Daniel Gasman - Ferris State University

ecause his reception in the Third Reich was confused. The only thing that emerges from his research is
that the Third Reich did not develop a clear idea as to where Nazism as an ideology came from.
Likewise, Hossfeld concedes that Haeckel was anti-Semitic but not really of the National Socialist
variety because he advocated the assimilation of the Jews in Germany, not their actual physical
destruction. 76 Hossfeld, however, misses the point because Haeckel, in demanding total assimilation,
wanted the disappearance of the Jews, like the Nazis later on, and this is the crux of the matter. 77
And
more broadly what Hossfeld fails to grasp is that it was Haeckel’s repudiation of the humanistic values of
Western Civilization that marked Haeckelian Monism as fundamentally anti-Semitic, leading it to
provide a basic ideological justification for the later Nazi assault on the Jews, for the Nazi conviction that
the Jews constituted a highly threatening anti-natural and anti-evolutionary force, an inferior, yet superior
biological race that had to be defeated at all costs. Haeckelian Monism was intrinsically anti-Semitic
because it postulated that the Jews, as the creators of the Monotheistic God, were invidiously responsible
for the religions of transcendental dualism into Western history, and were especially culpable for the
unfortunate invention of Christianity which had culminated in the rapid decline of European society in
modern times.
Not mentioned by Hossfeld is the notoriously anti-Semitic book, the Campagne nationaliste [1902]
by Haeckel’s disciple and translator into French, Jules Soury. In this work, an avant-garde version of
Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Soury spells out in great detail the connection of the science and metaphysics of
Haeckel’s Monism with a highly radical form of anti-Semitism that literally advocated the need for the
76
When Haeckel advocated the assimilation of the Jews into German society he did not intend the Jews to adopt
German culture and ways of life and yet remain an organized religious community practicing Judaism. Assimilation
for Haeckel meant literally the total disappearance of the Jews from German life and some prominent Monists in
fact, adopting a position more radical than that advanced by Haeckel, advocated the actual physical destruction of
the Jews.
77
The issue of Haeckel and the Jews is discussed by me at greater length in my ‘Rejoinders’ to Professor Richards;
Ferris.edu/ISAR/ Gasman Controversy
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