Georg Picht (tra Jacoby e Momigliano)

According to Georg Picht, in opening his 1933 course on Horace, Felix Jacoby equated Hitler with Augustus. Arnaldo Momigliano accused Picht of lying to justify Heidegger’s adherence to Nazism. Starting from his testimony on Jacoby, whose reliability is assessed on the basis of a new examination, this paper offers an overall portrait of Georg Picht. Related to the Curtius and to the Weizsäcker families, influenced by the George-Kreis, pupil of Heidegger and Schadewaldt, friend of Adorno, Picht was one of the most influential intellectuals of the Bundesrepublik (with a particular interest in ancient and modern philosophy). Playing a leading role in pub- lic debates on school reform and in the fight against the proliferation of nuclear weapons, he went through the most important stages of German history of the 20th century, from National Socialism to the Cold War, in a difficult balance between Platonic-Christian elitism and Vergangenheitsbewältigung.