An 'entirely tactless Nietzschean jew':Oscar levy's critique of western civilization

Journal of Contemporary History

Volumn 36, Issue 2, 2001, Pages

  Stone, Dan ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 34347280945     PISSN: 00220094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/002200940103600203     Document Type: Article

References (105)

1. The only published article directly devoted to Levy is Uschi Nussbaumer-Benz, 'Oscar Levys nietzscheanische Visionen' in Werner Stegmaier and Daniel Krochmalnik (eds), Jüdischer Nietzscheanismus, Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung, vol. 36 (Berlin/New York 1997), 188-208, which relies heavily on Albi Rosenthal's unpublished paper, 'Die Nietzsche Rezeption in England bis zum Jahr 1914', delivered at the Nietzsche-Kolloquium, Sils-Maria, 29 September 1994
2. see also Albi Rosenthal, 'Betrachtungen über eine Nietzsche-Sammlung in England', Nietzsche-Studien, 19 (1990), 479-87
3. As Steven E. Aschheim has noted, 'Inasmuch as the early academic reception of Nietzsche was both hostile and slow, there may have been an initial grain of truth to the observation that Nietzsche tended to attract more marginal and "bohemian" elements.'
4. See The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany 1890-1990 (Berkeley, CA 1992), 36. This was the case for Britain, as the Nation complained in 'The Will to Power' (2 January 1909),
5. and as Thomas Common noted in his 'Introduction to the Translation' to Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, trans. Helen Zimmern (4th edn, London 1967 [orig. 1907]), xv
6. Oscar Levy, Autobiography (unpublished MS, possession of Maud and Albi Rosenthal), 58
7. David S. Thatcher, Nietzsche in England 1890-1914: The Growth of a Reputation (Toronto 1970);
8. Patrick Bridgwater, Nietzsche in Anglosaxony: A Study of Nietzsche's Impact on English and American Literature (Leicester 1972)
9. Oscar Levy, 'Editorial Note' and 'Nietzsche in England: An Introductory Essay by the Editor' in Oscar Levy (ed.), The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, vol. 1: Thoughts out of Season, part one, trans. Anthony M. Ludovici (Edinburgh/London 1909), viii, xxvi;
10. idem, 'Introduction' to Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, trans. Thomas Common, rev. Oscar Levy and John L. Beevers (London 1967 [second impression of 6th edn of 1932], 24
11. Oscar Levy, The Revival of Aristocracy, trans. Leonard A. Magnus (London 1906), 5-6, 39. Originally published in German in 1904 under the less revealing title Das neunzehnte Jahrhundert
12. A.R. Orage, Friedrich Nietzsche: The Dionysian Spirit of the Age (London/Edinburgh 1906);
13. idem, Nietzsche in Outline and Aphorism (Edinburgh/London 1907), esp. 165-75
14. see also Florence Farr, 'Superman Consciousness', The New Age, 1, 6 (6 June 1907), 92 for a review of Orage
15. Anthony M. Ludovici, 'Hitler and the Third Reich', English Review, 63, 1 (July 1936), 35-41; 63, 2 (August 1936), 147-53; 63, 3 (September 1936), 231-9.
16. For more on Ludovici see Dan Stone, 'The Extremes of Englishness: The "Exceptional" Ideology of Anthony Mario Ludovici', Journal of Political Ideologies, 4, 2 (1999), 191-218
17. Oscar Levy, 'The Nietzsche Movement in England: A Retrospect, a Confession, and a Prospect' in Oscar Levy (ed.), The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, vol. 18: Index to the Complete Works (London/Edinburgh 1913), xvii.
18. Idem, 'The Life, Work and Influence of Count Arthur de Gobineau: An Introductory Essay by Dr Oscar Levy' in Arthur de Gobineau, The Renaissance: Savonarola - Cesare Borgia-Julius II - Leo X - Michel Angela, trans. Paul V. Cohn, ed. Oscar Levy (London 1913), xvii
19. Anthony M. Ludovici, A Defence of Conservatism: A Further Text-Book for Tories (London 1927), 117
20. see also M.A. Mügge, Friedrich Nietzsche: His Life and Work (London/Leipsic 1909);
21. Maximilian A. Mügge, 'Eugenics and the Superman: A Racial Science, and a Racial Religion', Eugenics Review, 1, 3 (1909), 184-93;
22. Paul Carus, Nietzsche and Other Exponents of Individualism (Chicago/London 1914)
23. Levy, 'Introduction' to Gobineau, The Renaissance, op. cit., xv
24. Lord Beaconsfield (Disraeli), Contarini Fleming: Ein psychologischer Roman, trans. Oscar Levy (Berlin 1909);
25. Benjamin Disraeli, Tancred oder der neue Kreuzzug, trans. Oscar Levy (Munich/Berlin 1914)
26. Levy, 'Introduction' to Gobineau, The Renaissance, op. cit., xxix, xxx, xxxv
27. Here Levy differed from the views of the Oxford philosopher and eugenicist F.C.S. Schiller, who believed that 'Nietzsche's preference for an aristocracy is biologically justified, because progress everywhere depends on the few who are capable of creating novelties'. See 'The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche', Quarterly Review (January 1913), 159
