Many of his relations, classified by ethnic heritage, did not. Kaufmann’s immediate family departed for the United States just in time to escape the horrific violence of Nazi rule. When his parents encouraged him to reconsider, because they said he was too young and because of Hitler’s rise to power, he “insisted that one could not change one’s mind for a reason like that.” He returned to his native faith when he was 11, unable to accept the trinity or divinity of Jesus. What he accumulated was the wealth of a philosophical life, unencumbered by the petty habits and practices of thoughtlessness, hypocrisy, and deceit.īorn in Freiburg, Germany, in 1921, Kaufmann was raised by Protestants of Jewish descent. “NOBODY ENTIRELY LACKS the will to be honest but most people settle for a rather small share of it.” These are the words of Walter Kaufmann, who refused to accept the very sorry portion of honesty that is generally deemed agreeable.
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