1. Quoted according to H. Ott, Martin Heidegger: A Political Life , 243. The passage reads in German:

Wir Heutigen stehen in der Erkämpfung der neuen Wirklichkeit. Wir sind nur ein Über-gang, nur ein Opfer. Als Kämpfer dieses Kampfes müssen wir ein hartes Geschlecht haben, das an nichts Eigenem mehr hängt, das sich festlegt auf den Grund des Volkes. Der Kampf geht nicht um Personen und Kollegen, auch nicht um leere Äu b erlichkeiten und allgemeine Ma b nahmen. Jeder echte Kampf trägt bleibende Züge des Bildes der Kämpfenden und ihres Werkes. Nur der Kampf entfaltet die wahren Gesetze zur Verwirklichung der Dinge, der Kampf, den wir wollen, ist: wir kämpfen Herz bei Herz, Mann bei Mann. ( Martin Heidegger: Unterwegs zu seiner Biographie , 231).

As one sees, throughout the quote Heidegger uses «Kampf» and derivatives of «Kampf» («fighting» = «Erkämpfung»; «warriors in this struggle» = «Kämpfer dieses Kampfes»; all occurrences of «struggle» are in German «Kampf»; «of the combatants» = «der Kämpfenden»). In the place of the English phrase «shoulder to shoulder» the German text has a more intimate expression: «heart to heart.» (Soldiers of the same army are said in English as well as in German to fight «shoulder to shoulder,» while one is, as it were, only with one's «sweetheart» «heart to heart.») The English translation, «that cares for nothing of its own, that rests firmly on the foundation of the people and the nation,» lacks connotations and a certain dynamic aspect of the German text. «Hängen an» is often used in a spatial sense and means «to hang on,» as a hat hangs on a wall or a lamp hangs on the ceiling. One also «hängt an» or «krallt sich an» the edge of a reef or a plank in the sea in order not to fall down and be drowned. «Hängen an» is also used in the sense of «to cling to, to be emotionally attached to.» In the latter sense, it can also be used ironically or critically. Person A loves her cat or dog very much; so much so that A , to translate word-by-word a German saying, «has eyes and ears for hardly anything else.» Person B doesn't appreciate A 's attachment but thinks that A should «have eyes and ears» for other things or persons, say, B . Thus, B can ironically express his or her disappointment or disapproval by saying to person C : « A hängt wirklich sehr an ihrer/seiner Katze» ( A is really very attached to his/her cat). One can also use «hängen an» to indicate that A has no stable identity and uses the cat, an ideology, etc., as a surrogate without which A would fall into the abyss, or Ab-Grund (hyphens mine, J. F.), of loneliness, inner emptiness, etc. Heidegger uses the phrase in the latter sense. All what is our own, the traditional university and—in general—Gesellschaft, are surrogates. We should not «hängen an» them, for they are surrogates, and to «hängen an» is not a safe position to begin with, especially since what we hang on to is already falling apart (see also chapter 6, section A). Instead, we have to be a Dasein «das sich festlegt auf den Grund des Volkes,» that—quite literally—lays itself/attaches itself firmly on/to the ground of the people or on/to the ground that the people is. On a ground one has a safe stand (see chapter 3, n. 62; see also my paper ''On Brinks and Bridges in Heidegger," 149ff.). Thus, one no longer hangs on something that will fall apart anyway. Having reached a safe ground to stand on, one can «stehen in der Erkämpfung der neuen Wirklichkeit,» that is, «stand in the struggle to bring about the new reality» (on the preposition «in» see chapter I, n. 10, and chapter 6, n. 24). Even linguistically, the entire passage testifies to what Paul Tillich named

the inner contradiction of the return to the myth of origin. The creation of a national tradition must, in the context of life in the metropolis and its influence throughout the country, pass over all special traditions, the very traditions so important to the myth of origin. Nothing is more untraditional, in the national sense, than this struggle for a national tradition. What really has been handed down in Germany, and what has remained unbroken down to the present time, is the struggle of the various religious, political, and regional traditions with one another. A struggle of traditions, however, so long as it still has real- ity and has not been reduced to literature, can only be handed down by the protagonists, i.e., not as a unified national tradition. (SD 34; SE 39; these sentences conclude the passage on tradition I quoted above, pp. 180f.)

Hitler takes an entire chapter ("Federalism as a Mask," MKe 554-579; "Föderalismus als Maske," MK 621-649) to explain at length that what Tillich calls «the struggle of the various religious, political, and regional traditions with one another,» is a means for the Jews to achieve domination over Germany. In the völkisch state, the individual provinces will have no political rights, but only some rights in the area of cultural policy (MKe 576; MK 645). However, at the same time «even here time will have a leveling effect. The ease of modem transportation so scatters people around that slowly and steadily the tribal boundaries are effaced and thus even the cultural picture gradually begins to even out» (MKe 576; MK 645f.). In January 1934 Heidegger gave up his efforts to go to Berlin and announced in the speech, "Why do We choose to stay in the Province?'' which was broadcast over the radio and printed in the local National Socialist newspaper, that he would not go to Berlin but stay in the provinces. It is not necessary to have read the above-mentioned chapter in Hitler's book to know that there was ((something fishy» about Heidegger's speech. See Victor Farías's brilliant analysis of it in Heidegger and Nazism , 170-177; German edition, 237-244.

2. Jacques Derrida, " Geschlecht , Sexual Difference, Ontological Difference," Research in Phenomenology 13 (1983): 65, note.

3. Jacques Derrida, " Geschlecht II: Heidegger's Hand," John Sallis, ed., Deconstructing and Philosophy: The Texts of Jacques Derrida (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 162. Both texts are part of Jacques Derrida, Psyché: Inventions de l'autre (Paris: Éditions Galilée, 1987).

4. Derrida, " Geschlecht II: Heidegger's Hand," 162f.

5. On an occurrence of «Eigentum» (private property) in Heidegger see my paper "On Brinks and Bridges in Heidegger," 153, n. 59.

6. Heidegger uses the word «entfalten» («reveals»). «Entfalten» is not «to create» but to actualize a potential. The leaves of a flower entfalten sich, open, and they can do so only because they already exist prior to the moment in which they open. An entire plant or animal entfaltet sich, emerges and grows, only because this Entfaltung is the Entfaltung of the potential contained in the seed or the embryo. In this way, Heidegger's phrase on the true laws corresponds to the phrases with «constitutes itself» (BT 435; SZ 383) and with ((become free» (BT 436; SZ 384) (see above, chapter 2, section C).

7. As is known, the most prominent Opfer at the university of Freiburg was Edmund Husserl (see Ott, Martin Heidegger , 172ff.; German edition, 167ff.). Having become Rektor of the university of Freiburg, Heidegger «asked Stieler to draft a code of honour for the soon-to-be-established university lecturers' association, which he submitted to the authorities in Karlsruhe and Berlin with his recommendations. It was based on the military officers' code of honour» (ibid., 155; German edition, 151). The beginning of the document repeats in simple repetition exactly the sentences with erwidert and Widerruf in section 74 of Being and Time . In Being and Time authentic Dasein erwidert the call of the Volksgemeinschaft and brings the Volksgemeinschaft back—or «erwider bringe t» (see below, n. 70) it. In doing so authentic Dasein brings itself back, or it re-duces, leads back, itself to its true «selbst» (SZ 384; the second «itself» in « hands itself down to itself,» BT 435; see above, pp. 62ff.) that has been pushed aside and covered up by Gesellschaft. Since Gesellschaft is a downward plunge, in re-ducing itself to its «true» self it moves upward again. The first sentence of the document reads: «We lecturers seek to rise up {aufwärts } and come to ourselves again {wieder zu uns selbst kommen}» (Ott, Martin Heidegger , 155; German edition, 151). In Being and Time authentic Dasein can erwider bringe n the Volksgemeinschaft only by canceling, expelling «from {Europe's} blood like a foreign poison» (PPS 153), Gesellschaft. This requires that authentic Dasein expels the individuals who are, so to speak, the incarnations of Gesellschaft. The document continues: «We seek to cleanse our ranks of inferior elements {von minderwertigen Elementen reinigen } and thwart the forces of degeneracy in the future» (Ott, Martin Heidegger , 155; German edition, 151). Beginning to move upward authentic Dasein must take measures not to fall down again. The third sentence of the document reads: «By nurturing our sense of honour, we seek to teach and instruct each other, thereby ensuring that there is no possibility of falling back into the old ways {Rückfall in die früheren Zustände}» (ibid., 155; German edition, 151). Note that at that time «minderwertige Elemente» («inferior elements») was used in regard to human individuals and not that much, if at all, in regard to intellectual or spiritual influences, which, in Heidegger's text, occur as «the forces of degeneracy.» Even in summer 1935, in a public lecture, Heidegger uses the official National Socialist term—namely, «Säuberung» —and complains that the Säu-berung was not radical enough: «The state of science since the turn of the century—it has remained unchanged despite a certain amount of house cleaning {der heute trotz mancher Säuberung unverändert ist} —is easy to see» (IM 48; EM 36; for «complains» see the context of the quote).

8. See Ott, Martin Heidegger: A Political Life , 242; German edition, 231.

9. See my paper "On Brinks and Bridges in Heidegger."

10. As is already evident from the examples I have given, if «Geschlecht» is used in the sense of lineage, family, or generation, the accompanying verb is not «haben» (to have) but «sein» (to be), as in «ein altes Geschlecht sein,» «von altem Geschlechte sein,» or «We are the Geschlecht, generation, of World War I Fighters.» In the passage quoted from the speech "The University in the National Socialist State," the translator chose to render «Geschlecht» as «race,» a term that has no connotations of sex organs. He also replaced Heidegger's verb «haben» (to have) with «are.» For Heidegger does indeed not say, we must «be a hard Geschlecht,» but rather that we must «ein hartes Geschlecht haben { have }.» This makes the sentence pretty awkward since it invites associations that Heidegger certainly did not intend. For when one says, «someone hat a Geschlecht,» one refers to vagina or penis and not to family or lineage. Thus, as one can easily imagine, in everyday language, «ein hartes Geschlecht haben,» as Heidegger in fact says, means «to have an erection, an erected, hard, penis.» In light of the examples of heroes to choose from in English literature (see chapter 1, section B, and chapter 5, section C), in the remainder of the book I will promote my own hero, Erwin Szymanski, the prototype of a Berlin proletarian of the twenties. From his perspective, one might say that the phrase «I have a hartes Geschlecht» is, as it were, a bourgeois expression. It bashfully covers up through the work of ambiguity the fact to which Erwin Szymanski might refer with the phrase «I have 'ne Latte» (I have a woody). The phrase «'ne Latte» radically individualizes this event in the sense of Heidegger's «Da» (SZ 12, 132, 263; BT 92, 171, 308) of Division One and does not, as in Heidegger in Division Two, lead it back to the common nature, the universal. «Hartes Geschlecht,» on the other hand, deindividualizes this event from the outset, subsumes it under some nebulous generality, and forces it into the service of the Volk or the Gemeinschaft.

Due to Heidegger's tendency to use as the grammatical subject of a sentence not a particular Dasein but rather an abstract quality or essence of something (BT 15), things get even worse. Grammatically, the relative pronoun «das» («that») in both of its occurrences («we must be a hard race {ein hartes Geschlecht}, that {das} cares for nothing of its own { an nichts Eigenem mehr hängt}, that {das } rests firmly on the foundation of the people and the nation { auf den Grund des Volkes } ») refers unambiguously not to «we» but to «Geschlecht.» As was mentioned (n. I), «hängen an» often means «hang on.» If, as Heidegger claims (BT 134ff.; SZ 101ff.), spatiality is a fundamental existentiale, one might even say that «hang on» is the primary meaning of «hängen an.» Thus, eigentlich, in truth, the first relative clause («ein hartes Geschlecht haben, das an nichts Eigenem mehr hängt») says that the hard Geschlecht no longer hangs on its own, its body; that is, it has been cut off. In that case, the Geschlecht can no longer be hard. If it is still on the body, it «hängt runter» (droops). Erwin Szymanski would refer to this by saying «My Schwanz hängt runter, droops,» or «I have a Hanger,» that is, he has the opposite of an erection in a situation where he as well as the other have looked forward to the erection of his Geschlecht. (The opposite of «hängen» is «stehen, » to stand; thus «I have einen stehen,» «Mir steht einer,» or «I have a Ständer,» are synonymous with, and as colloquial as, «I have 'ne Latte.»)

