By the 1930s, the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche had been effectively coopted by the German far-right, largely through the mediation of his sister (who belonged to a proto-Nazi group) and his younger cousins (outright Nazis), who were responsible for inserting racist and anti-Semitic ideas into his posthumously published work. While Nietzsche was a critic of both Judeo-Christian morality and modern liberalism, he was hardly what Hitler’s admirers made him out to be. Hugh Drochon gives credit for the rejection of this view of Nietzsche to the scholar Walter Kaufmann:

Kaufmann . . . arrived in the U.S. in 1939; after graduating from Williams College he interrupted his doctoral studies at Harvard to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Force and served as an interrogator for military intelligence during the war. In Berlin he chanced upon an edition of Nietzsche’s collected works and was immediately—like so many before and after him—captivated. Having discharged his duty, he returned to Harvard resolved to write his PhD on Nietzsche.

One point of disagreement [with his subject concerned] religion. While the “death of God” is still one of Nietzsche’s most famous pronouncements, in 1961 Kaufmann wrote Faith of a Heretic. Born in Freiburg in 1921, Kaufmann had been raised a Lutheran, but realizing he didn’t understand the Holy Ghost and that all his grandparents were Jewish (his father had converted, but not his mother), he abjured Christianity and set off to study under the Reform rabbi Leo Baeck at the Berlin Institute for Judaic Studies in 1938. Those studies were cut short by emigration, but the interest in religion would continue.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.