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Martin Heidegger. Unterwegs zu seiner Biographie.
German
366 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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August 11, 2025
Heidegger's Political Life
In the 1980s and 1990s, the philosopher Martin Heidegger's (1889 -- 1976) association with Nazism came under increasing scrutiny. I have been struggling with Heidegger again and rereading "Being and Time" (1927). In the process, I wanted to learn more about the nature of Heidegger's ties to Nazism. Thus, I read with interest this book by Hugo Ott, "Martin Heidegger: A Political Life" (1993) which has become one of the standard treatments of the subject. Ott is Professor of Economics and Social History at the University of Freiburg. Heidegger spent most of his philosophical career at Freiburg, as an assistant to the famous philosopher Edmund Husserl and then, following a period at Marburg where he wrote "Being and Time" assuming Husserl's chair at Freiburg in 1928. Infamously, Heidegger became Rector at Freiburg in 1933 where he was a strongly activist supporter of Hitler.
In his latter years, with an interview he gave to the German newspaper Der Spiegel in 1966 (not published until after his death) and in a book called "Facts and Thoughts", Heidegger tried to downplay his association with Nazism. Many of Heidegger's supporters have tried to characterize the philosopher as a political innocent who had no real idea of the nature of the political views he claimed to espouse. Using archival material. letters, and Heidegger's own writings, Ott shows that Heidegger's claims and those of apologists do not stand up. From the early days of the 1930s Heidegger became increasingly involved with Nazism and with remaking the German universities in its image. His involvement continued well into the 1930s, following his resignation from the Rectorship in April, 1934. Heidegger was indeed a committed follower of Hitler and National Socialism and he vied albeit unsuccessfully with other less intellectually gifted and more unscrupulous individuals for a position of intellectual leadership within the movement.
Ott's book is not a full biography of Heidegger. It is sketchy on matters other than the philosopher's political involvement and includes little of his intellectual development -- the books he read that influenced him -- and his personal life. Ott also does not discuss Heidegger's philosophy in much detail. His account of the writing of "Being and Time" is scant in the extreme. Ott claims that philosophy is not within his expertise. Beyond some rather broad generalizations, he does relatively little in exploring the extent and nature of the link between Heidegger's philosophy and his politics.
Thus, in his study, Ott shows Heidegger increasingly involved with Nazi activity, but I still was unsure how, why and when Heidegger became attracted to Nazism. Ott gives a detailed portrayal of Heidegger's activities during his Rectorship, including his inaugural speech, his attempt to reshape the German universities, his informing on a chemist named Herman Staudinger, a subsequent recipient of the Nobel Prize, and his shabby treatment of Edmund Husserl, his former mentor. Ott also describes Heidegger's career after his rectorship in which he remained, for a time, committed to Nazism. Ott discusses the difficult question of Heidegger's attitude towards Jews and finds considerable evidence at some periods of his life of Anti-Semitism. As the 1930s continued, Heidegger came under surveillance from the Nazis who tried to censor or ban some of his writings.
In 1945, with the end of WW II and the occupation of Freiburg, Heidegger was subjected to a lengthy denazification proceeding. The result was a ban on Heidegger teaching which remained in place until 1951. Ott offers a full account of this proceeding. The evidence that was introduced remains critical in understanding Heidegger's relationship to Nazism. Heidegger, in the course of his long post-war life, never fully came to terms with Nazism or explained or apologized for his role.
In addition to discussing Heidegger and Nazism, Ott offers insight into the philosopher's relationship to Catholicism. Heidegger, born to a devout Catholic family, was able to pursue his studies only because of Catholic financial assistance. He briefly thought of becoming a priest. He abandoned Catholicism around 1916-1917, but Ott points out that his attitude to his former faith remained ambivalent. "Being and Time" for example rebels against scholasticism even while its author remains deeply steeped in it. Ott argues that Heidegger struggled with Catholicism throughout his life. I think he is correct in this, and that Heidegger's religious seekings are an integral part of his thought, as important as are the political dimensions.
Many readers, myself included, struggle with Heidegger because of the sense his works convey of insight. Thus in his report to the Denazification Commission, Karl Jaspers, who was severely critical of Heidegger wrote: "In the full flow of his discourse he occasionally succeeds in hitting the nerve of the philosophical enterprise in a most mysterious and marvellous way." (Ott, p. 338) Ott's book nowhere denies the importance of Heidegger's thought or on the fascination it exerts on people who are far from the Nazism that captured the philosopher. Ott's book, nevertheless, offers grounds for pause and for careful reflection in reading and coming to an understanding of the thought of Heidegger.
Robin Friedman
In the 1980s and 1990s, the philosopher Martin Heidegger's (1889 -- 1976) association with Nazism came under increasing scrutiny. I have been struggling with Heidegger again and rereading "Being and Time" (1927). In the process, I wanted to learn more about the nature of Heidegger's ties to Nazism. Thus, I read with interest this book by Hugo Ott, "Martin Heidegger: A Political Life" (1993) which has become one of the standard treatments of the subject. Ott is Professor of Economics and Social History at the University of Freiburg. Heidegger spent most of his philosophical career at Freiburg, as an assistant to the famous philosopher Edmund Husserl and then, following a period at Marburg where he wrote "Being and Time" assuming Husserl's chair at Freiburg in 1928. Infamously, Heidegger became Rector at Freiburg in 1933 where he was a strongly activist supporter of Hitler.