No one would have these associations if Heidegger had used «sein» instead of «haben» and, instead of the two relative clauses, two paratactic main clauses with «we» as subjects («As fighters in this fight we must be a/of hard Geschlecht; we must no longer cling to our own; and we must attach ourselves firmly to the basis of the Volk»). This sentence, however, would then have lacked the staccato rhythm it has in its current form and thus would be rhetorically weaker. Also his sentence as it is but with «care» instead of his verb «have» would have made sense. One would have understood the «Geschlecht» as generation, and it would have been in line with National Socialistic language that the «Geschlecht» becomes the grammatical subject. It would have invited the association with the sex organ, if at all, to a significantly lesser degree than Heidegger's «haben.» Why did he say «haben?» It cannot have been an instance of common political rhetoric, namely, just to allude to something else in order to mobilize affective energies. For since the sentence in its current form invites all the associations I spelled out, the entire passage becomes just ridiculous, and laughter is the enemy of the sublime and the tyrants. Maybe it was just a—Freudian or not Freudian—slip of the tongue. Or perhaps Heidegger, consciously or not, thought of Geschlecht in terms of blood since one says «er ist (von)» (he is [of]) as well as «er hat» (he has) «good blood»; or perhaps he was thinking of fate in Being and Time , since one «has» a fate (not used with «sein» in either everyday language or Being and Time ; SZ 384; BT 4363, and in Being and Time «fate» is related to «Geschick» and «Volk» in the same way in which, in the speech, «Geschlecht» is related to «Volk.» Maybe what happened here was simply a collapse of his otherwise excellent ability to let a sentence or phrase work on different semantic levels at the same time (see Bourdieu, The Political Ontology, of Martin Heidegger )—a collapse of the sublime into the ridiculous that might have provided comic relief,. at least for short time, to some of those who were not Nazis to the degree that they ignored this moment. Some deconstructionists may claim that Heidegger's «haben» subverts the entire speech and thus shows that, also in this speech, Heidegger was a fighter against Nazism. However, this seems highly improbable. After all, even in 1936 Heidegger «hing an» (past tense of «hängen an»), clung to, National Socialism and Adolf Hitler (see Löwith, "My last Meeting with Heidegger," in Wolin, ed., The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader , 142; see also MH 158; see above, chapter 6, section A). Furthermore, Heidegger seemed not to be the person for that kind of joke.

Still, this quote is not taken from a text published by Heidegger, but rather from a report on his speech in a newspaper. Thus, maybe somewhere on its way from the journalist to the press the manuscript fell into the hands of a Kasper (see nn. 29 and 31) who changed Heidegger's «sein, be» into «haben, have.» It should be noted that in Latin the verb used in this context is not «have» but «be.» Deucalion and Pyrrha are the only survivors of the deluge. Upon the advice of Themis, they throw stones backward, which become human beings, among them Hellen, the originator of the Hellenes. Ovid summarizes the story by saying «inde genus durum sumus» ( Metamorphoses I, 1. 414; «Hence, we are a hard stock»). However, the sentence is similar in Greek: « » («I am of the stock from Ithaca, and my father is Ulysses,» Odyssee XV, 1. 267).

11 Hesiod, Sämtliche Gedichte , translation with commentary by W. Marg (Zurich: Artemis, 1971), 36, 37.

12. Martin Heidegger, "On the Being and Conception of in Aristotle's Physics B, I," Man and World 9 (1976), 230 (WM 320). «Gemächte» is an old word for the products of God, nature, or humans. Apparently from the eighteenth century on, it has been used in a derogatory way (see Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm , vol. 5 [Gefoppe-Getreibs] [Leipzig: Hirzel Verlag, 1887; reprint Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1984], 3144ff.). Probably, Heidegger's advice refers to this fact and not so much to the «male sex organ.»

13. As Heidegger says: «That which produces itself, i.e., places itself into the appearance, needs no fabrication { bedarf nicht erst einer Mache },» Martin Heidegger, "On the Being and Conception of in Aristotle's Physics B, 1," 261 (WM 360).

14. Note that «zusprechen» is different from the compound verb «sprechen zu (jemandem),» to talk to (someone). «Zuspruch» means speaking, admonition, consolation, exhortation, claim, and it is often used precisely to convey all these meanings at the same time. According to Heidegger, Plato «entspricht dem, was sich ihm zusprach.» «Ent-sprechen» consists of «sprechen,» to talk, and the prefix «cent-.» It can mean «to correspond, to be in accordance with, to be equivalent to» and also—as in Heidegger's sentence—«to meet, answer, fulfill, a request or expectation»; thus, the «entsprochen» in Heidegger's text entspricht the verb «erwidert» in Being and Time in my interpretation in chapter I; note that this verb, too, does not require an accusative object. There is a sentence in which Heidegger regards even a widersprechen in the sense of erwidern ihm etwas (to contradict someone) as entsprechen: «When man, in his way, from within unconcealment reveals that which presences, he merely responds { entspricht er nur} to the call { dem Zuspruch } of unconcealment even when he contradicts it {wo er ihm widerspricht}» (BW 300; VA 22).

15. G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right , section 273; Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts , ed. B. Lakebrink (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1970), 428. Kant uses two other words. Parents must not regard their children as their «Gemächsel,» or as their «Mach- werk (res artificialis).» There are several products of nature that at the same time, however, have to be regarded as «Gemächsel (artefacta)» of the state ( Metaphysics of Morals, First Part , section 28, appendix, section 55). By the way, «Gemachte» is never used to refer to sex organs.

16. See above, chapter 2, n. 25. In contrast to a Gemachtes, the Gemächte has Güte. For while a Gemachtes is produced by human beings and is at their disposal, the Gemächte has priority over them, is in regard to its presencing and its possible disappearance independent of them, and determines their comportment toward beings. One might object that, in contrast to heritage, the Gemächte does not give anything «good.» However, even the Gestell, enframing, in "The Question Concerning Technology" contains «das Rettende» (VA 32; «the saving power,» BW 310). Enframing does so because it remains related to Greek producing and truth as unconcealment (VA 24; BW 302 and often). Thus, enframing contains «das Rettende» only because—despite of the differences between it and Greek producing—it has, so to speak, «come a long way,» as the christening basin in Thomas Mann's novel The Magic Mountain has.

17. Martin Heidegger, "On the Being and Conception of in Aristotle's Physics B, 1," 266.

18. Ibid., 250 (WM 346).

19. Ibid., 234 (WM 325).

20. Ibid., 235 (WM 327).

21. Ibid., 235 (WM 327).

22. Ibid., 234 (WM 324).

23. The first occurrence reads: «But the unconcealment itself, within which ordering unfolds, is never a human handiwork {menschliches Gemächte}, any more than is the realm man traverses every time he as a subject relates to an object» (BW 300; VA 22). The second reads: «Where and how does this revealing happen if it is no mere handiwork of man {wenn es kein blo b es Gemächte des Menschen ist}» (BW 300; VA 22). The third occurrence reads: «Meanwhile, man, precisely as the one so threatened, exalts himself to the posture of lord of the earth. In this way the illusion comes to prevail that everything man encounters exists only insofar as it is his construct {ein Gemächte des Menschen}» (BW 308; VA 30f.).

24. On "The Question Concerning Technology" as a discourse on Auschwitz and how to forget about it see my paper "On Brinks and Bridges in Heidegger."

25. A Gespräch is often «serious,» or «deep.» In his interpretation of Hölderlin, Heidegger interprets it as the form of communication among authentic Daseine, while calling communication among ordinary or inauthentic Daseine «Verständigung,» that is, information, notification, agreement, or communication.

26. On «Begegnung» see above, chapter 3, n. 66.

27. As one sees, I have translated Heidegger's phrase «überhöhend» with the rather awkward phrase «in a superelevating manner.» In this context «überhöhend» belongs to the vocabulary of a logic of transformation (see below, this chapter, section c) and of enthusiasm (see below, chapter 6, section A). Community and «that which keeps bound and determines each individual» —which is either community itself or community and that which, so to speak, binds community, namely, death (see what follows above)—«erhöht,» elevates, the individual «fiber,» above, itself. In this way, the individual has become «überhöht,» that is, has become higher than it was before, so to speak. By being bound into the community the individual is able to step «fiber,» to transcend, and leave behind the confinements of its being a subject, an actor in society. In this sense, the community acts similar to the way grace acts, for grace, too, «erhöht» and «überhöht» the individual.

Both dialectical philosophy and Heideggerian phenomenology have reservations concerning the word «is,» as it invites reifying thinking. In light of this, there is no more reifying usage of the copula as in Heidegger's phrase «Gemeinschaft is» (see above, chapter 2, n. 33)- However, this use is not the breakdown or absence of thinking in Heidegger, but rather one of its points of fulfillment. In one way or another, Heidegger always tried to stipulate a sphere free of the mediation of the subject; a sphere of immediacy that, in turn, demands of the subject and the individuals to cancel themselves in a gesture for which the next quote above provides the proper term, namely, Opfer, sacrifice. Adorno has always criticized this stipulation as mythical and metaphysical thinking in terms of origin.

28. Note the occurrence of «entspringt»; see above pp. 32ff., and chapter 3, n. 25. As to the presence of the Hand (hand) in Heidegger's vocabulary, I have translated with «catch hold of» the German «angreifen.» «Greifen» is to seize, grasp, grab, grip (by hand and only later also by grab dredgers). «Angreifen» is to «touch,» «handle,» «tackle,» but more often «to attack» (and in some contexts «to weaken or impair one's health,» «corrode,» «bite,» etc.). In combination with «an» or «at» it means that, if one wants to conquer a town or, in court, refute an alibi, one has to, so to speak, launch one's Angriff by angreifen, attacking it/the defendant at its/his weakest point.

29. See pp. 21f. Erwin Szymanski might have asked: «Na, wat denn nu? Nu soll'r uns doch ooch sachen what det authentische Dasein, oder wie det hee b t, sacht zu de Vachangenheet? Oder sacht's janischt und haut's ihr eenfach eenen uff de Rübe? Emma, erinnerst'e dir? Letztes Wochenende in de Hasenheede? Det Kasperletheater da? Haha! Det war'n Ding!»

30. See above, chapter I, n. 36, and chapter 2, n. 15. Quite literally, an Auseinandersetzung is a spatial sorting out, a separating. Any sort of confrontation—a battle in war, a sports competition, a heated debate—-can be called an Auseinandersetzung. In a philosophical Auseinandersetzung, one makes clear the differences between one's own position and the one with which one takes up an Auseinandersetzung in order to show that one, so to speak, does not side with but is «miles away» from the standpoint of the other party or philosopher. The word is used in this sense by Heidegger in Being and Time once: «This is not the place [Ort] for coming to terms critically {für eine kritische Auseinandersetzung} with Bergson's conception of time or with other Present-day views of it» (BT 484, n. xxx; SZ 433, n. 1). Heidegger could have used this word, if he had wanted to convey what Guignon and Birmingham think he said. Heidegger used the word Auseinandersetzung ever since the early twenties. In fact, it is one of his pet terms. See Gregory Fried's paper on Heidegger's use of Auseinandersetzung and Kampf, "Heidegger's Polemos," Journal of Philosophical Research 16 (1990-91), 159-195. Since a philosopher might also say, «For twenty years I had an Auseinandersetzung with Hegel. Now, however, he has convinced me, and I have become a follower of his,» Heidegger might even have used this word, if he had wanted to leave open how authentic Dasein reacts to the call of what-has-been-there. In that case he could have used the word in the same way he might have used the word Begegnung, encounter (see chapter 3, n. 66). If he had wanted to say what Birmingham thinks he said, he could have used «Widerstreit,» for «Widerstreit»— like «Widerruf»—definitely indicates a gesture of separation. Thus, in principle, Birmingham is not wrong, when she quotes in support of her interpretation of section 74 of Being and Time a passage with «Widerstreit» from Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche (see below, n. 71).

