Susannah asked:

I am trying to research the impact of European philosophy on the development of totalitarian states.
For example, the influence of Nietzsche, Social Darwinism on fascism, Welpolitik. I know a little about
philosophy but have to carry out research for my A-level studies. I'm sure this site is intended for 'why
are we here' questions and I apologize but I should appreciate anything. Can you think of any
German philosopher, like Fichte, that could have influenced the development of Nazism? Or the
philosophical basis for Stalinism?

I have tried to find a basic encyclopedia of philosophy but am failing, may I'm just not asking the right
questions?...

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No need to apologise. You can, as people do, ask anything on this site. Have a look at some of the
questions and answers and you'll see that it is not just about "why we are here".

As far as I know, only Nietzsche can be held to have influenced Nazism, but I don't think he'd like to
hear of it. That he has had influence can be defended by reference to "master morality" or a "higher
morality" and his belief that God is dead and new values need to be found. You can try that but it
would be to falsify Nietzsche's ethics since he wouldn't have found the slaughter of a race to be of
any moral value at all. The fact that the herd adhere to sentimental values, and that this is not true
morality, doesn't lead to the position that they ought to adhere to evil. The master/ slave moral
ideology doesn't mean that anyone with idiosyncratic values can come and impose them on the
masses. Nietzsche actually hopes for a real and substantial morality which will show the masses true
moral value, which would hardly be Nazism. So you can't really use Nietzsche if you want to remain
true to his philosophy.

But if you are to research the development of totalitarian states, and if this means government
controlled states, then you can look at the impact of philosophy on communism, which might be more
fruitful, because then you could look at Hegel who has been held to be an influence on neo-Marxism.

Otherwise, I have flipped through my own newly acquired dictionary — what a wonderful thing — and
see there is someone called Max Horkheimer, a German philosopher who wrote during World War II ,
and it might be a good idea to see if he has anything to say on Nazism and possible influences.

Best wishes for your research.

Rachel Browne

Try this book, just out:

"HEIDEGGER'S CHILDREN

Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse

By Richard Wolin

Illustrated. 276 pp. Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press"

From the NY Times review:

"A provocative and erudite study of the affinities between the Nazi sympathizer Martin Heidegger and
his Jewish philosophy students... As Wolin presents it, all of the ''children'' tended to view the worst
features of 20th-century life — the bureaucratic administration of death camps, the environmental
threats of technology, mass social conformity — as the natural extensions of modern democratic
ideals."

Steven Ravett Brown