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The Nazi Übermensch vs. the Jewish Superhero

JL;DR SUMMARY Elana Gomel's essay explores the contrasting ideas behind the Nazi concept of the Übermensch and the Jewish superhero, Superman. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

HolocaustNazismLiteratureNietzscheSupermanJewish SuperheroesübermenschCultural IdeologyBiocracyRacial Utopianism

Places mentioned

Germany
"Adolf Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany in January 1933."
Vienna, Austria
"Hitler, during his formative years in Vienna, was a fan, eagerly consuming the novels of Jules Verne, Karl May, and Kurd Lasswitz."
Auschwitz, Lesser Poland, Poland
"The selection in concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, where doctors would play the role of evolution by sending some to live and some to die with a wave of hand, was the gruesome literalization of this premise."

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Cairo Item ID 60855
Cairo Source ID 36
Retrieved 2025-09-07 05:31:13 UTC
Curated 2025-09-07 08:30:37 UTC