Hannah Arendt, a German-American philosopher and historian, lived a long and exciting life. Fame came to her at the age of 45, when she wrote the main work of her life, The Origins of Totalitarianism. We tell how Arendt came to philosophy, escaped Nazism, and formed her understanding of a totalitarian regime.
Rebel of Jewish origin
Hannah Arendt was born in 1906 in Königsberg, into an assimilated Jewish family. Hannah’s father died of syphilis when she was seven. Her mother, Martha Arendt, remarried when Hannah was a teenager.
According to Hannah’s own recollections, as Michelle Dean writes in her book “The Impudent Ones,” her mother always protected her from the anti-Semitic remarks that the girl encountered at school. It was enough for Hannah to tell what her classmates or teachers allowed themselves. Martha would immediately write an open letter, and the problem would be solved immediately.
Hannah grew up as a smart and very self-confident girl, which is why she often had conflicts with teachers. Once she even boycotted a teacher who made an offensive remark to her. As a result, she was expelled from school, and Hannah had to prepare for university on her own. Around the same time, Hannah became interested in philosophy. She was especially interested in the existentialist Søren Kierkegaard. Impressed by his works, Hannah began to write poetry.
Romance with Heidegger
In 1924, Arendt passed her exams and entered the University of Marburg, where Professor Martin Heidegger, perhaps one of the most important men in her life, was lecturing. When they met, Hannah was 18, Heidegger was 35. He was married and had two children.
Heidegger was different from other philosophy teachers, and philosophers in general. Instead of cold logic, there was a sensual understanding of the world. Each of his lectures was a small performance. The students were enchanted by Heidegger, including Hannah. At first, he was just a mentor for Arendt. But after a year of study, Heidegger himself took the initiative – he came up to her after the lecture to ask what she was reading.
Arendt and Heidegger’s affair lasted only three months and consisted mainly of correspondence. It was Heidegger who brought it to an end again. He cited his busy schedule and said that they would not be able to communicate as before. After the breakup, Hanna transferred to Heidelberg University and found a new mentor, Karl Jaspers, under whose guidance she wrote her dissertation, “Love and Saint Augustine.”
In 1919, Hanna moved to Berlin, where she met her classmate Gunther Stern at a party. She later married him. But her correspondence with Heidegger continued for many years. When Heidegger openly admitted his sympathy for the Nazis and their ideas, and even led the initiative to expel Jews from universities, their communication ceased for more than a decade. But then it resumed.
Escape from Nazism
In 1933, Hannah Arendt was forced to leave Germany. At that time, she devoted all her time to working on the biography of the Jewish woman Rachel Varnhagen. This woman lived in 18th-century Germany and owned her own salon. Hannah was fascinated by her life story and even considered Varnhagen a role model.
While working on her book about Rachel Varnhagen, Hannah spent a lot of time in the library. One day, friends from foreign Zionist organizations approached her for help. They asked Hannah to collect anti-Semitic statements from brochures stored in that very library. Arendt agreed. However, almost immediately she was caught and arrested along with her mother Martha.
Hannah spent several days in prison. She was actually lucky – the girl was released because one of the investigators liked her. After leaving the prison building, Marta and Hannah immediately packed their bags and left for Prague, and from there – to Paris.
Hannah Arendt lived in France for eight years. She abandoned writing and philosophy. She worked as an administrator in charitable organizations helping Jewish immigrants. She divorced Stern and met her second husband, the German communist Heinrich Blücher. She met the writer Walter Benjamin. It was he who persuaded her to return to the book about Rachel Varnhagen.
But she had to leave France, too. At the end of 1939, Hannah’s husband, Blucher, was sent to an internment camp. Hannah herself was sent to Gurs, a concentration camp in France where Jewish refugees from Germany were sent. She spent a month there. In 1941, France surrendered to Germany, and the camp was disbanded. Hannah and her husband went first to Lisbon, and from there to New York.
In New York, Hannah was finally able to return to writing. She worked for local newspapers. At first, she wrote in very simple language, since she did not know English very well. Over time, Hannah began to feel more confident, was not afraid of sensitive topics and openly entered into polemics. She discussed the negative messages in the term “refugees”, wrote about anti-Semitism and explained the need to create a Jewish army. It was then that she was noticed by the literary critics’ circle at the Partisan Review magazine. This was a huge step forward – from local newspapers for German-speaking communities to large publications that were read by Americans themselves.
The work of a lifetime
Hannah Arendt published her main work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, in 1951, when she was 45 years old. It was her first large-scale work. And it brought her fame.
“The Origins of Totalitarianism” is an anthology in three parts: “Antisemitism”, “Imperialism”, “Totalitarianism”. In it, Hannah considers totalitarianism as a new form of government. According to her philosophy, totalitarianism uses terror as a means of subjugation. And not only of the political opponent, but also of the country’s population.
Hannah was one of the first to attempt to analyze the phenomenon of totalitarianism. Critics admired Arendt’s analysis and erudition. They noted how clearly and, it would seem, obviously she explained what was happening in society.
In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah attempted to answer the question: “How did history get here?” She analyzed the political views of European states from the mid-19th century to the beginning of World War I and tried to trace the emergence of racism as an ideology in them. Hannah Arendt viewed concentration camps as the main instrument of totalitarianism. Ideology, Hannah wrote, is much higher than human life in the concept of totalitarianism.
Hanna also compared the strategies of Nazism and Stalinism. This part of the anthology caused great misunderstanding among the audience. Some thought that Hanna was equating Nazism and communism. But Arendt herself said more than once that by Stalinism she meant precisely the Soviet form of totalitarianism.
Today, The Origins of Totalitarianism is still considered the foundation of all those whose profession is connected with history and political science. And Le Mond included it in the 100 best books of the 20th century.
In 1963, Hannah Arendt published her second landmark work, The Banality of Evil. She wrote it after the trial of Adolf Eichmann, known as the “architect of the Holocaust.” He led the persecution and extermination of Jews. The trial took place in Jerusalem.
Hanna attended as a correspondent for The New Yorker. Her report is still considered controversial and debatable. After the publication of The Banality of Evil, many of Hanna’s Jewish friends turned away from her. The public was outraged that she called Eichmann an “ordinary bureaucrat” and not an “immoral monster.” This is because Arendt was sure that Eichmann committed his crimes not out of “evil intentions,” but because he felt important to the Nazi regime.
Despite the resonance caused by the work, it did not affect Hannah’s career. She continued to write, often lecturing as a visiting professor at many universities: Princeton, Berkeley, Yale, the New School in Manhattan. Hannah Arendt played an important role in the creation of a structured liberal arts education at Stanford.
In 2012, German director Margarethe von Trotta made a feature film about the writing of The Banality of Evil and its consequences for Hannah Arendt.