Letters to the Editor

Beyond the Multiplex The most important political documentary of the decade suggests that terrorism is a dark fantasy -- and there's no such thing as al-Qaida. By Andrew O'Hehir [2005-12-08]

• Stress On Strauss

  You refer to Strauss (as presentec in the film) as a "German-Jewish Intellectual who fled Hitler."

  It may be important to note (especially given the fascist tendencies of his disciples) that although nominally a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany (he actually left for a better position abroad, on the warm recommendation of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt), Strauss was an unabashed proponent of the three most notorious shapers of the Nazi philosophy: Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Carl Schmitt. Recent biographies have revealed the depth of Heidegger's enthusiasm for Hitler and Nazism, while he served as the Chancellor of Freiburg University, throughout the epoch of National Socialism, and was the leader of a Nietzschean revival. Carl Schmitt, the leading Nazi philosopher of law, was personally responsible, in 1934, for arranging a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship for Strauss, which enabled him to leave Germany, to study in England and France, before coming to the United States to teach at the New School for Social Research, and then, the University of Chicago. Strauss, in his long academic career, never abandoned his fealty to Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Schmitt.

  -- Jim M
  Permalink Flag Thursday, December 8, 2005 09:15 AM
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