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Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a
political philosopher Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...
, author, and
Holocaust survivor Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally acce ...
. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. Arendt was born in Linden, which later became a district of
Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
, in 1906, to a Jewish family. When she was three, her family moved to Königsberg, the capital of
East Prussia East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label=Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871 ...
, so that her father's
syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, and ...
could be treated. Paul Arendt had contracted the disease in his youth, and it was thought to be in remission when Arendt was born. He died when she was seven. Arendt was raised in a politically progressive, secular family; her mother was an ardent supporter of the
Social Democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soc ...
. After completing secondary education in Berlin, Arendt studied at the
University of Marburg The Philipps University of Marburg (german: Philipps-Universität Marburg) was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Protestant university in the worl ...
under
Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...
, with whom she had a four-year affair. She obtained her doctorate in philosophy writing on ''Love and Saint Augustine'' at the
University of Heidelberg } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...
in 1929 under the direction of the
existentialist Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...
philosopher
Karl Jaspers Karl Theodor Jaspers (, ; 23 February 1883 – 26 February 1969) was a German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry, and philosophy. After being trained in and practicing psychiatry, Jaspers ...
. Hannah Arendt married Günther Stern in 1929, but soon began to encounter increasing anti-Jewish discrimination in 1930s
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. In 1933, the year
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...
came to power, Arendt was arrested and briefly imprisoned by the
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organis ...
for performing illegal research into
antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
in Nazi Germany. On release, she fled Germany, living in Czechoslovakia and Switzerland before settling in Paris. There she worked for
Youth Aliyah Youth Aliyah (Hebrew: עלית הנוער, ''Aliyat Hano'ar'', German: Jugend-Alijah, Youth Immigration) is a Jewish organization that rescued thousands of Jewish children from the Nazis during the Third Reich. Youth Aliyah arranged for their r ...
, assisting young Jews to emigrate to the
British Mandate of Palestine British Mandate of Palestine or Palestine Mandate most often refers to: * Mandate for Palestine: a League of Nations mandate under which the British controlled an area which included Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan. * Mandatory P ...
. Divorcing Stern in 1937, she married
Heinrich Blücher Heinrich Friedrich Ernst Blücher (29 January 1899 – 31 October 1970) was a German poet and philosopher. He was the second husband of Hannah Arendt whom he had first met in Paris in 1936. During his life in America, Blücher traveled in popu ...
in 1940, but when Germany invaded France in 1940 she was detained by the French as an alien, despite having been stripped of her
German citizenship German nationality law details the conditions by which an individual holds German nationality. The primary law governing these requirements is the Nationality Act, which came into force on 1 January 1914. Germany is a member state of the Europ ...
in 1937. She escaped and made her way to the United States in 1941 via Portugal. She settled in New York, which remained her principal residence for the rest of her life. She became a writer and editor and worked for the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, becoming an American citizen in 1950. With the publication of ''
The Origins of Totalitarianism ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'', published in 1951, was Hannah Arendt's first major work, wherein she describes and analyzes Nazism and Stalinism as the major totalitarian political movements of the first half of the 20th century. History ...
'' in 1951, her reputation as a thinker and writer was established and a series of works followed. These included the books ''
The Human Condition ''The Human Condition'', first published in 1958, is Hannah Arendt's account of how "human activities" should be and have been understood throughout Western history. Arendt is interested in the ''vita activa'' (active life) as contrasted with t ...
'' in 1958, as well as ''
Eichmann in Jerusalem ''Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil'' is a 1963 book by political thinker Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power, reported on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organizers ...
'' and ''
On Revolution ''On Revolution'' is a 1963 book by political theorist Hannah Arendt. Arendt presents a comparison of two of the main revolutions of the eighteenth century, the American and French Revolutions. History Twelve years after the publication of h ...
'' in 1963. She taught at many American universities, while declining
tenure-track Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program disco ...
appointments. She died suddenly of a heart attack in 1975, at the age of 69, leaving her last work, ''
The Life of the Mind ''The Life of the Mind'' was the final work of Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), and was unfinished at the time of her death. Designed to be in three parts, only the first two had been completed and the first page of the third part was in her typewrit ...
'', unfinished. Her works cover a broad range of topics, but she is best known for those dealing with the nature of
power Power most often refers to: * Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work" ** Engine power, the power put out by an engine ** Electric power * Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events ** Abusive power Power may ...
and
evil Evil, in a general sense, is defined as the opposite or absence of good. It can be an extremely broad concept, although in everyday usage it is often more narrowly used to talk about profound wickedness and against common good. It is general ...
, as well as politics,
direct democracy Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the electorate decides on policy initiatives without elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently established democracies, which are represe ...
,
authority In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, ''authority'' is practiced in ways such a judicial branch or an executive branch of government.''The Ne ...
, and totalitarianism. In the popular mind she is best remembered for the controversy surrounding the
trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, ...
of
Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''
apologia An apologia (Latin for apology, from Greek ἀπολογία, "speaking in defense") is a formal defense of an opinion, position or action. The term's current use, often in the context of religion, theology and philosophy, derives from Justin Mar ...
, and for the phrase "
the banality of evil ''Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil'' is a 1963 book by political thinker Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power, reported on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organizers ...
". She is commemorated by institutions and journals devoted to her thinking, the
Hannah Arendt Prize The Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought (german: Hannah-Arendt-Preis für politisches Denken, links=no) is a prize awarded to individuals representing the tradition of political theorist Hannah Arendt, especially in regard to totalitarianis ...
for political thinking, and on stamps, street names and schools, amongst other things.


Early life and education (1906–1929)


Family

Hannah Arendt was born Johanna Arendt in 1906 into a comfortable educated secular family of
German Jews The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...
in Linden,
Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was '' de facto'' dissolved by an ...
(now a part of
Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
), in Wilhelmine Germany. Her family were merchants of Russian extraction from Königsberg, the
East Prussia East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label=Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871 ...
n capital. Arendt's grandparents were members of the
Reform Jewish Reform Judaism, also known as Liberal Judaism or Progressive Judaism, is a major Jewish denomination that emphasizes the evolving nature of Judaism, the superiority of its ethical aspects to its ceremonial ones, and belief in a continuous searc ...
community there. Hannah's paternal grandfather, (1843–1913), was a prominent businessman, local politician, one of the leaders of the Königsberg Jewish community and a member of the
Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens The Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens (also: Zentral-Verein, Central Verein, CV, C.V., C.-V.) (Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith) was founded by German Jewish intellectuals on 26 March 1893 in Berlin, ...
(Central Organization for German Citizens of the Jewish Faith). Like other members of the Centralverein he primarily saw himself as a German and disapproved of the activities of
Zionists Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Jew ...
, such as the young
Kurt Blumenfeld Kurt Blumenfeld (May 29, 1884 – May 21, 1963) was a German-born Zionist from Marggrabowa, East Prussia. He was the secretary general of the World Zionist Organization from 1911 to 1914. He died in Jerusalem. He had served as secretary of th ...
(1884–1963), who was a frequent visitor to their home and would later become one of Hannah's mentors. Of Max Arendt's children, Paul Arendt (1873–1913) was an engineer and
Henriette Arendt Henriette Arendt (11 November 1874 – 22 August 1922) was a German writer and policewoman. She is known because she was one of the earliest women to be a police officer, being a policewoman in 1903. She was the aunt of philosopher and historian H ...
(1874–1922) was a policewoman who became a social worker. Hannah was the only child of Paul and Martha Arendt (née Cohn) (1874–1948), who were married on 11 April 1902. She was named after her paternal grandmother. The Cohns had originally come to Königsberg from nearby Russian territory (now
Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
) in 1852, as refugees from anti-Semitism, and made their living as tea importers; J. N. Cohn & Company became the largest business in the city. The Arendts had reached Germany from Russia a century earlier. Hannah's extended family contained many more women, who shared the loss of husbands and children. Hannah's parents were more educated and politically more to the left than her grandparents. The young couple became members of the
Social Democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soc ...
, rather than the
German Democratic Party The German Democratic Party (, or DDP) was a center-left liberal party in the Weimar Republic. Along with the German People's Party (, or DVP), it represented political liberalism in Germany between 1918 and 1933. It was formed in 1918 from the ...
that most of their contemporaries supported. Paul Arendt was educated at the Albertina (
University of Königsberg The University of Königsberg (german: Albertus-Universität Königsberg) was the university of Königsberg in East Prussia. It was founded in 1544 as the world's second Protestant academy (after the University of Marburg) by Duke Albert of Pruss ...
). Though he worked as an engineer, he prided himself on his love of
Classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classi ...
. He collected a large library, in which Hannah immersed herself. Martha Cohn, a musician, had studied for three years in Paris. In the first four years of their marriage, the Arendts lived in Berlin, where they were supporters of the socialist journal . At the time of Hannah's birth, Paul Arendt was employed by an electrical engineering firm in Linden, and they lived in a frame house on the market square (Marktplatz). The Arendt family moved back to Königsberg in 1909, because of Paul's deteriorating health. Hannah's father suffered from a prolonged illness with
syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, and ...
and had to be institutionalized in the Königsberg psychiatric hospital in 1911. For years afterward, Hannah had to have annual WR tests for congenital syphilis. He died on 30 October 1913, when Hannah was seven, leaving her mother to raise her. They lived at Hannah's grandfather's house at Tiergartenstraße 6, a leafy residential street adjacent to the Königsberg Tiergarten, in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of
Hufen Hufen was a broad region along northwestern Königsberg, Germany, which developed into the quarters of Ratshof, Amalienau, Mittelhufen, and Vorderhufen. The territory is now part of the Tsentralny District of Kaliningrad, Russia. History Hu ...
. Although Hannah's parents were non-religious, they were happy to allow Max Arendt to take Hannah to the Reform synagogue. She also received religious instruction from the
rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...
, Hermann Vogelstein, who would come to her school for that purpose. At the time the young Hannah confided that she wished to marry him when she grew up. Her family moved in circles that included many intellectuals and professionals. It was a social circle of high standards and ideals. As she recalled it:
My early intellectual formation occurred in an atmosphere where nobody paid much attention to moral questions; we were brought up under the assumption: , moral conduct is a matter of course.
This time was a particularly favorable period for the Jewish community in Königsberg, an important center of the ''
Haskalah The ''Haskalah'', often termed Jewish Enlightenment ( he, השכלה; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Western Eur ...
'' (enlightenment). Arendt's family was thoroughly assimilated ("Germanized") and she later remembered: "With us from Germany, the word 'assimilation' received a 'deep' philosophical meaning. You can hardly realize how serious we were about it." Despite these conditions, the Jewish population lacked full citizenship rights, and although
antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
was not overt, it was not absent. Arendt came to define her Jewish identity negatively after encountering overt antisemitism as an adult. She came to greatly identify with
Rahel Varnhagen Rahel Antonie Friederike Varnhagen () (née Levin, later Robert; 19 May 1771 – 7 March 1833) was a German writer who hosted one of the most prominent salons in Europe during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She is the subject of a celeb ...
(1771–1833), the Prussian socialite who desperately wanted to assimilate into German culture, only to be rejected because she was born Jewish. Arendt later said of Varnhagen that she was "my very closest woman friend, unfortunately dead a hundred years now." Varnhagen would later become the subject of a biography by Hannah. In the last two years of the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighti ...
, Hannah's mother organized social democratic discussion groups and became a follower of
Rosa Luxemburg Rosa Luxemburg (; ; pl, Róża Luksemburg or ; 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary socialist, Marxist philosopher and anti-war activist. Successively, she was a member of the Proletariat part ...
(1871–1919) as socialist uprisings broke out across Germany. Luxemburg's writings would later influence Hannah's political thinking. In 1920, Martha Cohn married Martin Beerwald (1869–1941), an ironmonger and widower of four years, and they moved to his home, two blocks away, at Busoldstrasse 6, providing Hannah with improved social and financial security. Hannah was 14 at the time and acquired two older stepsisters, Clara (1901–1932) and Eva (1902–1988).


