一九三三: 一個猶太哲學家的德國回憶

by Karl Löwith, 卡爾·洛維特, 區立遠 (Translator)

一九三六年，海德格與他最重要的學生卡爾‧洛維特在義大利見面。當時洛維特正因為猶太血統被迫流亡，然而，與他同遊羅馬的海德格，竟毫不在意地戴著納粹勳章。這讓我們想起洛維特曾經如此描述海德格：許多人嘲笑海德格早期的奇異穿著，竟沒人注意到那身打扮不就是介於市民的常服與納粹衝鋒隊的制服之間嗎？

《一九三三》一書，是當代最重要的哲學家洛維特記錄自身早年的知識形成與納粹主政後被迫流亡的經歷。書中除了展現哲學家如何理解納粹的出現，也讓我們看到從德國到義大利、日本各地的知識分子如何面對整個世界的變動。高達美曾說，洛維特是小故事的大師，這項才能並未因他顛沛流離的生活而喪失。面對景仰的師長海德格與壓迫者站在一起，洛維特的敘述依舊銳利清楚。在這本書中，洛維特經常以簡單的觀察，就讓當年的人物活生生地出現在書頁面前，納粹時期的德國知識狀況因而清晰呈現。

洛維特經歷義大利、日本（途中曾至台灣遊覽）、美國的流亡生活之後，在一九五二年透過高達美接洽回到德國，任教於海德堡大學哲學系至一九六四年退休，期間並曾經協助海德格重返學術界。一九七三年逝世。

《一九三三》是洛維特流亡日本期間，為了爭取哈佛大學懷頓圖書館的徵文獎金而寫作的，該次徵文邀請德國的流亡者，將一九三三年前後在德國的印象寫下。當時可能因為內容不符主辦單位期望而未得獎，此份書稿遂也被遺忘多年，直到洛維特遺孀整理遺稿時發現，終於在一九八六年於德國出版。

德國麥茲勒（Metzler）出版社在其辭世後為之出版九大冊的作品全集（1981─1988），本書由於發現太遲未收入全集。

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Philosophy

261 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Karl Löwith was a German philosopher, a student of Heidegger. Löwith was one of the most prolific German philosophers of the twentieth century; the bibliography of his works comprising more than 300 titles.
Löwith was born in Munich. Though he was himself Protestant, his family was of Jewish descent and he therefore had to emigrate Germany in 1934 because of the National Socialist regime. He went to Italy and in 1936 he went to Japan. But because of the alliance between the Third Reich and Japan he had to leave Japan in 1941 and went to the USA. From 1941 to 1952, he taught at the Hartford Theological Seminary and the New School for Social Research. In 1952 he returned to Germany to teach as Professor of Philosophy at Heidelberg, where he died.

He is probably most known for his two books From Hegel to Nietzsche, which describes the decline of German classical philosophy, and Meaning in History, which discusses the problematic relationship between theology and history. Löwith's argument in Meaning in History is that the western view of history is confused by the relationship between Christian faith and the modern view, which is neither Christian nor pagan. Löwith describes this relationship through famous western philosophers and historians, including Burckhardt, Marx, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Voltaire, Vico, Bossuet, Augustine and Orosius. The modern historical consciousness is, according to Löwith, derived from Christianity. But, Christians are not a historical people, as their view of the world is based on faith. This explains the tendency in history (and philosophy) to an eschatological view of human progress.

Reviews

[david]

Es un informe interesantísimo, y brillantemente escrito, sobre el clima intelectual de la Alemania de entreguerras. La cuestión central, como admite el propio Löwith, es la separación del sentir alemán y el sentir judío; cómo es posible que su propio pueblo le repudiara, pese a considerarse alemán, haber luchado en la Gran Guerra, tener un pulmón colapsado por heridas recibidas en defensa de la Mutterland, etc.

