The “Cult of the Superman” has haunted humanity throughout history, yet it was only clearly expressed in the philosophy of its modern prophet, Friedrich Nietzsche, and culminated in its fiercest supporter, the National Socialist ideology, a political religion whose main ideal and objective were the creation of a superhuman species.
By showing the link between the Nietzschean and Nazi worldviews - and more specifically the Nazi Secret Doctrine which I have called “esoteric Nazism”- my aim is to demonstrate that the Nazis were pure Nietzscheans, thus repudiating the views of some scholars who deny or undermine any link between the Nietzschean and Nazi doctrines. I endeavour to prove that the Nazi esoteric ideology was primarily an endeavour to actualise and institutionalise Nietzsche’s cult of the Superman, applying it to a political system that would breed a Herrenvolk or “Master Race” in body and spirit, destined to rule the earth. Nazism was in fact greatly influenced by Nietzsche’s philosophy, especially his concept of the Superman, giving it a political dimension in order to “put Nietzsche into motion” and turn the philosopher’s cult from an abstract notion into a concrete reality. The S.S. (Schutzstaffeln, or “Security Squads”), Nazi Germany’s racial and political elite, was indeed a self-proclaimed Nietzschean institution of Übermenschen or “Supermen” claiming to embody the creed of the Godlike man.
Thus did both Nietzsche and the Nazis call for a revival of Aryan paganism, namely the ancient Aryan esoteric tradition from India to Greece, rejecting the Jewish religion of Christianity, which they believed was a gross distortion of Christ’s original teachings. Both doctrines acknowledged the Will to Power as the motor of history; both praised the qualities and values of the Superman, glorifying war, and advocating a radically aristocratic view of the world. Both Nietzsche and Nazism despised Western Judaeo-Christian Civilisation and its two products, Liberalism and Socialism, introducing a “third option” - aristocratic radicalism - between “corrupt egalitarian democracy” and the “materialist socialism of the mob”. In addition, both advocated the rule of an Aryan universal “Master Race” transcending the boundaries of states and nations; and finally, both Nietzsche and the Nazis dismissed the “decadent” Jew from civilisation, considering him alien to the natural order, an incarnation of the slave morality.