Education


Early education

Hannah Arendt's mother, who considered herself progressive, sought to raise her daughter along strict Goethean lines, which amongst other things, involved the reading of the complete works of Goethe, often summed up in the phrase from ''
Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship ''Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship'' ( ger, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre) is the second novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published in 1795–96. Plot The eponymous hero undergoes a journey of self-realization. The story centers upon Wilhelm's ...
'' (1796) as – (And just what is your duty? The demands of the day). Goethe, at the time, was considered the essential mentor of (education), the conscious formation of mind, body and spirit. The key elements were considered to be self-discipline, constructive channeling of passion, renunciation and responsibility for others. Hannah's developmental progress () was carefully documented by her mother in a book, which she titled (Our Child) and measured her against the benchmark of what was then considered ("normal development"). Arendt attended kindergarten from 1910 where her precocity impressed her teachers and enrolled in the Szittnich School, Königsberg (Hufen-Oberlyzeum), on Bahnstraße in August 1913, but her studies there were interrupted by the outbreak of World War I, forcing the family to temporarily flee to Berlin on 23 August 1914, in the face of the advancing Russian army. There they stayed with her mother's younger sister, Margarethe Fürst (1884–1942), and her three children, while Hannah attended a girl's school in
Berlin-Charlottenburg Charlottenburg () is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Established as a town in 1705 and named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, Queen consort of Prussia, it is best known for Charlottenburg Palace, the ...
. After ten weeks, when Königsberg appeared to be no longer threatened, the Arendts were able to return, where they spent the remaining war years at her grandfather's house. Arendt's precocity continued, learning ancient Greek as a child, writing poetry in her teenage years, and starting both a philosophy club and Greek ''Graecae'' at her school. She was fiercely independent in her schooling and a voracious reader, absorbing French and German literature and poetry (committing large amounts to heart) and philosophy. By the age of 14, she had read Kierkegaard, Jaspers' and
Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ae ...
's ('' Critique of Pure Reason''). Kant, whose home town was also Königsberg, was an important influence on her thinking, and it was Kant who had written about Königsberg that "such a town is the right place for gaining knowledge concerning men and the world even without travelling". Arendt attended the Königin-Luise-Schule for her secondary education, a girls' Gymnasium on Landhofmeisterstraße. Most of her friends, while at school, were gifted children of Jewish professional families, generally older than she and went on to university education. Among them was Ernst Grumach (1902–1967), who introduced her to his girlfriend, Anne Mendelssohn, who would become a lifelong friend. When Anne moved away, Ernst became Arendt's first romantic relationship. Like Arendt, Anne would go on to become a philosopher, obtaining her doctorate at Hamburg, while Ernst became a
philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
.


Higher education (1922–1929)


= Berlin (1922–1924)

= Arendt's education at the Luise-Schule ended in 1922 when she was expelled at the age of 15 for leading a boycott of a teacher who insulted her. Instead, her mother arranged for her to go to Berlin to be with Social Democrat family friends. In Berlin she lived in a student residence and
audited An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon.” Auditing ...
courses of her choosing at the
University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...
(1922–1923), including classics and Christian theology under
Romano Guardini Romano Guardini (17 February 1885 – 1 October 1968) was a German Catholic priest, author, and academic. He was one of the most important figures in Catholic intellectual life in the 20th century. Life and work Guardini was born in Verona, I ...
. This enabled her to successfully sit the entrance examination () for the
University of Marburg The Philipps University of Marburg (german: Philipps-Universität Marburg) was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Protestant university in the worl ...
, where Ernst Grumach had studied under
Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...
, who had been appointed a professor there in 1922. For the examination, her mother engaged a private tutor, while her aunt Frieda Arendt, a teacher, also helped her, and Frieda's husband Ernst Aron provided financial assistance for her to attend university.


= Marburg (1924–1926)

= In Berlin, Guardini had introduced her to Kierkegaard, and she resolved to make theology her major field. At Marburg (1924–1926) she studied classical languages, German literature, Protestant theology with
Rudolf Bultmann Rudolf Karl Bultmann (; 20 August 1884 – 30 July 1976) was a German Lutheran theologian and professor of the New Testament at the University of Marburg. He was one of the major figures of early-20th-century biblical studies. A prominent critic ...
and philosophy with
Nicolai Hartmann Paul Nicolai Hartmann (; 20 February 1882 – 9 October 1950) was a Baltic German philosopher. He is regarded as a key representative of critical realism and as one of the most important twentieth-century metaphysicians. Biography Hartmann was ...
and Heidegger. Arendt arrived at Marburg that fall in the middle of an intellectual revolution led by the young Heidegger, of whom she was in awe, describing him as "the hidden king horeigned in the realm of thinking". Heidegger had broken away from the intellectual movement started by
Edmund Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...
, whose assistant he had been at
University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially german: Uni Freiburg), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (german: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), is a public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württem ...
before coming to Marburg. This was a period when Heidegger was preparing his lectures on Kant, which he would develop in the second part of his (Being and Time) in 1927 and (1929). Although Heidegger had dedicated the first edition of ''Being and Time'' to Edmund Husserl, Husserl gave the book a poor review, and in the second edition Heidegger removed that dedication. In his classes he and his students struggled with the meaning of "Being" as they worked together through Aristotle's concept of
ἀλήθεια ''Aletheia'' or Alethia (; grc, ἀλήθεια) is truth or disclosure in philosophy. Originating in Ancient Greek philosophy, the term was later used in the works of 20th-century philosopher Martin Heidegger. Although often translated as "tr ...
(truth) and
Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, wikt:Πλάτων, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greeks, Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thou ...
's ''
Sophist A sophist ( el, σοφιστής, sophistes) was a teacher in ancient Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Sophists specialized in one or more subject areas, such as philosophy, rhetoric, music, athletics, and mathematics. They taught ...
''. Many years later Arendt would describe these classes, how people came to Marburg to hear him, and how, above all he imparted the idea of ("thinking") as activity, which she qualified as "passionate thinking". Arendt was restless. To date her studies had not been either emotionally or intellectually satisfying. She was ready for passion, finishing her poem (Consolation, 1923) with the lines:

(The hours run down
The days pass on.
One achievement remains:
Merely being alive)
Her encounter with Heidegger represented a dramatic departure from the past. He was handsome, a genius, romantic, and taught that thinking and "aliveness" were but one. The 17-year-old Arendt then began a long romantic relationship with the 35-year-old Heidegger, who was married with two young sons. Arendt later faced criticism for this because of Heidegger's support for the
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported th ...
after his election as
rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...
at the University of Freiburg in 1933. Nevertheless, he remained one of the most profound influences on her thinking, and he would later relate that she had been the inspiration for his work on passionate thinking in those days. They agreed to keep the details of the relationship a secret, preserving their letters but keeping them unavailable. The relationship was not known until
Elisabeth Young-Bruehl Elisabeth Young-Bruehl (born Elisabeth Bulkley Young; March 3, 1946 – December 1, 2011) was an American academic and psychotherapist, who from 2007 until her death resided in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She published a wide range of books, most n ...
's biography of Arendt appeared in 1982. At the time of publishing, Arendt and Heidegger were deceased and Heidegger's wife, Elfride (1893–1992), was still alive. The affair was not well known until 1995, when Elzbieta Ettinger gained access to the sealed correspondence and published a controversial account that was used by Arendt's detractors to cast doubt on her integrity. That account, which caused a scandal, was subsequently refuted. At Marburg, Arendt lived at Lutherstraße 4. Among her friends there was
Hans Jonas Hans Jonas (; ; 10 May 1903 – 5 February 1993) was a German-born American Jewish philosopher, from 1955 to 1976 the Alvin Johnson Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York City. Biography Jonas was bor ...
, her only Jewish classmate. Another fellow student of Heidegger's was Jonas' friend, the Jewish philosopher Gunther Siegmund Stern (1902–1992)son of the noted psychologist Ludwig Wilhelm Sternwho would later become her first husband. Stern had completed his doctoral dissertation with Edmund Husserl at Freiburg, and was now working on his ''
Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...
'' thesis with Heidegger, but Arendt, involved with Heidegger, took little notice of him at the time.


''Die Schatten'' (1925)

In the summer of 1925, while home at Königsberg, Arendt composed her sole autobiographical piece, (The Shadows), a "description of herself" addressed to Heidegger. In this essay, full of anguish and Heideggerian language, she reveals her insecurities relating to her femininity and Jewishness, writing abstractly in the third person. She describes a state of "" (alienation), on the one hand an abrupt loss of youth and innocence, on the other an "" (strangeness), the finding of the remarkable in the banal. In her detailing of the pain of her childhood and longing for protection she shows her vulnerabilities and how her love for Heidegger had released her and once again filled her world with color and mystery. She refers to her relationship with Heidegger as "" ("an unbending devotion to a unique man"). This period of intense introspection was also one of the most productive of her poetic output, such as (Lost in Self-Contemplation).


= Freiburg and Heidelberg (1926–1929)

= After a year at Marburg, Arendt spent a semester at Freiburg, attending the lectures of Husserl. In 1926 she moved to the
University of Heidelberg } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...
, where in 1929, she completed her dissertation under the other leading figure of the then new and revolutionary '' Existenzphilosophie'', Karl Jaspers (1883–1969), a friend of Heidegger's. Her thesis was entitled '' Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin: Versuch einer philosophischen Interpretation'' (On the concept of love in the thought of
Saint Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afri ...
: Attempt at a philosophical interpretation). She remained a lifelong friend of Jaspers and his wife, Gertrud Mayer (1879–1974), developing a deep intellectual relationship with him. At Heidelberg, her circle of friends included Hans Jonas, who had also moved from Marburg to study
Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...
, working on his (1930), and also a group of three young philosophers: Karl Frankenstein, Erich Neumann and Erwin Loewenson. Other friends and students of Jaspers were the linguists Benno von Wiese and Hugo Friedrich (seen with Hannah, below), with whom she attended lectures by
Friedrich Gundolf Friedrich Gundolf, born Friedrich Leopold Gundelfinger (20 June 1880 – 12 July 1931) was a German-Jewish literary scholar and poet and one of the best known academics of the Weimar Republic. Education Gundolf, who was the son of a mathema ...
at Jaspers' suggestion and who kindled in her an interest in German Romanticism. She also became reacquainted, at a lecture, with
Kurt Blumenfeld Kurt Blumenfeld (May 29, 1884 – May 21, 1963) was a German-born Zionist from Marggrabowa, East Prussia. He was the secretary general of the World Zionist Organization from 1911 to 1914. He died in Jerusalem. He had served as secretary of th ...
, who introduced her to Jewish politics. At Heidelberg, she lived in the old town () near the
castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...
, at Schlossberg 16. The house was demolished in the 1960s, but the one remaining wall bears a plaque commemorating her time there (''see image''). On completing her dissertation, Arendt turned to her , initially on German Romanticism, and thereafter an academic teaching career. However 1929 was also the year of the Depression and the end of the golden years () of the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
, which was to become increasingly unstable over its remaining four years. Arendt, as a Jew, had little if any chance of obtaining an academic appointment in Germany. Nevertheless, she completed most of the work before she was forced to leave Germany.


Career


Germany (1929–1933)


Berlin-Potsdam (1929)

In 1929, Arendt met Günther Stern again, this time in Berlin at a New Year's masked ball, and began a relationship with him. Within a month she had moved in with him in a one-room studio, shared with a dancing school in Berlin-Halensee. Then they moved to Merkurstraße 3, Nowawes, in
Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of ...
and were married there on 26 September. They had much in common and the marriage was welcomed by both sets of parents. In the summer, Hannah Arendt successfully applied to the for a grant to support her ''Habilitation'', which was supported by Heidegger and Jaspers among others, and in the meantime, with Günther's help was working on revisions to get her dissertation published.


''Wanderjahre'' (1929–1931)

After Arendt and Stern were married, they began two years of what Christian Dries refers to as the (years of wandering). They had the ultimately fruitless aim of having Stern accepted for an academic appointment. They lived for a while in Drewitz, a southern neighborhood of Potsdam, before moving to Heidelberg, where they lived with the Jaspers. After Heidelberg, where Stern completed the first draft of his thesis, the two then moved to Frankfurt where Stern hoped to finish his writing. There, Arendt participated in the university's intellectual life, attending lectures by
Karl Mannheim Karl Mannheim (born Károly Manheim, 27 March 1893 – 9 January 1947) was an influential Hungarian sociologist during the first half of the 20th century. He is a key figure in classical sociology, as well as one of the founders of the sociolo ...
and
Paul Tillich Paul Johannes Tillich (August 20, 1886 – October 22, 1965) was a German-American Christian existentialist philosopher, religious socialist, and Lutheran Protestant theologian who is widely regarded as one of the most influential theologi ...
, among others. The couple collaborated intellectually, writing an article together on
Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recog ...
's (1923) and both reviewing Mannheim's (1929). The latter was Arendt's sole contribution in sociology. In both her treatment of Mannheim and Rilke, Arendt found love to be a transcendent principle "Because there is no true transcendence in this ordered world, one also cannot exceed the world, but only succeed to higher ranks". In Rilke she saw a latter day secular Augustine, describing the as the (ultimate form of religious document). Later, she would discover the limitations of transcendent love in explaining the historical events that pushed her into political action. Another theme from Rilke that she would develop was the despair of not being heard. Reflecting on Rilke's opening lines, which she placed as an epigram at the beginning of their essay

(Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic orders?)
Arendt and Stern begin by stating
The paradoxical, ambiguous, and desperate situation from which standpoint the ''Duino Elegies'' may alone be understood has two characteristics: the absence of an echo and the knowledge of futility. The conscious renunciation of the demand to be heard, the despair at not being able to be heard, and finally the need to speak even without an answer–these are the real reasons for the darkness, asperity, and tension of the style in which poetry indicates its own possibilities and its will to form
Arendt also published an article on Augustine (354–430) in the ''
Frankfurter Zeitung The ''Frankfurter Zeitung'' () was a German-language newspaper that appeared from 1856 to 1943. It emerged from a market letter that was published in Frankfurt. In Nazi Germany, it was considered the only mass publication not completely controlle ...
'' to mark the 1500th anniversary of his death. She saw this article as forming a bridge between her treatment of Augustine in her dissertation and her subsequent work on Romanticism. When it became evident Stern would not succeed in obtaining an appointment, the Sterns returned to Berlin in 1931.


