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The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader
This anthology is a significant contribution to the debate over the relevance of Martin Heidegger's Nazi ties to the interpretation and evaluation of his philosophical work. Included are a selection of basic documents by Heidegger, essays and letters by Heidegger's colleagues that offer contemporary context and testimony, and interpretive evaluations by Heidegger's heirs and critics in France and Germany.In his new introduction, "Note on a Missing Text," Richard Wolin uses the absence from this edition of an interview with Jacques Derrida as a springboard for examining questions about the nature of authorship and personal responsibility that are at the heart of the book.Richard Wolin is Professor of Modern European Intellectual History and Humanities at Rice University. He is the author of Walter Benjamin, The Politics of Being: The Political Thought of Martin Heidegger, and The Terms of Cultural Criticism: The Frankfurt School, Existentialism and Poststructuralism.
- GenresPhilosophyPoliticsEssays
327 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 11, 2011
Fascinating and surprisingly wide-ranging exploration of various texts surrounding Heidegger’s more-than-just-a-dalliance with the Nazi Party. Interesting both philosophically and historically, with the added bonus that so many of the historical anecdotes have to do with Freiburg University and the Schwarzwald region (i.e. the only part of Germany I know at all).
What emerges from all this, for me, is a better understanding of Heidegger’s project and thought, as well as a better picture of him as a person. (Hint: arrogant prideful jerk. Anyone who’s ever argued with a demagogue recognizes the “anyone who’s taken the time and thought to properly understood my work wouldn’t ask me that question” dodge.)
Oh, and this one: when it was suggested perhaps he should apologize for his involvement with the Nazis, Heidegger answered that Hitler should rise from the dead and apologize to him, Heidegger, for betraying the world-historical promise at the core of National Socialism. Yeah.
What emerges from all this, for me, is a better understanding of Heidegger’s project and thought, as well as a better picture of him as a person. (Hint: arrogant prideful jerk. Anyone who’s ever argued with a demagogue recognizes the “anyone who’s taken the time and thought to properly understood my work wouldn’t ask me that question” dodge.)
Oh, and this one: when it was suggested perhaps he should apologize for his involvement with the Nazis, Heidegger answered that Hitler should rise from the dead and apologize to him, Heidegger, for betraying the world-historical promise at the core of National Socialism. Yeah.
intermittently-reading
July 13, 2016Karl Löwith's contributions are particularly brilliant.
November 18, 2024
A PENETRATING CRITIQUE, INCLUDING HEIDEGGER’S OWN DEFENSES OF HIMSELF
Professor Richard Wolin wrote in the Preface to this 1991 book, “One of the foremost conundrums of modern European intellectual history concerns the delusion to which Martin Heidegger---probably the century’s greatest philosopher---succumbed in 1933: the belief that the National Socialist Revolution represented the ‘saving power’ … of Western humanity; a power capable of redeeming European culture from the dislocations of a rationalistic, modernizing, and nihilistic bourgeois ‘Zivilisation.’ It seems likely, moreover, that well after his resignation from the position of rector of Freiburg University in May 1934, Heidegger remained convinced that, despite its historical excrescences and transgressions, and philosophically idealized version of National Socialism---whose ‘inner truth and greatness’ had been perverted by ideologues promoting ‘racial-biological thinking’---was the potential savior of the Western tradition…
“[N]ow that we know the extent of Heidegger’s partisanship for the Nazi cause in the early 1930s, we cannot help but read him differently. This is true not only because Heidegger the empirical individual was a member in good standing of the Nazi Party from 1933 to 1945; rather, we now read his work with greater attentiveness insofar as we know that his enthusiasm for National Socialism, far from being a fortuitous political flirtation, was PHILOSOPHICALLY OVERDETERMINED… the philosopher himself was convinced that there existed profound and enduring resonances between his own philosophical doctrines and Germany’s National Revolution… Hence, to rethink Heidegger’s philosophy requires reading his texts and treatises with special attention to those aspects of his thought that may have facilitated his fateful political engagement of the 1930s.
