ABSTRACT

This chapter asks: how can Günther Anders' critical theory help us to understand fascism? Günther Anders (1902–1992) was an Austrian philosopher, critical theorist, political activist, and a writer of poems, short stories, and novels. Anders sees capitalism as having catastrophic potentials, which includes the rise of fascism. This chapter analyses Anders’ letters to Adolf Eichmann, the SS commander who played a major role in the Nazis’ extermination project of the Jews; his exchange of letters with Claude Eatherly, who was involved in dropping the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima; his concept of annihilism (annihilation as nihilism); and his relationship to his former teacher and Nazi party member Martin Heidegger.