In his latter years, with an interview he gave to the German newspaper Der Spiegel in 1966 (not published until after his death) and in a book called "Facts and Thoughts", Heidegger tried to downplay his association with Nazism. Many of Heidegger's supporters have tried to characterize the philosopher as a political innocent who had no real idea of the nature of the political views he claimed to espouse. Using archival material. letters, and Heidegger's own writings, Ott shows that Heidegger's claims and those of apologists do not stand up. From the early days of the 1930s Heidegger became increasingly involved with Nazism and with remaking the German universities in its image. His involvement continued well into the 1930s, following his resignation from the Rectorship in April, 1934. Heidegger was indeed a committed follower of Hitler and National Socialism and he vied albeit unsuccessfully with other less intellectually gifted and more unscrupulous individuals for a position of intellectual leadership within the movement.
Ott's book is not a full biography of Heidegger. It is sketchy on matters other than the philosopher's political involvement and includes little of his intellectual development -- the books he read that influenced him -- and his personal life. Ott also does not discuss Heidegger's philosophy in much detail. His account of the writing of "Being and Time" is scant in the extreme. Ott claims that philosophy is not within his expertise. Beyond some rather broad generalizations, he does relatively little in exploring the extent and nature of the link between Heidegger's philosophy and his politics.
Thus, in his study, Ott shows Heidegger increasingly involved with Nazi activity, but I still was unsure how, why and when Heidegger became attracted to Nazism. Ott gives a detailed portrayal of Heidegger's activities during his Rectorship, including his inaugural speech, his attempt to reshape the German universities, his informing on a chemist named Herman Staudinger, a subsequent recipient of the Nobel Prize, and his shabby treatment of Edmund Husserl, his former mentor. Ott also describes Heidegger's career after his rectorship in which he remained, for a time, committed to Nazism. Ott discusses the difficult question of Heidegger's attitude towards Jews and finds considerable evidence at some periods of his life of Anti-Semitism. As the 1930s continued, Heidegger came under surveillance from the Nazis who tried to censor or ban some of his writings.
In 1945, with the end of WW II and the occupation of Freiburg, Heidegger was subjected to a lengthy denazification proceeding. The result was a ban on Heidegger teaching which remained in place until 1951. Ott offers a full account of this proceeding. The evidence that was introduced remains critical in understanding Heidegger's relationship to Nazism. Heidegger, in the course of his long post-war life, never fully came to terms with Nazism or explained or apologized for his role.
In addition to discussing Heidegger and Nazism, Ott offers insight into the philosopher's relationship to Catholicism. Heidegger, born to a devout Catholic family, was able to pursue his studies only because of Catholic financial assistance. He briefly thought of becoming a priest. He abandoned Catholicism around 1916-1917, but Ott points out that his attitude to his former faith remained ambivalent. "Being and Time" for example rebels against scholasticism even while its author remains deeply steeped in it. Ott argues that Heidegger struggled with Catholicism throughout his life. I think he is correct in this, and that Heidegger's religious seekings are an integral part of his thought, as important as are the political dimensions.
Many readers, myself included, struggle with Heidegger because of the sense his works convey of insight. Thus in his report to the Denazification Commission, Karl Jaspers, who was severely critical of Heidegger wrote: "In the full flow of his discourse he occasionally succeeds in hitting the nerve of the philosophical enterprise in a most mysterious and marvellous way." (Ott, p. 338) Ott's book nowhere denies the importance of Heidegger's thought or on the fascination it exerts on people who are far from the Nazism that captured the philosopher. Ott's book, nevertheless, offers grounds for pause and for careful reflection in reading and coming to an understanding of the thought of Heidegger.
Robin Friedman
October 3, 2020
Tracing the (necessary) failure of a political life as bio-graphy - for such a life is inscribed under or within the figures of a myth to which the oscillating play of life and death cannot "essentially" correspond - Ott provides a much more historically neutral account of what has for years, through various resurgences, come to be known as "the Heidegger affair" (far more neutral, that is, than Farias' obsessional vendetta). As Lacoue-Labarthe has noted, there is at the heart of such a life bound to writing, to its inscription, a refusal or an excess, a void or a gap, the lapse of which marrs and fragments such an attempt in an ineluctable errancy. It was, perhaps, this very absence or effacement of myth which Heidegger struggled with at this time (Ott's centralizing of Heidegger's multifaceted struggles with faith eminently evince this; for Christianity is bound, mythically, to the metaphysical thought of the West from which Heidegger sought an exit).
This political failure is inscribed in the attempt at a reprisal of myth, seeking a new myth beyond mythicization, though paradoxically unaware that the errancy, the exile, if not the diasporatic detouring of myth in the very groundlessness or homelessness, running counter to and uprooting the autochthonous myth of blood and soil, through which Heidegger attempted his political construal of destiny. Did Heidegger ever realize his error, its fundamental confusion? Did destiny and the history of Being ever manifest for him the essential non-essentiality of our place and displacement in the effacive figure of Judaism, the figure which his thought never openly thought?
Perhaps Celan noted this, in a glaring instant, which he marked, in remembrance which refused forgetting all the while refusing to this remembrance the immemorial element which remained the share of an indelible forgetting, with his lines in the guestbook at the hut in Todtnauburg. The word, the thought, still to come, yet already inscribed upon the heart - a word which Heidegger could not speak, and which so marked his failure. He had approached so near to this word without word, this word ever still unspoken, yet he could not think it, let alone let it speak. For this word was not Greek, nor for that matter German. A wandering word, a word in exile, ever yet (perhaps still) to come. Not an apology, no - but an awareness, a vigilant clue, bearing witness to all that Heidegger could never openly testify, his thought ever yet bound to the fate of myth, and the myth of the absence of myth. And yet, however, a word to which all his words, his thought, testifys to in silence, the testamentary mark of an absence of testimony - without confession, without word. A word to come, borne forever, forevermore and all the more now, in the silence of the heart.
This political failure is inscribed in the attempt at a reprisal of myth, seeking a new myth beyond mythicization, though paradoxically unaware that the errancy, the exile, if not the diasporatic detouring of myth in the very groundlessness or homelessness, running counter to and uprooting the autochthonous myth of blood and soil, through which Heidegger attempted his political construal of destiny. Did Heidegger ever realize his error, its fundamental confusion? Did destiny and the history of Being ever manifest for him the essential non-essentiality of our place and displacement in the effacive figure of Judaism, the figure which his thought never openly thought?