“The present compilation of texts is partly intended as a documentary complement to my earlier study of Heidegger’s political thinking, ‘The Politics of Being…’ One of the volume’s primary goals is to serve as a type of sourcebook and guide to the many fascinating questions that have arisen around the theme of ‘Heidegger and National Socialism.’ To that end, I have sought to present a number of key texts by Heidegger himself…”
He adds in the Preface to the MIT edition, “The present edition … differs from the original in one significant way: the omission of a text by Jacques Derrida entitled ‘Philosopher’s Hell: An Interview.’ The text has been omitted at Derrida’s insistence… Derrida and a French attorney threatened a lawsuit… in the event that ‘Philosopher’s Hell’ were reprinted in any future editions of the book.”)
Wolin states in the Introduction, “since the publication of the Heidegger biographies of [Victor] Farias and [Hugo] Ott, the typical rationalizations that had been invoked in the past to minimize the extent of Heidegger’s commitment to the Nazi cause have become wholly untenable. We now know that Heidegger’s alliance with Nazism, far from being a temporary marriage of convenience, was grandiose, and profound: for at least for a short period of time, Heidegger labored under the delusion that he could play the role of ‘philosopher king’ to Hitler’s Führersstadt’… For Heidegger believed that in its early manifestations, National Socialism possessed the capacity to initiate a great spiritual renewal of German Dasein. In it, he saw a potential counter-movement to the fate of ‘European nihilism,’ of perpetual spiritual decline…” (Pg. 2)
He acknowledges, “With the advantages of some sixty years of historical hindsight, it is of course easy for us to condemn Heidegger’s actions and beliefs. Yet pre-Nazi Germany was exposed in rapid succession to a demoralizing defeat in world war, an exacting peace treaty, catastrophic inflation, political chaos, and a severe economic depression… What cannot help give cause for dismay, however, is Heidegger’s repeated insistence after the war that, if only the proper forces had been brought to bear on German’s National Revolution, matters would have been entirely different… Heidegger dates his disillusionment with the National Socialist program from June 30, 1934. Yet… as of the regime’s first few months, the brutal characteristics of totalitarian rule were as plain as noonday: the Reichstag lay in flames, parliament had been dissolved, the Social Democrat Party had been banned, the trade unions had been forcibly disbanded, Jews had been dismissed from civil service… civil liberties had been suspended, and… Hitler was in essence governing by decree. That Heidegger felt sufficiently comfortable with the trappings of totalitarian rule to emerge as Germany’s most prominent academic spokesman for the new regime helps place his political actions … in proper historical perspective.” (Pg. 16-17)
He includes Heidegger’s 11/4/45 letter to the rector of Freiburg University, in which he wrote, “I realized that it was a mistake to believe that… I could immediately influence transformation of the bases---spiritual or non-spiritual---of the National Socialist movement… I decided to abandon my duties at the end of the [1934] semester.” (Pg. 63) He adds, “in 1936 I embarked on a series of courses and lectures on Nietzsche, which … represented … a declaration of spiritual resistance… it is unjust to assimilate Nietzsche to National Socialism, an assimilation which … ignores his hostility to anti-Semitism and his positive attitude with respect to Russia… The Party functionaries also took note of the spiritual resistance of my courses on Nietzsche…” (Pg. 65)
In a 1976 interview in Der Spiegel, Heidegger says, “As Director of the [Philosophical] Seminar I had authority only over its library. I did not comply with the repeated demands to remove the books of Jewish authors… these authors, and above all Husserl, were cited and discussed just as before 1933.” (Pg. 97) He adds, “In 1936 I began the Nietzsche lectures. Anyone with ears to hear heard in these lectures a confrontation with National Socialism.” (Pg. 101)
Karl Löwith says of his 1936 meeting with Heidegger in Rome, “[Heidegger] left no doubt concerning his belief in Hitler. He had underestimated only two things: the vitality of the Christian churches and the obstacles to the Anschluss with Austria. He was convinced now as before that National Socialism was the right course for Germany; one had only to ‘hold out’ long enough… He failed to notice the destructive radicalism of the whole movement…” (Pg. 142)
Wolin notes that “The 1947-48 exchange of letters between [Herbert] Marcuse and Heidegger shows Marcuse grappling with a seemingly inexplicable dilemma: how could Heidegger, who claimed to be the philosophical inheritor of the legacy of Western philosophy, place his thinking in the service of a political movement that embodied the ABSOLUTE NEGATION of everything that legacy stood for?... Marcuse, too, journeyed to Heidegger’s Black Forest retreat in search of a ‘single word’ of repentance, which the philosopher refused to grant.” (Pg. 158)
