The Nazis Purge Philosophy

From the Summer 1941 issue.

In view of the universal occupation with the threatening military and diplomatic activities of present day Germany, even those whose particular business it is to keep a sharp and expectant eye on the philosophic scene, namely the philosophers, may be pardoned for having failed to follow carefully the feverish activity of the German National-Socialist philosophers. There is the further excuse that Hitler’s Mein Kampf and Rosenberg’s Der Mythus seemed so extravagant in thought and so unprofessional in method that we American philosophers, who are on the whole a very serious and sober lot, did not really expect any appreciable number of our German colleagues to “rally around” these semi-hysterical leaders and to make so concerted and so extensive an attempt to provide the National-Socialist party with a philosophy. The fact is, however, that literally dozens of philosophers have for the last five or six years been producing numerous volumes, the sole purpose of which seems to have been to provide National Socialism not merely with a philosophy but with an officially acceptable one. In truth, dialectical as well as industrial machinery has been working at top speed in Germany. It is no wonder, therefore, that the product has some of the characteristics of a “Blitz-philosophie.”