Nazism and the Beiträge

It is difficult to address the theme of Heidegger's relation to Nazism in the Beitr äge for several reasons. Material relevant for an evaluation of this theme is not confined to a single passage or a single portion of the work, which it traverses from the beginning to the end, from the initial comments, such as Heidegger's remark, cited above, that he is not understood—which anticipates his later assertions in the 1945 article on the rectorate that the rectoral address was not understood—to his suggestion in the final paragraph of the book that speech is grounded in silence.^[69] It follows that this theme is intimately bound up with, hence inseparable from, the work as a whole.

Naturally, Heidegger's relation to Nazism in the wake of the resignation as rector and the abandonment of transcendental phenomenology can no longer be precisely the same. In particular, Heidegger can no longer strive for personal privilege within the academy through his position as philosophical Führer of the University of Freiburg nor can he continue to legitimate Nazism on the basis of fundamental ontology, which he has now given up. Yet Heidegger's relation to Nazism exhibits a remarkable continuity between the exoteric public statements in the rectoral speech and the esoteric "postphilosophic" view on display in the Beiträge .

The description of of the rectoral address as representing a kind of "private National Socialism,"^[70] to which Heidegger objects in the article on the rectorate, correctly characterizes his view of Nazism in the Beiträge . Here, he criticizes its real form as an incorrect means to an end even as he continues to accept the end in view, for which he again proposes a "philosophical" means. Although he no longer offers his fundamental ontology in order to lead the leaders, he neither abandons the relation of "philosophy" to politics nor turns away from Nazism. He no longer proposes to ground National Socialism in fundamental ontology, yet he continues to insist on his "philosophy," in this case his new thought to attain the end in view shared with Nazism: the destiny of the

German people. The relevant difference is that Heidegger's new beginning is no longer understood as a sufficient means to a political end, which it is intended to achieve only indirectly, through the justification of the prophetic role of great German poetry. In other words, although Heidegger's position changes, and although he abandons philosophy for thought beyond philosophy, he does not abandon, in fact he specifically maintains, the political role of his thought of Being.

The recurrence of Heidegger's stress on the Germans as German at this late date in his thought is not less, but even more, troubling than before. In his early thought, beyond any strictly political sympathy with Nazism, Heidegger was pushed in this direction by fundamental ontology that insisted on Dasein, above all its authentic form, as the way to an authentic thought of Being. As a result of the turning, and the de-centering of the subject, in this work, Heidegger has already moved away from the analysis of Dasein as the clue to Being toward a view of Being as self-disclosing. It follows that Heidegger's continued insistence now as before on the Volk is doubly significant. On the one hand, it presumably indicates that his effort to decenter subjectivity is only incompletely carried out, since this concept continues to recur in his thought. On the other hand, to the extent that the ongoing concern with Being has been uncoupled from Dasein, it clearly shows the persistence of a political preference for the aim shared with Nazism.

Heidegger's continued acceptance of this political goal, which motivates all his writings after the rectoral address, is not incompatible with criticism of real National Socialism. To grasp Heidegger's criticism of National Socialism, it is useful to recall that his thought is limited throughout his corpus to the problem of Being. Heidegger's continued concern with Being literally prevented him from coming to grips with or even understanding the nature of Nazism as Nazism, which he seems to have regarded as an insufficient form of modern metaphysics, in patent disregard of its effects on human being.

In the Beiträge , Heidegger's critical remarks about National Socialism are easily overlooked for several reasons. First, in keeping with his concern with Being, the critique of National Socialism is strictly ontological in character and in that respect is unlike other, more standard discussions. It is fair to say that no one unfamiliar with Heidegger's thought would even recognize that it contained reservations about Nazism. His rare critical remarks on Nazism in this and other writings invariably concern its supposed insufficiency as a theory of Being. Here as elsewhere, Heidegger is chillingly insensitive to the significance of Nazism for human being. For instance, in the most direct comment on Nazi ideology in this work, in the context of a remark on "blood and race" as

the "bearers of history," Heidegger is primarily concerned with the defense of his own earlier distinction between history and historicality, that is, with an adequate concept of history.^[71]

Second, the critical remarks directed to National Socialism are always secondary to Heidegger's main concern in this treatise, which is to sketch the outlines of the other beginning. In the Beiträge , Heidegger's reservations about Nazism are intrinsic to his new theoretical posture, the rejection of the insufficient radicality of his first beginning, which he now regards as a continuation of the metaphysical movement from Anaximander to Nietzsche. He is, then, critical of his own earlier fundamental ontology as well as National Socialism and other views as well, all of which from his perspective remain committed to an approach from which he now seeks to free himself. Since Heidegger's criticism of National Socialism is of the same generic type as that which he routinely brings against anything associated with modern metaphysics, his objections to Nazism in no sense grasp its essential nature.

Third, in keeping with the antisystematic character of Heidegger's later thought, there is no single systematic statement of his objections to National Socialism anywhere in his writings, least of all in the present work. In part, the unsystematic nature of his criticism is no doubt due to the resolute rejection of system in this text and in his later writings. In part it may also be due to his inability to confront directly the consequences of his earlier identification with Nazism on the basis of his thought.^[72]

Heidegger's specific objections to Nazism in the Beiträge are consistent with the evolution of his position since Being and Time . In An Introduction to Metaphysics he continued the turn to Nietzsche begun in the rectoral address, and he reaffirmed the significance of Nazism and sketched aspects of what later became the critique of technology. In "Wege zur Aussprache," he emphasized his interest in the realization of the ownmost being of the Germans even as he criticized Descartes in order to comprehend the metaphysical essence of technology. In "The Age of the World Picture"—originally given as a lecture about the time Heidegger stopped working on the Beiträge —he criticized modern science and the so-called philosophy of the worldview, or Weltanschauungsphilosophie , and included a critical remark in passing on National Socialism.^[73] All of these elements now appear in the Beiträge , where Heidegger criticizes National Socialism as illustrating the worldview correlated with the rise of technology in the age of metaphysics, a worldview which he intends to surpass through a turn to the other beginning.

In the Beiträge , Heidegger's reservations with respect to the theory of National Socialism are dispersed virtually throughout the work. They

appear in passages concerning such varied themes as metaphysics, technology, Weltanschauungsphilosophie , nihilism, the Volk , and, perhaps more surprisingly in the treatment of transcendental philosophy, the cult of personality, various forms of religion, and silence. Now it is not easy to describe a series of remarks which the author did not choose to restate as a single connected discussion. It would be a mistake to provide them with a systematic format when Heidegger now rejects this approach for reasons intrinsic to his position. The alternative, to be employed here, is to survey a selection of the ways Heidegger is critical of National Socialism in this work.