The correspondence between Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt includes a letter that Arendt received from the German philosopher’s wife, Elfride, in April 1969. ... “But as we know nothing about money, we have no idea how much this manuscript is worth and where one might be able to offer it for sale,” Elfride Heidegger writes. What prompted Elfride Heidegger, who was apparently quite the anti-Semite, to consult on financial matters with Hannah Arendt – a Jewish intellectual who in the past had been her husband’s lover, and of whom Elfride was evidently not very fond (as reflected in earlier letters written by the husband)? The answer is contained in the question: The Heideggers surmised that Arendt, being Jewish, knew a lot more about money than they did. Although she was a political philosopher, they assumed that the blood of a financial adviser ran in her arteries.

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