31. Erwin Szymanski would have said: «Emma, wee b te wat det authentische Dasein macht? Det lä b t sich eenfach uffschluck'n von de Vachangenheit! Det also isset! Det authentische Dasein lä b t sich eenfach einsacken von de Vachangenheet! Und denn macht's den Kaspa for de Völkischen, de Nazis! Emma, det is too much! Gib' ma doch noch 'ne Pulle Bier rüber, ick kann den Schiet nich länga lesen! Diesa ganze Nazi-Schei b kommt mir nich noch mal ins Haus!» The reader will have noticed that in this note, the Kasper (Punch) acts differently from the way he acts in note 29. In the earlier note, he acts like inauthentic Dasein insofar as he either does not listen at all to the call of the Volksgemeinschaft or actively resists the call by keeping his distance and fighting against it. Here, however, he acts like authentic Dasein, that is, he subjugates himself to the call. However, we don't know whether this is, so to speak, authentically authentic or, as Erwin Szymanski and, to some extent, Wolin maintain (see section C of this chapter), sheer opportunism. Thus, the Kasper vacillates even more than ordinary and inauthentic Daseine. For the Kasper vacillates not only between different inauthentic possibilities but also between inauthentic and authentic possibilities, and regarding the latter he wavers between taking them authentically and taking them opportunistically. Or rather, he doesn't vacillate but demonstrates the sad truth that in hard times—that is, when authentic Daseine pressure those whom they regard as inauthentic Daseine—people sometimes use unusual means, such as cunning and conformism, to survive as an inauthentic Dasein. Kasper does so without bad conscience and with a good sense of wit. Thus, the Kasper is humane as well as inhumane. He is humane insofar as he is able to listen to all the different voices and would do whatever he can to save the life of this or that inauthentic Dasein. (He is like the chorus in Greek tragedies and the incorporation of Heraclitus's concept of soul as presented in Martha C. Nussbaum's The Fragility of Goodness [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986], 23-85.) He is inhumane insofar as he is ready to betray each and everyone just to save his own life. And we can hardly ever be sure which path he will take. For an interpretation of a prominent German Kasper, Till Eulenspiegel, see Klaus Heinrich's Versuch über die Schwierigkeit nein zu sagen (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1964), 87ff.

32. In these situations, one talks, so to speak, like the oracle at Delphi which «neither speaks nor conceals but indicates,» as Heraclitus says, fragment B 93. However, the three nouns Heidegger employs («Widerklang,» «Einklang,» and «Vorklang») might be used as well when it comes to direct speech, that is, to a declaration of love. A lover who feels that way, might say to his or her beloved: «I feel strongly the Widerklang of my soul in you; our hearts are in deep Einklang; this is a marvelous Vorklang of the wonderful life we will have if you marry me!» However, this direct use often takes its toll, which is that—and not only for listeners today—these as well as Heidegger's sentences sound somewhat narcissistic and kitschig. On «innigst» (in «im innigsten Einklang,» «intimately bound up») see my paper "On Brinks and Bridges in Heidegger," 164, n. 28.

33. "Warum bleiben wir in der Provinz?" (Why do we stay in the provinces) was broadcast in March t 934 and published in the National Socialistic newspaper Der Ale- manne: Kampfblatt der Nationalsozialisten Oberbadens . See Farías's brilliant analysis of this speech in Heidegger and Nazism , 170-177; German edition, 237-244.

34. On the entire sentence see my paper "On Brinks and Bridges," 152.

35. On «hörig» in Being and Time see above, chapter 1, n. 36. For Heidegger in 1935 the National Socialist revolution seems to have lost its momentum. However, in An Introduction to Metaphysics Heidegger interprets the pre-Socratics as paradigmatic National Socialists (see above, chapter 4, n. 31), and one aspect of this seems to be that he wanted to breathe new life into the National Socialism of his days. Thus, at a later point in An Introduction to Metaphysics — namely , in his interpretation of Heraclitus—he uses «hörig» again (IM 129; EM 99; see above, chapter 1, n. 36).

36. Heidegger says: «im Vollzug der Sammlung» (EM 133)- The English translator has left out the «Vollzug» («in collecting,» IM 174; thus, better: «in the execution of the collecting toward the collectedness of being»). The noun Vollzug is a strange word, which is rarely used in everyday language. It is used in political and theological contexts, in the professional language of judges, lawyers and business people, and it is also used in Husserl. However, it has its distinguished place in the vocabulary of authoritarian bureaucracies. Due to this and to his notion of gathering, «Vollzug» in Heidegger sounds more or less violent. As in the case of «Geist,» one is not well advised to use the occurrence of «Vollzug» in Heidegger, Husserl, and, say, Benjamin to «deconstruct» their differences.

As to the prisoners on the run (see above, chapter 2, section A), the bureaucratic term for Gefängnis (prison) is «Strafvollzugsanstalt»; that is, an «Anstalt» (institute) for the «Vollzug» (carrying out) of a «Strafe» (penalty). Thus, in thieves' cant an ironic expression for «to be imprisoned» is «to be im (= in dem = in the) Vollzug.» The Anstalt is, so to speak, the Kropf (see below, n. 38) into which the bad ones disappear.

There are two reasons for Heidegger saying «im Vollzug der Sammlung» and not just «in der Sammlung.» In general, he always carefully distinguishes between the actual taking place (the presencing, Anwesen, or , Advent, or ) of something (a form, Jesus Christ, an existentiale, Being, or Wesen) and the something itself. Thus, there is not just a gathering, but the Vollzug of the gathering. In particular, the usage of «Vollzug» allows him in the heat of the years after the Machtüber-nahme to take over the emotional force of the Christian expectation of the Advent of Jesus Christ and claim it for his peculiar project, while investing this project with the authority of the bureaucratic machinery. In this sense, Heidegger's «Vollzug» is the Heideggerian neopagan version of the , the Advent, of Jesus Christ. It is even literally the bureaucratic translation of «Advent.» «Advent» is in German Advent, or (Wieder-) Ankunft. Kunft (Nieder-, An-, Wieder-, Her-, Zu-Kunft, Ein-künfte = income) and Zug stem from verbs of motion. The prefix «voll-» corresponds to the prefix «can-» («ad-»). Both designate the fulfillment of a motion and the arrival of Christ, etc. In this sense, Heidegger's «Vollzug» is closely related to his term «Ereignis» («event»).

37. See chapter I, n. 36.

38. Actually, «Kröpfchen» is the diminutive of «Kropf» (crop). The entire sentence is Aschenputtel's request to the two white doves in the Brother Grimm's fairy tale "Aschenputtel" ("Cinderella," or "Ashputtel''). There we find the same expressions and the same three aspects as in Heidegger's notion of Logos as «Sammlung» and «auslesende "Lese".» (For what follows keep in mind that in later editions several fairy tales were changed; none of the English translations I have looked at give the fairy tale in the version of the first edition from 1812, a reprint of which I quote. All hyphens and italics mine, J. F.) When the stepsisters poured peas and lentils into the ash, Aschenputtel had to sit the entire day and had to «sie wieder aus-lesen » («sort them out again») ( Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm : Vollstäindige Ausgabe in der Urfassung, ed. F. Panzer [Wiesbaden: Emil Vollmer, n. d.], 112). On the night of the first ball, the stepsisters give Aschenputtel a basin of lentils and say that the bowl must be «ge- lesen seyn» («be sorted») (ibid., 113) by the time they come back. The doves offer to help Aschenputtel «Linsen lesen » («to sort the lentils») (ibid., 113). The next morning the stepsisters see that Aschenputtel has «die Linsen rein ge- lesen » («sorted the lentils cleanly») (ibid., 113). All these formulations assume a mixture that has to be segregated and purified. The first phrasing takes as the object of the Auslese the good elements of the mixture, and it says that the Auslese takes place such that the good ones leave the basin, the city, thereby leaving it to the bad ones. Also, all the other formulations focus on the good ones as the object of the Lese, but they leave open whether the good ones will leave the city (to the bad ones) or whether the bad ones will be forced to leave the city. Each Lese is an Aus-Lese, and in each Lese, explicitly or implicitly, the bad ones are also, if not mainly, the object of the Lese. On the second evening, the oldest of the stepsisters commands Aschenputtel: « lese die guten und bösen aus-einander! » («separate the good ones and the bad ones from each other!») (ibid., 114). Here, the bad ones are explicitly the objects of the Lese as Auslese. (The verb in the infinitive, «to lesen lentils,» gives rise to the noun «the Lese of the lentils.» This Lese is an Aus-einander-Lese, thus, an Aus-lese of the good ones and the bad ones. Readers familiar with Heidegger will notice that the Aus-einander-Lese, or the «auslesende "Lese",» are variations on one of Heidegger's pet words, namely, «Aus-einander-Setzung»; see above, n. 30.) However, the question is still open as to which ones will have to leave the city. The actual Auslese, however, unambiguously takes place in such a way that the bad ones are taken out of the mixture and annihilated: the doves began to peck and «fra b en die schlechten weg und lie b en die guten liegen» («ate away the bad ones and let the good ones lie [where they have always already been all the time, namely, in their city which, as the Lesenden claim, is theirs, and which they don't leave to the bad ones]») (ibid., 113; see also 114, 116). A quarter of an hour later, the lentils were «so rein» («that cleanly sorted») that not a single bad one was among them, and Aschenputtel could put them into the cooking pot, i.e., the purified city, which can then act (ibid., 113).

39. On «brink» and the move toward the brink and along the brink until the point of death see my paper "On Brinks and Bridges in Heidegger."

40. John D. Caputo, Heidegger and Aquinas (New York: Fordham University Press, 1982), 175.

41. Ibid., 175f.

42. Ibid., 176.

43. Ibid., 176.

44. Ibid., 177.

45. Ibid., 188.

46. Ibid., 179.

47. Ibid., 180.

48. Ibid., 180. The accompanying note 18 reads: «This is the remarkable argument of "Die Kehre" in Die Technik und die Kehre . In the recognition of the " Gestell " as Gestell , as the withdrawal of Being, there is already the "saving." In this recognition there is a flash of truth ( Blitzen ) in the midst of the dark night of technology. In the withdrawal, we see what is withdrawn. The difficulty with Thomas Aquinas, then, is that his times were not altogether dark enough, rather the way one cannot yet see the stars in the late afternoon because it is not yet dark enough! That is why Heidegger wrote of the "clear night of the Nothing" ( Weg , 2d ed., 114/115)» (ibid., 184, n. 18; on Auschwitz as the extremum in Heidegger's ''The Question Concerning Technology'' see my paper "On Brinks and Bridges in Heidegger," esp. 167, n. 38). Note that Caputo here offers another metaphor conveying that the lost beginning remains constantly present (see above, for instance, chapter 2, n. 33, and chapter 3, n. 7)

