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Curated playlist

20th-century German philosophers

  • Martin HeideggerPhilosopher Martin Heidegger joined the Nazi Party in May 1933. He did so while admired as a leading thinker of being.
  • Herbert MarcuseHerbert Marcuse analyzed Nazi ideology for American spies before students made him a hero.
  • Pope Benedict XVIPope Benedict XVI was born Joseph Alois Ratzinger on Holy Saturday, the 16th of April 1927, and was baptised the same day. For years as a cardinal, he said what he wanted most was a quiet life in his house in Pentling, a Bavarian village…
  • Rudolf CarnapRudolf Carnap argued that most deep philosophical questions were meaningless.
  • Gerd B. AchenbachIn 1981, Gerd B. Achenbach opened the world's first philosophical practice. Anyone could walk in and do philosophy.
  • Werner HeisenbergA spy once carried a pistol to a Werner Heisenberg lecture, ready to shoot him. Moe Berg did not fire.
  • Edmund HusserlA Franciscan priest smuggled approximately 40,000 pages of Edmund Husserl's notes out of Nazi Germany.
  • Paul TillichTheologian Paul Tillich argued that the God most people debate is not God at all.
  • Max WeberMax Weber died in 1920 with his major book unfinished on his desk. His widow spent two years preparing it.
  • Walter BenjaminWalter Benjamin reached the Catalan border town of Portbou on the 25th of September 1940, a German-Jewish philosopher and critic with almost nothing published that the wider world had noticed. He had crossed the French-Spanish frontier…
  • Theodor W. AdornoTheodor W. Adorno opened his first lecture of the summer semester in 1969 by inviting students to ask questions whenever they arose. A student wrote on the blackboard: "If Adorno is left in peace, capitalism will never cease." Three women…
  • Georg SimmelMax Weber and Edmund Husserl backed Georg Simmel, yet he got no full professor's chair until age 56.
  • Karl KautskyLenin once called Karl Kautsky's book the "New Testament" of Marxism. Later, Lenin branded him a renegade.
  • Hermann WeylMathematician Hermann Weyl fled Germany in 1933 after once refusing to leave. His wife was Jewish.
  • Hannah ArendtHannah Arendt's name is printed on journals, schools, scholarly prizes, humanitarian prizes, think-tanks and street signs. It also appears on stamps and monuments. She was born Johanna Arendt, and she grew into one of the most influential…
  • Hans JonasHans Jonas walked back into Germany as a British Army soldier. The Jewish philosopher had fled the country in 1933.
  • Walter Kaufmann (philosopher)At eleven, Walter Kaufmann converted from Lutheranism to Judaism. He later learned all four grandparents were Jewish.
  • Joseph WeizenbaumJoseph Weizenbaum's secretary asked him to leave so she could keep chatting with his program. She knew it was a machine.
  • Rosa LuxemburgRosa Luxemburg was killed in 1919 under a socialist government.
  • Erich FrommErich Fromm argued that falling in love is not love at all. His 1956 book The Art of Loving became a bestseller.
  • Eric GutkindEinstein told philosopher Eric Gutkind the Bible was "a collection of venerable but still rather primitive legends."

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