El libro desarrolla una cierta ambigüedad que afecta a todo intelectual por su constitución, esa distinción entre ser hombre de acción o de reflexión. Ridiculiza, con razón, a los enjutos hombrecillos de claustro que a partir de 1933 se llenan la boca de vocabulario militarista y beligerante. Más comedido, y con pleno rigor filosófico, el ataque que hace a los intelectuales que respeta, pero que se mostraron abiertos al nazismo; en especial, la fascinación que ejerce sobre Löwith (y sobre la comunidad universitaria de la época) la figura del infame Heidegger, del que se acumulan anécdotas personales realmente lúgubres y estudios de las raíces romántico-fascistas (en palabras de Adorno y Horkheimer) de su pensamiento, que por otra parte funda una de las filosofías más importantes del siglo.

Por último, es interesante que el propio Löwith cruza muchas veces esta fina línea entre el ridículo nacionalista y la defensa de lo justo, defensa a la que le obliga su condición de judío, y no más bien un sentido de lo correcto, o acaso un sentido democrático que no está presente en ningún lugar del espíritu germano. Löwith no tiene empacho en denunciar la hipocresía de los colegas que le aseguraban que no perdería la plaza de profesor, porque era veterano de guerra, y a renglón seguido exiliarse a Italia a cenar con Gentile e intelectuales del mismo pelaje. Por supuesto, cuando los italianos exportan las leyes raciales de Alemania y expulsan a los judíos, la diáspora judeoalemana se lleva las manos a la cabeza. Lo peor es que escribe el libro en 1940 desde su puesto en la universidad de Sendai, así que no sabremos qué opinión le mereció Pearl Harbor y el ostensible tercer exilio al que se vería obligado nuestro amigo Karl.

En cualquier caso, aquí nos interesa la relevancia histórica y el ridículo propio de la condición humana. La relevancia histórica de este informe es evidente. Sobre el ridículo, resulta realmente cómico el contraste entre las apelaciones de Nietzsche, Heidegger, Jünger, Spengler (‘¡hay que vivir peligrosamente!’; hemos de hacernos cargo del ‘destino’ del pueblo alemán; ‘el pueblo alemán ha sido convocado por el Führer […] para tomar la decisión más elevada de todas: si el pueblo quiere su propia existencia, o bien no la quiere’, etc.) y la realidad aparente entre los ojos: el conjunto de frágiles hombrecillos congratulándose ante la barbarie y deshumanización de la Alemania nazi. En fin, recomendado.

[Sam Schulman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A searing book to be read and reread. Written in 1940 as an entry in a prize competitition set up by Gordon Allport of Harvard for personal testimonies, it was not published even in German until 1986. Lowith, of course, was well known in the 20th century as a B+/A- expositor of Nietzsche and his predecessors. This astonishing piece of work was written in obscurity and despair in Japan where he had a precarious university appointment in the late 30s, and was always under attack by the German embassy in that country, despite his obscurity. It is notable for its astonishingly calm portrait of Heidegger, Lowith's teacher, and other academics, fellow students and acquaintances as they underwent (all but a tiny handful)the process of Gleichschaltung, or coordination, with the Nazi regime, which took academia very seriously. Lowith was in a good position to observe this: he was 3/4 Jew, but had been baptized and raised a Protestant by his artist parents and had no special identity as a Jew; moreover as a decorated soldier at the front during the World War he was exempt from many of the pre-Nurenberg Law exigencies, but not spared many humiliations. After 1935 he left Germany for good, living first in Rome, then as a professor in Japan, until, fortunately, he came to the US.
If you want to know what it looked like to become a Nazi, you must read this; if you want a sympathetic but cold account of Heidegger's influence, transformation, depth of Nazi sympathies; accounts of perhaps a dozen decent and intelligent men and women Lowith knew well and their reaction to being Nazified, and an account of the 20s (during most of which time Lowith was a grad student in philosophy, this is unescapable. I am glad it is not better known, because I can mine it without seeming cliche. Read it, use it, but don't tell your friends.

[Güis Guerrero-Enterría · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lo dificil que fue para los filosofos judios con los nazis y lo peor las traiciones de los no judios que les denunciaban y ayudaban al acoso.