49. Caputo, Heidegger and Aquinas , 180f.

50. Ibid., 185.

51. Ibid., 187.

52. Ibid., 187.

53. Ibid., 190.

54. Equally, one might read the preceding passage on the «so-called "private existence",» which is by no means «essential, that is to say free, human being» (BW 197; WM 149) as Heidegger's veto against nonpolitical, individualistic interpretations of authentic Dasein and as a confirmation of my thesis that section 74 of Being and Time contains the twofold movement out of Gesellschaft and then back into it in order to cancel it. Having mentioned the passage in the English translation of Brief über den "Humanismus, " about which—regarding the notions that are important in my book, namely, Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft—deconstmctionists might say, a «trace» has been erased, I would like to point to another passage in the English translation of which the same has happened. In the lecture "Das Zeitalter des Weltbildes" ("The Age of the World Picture"), delivered on June 9, 1938, Heidegger raised a question whose English translation reads as follows: «Only because and insofar as man actually and essentially has become subject is it necessary for him, as a consequence, to confront the explicit question: Is it as an "I" confined to its own preferences and freed into its own arbitrary choosing or as the "we" of society { Gesellschaft }; is it as an individual {Einzelner} or as a community {Gemeinschaft}; is it as a personality within the community or as a mere group member in the corporate body { Körperschaft }; is it as a state and nation and as a people {Volk} or as the common humanity of modem man, that man will and ought to be the subject that in his modem essence he already is?» ("The Age of the World Picture," The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays , trans. W. Lovitt [New York: Harper & Row, 1977], 132f.). Reading this passage one assumes that the opposition is between two groups; the first group comprises the «"I" confined to its own preferences and freed into its own arbitrary choosing,» the «individual,» the «mere group member in the corporate body,» and «the common humanity of modem man»; the opposing group includes «the "we" of society,» «community,» «personality within the community,» and «state and nation and as a people»; that is, one supposes that both «community» as well as «society» belong to the same group, the «good» group. Indeed, the same seems to be said in the German text: «Nur weil und insofern der Mensch überhaupt und wesentlich zum Subjekt geworden ist, mu b es in der Folge für ihn zu der ausdrücklichen Frage kommen, ob der Mensch als das auf seine Beliebigkeit beschränkte und in seiner Willkür losgelassene Ich oder als das Wir der Gesellschaft, ob der Mensch als Einzelner oder als Gemeinschaft, ob der Mensch als Persönlichkeit in der Gemeinschaft oder als blo b es Gruppenglied in der Körperschaft, ob er als Staat und Nation und als Volk oder als die allgemeine Menschheit des neuzeitlichen Menschen das Subjekt sein will und mu b , das er als neuzeitliches Wesen schon ist» ("Das Zeitalter des Weltbildes," Holzwege [Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1952], 85). However, as the evidence I adduced shows, Heidegger was aware of the basic opposition between Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft at his time, and he could take for granted that his listeners were so too, if only because of the propaganda of the National Socialists. Those hearing the speech understood the passage differently from the way one has to read the English translation. For «an "I" confined to its own preferences and freed into its own arbitrary choosing» and «the "we'' of society» belong not to different groups but to the same. They are the two modes of being «an individual.» (Or the «and» is explicative, and the phrase «the "we" of society» only explains the phrase «an 'T' confined to its own preferences .... ») Thus, the first group includes the «''I" confined to its own preferences and freed into its own arbitrary choosing,» «the "we" of society,» «individual,» «mere group member in the corporate body,» and «the common humanity of modern man»; the «good» group comprises «community,» «personality within the community,» and «state and nation and as a people.» That is, «society» and «community» belong to different groups, «society» to the «bad» group and «community» to the «good» group. In 1938 Heidegger could be sure that every listener would understand the terms and the pertinent oppositions. In addition, by his intonation he could easily emphasize that «als Einzelner» («individual») is the common denominator of the «"I" confined to its own preferences and freed into its own arbitrary choosing» and «the "we" of society.» When he printed the text, he did not take into consideration that anyone who had not heard him speaking and was not familiar with the usage of the notions at Heidegger's time would think that «the "we" of society» and «community» belong to the same group, the «good» one. After the passage quoted, Heidegger continues: «Only where man is essentially already subject does there exist the possibility of his slipping into the aberration of subjectivism in the sense of individualism. But also, only where man remains subject does the positive struggle against individualism and for the community {Gemeinschaft} as the sphere of those goals that govern all achievement and usefulness have any meaning» ("The Age of the World Picture," The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays , 133; Holzwege , 85). The last sentence is the only explicit statement about politics in the essay, and it is from the viewpoint of National Socialism «politically correct,» at least at first sight. It has been discussed whether in this essay and his other writings on technology Heidegger criticizes National Socialism or, as Rockmore argues, only the empirical National Socialists without abandoning his commitment to National Socialism itself (see Rockmore, On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy , 204ff.). In the context of that question, the quoted passages probably have additional aspects. However, I cannot discuss this issue here.

One might also point to a passage in the essay "Vom Wesen des Grundes," written in 1929, in which Heidegger interprets himself and points out that his notion of Dasein is tailored precisely so as to conceptualize the transition from Gesellschaft to Gemeinschaft: «The sentence: The Dasein exists for the sake of itself does not include any egoistic-ontic positing of an end for a blind self-love of the factical human being. Thus, it cannot be "refuted" by pointing out that many human beings sacrifice themselves for the others , and that, in general, the human beings don't exist for themselves but rather in Gemeinschaft. In the mentioned sentence is entailed neither a solipsistic isolation of Dasein nor an egoistic intensification of it. Rather, the sentence points out the condition of the possibility { Bedingung der Möglichkeit } that man can comport himself either in an "egoistic" or ''altruistic'' way» (WM 53f.). In 1929 Heidegger published the lecture "Was ist Metaphysik?" ("What is Metaphysics?," BW 91-112). When it was published in its fourth edition in 1943, Heidegger added an afterword that was revised in all the editions that appeared after World War II (WM 397). Still, even in its revised form the afterword sounds pretty rough. Heidegger again uses the fascist formula of sacrifice—it is only through sacrifice of oneself that one becomes free—and he writes about «wesentliches Denken» («essential thinking») or «anfängliches Denken» («original thinking»):

Instead of counting on what-is with what-is, it expends itself in Being for the truth of Being { verschwendet es sich im Sein für die Wahrheit des Seins }. This thinking answers to the demand of Being { antwortet dem Anspruch des Seins } in that man surrenders his historical being {überantwortet dem} to the simple, sole necessity whose constraints do not so much necessitate as create the need ( Not ) which is consummated in the freedom of sacrifice { die sich in der Freiheit des Opfers erfüllt }. The need is: to preserve the truth of Being no matter what may happen to man and everything that "is." Freed from all constraint, because born of the abyss of freedom, this sacrifice is the expense of our human being for { Verschwendung des Menschenwesens in } the preservation of the truth of Being in respect of what-is. In sacrifice there is expressed { ereignet sich } that hidden thanking which alone does homage to the grace { Huld } wherewith Being has endowed the nature of man, in order that he may take over in his relationship to Being the guardianship of Being { damit dieser in dem Bezug zum Sein die Wächterschaft des Seins übernehme}. Original thanking is the echo {Widerhall} of Being's favor wherein it clears a space for itself {Gunst des Seins in der sich das Einzige lichtet} and causes the unique occurrence: that what-is is. This echo {Widerhall} is man's answer {Antwort} to the Word of the soundless voice of Being .... But how else could humanity attain to original thanking {fände... in das ursprüngliche Danken} unless Being's favour preserved for man, through his open relationship to this favour, the splendid poverty in which the freedom of sacrifice hides its own treasure { in der die Freiheit des Opfers den Schatz ihres Wesens verbirgt} .... Sacrifice is rooted in the nature of the event through which Being claims man for the truth of Being. {Das Opfer ist heimisch im Wesen des Ereignisses, als welches das Sein den Menschen für die Wahrheit des Seins in den Anspruch nimmt. } Therefore it is that sacrifice brooks no calculation, for calculation always miscalculates sacrifice in terms of the expedient and the inexpedient, no matter whether the aims are set high or low. Such calculation distorts the nature of sacrifice. The search for a purpose dulls the clarity of the awe, the spirit of sacrifice ready prepared for dread, which takes upon itself kinship with the imperishable. ("What is Metaphysics?" in Existence and Being [Chicago, Ill.: Henry Regnery, 1949], 357f.; WM 105f.; all italics with the occurrences of «in» and «im» in the German text and the corresponding occurrences of «in,» «to,» «for,» and ((wherein)) mine, J. F.; on «in» in Heidegger see below, chapter 6, n. 24)

Note that sacrifice is «heimisch» («at home,» not «rooted») in the «Wesen» («essence» or «presencing,» not «nature») of the event. Heidegger understood the noun «Wesen» from the verb «anwesen» or «wesen»; that is, the «Wesen des Ereignisses» is the presencing, the advent, of the event (see this chapter, n. 36). Prior to the advent of the event man is not at home, and he can come home only through sacrifice. The afterword, as mentioned, was added in 1943, that is, shortly after the famous defeat and loss of a huge German army at Stalingrad, which in military history is regarded as the turning point in the war between Germany and the Soviet Union. After the lost battle of Stalingrad thinking realizes that the death o]' the German soldiers is a sacrifice that Being demands in order to presence itself. Thinking thanks Being for its advent. It gives up its pretensions to autonomy and is transformed into thanking that «ereignet sich» («presences itself,» not «is expressed»). Only through sacrifice of the German soldiers and of thinking can man be brought back into the realm of Being so as to become the agent («guardianship of Being») of Being.

No matter whether this passage was supposed to be a consolation for the people at home or an advertisement for philosophy since the Denker stands im Sturm, in the storm, no less than the soldiers though much safer—it certainly marks the consummation of the effort of the rightists to redefine the vocabulary of Enlightenment for their own purposes (see above, chapter 3, n. 17). (On a similar passage from summer 1941 see my paper "On Brinks and Bridges in Heidegger," 147ff.) Note the play with «antwortet dem Anspruch» and «überantwortet dem.» Both phrases as well as «echo» correspond to the words «erwidert» and «überliefert sich» in section 74 of Being and Time , and the sacrifice of the German soldiers corresponds to the « disavowal » (BT 438; SZ 386). Again, it is the same story as in Being and Time , the only difference being that, as in the passage taken from an Introduction to Metaphysics , essential thinking no longer insists on immediate realization.

55. With the exception of a sentence near the end of section 74 (PB 61f.), Wolin's commentary on section 74 ends with his interpretation of the sentence on the «choice which makes one free for the struggle of loyally following in the footsteps of that which can be repeated» (BT 437; SZ 385) (see PB 53-66).

56. After the sentence on « Widerruf, » Heidegger goes on, «Die Wiederholung überlä b t sich weder dem Vergangenem, noch zielt sie auf einen Fortschritt. Beides ist der eigentlichen Existenz im Augenblick gleichgültig» (SZ 386; «Repetition does not abandon itself to that which is past, nor does it aim at progress. In the moment of vision authentic existence is indifferent to both these alternatives,» BT 438). Commentators who maintain that, in this or that way, Dasein distances itself from the past will interpret the sentences as a summary of authentic Dasein's capacity to distance itself from any specific content offered by the past and, by extension, any commitment for the future entailed in it, or as authentic Dasein's incapacity to identify with or to subjugate itself to some content. Especially Guignon would probably interpret «progress» as the expectations of ordinary or inauthentic Dasein. However, Heidegger said that repetition is not a simple reproduction of the past because it is an endangered past that calls upon Dasein to destroy the false present in order to rerealize the past. In the context of this idea and the possible charge of nostalgic romanticism against which he has to defend his concept, «sich überlassen» means a specific attitude of indulging in an alleged past without drawing any inferences for the present from this. «Ich überlasse mich einer Stimmung» is «I give myself over to a mood» without doing anything else besides indulging in that mood. The proverbial romantic and nostalgic person indulges in, or gives himself or herself over to, fairy tales of the Middle Ages or so, or he «geht auf in ihnen,» is absorbed in them, in his leisure time, or he leaves—or tries to leave—society in this or that way in order to keep himself free from its alienating impact. Thus, those who überlassen sich to the past do not follow the past's command to cancel and destroy the present (or they do so only in a private act without consequences for the community or society). Also, «nor does it aim at progress» may mean that authentic Dasein is not engaged in the Enlightenment project of progress, whether of the liberal or social democratic variety. In this way, the sentence summarizes precisely the move of authentic Dasein against liberals and leftists on one hand as well as against the romantic Right on the other. Because of the second sentence («In the moment . . . alternatives»), however, one might also read the two quoted sentences differently, namely, within the context of the distinction between the German notions of Tat and Handlung. Within Heidegger's framework, Handlung is the type of action that ordinary and inauthentic Daseine constantly perform, namely, simply to repeat what the «they» offer. A Tat, however, is an action that makes a difference and brings about a different state of affairs (see, for instance, «sei eines Tages wirklich in die Tat umgesetzt,» SZ 173; «should some day be actually translated into deeds,» BT 218; see, for instance, above pp. 91, 162). (See «Like the theological conception of kairos , there is a right time, a propitious instant when things come together, so to speak—a moment when an important action is possible, such as the transition to authenticity in practice through the grasp and reenactment of one' s heritage on both the levels of the individual and the group,» Rockmore, On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy , 48.) A Tat is different from, and superior to, a Handlung. The person performing a Handlung most of the time keeps a keen eye on the consequences, his benefits from this action, his reputation in the eyes of others, etc. The one carrying out a Tat, however, abstracts from all these egocentric concerns. Within a Tat, all the distinctions between subject and object, means and ends, step-by-step realization of intermediate ends, etc. disappear. (In Heidegger, the «true» Tat is sacrifice; one who is capable of sacrificing his or her Eigenstes no longer asks for the purpose and the benefit of his sacrifice; see above, pp. 189ff., and this chapter, n. 54.) Or, to put it differently, these sentences represent Heidegger's appropriation of the Kantian «good will» for which the consequences don't matter as long as the will is good. This passage too suggests the above-mentioned (see pp. 18f., 127ff.) interpretation of the sentences explaining that repetition is not just a simple bringing back of some past («But when one has . . . formerly actual, may recur,» BT 437f.; SZ 385f.). Ordinary and inauthentic Dasein just simply repeats the choices of the «they» or is «persuaded» («tiberrede{t}») (BT 437; SZ 386) by the choices of the «they.» Authentic Dasein, however, having gone «under the eyes of death» (BT 434; ST 382) and having been called upon by the call of the people, knows that there is something at stake, namely, the struggle.

