Some people continue remembering that day as a "feast". They add qualifiers, "a feast of wisdom", "of the university." Even of philosophy. But its impact, the historic element in which Heidegger made his speech, a speech that would be remembered with the title The Self-Assertion of the German University, was not festive. The 1st of May had been such, when he joined the party and the party celebrated the workers' day. (You must read, when you can, a great book by Ernst Jünger that gave firmness to our decisions in those days, The Worker.) But the speech of the 27th of May 1933 (I believe, this time, that I'm not giving you an inexact date) had, more than celebratory, more of a severe, solemn aura. All of us, nobody there ignored him, participated in history. Everyone, also, knew that it was the act of affirmation of National Socialism. The greatest philosopher in the nation (the inheritor of Heraclitus and Hegel) assumed the rectorate as a soldier of National Socialism, as man of the Führer and as the Führer of the university. Because Heidegger was coming to eliminate the autonomy and liberty of the academy, he was coming to put the university under his iron hand. He was coming to embody the Führerprinzip in the Freiburg building. There were ministers, archbishops, rectors of other universities, there was, impotent, full of a pride no one could understand, the mayor of Freiburg, there were generals of artillery, religious figures, and, above all, Martin, there were many students and the majority of them were SA fighters, holding their banners high, exhibiting the swastika. And we were, lost in that multitude, yet integrated in it, waiting, like everyone (like that multitude for whom it was a given that neither massification nor collectivization would possess it, given that it was there in search of the authentic word, of authentic being for which it toiled, for the truth that the Master would reveal for it and through it, appealing to it), awaiting, son, the speech of the great philosopher that inclement weather had offered us, that philosopher of ponderous, hypnotic oratory, but who came to reclaim our appointment with the challenge of the hour, our authenticity, the courage to confront it, to know that it was one and the same with the transcendent destiny of our nation, we were, Martin, united in that excess, in that surfeit of history, your mother and I, on our feet, at a side of the auditorium, holding hands, waiting for everything, because everything could happen that night, because the Absolute was amongst us, so close, so intimate, that it was its infinite breath that we breathed.

I suppose that you are ignorant of it, that I haven't said it: Heidegger used to dress extravagantly. He presented himself in the traditional, folksy attire of a Bavarian peasant or even in his ski clothes. Not that night. He appeared elegant, almost tall. He appeared, above all austere; his temple was that of severity. Brahms and Wagner's scores were heard.

And later, nursing ourselves from it, we heard, fully, Martin Heidegger's score. Earlier, all of us raised our arms, making the National Socialist salute. Heidegger himself had asked for it. He'd said that it would express, more than support for the party, everyone's unity in that transcendent hour of our people's soul, the soul of the West.

Labels: The Shadow of Heidegger

¶ 7:25 AM