Historical Background: the Weimar Republic
Since a political engagement does not occur in a social, political, and conceptual vacuum, it is useful to indicate, at least in outline, some of
the main features of the social context when Heidegger became rector.[5] The Nazi accession to power occurred against the background of German history. Under Bismarck, the minister of war for Wilhelm I, Germany was unified, Schleswig-Holstein was wrested from Denmark, and Prussia took the place previously occupied by Austria. Germany successfully waged war against France, increased its imperial power, and acquired foreign colonies. The expansion and consolidation of German power came to an abrupt halt with the end of the First World War, culminating in the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919, which was widely perceived as a humiliation by the defeated German population.
The Weimar Republic arose and can be understood against the background of more than a half century of imperialist expansion through war.[6] It was proclaimed on 9 November 1918 in Weimar—the site of the intellectual circle centered around Goethe, one of the greatest humanists in the history of European culture—by the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann. The Weimar Republic prospered during the golden twenties, which culminated in the world economic crisis in 1929.[7] The history of the Weimar Republic describes a short period of hope symbolized by the introduction of a republican form of government, in an obvious reaction against the consequences of German imperialism, which then quickly degenerated into one of the worst tyrannies the world has ever known. Whether the hope was ever justified, whether the period of the Weimar Republic was more than a failed effort at the introduction of a liberal democratic form of goverment in the interregnum between two world wars, is a topic of scholarly debate.
Even before the outbreak of economic depression, the Weimar Republic suffered from a series of deep ideological, social, political, and economic problems. The world economic crisis that arose in 1929 led to enormous inflation and staggering unemployment, among other social problems. It was accompanied by an almost palpable sense of decay in the university and many other areas of German life.[8] In Heidegger's philosophy, the influence of this particular problem is visible in Heidegger's analysis, in a lecture course, of the prevailing mood as one of boredom and in the rectoral talk in his concern to defend what he refers to as the essence of the German university. There was further a clear sense of instability, a belief that things could not just continue on the same course, a conviction that something needed to be done, a longing for a solution, even a radical measure to transform the situation in steady deterioration. The final part of the Weimar period has been aptly described, immediately before Hitler took office, as follows: "This, then, was the Weimar Republic in 1932: clear vision and political impotence, fear, suspicion, and moments of irrational hope, among the politi-
cians of the middle, politics as usual, but with everyone else, a sense of emergency."[9]
The reasons for the demise of the Weimar Republic are still not clear. One possibility is the failure to comprehend the growing threat of the imperialism of German monopoly capital.[10] Another is the concern with political freedom as the means to an end rather than an end in itself.[11] Yet another is the perpetration of a conservative revolution from the right.[12] Still others include the polarization between various right- and left-wing extremes, the idea of a democracy not itself democratic—both of which suggest that "the people" in a collective sense was in some sense responsible for the Republic's end—the fascist seizure of power, the interplay of certain forces, and so on.[13] What is known is that the outbreak of a world economic crisis destabilized a weak government, exacerbating social and political tensions, which in turn contributed to an unexpected Nazi electoral victory in July 1932. The end of the Republic less than a decade and a half after it began was hastened when von Papen persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor. It finally ended with the resignation of Kurt von Schleicher on 28 January 1933 and the assumption of power by Adolf Hitler on 30 January of that year, which led straight into Nazi tyranny.[14]
The complex series of events that led to the Nazi assumption of power is different from its significance.[15] The German revolution that began in 1933 and led to a second defeat of Germany was only the continuation of the historical process begun under Bismarck, which came to a temporary halt, during the Weimar period, at the end of the First World War. If this is true, then the rise of National Socialism can be regarded as an effort to win a war that had already been lost, to renew with a political approach the momentum temporarily suspended during the Weimar Republic, which unsuccessfully sought to lead Germany in another direction, to restore German self-esteem and confidence—in short, to bring about the historical realization of the German people.[16]