Return to Berlin (1931–1933)

In Berlin, where the couple initially lived in the predominantly Jewish area of (Bavarian Quarter or "Jewish Switzerland") in Schöneberg, Stern obtained a position as a staff-writer for the cultural supplement of the ''
Berliner Börsen-Courier The ''Berliner Börsen-Courier'' (Berlin stock exchange courier, BBC) was a German left-liberal daily newspaper published from 1868 to 1933. It focused primarily on prices of securities traded on the stock exchanges and securities information abou ...
'', edited by
Herbert Ihering Herbert Ihering (also sometimes Herbert Jhering: 29 February 1888 – 15 January 1977) was a German dramaturge, director and theatre critic. He was seen by many contemporaries as one of the leading theatre critics during and after the Weimar Germ ...
, with the help of
Bertold Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
. There he started writing using the pen name Günther Anders, i.e. "Günther Other". Arendt assisted Günther with his work, but the shadow of Heidegger hung over their relationship. While Günther was working on his , Arendt had abandoned the original subject of German Romanticism for her thesis in 1930, and turned instead to Rahel Varnhagen and the question of assimilation. Anne Mendelssohn had accidentally acquired a copy of Varnhagen's correspondence and excitedly introduced her to Arendt, donating her collection to her. A little later, Arendt's own work on Romanticism led her to a study of Jewish salons and eventually to those of Varnhagen. In Rahel, she found qualities she felt reflected her own, particularly those of sensibility and vulnerability. Rahel, like Hannah, found her destiny in her Jewishness. Hannah Arendt would come to call Rahel Varnhagen's discovery of living with her destiny as being a "conscious pariah". This was a personal trait that Arendt had recognized in herself, although she did not embrace the term until later. Back in Berlin, Arendt found herself becoming more involved in politics and started studying political theory, and reading
Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
and
Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian M ...
, while developing contacts at the
Deutsche Hochschule für Politik The Deutsche Hochschule für Politik (DHfP), or ''German Academy for Politics'', was a private academy in Berlin, founded in October 1920. It was integrated into the Faculty for Foreign Studies (''Auslandswissenschaftliche Fakultät'') of the Frie ...
. Despite the political leanings of her mother and husband she never saw herself as a political leftist, justifying her activism as being through her Jewishness. Her increasing interest in Jewish politics and her examination of assimilation in her study of Varnhagen led her to publish her first article on Judaism, ("The Enlightenment and the Jewish Question", 1932). Blumenfeld had introduced her to the "
Jewish question The Jewish question, also referred to as the Jewish problem, was a wide-ranging debate in 19th- and 20th-century European society that pertained to the appropriate status and treatment of Jews. The debate, which was similar to other "national ...
", which would be his lifelong concern. Meanwhile, her views on German Romanticism were evolving. She wrote a review of Hans Weil's (''The Origin of German Educational Principle'', 1930), which dealt with the emergence of (educational elite) in the time of Rahel Varnhagen. At the same time she began to be occupied by
Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas prof ...
's description of the status of Jewish people within a state as ( pariah people) in his '' Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft'' (1922), while borrowing
Bernard Lazare Bernard Lazare (14 June 1865, Nîmes – 1 September 1903, Paris) was a French literary critic, political journalist, polemicist, and anarchist. He was also among the first Dreyfusards. Life Lazare's initial contact with symbolists introduced h ...
's term ''paria conscient'' (conscious pariah) with which she identified. In both these articles she advanced the views of Johann Herder. Another interest of hers at the time was the status of women, resulting in her 1932 review of Alice Rühle-Gerstel's book (Contemporary Women's Issues: A psychological balance sheet). Although not a supporter of the women's movement, the review was sympathetic. At least in terms of the status of women at that time, she was skeptical of the movement's ability to achieve political change. She was also critical of the movement, because it ''was'' a women's movement, rather than contributing with men to a political movement, abstract rather than striving for concrete goals. In this manner she echoed Rosa Luxemburg. Like Luxemburg, she would later criticize Jewish movements for the same reason. Arendt consistently prioritized political over social questions. By 1932, faced with a deteriorating political situation, Arendt was deeply troubled by reports that Heidegger was speaking at
National Socialist Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Naz ...
meetings. She wrote, asking him to deny that he was attracted to National Socialism. Heidegger replied that he did not seek to deny the rumors (which were true), and merely assured her that his feelings for her were unchanged. As a Jew in Nazi Germany, Arendt was prevented from making a living and discriminated against and confided to Anne Mendelssohn that emigration was probably inevitable. Jaspers had tried to persuade her to consider herself as a German first, a position she distanced herself from, pointing out that she was a Jew and that "" (For me, Germany is the mother tongue, philosophy and poetry), rather than her identity. This position puzzled Jaspers, replying "It is strange to me that as a Jew you want to be different from the Germans". By 1933, life for the Jewish population in Germany was becoming precarious.
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...
became (Chancellor) in January, and the Reichstag was burned down () the following month. This led to the suspension of
civil liberties Civil liberties are guarantees and freedoms that governments commit not to abridge, either by constitution, legislation, or judicial interpretation, without due process. Though the scope of the term differs between countries, civil liberties may ...
, with attacks on the left, and, in particular, members of the
Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West German ...
(German Communist Party: KPD). Stern, who had communist associations, fled to Paris, but Arendt stayed on to become an activist. Knowing her time was limited, she used the apartment at Opitzstraße 6 in
Berlin-Steglitz Steglitz () is a locality of the Steglitz-Zehlendorf borough in Southwestern Berlin, the capital of Germany. is a Slavic name for the European goldfinch, similar to the German . Steglitz was also a borough from 1920 to 2000. It contained the ...
that she had occupied with Stern since 1932 as an
underground railway The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. T ...
way-station for fugitives. Her rescue operation there is now recognized with a plaque on the wall. Arendt had already positioned herself as a critic of the rising Nazi Party in 1932 by publishing "''Adam-Müller-Renaissance?''" a critique of the appropriation of the life of
Adam Müller Adam Heinrich Müller (30 June 1779 – 17 January 1829; after 1827 Ritter von Nitterdorf) was a German-Austrian conservative philosopher, literary critic, and political economist, working within the romantic tradition. Biography Early life ...
to support right wing ideology. The beginnings of anti-Jewish laws and boycott came in the spring of 1933. Confronted with systemic antisemitism, Arendt adopted the '' motiv'' "If one is attacked as a Jew one must defend oneself as a Jew. Not as a German, not as a world citizen, not as an upholder of the Rights of Man." This was Arendt's introduction of the concept of Jew as Pariah that would occupy her for the rest of her life in her Jewish writings. She took a public position by publishing part of her largely completed biography of Rahel Varnhagen as "" ("Original Assimilation: An Epilogue to the One Hundredth Anniversary of Rahel Varnhagen's Death") in the on 7 March 1933 and a little later also in . In the article she argues that the age of assimilation that began with Varnhagen's generation had come to an end with an official state policy of antisemitism. She opened with the declaration:
Today in Germany it seems Jewish ''assimilation'' must declare its bankruptcy. The general social antisemitism and its official legitimation affects in the first instance assimilated Jews, who can no longer protect themselves through baptism or by emphasizing their differences from Eastern Judaism.
As a Jew, Arendt was anxious to inform the world of what was happening to her people in 1930–1933. She surrounded herself with Zionist activists, including Kurt Blumenfeld,
Martin Buber Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 – June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism ...
and
Salman Schocken Salman Schocken or Shlomo Zalman Schocken ( he, שלמה זלמן שוקן) (October 30, 1877 August 6, 1959) was a German Jewish publisher, and co-founder of the large Kaufhaus Schocken chain of department stores in Germany. Stripped of his citi ...
, and started to research antisemitism. Arendt had access to the Prussian State Library for her work on Varnhagen. Blumenfeld's Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland ( Zionist Federation of Germany) persuaded her to use this access to obtain evidence of the extent of antisemitism, for a planned speech to the
Zionist Congress The Zionist Congress was established in 1897 by Theodor Herzl as the supreme organ of the Zionist Organization (ZO) and its legislative authority. In 1960 the names were changed to World Zionist Congress ( he, הקונגרס הציוני העו� ...
in Prague. This research was illegal at the time. Her actions led to her being denounced by a librarian for anti-state propaganda, resulting in the arrest of both Arendt and her mother by the ''
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organis ...
''. They served eight days in prison but her notebooks were in code and could not be deciphered, and she was released by a young, sympathetic arresting officer to await trial.


Exile: France (1933–1941)


Paris (1933–1940)

On release, realizing the danger she was now in, Arendt and her mother fled Germany following the established escape route over the Erzgebirge Mountains by night into Czechoslovakia and on to Prague and then by train to
Geneva , neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier , website = https://www.geneve.ch/ Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ...
. In Geneva, she made a conscious decision to commit herself to "the Jewish cause". She obtained work with a friend of her mother's at the
League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
'
Jewish Agency for Palestine The Jewish Agency for Israel ( he, הסוכנות היהודית לארץ ישראל, translit=HaSochnut HaYehudit L'Eretz Yisra'el) formerly known as The Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. ...
, distributing visas and writing speeches. From Geneva the Arendts traveled to Paris in the autumn, where she was reunited with Stern, joining a stream of refugees. While Arendt had left Germany without papers, her mother had travel documents and returned to Königsberg and her husband. In Paris, she befriended Stern's cousin, the Marxist literary critic and philosopher
Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish my ...
(1892–1940) and also the Jewish French philosopher
Raymond Aron Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron (; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century. Aron is best known for his 19 ...
(1905–1983). Arendt was now an ''
émigré An ''émigré'' () is a person who has emigrated, often with a connotation of political or social self-exile. The word is the past participle of the French ''émigrer'', "to emigrate". French Huguenots Many French Huguenots fled France followi ...
e'', an exile, stateless, without papers, and had turned her back on the Germany and Germans of the . Her legal status was precarious and she was coping with a foreign language and culture, all of which took its toll on her mentally and physically. In 1934 she started working for the
Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Jew ...
-funded outreach program Agriculture et Artisanat, giving lectures, and organizing clothing, documents, medications and education for Jewish youth seeking to emigrate to the
British Mandate of Palestine British Mandate of Palestine or Palestine Mandate most often refers to: * Mandate for Palestine: a League of Nations mandate under which the British controlled an area which included Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan. * Mandatory P ...
, mainly as agricultural workers. Initially she was employed as a secretary, and then office manager. To improve her skills she studied French,
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
and
Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
. In this way she was able to support herself and her husband. When the organization closed in 1935, her work for Blumenfeld and the Zionists in Germany brought her into contact with the wealthy philanthropist Baroness Germaine Alice de Rothschild (born Halphen, 1884–1975), wife of
Édouard Alphonse James de Rothschild Édouard Alphonse James de Rothschild (24 February 1868 – 30 June 1949), also known as Baron Édouard de Rothschild was an aristocrat, French financier and a member of the prominent Rothschild banking family of France. Early life Born in Pari ...
, becoming her assistant. In this position she oversaw the baroness' contributions to Jewish charities through the Paris Consistoire, although she had little time for the family as a whole. The Rothschilds had headed the central ''Consistoire'' for a century but stood for everything Arendt did not, opposing immigration and any connection with German Jewry. Later in 1935, Arendt joined
Youth Aliyah Youth Aliyah (Hebrew: עלית הנוער, ''Aliyat Hano'ar'', German: Jugend-Alijah, Youth Immigration) is a Jewish organization that rescued thousands of Jewish children from the Nazis during the Third Reich. Youth Aliyah arranged for their r ...
(Youth immigration), an organization similar to Agriculture et Artisanat that was founded in Berlin on the day Hitler seized power. It was affiliated with Hadassah organization, which later saved many from the nearing
Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...
, and there Arendt eventually became Secretary-General (1935–1939). Her work with Youth Aliyah also involved finding food, clothing, social workers and lawyers, but above all, fund raising. She made her first visit to
British Mandate of Palestine British Mandate of Palestine or Palestine Mandate most often refers to: * Mandate for Palestine: a League of Nations mandate under which the British controlled an area which included Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan. * Mandatory P ...
in 1935, accompanying one of these groups and meeting with her cousin Ernst Fürst there. With the Nazi
annexation of Austria The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany" ...
and
invasion of Czechoslovakia The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia refers to the events of 20–21 August 1968, when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Re ...
in 1938, Paris was flooded with refugees, and she became the special agent for the rescue of the children from those countries. In 1938, Arendt completed her biography of Rahel Varnhagen, although this was not published until 1957. In April 1939, following the devastating ''
Kristallnacht () or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from ...
''
pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...
of November 1938, Martha Beerwald realized her daughter would not return and made the decision to leave her husband and join Arendt in Paris. One stepdaughter had died and the other had moved to England, Martin Beerwald would not leave and she no longer had any close ties to Königsberg.


