Hitler and the Germans
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Between 1933 and 1938, Eric Voegelin published four books that expressly stated his opposition to the increasingly powerful Hitler regime. As a result, he was forced to leave his homeland in 1938. Twenty years later, he returned to Germany as a professor of political science at Ludwig-Maximilian University. Voegelin's homecoming allowed him the opportunity to voice once again his opinions on the Nazi regime and its aftermath. In 1964 at the University of Munich, Voegelin gave a series of memorable lectures on what he considered ""the central German experiential problem"" of his time: Adolf Hitler's rise to power, the reasons for it, and its consequences for post-Nazi Germany. For Voegelin, these questions demanded a scrutiny of the mentality of individual Germans and of the order of German society during and after the Nazi period. ""Hitler and the Germans"" offers Voegelin's most extensive and detailed critique of the Hitler era. Voegelin interprets this era in terms of the basic diagnostic tools provided by the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, Judeo-Christian culture, and contemporary German-language writers like Heimito von Doderer, Karl Kraus, Thomas Mann and Robert Musil. His inquiry uncovers a historiography that was substantially unhistoric: a German Evangelical Church that misinterpreted the Gospel, a German Catholic Church that denied universal humanity, and a legal process enmeshed in criminal homicide.
Eric Voegelin (1901–1985) was one of the most original and influential philosophers of our time. Born in Cologne, Germany, he studied at the University of Vienna, where he became a professor of political science in the Faculty of Law. In 1938, he and his wife, fleeing Hitler, immigrated to the United States. They became American citizens in 1944. Voegelin spent much of his career at Louisiana State University, the University of Munich, and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. During his lifetime he published many books and more than one hundred articles.
Detlev Clemens is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Political Science, Friedrich-Alexander University at Erlangen-Nuremberg. He is the author of Herr Hitler in Germany: Wahrnehmungen und Deutungen des Nationalsozialismus in Groβritannien, 1920–1939.
Brendan Purcell is Lecturer in Philosophy at University College in Dublin. He is the author of The Drama of Humanity: Towards a Philosophy of Humanity in History.
Detlev Clemens is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Political Science, Friedrich-Alexander University at Erlangen-Nuremberg. He is the author of Herr Hitler in Germany: Wahrnehmungen und Deutungen des Nationalsozialismus in Groβritannien, 1920–1939.
Brendan Purcell is Lecturer in Philosophy at University College in Dublin. He is the author of The Drama of Humanity: Towards a Philosophy of Humanity in History.