The Scientific Origins of National Socialism initially appeared, the Times Literary Supplement called it a "very well-argued thesis... that is completely successful... and leaves the reader to extract his own moral lessons." Medical History, in its review of The Scientific Origins of National Socialism, said, "His book is essential for understanding modern Germany. It has a general message derived from the events in Germany, where scientific data were permitted to take on a mystical signficiance... with ghastly consequences." Bruce Chatwin, in the New York Review of Books, called the book "brilliant." Now available in paperback, with a new introduction by the author, this seminal work will be of interest to intellectual historians, as well as th
Author: Klaus Hentschel
Publisher: Birkhäuser
ISBN: 3034890087
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 614
Get Book
Book Description
"[The author] has done a great service to historians of modern physics by editing this first anthology of primary sources, excellently translated into English... The texts are well selected and range widely, from private correspondence and official memoranda to articles dealing with physics in a propagandistic or popular manner... Many of the sources are extremely interesting and appear here for the first time. Their value is further enhanced by the editor's cross-referencing and detailed notes... [The book] is also a fine introduction to the entire subject. [The] 101-page 'introduction' gives an admirable survey of German physics during the Nazi period as well as a thorough discussion of the historiography of the subject... [The book] is of such quality and usefulness that were I to choose a single book on the history of physics in the Third Reich this might well be the one." H. Kragh, Centaurus
Author: R. Weikart
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137109866
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Get Book
Book Description
In this work, Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. He demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment ethics, especially the view that human life is sacred. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary 'fitness' (especially intelligence and health) to the highest arbiter of morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics, but also euthanasia, infanticide, abortion and racial extermination. This was especially important in Germany, since Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles, not on nihilism.
Author: Monika Renneberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521528603
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 448
Get Book
Book Description
This 1993 book provides a survey of the development of scientific disciplines and technical projects under National Socialism in Germany. Each contribution addresses a different aspect which is important for judging the interaction between science, technology and National Socialism. In particular, the personal conduct of individual scientists and engineers as well as the functionality of certain theories and projects are examined. All essays share a common theme: continuity and discontinuity. All authors cover a period from the Weimar Republic to the post-war period. This unanimity of approach provides answers to major questions about the nature of Hitler's regime and about possible lines of continuity in science and technology which may transcend political upheaval. The book is also the most comprehensive to date on this subject, and includes essays on engineering, geography, biology, psychology, physics, mathematics, and science policy.
Author: Mark Walker
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1489960740
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325
Get Book
Book Description
In this book, Mark Walker - a historical scholar of Nazi science - brings to light the overwhelming impact of Hitler's regime on science and, ultimately, on the pursuit of the German atomic bomb. Walker meticulously draws on hundreds of original documents to examine the role of German scientists in the rise and fall of the Third Reich. He investigates whether most German scientists during Hitler's regime enthusiastically embraced the tenets of National Socialism or cooperated in a Faustian pact for financial support, which contributed to National Socialism's running rampant and culminated in the rape of Europe and the genocide of millions of Jews. This work unravels the myths and controversies surrounding Hitler's atomic bomb project. It provides a look at what surprisingly turned out to be an Achilles' heel for Hitler - the misuse of science and scientists in the service of the Third Reich.
Author: D. Gasman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780444999504
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Get Book
Book Description
Author: Konrad Heiden
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136960937
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 458
Get Book
Book Description
Konrad Heiden was an influential journalist and historian of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Eras. He became an early critic of National Socialism after attending a party meeting in 1920. First published in English in 1934, A History of National Socialism provides a detailed account of the growth of the movement through the 1920’s until its assumption of full control of Germany in 1934. It argues that Nazi ideology was extremely pragmatic and able to accommodate a wide diversity of opinion in return for the unconditional support of Hitler as leader.
