mymarkup.net

Jag vet inte hur välkänt det var redan tidigare (förmodligen är det det i Rumänien), men en ny bok om rumänske filosofen/ironikern/essäisten E.M. Cioran, skriven av Marta Petreu - "An Infamous Past: E.M. Cioran and the Rise of Fascism in Romania" - berättar om hans bortglömda vurm för nazismen och Hitler under 1930-talet, och han sällar sig därmed till andra intellektuella som Paul de Man, Martin Heidegger och Mircea Eliade. Läs sammanfattning hos The Chronicle of Higher Education:

In November 1933, Cioran won a Humboldt doctoral grant to Berlin, where he quickly became a fan of Hitler. "I am absolutely enthralled by the political order they've set up here," he wrote to his friend Mircea Eliade, the future historian of religion, whose 1930s fascism and anti-Semitism also emerged most prominently after his death. "Some of our friends," Cioran advised pal Petru Comarnescu, "will believe that I've turned Hitlerist out of sheer opportunism. The truth is that I agree with many of the things I've seen here."

Nazism, Cioran wrote, possessed "greatness." Germans had a "need for a Führer," and Hitlerism constituted "a destiny for Germany." Cioran supported a similar dictatorship for his country and believed that "only terror, brutality, and endless anxiety are likely to bring about a change in Romania. All Romanians should be arrested and beaten to a pulp; this is the only way a shallow nation could make a name for itself." "Hitler's merit," insisted the young voice of vitalist barbarism, "consists in depriving his nation of a critical spirit."