By the time Heidegger appears on the intellectual scene in the 1920s, German culture was completely disoriented. In effect, the post-First World War era in which Heidegger wrote reveals a period of deep reflection about the end of German cultural and imperial hegemony in Europe. As a consequence of that defeat, there was the creation of the Republic of Weimar (1918-1933), which was the first truly democratic state in the history of Germany. In philosophy, following the tradition of elaborating big systems initiated by Hegel, thinkers like Ernst Bloch and Oswald Spengler wrote between 1918 and 1927 extensively about utopia and decadence. The horrors of the war were reflected in the cultural despair of this period. Artists were trying to create an ideal world. They were angry with the destruction inflicted on Europe in the name of patriotism. Surely the destiny of man became a current issue. The necessity of a renovation of man was in the air.

According to Karen Leeder, after those disastrous events German writers like Rilke, George, and von Hofmannsthal rejected the spiritual impoverishment of modern living and sought redemption in a transcendent realm. This is not all. At the outbreak of war, the movement known internationally as Dada or Dadaism embraced a quest for a human language completely new, which could express the desolation and frustration found in that epoch. German Expressionism also aimed at creating language and world anew by the creation of new forms. Significantly, the German language was fully open to such renewal. This is because after the war German language sought a breakage with its past. Judging from this viewpoint, Heidegger’s proposal of reopening up the question of being and his new philosophical vocabulary may be viewed as a response to that situation. George Steiner tells us that the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal questioned the adequacy of the old words; he was skeptical about the possibility of communication and believed that words had no more meaning. Surely Wittgenstein and Heidegger heard attentively von Hofmannsthal’s question. This is one reason why Heidegger wrote in a sort of German-Greek idiolect. Another reason is his desire of starting genuinely at the beginning with a vocabulary uninfected by earlier theorizing.

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