This interpretation of "The Ister" allows Heidegger to form a bridge to Sophocles' Antigone and to revisit its second choral ode. He reworks some of his previous points from the Introduction to Metaphysics lectures pertaining to the "Ode to Man" chorus, especially those having to do with the homelessness of human existence. He reiterates the importance of two different word couplets within the choral song for understanding what it means for humans to be most uncanny (to deinotaton) among beings. Heidegger translates Sophocles' hupsipolis-apolis to mean "towering high above the site, losing the site." In a process of ontological hubris, the community loses sight of its being at the same time that it springs forth from its native origin. Heidegger translates pantoporos-aporos to mean, "venturing forth in every direction, without experience." He claims that a "counterturning" (Gegenwendigkeit) takes place within the essence of the human being whereby one dwells, ecstatically, in a perpetual state of being beyond oneself. Heidegger understands the double axis of the rising polis and the polis wanderer to constitute "the site of the abode of human history," the primordial ground of being human. The two descriptions nearly form the image of a carousel for Heidegger, or at least that of a twister: the polis requires a pole, an axis mundi, around which all the activities of the community swirl (Wirbeln). He suggests that the driving force behind the whirlwind could be the activity of questioning itself, even to the extent that the polis becomes its own question—one that the Greeks were willing to ask, without ever arriving at a definitive answer.

In the Ister lectures, Heidegger adopts an approach to Greek tragedy that waits upon the mystery of Being instead of forcing a polemical confrontation. The poet must remain vigilant in order to catch the first signs of the "holy enigma" (heiliges Rätsel) of the opening of new possibilities for thinking. Long gone are the heroic overtones of the Introduction to Metaphysics lectures where the poets and other creators of the polis violently crash against the prevailing fugue of appearances. Heidegger's treatment of tragedy in the Ister lectures already embodies what he later calls Gelassenheit, the releasement that lets the being of beings be. This explains why Heidegger develops the terminology of the whirlwind for the polis instead of retrieving his earlier image of a polemos between oppositional forces. "What truly stands steadfast must be able to sway within the counter-turning pressure (gegenwendigen Andrang) of the open paths (der offenen Bahnen) of the storms. What is merely rigid shatters on account of its own rigidity." At first glance, these statements resemble the quote from the Republic at the close of Heidegger's 1933 Rectoral Address, "All that is great stands in the storm." The critical difference, however, has to do with the way that Heidegger abandons the heroism that stands firm against the storm. He now advocates following the paths of storms and allowing the rigidness of prevailing thought structures to shatter on their own accord.

The intellectual revitalization of a community depends upon its ability to first recognize what is foreign within what is proper. For this reason, Heidegger identifies "the fatherland" of the German people as their own unique ground, simultaneously haunted by a primordial Greek past. In order to arrive at the home of being German, the community must experience an appropriative event (Ereignis), a festival, whereby their other origin, namely that of the Greeks, provides the conceptual resources necessary for a fresh beginning.

¶ 5:36 AM