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HIST 271
The Heidegger Controversy
Paul Celan (1920-1970); Edmund Husserl (1859-1938); Edith Stein
(1891-1942); Martin Heidegger (1889-1976); Hannah Arendt (19061975); Tom Masaryk (1850-1937); Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979); Karl
Lwith (1897-1973); Jacques Derrida (1930-2004); Jan Patoka (19071977)
Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, National
Socialist German Workers' Party, NSDAP)
der Fhrer (the leader, refers to Adolf Hitler, leader of the NSDAP)
Volk (people, folk, nation)
Volksgemeinschaft ('"community of the people")
1933: Hitler comes to power in Germany
1935: The Nuremberg Laws (citizenship laws; Jews can no longer be
German citizens)
March 1938: Anschluss (German Reich swallows/merges with Austria)
September 1938: Munich ConferenceHitler's annexation of the
Sudetenland
March 1939: German occupation of Bohemia and Moravia
1 September 1939: Germany attacks Polandbeginning of World War II
22 June 1941: German attack on the Soviet Union
c. October-December 1941: decision for the Final Solution
Assuming the rectorship means committing oneself to leading this
university spiritually and intellectually. The teachers and students who
constitute the rectors following will awaken and gain strength only
through being truly and collectively rooted in the essence of the
German university. This essence will attain clarity, rank, and power,
however, only when the leaders are, first and foremost and at all times,
themselves led by the inexorability of that spiritual mission which
impresses onto the fate of the German Volk the stamp of their
history.Heidegger, Rectoral Address at the University of Freiburg, 27
May 1933
What today is offered around as the philosophy of National Socialism,
but which does not have the least to do with the inner truth and
grandeur of this movement. . . leads to these fishing expeditions in the
murky waters of values and totalities. Heidegger, What is
Metaphysics? (1935)
Schwarze Milch der Frhe wir trinken sie abends/
wir trinken sie mittags und morgens wir trinken sie nachts/

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wir trinken und trinken. . .
...
der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland

Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening

we drink it at midday and morning we drink it at night
we drink and we drink. . .
...
Death is a master from Germany.
Paul Celan, Todesfuge (Deathfuge), 1948
Concerning 1933: I expected from National Socialism a spiritual
renewal of life in its entirety, a reconciliation of social antagonisms and
a deliverance of Western Dasein from the dangers of communism. .
.You are entirely correct that I failed to provide a public, readily
comprehensible counter-declaration; it would have been the end of
both me and my family. On this point, Jaspers said: that we remain
alive is our guilt. Heidegger to Marcuse, 1948
This evening and this morning are the confirmation of an entire
life. . .I should add that I did not, of course, remain silent just as a
matter of discretion, but also as a matter of pride. But also as a matter
of love for you. . .Arendt to Heidegger, February 1950, following
their first postwar meeting
In the huts book, glancing towards the wells star, in the hope of a
word to come.Paul Celan, signing Heideggers guestbook in
Todtnauberg, 1966
Only a God can save us.Heidegger, interview for Der Spiegel, 1966
. . .yes, there is the unforgivable. Is this not, in truth, the only thing to
forgive? . . .From which comes the aporia, which can be described in its
dry and implacable formality, without mercy: forgiveness forgives only
the unforgivable.Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness,
1997