= Heinrich Blücher

= In 1936, Arendt met the self-educated Berlin poet and Marxist philosopher
Heinrich Blücher Heinrich Friedrich Ernst Blücher (29 January 1899 – 31 October 1970) was a German poet and philosopher. He was the second husband of Hannah Arendt whom he had first met in Paris in 1936. During his life in America, Blücher traveled in popu ...
(1899–1970) in Paris. Blücher had been a Spartacist and then a founding member of the KPD, but had been expelled due to his work in the (
Conciliator faction The Conciliator faction was an opposition group within the Communist Party of Germany during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. In East Germany, after World War II, the German word for conciliator, ''Versöhnler'', became a term for anti- Ma ...
). Although Arendt had rejoined Stern in 1933, their marriage existed in name only, with their having separated in Berlin. She fulfilled her social obligations and used the name Hannah Stern, but the relationship effectively ended when Stern, perhaps recognizing the danger better than she, emigrated to America with his parents in 1936. In 1937, Arendt was stripped of her
German citizenship German nationality law details the conditions by which an individual holds German nationality. The primary law governing these requirements is the Nationality Act, which came into force on 1 January 1914. Germany is a member state of the Europ ...
and she and Stern divorced. She had begun seeing more of Blücher, and eventually they began living together. It was Blücher's long political activism that began to move Arendt's thinking towards political action. Arendt and Blücher married on 16 January 1940, shortly after their divorces were finalized.


Internment and escape (1940–1941)

On 5 May 1940, in anticipation of the
German invasion of France France has been invaded on numerous occasions, by foreign powers or rival French governments; there have also been unimplemented invasion plans. * the 1746 War of the Austrian Succession, Austria-Italian forces supported by the British navy atte ...
and the
Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
that month, the
military governor of Paris The Military governor of Paris is a post within the French Army. He commands the garrison of Paris and represents all the military based in Paris at high state occasions. He is also responsible (subordinate to the President of France) for organiz ...
issued a proclamation ordering all "enemy aliens" between 17 and 55 who had come from Germany (predominantly Jews) to report separately for
internment Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simp ...
. The women were gathered together in the
Vélodrome d'Hiver The Vélodrome d'Hiver (, ''Winter Velodrome''), colloquially Vel' d'Hiv', was an indoor bicycle racing cycle track and stadium (velodrome) on rue Nélaton, not far from the Eiffel Tower in Paris. As well as a cycling track, it was used for ice h ...
on 15 May, so Hannah Arendt's mother, being over 55, was allowed to stay in Paris. Arendt described the process of making
refugees A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a forced displacement, displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.
as "the new type of human being created by contemporary history ... put into concentration camps by their foes and into internment camps by their friends". The men, including Blücher, were sent to
Camp Vernet Le Vernet Internment Camp, or Camp Vernet, was a concentration camp in Le Vernet, Ariège, near Pamiers, in the French Pyrenees. Built in 1918 as a barracks but after WWI used as an internment camp for prisoners of war. From February 1939 to June ...
in southern France, close to the Spanish border. Arendt and the other women were sent to Camp Gurs, to the west of
Gurs Gurs is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France. History Gurs was the site of the Gurs internment camp. Nothing remains of the camp; after World War II, a forest was planted on the site where it stood. Geo ...
, a week later. The camp had earlier been set up to accommodate refugees from Spain. On 22 June, France capitulated and signed the Compiègne armistice, dividing the country. Gurs was in the southern
Vichy Vichy (, ; ; oc, Vichèi, link=no, ) is a city in the Allier department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of central France, in the historic province of Bourbonnais. It is a spa and resort town and in World War II was the capital of Vich ...
controlled section. Arendt describes how, "in the resulting chaos we succeeded in getting hold of liberation papers with which we were able to leave the camp", which she did with about 200 of the 7,000 women held there, about four weeks later. There was no Résistance then, but she managed to walk and hitchhike north to
Montauban Montauban (, ; oc, Montalban ) is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department, region of Occitania, Southern France. It is the capital of the department and lies north of Toulouse. Montauban is the most populated town in Tarn-et-Garonne, a ...
, near
Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...
where she knew she would find help. Montauban had become an unofficial capital for former detainees, and Arendt's friend Lotta Sempell Klembort was staying there. Blücher's camp had been evacuated in the wake of the German advance, and he managed to escape from a forced march, making his way to Montauban, where the two of them led a fugitive life. Soon they were joined by Anne Mendelssohn and Arendt's mother. Escape from France was extremely difficult without official papers; their friend Walter Benjamin had taken his own life after being apprehended trying to escape to Spain. One of the best known illegal routes operated out of
Marseilles Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern France ...
, where
Varian Fry Varian Mackey Fry (October 15, 1907 – September 13, 1967) was an American journalist. Fry ran a rescue network in Vichy France that helped approximately 2,000 to 4,000 anti-Nazi and Jewish refugees to escape Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. ...
, an American journalist, worked to raise funds, forge papers and bribe officials with Hiram Bingham, the American vice-consul there. Fry and Bingham secured exit papers and American visas for thousands, and with help from Günther Stern, Arendt, her husband, and her mother managed to secure the requisite permits to travel by train in January 1941 through Spain to Lisbon, Portugal, where they rented a flat at Rua da Sociedade Farmacêutica, 6b. They eventually secured passage to New York in May on the Companhia Colonial de Navegação's S/S ''Guiné II''. A few months later, Fry's operations were shut down and the borders sealed.


New York (1941–1975)


World War II (1941–1945)

Upon arriving in New York City on 22 May 1941 with very little, they received assistance from the
Zionist Organization of America The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) () is an American non-profit pro-Israel organization. Founded in 1897, as the Federation of American Zionists, it was the first official Zionist organization in the United States. Early in the 20th centur ...
and the local German immigrant population, including
Paul Tillich Paul Johannes Tillich (August 20, 1886 – October 22, 1965) was a German-American Christian existentialist philosopher, religious socialist, and Lutheran Protestant theologian who is widely regarded as one of the most influential theologi ...
and neighbors from Königsberg. They rented rooms at 317 West 95th Street and Martha Arendt joined them there in June. There was an urgent need to acquire English, and it was decided that Hannah Arendt should spend two months with an American family in
Winchester, Massachusetts Winchester is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, located 8.2 miles (13.2 km) north of downtown Boston as part of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. It is also one of the wealthiest municipalities in Massachusetts. The population ...
, through Self-Help for Refugees, in July. She found the experience difficult but formulated her early appraisal of American life, (The fundamental contradiction of the country is political freedom coupled with social slavery). On returning to New York, Arendt was anxious to resume writing and became active in the German-Jewish community, publishing her first article, "From the
Dreyfus Affair The Dreyfus affair (french: affaire Dreyfus, ) was a political scandal that divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francop ...
to France Today" (in translation from her German) in July 1942. While she was working on this article, she was looking for employment and in November 1941 was hired by the New York German-language Jewish newspaper ' and from 1941 to 1945, she wrote a political column for it, covering anti-semitism, refugees and the need for a Jewish army. She also contributed to the ''
Menorah Journal ''The Menorah Journal'' (1915–1962) was a Jewish-American magazine, founded in New York City. Some have called it "the leading English-language Jewish intellectual and literary journal of its era." The journal lasted from 1915 until 1 ...
'', a Jewish-American magazine, and other German ''émigré'' publications. Arendt's first full-time salaried job came in 1944, when she became the director of research and executive director for the newly emerging Commission on European Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, a project of the Conference on Jewish Relations. She was recruited "because of her great interest in the Commission's activities, her previous experience as an administrator, and her connections with Germany". There she compiled lists of Jewish cultural assets in Germany and Nazi occupied Europe, to aid in their recovery after the war. Together with her husband, she lived at 370 Riverside Drive in New York City and at
Kingston, New York Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, United States. It is north of New York City and south of Albany. The city's metropolitan area is grouped with the New York metropolitan area around Manhattan by the United ...
, where Blücher taught at nearby
Bard College Bard College is a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic District—a National Historic Landmark. Founded in 1860, ...
for many years.


Post-war (1945–1975)

In July 1946, Arendt left her position at the Commission on European Jewish Cultural Reconstruction to become an editor at
Schocken Books Schocken Books is a book publishing imprint of Penguin Random House that specializes in Jewish literary works. Originally established in 1931 by Salman Schocken as Schocken Verlag in Berlin, the company later moved to Palestine and then the U ...
, which later published some of her works. In 1948, she became engaged with the campaign of
Judah Magnes Judah Leon Magnes ( he, יהודה לייב מאגנס; July 5, 1877 – October 27, 1948) was a prominent Reform rabbi in both the United States and Mandatory Palestine. He is best remembered as a leader in the pacifist movement of the World Wa ...
for a solution to the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is one of the world's most enduring conflicts, beginning in the mid-20th century. Various attempts have been made to resolve the conflict as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, alongside other eff ...
. She famously opposed the establishment of a Jewish nation state in Palestine and initially also opposed the establishment of a binational Arab-Jewish state. Instead, she advocated for the inclusion of Palestine into a multi-ethnic federation. Only in 1948 in an effort to forestall partition did she support a binational
one-state solution The one-state solution, sometimes also called a bi-national state, is a proposed approach to resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, according to which one state must be established between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean. Proponen ...
. She returned to the Commission in August 1949. In her capacity as executive secretary, she traveled to Europe, where she worked in Germany, Britain and France (December 1949 to March 1950) to negotiate the return of archival material from German institutions, an experience she found frustrating, but providing regular field reports. In January 1952, she became secretary to the Board, although the work of the organization was winding down and she was simultaneously pursuing her own intellectual activities; she retained this position until her death. Arendt's work on cultural restitution provided further material for her study of totalitarianism. In the 1950s Arendt wrote ''
The Origins of Totalitarianism ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'', published in 1951, was Hannah Arendt's first major work, wherein she describes and analyzes Nazism and Stalinism as the major totalitarian political movements of the first half of the 20th century. History ...
'' (1951), ''
The Human Condition ''The Human Condition'', first published in 1958, is Hannah Arendt's account of how "human activities" should be and have been understood throughout Western history. Arendt is interested in the ''vita activa'' (active life) as contrasted with t ...
'' (1958) and ''
On Revolution ''On Revolution'' is a 1963 book by political theorist Hannah Arendt. Arendt presents a comparison of two of the main revolutions of the eighteenth century, the American and French Revolutions. History Twelve years after the publication of h ...
'' (1963). Arendt began corresponding with the American author Mary McCarthy, six years her junior, in 1950 and they soon became lifelong friends. In 1950, Arendt also became a
naturalized citizen Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...
of the United States. The same year, she started seeing Martin Heidegger again, and had what the American writer
Adam Kirsch Adam Kirsch (born 1976) is an American poet and literary critic. He is on the seminar faculty of Columbia University's Center for American Studies, and has taught at YIVO. Life and career Kirsch was born in Los Angeles in 1976. He is the son o ...
called a "quasi-romance", lasting for two years, with the man who had previously been her mentor, teacher, and lover. During this time, Arendt defended him against critics who noted his enthusiastic membership in the Nazi Party. She portrayed Heidegger as a naïve man swept up by forces beyond his control, and pointed out that Heidegger's philosophy had nothing to do with National Socialism. In 1961 she traveled to
Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
to report about Eichmann's trial for ''The New Yorker''. This report strongly influenced her popular recognition, and raised much controversy (see below). Her work was recognized by many awards, including the Danish
Sonning Prize The Sonning Prize ( da, Sonningprisen) is a Danish culture prize awarded biennially for outstanding contributions to European culture. It is named after the Danish editor and author Carl Johan Sonning (1879–1937), who established the prize by ...
in 1975 for Contributions to European Civilization. A few years later she spoke in New York City on the legitimacy of violence as a political act: "Generally speaking, violence always rises out of impotence. It is the hope of those who have no power to find a substitute for it and this hope, I think, is in vain. Violence can destroy power, but it can never replace it."


= Teaching

= Arendt taught at many institutions of higher learning from 1951 onwards, but, preserving her independence, consistently refused
tenure-track Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program disco ...
positions. Prior to settling down and becoming a university professor at the New School for Social research in NYC, she served as a visiting scholar at the
University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...
;
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...
;
Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nin ...
(where she was the first woman to be appointed a full professor in 1959); and
Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Chart ...
. She also taught at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the be ...
from 1963 to 1967, where she was a member of the
Committee on Social Thought The John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought is one of several PhD-granting committees at the University of Chicago. It was started in 1941 by historian John Ulric Nef along with economist Frank Knight, anthropologist Robert Redfield, and Universi ...
;
The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...
in
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of counties in New York, origin ...
where she taught as a university professor from 1967;
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...
, where she was a
fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...
; and the Center for Advanced Studies at
Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the ...
(1961–62, 1962–63). She was elected a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
in 1962 and a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...
in 1964. In 1974, Arendt was instrumental in the creation of Structured Liberal Education (SLE) at
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...
. She wrote a letter to the president of Stanford to persuade the university to enact Stanford history professor Mark Mancall's vision of a residentially-based humanities program. At the time of her death, she was University Professor of Political Philosophy at
The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...
.