A 1948 letter of Heidegger to Marcuse states, “To the serious legitimate charges that you express ‘about a regime that murdered millions of Jews, that made terror into an everyday phenomenon…’ I can merely add that if instead of ‘Jews’ you had written ‘East Germans’ [i.e., Germans of the eastern territories], then the same holds true for one of the allies, with the difference that everything that has occurred since 1945 has become public knowledge, while the bloody terror of the Nazis in point of fact had been kept a secret from the German people.” (Pg. 163)
But Marcuse replied, “only outside of the dimension of logic is it possible to explain, then relativize, to ‘comprehend’ a crime by saying that others would have done the same thing. Even further: how is it possible to equate the torture, the maiming, the annihilation of millions of men with the forcible relocation of population groups who suffered none of these outrages (apart perhaps from several exceptional circumstances)?” (Pg. 164)
Wolin notes that “what shocked Jürgen Habermas about Heidegger’s 1935 lecture course was the fact that… the ‘question of Being’ was ineluctably tied to the success of Germany’s National Revolution… Heidegger had allowed the text of the lecture to be republished … unchanged… Habermas called attention to one passage toward the end of the lecture, in which Heidegger, speaking of National Socialism sings the praises of the ‘inner truth and greatness of this movement,’ a characterization which is then… defined in terms of ‘the encounter between planetary technology and modern man.’ Habermas’ review in essence set off the first German ‘Heidegger controversy’…” (Pg, 187)
Wolin states in his concluding essay, “the debate… is destined to become an inescapable point of reference for all future discussions of Heideggerianism and its merits… the more one learns about Heidegger’s relations with National Socialism, the more one is ineluctably driven to conclude that the philosopher himself perceived his Nazi involvement not as a random course of action, but as a logical outgrowth of his philosophical doctrines.” (Pg. 273)
This book will be absolute “must reading” for anyone studying the ‘Heidegger controversy.’
Professor Richard Wolin wrote in the Preface to this 1991 book, “One of the foremost conundrums of modern European intellectual history concerns the delusion to which Martin Heidegger---probably the century’s greatest philosopher---succumbed in 1933: the belief that the National Socialist Revolution represented the ‘saving power’ … of Western humanity; a power capable of redeeming European culture from the dislocations of a rationalistic, modernizing, and nihilistic bourgeois ‘Zivilisation.’ It seems likely, moreover, that well after his resignation from the position of rector of Freiburg University in May 1934, Heidegger remained convinced that, despite its historical excrescences and transgressions, and philosophically idealized version of National Socialism---whose ‘inner truth and greatness’ had been perverted by ideologues promoting ‘racial-biological thinking’---was the potential savior of the Western tradition…
“[N]ow that we know the extent of Heidegger’s partisanship for the Nazi cause in the early 1930s, we cannot help but read him differently. This is true not only because Heidegger the empirical individual was a member in good standing of the Nazi Party from 1933 to 1945; rather, we now read his work with greater attentiveness insofar as we know that his enthusiasm for National Socialism, far from being a fortuitous political flirtation, was PHILOSOPHICALLY OVERDETERMINED… the philosopher himself was convinced that there existed profound and enduring resonances between his own philosophical doctrines and Germany’s National Revolution… Hence, to rethink Heidegger’s philosophy requires reading his texts and treatises with special attention to those aspects of his thought that may have facilitated his fateful political engagement of the 1930s.
“The present compilation of texts is partly intended as a documentary complement to my earlier study of Heidegger’s political thinking, ‘The Politics of Being…’ One of the volume’s primary goals is to serve as a type of sourcebook and guide to the many fascinating questions that have arisen around the theme of ‘Heidegger and National Socialism.’ To that end, I have sought to present a number of key texts by Heidegger himself…”
He adds in the Preface to the MIT edition, “The present edition … differs from the original in one significant way: the omission of a text by Jacques Derrida entitled ‘Philosopher’s Hell: An Interview.’ The text has been omitted at Derrida’s insistence… Derrida and a French attorney threatened a lawsuit… in the event that ‘Philosopher’s Hell’ were reprinted in any future editions of the book.”)