Perhaps Celan noted this, in a glaring instant, which he marked, in remembrance which refused forgetting all the while refusing to this remembrance the immemorial element which remained the share of an indelible forgetting, with his lines in the guestbook at the hut in Todtnauburg. The word, the thought, still to come, yet already inscribed upon the heart - a word which Heidegger could not speak, and which so marked his failure. He had approached so near to this word without word, this word ever still unspoken, yet he could not think it, let alone let it speak. For this word was not Greek, nor for that matter German. A wandering word, a word in exile, ever yet (perhaps still) to come. Not an apology, no - but an awareness, a vigilant clue, bearing witness to all that Heidegger could never openly testify, his thought ever yet bound to the fate of myth, and the myth of the absence of myth. And yet, however, a word to which all his words, his thought, testifys to in silence, the testamentary mark of an absence of testimony - without confession, without word. A word to come, borne forever, forevermore and all the more now, in the silence of the heart.
November 18, 2024
AN EXCELLENT BIOGRAPHY, CENTERING ON THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT NAZISM
German Professor Hugo Ott wrote in the Introduction to this 1993 book, “I have been urged by many people to collect together my various articles on Martin Heidegger… and bring them out as a book… The pressure on me intensified following the publication of Victor Farias’ ‘Heidegger et le nazisme’ in 1987, when my own essays attracted growing attention in the international debate that ensued… The decision to pursue my investigations further, paying particular attention to the early period of Heidegger’s life, was based on the discovery that the factual evidence grew stronger and stronger the more I looked into it.” (Pg. 1-3) He states later, “It has been clear for some time that the tendency to play down the philosopher’s political past could no longer be sustained in the light of certain research findings.” (Pg. 21)
Of the relationship between Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, he reports, “The 1950 exchange of letters had failed to restore communication between the two giants to the point where it could be sustained continuously and without significant interruption. Too much had come between the two men… Too much had happened since 1933 for Heidegger to be able to cleanse himself in Jaspers’ eyes with a simple passing reference to ‘shame.’ More substantial explanations were needed to bring about clarification and redemption. But the liberating, redemptive words were never spoken. Instead the tissue of excuses manufactured by Heidegger in his own defense… missed its mark completely… Heidegger responded with a petty-minded defense based on factual assertions that were partially inaccurate in themselves, and as a whole amounted to a pretty flimsy case.” (Pg. 27-28) He adds, “The only concession made by Heidegger in the course of a lengthy correspondence was a reference to ‘shame’---and even then only in relation to his own personal misfortunes.” (Pg. 33)
He reports that in 1916, “There was no place at Freiburg for a thinker as individual as Heidegger… The board dealt the young lecturer a further blow by declining to recommend him even for an assistant professorship…The summer of 1916 inflicted serious psychological damage on the young lecturer Heidegger, the traumatic effects of which were to last a lifetime. It was the decisive blow. We need only recall his rejection by the Jesuits on the grounds of poor physical health, and later by the archiepiscopal authorities in Freiburg on the same grounds; and now he had to suffer this kind of treatment at the hands of Catholic academics.” (Pg. 92, 95) Eventually he was hired to lecture on logic, but theologians complained, “he uses a difficult terminology and expresses himself in a way that is too complicated for beginners!” (Pg. 96)
He recounts, “it was not that easy to get close to Husserl... Heidegger found it difficult to establish a personal rapport with him… [But] During the winter of 1917/1918 the two philosophers became sufficiently close … to discuss philosophy on an informal, personal basis… Husserl was unquestionably the dominant philosophical figure…” (Pg. 102-103)
Heidegger wrote a letter in 1919, which “was an informal declaration… of his intention to quit the family of the Catholic Church…. Heidegger knew only too well that Catholic ecclesiology had evolved a visible church as an institution with a hierarchy and a ministry… and that consequently, an individual Christian existence … that placed itself outside this fellowship broke… with the society of the Church… He ends with a theatrical flourish, justifying himself before God like a latter-day Martin Luther: the gesture is a trifle overplayed.” (Pg. 108)
In 1925, Husserl recommended Heidegger for a professorship: “Heidegger… is unequivocally the preferred choice for the permanent professorship… Among the younger generation… I have not met anyone who exhibits such fresh and boundless originality… To my mind Heidegger is without doubt the most important figure among the rising generation of philosophers.” (Pg. 126-127)
Karl Löwith, a pupil of Heidegger’s (and Jewish) in 1936 met with his old teacher… Löwith has left us a detailed account… What particularly struck him was the way Heidegger wore his party badge throughout… it was [Löwith’s] belief that Heidegger’s support for National Socialism lay in the very nature of his philosophy… His diagnosis is clear enough: Heidegger’s philosophical undertaking is intimately bound up with National Socialism…” (Pg. 134) Ott adds, “after Heidegger had ostentatiously joined the NSDAP … the National Socialist [newspaper] was jubilant, claiming that the formal adoption of membership was simply that public expression of a position that Heidegger had long held in private.” (Pg. 136) In the 1933/34 semester, he told his students, “The Führer himself and he alone IS the German reality, present and future, and its law.’ The verb ‘to be,’ italicized by Heidegger for emphasis, contains within the message of Being.” (Pg. 164)
Ott notes, “The allegation that Heidegger banned Husserl from the university and the library during his rectorship has been repeated over and over again… Let us be clear… as rector and head of department Heidegger did not issue a ban of any kind on the use of the university library or the departmental library. This oft-repeated charge is without foundation.” (Pg. 173-174)