28. Levy, 'Introduction' to Gobineau, The Renaissance, op. cit., xlv.
29. Cf. Henri Lichtenberger, The Gospel of Superman: The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. J.M. Kennedy (Edinburgh/London 1910), 138-9;
30. and, for dissent, L.H. Green, 'Nietzsche, Eugenics and Christianity', The Commonwealth, XIX, 218 (1914), 50-3, 81-3, 111-15, 147-8
31. Levy, 'Nietzsche in England', op. cit., xxv
32. Oscar Levy, 'Nietzsche and the Jews', The New Age, XVI, 7(17 December 1914), 170
33. Cf. Oscar Levy, 'Introduction' to Leo G. Sera, On the Tracks of Life: The Immorality of Morality, trans. J.M. Kennedy (London 1909), x
34. Cf., for example, J.M. Kennedy, Tory Democracy (London 1911)
35. Lord Willoughby de Broke, 'Introduction' to National Revival: A Re-Statement of Tory Principles (London 1913)
36. Anthony M. Ludovici, A Defence of Aristocracy: A Textbook for Tories (London 1915)
37. Georges Chatterton-Hill, The Philosophy of Nietzsche: An Exposition and an Appreciation (London, n.d. [1913?]), 257-9
38. ; Thomas Common, 'The New Outlook', Notes for Good Europeans, 1, 1 (1903), 1-11,
39. and 'Defects of Popular Secularism', 1, 2 (1903-1904), 41-52
40. Oscar Levy, 'A Book on Nietzsche', The New Age, XV, 4 (28 May 1914), 89-90
41. Georges Chatterton-Hill to Oscar Levy, 30 November 1913; Levy to Chatterton-Hill, 28 November 1913. Correspondence cited is in the possession of Maud and Albi Rosenthal
42. See, for example, Edmund McClure, Germany's War-Inspirers: Nietzsche and Treitschke (London 1914);
43. William Cross, Nietzsche and the War (Singapore 1915);
44. Herbert Leslie Stewart, Nietzsche and the Ideals of Modern Germany (London 1915)
45. Oscar Levy, 'Gobineau and Chamberlain', The New Age, XVI, 10 (7 January 1915), 242
46. Oscar Levy, 'Germans in England: An Appeal', The New Age, XV, 21 (1 October 1914), 532-3
47. Levy, 'Gobineau and Chamberlain', op. cit., 242
48. Oscar Levy, Kriegsaphorismen für Europäer oder solche, die es werden wollen. Ein Versuch zur geistigen Mobilisierung (Bern/Biel/Zürieh 1917), no. 97 (80), no. 114 (90)
49. Oscar Levy, 'The German and the European', part I, The New Age, XVII, 8 (24 June 1915), 176-9; part II, XVII, 12 (22 July 1915), 270-2; part III, XVII, 17 (26 August 1915), 399-402; part IV, XVII, 23 (7 October 1915), 541-4; part V, XVII, 26 (28 October 1915), 614-17
50. Oscar Levy, 'The Idolatry of Words', part I, The New Age, XXIV, 10 (9 January 1919), 161
51. Oscar Levy, 'The Idolatry of Words', part IV, The New Age, XXIV, 16 (20 February 1919), 261
52. These details come from Oscar Levy, My Battle for Nietzsche in England (unpublished MS, possession of Maud and Albi Rosenthal), 10-11, 33-4.