57. See the quotes above and others, for instance, PB 63. Wolin mentions only in passing that for Heidegger «fate possesses a distinctly ennobling character for him or her it envelops» (PB 62). This vocabulary differs from the vocabulary of autonomy, nihilism, fatalism, and subjugation that Wolin applies to Heidegger in order then to distill what he regards to be the crucial contradiction between autonomy and fatalism. Maybe, with this remark Wolin wants to pay tribute to the fact that, with regard to the relationship between call and the Dasein called upon by the call, Heidegger exploits motifs developed in the context of Christian rapture and grace. For the relationship between will and grace is not the negation of autonomy by fatalism, neither is it the reconciliation between two opposites, nor a Hegelian Aufhebung of opposites. Rather, being informed by grace, the will becomes the free will it essentially is or it becomes transformed, transfigured, or—in Wolin's words—«ennobl {ed}» into love. What Heidegger employs is a logic not of reconciliation or of dialectical mediation but rather one of transfiguration. Hermeneutically, it is highly reasonable and shows Heidegger's sensitivity to the needs of the time that in contrast to Cassirer and other Neo-Kantians, he felt it necessary to develop such a logic of transfiguration to interpret the mood of the young people in the Youth movement or that of the conservatives of his time. It is this transfiguring power of the call, of the origin, the promise entailed in the passive aspect of Entschlossenheit I mentioned at the beginning (see chapter 1, section A) that would lead adherents of the Youth movement to answer a criticism such as Wolin's by saying either that Wolin's framework is completely alien to their own self-experience or that getting rid of autonomy was precisely what they had hoped for. One might say that Paul Tillich's The Socialist Decision presents a criticism of Heidegger and the rightists that takes the desire of the rightists for a logic of transfiguration seriously without abandoning the need for autonomy.

58. In light of the above-mentioned advertisement as well as of what follows, it is truly remarkable that one of the notes of the translators on the very first and programmatic page of Being and Time —Heidegger's comments on a sentence within the passage on the battle of giants in Plato's Sophist (BT 19; SZ 1) preceding the "Introduction" (BT 21; SZ 2)—reads as follows: «Throughout this work the word 'horizon' is used with a connotation somewhat different from that to which the English-speaking reader is likely to be accustomed. We tend to think of a horizon as something which we may widen or extend or go beyond; Heidegger, however, seems to think of it rather as something which we can neither widen nor go beyond, but which provides the limits for certain intellectual activities performed 'within' it» (BT 19, n. 4). It follows from the logic of the American dream that precisely by realizing it one renders oneself as well as one's heirs inauthentic. In his book Old Money , Nelson W. Aldrich, Jr. writes: «The old-money rich, the hereditary rich, are totally out of sync with the dominant theology or ideology of American life. They have no place in the American dream. The American dream is 'to make it.' The American dream is a dream of self-making—not just self-moneymaking. But the inheritor of wealth is already made. So the only thing he or she can do is to somehow make a virtue out of the syntax of his wealth. In other words, he or she is , everybody else is becoming» (quoted according to The New York Times Magazine , 19 November 1995, pp. 66f.).

59. See above, this chapter, n. 57.

60. See also «sacrifice» above, this chapter, n. 54. Heidegger does not comment on his usage of «Held.» Thus, he quite obviously uses it in line with the common usage of the word. The paradigmatic case of a German Held in the twenties, however, were the «Helden von Langemarck,» who subjugated themselves to and sacrificed themselves for what they regarded to be the common good, higher than themselves and an end in itself, the Volksgemeinschaft, which will reward them for their sacrifice. I noted above that Scheler—as probably everyone else—was obviously aware that, in the twenties, the core meaning and connotation of the word Held was the courageous soldier. For after his Kehre he replaced the notion of Held with the more general and neutral one of Vorbild and denied that the Held was the highest Vorbild (see above, chapter 3, n. 36). There was also, in the Kaiserreich as well as in the Weimar Republic, the «Heldengedenktag,» a festive day in memory of the fallen German soldiers, the Helden. The Left had its own festive day, the 1st of May (see above, chapter 3, n. 61). Others welcomed a Heldengedenktag as Memorial Day is appreciated by many here in the USA, namely, as just a day off. For conservatives and especially right-wingers, however, it was a very important day. As in the case of «Vorlaufen in den Tod» (see above, chapter 1, section A), instead of «Held» Heidegger could have used—like Scheler after his Kehre—neutral terms such as «Beispieb> or «Vorbild.» However, German readers probably intuitively feel that these notions just don't fit into the atmosphere or mood built up by Heidegger's strong right-wing vocabulary in section 74.

In his article "Held" in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie (vol. 3 [Basel and Stuttgart: Schwabe, 1974], col. 1048), O. F. Best adduces three quotes from the second edition (1922) of Ernst Jünger's novel, In Stahlgewittern (In the thunderstorms of steel). Readers of the only edition that is easily available—the one in volume I of his Werke in zehn Bänden (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag, 1960ff.)—should know that Jünger suffered, as he himself put it in a letter, a «mania of revisions and versions {Manie der Bearbeitungen und Fassungen}» (quoted according to U. Böhme, Fassungen bei Ernst Jünger [Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain, 1972], 3). He never indicated that he made revisions, omitted long passages, revised others, and added new ones. The edition of In Stahlgewittern in Werke in zehn Bänden is identified on p. 10 simply as «First edition 1920.» According to Böhme, this was the fifth or sixth version (ibid., 3 and 7). The second of the three quotes in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie defines Held as «a man who achieves the almost divine stage of perfection, the unselfish devotion to an ideal, including sacrificial death {die selbstlose Hingabe an ein Ideal bis zum Opfertode}.» This passage as well as the first quote in Best's article has completely disappeared in the edition in Werke in zehn Bänden . On p. 235 of the latter edition, Jünger writes: «Of all the exciting moments in war none is as strong as the encounter {Begegnung, see above, chapter 3, n. 66} of two leaders of raiding parties {Stoßtruppführer} in between the narrow clay walls of the front lines {Kampfstellung}. There is no {move} back and no mercy {Erbarmen}. This much everyone knows who has seen them in their empire {Reich}; the sovereigns {Fürsten} of the trench with the hard, decided {entschlossenen} faces, daredevil {tollkühn}, lissomely jumping forth and back, with sharp, blood-thirsty eyes; men who were up to the task of the moment and of whom no report tells.» The phrase «men who were . . . and» replaces the phrase «Helden» of the second edition as quoted by Best. In the entire text of In Stahlgewittern as printed in Werke in zehn Bänden , the word «Held» occurs just twice. (I should note that I used the text in volume I of Ernst Jünger's Auswahl aus dem Werk in fünf Bänden [Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta Verlag, 1994]; spot checks show that the text is identical with the one in Werke in zehn Bänden .) On p. 231 Jünger reports a deed of a private, saying that he kept in mind «this hero of the moment {diesen Helden des Augenblicks}.» It was not the greatest deed, and—at least for all those who no longer live in the Augenblick, the kairos, of the twenties—«Held des Augenblicks» doesn't sound that impressive. Combined with the demonstrative pronoun, it even looks slightly ironic. Right at the beginning, on p. 19, Jünger speaks of «heroism {Heldentum}.» Jünger begins with the enthusiasm he and his fellow soldiers felt on the way to the front. However, the days in the communications zone didn't bring the dangers they had hoped for, but just «mud, work, and sleepless nights . . . {and} boredom.» It was mastering of these facts that required «a kind of heroism that was not precisely our cup of tea {ein uns wenig liegendes Heldentum}.» Readers should also know that neither the Werke in zehn Bänden nor the Auswahl aus dem Werk in fünf Bänden (nor, for that matter, any other edition or book of Jünger's) contain any of the around 140 articles Jünger published in journals of the extreme Right between 1920 and 1933. For instance, a few weeks prior to Hitler's putsch in November 1923 Jünger wrote: «The true revolution has not yet taken place; it marches along irresistibly. It is not a reaction, but rather a real revolution with all its marks and expressions. Its idea is the völkische {idea} honed to a sharpness hitherto unknown. Its banner is the swastika. Its essence is the concentration of the will into one single point—the dictatorship! It will replace the word with the deed {Tat, see above, this chapter, n. 56}, ink with blood, the empty phrase with sacrifice {Opfer}, the pen with the sword» (quoted according to Renate Haßel and Bruno W. Reimann, Ein Ernst Jüinger-Brevier: Jüingers politische Publizistik 1920 bis 1933. Analyse und Dokumentation [Marburg: BdWi-Verlag, 1995], 199). (Due to copyright restrictions, they couldn't publish an edition of any of Jünger's articles; ibid., 13). The omission of Jünger's articles from the twenties in all later editions and the omission of the word «Held» combine to show that, indeed, in the twenties the Helden von Langemarck were the German Helden par excellence. Still, even without the occurrence of the word «Held» the novel In Stahlgewittern as it appeared in Werke in zehn Bänden as well as other (revised) texts in Werke in zehn Bänden provide good examples of the encounter of men «face to face» in Kampf, encounters in which the true character of a man becomes «free» (BT 436; SZ 384). They also show what I called the logic of transfiguration (see above, this chapter, n. 57). By fighting for the Volksgemeinschaft to the point of death, the brave soldiers leave behind their supposed isolation as bourgeois subjects, and their individuality is transformed, transfigured, into a beloved and loving member of the Volksgemeinschaft who, after his death, will be remembered as a Held.

Note that in German there is a difference between the Held and the Heros, which is not rendered in English. If one of them distances himself from a tradition and establishes something new without repeating a past, it is the Heros, and not the Held. Thus, in German Heracles or Prometheus are usually called Heroen and not Helden. However, according to the «German» understanding of tragedies also Heroen perform their actions, not for the sake of their glorious self-affirmation, but for the sake of a group. Like Heracles, the Heros Prometheus caused one of the major ruptures in history not in order to indulge in self-affirmation but to bring fire to human beings. A Held, and also a Heros, neglects his self-realization for the sake of a higher good. Or, rather, he finds his self-realization, which is his self-transfiguration, by complying with a higher order. After World War II, the word Held pretty much disappeared from public political speech. («The Helden of Bern!» was used for the members of the German soccer team that won the soccer world championship in Bern 1954 and thus made Germany respectable again.) It is used ironically in phrases such as, «Das sind/Ihr seid mir Helden!» (These/you are some kind of Helden!). Sometimes, mothers say this to or about their children—or adults say it to and about other adults—if the children haven't complied with orders but have done some nonsense instead; this use is ironic, and it can be so, because a Held is concerned not with self-realization but with compliance with an order. As to the «Held» in section 74 of Being and Time , Rockmore is right: «The conception of the hero ( Held ) is evoked in relation to the authentic rep- etition of a possibility. We can speculate that the hero is one willing to sacrifice or even die for this cause, that is, the destiny of the Volk» ( On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy , 48).