He explains, “Heidegger’s anti-Semitism, raised as an issue by Husserl, is substantiated… even in his dealings with his own Jewish students and Jewish Faculty colleagues… To my mind the issue is by no means unimportant, given the catastrophic consequences of the anti-Semitism that was an integral part of National Socialism. And anyone who cast Hitler in the role of the great leader figure sent by Being was bound to take account, at the very least, of the man’s appalling anti-Semitism. One thing seems certain: if Heidegger subscribed to anti-Semitism, it was certainly not on the basis of the crude racial ideology embodied in Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf.’” (Pg. 187)
He recounts that German anti-Semitism, “culminated in the nationwide book-burning on the night of 10 May 1933. In Freiburg too the bonfires burned that night… outside the University Library. Rector Heidegger did nothing to prevent this act of barbarism.” (Pg. 189)
In 1945, Heidegger “submitted the following explanation to the … denazification commission… ‘It was not… my intention to impose Party doctrine on the University; on the contrary, I wanted to bring about a transformation in thinking both within National Socialism and with regard to it.’” (Pg. 195) The denazification commission concluded that Heidegger “played a very active part in reshaping the university constitution in line with the new ‘Führerprinzip.’ Heidegger could not deny it.” (Pg. 199) He also notes of Heidegger’s proclamation to students at Freiburg in 1933, “there is not a passage anywhere in Heidegger’s work, or in the correspondence or official records, where he retracts a single word of this proclamation. Heidegger stood behind what he had said…” (Pg. 204) Later, he notes that “the commission was well disposed towards Heidegger.” (Pg. 320)
He acknowledges, “an anti-Heidegger group existed within the Party by the spring of 1934… because they did not wish him to be seen as ‘the philosopher of National Socialism.’” (Pg. 254)
He explains, “Heidegger was perceived as a National Socialist, at least by the outside world, and however the term may have been understood. And he remained loyal to the Party, wearing its insignia… At no time did he adopt a position of protest, not even after the [Krystal Night’] of November 1948… was not wearing of the Party insignia likewise an expression of identification with the totalitarian regime, which was now showing
... more and more clearly its true colors?” (Pg. 292)
He points out. “So far as one can see, there had been no movement in Heidegger’s thinking between 1935 and 1942. Yet National Socialism had plunged the world into war and ruin, while the crimes against humanity perpetrated in the name of National Socialism were numbered in their millions.” (Pg. 295)
He states, “It is understandable that Heidegger’s behavior toward his predecessor in the chair (and presumed mentor), particularly during Husserl’s long illness in 1937/38, his absence at Husserl’s funeral and his silence after Husserl’s death now weighed very heavily against him.” (Pg. 332-333)
In 1945, Karl Jaspers wrote, “A change of heart brought about by a switch to the anti-Nazi camp has to be judged by the motives that underlie it, and to some extent these can be deduced from the timing of the change… To my way of thinking a change of heart that postdates 1941 is virtually meaningless---and indeed means very little unless it occurred decisively after the events of June 1934.’” (Pg. 349-340)
Nevertheless, in 1949, the Freiburg University faculty “now deemed it appropriate to take steps within the University to effect his rehabilitation…. It was simply unacceptable, in a state founded on freedom of speech, that a man of Heidegger’s stature should be denied a voice indefinitely---which is what a continuation of the teaching ban would amount to.” (Pg. 361)
This is an excellent biography, that will be of particular interest to those studying the controversy about Nazism.
German Professor Hugo Ott wrote in the Introduction to this 1993 book, “I have been urged by many people to collect together my various articles on Martin Heidegger… and bring them out as a book… The pressure on me intensified following the publication of Victor Farias’ ‘Heidegger et le nazisme’ in 1987, when my own essays attracted growing attention in the international debate that ensued… The decision to pursue my investigations further, paying particular attention to the early period of Heidegger’s life, was based on the discovery that the factual evidence grew stronger and stronger the more I looked into it.” (Pg. 1-3) He states later, “It has been clear for some time that the tendency to play down the philosopher’s political past could no longer be sustained in the light of certain research findings.” (Pg. 21)
Of the relationship between Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, he reports, “The 1950 exchange of letters had failed to restore communication between the two giants to the point where it could be sustained continuously and without significant interruption. Too much had come between the two men… Too much had happened since 1933 for Heidegger to be able to cleanse himself in Jaspers’ eyes with a simple passing reference to ‘shame.’ More substantial explanations were needed to bring about clarification and redemption. But the liberating, redemptive words were never spoken. Instead the tissue of excuses manufactured by Heidegger in his own defense… missed its mark completely… Heidegger responded with a petty-minded defense based on factual assertions that were partially inaccurate in themselves, and as a whole amounted to a pretty flimsy case.” (Pg. 27-28) He adds, “The only concession made by Heidegger in the course of a lengthy correspondence was a reference to ‘shame’---and even then only in relation to his own personal misfortunes.” (Pg. 33)
He reports that in 1916, “There was no place at Freiburg for a thinker as individual as Heidegger… The board dealt the young lecturer a further blow by declining to recommend him even for an assistant professorship…The summer of 1916 inflicted serious psychological damage on the young lecturer Heidegger, the traumatic effects of which were to last a lifetime. It was the decisive blow. We need only recall his rejection by the Jesuits on the grounds of poor physical health, and later by the archiepiscopal authorities in Freiburg on the same grounds; and now he had to suffer this kind of treatment at the hands of Catholic academics.” (Pg. 92, 95) Eventually he was hired to lecture on logic, but theologians complained, “he uses a difficult terminology and expresses himself in a way that is too complicated for beginners!” (Pg. 96)