Author: Margit Szöllösi-Janze
Publisher: Berg 3pl
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316
Get Book
Book Description
How true is it that National Socialism led to an ideologically distorted pseudo-science? What was the relationship between the regime funding 'useful' scientific projects and the scientists offering their expertise? And what happened to the German scientific community after 1945, especially to those who betrayed and denounced Jewish colleagues? In recent years, the history of the sciences in the Third Reich has become a field of growing importance, and the in-depth research of a new generation of German scholars provides us with new, important insights into the Nazi system and the complicated relationship between an elite and the dictatorship. This book portrays the attitudes of scientists facing National Socialism and war and uncovers the continuities and discontinuities of German science from the beginning of the twentieth century to the postwar period. It looks at ideas, especially the Humboldtian concept of the university; examines major disciplines such as eugenics, pathology, biochemistry and aeronautics, as well as technologies such as biotechnology and area planning; and it traces the careers of individual scientists as actors or victims. The striking results of these investigations fill a considerable gap in our knowledge of the Third Reich but also of the postwar role of German scientists within Germany and abroad.
Author: Eric Kurlander
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300190379
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 411
Get Book
Book Description
“A dense and scholarly book about . . . the relationship between the Nazi party and the occult . . . reveals stranger-than-fiction truths on every page.”—Daily Telegraph The Nazi fascination with the occult is legendary, yet today it is often dismissed as Himmler’s personal obsession or wildly overstated for its novelty. Preposterous though it was, however, supernatural thinking was inextricable from the Nazi project. The regime enlisted astrology and the paranormal, paganism, Indo-Aryan mythology, witchcraft, miracle weapons, and the lost kingdom of Atlantis in reimagining German politics and society and recasting German science and religion. In this eye-opening history, Eric Kurlander reveals how the Third Reich’s relationship to the supernatural was far from straightforward. Even as popular occultism and superstition were intermittently rooted out, suppressed, and outlawed, the Nazis drew upon a wide variety of occult practices and esoteric sciences to gain power, shape propaganda and policy, and pursue their dreams of racial utopia and empire. “[Kurlander] shows how swiftly irrational ideas can take hold, even in an age before social media.”—The Washington Post “Deeply researched, convincingly authenticated, this extraordinary study of the magical and supernatural at the highest levels of Nazi Germany will astonish.”—The Spectator “A trustworthy [book] on an extraordinary subject.”—The Times “A fascinating look at a little-understood aspect of fascism.”—Kirkus Reviews “Kurlander provides a careful, clear-headed, and exhaustive examination of a subject so lurid that it has probably scared away some of the serious research it merits.”—National Review
Author: Stephen E. Flowers
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1644115751
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 486
Get Book
Book Description
A critical history of the roots of Nazi occultism and its continuing influence • Explores the occult influences on various Nazi figures, including Adolf Hitler, Albert Speer, Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, and Heinrich Himmler • Examines the foundations of the movement laid in the 19th century and continuing in the early 20th century • Explains the rites and runology of National Socialism, the occult dimensions of Nazi science, and how many of the sensationalist descriptions of Nazi “Satanic” practices were initiated by Church propaganda after the war In this comprehensive examination of Nazi occultism, Stephen E. Flowers, Ph.D., offers a critical history and analysis of the occult and esoteric streams of thought active in the Third Reich and the growth of occult Nazism at work in movements today. Sharing the culmination of five decades of research into primary and secondary sources, many in the original German, Flowers looks at the symbolic, occult, scientific, and magical traditions that became the foundations from which the Nazi movement would grow. He details the influences of Theosophy, Volkism, and the work of the Brothers Grimm as well as the impact of scientific culture of the time. Looking at the early 20th century, he describes the impact of Guido von List, Lanz von Liebenfels, Rudolf von Sebottendorf, Friedrich Hielscher, and others. Examining the period after the Nazi Party was established in 1919, and more especially after it took power in 1933, Flowers explores the occult influences on key Nazi figures, including Adolf Hitler, Albert Speer, Rudolf Hess, and Heinrich Himmler. He analyzes Hitler’s usually missed references to magical techniques in Mein Kampf, revealing his adoption of occult methods for creating a large body of supporters and shaping the thoughts of the masses. Flowers also explains the rites and runology of National Socialism, the occult dimensions of Nazi science, and the blossoming of Nazi Christianity. Concluding with a look at the modern mythology of Nazi occultism, Flowers critiques postwar Nazi-related literature and unveils the presence of esoteric Nazi myths in modern occult and political circles.
