Language:
French
Year of publication:
1989
Titel der Quelle:
Revue des Sciences Humaines
Angaben zur Quelle:
213 (1989) 183-206
Keywords:
Arendt, Hannah,
;
Hitler, Adolf,
;
National socialism Philosophy
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Abstract:
A critique of Hannah Arendt's work on Nazi ideology and the Holocaust, summarizing her theories on totalitarianism and discussing her interpretation of the concentration camp as the essence of total domination and the "inferno". Claims that Arendt's theory of the "banality of evil" as an explanation of the Nazi psyche is based on the analysis of an executor (i.e. Eichmann) and not on that of a decision-maker (i.e. Hitler). Compares her views with the Freudian psychoanalytical interpretation of modern and Nazi antisemitism, focusing on myths such as Jewish "world domination", a Jewish "conspiracy", and the idea of a "chosen people", and the use of these myths by Hitler. Concludes that Arendt's explanations failed to take into account the religious roots of antisemitism, as well as the role of the collective subconscious.
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