Within the, so to speak, nonpolitical interpretations of authenticity and historicality in Heidegger, Dreyfus pushed the aspect of distancing in authentic Dasein to the extreme. He writes: «In Chapter V, "Temporality and Historicality," Heidegger introduces a culture's history as source of superior possibilities» (Hubert L. Dreyfus, Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time, Division I [Cambridge, London: MIT Press, 1991], 328). The possibilities Heidegger is interested in, are « marginal practices that have resisted leveling» (ibid., 329). As examples, Dreyfus adduces «Christian caring in the early Christian communities and absolute commitment at the height of romantic chivalry, or Greek mentoring of adolescent boys» (ibid., 329), «John Muir» (ibid., 331), «Martin Luther King, Jr.,» «Jesus, Florence Nightingale, or Mentor himself» (ibid., 330), and—«for our generation»—«ecology . . . adapting past practices of preserving and respecting nature. (Such practices will, of course, subsequently be leveled to banality by the one {his translation of Heidegger's Man})» (ibid., 331). Even if one regards, as Dreyfus does (ibid., 361, n. 65), section 74, and Being and Time in general, as politically neutral, the very tone of Heidegger' s vocabulary in section 74 should have led one at the very least to look for some instance of rightist politics to add it to such a long list of possible choices. However, it is not by chance that Dreyfus does not do so, for people like the heroes of Verdun contradict his entire interpretation of section 74. According to him, the main interest of authentic Dasein is to make a choice that is too marginal and uninteresting for the «they» to level it. It is only a mild exaggeration to say that from Dreyfus's analysis one gets the impression that Heidegger was analyzing the strategies of an ironic Romantic or of a dandy who distances himself not only from the «they» but from the content of his own choice as well, since to identify oneself with the content of one's choice would already level it as well as oneself (see ibid., 330-333). For Dreyfus, under the gaze of authentic Dasein all traditional practices bleach out and lose their « intrinsic meaning» (ibid., 331). Thus, «no possibilities can have intrinsic or enduring meaning» with the effect that the heritage becomes «available as a source of meaningless differences. These nonbanal, nonleveled possibilities can still serve as a source of unique possibilities as long as Dasein does not take them up with the pseudoseriousness of everyday conscience or the unconditional seriousness of {Kierkegaard's} Religiousness B» (ibid., 331). Heidegger himself would surely have subsumed such behavior under « Absäindigkeit» (SZ 126; « distantiality ,» BT 164) as a mode of ordinary and inauthentic Dasein. In Dreyfus's picture of section 74, the only disturbing phenomenon is Heidegger's vocabulary, which, as it were, even Dreyfus cannot avoid quoting. Of the paragraph with the « Geschiclo» and the «Gemeinschaft, des Volkes» (SZ 384; BT 436) at its core, Dreyfus quotes only the last sentence in order to recommend, as already mentioned, ecology as the «issue for our generation,» and in order to place the following apodictic statement in a note: «One can perhaps see here Heidegger's philosophical justification of his political engagement in support of the National Socialists in 1933. It is important to realize, however, that even if one believed that the issue for Heidegger's generation was whether or not to support the Nazis, nothing in Being and Time suggests that the Situation demanded a positive response. Of course, nothing suggests that it required a negative response either» ( Being-in-the-World , 331, n. 65). If this sentence is not simply the result of indifference to the historical and political context of Being and Time , it is a nice example of that dandyism, mixed with the authoritarianism of elegant brevity, which Dreyfus sees in Heidegger.

Dreyfus works out the authentic Dasein as dandy in order to meet and partly agree with a possible criticism of Heidegger concerning an opposition between anxiety and authentic Dasein's choices, a criticism similar to Wolin's regarding autonomy versus fatalism (ibid., 331-333). Again, it seems to me he too misses the logic of transfiguration that is at work in these passages.

61. See above, chapter 4, n. 1.

62. Christopher Fynsk, Heidegger: Thought and Historicity (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1986), 40f.

63. Ibid., 24.

64. Ibid., 24f.

65. Ibid., 26.

66. Ibid., 28-54.

67. Ibid., 49.

68. Ibid., 47.

69. Ibid., 55.

70. I mentioned that Birmingham seems to assume that the root «wider» in « erwidert» is, so to speak, the verbalization of the prefix «wider-» in « Widerrttf» (see chapter 1, n. 14). In fact, she might be right in that there is a prefix in erwidern. However, it would be, not the prefix «wider-,» but rather «erwider.» The spacious house of German language, the Deutsches Wörterbuch , says: «ERWIDER in place of herwider , Old High German hëra widar , back here, back again; used in inauthentic {uneigentlichen} composites in cases where, today, one just uses again , or back» ( Deutsches Wöirterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimn , vol. 3 [E—Forsche] [Leipzig: S. Hirzel Verlag, 1862; reprint Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1984], 1062). The first example of these inauthentic composites is «ERWIDERBRINGEN (bring back again), referre, reportare, reducere» (ibid., 1062). Thus, in his sentence with « erwidert ,» Heidegger has just crossed out «BRINGE» in «ERWIDERBRINGEN» («ERWlDER BRINGE N») and by this has erwider gebracht, brought back again, the authentic verb «erwidern» from its fallen and inauthentic life as the prefix «erwider-» as in erwiderbringen. The first example of «ERWlDERBRINGEN» is Luther's translation of Baruch 5, 9: «denn gott wird Israel erwider bringen mit freuden» (ibid., 1062; «For, God will bring back again/restore Israel with joy»). Thus, Heidegger says that authentic Dasein will bring back or restore the Volksgemeinschaft, and at the same time he points implicitly to those whom he has declared to be its foe and against whom the Widerruf is directed. Thus, on this path among the Holzwege of the German language one gets the impression that Heidegger has expressed his anti-Semitism in this sentence.

In my interpretation, Heidegger's « erwidert» is tailored precisely along the lines of the general comment in the Deutsches Wörterbuch according to which the word «wider» in the sense of «toward» or «against» is not the opposite of «wieder» in the sense of «bringing back,» but rather is entailed in «wicder» as bringing back: «To distinguish in writing ERWlDERN and ERWIEDERN is a mistake since also the notions wider and wieder belong together. For, each which is brought back {das wieder gebrachte} is at the same time something which is brought toward {ein entgegen, dagegen gebrachtes}» (ibid., 1062). Thus, «erwidern» is «to bring back» to some person A what one owes A (a call, a gift, a visit in return, or help as the proper Erwiderung of A's call for help); this meaning of «wider» —namely, «wieder» in the sense of «back to» A—entails a «wider» in the sense of «entgegen/dagegen» (toward) A, insofar as in order to bring back (wieder) to A what I owe A I have to bring it toward (wider) A. In this sense, one might say, Heidegger's « erwidert» equals the verb «erwiderbringen.»

There are a lot of usages of the prefix or adverb «wider» in the sense of «toward» that have no hostile sense whatsoever. «I lean my head wider a wall» ( Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm , vol. 29 [Wenig—Wiking] [Leipzig: S. Hirzel Verlag, 1960; reprint Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1984], 873) means «I lean my head against a wall» and thus provide my head, and myself, with a firm support, namely, the wall. There is also an old German translation of the Holy Scripture in which St. Paul's formula « » (1 Cor 13, 12; hyphens mine, J. F.; «face to face») is translated as «face wider face» (ibid., 873). Thus, having been called upon and having opened itself for the call, authentic Dasein turns around and toward (wider) the past, that is, the Volk; leaning toward (wider) the Volk authentic Dasein achieves a firm stand—or «Ständigkeit» (see above, chapter 3, n. 62)—against the vacillations of inauthenticity; turning toward (wider) and leaning toward (wider) the Volk are parts of the move within which authentic Dasein brings back (wieder) to (wider) the Volk what it owes to the Volk, namely itself as the gift in return, a gift that will never equal the gift received from the Volk; in the process, authentic Dasein brings back (wieder) the Volk, that is, it performs a «Wiederholung,» or an Erwiderbringung, of the Volk; however, in this process, authentic Dasein realizes that in the Wiederholung more is at stake. It is only at this point that a prefix «wider-» in Birmingham's sense occurs; for the task to bring back (wieder) itself to (wider) the Volk and to bring back, to rerealize, the Volk with joy entails a hostile stance against (wider) inauthenticity, against Gesellschaft, namely, the order to destroy it so as to make room for the proper realization of the Volk; this «wider,» however, is not the «wider» in Heidegger's verb « erwidert» but rather the prefix «wider-» in his word « Widerruf» Thus, also in language the «Wiederholung des Möglichen» (SZ 385; «repeating of that which is possible,» BT 437) is not a simple repetition, since Heidegger's «Wiederholung des Möglichen» includes several activities that are described by verbs with the adverb «wider» and by the verbs «erwidern» and «widerrufen.» Ordinary and inauthentic Daseine, however, perform a simple repetition. For they don't turn around and toward (wider) a vanished past; they don't lean toward (wider) the Volk; they don't bring back (wieder) to (wider) the Volk themselves as a gift; they don't erwidern the call of the Volk; they don't bring back (wieder) the Volk; and they don't widerrufen society. For they simply repeat what the «they» instill into them—a Wiederholung without the various activities wieder and wider a vanished past and society that authentic Dasein performs. In some way, the inauthentic Daseine and to some degree also the ordinary Daseine indeed perform an activity that might be described by a verb with the prefix «wider.» For during the Bocksgesang the ordinary Daseine cover up the authentic possibilities. After Being has constituted itself and has called the authentic Daseine into the «Kampf» (SZ 384; «in struggling,» BT 436), the inauthentic Daseine widersetzen sich, resist, oppose, the effort of the authentic Daseine to cancel Gesellschaft and to impose Gemeinschaft onto all Daseine. How- ever, these activities of the ordinary and the inauthentic Daseine are instrumental to their effort to go on with their simple repetition of Gesellschaft.

So far, I have silently corrected something that looks like a misprint but does not need to be one. All words and phrases that are in italics from the seventh edition of Sein und Zeit onward were set spaced in editions one through six. Only four pages prior to the passage with erwidern and Widerruf, the sixth edition has a misprint concerning one of these spaced phrases, for in the spaced word «zeitlich» (« temporally» in «because they exist temporally in so primordial a manner ,» BT 433) the last two letters are not spaced ( Sein und Zeit [Frankfurt: Max Niemeyer, 1949], 382). This misprint has been taken over in the seventh edition ( Sein und Zeit [Frankfurt: Max Niemeyer, 1953], 382) and is still in the twelfth edition («weil es so ursprünglich zeitli ch existiert,» SZ 382). Bast and Delfosse note this misprint and say that, as most other misprints, it has been corrected from the fifteenth edition ( Sein und Zeit [Frankfurt: Max Niemeyer, 1979], 382) on ( Handbuch zum Textstudium von Martin Heideggers ' Sein und Zeit ,' 400, 401). In the sixth edition the word «erwidert» on page 386 was correctly spaced ( Sein und Zeit [Frankfurt: Max Niemeyer, 1949], 386). However, in the seventh edition the letter «t» in «erwidert» has not been set in italics, for the seventh edition has « erwider t» ( Sein und Zeit [Frankfurt: Max Niemeyer, 1953], 386). The same mistake can be found in the twelfth edition (SZ 386) as well as in the seventeenth edition ( Sein und Zeit [Frankfurt: Max Niemeyer, 1993], 386) and thus probably occurs in all editions following the seventh. Bast and Delfosse don't list this misprint (see Handbuch zum Textstudium von Martin Heideggers ' Sein und Zeit, ' 401). It is of course possible that neither Heidegger nor Bast and Delfosse noticed this misprint. However, since Bast and Delfosse probably worked on the index for several years, it might be possible that they asked Heidegger, and that Heidegger either said that it was no misprint or that it was one of those rare misprints that improve the text and thus should not be corrected. Perhaps the typesetter of the seventh edition was a Kasper (see above, this chapter, nn. 10 and 31); in this case, not one who drags the sublime into the ridiculous but one who emphasizes the meaning of the word and of the entire phrase. For by setting in italics just «erwider» and not the entire word «erwidert» he highlighted a prefix that was old and outdated even at Heidegger's time, the prefix «erwider,» and in this way he also typographically emphasized that Heidegger's « erwidert» is meant in the sense of a response to a call for help and in the sense of a revitalization. Heidegger' s « erwidert» is indeed the verbalization of the prefix «erwider» in the sense of «erwiderbringen,» to bring back, to restore. In this way, Heidegger or the typesetter stressed the continuity between Being and Time and Heidegger's later writings (see above, this chapter, section B) and, in addition, gave a further example of Heidegger's alleged capacity to reveal the «true» meaning of a word by reducing it to its forgotten «primordial» meaning. In light of this, it is regrettable that the edition of Sein und Zeit as volume two of the Gesamtausgabe has erased the trace by italicizing the entire word (« erwidert,» Sein und Zeit [Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1976], 510).