He recounts, “it was not that easy to get close to Husserl... Heidegger found it difficult to establish a personal rapport with him… [But] During the winter of 1917/1918 the two philosophers became sufficiently close … to discuss philosophy on an informal, personal basis… Husserl was unquestionably the dominant philosophical figure…” (Pg. 102-103)
Heidegger wrote a letter in 1919, which “was an informal declaration… of his intention to quit the family of the Catholic Church…. Heidegger knew only too well that Catholic ecclesiology had evolved a visible church as an institution with a hierarchy and a ministry… and that consequently, an individual Christian existence … that placed itself outside this fellowship broke… with the society of the Church… He ends with a theatrical flourish, justifying himself before God like a latter-day Martin Luther: the gesture is a trifle overplayed.” (Pg. 108)
In 1925, Husserl recommended Heidegger for a professorship: “Heidegger… is unequivocally the preferred choice for the permanent professorship… Among the younger generation… I have not met anyone who exhibits such fresh and boundless originality… To my mind Heidegger is without doubt the most important figure among the rising generation of philosophers.” (Pg. 126-127)
Karl Löwith, a pupil of Heidegger’s (and Jewish) in 1936 met with his old teacher… Löwith has left us a detailed account… What particularly struck him was the way Heidegger wore his party badge throughout… it was [Löwith’s] belief that Heidegger’s support for National Socialism lay in the very nature of his philosophy… His diagnosis is clear enough: Heidegger’s philosophical undertaking is intimately bound up with National Socialism…” (Pg. 134) Ott adds, “after Heidegger had ostentatiously joined the NSDAP … the National Socialist [newspaper] was jubilant, claiming that the formal adoption of membership was simply that public expression of a position that Heidegger had long held in private.” (Pg. 136) In the 1933/34 semester, he told his students, “The Führer himself and he alone IS the German reality, present and future, and its law.’ The verb ‘to be,’ italicized by Heidegger for emphasis, contains within the message of Being.” (Pg. 164)
Ott notes, “The allegation that Heidegger banned Husserl from the university and the library during his rectorship has been repeated over and over again… Let us be clear… as rector and head of department Heidegger did not issue a ban of any kind on the use of the university library or the departmental library. This oft-repeated charge is without foundation.” (Pg. 173-174)
He explains, “Heidegger’s anti-Semitism, raised as an issue by Husserl, is substantiated… even in his dealings with his own Jewish students and Jewish Faculty colleagues… To my mind the issue is by no means unimportant, given the catastrophic consequences of the anti-Semitism that was an integral part of National Socialism. And anyone who cast Hitler in the role of the great leader figure sent by Being was bound to take account, at the very least, of the man’s appalling anti-Semitism. One thing seems certain: if Heidegger subscribed to anti-Semitism, it was certainly not on the basis of the crude racial ideology embodied in Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf.’” (Pg. 187)
He recounts that German anti-Semitism, “culminated in the nationwide book-burning on the night of 10 May 1933. In Freiburg too the bonfires burned that night… outside the University Library. Rector Heidegger did nothing to prevent this act of barbarism.” (Pg. 189)
In 1945, Heidegger “submitted the following explanation to the … denazification commission… ‘It was not… my intention to impose Party doctrine on the University; on the contrary, I wanted to bring about a transformation in thinking both within National Socialism and with regard to it.’” (Pg. 195) The denazification commission concluded that Heidegger “played a very active part in reshaping the university constitution in line with the new ‘Führerprinzip.’ Heidegger could not deny it.” (Pg. 199) He also notes of Heidegger’s proclamation to students at Freiburg in 1933, “there is not a passage anywhere in Heidegger’s work, or in the correspondence or official records, where he retracts a single word of this proclamation. Heidegger stood behind what he had said…” (Pg. 204) Later, he notes that “the commission was well disposed towards Heidegger.” (Pg. 320)
He acknowledges, “an anti-Heidegger group existed within the Party by the spring of 1934… because they did not wish him to be seen as ‘the philosopher of National Socialism.’” (Pg. 254)
He explains, “Heidegger was perceived as a National Socialist, at least by the outside world, and however the term may have been understood. And he remained loyal to the Party, wearing its insignia… At no time did he adopt a position of protest, not even after the [Krystal Night’] of November 1948… was not wearing of the Party insignia likewise an expression of identification with the totalitarian regime, which was now showing
... more and more clearly its true colors?” (Pg. 292)
He points out. “So far as one can see, there had been no movement in Heidegger’s thinking between 1935 and 1942. Yet National Socialism had plunged the world into war and ruin, while the crimes against humanity perpetrated in the name of National Socialism were numbered in their millions.” (Pg. 295)
He states, “It is understandable that Heidegger’s behavior toward his predecessor in the chair (and presumed mentor), particularly during Husserl’s long illness in 1937/38, his absence at Husserl’s funeral and his silence after Husserl’s death now weighed very heavily against him.” (Pg. 332-333)
In 1945, Karl Jaspers wrote, “A change of heart brought about by a switch to the anti-Nazi camp has to be judged by the motives that underlie it, and to some extent these can be deduced from the timing of the change… To my way of thinking a change of heart that postdates 1941 is virtually meaningless---and indeed means very little unless it occurred decisively after the events of June 1934.’” (Pg. 349-340)
Nevertheless, in 1949, the Freiburg University faculty “now deemed it appropriate to take steps within the University to effect his rehabilitation…. It was simply unacceptable, in a state founded on freedom of speech, that a man of Heidegger’s stature should be denied a voice indefinitely---which is what a continuation of the teaching ban would amount to.” (Pg. 361)
This is an excellent biography, that will be of particular interest to those studying the controversy about Nazism.
May 2, 2018
Ott’s work is at the core of the discussion about Heidegger’s Nazism, maybe one of the two most important sources for the facts, along with Victor Farias’s Heidegger and Nazism. There are certainly other books and many articles and papers as well — too many to mention — but those two at least are essential.