53. On the atmosphere in Britain in this period regarding 'aliens', see Tony Kushner and Katharine Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide: Global, National and Local Perspectives during the Twentieth Century (London 1999), 64-100;
54. William J. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals 1875-1914 (London 1975), 61-93;
55. and, for the background, Bernard Gainer, The Alien Invasion: The Origins of the Aliens Act 1905 (London 1972)
56. Levy, My Battle for Nietzsche in England, op. cit., 15
57. Oscar Levy, 'Nietzsche and the Jews', part II, The New Age, XVI, 8 (24 December 1914), 195
58. Cf. Ritchie Robertson, The 'Jewish Question' in German Literature, 1749-1939: Emancipation and its Discontents (Oxford 1999), 287, on Theodor Lessing's internalization of and dependence on antisemitic stereotypes in his analysis of Jewish self-hatred
59. Oscar Levy, 'Prefatory Letter' to George Pitt-Rivers, The World Significance of the Russian Revolution (Oxford 1920), vi. Further references in the text. Emphasis in the original
60. See Susan Cohen, 'In Step with Arnold Leese: The Case of Lady Birdwood', Patterns of Prejudice, 28, 2 (1994), 61-75
61. On Pitt-Rivers see Richard Griffiths, Fellow Travellers of the Right: British Enthusiasts far Nazi Germany 1933-39 (Oxford 1983), 323-4;
62. A.W. Brian Simpson, In the Highest Degree Odious: Detention Without Trial in Wartime Britain (Oxford 1994), 217-18. Pitt-Rivers, 'somewhere between eccentric and dotty', was a cousin of Churchill's, and 'an appalling bore, with academic pretensions, who mixed in far-right circles, held racialist views, and was, understandably, thought to be pro-Nazi' (Simpson, op. cit., 217). In The Czech Conspiracy: A Phase in the World-War Plot (London 1938) Pitt-Rivers committed himself entirely to conspiracy theory
63. See Gert Matenklott, 'Nietzsche dans les revues culturelles juives de langue allemande, de 1900 à 1938' and Bruce E. Ellerin, 'Nietzsche et les sionistes: Tableau d'un réception', both in Dominique Bourel and Jacques Le Rider (eds), De Sils-Maria à Jerusalem. Nietzsche et le judaïsme. Les intellectuels juifs et Nietzsche (Paris 1991), 93-109 and 111-19; David Ohana, 'Zarathustra in Jerusalem: Nietzsche and the "New Hebrews"' in Robert Wistrich and David Ohana (eds), The Shaping of Israeli Identity: Myth, Memory, Trauma (London 1995), 38-60
64. Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy, op. cit., 95
65. 'Dr Levy, a Jew, Admits His People's Error', Dearborn Independent, 30 April 1921, reprinted in The Jewish Question: A Selection of the Articles (1921-22) Published by Mr Henry Ford's The Dearborn Independent and Reprinted Later Under the General Title of The International Jew (London, n.d.), 211-21
66. Weaver Santaniello, Nietzsche, God, and the Jews: His Critique of Judeo-Christianity in Relation to the Nazi Myth (Albany, NY 1994), 134
67. see also Michael F. Duffy and Willard Mittleman, 'Nietzsche's Attitude Toward the Jews', Journal of the History of Ideas, 49, 2 (1988), 301-17;
68. Delphine Bechtel, 'Nietzsche et le dialectique de l'histoire juive' in Bourel and Le Rider (eds), De Sils-Maria à Jerusalem, op. cit., 67-79;
69. Jacob Golomb (ed.), Nietzsche and Jewish Culture (London 1997), Part 1: Nietzsche's Relations to Jews, Judaism and Jewish Culture
70. Lord Alfred Douglas, 'The Levities of Mr Oscar Levy', Plain English, 11,51 (25 June 1921), 507
71. 'The Expulsion of Dr Oscar Levy', English Review, 33, 5 (November 1921), 429
72. Levy, Autobiography, op. cit., 199, 200.
73. Hilaire Belloc, The Jews (London 1922), 252 The Jews
74. 'Notes of the Month: Dr Oscar Levy', The Hidden Hand or Jewry über Alles, 2, 9 (October 1921), 2
75. Levy, 'Introduction' to Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, op. cit., 60. Further references in the text
76. Oscar Levy, 'The Spiritual Basis of Fascism', The New Age, XXXV, 26 (23 October 1924), 306, 307
77. See, for example, D. Gawronsky, Friedrich Nietzsche und das Dritte Reich (Bern 1935)
78. Richard Maximilian Lonsbach, Friedricb Nietzsche und die Juden (Stockholm 1939)
79. Crane Brinton, 'The National Socialists' Use of Nietzsche', Journal of the History of Ideas, 1, 2 (1940), 131-50
80. Konrad Algermissen, Nietzsche und das Dritte Reich (Celle 1947)
81. Bernard H.F. Taureck, Nietzsche und der Faschismus: Fine Studie über Nietzsches politische Philosophie und ihre Folgen (Hamburg 1989)
82. Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, op. cit.
