Episode 18A - Hannah Arendt: 10-Minute Profile

From Boomers to Millennials: A Modern US History Podcast

This episode examines the first 10-minute profile subject who was born outside of the United States. Hannah Arendt was born to a secular Jewish middle-class family in Germany, and as a young woman she was an academic prodigy. She entered university to study philosophy, and engaged in an affair with a famous professor, Martin Heidegger. By the late 20s, Arendt broke up with Heidegger and completed her academic studies. During the early 30s, the Nazis came to power in Germany, and Prof. Heidegger joined the party. Arendt wrote critical articles about the Nazi regime and was jailed for a brief time by the new government that did not tolerate free speech. Arendt was stripped of her German citizenship & fled to Paris, where she met a fellow exile who became her husband. However, when the Nazis invaded France, Arendt moved to the USA, which became her permanent home. As an adopted American, she published 2 classic works of political philosophy: "The Origins of Totalitarianism" (1951), which examined how fascist & communist regimes came to power, and "Eichmann in Jerusalem" (1963), which considered Nazi officials' unquestioning loyalty to their government to embody the modern "banality of evil." Arendt generated controversy with remarks defending her former mentor & lover Heidegger over his decision to join the Nazi Party, but she nevertheless remains an influential thinker whose writings about the dangers of authoritarianism remain relevant to this day.

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