Hitler and Wittgenstein at the same Linz gymnasium
example · historical/biographical ·
retold in 3 talks
Hitler and Wittgenstein attended the same high school in Linz, Austria, a biographical curiosity Žižek uses to illustrate the dark underside of Central European cultural density, noting the absurd theory that Hitler's antisemitism arose from envying Wittgenstein's genius.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 3
“Hitler and Wittgenstein were visiting young Hitler and young Wittgenstein the same high school, Gymnasium, gymnasium there?”
“He practically von Trier quoted there Ludwig Wittgenstein... 'Nonetheless in spite of all his crimes, Hitler must feel now terribly isolated in that bunker.'”
“Wittgenstein put a note in his diary in the spring of April March of saying okay Hitler is horrible but I think I understand him now.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Jerry B. Jenkins1"Paolo Sorrentino"1Robert Louis Stevenson1Victor Kravchenko1Michel Houellebecq1Brechtje A. Grotenhuis1Agatha Christie1David Simon1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
Hitler and Wittgenstein attended the same high school in Linz, Austria, a biographical curiosity Žižek uses to illustrate the dark underside of Central European cultural density, noting the absurd theory that Hitler's antisemitism arose from envying Wittgenstein's genius., illustrating Central European backwardness as condition of genius,backwardness as condition of revolutionary break
Žižek defends von Trier's notorious Cannes remark about Hitler by pointing out that von Trier was practically quoting Wittgenstein's 1944 diary entry expressing sympathy for Hitler's isolation in his bunker., illustrating Lars von Trier,cinema and ethics
A pupil's memoir records Wittgenstein writing that he 'understands Hitler now', cited by Žižek to show that psychological empathy with perpetrators of modern horror (humanizing Hitler) is always already wrong., illustrating psychological realism as mystification,banality of evil