Commentary

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) ranks at or near the top of lists of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, thanks especially to his magnum opus, Being and Time, published in Germany in 1927. Beginning in 1933, when Hitler came to power, Heidegger was also a member of and advocate for the National Socialist Party, to whose “inner truth and greatness” as a movement he attested in a lecture course at the University of Freiburg in 1935.

The relation of Heidegger’s philosophy to his Nazism has long been a matter of controversy. Some have tried to paint Heidegger’s involvement with Nazism as no more than a flirtation in the early days of the German Reich, against which he subsequently turned (though only to the extent commensurate with maintaining his position under Nazi scrutiny as a professor at Freiburg). In this telling, Heidegger’s Nazism was largely irrelevant to his philosophy. Continue reading →