Darwin’s Influence in Germany
Darwin’s Influence in Germany

Summary/Abstract: In this article, I wish to give a short overview over Darwin’s influence in Germany. The article is divided into four parts. In the first, I briefly deal with Darwin’s relationship to Social Darwinism and in particular to Hitler and the Third Reich, as many people still tend to see a strong link between these two movements. I show that Darwin should not be regarded as connected to the cruelties of the Third Reich. However, there is a relationship between Ernst Haeckel, the main defender of Darwin’s theory of evolution in Germany, and some aspects of Third Reich politics. This connection brings us to the second part of the article in which I briefly mention Darwin’s influence on two major German zoologists, August Weismann, and Ernst Haeckel. In the third part, I focus on the influence Darwin has had on the ideas of German philosophers, and philosophical anthropologists. David Friedrich Strauss, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Simmel, Ernst Cassirer, Max Scheler, Nicolai Hartmann, Helmuth Plessner, Arnold Gehlen, and Vittorio Hösle have to be mentioned in this respect. In the fourth and last part, I conclude the article with some brief remarks on how Darwin is seen in Germany today. So let us with part one.

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