Wolin states in the Introduction, “since the publication of the Heidegger biographies of [Victor] Farias and [Hugo] Ott, the typical rationalizations that had been invoked in the past to minimize the extent of Heidegger’s commitment to the Nazi cause have become wholly untenable. We now know that Heidegger’s alliance with Nazism, far from being a temporary marriage of convenience, was grandiose, and profound: for at least for a short period of time, Heidegger labored under the delusion that he could play the role of ‘philosopher king’ to Hitler’s Führersstadt’… For Heidegger believed that in its early manifestations, National Socialism possessed the capacity to initiate a great spiritual renewal of German Dasein. In it, he saw a potential counter-movement to the fate of ‘European nihilism,’ of perpetual spiritual decline…” (Pg. 2)
He acknowledges, “With the advantages of some sixty years of historical hindsight, it is of course easy for us to condemn Heidegger’s actions and beliefs. Yet pre-Nazi Germany was exposed in rapid succession to a demoralizing defeat in world war, an exacting peace treaty, catastrophic inflation, political chaos, and a severe economic depression… What cannot help give cause for dismay, however, is Heidegger’s repeated insistence after the war that, if only the proper forces had been brought to bear on German’s National Revolution, matters would have been entirely different… Heidegger dates his disillusionment with the National Socialist program from June 30, 1934. Yet… as of the regime’s first few months, the brutal characteristics of totalitarian rule were as plain as noonday: the Reichstag lay in flames, parliament had been dissolved, the Social Democrat Party had been banned, the trade unions had been forcibly disbanded, Jews had been dismissed from civil service… civil liberties had been suspended, and… Hitler was in essence governing by decree. That Heidegger felt sufficiently comfortable with the trappings of totalitarian rule to emerge as Germany’s most prominent academic spokesman for the new regime helps place his political actions … in proper historical perspective.” (Pg. 16-17)
He includes Heidegger’s 11/4/45 letter to the rector of Freiburg University, in which he wrote, “I realized that it was a mistake to believe that… I could immediately influence transformation of the bases---spiritual or non-spiritual---of the National Socialist movement… I decided to abandon my duties at the end of the [1934] semester.” (Pg. 63) He adds, “in 1936 I embarked on a series of courses and lectures on Nietzsche, which … represented … a declaration of spiritual resistance… it is unjust to assimilate Nietzsche to National Socialism, an assimilation which … ignores his hostility to anti-Semitism and his positive attitude with respect to Russia… The Party functionaries also took note of the spiritual resistance of my courses on Nietzsche…” (Pg. 65)
In a 1976 interview in Der Spiegel, Heidegger says, “As Director of the [Philosophical] Seminar I had authority only over its library. I did not comply with the repeated demands to remove the books of Jewish authors… these authors, and above all Husserl, were cited and discussed just as before 1933.” (Pg. 97) He adds, “In 1936 I began the Nietzsche lectures. Anyone with ears to hear heard in these lectures a confrontation with National Socialism.” (Pg. 101)
Karl Löwith says of his 1936 meeting with Heidegger in Rome, “[Heidegger] left no doubt concerning his belief in Hitler. He had underestimated only two things: the vitality of the Christian churches and the obstacles to the Anschluss with Austria. He was convinced now as before that National Socialism was the right course for Germany; one had only to ‘hold out’ long enough… He failed to notice the destructive radicalism of the whole movement…” (Pg. 142)
Wolin notes that “The 1947-48 exchange of letters between [Herbert] Marcuse and Heidegger shows Marcuse grappling with a seemingly inexplicable dilemma: how could Heidegger, who claimed to be the philosophical inheritor of the legacy of Western philosophy, place his thinking in the service of a political movement that embodied the ABSOLUTE NEGATION of everything that legacy stood for?... Marcuse, too, journeyed to Heidegger’s Black Forest retreat in search of a ‘single word’ of repentance, which the philosopher refused to grant.” (Pg. 158)
A 1948 letter of Heidegger to Marcuse states, “To the serious legitimate charges that you express ‘about a regime that murdered millions of Jews, that made terror into an everyday phenomenon…’ I can merely add that if instead of ‘Jews’ you had written ‘East Germans’ [i.e., Germans of the eastern territories], then the same holds true for one of the allies, with the difference that everything that has occurred since 1945 has become public knowledge, while the bloody terror of the Nazis in point of fact had been kept a secret from the German people.” (Pg. 163)
