The question of German guilt / by Karl Jaspers ; translated by E.B. Ashton ; with a new introduction by Joseph W. Koterski.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jaspers, Karl, 1883-1969.

Series:

Perspectives in continental philosophy ; no. 16.

Perspectives in continental philosophy ; no. 16

Standardized Title:

Schuldfrage. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Antisemitism--Germany--History--20th century.

Antisemitism.

National socialism.

World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities.

World War, 1939-1945.

World War, 1939-1945--Germany.

Germany--History--Philosophy.

Germany.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (141 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Fordham University Press, 2000.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Shortly after the Nazi government fell, a philosophy professor at Heidelberg University lectured on a subject that burned the consciousness and conscience of thinking Germans. ?Are the German people guilty?? These lectures by Karl Jaspers, an outstanding European philosopher, attracted wide attention among German intellectuals and students; they seemed to offer a path to sanity and morality in a disordered world. Jaspers, a life-long liberal, attempted in this book to discuss rationally a problem that had thus far evoked only heat and fury. Neither an evasive apology nor a wholesome condemnation, his book distinguished between types of guilt and degrees of responsibility. He listed four categories of guilt: criminal guilt (the commitment of overt acts), political guilt (the degree of political acquiescence in the Nazi regime), moral guilt (a matter of private judgment among one?s friends), and metaphysical guilt (a universally shared responsibility of those who chose to remain alive rather than die in protest against Nazi atrocities). Karl Jaspers (1883?1969) took his degree in medicine but soon became interested in psychiatry. He is the author of a standard work of psychopathology, as well as special studies on Strindberg, Van Gogh and Nietsche. After World War I he became Professor of Philosophy at Heidelberg, where he achieved fame as a brilliant teacher and an early exponent of existentialism. He was among the first to acquaint German readers with the works of Kierkegaard. Jaspers had to resign from his post in 1935. From the total isolation into which the Hitler regime forced him, Jaspers returned in 1945 to a position of central intellectual leadership of the younger liberal elements of Germany. In his first lecture in 1945, he forcefully reminded his audience of the fate of the German Jews. Jaspers?s unblemished record as an anti-Nazi, as

well as his sentient mind, have made him a rallying point center for those of his compatriots who wish to reconstruct a free and democratic Germany.

Contents:

Contents

Introduction to the 2000 Edition

"Ladies and Gentlemen"

Introduction

Scheme of Distinctions

The German Questions

Differentiation of German Guilt

Possible Excuses

Our Purification.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9786612698385

9780823260560

0823260569

9781282698383

1282698389

9780823238552

0823238555

9780823220632

082322063X

9780585416670

0585416672

OCLC:

730040906

Publisher Number:

2027/heb08575 hdl