Why did I escape from Germany?

Just a pair of classes later he abominated the vulgarities of National Socialism. He disdained from calling them “philosophy”. That wasn’t philosophy. It was vulgarity, pure crudeness. It was, paradoxically, a mistake because it was committed to speak the truth. I’ll give you one of my last notes. I ask you to grant it its transcendence. It’ll go further than me. It is what is due to you.

Heidegger said: “What is peddled about nowadays as the philosophy of National Socialism, but which has not the least to do with the inner truth and greatness of this movement”. What was that truth, that greatness? I know it. He said it again. And he continued to say it later, in his courses on Nietzsche: the greatness, the truth that he Martin Heidegger, sought in National Socialism was the authentic encounter between global technology and modern man. The national community, Germany, located in the center of Europe, in the center of the West, in the center of Being, called to incarnate the Hellenic origin, that was, in us, still, must, in a way overwhelming, transform this truth into historic event and unfold in the other nations, given that only these historical-spiritual forces would save Europe and the entire Earth from devastation, from obliteration.

Soon you’ll know why I escaped from Germany.

I never crossed paths with Heidegger again. He, for years, dictated his long seminars on Nietzsche. Me, whatever the Rosenberg Office ordered.

There are years that slip like sand through one’s fingers. During the ones when we believe we are alive because we, merely, brush our teeth and shave in the morning, because we go to work or because we are frightened.

There are days that leave no trace.

Labels: The Shadow of Heidegger

¶ 4:43 AM