But Marcuse replied, “only outside of the dimension of logic is it possible to explain, then relativize, to ‘comprehend’ a crime by saying that others would have done the same thing. Even further: how is it possible to equate the torture, the maiming, the annihilation of millions of men with the forcible relocation of population groups who suffered none of these outrages (apart perhaps from several exceptional circumstances)?” (Pg. 164)
Wolin notes that “what shocked Jürgen Habermas about Heidegger’s 1935 lecture course was the fact that… the ‘question of Being’ was ineluctably tied to the success of Germany’s National Revolution… Heidegger had allowed the text of the lecture to be republished … unchanged… Habermas called attention to one passage toward the end of the lecture, in which Heidegger, speaking of National Socialism sings the praises of the ‘inner truth and greatness of this movement,’ a characterization which is then… defined in terms of ‘the encounter between planetary technology and modern man.’ Habermas’ review in essence set off the first German ‘Heidegger controversy’…” (Pg, 187)
Wolin states in his concluding essay, “the debate… is destined to become an inescapable point of reference for all future discussions of Heideggerianism and its merits… the more one learns about Heidegger’s relations with National Socialism, the more one is ineluctably driven to conclude that the philosopher himself perceived his Nazi involvement not as a random course of action, but as a logical outgrowth of his philosophical doctrines.” (Pg. 273)
This book will be absolute “must reading” for anyone studying the ‘Heidegger controversy.’
December 21, 2020
This text offers translations of essential texts concerning Heidegger's controversial political engagement. It suffers, though, from a slightly myopic one-sidedness on the part of its editor. This is extremely evident in his pieces which open and close the volume, exemplarily in Wolin's (perhaps willful) misreading of Lacoue-Labarthe's critical engagement with Heidegger. In reductively reading Lacoue-Labarthe as a "Neo-Heideggerian," Wolin fails to grasp the nuance of Lacoue-Labarthe's assessment of Heidegger's political failure in relation to his thought as essentially bound to a policital- and national-aestheticism which the German thinker was unable to recognize because of his thought and its refusal of the ethical as well as what we might hazard to call an aesthetics (or poetics) of existence (the term severed from its metaphysical bindings, by the very tools which Heidegger opened to us). Thus Lacoue-Labarthe's aim is not, as Wolin perceives it, to denounce the "early Heidegger" in order to save the "later"; rather, he shows that such later texts as the "Letter on Humanism" and his engagements with Hölderlin and poetry evince still this radical blindness to the ethics and poetics which underwrite our existence, and are transcendentally conditional of the political. Heidegger was fated to political failure - and this does not "save" or expiate him - because of his manner of thinking. But it is this very thinking which opens for us the ability to perceive and question its very faults.
The problem of Heidegger and the relation of his thought to his political engagement remains a path fraught with dangers and missteps. But it also remains a path necessary to pursue. We remain on the way, along this path, though we must remain critical, wary, of what we encounter. We must remain open to thought and question, so as not to falter on the way, in the very way that Heidegger has before us.
The problem of Heidegger and the relation of his thought to his political engagement remains a path fraught with dangers and missteps. But it also remains a path necessary to pursue. We remain on the way, along this path, though we must remain critical, wary, of what we encounter. We must remain open to thought and question, so as not to falter on the way, in the very way that Heidegger has before us.
March 23, 2011
Not sure why I read books like this but Heidegger is still honored for his existential philosophy even though he was a very sympathetic Nazi and never expressed any remorse for his involvement with them. His excuses were pretty lame. I remained convinced that his defenders and Heidegger's philosophy itself are unworthy of any honor even if i could understand it and I don't.
Read
December 24, 2011i only read the part with the ernst junger essay
Read
April 30, 2014An excellent collection of essays and documents, essential for understanding, judging, and interpreting Heidegger's Naziism.
December 21, 2014
Maybe the best concise account of the controversy surrounding Heidegger's political affiliations as regards his philosophy. A must-read.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews