In April 1934 Heidegger resigned the rectorship.

In June Hitler ordered the massacre of the SA.

Rainer Minder, my old friend, was, and I knew it, the bridge between Heidegger and Röhm. Near midnight of Friday the 30th of June he arrives, desperate, at my house and asks me for protection. I didn't even know what to protect him from. He told me they were assassinating them all. All - he responded to my confused question - were they: Röhm's men. I gave him wine, a blanket; I tried to calm him and asked him to tell what had happened. Also, before, I asked him why he had come to my house. Won't they look for you here; don't they know you are my friend? He asked me if I was afraid. Of what, I said. To die for my cause, he said. I told him that I also didn't quite know what his cause was. He covered me with insults, which I put up with. "Of dying because of me, idiot!", he yelled. If they come here they will also kill you, for hiding me, for being my accomplice. "Everyone knows who I am", I said. "I only teach at the University and pay the party dues." "Dieter, what a majestic destiny you've built!" he said with a brutal, savage irony. I insisted he tell me what was going on. Why everything was so tragic. Why we were all in danger of dying. He took his wine anxiously, like water. He asked for another glass. He said I wasn't in danger. That no one would kill a good professor that punctually paid the party dues. "Not even if you are my friend." He calmed himself. He was silent for a long time. He said: "That's why I came to your house". Maria Elizabeth appeared with you in her arms. Rainer ordered: "Go to your bedroom, silly woman. Locked yourself in with your piglet and don't peer out". I grabbed him by his shoulders: "Rainer, enough. Tell me what's going on or leave".

He murmured:

We lost.

Labels: The Shadow of Heidegger

¶ 1:36 AM