Relationships

In addition to her affair with Heidegger, and her two marriages, Arendt had close friendships. Since her death, her correspondence with many of them has been published, revealing much information about her thinking. To her friends she was both loyal and generous, dedicating several of her works to them. (friendship) she described as being one of "" (the active modes of being alive), and, to her, friendship was central both to her life and to the concept of politics. Hans Jonas described her as having a "genius for friendship", and, in her own words, "" (love of friendship). Her philosophy-based friendships were male and European, while her later American friendships were more diverse, literary, and political. Although she became an American citizen in 1950, her cultural roots remained European, and her language remained her German "" (mother tongue). She surrounded herself with German-speaking ''émigrés'', sometimes referred to as "The Tribe". To her, (real people) were "pariahs", not in the sense of outcasts, but in the sense of outsiders, unassimilated, with the virtue of "social nonconformism ... the ''sine qua non'' of intellectual achievement", a sentiment she shared with Jaspers. Arendt always had a . In her teens she had formed a lifelong relationship with her , Anne Mendelssohn Weil ("Ännchen"). After her emigration to America, Hilde Fränkel, Paul Tillich's secretary and mistress, filled that role until her death in 1950. After the war, Arendt was able to return to Germany and renew her relationship with Weil, who made several visits to New York, especially after Blücher's death in 1970. Their last meeting was in
Tegna, Switzerland Tegna is a former municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. The municipalities of Cavigliano, Tegna and Verscio merged on 14 April 2013 into the new municipality of Terre di Pedemonte.
in 1975, shortly before Arendt's death. With Fränkel's death, Mary McCarthy became Arendt's closest friend and confidante.


Final illness and death

Heinrich Blücher had survived a
cerebral aneurysm An intracranial aneurysm, also known as a brain aneurysm, is a cerebrovascular disorder in which weakness in the wall of a cerebral artery or vein causes a localized dilation or ballooning of the blood vessel. Aneurysms in the posterior circ ...
in 1961 and remained unwell after 1963, sustaining a series of heart attacks. On 31 October 1970 he died of a massive heart attack. A devastated Arendt had previously told Mary McCarthy, "Life without him would be unthinkable". Arendt was also a heavy smoker and was frequently depicted with a cigarette in her hand. She sustained a near fatal heart attack while lecturing in Scotland in May 1974, and although she recovered, she remained in poor health afterwards, and continued to smoke. On the evening of 4 December 1975, shortly after her 69th birthday, she had a further heart attack in her apartment while entertaining friends, and was pronounced dead at the scene. Her ashes were buried alongside those of Blücher at Bard College, in
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York Annandale-on-Hudson is a hamlet in Dutchess County, New York, United States, located in the Hudson Valley town of Red Hook, across the Hudson River from Kingston. The hamlet consists mainly of the Bard College campus. Municipal services Emerge ...
in May 1976. After Arendt's death the title page of the final part of ''The Life of the Mind'' ("Judging") was found in her typewriter, which she had just started, consisting of the title and two epigraphs. This has subsequently been reproduced (''see
image An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...
'').


Work

Arendt wrote works on
intellectual history Intellectual history (also the history of ideas) is the study of the history of human thought and of intellectuals, people who conceptualize, discuss, write about, and concern themselves with ideas. The investigative premise of intellectual histor ...
as a political theorist, using events and actions to develop insights into contemporary
totalitarian Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regul ...
movements and the threat to human freedom presented by scientific abstraction and bourgeois morality. Intellectually, she was an independent thinker, a loner not a "joiner," separating herself from schools of thought or ideology. In addition to her major texts she published anthologies, including '' Between Past and Future'' (1961), ''Men in Dark Times'' (1968) and ''Crises of the Republic'' (1972). She also contributed to many publications, including ''
The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'', '' Commonweal'', ''
Dissent Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity or individual. A dissenting person may be referred to as ...
'' and ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
''. She is perhaps best known for her accounts of
Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''
civic republicanism, from Aristotle to
Tocqueville Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (; 29 July 180516 April 1859), colloquially known as Tocqueville (), was a French aristocrat, diplomat, political scientist, political philosopher and historian. He is best known for his works ...
. Her political concept is centered around
active citizenship Active citizenship or engaged citizenship refers to active participation of a citizen under the law of a nation discussing and educating themselves in politics and society, as well as a philosophy espoused by organizations and educational instit ...
that emphasizes
civic engagement Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Civic engagement includes communities working together or individuals working alone in both political and non-political actions to ...
and collective deliberation. She believed that no matter how bad, government could never succeed in extinguishing human freedom, despite holding that modern societies frequently retreat from democratic freedom with its inherent disorder for the relative comfort of administrative bureaucracy. Her political legacy is her strong defence of freedom in the face of an increasingly less than free world. She does not adhere to a single systematic philosophy, but rather spans a range of subjects covering totalitarianism, revolution, the nature of freedom and the faculties of thought and judgment. While she is best known for her work on "dark times", the nature of totalitarianism and evil, she imbued this with a spark of hope and confidence in the nature of mankind:
That even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination, and that such illumination might well come less from theories and concepts than from the uncertain, flickering, and often weak light that some men and women, in their lives and their works, will kindle under almost all circumstances and shed over the time span that was given to them.


''Love and Saint Augustine'' (1929)

Arendt's doctoral thesis, (''Love and Saint Augustine''), was published in 1929 and attracted critical interest, although an English translation did not appear until 1996. In this work, she combines approaches of both Heidegger and Jaspers. Arendt's interpretation of love in the work of Augustine deals with three concepts, love as craving or desire (''Amor qua appetitus''), love in the relationship between man (''creatura'') and creator (''Creator – Creatura''), and neighborly love (''Dilectio proximi''). Love as craving anticipates the future, while love for the Creator deals with the remembered past. Of the three, ''dilectio proximi'' or '' caritas'' is perceived as the most fundamental, to which the first two are oriented, which she treats under ''vita socialis'' (social life). The second of the Great Commandments (or Golden Rule) "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" uniting and transcending the former. Augustine's influence (and Jaspers' views on his work) persisted in Arendt's writings for the rest of her life. Some of the
leitmotifs A leitmotif or leitmotiv () is a "short, recurring musical phrase" associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical concepts of ''idée fixe'' or ''motto-theme''. The spelling ''leitmotif'' is an anglici ...
of her canon were apparent, introducing the concept of (Natality) as a key condition of human existence and its role in the development of the individual, developing this further in ''The Human Condition'' (1958). She explained that the construct of natality was implied in her discussion of new beginnings and man's elation to the Creator as ''nova creatura''. The centrality of the theme of birth and renewal is apparent in the constant reference to Augustinian thought, and specifically the innovative nature of birth, from this, her first work, to her last, ''The Life of the Mind''. Love is another connecting theme. In addition to the Augustinian loves expostulated in her dissertation, the phrase ''amor mundi'' (love of the world) is one often associated with Arendt and both permeates her work and was an absorbing passion throughout her work. She took the phrase from Augustine's homily on the first epistle of St John, "If love of the world dwell in us". ''Amor mundi'' was her original title for ''The Human Condition'' (1958), the subtitle of Elisabeth Young-Bruehl's biography (1982), the title of a collection of writing on faith in her work and is the newsletter of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College.


''The Origins of Totalitarianism'' (1951)

Arendt's first major book, ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'' (1951), examined the roots of
Stalinism Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...
and
Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Naz ...
, structured as three essays, "Antisemitism", "Imperialism" and "Totalitarianism". Arendt argues that totalitarianism was a "novel form of government," that "differs essentially from other forms of political oppression known to us such as despotism, tyranny and dictatorship" in that it applied terror to subjugate mass populations rather than just political adversaries. Arendt also maintained that Jewry was not the operative factor in the Holocaust, but merely a convenient proxy because Nazism was about terror and consistency, not merely eradicating Jews. Arendt explained the tyranny using Kant's phrase "''
radical evil Radical evil (german: das radikal Böse) is a phrase used by German philosopher Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Kön ...
''", by which their victims became "superfluous people". In later editions she enlarged the text to include her work on "Ideology and Terror: A novel form of government" and the Hungarian Revolution, but then published the latter separately. Criticism of ''Origins'' has often focused on its portrayal of the two movements, Hitlerism and Stalinism, as equally tyrannical.


''Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess'' (1957)

Arendt's on Rahel Varnhagen was completed while she was living in exile in Paris in 1938, but not published till 1957, in the United Kingdom by East and West Library, part of the
Leo Baeck Institute The Leo Baeck Institute, established in 1955, is an international research institute with centres in New York City, London, and Jerusalem that are devoted to the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry. Baeck was its first intern ...
. This biography of a 19th-century Jewish socialite, formed an important step in her analysis of Jewish history and the subjects of assimilation and
emancipation Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure economic and social rights, political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfranchis ...
, and introduced her treatment of the
Jewish diaspora The Jewish diaspora ( he, תְּפוּצָה, təfūṣā) or exile (Hebrew: ; Yiddish: ) is the dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their ancient ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel) and their subsequent settlement in other parts of th ...
as either ''pariah'' or ''parvenu''. In addition it represents an early version of her concept of history. The book is dedicated to Anne Mendelssohn, who first drew her attention to Varnhagen. Arendt's relation to Varnhagen permeates her subsequent work. Her account of Varnhagen's life was perceived during a time of the destruction of German-Jewish culture. It partially reflects Arendt's own view of herself as a German-Jewish woman driven out of her own culture into a stateless existence, leading to the description "biography as autobiography".


''The Human Condition'' (1958)

In what is arguably her most influential work, ''
The Human Condition ''The Human Condition'', first published in 1958, is Hannah Arendt's account of how "human activities" should be and have been understood throughout Western history. Arendt is interested in the ''vita activa'' (active life) as contrasted with t ...
'' (1958), Arendt differentiates political and social concepts, labor and work, and various forms of actions; she then explores the implications of those distinctions. Her theory of political action, corresponding to the existence of a public realm, is extensively developed in this work. Arendt argues that, while human life always evolves within societies, the social part of human nature, political life, has been intentionally realized in only a few societies as a space for individuals to achieve freedom. Conceptual categories, which attempt to bridge the gap between
ontological In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities ex ...
and sociological structures, are sharply delineated. While Arendt relegates labor and work to the realm of the social, she favors the human condition of action as that which is both existential and aesthetic. Of human actions, Arendt identifies two that she considers essential. These are forgiving past wrong (or unfixing the fixed past) and promising future benefit (or fixing the unfixed future). Arendt had first introduced the concept of "natality" in her ''Love and Saint Augustine'' (1929) and in ''The Human Condition'' starts to develop this further. In this, she departs from Heidegger's emphasis on mortality. Arendt's positive message is one of the "miracle of beginning", the continual arrival of the new to create action, that is to alter the state of affairs brought about by previous actions. "Men", she wrote "though they must die, are not born in order to die but in order to begin". She defined her use of "natality" as:
The miracle that saves the world, the realm of human affairs, from its normal, "natural" ruin is ultimately the fact of natality, in which the faculty of action is ontologically rooted. It is, in other words, the birth of new men and the new beginning, the action they are capable of by virtue of being born.
Natality would go on to become a central concept of her political theory, and also what Karin Fry considers its most optimistic one.


''Between Past and Future'' (1954...1968)

''Between Past and Future'' is an anthology of eight essays written between 1954 and 1968, dealing with a variety of different but connected philosophical subjects. These essays share the central idea that humans live between the past and the uncertain future. Man must permanently think to exist, but must learn thinking. Humans have resorted to tradition, but are abandoning respect for this tradition and culture. Arendt tries to find solutions to help humans think again, since modern philosophy has not succeeded in helping humans to live correctly.


''On Revolution'' (1963)

Arendt's book ''On Revolution'' presents a comparison of two of the main revolutions of the 18th century, the
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
and French Revolutions. She goes against a common impression of both Marxist and
leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soc ...
views when she argues that France, while well-studied and often emulated, was a disaster and that the largely ignored American Revolution was a success. The turning point in the French Revolution occurred when the leaders rejected their goals of freedom in order to focus on compassion for the masses. In the United States, the founders never betray the goal of '. Arendt believes the revolutionary spirit of those men had been lost, however, and advocates a "council system" as an appropriate institution to regain that spirit.


''Men in Dark Times'' (1968)

The anthology of essays ''Men in Dark Times'' presents intellectual biographies of some creative and moral figures of the 20th century, such as
Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish my ...
,
Karl Jaspers Karl Theodor Jaspers (, ; 23 February 1883 – 26 February 1969) was a German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry, and philosophy. After being trained in and practicing psychiatry, Jaspers ...
,
Rosa Luxemburg Rosa Luxemburg (; ; pl, Róża Luksemburg or ; 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary socialist, Marxist philosopher and anti-war activist. Successively, she was a member of the Proletariat part ...
,
Hermann Broch Hermann Broch (; 1 November 1886 – 30 May 1951) was an Austrian writer, best known for two major works of modernist fiction: '' The Sleepwalkers'' (''Die Schlafwandler,'' 1930–32) and ''The Death of Virgil'' (''Der Tod des Vergil,'' 1945). ...
,
Pope John XXIII Pope John XXIII ( la, Ioannes XXIII; it, Giovanni XXIII; born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, ; 25 November 18813 June 1963) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 28 October 1958 until his death in June 19 ...
, and
Isak Dinesen Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke (born Dinesen; 17 April 1885 – 7 September 1962) was a Danish author who wrote works in Danish and English. She is also known under her pen names Isak Dinesen, used in English-speaking countrie ...
.