Maybe Heidegger's formulation that authentic Dasein «dem Tod unter die Augen geht» (SZ 382; «goes right under the eyes of death,» BT 434), is an allusion to St. Paul's formula (1 Cor. 13, 12). In Christianity, the way from being «face wider face» with death leads to the hope of some day being «face wider face» with God. In Heidegger it leads to being «face wider face» with the Volk. Heidegger also wrote the notorious sentence: «For along with German the Greek language is (in regard to its possibilities for thought) at once the most powerful and most spiritual of all languages» (IM 57; EM 43). Perhaps he regarded wider and erwidern as good examples of this claim, since the different meanings of «wider» and «erwidem» parallel the different meanings of the Greek which in the genitive means primarily «that from which something comes» (Liddell & Scott, Greek English Lexicon , 1496) for which Heidegger uses «aus» ( ) («Der Ruf kommt aus mir und doch über mich,» SZ 275; «The call comes from me and yet from beyond me and over me ,» BT 320; see also his usage of «aus» in section 74; see above, chapter 2, section C with n. 33). In this way, Heidegger endows the entity , from which the call comes with the nobility of being the origin since in this sense and can be close to each other anyway. The call comes from somewhere. In contrast to inauthentic Dasein, authentic Dasein listens to the call and unites itself with it. in the dative and in the accusative expresses «proximity,» «close engagement,» «union,» and «motion or direction towards» (Liddell & Scott, Greek English Lexicon , 1497) as, in the case of the accusative, in St. Paul's formula and, in the case of the dative, for instance in Plato's Phaedrus : in recollection the soul turns upward toward that which truly is; through memory the soul is always near those things a god's nearness whereunto makes him truly god (« , » 249 C). One finds «4. in hostile sense, against» (Liddell & Scott, Greek English Lexicon , 1497) only as one among sixteen meanings of with accusative, which I see only in the « Wider» of the « Widerruf ,» whereas Birmingham seems to see it in both the « erwidert» as well as the « Widerruf .» However, maybe up to now St. Paul's formulation has been completely misunderstood since in a deconstructivist interpretation it might turn out that actually St. Paul's phrasing says that also and especially in this situation Dasein turns in hostility against God's face and leaps out of the regained paradise. From my point of view, this is what inauthentic Dasein, or the Dasein in the «dwarf»-like place (see below, this chapter, n. 71), does.

Even more pertinent than the Greek is . It covers all the different meanings of wider and wieder I have presented. Thus, in German-Greek lexica one finds as translations of German words with the prefixes «wieder-» or «wider-» in all their meanings words with the prefix , and in Greek-German lexica vice versa. Correspondingly, under the entries «erwidern» and «Erwiderung» one finds words like as well as words like as in Aristotle (see above, chapter 1, n. 15). Thus, in contrast to inauthentic Dasein, authentic Dasein erwidert the call, that is, brings back to the Volk what it owes the Volk, and what it owes the Volk is its own existence; that is, authentic Dasein itself (accusative) Volk (dative), that is, authentic Dasein is the « sich { der Vergangenheit} überliefernde Entschlossenheit» (SZ 385; «hands itself down { to the past},» BT 437, emphasis mine, J. F.; see above pp. 16ff.). In this act authentic Dasein realizes that it is called upon to enter into the «struggle» (BT 436; SZ 384)—into the or « » ( Sophist 246 a 4), as Plato says in the context of the quote right at the beginning of Being and Time (BT 19; SZ 1)—against inauthentic Dasein; a struggle in which there are two —namely, authentic Daseine and inauthentic Daseine—that cannot coexist in the same city, the latter being the matter of their struggle (see above, chapter 4, n. 5). Thus, in the vocabulary of Aristotle's Physics (I, ch. 7), the presence of inauthentic Dasein in the city as the , or absence, , of form, Being, or Volk in the city is replaced with the presence, the , of form, Being, or Volk in the city, which entails the destruction, or the expulsion, of the that inauthenticity is. The « Widerruff» (SZ 386; BT 438) anticipates this outcome of the struggle.

In my interpretation the first step in the sentence on Erwiderung and Widerruf is a strong identification, or subjugation, of Dasein; in Guignon and the translators' interpretation the first step is a distancing and only then is there a partial identification; in Birmingham's interpretation there is no identification at all. In contrast to Guignon, Dreyfus and others, Birmingham does not give examples of authentic historicality. Probably, the reason for this is that, strictly speaking, there is no worldly example of her «( Erwidert )» (TP 32). Perhaps each action by any worldly actor requires some identification, even the most radical rupture, individual or collective suicide or killing. Compare Dreyfus's list of examples of heroes to choose (see above, this chapter, n. 60) with Guignon' s list (see above, p. 8). After having read quite a few of American texts on Heidegger's historicality, in note 60 of this chapter I almost wrote: «As examples of heroes to choose Dreyfus adduces the usual crowd.» Would a sentence like that have revealed that language has already leveled these heroes? Language or me? «Wann ich so schwerz bin, Schuld ist nicht mein allein .» («Would I ever!?») Nonetheless, «round up the usual suspects!» Fortunately, Hollywood and TV have preserved for sempiternity some of the authentic heroes. One should wiederholen, repeat, the way, the run, the escape, which Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Victor Láslo, Peter Lorre, Benjamin and others did, or tried to do, and then one might recognize the heroes who were around at the time of Being and Time , namely, among others, all the Siegfrieds and Brunhildes of Wagner's operas, the Helden von Verdun, the Hitlers and Schlageters (see above, chapter 1, n. 33) on the one hand and, on the other, the workers of the Parisian Commune, the workers and sailors of the Arbeiter- und Soldatenräte in Munich and Kiel, Erwin Szymanski, and Rosa Luxemburg, among others. Rosa Luxemburg was tortured by the Schlageters, stabbed to death, and thrown into the Landwehrkanal, a canal running through downtown Berlin. Landwehr is «territorial army»; thus, listening to language a rightist might have rendered this event by, «Das Land (countryside, soil) wehrt sich, defends itself (against its foes).» Rick's famous sentence, «Here's looking at you, kid,» reads in the German version of Casablanca «Ich seh' Dir in die Augen, Kleines (I look into your eyes, little girl).» This is a slightly false, but precisely for that reason a very good translation. Anyway, in each version Ingrid Bergman does not turn away, but remains face wider face.

71. I have checked only her first two quotes from Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche. The first is: «Whoever stands in the moment ( Augenblick ) lets what runs counter to itself come to collision, though not to a standstill, by cultivating and sustaining the strife {Widerstreit} between what is assigned him as a task and what has been given him as his endowment. To see the moment means to stand in it. But the dwarf keeps to the outside, perches on the periphery» (TP 34; Eternal Recurrence of the Same , trans. D. Krell [New York: Harper & Row, 1984], 57; Nietzsche I , [Pfullingen: Neske, 1961], 311f.; on Widerstreit see above, this chapter, n. 30). She leaves something out in this quote und does not quote the immediately preceding sentences, namely: «Und dennoch ist da ein Zusammenstoß. Freilich nur für den, der nicht Zuschauer bleibt, sondem selbst der Augenblick ist , der in die Zukunft hineinhandelt und dabei das Vergangene nicht fallen läßt, es vielmehr zugleich übernimmt und bejaht. Wer im Augenblick steht, der ist zwiefach gewendet: für ihn laufen Vergangenheit und Zukunft gegeneinander . Er läßt das . . .» ( Nietzsche 1 , 311). Whatever these sentences mean and however one might relate them to Being and Time , no one should discuss the former passage without the latter. Subsequently, she presents claims concerning Heidegger's concept of the moment and underpins them with the following quote: «Here, then, it is a matter of decision—and of incision—in our lives, a matter of cutting away what has prevailed hitherto, what has by now run its course, from what still ''remains.'' Obviously, the cut is made by the thought of return, which transforms everything» (TP 34; Eternal Recurrence of the Same , 75; Nietzsche I , 331). This quote, too, cannot be discussed without its context, which Birmingham does not present. Furthermore, the context shows that Heidegger does not develop a theory of decision and incision but rather talks about the impact of the thought of eternal recurrence on Nietzsche's life. The first sentence in her quote is tendentiously, or falsely, translated. For in the German text Heidegger means unambiguously that the theory of eternal recurrence marks a crucial turn in Nietzsche's life.

72. If—to assume the impossible—Erwin Szymanski would have interpreted Heidegger like Birmingham, instead of saying that Heidegger «forgot the sublime moment which calls for Dasein's resolute judgment» (TP 44) he would have said, «Dem (Heidegger) iss da Film gerissen!» (his film is torn!) In such a case, one splices the two parts of the film back together and forgets about the Riß. There is, so to speak, a generation of scholars, for instance, Wolin and Lacoue-Labarthe, who under the impact of Heidegger's engagement in National Socialism ask whether this was related to Being and Time , and their answer is that it was. They don't deal with a certain passage, namely, the one on erwidert and Widerruf. Thus, the next generation erwidert them by referring to this passage. since at least in its English translation it seems to support the assumption that the main aspect of authentic Dasein is its capacity of distancing itself from tradition, etc. Though for very different reasons, for Wolin and Lacoue-Labarthe Being and Time is prone to National Socialism. For Guignon, Being and Time is politically neutral, and Heidegger's engagement in National Socialism is just a matter of his conservative habits. For Birmingham, Being and Time is antitotalitarian and thus anti-National Socialism; for her Heidegger's engagement in National Socialism is not a matter of some habit but rather a Riß, as she puts it, and thus an inexplicable miracle that has not changed the course of his anti-totalitarian thinking. Though deconstructionists—especially since a seeming move toward theology in recent deconstructionism—should welcome and strengthen the Riß that a miracle represents, in this case the notion of a miracle is used to confirm the supposed continuity of Heidegger's anti-totalitarian thinking. Once the miracle has done its job, one can forget about it and is left with Heidegger as the only philosopher who thought antitotalitarian politics. Even if one does not agree with Wolin that Derrida's «apologetic and relativizing treatment of Heidegger's ties to Nazism . . . raises the question of deconstruction's adequacy as a heuristic for guiding our judgments in the ethicopolitical realm» (PB xviii), one must acknowledge that Heidegger has come a long way.

Fynsk as well as Birmingham have as one of their major «Helden» Lacoue-Labarthe. Strangely enough, as in the case of Wolin as taken up by Guignon, so in Lacoue-Labarthe's interpretation there is something that makes it prone to be turned into Birmingham's interpretation, and that is due to his interpretation of the motif of the «Held,» of which he says in a note that he is «indebted to Christopher Fynsk for having drawn {his} attention» to ("Transcendence Ends in Politics," Social Research 49, no. 2 [Summer 1982]: 432, n. 32; Engl. translation of "La Transcendance finie/t dans la politique," L'imitation des modernes [Paris: Galilee, 1986], 135-175). However, it would lead too far to elaborate on this point, which also spoils Lacoue-Labarthe's book Heidegger, Art, and Politics .

