The Relationship Between Nazism And Heidegger's Anti Semiicism

The Question Concerning Heidegger’s Anti-Semitism

Martin Heidegger is widely acknowledged to be one of the monumental figures of the twentieth century philosophy (Guignon 12). His clear break with the tradition, new ideas and new modes of thinking paved way for philosophers from Jean-Paul Sartre to Derrida (Christopherson 11). Fields, as diverse as art, architecture and computer science have acknowledged, applied and extrapolated his ideas (Kurzweil 71). Yet, a dark shadow remains over his legacy. In 1933, Heidegger joined the Nazi Party after being elected the Rector of the University of Freiburg. While he resigned the Rectorship after a year, he continued to remain a member of the Nazi Party until the end of World War II (Wolin 5). This association has cast aspersions not only to Heidegger’s morality as an individual, but also on his philosophy. The exact nature of the relationship between Nazism and Heidegger’s philosophy has remained contentious over the past six decades. Fears have been consistently raised that Heidegger’s philosophy is contaminated by virulent anti-Semitism (Rothman). On the other hand, his sympathizers, most notably and eloquently Hannah Arendt, have argued that his involvement with the Nazi party were but a mistake of a well meaning but naïve philosopher who did

However, we must also reject Hannah Arendt’s suggestion that Heidegger’s Nazi association was merely a naïve mistake of the other-worldly philosopher. Instead, it is clear that Heidegger believed that the Jews were a danger not because of what they would choose to do, but rather what they would deterministically do because of who they were and what their “world historical task” was. It is almost ironic that a man who sought to bring philosophy back to understanding man’s relationship with the world and itself failed to give the Jews the element of choice in their