''Crises of the Republic'' (1972)

''Crises of the Republic'' was the third of Arendt's anthologies, consisting of four essays, "Lying in Politics", "Civil Disobedience", "On Violence" and "Thoughts on Politics and Revolution". These related essays deal with contemporary American politics and the crises it faced in the 1960s and 1970s. "Lying in Politics" looks for an explanation behind the administration's deception regarding the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and ...
, as revealed in the ''
Pentagon Papers The ''Pentagon Papers'', officially titled ''Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force'', is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 ...
''. "Civil Disobedience" examines the opposition movements, while the final "Thoughts on Politics and Revolution" is a commentary, in the form of an interview on the third essay, "On Violence". In "On Violence" Arendt substantiates that violence presupposes power which she understands as a property of groups. Thus, she breaks with the predominant conception of power as derived from violence. When Hannah Arendt died in 1975, she left a major work incomplete, which was later published in 1978 as ''The Life of the Mind''. Since then some of her minor works have been collected and published, mainly under the editorship of Jerome Kohn. In 1994 "Essays in Understanding" appeared as the first of a series covering the period 1930–1954, but attracted little attention. A new version of ''Origins of Totalitarianism'' appeared in 2004 followed by ''The Promise of Politics'' in 2005. The renewed interest in Arendtiana following these publications led to a second series of essays, ''Thinking Without a Banister: Essays in Understanding, 1953–1975'', published in 2018. Other collections have dealt with her Jewish identity, including ''The Jew as Pariah'' (1978) and ''The Jewish Writings'' (2007), moral philosophy including ''Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy'' (1982) and ''Responsibility and Judgment'' (2003), together with her literary works as ''Reflections on Literature and Culture'' (2007).


''The Life of the Mind'' (1978)

Arendt's last major work, ''The Life of the Mind'' remained incomplete at the time of her death, but marked a return to moral philosophy. The outline of the book was based on her graduate level political philosophy class, ''Philosophy of the Mind'', and her
Gifford Lectures The Gifford Lectures () are an annual series of lectures which were established in 1887 by the will of Adam Gifford, Lord Gifford. Their purpose is to "promote and diffuse the study of natural theology in the widest sense of the term – in ...
in Scotland. She conceived of the work as a trilogy based on the mental activities of thinking, willing, and judging. Her most recent work had focused on the first two, but went beyond this in terms of '. Her discussion of thinking was based on
Socrates Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...
and his notion of thinking as a solitary dialogue between oneself, leading her to novel concepts of conscience. Arendt died suddenly five days after completing the second part, with the first page of Judging still in her typewriter, and McCarthy then edited the first two parts and provided some indication of the direction of the third. Arendt's exact intentions for the third part are unknown but she left several manuscripts (such as ''Thinking and Moral Considerations'', ''Some Questions on Moral Philosophy'' and ''Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy'') relating to her thoughts on the mental faculty of Judging. These have since been published separately.


Collected works

After Hannah Arendt's death, her essays and notes have continued to be edited and published posthumously by friends and colleagues, including those that give some insight into the unfinished third part of ''
The Life of the Mind ''The Life of the Mind'' was the final work of Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), and was unfinished at the time of her death. Designed to be in three parts, only the first two had been completed and the first page of the third part was in her typewrit ...
''. ''The Jew as Pariah: Jewish Identity and Politics in the Modern Age'' (1978), is a collection of 15 essays and letters from the period 1943–1966 on the situation of Jews in modern times, to try and throw some light on her views on the Jewish world, following the backlash to ''Eichmann'', but proved to be equally polarizing. A further collection of her writings on being Jewish was published as ''The Jewish Writings'' (2007). Other work includes the collection of forty, largely fugitive, essays, addresses, and reviews entitled ''Essays in Understanding 1930–1954: Formation, Exile, and Totalitarianism'' (1994), that presaged her monumental ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'', in particular ''On the Nature of Totalitarianism'' (1953) and ''The Concern with Politics in Contemporary European Philosophical Thought'' (1954). The remaining essays were published as ''Thinking Without a Banister: Essays in Understanding, 1953–1975'' (2018). Her notebooks which form a series of memoirs, were published as in 2002.


Correspondence

Some further insight into her thinking is provided in the continuing posthumous publication of her correspondence with many of the important figures in her life, including Karl Jaspers (1992), Mary McCarthy (1995), Heinrich Blücher (1996), Martin Heidegger (2004),
Alfred Kazin Alfred Kazin (June 5, 1915 – June 5, 1998) was an American writer and literary critic. He wrote often about the immigrant experience in early twentieth century America. Early life Like many other New York Intellectuals, Alfred Kazin was t ...
(2005), Walter Benjamin (2006),
Gershom Scholem Gershom Scholem () (5 December 1897 – 21 February 1982), was a German-born Israeli philosopher and historian. Widely regarded as the founder of modern academic study of the Kaballah, Scholem was appointed the first professor of Jewish Mysticis ...
(2011) and Günther Stern (2016). Other correspondences that have been published include those with women friends such as Hilde Fränkel and Anne Mendelsohn Weil (''see'' Relationships).


Arendt and the Eichmann trial (1961–1963)

In 1960, on hearing of Adolf Eichmann's capture and plans for his trial, Hannah Arendt contacted ''The New Yorker'' and offered to travel to Israel to cover it when it opened on 11 April 1961. Arendt was anxious to test her theories, developed in ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'', and see how justice would be administered to the sort of man she had written about. Also she had witnessed "little of the Nazi regime directly" and this was an opportunity to witness an agent of totalitarianism first hand. The offer was accepted and she attended six weeks of the five-month trial with her young cousin from Israel, Edna Brocke. On arrival she was treated as a celebrity, meeting with the trial chief judge,
Moshe Landau Moshe Landau ( he, משה לנדוי) (29 April 1912 – 1 May 2011) was an Israeli judge. He was the fifth President of the Supreme Court of Israel. Biography Landau was born in Danzig, Germany (modern Gdańsk, Poland) to Dr. Isaac Landau and ...
, and the foreign minister,
Golda Meir Golda Meir, ; ar, جولدا مائير, Jūldā Māʾīr., group=nb (born Golda Mabovitch; 3 May 1898 – 8 December 1978) was an Israeli politician, teacher, and ''kibbutznikit'' who served as the fourth prime minister of Israel from 1969 to 1 ...
. In her subsequent 1963 report, based on her observations and transcripts, and which evolved into the book '' Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil'', Arendt coined the phrase "the banality of evil" to describe the phenomenon of Eichmann. She, like others, was struck by his very ordinariness and the demeanor he exhibited of a small, slightly balding, bland bureaucrat, in contrast to the horrific crimes he stood accused of. He was, she wrote, "terribly and terrifyingly normal." She examined the question of whether
evil Evil, in a general sense, is defined as the opposite or absence of good. It can be an extremely broad concept, although in everyday usage it is often more narrowly used to talk about profound wickedness and against common good. It is general ...
is radical or simply a function of thoughtlessness, a tendency of ordinary people to obey orders and conform to mass opinion without a critical evaluation of the consequences of their actions. Arendt's argument was that Eichmann was not a monster, contrasting the immensity of his actions with the very ordinariness of the man himself. Eichmann, she stated, not only called himself a Zionist, having initially opposed the Jewish persecution, but also expected his captors to understand him. She pointed out that his actions were not driven by malice, but rather blind dedication to the regime and his need to belong, to be a "joiner." On this, Arendt would later state "Going along with the rest and wanting to say 'we' were quite enough to make the greatest of all crimes possible". What Arendt observed during the trial was a bourgeois sales clerk who found a meaningful role for himself and a sense of importance in the Nazi movement. She noted that his addiction to clichés and use of bureaucratic morality clouded his ability to question his actions, "to think". This led her to set out her most debated dictum: "the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us – the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil." By stating that Eichmann did not think, she did not imply lack of conscious awareness of his actions, but by "thinking" she implied reflective rationality, that was lacking. Arendt was critical of the way the trial was conducted by the Israelis as a "show trial" with ulterior motives other than simply trying evidence and administering justice. Arendt was also critical of the way Israel depicted Eichmann's crimes as crimes against a nation state, rather than against humanity itself. She objected to the idea that a strong Israel was necessary to protect world Jewry being again placed where "they'll let themselves be slaughtered like sheep," recalling the biblical phrase. She portrayed the prosecutor,
Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
Gideon Hausner Gideon Hausner ( he, גדעון האוזנר, 26 September 1915 – 15 November 1990) was an Israeli jurist and politician. Between 1960 and 1963, he served as Attorney General and was later elected to the Knesset and served in the cabinet. Hau ...
, as employing hyperbolic rhetoric in the pursuit of Prime Minister
Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the name ...
's political agenda. Arendt, who believed she could maintain her focus on moral principles in the face of outrage, became increasingly frustrated with Hausner, describing his parade of survivors as having "no apparent bearing on the case". She was particularly concerned that Hausner repeatedly asked "why did you not rebel?" rather than question the role of the Jewish leaders. Arendt argued that some Jewish leaders associated with the Jewish Councils (
Judenräte A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across German-occupied Europe, occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ' ...
), notably M. C. Rumkowski, acted during
the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...
, in cooperating with Eichmann "almost without exception" in the destruction of their own people. She had expressed concerns on this point prior to the trial. She described this as a moral catastrophe. While her argument was not to allocate blame, rather she mourned what she considered a moral failure of compromising the imperative that it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. She describes the cooperation of the Jewish leaders in terms of a disintegration of Jewish morality: "This role of the Jewish leaders in the destruction of their own people is undoubtedly the darkest chapter in the whole dark story". Widely misunderstood, this caused an even greater controversy and particularly animosity toward her in the Jewish community and in Israel. For Arendt, the Eichmann trial marked a turning point in her thinking in the final decade of her life, becoming increasingly preoccupied with
moral philosophy Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...
.


Reception

Arendt's five-part series "Eichmann in Jerusalem" appeared in ''The New Yorker'' in February 1963 some nine months after Eichmann was hanged on 31 May 1962. By this time his trial was largely forgotten in the popular mind, superseded by intervening world events. However, no other account of either Eichmann or National Socialism has aroused so much controversy. Prior to its publication, Arendt was considered a brilliant humanistic original political thinker. However her mentor, Karl Jaspers, warned her about a possible adverse outcome, "The Eichmann trial will be no pleasure for you. I'm afraid it cannot go well". On publication, three controversies immediately occupied public attention: the concept of Eichmann as banal, her criticism of the role of Israel and her description of the role played by the Jewish people themselves. Arendt was profoundly shocked by the response, writing to Karl Jaspers "People are resorting to any means to destroy my reputation ... They have spent weeks trying to find something in my past that they can hang on me". Now she was being called arrogant, heartless and ill-informed. She was accused of being duped by Eichmann, of being a "self-hating Jewess", and even an enemy of Israel. Her critics included
The Anti-Defamation League The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. It was founded in late Septe ...
and many other Jewish groups, editors of publications she was a contributor to, faculty at the universities she taught at and friends from all parts of her life. Her friend Gershom Scholem, a major scholar of
Jewish mysticism Academic study of Jewish mysticism, especially since Gershom Scholem's '' Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism'' (1941), distinguishes between different forms of mysticism across different eras of Jewish history. Of these, Kabbalah, which emerged in ...
, broke off relations with her, publishing their correspondence without her permission. Arendt was criticized by many Jewish public figures, who charged her with coldness and lack of sympathy for the victims of the Holocaust. Because of this lingering criticism neither this book nor any of her other works were translated into Hebrew until 1999. Arendt responded to the controversies in the book's Postscript. Although Arendt complained that she was being criticized for telling the truth – "what a risky business to tell the truth on a factual level without theoretical and scholarly embroidery" – the criticism was largely directed to her theorizing on the nature of mankind and evil and that ordinary people were driven to commit the inexplicable not so much by hatred and ideology as ambition, and inability to empathize. Equally problematic was the suggestion that the victims deceived themselves and complied in their own destruction. Prior to Arendt's depiction of Eichmann, his popular image had been, as ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' put it "the most evil monster of humanity" and as a representative of "an atrocious crime, unparalleled in history", "the extermination of European Jews". As it turned out Arendt and others were correct in pointing out that Eichmann's characterization by the prosecution as the architect and chief technician of the Holocaust was not entirely credible. While much has been made of Arendt's treatment of Eichmann, Ada Ushpiz, in her 2015 documentary ''Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt'', placed it in a much broader context of the use of rationality to explain seemingly irrational historical events.