83. ; Santaniello, Nietzsche, God, and the Jews, op. cit.;
84. Martha Zapata Galindo, Triumph des Wiliens zur Macht: Zur Nietzsche-Rezeption im NS-Staat (Hamburg 1995)
85. Though not entirely absent. See Gene Bernardini, 'The Origins and Development of Racial Anti-Semitism in Fascist Italy', Journal of Modern History, 49, 3 (1977), 431-53
86. Oscar Levy, 'The Spirit of Israel', Review of Nations (March 1927), 94-5
87. Levy, 'Introduction' to Thus Spake Zarathustra, op. cit., 26, 28
88. Heinrich Härtle, Nietzsche unci der Nationalsozialismus (Munich 1937), 54
89. Oscar Levy, letter to the New English Weekly (16 November 1933)
90. see also Marius Paul Nicolas, From Nietzsche Down to Hitler, trans. E.G. Echlin (London/Edinburgh/Glasgow 1938), 105-7
91. Oscar Levy, letter to the Tablet, 5 August 1939
92. Evening Telegraph and Post (Dundee), 19 May 1934
93. Oscar Levy, letter to the Jewish Chronicle, 8 July 1938. This was just one letter in a vigorous campaign of writing to newspapers and journals all over the world. For example, to the Commonweal in New York, Levy wrote (15 May 1936): '... dynamite, as Nietzsche once called his message, may be excellent for blasting hard rocks and opening new roads, but in the hands of clumsy bunglers it may only too easily lead to disaster. If the Nazi experiment should bring this about, I beg to warn American readers, not to hold Nietzsche responsible, but his self-styled "Aryan" interpreters of the Fatherland.' To the Birmingham Post he wrote (6 May 1936): 'If, therefore, disaster should ensue from this utter falsification of a noble message, I beg to ask the thinking world of England not to hold Nietzsche's creed responsible, but its "Aryan" Ministers in the Fatherland.' To The Scotsman he wrote (31 August 1939): 'National-Socialism is really National-Bolshevism, and even Inter-National-Bolshevism. The Nazintern are as dangerous as the Comintern. Karl Marx is the patron saint of both the Bolshie and the Nazi Revolution. Against Karl Marx, however, there is only one antidote: Friedrieh Nietzsche.' On the eve of the German invasion of Poland, this was an important message for readers of The Scotsman, which had been something of a platform for the pro-nazi views of Captain Ramsay; see Richard Griffiths, Patriotism Perverted: Captain Ramsay, the Right Club, and British Anti-Semitism 1939-40 (London 1998), 90-7
94. The most important article in which was 'Das Zeitalter der Religionen' (October 1936), in which he argued for the need for a theology of National Socialism. 'Blood', 'Race', 'Soil', and 'Nation' [Volkheit] are the dogmas of Nazism; 'Reich, Volk und Führer' its trinity; and the idea of chosenness its form of predestination
95. Oscar Levy, letter to the Natal Mercury (Durban), 16 September 1936
96. Letter from Norman Douglas to Oscar Levy, 1 November 1936
97. Oscar Levy, The Idiocy of Idealism (London/Edinburgh/Glasgow 1940), 34. Further references in the text
98. John Llewelyn, 'sELection' in Alan Milchman and Alan Rosenberg (eds), Postmodernism and the Holocaust (Amsterdam/Atlanta 1998), 191-2.
99. For the argument that the only explanation for nazism is religion cf. Michael Ley, Genozid und Heilserwartung: Zum nationalsozialistischen Mord am europäischen Judentum (Vienna 1993);
100. and idem, 'Auschwitz: Ein historischer Essay' in Charlotte Kohn-Ley and Michael Ley (eds), Auschwitz: Versuche einer Annaherung (Vienna 1996), 96, 123
101. See Ivan Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West (Baltimore 1996), for the argument that race-thinking is absent from classical texts
102. See, for example, Keith Ansell-Pearson, An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker (Cambridge 1994),
103. and, especially, Daniel Conway, Nietzsche and the Political (London 1997).
104. For a corrective see Fredrick Appel, Nietzsche Contra Democracy (Ithaca 1999),
105. and Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut (eds), Why We Are Not Nietzscheans (Chicago 1997)