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Von Hilderbrand, Dietrich. "German Culture and National Socialism.

" (1934)
Rpt. in My Battle Against Hitler: Faith, Truth, and Defiance in the Shadow of
the Third Reich. Trans. and Eds. John Henry Crosby and John F. Crosby. New
York: Crown Publishing, 2014. (254-257) Print.
Dietrich Von Hildebrand (1889-1977), son of a great German sculptor, was a
German philosopher and professor who also served as a surgeons assistant
during WWI. His family lived in Munich (later the home of Hitler) from 1924 to
1933, often entertaining intellectuals. He left his home and extended family
in Munich in 1933 to escape Nazi persecution. Hildebrand settled in Vienna,
Austria where he founded the weekly journal Christian Corporate State to
raise resistance to the National Socialist movement. In 1938 he and his wife
fled to Switzerland barely evading the SS. They immigrated to the US in 1940
where he taught at Fordham University until 1965. Hildebrand published over
30 books and numerous articles on philosophy, theology, and the arts. The
article German Culture and National Socialism in 1934 was republished in
2014 in My Battle Against Hitler, a collection of Hildebrands memoirs from
1921-1937. The target audience for this particular article may have included
the educated of Austria, those resisting the National Socialist party. [Note:
the average less educated reader in Germany would probably not be familiar
with many of the references].
Hildebrand opens his piece with a classic they say, I say: Again and again,
one encounters the fatal error of equating the battle against National

Socialism with a battle against Germany (254). This error in thinking is the
worldview Hildebrand seeks to confront and dismantle. For him, German
culture is lies entirely in the realm of the spirit, a thesis he supports by
citing numerous individual artists, poets, and other great thinkers including
Mozart, Bethoven, Schubert, Goethe, and St. Albert the Great . He argues
that National Socialisms vision of German culture is instead an un-German
rattling clang of sabresa terribledefection from the German essence and
destiny (256). No wonder he was in hot water with the Nazis.
Other quotes: No true German could fail to weep and blush with shame over
the fact that the people privileged to call this radiant, kingly fullness and
nobility of spirit its own should be handed over to such an un-German, halfbaked torrent of slogans can such a clarmorous sham, such trivial, such
wretched kitsch(257).
But this German culture of Hitler is as little related to true German culture
as the female mannequins in a hairdressing salon are related to real feminine
beauty(257).
Analysis: This piece is a beacon of light in the largely dark and gloomy
landscape of the WWII/Holocaust period. One of my long standing questions
about the period is, how could so many thousands of people be swayed to
follow Hitler, to obey commands, to be silent in the face of the persecution
and death not only of Jews, gypsies and others deemed outcasts, but also

thousands of German soldiers? Hildebrands 1934 piece provides evidence


that some did speak out.
I think once the reader understands the rhetorical situation of the piece
(1934 newspaper published in Vienna), it becomes easier to follow. There are
a few words the average reader may be unfamiliar with (nebulous,
hackneyed) and allusions to artists and German composers (Goethes Faust,
Grunewalds alterpiece, etc) that may require a google. This piece could be
useful for those doing inquiries about voices of resistance, questions of why
did people follow Hitler and other dictators.

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