It’s hard to put our attention as readers on anything other than the Nazism discussion, but the book also addresses Heidegger’s early Catholicism (as does Farias’s book), a discussion I found extremely interesting in its own right.
Ott organizes the book around what Heidegger, in a letter to Karl Jaspers, called “the two great thorns in my flesh — the struggle with the faith of my birth, and the failure of the rectorship” (it was during Heidegger’s time as rector at the University of Freiburg that he became most involved with National Socialism).
The first of these “thorns” is Heidegger’s struggle with Catholicism. Somewhat parallel to Nietzsche’s upbringing in the Protestant faith and intended career in the clergy, Heidegger looked destined for a place in the Catholic Church. In fact, he applied to become a member of The Society of Jesus but was rejected, not on grounds of faith but for health matters. Until that time, he had pursued theological studies, and, judging by his writings up through 1914/15 (his middle twenties), his faith appeared firm.
When his intended career in the Church was closed to him, he turned first to mathematics and then to philosophy. But his philosophical studies remained, for the moment, heavily influenced by his religious convictions, even through his habilitation.
He was a “Catholic philosopher” within the university system. As such, he was both constrained to and available for certain positions and not others. His eventual turn away from Catholicism opened his ambitions to non-theologically laden positions, while eliminating him from consideration for positions reserved for Catholic thinkers.
Although within a few years of his habilitation, he was questioning his faith, eventually explicitly abandoning adherence to Catholic doctrine, he later maintained that he remained a Catholic all his life.
It is interesting to read (or re-read) some of Heidegger’s writings on religion, now knowing more about his early convictions and his turn away from them. In particular, his Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion along with his book on Augustine and Neo-Platonism (both drawn from lecture notes) provide some bridges between central aspects of his mature thought, such as anxiety, facticity, and even the difficult notion of Gelassenheit from his later writings, and his deep Catholicism.
His rejection of Catholic doctrine was life-changing. Certainly his thought could not be confined within the bounds of Catholicism, and the Church demanded faithfulness to its doctrines. His marriage, to the Protestant Elfride Petri, was a turning point. And of course, his career opportunities changed, as he was no longer confined to or qualified for positions reserved for “Catholic philosophers.”
The bulk of the book, though, addresses Heidegger’s relationship to National Socialism.
I think it is beyond debate by now that Heidegger was truly a Nazi. His addresses, letters, and public statements during his rectorship at the University of Freiburg in 1933 and 1934 establish that much. The questions that remain of interest for me, and that appear open for debate, are to what extent he truly embraced the ideology of National Socialism (and may have continued to embrace it after his rectorship), and to what extent his involvement in Nazism compromises his philosophical work.
Ott’s book is especially helpful on the first of those questions.
Ott is not a dispassionate reporter of facts. And at times his rhetoric is polemical, although not so much as Farias’s. And Ott is concerned to give fair treatment to Heidegger, considering Heidegger’s and others’ excuses and explanations, although rejecting any softening of his judgment of those critical years 1933 and 1934.
I won’t go through the evidence that supports and establishes Heidegger’s participation and support for National Socialism during those years, or the evidence for anti-semitic attitudes and behavior. That’s what Ott’s book is for. Heidegger not only gave official support, as he must have to occupy a position as rector of one of Germany’s leading universities, he also pursued his own ambitions within the “movement” to reform philosophy and the German university itself. He vied for the intellectual leadership of Nazi Germany.
I think it’s also true, in more substantial terms, that Heidegger’s thought contained a strain of affinity for German nationalism. Heidegger saw the world in a cultural crisis. And he saw Germany as a savior.
Why Germany? Aside simply from his being German, Germany was, in his terms, a “metaphysical nation”. Germany alone stood against the threats on either side of Europe — “a giant pincer grip between Russia on one side and America on the other”. From a “metaphysical perspective”, both America and Russia (or the Soviet Union) represented “the same soulless spectacle of technology run riot and ordinary people at the mercy of social organization without roots.”
Germany stood in a position to recapture a more “authentic” existence, lost since the time of the early Greeks. Throughout his later writings, Heidegger repeats this theme of the need to release ourselves, German or not, from the hold of a technological world and recapture that lost relationship to Being.
So why National Socialism? Why Hitler? National Socialism appeared to embody the destiny of the German historical role — to reassert an affirmative relationship to nature and among its people, to assert itself positively. And Heidegger pulls no punches in his statement to the Freiburg University students as rector — “The Fuhrer himself and he alone is the German reality, present and future, and its law.”
National Socialism presented an opportunity for Heidegger, one that he threw himself into during those years. A Germany in revolution was the opportunity, even if it is difficult to see any evidence of “authenticity” in the National Socialist ideology itself.
Ultimately Heidegger failed — his personal ambitions for the German university system and for German philosophy were not fulfilled, and just failed to catch on. He was ultimately at odds with any dogmatic order, much less one so strict as National Socialism, and he was undoubtedly out of his depth among the knife-sharp political skills of others also pursuing personal goals within the Party.
There was a strong backlash against Heidegger after his time as Freiburg’s rector. As an example, in 1934, Erich Jaensch, a philosopher and former colleague of Heidegger’s at the University of Marburg, condemns Heidegger in a report meant to limit his influence in National Socialist intellectual leadership circles and positions — “Heidegger’s thought is characterized by the same obsession with hairsplitting distinctions as Talmudic thought. This is why it holds such an extraordinary fascination for Jews, persons of Jewish ancestry and others with a similar makeup. If Heidegger acquires a decisive influence over the formation and selection of young academics, this will mean with absolute certainty that the selection criteria in our universities and intellectual life will favour those of Jewish stock who remain in our midst.”
But it would be a stretch to say that the backlash had much to do with unfaithfulness to the Nazi cause on Heidegger’s part — it appears instead just to be part of the power struggle within the intellectual leadership of National Socialism (allowing that the quote from Jaensch sounds anything but “intellectual”).
