Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt (October 14, 1906 ? December 4, 1975) was a German political theorist. She had often been described as a philosopher, although she always refused that label.

Related Topics:
October 14 - 1906 - December 4 - 1975 - German - Political theorist - Philosopher

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Born of secular Jewish parents in the then independent city Linden now Hanover and raised in Königsberg (the hometown of her admired precursor Immanuel Kant) and Berlin, Arendt studied philosophy with Martin Heidegger at the University of Marburg. She had a long, sporadic romantic relationship with Heidegger, something that has been criticised due to his Nazi sympathies. During one of their breakups, Arendt moved to Heidelberg to write a dissertation on the concept of love in the thought of Saint Augustine, under the direction of the existentialist philosopher-psychologist Karl Jaspers.

Related Topics:
Jew - Linden - Hanover - Königsberg - Immanuel Kant - Berlin - Martin Heidegger - University of Marburg - Nazi - Heidelberg - Saint Augustine - Karl Jaspers

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The dissertation was published in 1929, but Arendt was prevented from habilitating (and thus from teaching in German universities) in 1933 because she was a Jew, and thereupon fled Germany for Paris, where she met and befriended the literary critic and Marxist mystic Walter Benjamin. While in France, Arendt worked to support and aid Jewish refugees. However, with the German military occupation of parts of France following the French declaration of war during World War II, and the deportation of Jews to concentration camps, Hannah Arendt had to flee from France. In 1940, she married the German poet and philosopher Heinrich Blücher. In 1941, Hannah Arendt emigrated with her husband and her mother to the United States with the assistance of the American journalist Varian Fry. She then became active in the German-Jewish community in New York and wrote for the weekly Aufbau.

Related Topics:
Habilitating - Marxist - Walter Benjamin - German - World War II - Concentration camp - 1940 - Heinrich Blücher - 1941 - United States - Varian Fry - Aufbau

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After World War II she resumed relations with Heidegger, and testified on his behalf in a German denazification hearing. In 1950, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States, and in 1959 became the first female appointed a full professorship at Princeton.

Related Topics:
Heidegger - Denazification - 1950 - Naturalized citizen

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Arendt's work deals with the nature of power, and the subjects of politics, authority, and totalitarianism. In her reporting of the Eichmann trial for The New Yorker, which evolved into the book Eichmann in Jerusalem, she raised the question whether evil is radical or simply a function of banality - of the failure of good or just ordinary people to take risks.

Related Topics:
Power - Politics - Authority - Totalitarianism - Eichmann - The New Yorker - Eichmann in Jerusalem - Evil

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She also wrote The Origins of Totalitarianism, which traced the roots of communism and fascism and their link to anti-semitism. This book was controversial because it compared two subjects that some believed were irreconcilable.

Related Topics:
Communism - Fascism - Anti-semitism

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On her death in 1975, Hannah Arendt was buried at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where her husband taught for many years.

Related Topics:
Bard College - Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

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