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He also had reason to fear the local Prussian authorities, who were afraid of disturbing the existing precarious balance of power and might have FICHTE, NIETZSCHE, AND THE NAZIS 33 resented his strident nationalist tone as a threat to the established system of princely rule. " Fichte's political activism was no incidental matter. Of all the major German philosophers, he was the one most deeply motivated by political interests. He was concerned with political questions before he began to write on philosophy and always shifted forward and backward between philosophical and political preoccupations.

Racism can no doubt serve a variety of political functions. In the context of Germany in the 1930s, it predominantly served the function of shoring up the definition of German identity, thereby defining the space in which German politics saw itself functioning. What stands out in these efforts is the fact that the definition of the political group and its space was conceived in terms of a sharp boundary and a complete opposition. German politics of the 1930s (and not only that of the Nazis) was essentially antagonistic in character.

As a result, the subject of this educational process would go forth at the proper time "as a fixed and unchangeable machine" (p. 31). Like Heidegger after him, Fichte foresaw that the new education would train not only the student's mental capacities: "learning and working shall be combined" (p. 154). He added: "The state which introduced universally the national education proposed by us . . would need no special army at all, but would have in them [the new students] an army such as no age has yet seen" (p.