Beyond the question of Heidegger’s actual Nazi participation, the question of the relation between his philosophical thought and his Nazism is complicated. I don’t think that is the strength of Ott’s book. There are other, more penetrating works to go to — Victor Farias’s book (Heidegger and Nazism) for one. And Hans Sluga’s Heidegger’s Crisis provides a much needed, broader look at Heidegger’s context, the role of philosophy in Germany in the 30s and 40s and the philosophical battles both between supporters and opponents of National Socialism and among the supporters for standing within the Third Reich. Unlike Ott, a social historian, both Farias and Sluga are philosophers, better equipped for the complexities of the philosophical side of the topic.
it’s a volatile topic, to say the least. I think it would be foolish to simply throw all of Heidegger’s philosophical work into disrepute. The epistemology of Being and Time, and Heidegger’s critique of traditional metaphysics, both in Being and Time, and in later work, are critical pieces of twentieth century philosophy. Are they tainted by, in some way supportive of his Nazism? Good question. To some extent, the question was addressed after the end of the war, in the decision to allow Heidegger to resume his philosophical work within the post-war “denazified” Germany. That decision was based in part on the importance of his work and his contributions to philosophy per se.
His guilt during the rectorship is hard to deny (although he attempted to do so himself in his apologia, both written and verbal during the denazification procedures and during his subsequent career), as is the damage he did to others — students, colleagues, and personal relations. Jaspers’ judgement speaks well, I think — “I can accept to some extent the personal excuse that Heidegger was unpolitical by nature, and that the special brand of National Socialism he concocted for himself had precious little to do with the real thing.” Jaspers then refers to something that Max Weber had said — “children who stick their fingers into the wheel of world history are going to get them broken.”
It’s hard to put our attention as readers on anything other than the Nazism discussion, but the book also addresses Heidegger’s early Catholicism (as does Farias’s book), a discussion I found extremely interesting in its own right.
Ott organizes the book around what Heidegger, in a letter to Karl Jaspers, called “the two great thorns in my flesh — the struggle with the faith of my birth, and the failure of the rectorship” (it was during Heidegger’s time as rector at the University of Freiburg that he became most involved with National Socialism).
The first of these “thorns” is Heidegger’s struggle with Catholicism. Somewhat parallel to Nietzsche’s upbringing in the Protestant faith and intended career in the clergy, Heidegger looked destined for a place in the Catholic Church. In fact, he applied to become a member of The Society of Jesus but was rejected, not on grounds of faith but for health matters. Until that time, he had pursued theological studies, and, judging by his writings up through 1914/15 (his middle twenties), his faith appeared firm.
When his intended career in the Church was closed to him, he turned first to mathematics and then to philosophy. But his philosophical studies remained, for the moment, heavily influenced by his religious convictions, even through his habilitation.
He was a “Catholic philosopher” within the university system. As such, he was both constrained to and available for certain positions and not others. His eventual turn away from Catholicism opened his ambitions to non-theologically laden positions, while eliminating him from consideration for positions reserved for Catholic thinkers.
Although within a few years of his habilitation, he was questioning his faith, eventually explicitly abandoning adherence to Catholic doctrine, he later maintained that he remained a Catholic all his life.
It is interesting to read (or re-read) some of Heidegger’s writings on religion, now knowing more about his early convictions and his turn away from them. In particular, his Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion along with his book on Augustine and Neo-Platonism (both drawn from lecture notes) provide some bridges between central aspects of his mature thought, such as anxiety, facticity, and even the difficult notion of Gelassenheit from his later writings, and his deep Catholicism.
His rejection of Catholic doctrine was life-changing. Certainly his thought could not be confined within the bounds of Catholicism, and the Church demanded faithfulness to its doctrines. His marriage, to the Protestant Elfride Petri, was a turning point. And of course, his career opportunities changed, as he was no longer confined to or qualified for positions reserved for “Catholic philosophers.”
The bulk of the book, though, addresses Heidegger’s relationship to National Socialism.
I think it is beyond debate by now that Heidegger was truly a Nazi. His addresses, letters, and public statements during his rectorship at the University of Freiburg in 1933 and 1934 establish that much. The questions that remain of interest for me, and that appear open for debate, are to what extent he truly embraced the ideology of National Socialism (and may have continued to embrace it after his rectorship), and to what extent his involvement in Nazism compromises his philosophical work.
Ott’s book is especially helpful on the first of those questions.
Ott is not a dispassionate reporter of facts. And at times his rhetoric is polemical, although not so much as Farias’s. And Ott is concerned to give fair treatment to Heidegger, considering Heidegger’s and others’ excuses and explanations, although rejecting any softening of his judgment of those critical years 1933 and 1934.
I won’t go through the evidence that supports and establishes Heidegger’s participation and support for National Socialism during those years, or the evidence for anti-semitic attitudes and behavior. That’s what Ott’s book is for. Heidegger not only gave official support, as he must have to occupy a position as rector of one of Germany’s leading universities, he also pursued his own ambitions within the “movement” to reform philosophy and the German university itself. He vied for the intellectual leadership of Nazi Germany.
I think it’s also true, in more substantial terms, that Heidegger’s thought contained a strain of affinity for German nationalism. Heidegger saw the world in a cultural crisis. And he saw Germany as a savior.
Why Germany? Aside simply from his being German, Germany was, in his terms, a “metaphysical nation”. Germany alone stood against the threats on either side of Europe — “a giant pincer grip between Russia on one side and America on the other”. From a “metaphysical perspective”, both America and Russia (or the Soviet Union) represented “the same soulless spectacle of technology run riot and ordinary people at the mercy of social organization without roots.”
Germany stood in a position to recapture a more “authentic” existence, lost since the time of the early Greeks. Throughout his later writings, Heidegger repeats this theme of the need to release ourselves, German or not, from the hold of a technological world and recapture that lost relationship to Being.
