The notion that there exist dangerous thoughts is mistaken for the simple reason that thinking itself is dangerous to all creeds, convictions, and opinions.
Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, ed. Mary McCarthy (New York, 1981), p. 176.
About Hannah Arendt and her work
Who was Hannah Arendt? And can her work help us to understand the human condition in the 21st century?
In recent years many people have turned to the work of Hannah Arendt to try to understand what is happening in our world today. But who was Hannah Arendt? And why is she so relevant now? Over the course of seven episodes, Samantha Rose Hill will be talking with artists, poets, writers, scholars, musicians, and activists who think with Hannah Arendt as they explore questions of solitude, peace, privacy, freedom, love, and politics.
Ideological thinking ruins all relationship with reality.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, 1951), p. 474.
Hannah Arendt in pictures
The picture gallery offers you a glimpse into Hannah Arendt’s life, from her girlhood in Königsberg, to her work in New York City, to the German Literature Archive in Marbach shortly before her death.
Courtesy of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust / Art Resource, NY
Hannah Arendt speaking at the Landesbibliothek Berlin.
Courtesy of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust / Art Resource, NY
Hannah Arendt's Passport Photo. 1920's.
Courtesy of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust / Art Resource, NY
Hannah Arendt. Tegna, 1969.
Courtesy of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust / Art Resource, NY
Hannah Arendt, probably in Jerusalem. 1961.
Courtesy of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust / Art Resource, NY
Hannah Arendt, Passport Photo (sheet of four). 1933.
Courtesy of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust / Art Resource, NY
Hannah Arendt as a child, sitting on a balcony. Date unknown.
Courtesy of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust / Art Resource, NY
Young Hannah Arendt (age unknown), sitting in family library. Date unknown.
Courtesy of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust / Art Resource, NY
Hannah Arendt circa 1930, Outdoor Snapshot.
Courtesy of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust / Art Resource, NY
Hannah Arendt with her first husband Guenther Anders-Stern, circa 1929.
Courtesy of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust / Art Resource, NY
Hannah Arendt with her second husband, Heinrich Bluecher. 1950's.
Courtesy of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust / Art Resource, NY
Hannah Arendt in a Paris Cafe. 1930's.
Courtesy of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust / Art Resource, NY
Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy in Sicily. 1971.
Courtesy of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust / Art Resource, NY
Hannah Arendt, Marbach. 1975.
Quiz
Reading
Hannah Arendt left behind an extensive life's work. However, these three works are absolutely indispensable and provide a good introduction to the more in-depth study of her works and life. Click below for more recommendations.
The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) is the first major account of the rise of Hitlerism and Stalinism. Through three sections on Antisemitism, Imperialism, and Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt traces the underlying elements that crystalized in the phenomenal appearance of totalitarianism in the 20th century.
The Human Condition (1958) offers an account of the fundamental activities of human life—labor, work, and action—and how they have been transformed in modernity, leading to a new form of modern worldly alienation.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil (1963) draws together Hannah Arendt’s reportage on the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem originally published in The New Yorker magazine.
For a more comprehensive list of recommended reading please click
Reading | February 14, 2022 | Goethe-Institut New York The Love Letters of Hannah Arendt & Heinrich Blücher
To celebrate Valentine's Day, acting students from the Lee Strasberg Institute read selected love letters exchanged by Hannah Arendt and Heinrich Blücher at the Goethe-Institut New York.
Hannah Arendt and Heinrich Blücher met in Paris in 1936, both exiled from Nazi Germany. Arendt was Jewish and escaped Germany in 1933 after being arrested by the Gestapo, and Blücher was a communist and was expelled due to his work with Versöhnler, an opposition group. Their early romance was characterized by tribulations, including being separated into different internment camps before they were eventually able to flee to the U.S. in 1941. They lived in New York together until Blücher's death in 1970, sharing their love and work; as Blücher wrote, “We each do our work, and then come together to discuss.” Their love story is simultaneously cinematic and intimate - it spans borders and decades, and the two writers found in each other true life partners. As Arendt wrote to Blücher: "It still seems incredible to me that I managed to get both things, the ‘love of my life’ and a oneness with myself. And yet, I only got the one thing when I got the other. But finally I also know what happiness is."