''Kein Mensch hat das Recht zu gehorchen''

In an interview with
Joachim Fest Joachim Clemens Fest (8 December 1926 – 11 September 2006) was a German historian, journalist, critic and editor who was best known for his writings and public commentary on Nazi Germany, including a biography of Adolf Hitler and books about ...
in 1964, Arendt was asked about Eichmann's defense that he had made Kant's principle of the duty of obedience his guiding principle all his life. Arendt replied that that was outrageous and that Eichmann was misusing Kant, by not considering the element of judgement required in assessing one's own actions – "" (No man has, according to Kant, the right to obey), she stated, paraphrasing Kant. The reference was to Kant's (Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason 1793) in which he states:
(The saying, "''We must hearken to God, rather than to man''," signifies no more than this, viz. that should any earthly legislation enjoin something immediately contradictory of the moral law, obedience is not to be rendered)
Kant clearly defines a higher moral duty than rendering merely unto Caesar. Arendt herself had written in her book "This was outrageous, on the face of it, and also incomprehensible, since Kant's moral philosophy is so closely bound up with man's faculty of judgment, which rules out blind obedience." Arendt's reply to Fest was subsequently corrupted to read (No one has the right to obey), which has been widely reproduced, although it does encapsulate an aspect of her moral philosophy. The phrase has become one of her iconic images, appearing on the wall of the house in which she was born (''see'' Commemorations), among other places. A
fascist Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...
bas-relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...
on the Palazzo degli Uffici Finanziari (1942), in the Piazza del Tribunale,
Bolzano Bolzano ( or ; german: Bozen, (formerly ); bar, Bozn; lld, Balsan or ) is the capital city of the province of South Tyrol in northern Italy. With a population of 108,245, Bolzano is also by far the largest city in South Tyrol and the third la ...
, Italy celebrating
Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
, read ''Credere, Obbedire, Combattere'' (Believe, Obey, Combat). In 2017 it was altered to read Hannah Arendt's original words on obedience in the three official languages of the region. The phrase has been appearing in other artistic work featuring political messages, such as the 2015 installation by Wilfried Gerstel, which has evoked the concept of resistance to dictatorship, as expressed in her essay "Personal Responsibility under Dictatorship" (1964).


List of selected publications


Bibliographies

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Books

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*** ** Also available in English as:
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Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
* 400 pages. (''see''
Rahel Varnhagen Rahel Antonie Friederike Varnhagen () (née Levin, later Robert; 19 May 1771 – 7 March 1833) was a German writer who hosted one of the most prominent salons in Europe during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She is the subject of a celeb ...
) ** ** ** *** ** * , (see also
The Origins of Totalitarianism ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'', published in 1951, was Hannah Arendt's first major work, wherein she describes and analyzes Nazism and Stalinism as the major totalitarian political movements of the first half of the 20th century. History ...
and
Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism Comparison or comparing is the act of evaluating two or more things by determining the relevant, comparable characteristics of each thing, and then determining which characteristics of each are similar to the other, which are different, and t ...

Full text (1979 edition)
on
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
** ** * (see also
The Human Condition ''The Human Condition'', first published in 1958, is Hannah Arendt's account of how "human activities" should be and have been understood throughout Western history. Arendt is interested in the ''vita activa'' (active life) as contrasted with t ...
) * * (see also Between Past and Future) * (see also
On Revolution ''On Revolution'' is a 1963 book by political theorist Hannah Arendt. Arendt presents a comparison of two of the main revolutions of the eighteenth century, the American and French Revolutions. History Twelve years after the publication of h ...

Full text
on
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
*
Full text: 1964 edition
(see also
Eichmann in Jerusalem ''Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil'' is a 1963 book by political thinker Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power, reported on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organizers ...
) * ** * **


Articles and essays

* (English translation in ) * (reprinted in ) * (reprinted in ) * * (reprinted in ) * (reprinted in ) * (English translation in ) * * , reprinted in and * (reprinted in * (reprinted in ) * * * * * * *


Correspondence

* * * * ** * ** ** ** * ** *
excerpts
** * * ** **


Posthumous

*
Online text at ''Pensar el Espacio Público''
** ** * ** ** ** ** *
Online texttext
at the
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
* * *
Full text
on
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
* ** *** (original German transcription) ** ** (also in ) ** ** * * ** ** * ** * , partly based on ''Was ist Politik?'' (1993), French translation as ''Qu'est-ce que la politique?'' **
''fragments''
**
''see also''extract
*
at ''Pensar el Espacio Público''
** ** ** *


Collections

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Miscellaneous

* ** * **
(Original video)
** * , reprinted as the Prologue in *


Views

In 1961, while covering the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt wrote a letter to Karl Jaspers that Adam Kirsch described as reflecting "pure racism" toward
Sephardic Jews Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...
from the Middle East and Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe. She wrote:
On top, the judges, the best of German Jewry. Below them, the prosecuting attorneys,
Galicians Galicians ( gl, galegos, es, gallegos, link=no) are a Celtic- Romance ethnic group from Spain that is closely related to the Portuguese people and has its historic homeland is Galicia, in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula. Two Romanc ...
, but still Europeans. Everything is organized by a police force that gives me the creeps, speaks only Hebrew, and looks Arabic. Some downright brutal types among them. They would obey any order. And outside the doors, the oriental mob, as if one were in Istanbul or some other half-Asiatic country.
Although Arendt remained a
Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Jew ...
both during and after World War II, she made it clear that she favored the creation of a Jewish-Arab federated state in
British Mandate of Palestine British Mandate of Palestine or Palestine Mandate most often refers to: * Mandate for Palestine: a League of Nations mandate under which the British controlled an area which included Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan. * Mandatory P ...
(now Israel and the
Palestinian territories The Palestinian territories are the two regions of the former British Mandate for Palestine that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967, namely: the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. The ...
), rather than a purely Jewish state. She believed that this was a way to address Jewish statelessness and to avoid the pitfalls of nationalism.


Accusations of racism

It was not just Arendt's analysis of the Eichmann trial that drew accusations of racism. In her 1958 essay in ''Dissent'' entitled ''Reflections on Little Rock'' she expressed opposition to
desegregation Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups, usually referring to races. Desegregation is typically measured by the index of dissimilarity, allowing researchers to determine whether desegregation efforts are having impact o ...
following the 1957
Little Rock Integration Crisis The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering ...
in Arkansas. As she explains in the preface, for a long time the magazine was reluctant to print her contribution, so far did it appear to differ from the publication's liberal values. Eventually it was printed alongside critical responses. Later ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' would express similar hesitancy over the Eichmann papers. So vehement was the response, that Arendt felt obliged to defend herself in a sequel. The debate over this essay has continued since. William Simmons devotes a whole section of his 2011 text on human rights (''Human Rights Law and the Marginalized Other'') to a critique of Arendt's position and in particular on Little Rock. While some critics feel she was fundamentally racist, many of those who have defended Arendt's position have pointed out that her concerns were for the welfare of the children, a position she maintained throughout her life. She felt that the children were being subjected to trauma to serve a broader political strategy of forcible integration. While over time Arendt conceded some ground to her critics, namely that she argued as an outsider, she remained committed to her central critique that children should not be thrust into the front-lines of geopolitical conflict.


Feminism

Embraced by
feminists Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that socie ...
as a pioneer in a world dominated by men up to her time, Arendt did not call herself a feminist and would be very surprised to hear herself described as a feminist, remaining opposed to the social dimensions of
Women's Liberation The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...
, urging independence, but always keeping in mind ''Vive la petite différence!'' On becoming the first woman to be appointed a professor at Princeton in 1953, the media were much engaged in this exceptional achievement, but she never wanted to be seen as an exception, either as a woman (an "exception woman") or a Jew, stating emphatically "I am not disturbed at all about being a woman professor, because I am quite used to being a woman". In 1972, discussing women's liberation, she observed "the real question to ask is, what will we lose if we win?". She rather enjoyed what she saw as the privileges of being feminine as opposed to feminist, "Intensely feminine and therefore no feminist", stated Hans Jonas. Arendt considered some professions and positions unsuitable for women, particularly those involving leadership, telling
Günter Gaus Günter Gaus (23 November 1929 – 14 May 2004) was a prominent German journalist-commentator who became a diplomat and (very briefly) a regional politician in Berlin. Once he had moved on – as he probably assumed, permanently – from the wo ...
"It just doesn't look good when a woman gives orders". Despite these views, and having been labelled "anti-feminist", much space has been devoted to examining Arendt's place in relation to feminism. In the last years of her life,
Virginia Held Virginia Potter Held (born October 28, 1929) is an American moral, social/political and feminist philosopher whose work on the ethics of care sparked significant research into the ethical dimensions of providing care for others and critiques of ...
noted that Arendt's views evolved with the emergence of a new feminism in America in the 1970s to recognize the importance of the women's movement.


Critique of human rights

In ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'', Hannah Arendt devotes a lengthy chapter (''The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man'') to a critical analysis of human rights, in what has been described as "the most widely read essay on refugees ever published". Arendt is not skeptical of the notion of political rights in general, but instead defends a national or civil conception of rights. Human rights, or the Rights of Man as they were commonly called, are universal, inalienable, and possessed simply by virtue of being human. In contrast, civil rights are possessed by virtue of belonging to a political community, most commonly by being a citizen. Arendt's primary criticism of human rights is that they are ineffectual and illusory because their enforcement is in tension with national sovereignty. She argued that since there is no political authority above that of sovereign nations, state governments have little incentive to respect human rights when such policies conflict with national interests. This can be seen most clearly by examining the treatment of refugees and other stateless people. Since the refugee has no state to secure their civil rights, the only rights they have to fall back on are human rights. In this way Arendt uses the refugee as a test case for examining human rights in isolation from civil rights. Arendt's analysis draws on the refugee upheavals in the first half of the 20th century along with her own experience as a refugee fleeing Nazi Germany. She argued that as state governments began to emphasize national identity as a prerequisite for full legal status, the number of minority resident aliens increased along with the number of stateless persons whom no state was willing to recognize legally. The two potential solutions to the refugee problem, repatriation and naturalization, both proved incapable of solving the crisis. Arendt argued that repatriation failed to solve the refugee crisis because no government was willing to take them in and claim them as their own. When refugees were forcibly deported to neighboring countries, such immigration was deemed illegal by the receiving country, and so failed to change the fundamental status of the migrants as stateless. Attempts at naturalizing and assimilating refugees also had little success. This failure was primarily the result of resistance from both state governments and the majority of citizens, since both tended to see the refugees as undesirables who threatened their national identity. Resistance to naturalization also came from the refugees themselves who resisted assimilation and attempted to maintain their own ethnic and national identities. Arendt contends that neither naturalization nor the tradition of asylum was capable of handling the sheer number of refugees. Instead of accepting some refugees with legal status, the state often responded by denaturalizing minorities who shared national or ethnic ties with stateless refugees. Arendt argues that the consistent mistreatment of refugees, most of whom were placed in internment camps, is evidence against the existence of human rights. If the notion of human rights as universal and inalienable is to be taken seriously, the rights must be realizable given the features of the modern liberal state. She concluded "The Rights of Man, supposedly inalienable, proved to be unenforceable–even in countries whose constitutions were based upon them–whenever people appeared who were no longer citizens of any sovereign state". Arendt contends that they are not realizable because they are in tension with at least one feature of the liberal state—national sovereignty. One of the primary ways in which a nation exercises sovereignty is through control over national borders. State governments consistently grant their citizens free movement to traverse national borders. In contrast, the movement of refugees is often restricted in the name of national interests. This restriction presents a dilemma for liberalism because liberal theorists typically are committed to both human rights and the existence of sovereign nations. In one of her most quoted passages, she puts forward the concept that human rights are little more than an abstraction:
The conception of human rights based upon the assumed existence of a human being as such broke down at the very moment when those who professed to believe in it were for the first time confronted with people who had indeed lost all other qualities and specific relationships – except that they were still human. The world found nothing sacred in the abstract nakedness of being human.


In popular culture

Several authors have written biographies that focus on the relationship between Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger. In 1999, the French feminist philosopher
Catherine Clément Catherine Clément (; born 10 February 1939) is a French philosopher, novelist, feminist, and literary critic, born in Boulogne-Billancourt. She received a degree in philosophy from the École Normale Supérieure, and studied under its faculty Cla ...
wrote a novel, ''Martin and Hannah'', speculating on the triangular relationship between Heidegger and the two women in his life, Arendt and Heidegger's wife Elfriede Petri. In addition to the relationships, the novel is a serious exploration of philosophical ideas, that centers on Arendt's last meeting with Heidegger in Freiburg in 1975. The scene is based on Elisabeth Young-Bruehl's description in ''Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World'' (1982), but reaches back to their childhoods, and Heidegger's role in encouraging the relationship between the two women. The novel explores Heidegger's embrace of Nazism as a proxy for that of Germany and, as in Arendt's treatment of Eichmann, the difficult relationship between collective guilt and personal responsibility. Clément also brings Hannah's other mentor and confidante, Karl Jaspers, into the matrix of relationships.


''Hannah Arendt'' (2012)

Arendt's life remains part of current culture and thought. In 2012 the German film, ''
Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. Arendt was born ...
'', directed by
Margarethe von Trotta Margarethe von Trotta (; born 21 February 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, and actress. She has been referred to as a "leading force" of the New German Cinema movement.
was released. The film, with
Barbara Sukowa Barbara Sukowa (; born 2 February 1950) is a German actress of screen and stage and singer. She has received three German Film Awards for Best Actress, three Bavarian Film Awards, Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress, Venice Film Festiva ...
in the title role, depicted the controversy over Arendt's coverage of the Eichmann trial and subsequent book, in which she was widely misunderstood as defending Eichmann and blaming Jewish leaders for the Holocaust.