So why National Socialism? Why Hitler? National Socialism appeared to embody the destiny of the German historical role — to reassert an affirmative relationship to nature and among its people, to assert itself positively. And Heidegger pulls no punches in his statement to the Freiburg University students as rector — “The Fuhrer himself and he alone is the German reality, present and future, and its law.”
National Socialism presented an opportunity for Heidegger, one that he threw himself into during those years. A Germany in revolution was the opportunity, even if it is difficult to see any evidence of “authenticity” in the National Socialist ideology itself.
Ultimately Heidegger failed — his personal ambitions for the German university system and for German philosophy were not fulfilled, and just failed to catch on. He was ultimately at odds with any dogmatic order, much less one so strict as National Socialism, and he was undoubtedly out of his depth among the knife-sharp political skills of others also pursuing personal goals within the Party.
There was a strong backlash against Heidegger after his time as Freiburg’s rector. As an example, in 1934, Erich Jaensch, a philosopher and former colleague of Heidegger’s at the University of Marburg, condemns Heidegger in a report meant to limit his influence in National Socialist intellectual leadership circles and positions — “Heidegger’s thought is characterized by the same obsession with hairsplitting distinctions as Talmudic thought. This is why it holds such an extraordinary fascination for Jews, persons of Jewish ancestry and others with a similar makeup. If Heidegger acquires a decisive influence over the formation and selection of young academics, this will mean with absolute certainty that the selection criteria in our universities and intellectual life will favour those of Jewish stock who remain in our midst.”
But it would be a stretch to say that the backlash had much to do with unfaithfulness to the Nazi cause on Heidegger’s part — it appears instead just to be part of the power struggle within the intellectual leadership of National Socialism (allowing that the quote from Jaensch sounds anything but “intellectual”).
Beyond the question of Heidegger’s actual Nazi participation, the question of the relation between his philosophical thought and his Nazism is complicated. I don’t think that is the strength of Ott’s book. There are other, more penetrating works to go to — Victor Farias’s book (Heidegger and Nazism) for one. And Hans Sluga’s Heidegger’s Crisis provides a much needed, broader look at Heidegger’s context, the role of philosophy in Germany in the 30s and 40s and the philosophical battles both between supporters and opponents of National Socialism and among the supporters for standing within the Third Reich. Unlike Ott, a social historian, both Farias and Sluga are philosophers, better equipped for the complexities of the philosophical side of the topic.
it’s a volatile topic, to say the least. I think it would be foolish to simply throw all of Heidegger’s philosophical work into disrepute. The epistemology of Being and Time, and Heidegger’s critique of traditional metaphysics, both in Being and Time, and in later work, are critical pieces of twentieth century philosophy. Are they tainted by, in some way supportive of his Nazism? Good question. To some extent, the question was addressed after the end of the war, in the decision to allow Heidegger to resume his philosophical work within the post-war “denazified” Germany. That decision was based in part on the importance of his work and his contributions to philosophy per se.
His guilt during the rectorship is hard to deny (although he attempted to do so himself in his apologia, both written and verbal during the denazification procedures and during his subsequent career), as is the damage he did to others — students, colleagues, and personal relations. Jaspers’ judgement speaks well, I think — “I can accept to some extent the personal excuse that Heidegger was unpolitical by nature, and that the special brand of National Socialism he concocted for himself had precious little to do with the real thing.” Jaspers then refers to something that Max Weber had said — “children who stick their fingers into the wheel of world history are going to get them broken.”
December 9, 2025
Ein faszinierender Versuch, den Denker, der sich selbst hinter seinem Denken verbarg, aus den Schatten seiner eigenen Begriffe hervorzulocken. Darüber konnte ich mit Prof. Ott (1931 - 2022) mehrmals persönlich sprechen.
Weitere Einzelheiten entnehme man hier:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Weitere Einzelheiten entnehme man hier:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
August 15, 2016
How many books on Heidegger and his relationship to Nazism can you be expected to read?? The extended secondary literature amassed on this present day could fill its own library. Still, this volume warrants attention. Perhaps especially now, as the tendency recently has been to focus mostly on Heidegger's unpublished writings, lectures and random jottings to elucidate his dark connections to Nazism and its ideology. Ott's book focuses on what Heidegger actually did and his personal associations during the 30s & 40s. Written soon after Farias' groundbreaking book, this substantive approach to a controversial life is quite refreshing. Not to say that its subject is, of course. Also, Ott really focuses in on Heidegger's Catholic affinities and hatred. For most other studies, Nazism has tendency to overshadow all other Heidegger controversies. Ott does a great job showing HM's political ambiguities and schizophrenia weren't restricted to National Socialism. MH's relationship with Archbishop Gröber & Romano Guardini explored in this book make for a fascinating read. Speaking of political ambiguities, Ott's subtitle has the feel of a joke, or deep irony, at least. Ott's premise, which has become rather conventional, is that Heidegger had only "personal" politics. That he was a Svengali on the make, hoping to steer National Socialism along with his philosophy serving as an existential road map. Catholicism was espoused or hated as much as it served MH's interests, and, so the argument runs, the same can be said for his Protestantism as well as Nazism. When personal motives became disconnected or disappointed, when the magician realized he had lost control of his act, he doffed his cap(in the case of National Socialism) disaffectedly, or simply left the stage in disgust(Catholicism). In fact, it's perhaps less than meaningful to claim that Heidegger had an actual "political" life at all. No attachment to a community ethos; just personal pathos disguised as ancient logos. For a book that centers on the activities and relationships of the philosopher, this subtitle parenthesizes the inherent irony in Heidegger's Nazi "career" and offers insight in ways that the present intensive scrutinizing over Blackbooks will undoubtedly fail to bring to light.
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