Nietzsche and the Nazis

After reading some modern day butchering of Nietzsche's philosophy, most recently, that of Ravi Zacharias, and the impact upon history of Nietzsche's thought, I feel it is somewhat necessary to provide clarification on both.

Zacharias directly and obliquely relates Nietzsche's thinking to Hitler and Mussolini. And he does this not just once, but repeatedly, without offering the reader a single clarification of what really went on.

Rather than provide a lengthy dissertation on the evolution of Nietzsche's thought, both prior to and after his death, I'll try to sum things up with a few salient points:

1. Nietzsche was intellectually and morally opposed to anti-Semitism, and his opposition could not have been more clearly stated. It was the primary basis for his break with Richard Wagner and the source of much conflict with his sister, Elisabeth, who married an anti-Semite and attempted to establish an anti-Semitic colony in South America.

2. Nietzsche was opposed to nihilism because it was, primarily, a "no saying" philosophy that served to negate any positivistic aspect of existence.

3. Nietzsche's sister, Elisabeth, took control and ownership of Nietzsche's manuscripts and notes following his breakdown in 1889. From that point on, until her death, she controlled utterly the presentation of Nietzsche's thought in the world.

4. Modern scholars and contemporaries of Nietzsche are all generally in agreement that his sister was utterly incapable of understanding his philosophy in any substantive fashion, and equally incapable of coalescing his notes and manuscripts into anything intelligible or remotely representative of her brother's thoughts.

5. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche's presentation of her brother's philosophy resulted in a demonstrably false and corrupted philosophy that is consistently at odds with what was actually written and espoused by her brother.

6. Hitler's adoption of Nietzsche's philosophy as the philosophy of German National Socialism (the Nazis) was made in response to the pleadings of Elisabeth.

The idealism of the Hitlerian Übermensch and the philosophy of power is a corruption of Nietzsche's thought that persists to this day. Readers with the slightest inclination to intellectual curiosity will readily find evidence throughout the whole of Nietzsche's works—both published and unpublished—that runs counter to the corruptions that have served as fodder for dissembling screeds such as we encounter from Zacharias. Yet Zacharias wholly misunderstands and misrepresents the idea of Nietzsche's Übermensch (the "Overman" or "Superman"), his philosophy of power, and Der Wille zur Macht (The Will to Power). This much is evident from reading passages where Zacharias attempts to address what he perceives to be shortcomings of Nietzschean philosophy. The issues themselves are far too complex, multi-layered, and interwoven with subtleties of thought to address here. It should be sufficient to say, however, that Zacharias has never undertaken a serious study of Nietzsche's thought, preferring instead to construct straw men from the Golems of Nietzsche's sister and attack long-refuted philosophical positions.