In his book Daimon Life , Krell (who does not discuss the passage on Erwiderung and Widerruf) does not deny the strong nationalism at work in section 74. Thus, he asks: «By a heavy-handed sleight-of-hand, Dasein now inherits a possibility that allows it to pick itself up by its own bootstraps and leap over its own shadow. . . . What good is it if Heidegger reminds himself and us of the finitude of proper temporality once that sleight-of-the-hand has done for Dasein precisely what the relation to the Infinite has always done for human beings in the past, namely, granted them the license to perpetrate infinite violence?» (David F. Krell, Daimon Life: Heidegger and Life-Philosophy [Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992], 178). At first, he has no answer: «What such repeatability can mean in the face of a mortality that is insurmountable remains unclear. . . . This can only disturb and haunt us» (ibid., 178). However, a stale joke relieves him of his disturbance: «Dasein natal is Dasein fatal. Its nativity implies nationality, and its nationality, at least in Heidegger's case, although certainly not in his alone, entails a nationalism. Heidegger's nationalism, the inherited hellenized Deutschtum of the George-Kreis, the hard and heavy legacy of what Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy have called a "national aestheticism," will escape unscathed the rigors to which Heidegger almost everywhere else subjects his heritage» (ibid., 179). The only virtue of this passage is that it does not wiederholen the notion that one produces one's own fate. In, so to speak, Wiederholung and Erwiderung of Krell's own style (ibid., 157-170), I make the following remarks: (1) These sentences show that Krell has not understood anything of section 74. (2) In dissimilar similarity to Lacoue-Labarthe, Krell presents Heidegger as the great hero Heracles who cleaned up the stable of Augias and who did so many things for us. We cannot blame him for not completing his job. After all, despite all his achievements Heidegger too is finite. (3) Krell makes nationalism, as it were, into a fatality of Germans. One doesn't know whether or not one should hope that he is not aware that these sentences are a slap into the face of all those who back then fought against National Socialism. Besides, just the sentence in Jaspers in 1945 that Heidegger belonged to the few professors who «helped place National Socialism in the saddle» (M. Heidegger/K.Jaspers, Briefwechsel 1920-1963 , 271; see Wolin, ed., The Heidegger Controversy , 149) and Heidegger's own assessment—that he was all alone in his engagement for National Socialism (see Karl Löwith, "My last Meeting with Heidegger," in Wolin, ed., The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader , 142; see also MH 158; see chapter 6, section A)—should keep anyone from writing such sentences. (4) Krell hasn't understood anything of the dramatics of Being and Time as a whole. Heidegger was very familiar with Augustine and with Luther. In both Augustine and Luther one finds a criticism of thinking in terms of substances. In both of them this effort to «soften,» to «weaken,» or to deconstruct the individual is closely related to their efforts to make room for the Infinite, for God, and to hand over the individual to God. It is also obvious that in Being and Time in his own peculiar way Heidegger adopts Hegel's stages of consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit . Thus, one might surmise that Heidegger combines all these motifs to lead us to nationalism as the ultimate Stufe of Dasein. It is not, as Krell would have it, that Heidegger arrives at nationalism despite his criticism of substance and subject, but the other way around: he criticizes the substance and the subject to pave the way for nationalism. (5) In the face of the Nazism in Being and Time , one might listen to language and hear that only a subject and not an authentic Dasein, in Krell's words, «subjects his heritage» (ibid., 179) to a critical examination and deconstruction. In the light of this one should certainly insist on the subject against its deconstructors. Because of the outrageous pages on Habermas (ibid., 161-163) one feels tempted to redirect his recommendation to Habermas back to the author and suggest that he himself eventually begin—as he himself says nine times—«to read» (ibid., 162-163) Heidegger.

In my view, Birmingham and others, as it were, project the benevolent multiculturalism and individualism of the USA onto Heidegger's Being and Time , though especially Heideggerian hermeneutics requires breaking through, and freeing oneself from, one's «they»-like assumptions. Admittedly, however, for people in the USA this is not so easy when it comes to section 74. It is not just a matter of the mistranslation of the sentences with Erwiderung and « disavowal» (BT 438, n. 1). On page 10 E of the New York Times , Sunday, December 22, 1996, Karen de Witt published an article on the movie Evita , starting Madonna. Already the title of that review—"Once Villainous, Now Virtuous"—speaks to the point of my book. As is known, in December of that year Bloomingdale's opened an Evita boutique. Karen de Witt quotes Kalman Rutenstein, vice president for fashion at Bloomingdale's («"We've reordered three times."») and comments on the movie: «The reordering is not limited to Evita clothing. The woman herself has been retrofitted as a material girl with a penchant for charity, . . . The real Eva Perón . . . was as corrupt, vengeful and power hungry as her husband.» Neither Bloomingdale's nor Madonna are repeating any what-has-been-there in Heidegger's sense. Rather, the late Heidegger might have said they treat the past, its products, and its heroes as «standing-reserve [ Bestand ]» (BW 298). In the following occurrences of words with the prefix «re-» in de Witt's review the words designate not a Heideggerian revitalization but rather—as in Birmingham—a break with, or move away from, something past toward something new as the first social commandment of life in the USA. (Also Guignon's formula «to creatively reinterpret» [HI 138] the chosen hero does not imply that in this reinterpretation one has to come as close to the hero himself as possible.) «Sociologists, social critics, philosophers and movie makers» say that it is «all part of the American cult of individualism.» David Ruth is quoted: «"Americans have this tremendous faith in the ability to repackage themselves. . . . That's the great American gift to the 20th century. And one of the ways they convince themselves that they have this ability is to repackage historical figures."» Stanley Crouch adds a further note to this. He said «that Americans have problems with complex humans. The remaking of villains into heroes comes from an American confusion about rebels, he said. "There is a very substantial history in America of people who rebelled against the law and were right," he said. "It isn't something that's just romantic. That is what the 13 colonies were all about. But we get confused about the difference between heroic individuality, which makes possible a greater social freedom, and anarchic individuality, which is ruthless, narcissistic, amoral and dangerous.''» If one just looks at these occurrences, one might indeed get the impression that the English prefix «re-» is, as it were, the keynote address and flagship of American life and its cheered constant break with as many pasts as possi- ble and that the «origin» of the «re-» («repetition,» see above, chapter 3, n. 58) has been done away with as well. Its German counterpart, the prefix «wieder-» («Wieder-holung»), however, most of the time introduces an activity of bringing back. For romantics, «back again» has never lost its aura, and in Heidegger it has had one of its most devastating recurrences.

The note of the translators on the sentence with Erwiderung and « disavowal» (BT 438, n. 1) is one of the few in which they offer not just information about Heidegger's use of particular words but also an interpretation of the text. Concerning particularly difficult passages they probably asked the people they thank in the preface (BT 16) for help. Since Hannah Arendt was a native German speaker as well as probably the best expert on Heidegger among them, it is possible that she advised them. In that case, one would have an astounding solution to the problem of the mistranslation. Hannah Arendt read her own political theory—the political as the site of the manifestation of individuals as individuals, the emphasis on the new, which is not a repetition—into the passage. If this is the case, it would certainly be one of the most remarkable slips of the pen in the history of interpretation and translation of philosophical texts. Joan Stambaugh translated the passage differently. In her translation, it reads: «Arising from a resolute self-projection, retrieve is not convinced by "something past," in just letting it come back as what was once real. Rather, retrieve responds to the possibility of existence that has-been-there. But responding to the possibility in a resolution is at the same time, as in the Moment, the disavowal of what is working itself out today as the "past"» (Martin Heidegger, Being and Time: A Translation of Sein und Zeit, 352f.). This translation allows for all the different meanings of erwidern I have adduced: erwidern as counterattack, as response within a conversation, and as response to a call for help (see above, chapter 1, sections B and D). Thus, its only disadvantage is that it does not rule out the first and the second meaning, which one has to rule out for reasons of grammar and context. Unfortunately, however, American readers of her translation will also most likely think more of the first and the second meaning than of the third. For she has translated the phrase «läßt sich . . . nicht . . . überreden» (SZ 386) with «is not convinced.» Most likely, American readers will associate a Dasein that is autonomous and independent of the past and that thus might have a conversation with or launch a counterattack against, the past. As I pointed out, however, «überreden» is not «to convince,» but rather «to talk someone into»; thus, it stands in the middle between «überzeugen,» «to convince,» on one side and «to subjugate» on the other side. In the sentence on Erwiderung and disavowal, Heidegger definitely moves to the side of «to be subjugated» (see above, pp. 19ff.). Still, in her preface she writes: «The word Wiederholung , which I have translated as ''retrieval," could also be translated as "recapitulation" since that word is used in music to refer to what Heidegger seems to intend by Wiederholung . In music (specifically in the sonata form) recapitulation refers to the return of the initial theme after the whole development section. Because of its new place in the piece, that same theme is now heard differently» (xvf.). From the perspective of my interpretation, one can hardly imagine a comment on section 74 that is at the same time more true as well as more misleading. (In fact, by comparing it to a sonata she makes Heidegger follow the same notion of history he as well as people like Scheler prior to his Kehre oppose; see my Society, Community, Fate, and Decision: From Kant to Benjamin .) In the context of the American notion of hero and of the tendency to read Being and Time from the perspective of the work of the late Heidegger—ecology as «the issue for our generation»—one might meditate over the cover of the SUNY-edition a bit like Benjamin over frontispieces of baroque books: it shows a leaf of a tree and a manuscript, or letter, of the late Heidegger: «der Dank zu-gedacht» («the thanking thought-to»).

I am not the only one to read the two short sentences on Erwiderung and Widerruf (SZ 386; BT 438) the way I have explained. In summary, in the sentence on Erwiderung Heidegger calls upon us to listen to the call and to leave the city; in the sentence on Widerruf he calls upon us to realize the call, that is, to go back into the city and cancel Gesellschaft in order to rerealize Gemeinschaft. In 1955 one of the major existentialists in postwar West Germany and a student of Heidegger and Jaspers, Otto Friedrich Bollnow, published a systematic summary of existentialism in the early Heidegger and Jaspers. Because, as the author says, in the time after World War II humanity witnessed the «at this stage, total collapse of our entire spiritual world» (Bollnow, Existenzphilosophie , 6th ed. [Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1964], 126f.), Bollnow presents Heidegger's notion of historicality as a matter of inwardness. Listening to and complying with the call, the authentic Dasein withdraws from or leaves the city and retreats into his inwardness without going back out into the city to cancel it. Bollnow insists that authentic Dasein is not capable of producing by itself its ends and contents (ibid., 113). Rather, they are given by the Erbe, heritage, which is «the community {Gemeinschaft} within which the individual lives, and especially the decisive, historically autonomous unit of life, the people {entscheidenden, geschichtlich selbständigen Lebenseinheit, dem Volk}» (ibid., 113). In Lebensphilosophie the individual creatively transforms the heritage. However, existentialism does not allow for such hubristic enthusiasm and belief in progress (114f.). Summarizing these thoughts, Bollnow quotes the entire passage beginning with «The repeating of that which is possible does not bring again » (BT 437; SZ 385) and ending with «In the moment of vision authentic existence is indifferent to both these alternatives» (BT 438; SZ 386). However, he leaves out the sentence on Widerruf («But when . . . as the 'past',» BT 438; SZ 386): «Thus, repetition in the strict existential sense does not exclude a transformation of the outer appearance. However, repetition just has become unconcerned about such a transformation and cannot derive its own meaning from it. In this sense, Heidegger situates the notion of repetition within a broader understanding of history: "Die Wiederholung des Möglichen ist weder ein Wiederbringen des 'Vergangenen' noch ein Zurückbinden der 'Gegenwart' an das 'überholte'. Die Wiederholung läßt sich, einem entschlossenen Sichentwerfen entspringend, nicht vom 'Vergangenen' überreden, um es als das vormals Wirkliche nur wiederkehren zu lassen. Die Wiederholung erwidert vielmehr die Möglichkeit der dagewesenen Existenz. . . . {Bollnow' s ellipses} Die Wiederholung überläßt sich weder dem Vergangenen noch zielt sie auf einen Fortschritt. Beides ist der eigentlichen Existenz im Augenblick gleichgültig" (SZ. 385f.)» (ibid., 117f.).

I owe the reader some translations. The children's verse in n. 70 of this chapter reads: «I am not the only one who is responsible {Schuld} for the fact that I am so dirty» (as in the German original strikethrough mine, J. F.). On the absence of Schuld in Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology" see my paper "On Brinks and Bridges in Heidegger" in general and in particular pp. 162f., n. 21. In the first quote in the epigraph to chapter I, a poet speaks about ladies in Gesellschaft. According to him, they are inauthentic, insofar as they either don't respond to the call at all or in such a way that the call becomes «pleaded, and . . . perverted» (BT 319; SZ 274): «With their waists laced in stays and their faces made up in rouge,/They haven't anything healthy to respond {erwidern},/Wherever you touch them—{they are} decayed in all their limbs.» Also in the second quote, an authentic Dasein speaks about and to an inauthentic Dasein, or rather one that has not yet resolved itself. It is a rhetorical question: «You really want to hamper {erwiedrigen} such love by being insubordinate!?» However, with the third quote we are «in» (see chapter 6, n. 24) the realm of decision, resoluteness, and authenticity: «In the moment of vision, I have become resolved/wild {erwilden}.» Thus, the fourth quote follows: «Each and every man is resolved/has determined {erwillen} his will for war.» Finally, Ernst Jünger does not regard it to be «tragic if a student is not able to differentiate clearly between wieder and wider , or between death and dead .»