Introduction

Gesamtausgabe with a view to having the last word on the Heidegger Affair rather I
see this as an attempt to begin a new controversy. In the first place, I dont know why we
need to keep burrowing away looking for further proof of Heideggers Nazism in some
hidden trove of previously unpublished writings or correspondence as though that
settles things once and for all. Indeed, I expect that whatever else turns up concerning
Heideggers hugely problematic political views will very much echo more of what we
already know: Heidegger was willing to use terms such as Verjudung (Jewification);
Heidegger wrote and said things which were nakedly and distressingly Nazi in tone
as the zealous Nazi Rector of Freiburg University; Heidegger was adamant that there
was a dangerous international alliance of Jews and openly professed as much to his
then close friend, Karl Jaspers, fully aware of the affront it was to Jaspers, whose wife
was Jewish. We can continue to add to the chronicle of biographical details which will
copper-fasten what we already know, namely that Heidegger wrote, said and did things
which any of us would find and certainly many of his Jewish friends and colleagues
found deeply offensive. That is not to say that Heidegger was one of Goldhagens
willing executioners but that is hardly a commendation for a man who many believe to
be one of the most gifted philosophical minds of the twentieth century. Furthermore,
rather than wait patiently for any and every scrap of philosophical writing he ever
penned to be made public before we begin to draw any conclusions on this or any
other matter concerning Heidegger, what if we can establish that some of our greatest
fears are in fact confirmed by reading some of Heideggers most sacred and revered
texts? It is Heidegger himself who professes a deep affinity between some of his most
important concepts in Being and Time and his political views and actions in the 1930s.
What if Heideggers notion of historicity and related discussions in Being and Time are
indeed relevant to his politics but in ways which point to a massive shortcoming in his
own thought? What if we can show that Heidegger deliberately tried to use notions
which first emerge in Being and Time as a justification for a type of ethnic chauvinism?
If Being and Time itself is implicated in certain ways, then what does it matter if we
find thousands of further problematic texts concerning Heideggers political views? If
Being and Time is in trouble, then we already have all the controversy we need since
few would continue to deny the importance of Heideggers magnum opus to twentieth
and twenty-first century philosophy.
This work is, in many ways, an invitation to those that read Heidegger to begin to
approach the texts that are discussed and many others as offering us portals into some
deeply troubling ideas that are central to Heideggers attack on Modernity. I have no
doubt that there will be critics who are quick to point to relevant or crucial texts and
sources which should have been discussed but in doing as much they will have missed
the intention and the spirit of the book. I do not wish to offer an exhaustive chronicle or
deal with absolutely everything that has been said in anger or despair on the question
of Heideggers political affiliations. Rather I hope to show how a revisitation of some
of Heideggers least controversial texts along with some of the more controversial ones,
many of which have been in circulation for as long as this affair has existed, already
contain most of the gravest problems and issues that need to be treated.
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