Legacy

Hannah Arendt is considered one of the most influential political philosophers of the 20th century. In 1998
Walter Laqueur Walter Ze'ev Laqueur (26 May 1921 – 30 September 2018) was a German-born American historian, journalist and political commentator. He was an influential scholar on the subjects of terrorism and political violence. Biography Walter Laqueur was ...
stated "No twentieth-century philosopher and political thinker has at the present time as wide an echo", as philosopher, historian, sociologist and also journalist. Arendt's legacy has been described as a cult. In a 2016 review of a documentary about Arendt, the journalist A. O. Scott describes Hannah Arendt as "of unmatched range and rigor" as a thinker, although she is primarily known for the article ''Eichmann in Jerusalem'' that she wrote for ''The New Yorker'', and in particular for the one phrase "the banality of evil". She shunned publicity, never expecting, as she explained to Karl Jaspers in 1951, to see herself as a "cover girl" on the newsstands. In Germany, there are tours available of sites associated with her life. The study of the life and work of Hannah Arendt, and of her political and philosophical theory is described as Arendtian. In her will she established the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust as the custodian of her writings and photographs. Her personal library was deposited at Bard College at the Stevenson Library in 1976, and includes approximately 4,000 books,
ephemera Ephemera are transitory creations which are not meant to be retained or preserved. Its etymological origins extends to Ancient Greece, with the common definition of the word being: "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ambiguous in ...
, and pamphlets from Arendt's last apartment as well as her desk (in McCarthy House). The college has begun archiving some of the collection digitally, which is available at The Hannah Arendt Collection. Most of her papers were deposited at the
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
and her correspondence with her German friends and mentors, such as Heidegger, Blumenfeld and Jaspers, at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach. The Library of Congress listed more than 50 books written about her in 1998, and that number has continued to grow, as have the number of scholarly articles, estimated as 1000 at that time. Her life and work is recognized by the institutions most closely associated with her teaching, by the creation of Hannah Arendt Centers at both Bard (Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities) and The New School, both in New York State. In Germany, her contributions to understanding authoritarianism is recognised by the Hannah-Arendt-Institut für Totalitarismusforschung ( Hannah Arendt Institute for the Research on Totalitarianism) in
Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth lar ...
. There are Hannah Arendt Associations (Hannah Arendt Verein) such as the Hannah Arendt Verein für politisches Denken in
Bremen Bremen ( Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state con ...
that awards the annual Hannah-Arendt-Preis für politisches Denken ( Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thinking) established in 1995. In Oldenburg, the Hannah Arendt Center at Carl von Ossietzky University was established in 1999, and holds a large collection of her work (Hannah Arendt Archiv), and administers the
internet portal A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayi ...
''HannahArendt.net'' (A Journal for Political Thinking) as well as a monograph series, the ''Hannah Arendt-Studien''. In Italy, the Hannah Arendt Center for Political Studies is situated at the
University of Verona The University of Verona ( it, Università degli Studi di Verona) is a university located in Verona, Italy. It was founded in 1982 and is organized in 12 Departments. According to business newspaper ''Il Sole 24 Ore'', it is ranked as the best ...
for Arendtian studies. In 2017 a journal, ''Arendt Studies'', was launched to publish articles related to the study of the life, work, and legacy of Hannah Arendt. Many places associated with her, have memorabilia of her on display, such as her student card at the University of Heidelberg (''see image''). 2006, the anniversary of her birth, saw commemorations of her work in conferences and celebrations around the world. In 2015, the filmmaker Ada Ushpiz produced a documentary on Hannah Arendt, ''Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt''. The ''New York Times'' designated it a New York Times critics pick. Of the many photographic portraits of Arendt, that taken in 1944 by Fred Stein (''see
image An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...
''), whose work she greatly admired, has become iconic, and has been described as better known than the photographer himself, having appeared on a German postage stamp.(''see
image An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...
'') Among organizations that have recognized Arendt's contributions to civilization and human rights, is the
United Nations Refugee Agency The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integrati ...
(UNHCR).


Contemporary interest

The rise of nativism, such as the election of
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
in the United States, and concerns regarding an increasingly authoritarian style of governance has led to a surge of interest in Arendt and her writings, including radio broadcasts and writers, including
Jeremy Adelman Jeremy Adelman (born 1960) is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History at Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, where he is also the director of the Global History Lab. Previously, he served as the director of the Council for Int ...
and Zoe Williams, to revisit Arendt's ideas to seek the extent to which they inform our understanding of such movements, which are being described as "Dark Times". At the same time
Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology co ...
reported that it had sold out of copies of ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'' (1951).
Michiko Kakutani Michiko Kakutani (born January 9, 1955) is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for ''The New York Times'' from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998. Early life ...
has addressed what she refers to as "the death of truth". In her 2018 book, ''The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump'', she argues that the rise of totalitarianism has been founded on the violation of truth. She begins her book with an extensive quote from ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'':
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist
Kakutani and others believed that Arendt's words speak not just events of a previous century but apply equally to the contemporary cultural landscape populated with
fake news Fake news is false or misleading information presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue.Schlesinger, Robert (April 14, 2017)"Fake news in reality ...
and lies. She also draws on Arendt's essay "Lying in Politics" from ''Crises in the Republic'' pointing to the lines:
The historian knows how vulnerable is the whole texture of facts in which we spend our daily life; it is always in danger of being perforated by single lies or torn to shreds by the organized lying of groups, nations, or classes, or denied and distorted, often carefully covered up by reams of falsehoods or simply allowed to fall into oblivion. Facts need testimony to be remembered and trustworthy witnesses to be established in order to find a secure dwelling place in the domain of human affairs
Arendt drew attention to the critical role that propaganda plays in
gaslighting Gaslighting is a colloquialism, loosely defined as manipulating someone so as to make them question their own reality. The term derives from the title of the 1944 American film ''Gaslight'', which was based on the 1938 British theatre play '' Ga ...
populations, Kakutani observes, citing the passage:
In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true . ... The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness
It is also relevant that Arendt took a broader perspective on history than merely totalitarianism in the early 20th century, stating "the deliberate falsehood and the outright lie have been used as legitimate means to achieve political ends since the beginning of recorded history." Contemporary relevance is also reflected in the increasing use of the phrase, attributed to her, " No one has the right to obey" to reflect that actions result from choices, and hence judgement, and that we cannot disclaim responsibility for that which we have the power to act upon. In addition those centers established to promote Arendtian studies continue to seek solutions to a wide range of contemporary issues in her writing. Arendt's teachings on obedience have also been linked to the controversial psychology experiments by
Stanley Milgram Stanley Milgram (August 15, 1933 – December 20, 1984) was an American social psychologist, best known for his controversial experiments on obedience conducted in the 1960s during his professorship at Yale.Blass, T. (2004). ''The Man Who Shocke ...
, that implied that ordinary people can easily be induced to commit atrocities. Milgram himself drew attention to this in 1974, stating that he was testing the theory that Eichmann like others would merely follow orders, but unlike Milgram she argued that actions involve responsibility. Arendt's theories on the political consequences of how nations deal with refugees has remained relevant and compelling. Arendt had observed first hand the displacement of large stateless and rightsless populations, treated not so much as people in need than as problems to solve, and in many cases, resist. She wrote about this in her 1943 essay "We refugees". Another Arendtian theme that finds an echo in contemporary society is her observation, inspired by Rilke, of the despair of not being heard, the futility of tragedy that finds no listener that can bring comfort, assurance and intervention. An example of this being gun violence in America and the resulting political inaction. ''In Search of the Last Agora'', an illustrated documentary film by Lebanese director Rayyan Dabbous about Hannah Arendt's 1958 work ''The Human Condition'', was released in 2018 to mark the book's 50th anniversary. Screened at Bard College, the experimental film is described as finding "new meaning in the political theorist's conceptions of politics, technology and society in the 1950s", particularly in her prediction of abuses of phenomena unknown in Arendt's time, including social media, intense globalization, and obsessive celebrity culture.


Commemorations

Hannah Arendt's life and work continue to be commemorated in many different ways, including plaques (''Gedenktafeln'') indicating places she has lived. Public places and institutions bear her name, including schools. There is also a Hannah Arendt Day (Hannah Arendt Tag) in her birthplace. Objects named after her vary from
asteroids An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...
to trains and she has been commemorated in stamps. Museums and foundations include her name.


''Arendt Studies''

''Arendt Studies'' is a
peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
academic journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and ...
that examines the life, work, and legacy of Hannah Arendt. Established in 2017, it publishes research articles and translations, including the first English translation of Hannah Arendt's "Nation-State and Democracy" (1963) Notable contributors include Andrew Benjamin, Peg Birmingham,
Adriana Cavarero Adriana Cavarero (born 1947) is an Italian philosopher and feminist thinker. She holds the title of Professor of Political Philosophy at the Università degli studi di Verona. She has also held visiting appointments at the University of Californ ...
, Robert P. Crease, and
Celso Lafer Celso Lafer (born August 7, 1941) is a Brazilian jurist, full professor of Philosophy of Law at University of São Paulo, twice former foreign minister and a former commerce minister. He is of Lithuanian Jewish heritage. Education Lafer has a ...
. Articles published in this journal are covered in the international Hannah Arendt Bibliographie. ''Arendt Studies'' is also included in
JSTOR JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...
. The journal is edited by James Barry at Indiana University and published by the
Philosophy Documentation Center The Philosophy Documentation Center (PDC) is a non-profit publisher and resource center that provides access to scholarly materials in applied ethics, classics, philosophy, religious studies, and related disciplines. It publishes academic journal ...
.


Family tree


See also

*
American philosophy American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevert ...
*
German philosophy German philosophy, here taken to mean either (1) philosophy in the German language or (2) philosophy by Germans, has been extremely diverse, and central to both the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy for centuries, from Gottfried W ...
* Hannah Arendt Award *
List of refugees This is a list of prominent people who fled their native country, went into exile and found refuge in another country. The list follows the current legal concept of refugee only loosely. It also includes children of people who have fled. The peopl ...
* List of women philosophers * Women in philosophy


Notes


References


Bibliography


Articles (journals and proceedings)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
French translation
* * * * , reprinted in * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Rahel Varnhagen

* * * *


Special issues and proceedings

* ** ** * ** * * **


Audiovisual

* * ** (see also
Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. Arendt was born ...
) ** ** * * * * ** * * Bernstein, Richard (2019): Podcast conversation
"Hannah Arendt is Alarmingly Relevant"


Books and monographs

* Zohar Mihaely, Hannah Arendt and the Crisis of Israeli Democracy, Oregon, Pickwick Publications, 2022. * * ** "Ethics in many different voices" pp. 247–268, see also revised versions as and * * * ** * * * * ** * ** * * * * * * ** * (see also Obedience to Authority) * * * * * * ** * * * * *


Autobiography and biography

* * ** ** * * ** ** * * *
excerpt
' * * * * * ** * * ** * *
full text
* (''updated by way of a second preface, pagination unchanged'')


Critical works

* * ** * * * * * ** * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * *
excerpt
see also * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
text at ''Pensar el Espacio Público''
*


Historical

* * , available in Latin as ** * * * *
facsimile text
at Gallica, and reproduced on
Wikisource Wikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually re ...
* *
full text available on
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
*


Chapters and contributions

* , in * , in * , in * , in * , in * , in * , in * , in * Guilherme, Alexandre and Morgan, W. John, 'Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)-dialogue as a public space'. Chapter 4 in ''Philosophy, Dialogue, and Education: Nine modern European philosophers'', Routledge, London and New York, pp. 55–71, . * , in * , in * , in * , in * , in * , in


Dictionaries and encyclopedias

* * * * *
Version: January 2019
* * ** , in * * * * *


Magazines

* * * * * , reprinted in * * * , reprinted from * , reprinted in * * * * * * * * * *


Newspapers

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Theses

* *
''at'' Theses.fr
* * *


Websites

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * – includes Brecht reading
english
* * * * * *
English translation by A. S. Kline 2004
*


Biography, genealogy and timelines

''see also'': ''Principal Dates'' in * * * , in * * * *


Institutions, locations and organizations

* * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * *


= Hannah Arendt Center (Bard)

= * ** ** *** ** ** ** **


Maps

* *


External images

* * * * * * * *


Bibliographic notes


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Arendt, Hannah 1906 births 1975 deaths 20th-century American educators 20th-century American essayists 20th-century American historians 20th-century American philosophers 20th-century American women educators 20th-century American women writers 20th-century German educators 20th-century German historians 20th-century German non-fiction writers 20th-century German philosophers 20th-century German women writers 20th-century German writers American agnostics American Ashkenazi Jews American ethicists American political philosophers American social commentators American women historians American women philosophers American Zionists Augustine scholars Columbia University faculty Continental philosophers Cultural critics Exilliteratur writers Existentialists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences German agnostics German Ashkenazi Jews German ethicists German political philosophers German women historians German women philosophers Gurs internment camp survivors Heidelberg University alumni Historians from California Historians from New York (state) Historians of communism Historians of the Holocaust International criminal law scholars Jewish agnostics Jewish American historians Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Jewish existentialists Jewish philosophers Jewish women writers Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Members of the German Academy for Language and Literature Moral philosophers The New School faculty Northwestern University faculty Philosophers of culture Philosophers of education Philosophers of ethics and morality Philosophers of history Philosophers of law Philosophers of science Philosophers of technology Philosophy writers Political philosophers Princeton University faculty Scholars of antisemitism Social critics Social philosophers University of California, Berkeley faculty University of Chicago faculty University of Marburg alumni Wesleyan University faculty Women religious writers Writers from Königsberg Yale University faculty Yaddo alumni