Here's my translation (original in French) of Heidegger's letter to Sartre, delivered when Towarnicki returned to Paris after tracking Heidegger

down. Freiburg on October 28 1945 Good dear Mister Sartre It is only in the past few weeks that I have heard speak of you and of your book. Mister Towarnicki has kindly left me here your book Being and Nothingness, and I have at once begun to work on it. For the first time, I have met an independent thinker, who has reached deep into the field of experience starting from that which I think of. Your book shows an immediate understanding of my philosophy, such as I have never found before. I hope sincerely that we might enter into a fruitful debate, that would allow us to clarify essential questions. Ever since writing Being and Time twenty years ago, I have always faced the same problem; I see how to present many things more clearly and more simply; many misunderstandings could have been avoided. With your critique of "being-with", and your insistence on being-for-others, partly too with your critique of my explanation of death, I am in agreement. Being and Time and above all what has been published, is but a path; the decisive question, which I merely touched upon in On the Essence of Ground, has not yet been fully deployed. The introduction and conclusion of your book are very stimulating to me. Always, these questions, I think them in an original relation to history, and especially with the beginning of Western thought, which finds itself until today entirely covered over by the

domination of Platonism. I hope to have in a short while the chance of publishing my more fuller works. I would very much love to have my own copy of your book, thus I would be able to work through it differently. Because I intend to express myself on the matter of some essential questions, to arrive with you on a way of putting thought in a tested state of being itself as a basic event of history - that will place the man of today in an original relation with being. It would be good if you could come here this coming winter. In our little chalet we could philosophize together, and undertake some sking tours of the Black Forest. I am already delighted with the idea of a meeting in Baden-Baden; but after all the so comprehensive and enthusiastic efforts of Mister Towarnicki, I am well permitted to expect that our meeting will roll along in a very fruitful manner. It is indeed a question of seizing in its greatest seriousness the present moment of the world, of holding it to its word without taking into account the spirit of party, the currents of style, and the debates in schools - so will finally awaken the decisive experience where we might learn with that abysmal depth the richness of being sheltering itself in the essential nothingness. I salute you as a true companion of the path forward yours m.h. Your capital book must imperatively be translated to German There is no record of Sartre responding