Martin Heidegger the Philosopher of Nazism

“The Führer himself and he alone is the German reality,
present and future, and its law."
Martin Heidegger the Philosopher of Nazism

"For me it is clear that, putting aside all personal
motives,I must decide to accomplish the task that will
allow me to best serve the work of Adolf Hitler."
Martin Heidegger the Philosopher of Nazism

The Philosopher of Nazism.
"It is understood already in the broadest circles that he is considered to be the Philosopherof National Socialism."

A letter from the National Socialist Doctors' Association chief Walter Gross dated Feb 26, 1934, to the Foreign Policy Office of the Nazi Party, headed by Alfred Rosenberg.
[Later executed for War Crimes]

Follow the Führer
"And your duty is to take the employment, and perform the tasks, in whatever manner the Führer of our new State demands."
Martin Heidegger. Follow the Fuhrer 1934. Translated by D.D. Runes.

"The goal is to work hard for a satisfying existence as a member of the German community of peoples. But to do this you must know where you stand as a member of this people; you must know how the people incorporates its members and by this incorporation renews itself; you must know what is happening to the people in this National Socialist State; you must know what a hard struggle it will be to bring this new reality to fruition; you must know what the coming healing of the body of the German people means, and what it demands from each individ-ual; you must know to what a pretty pass German men have come because of urbanization, and how they will be given back to the soil and the land through settlements, you must know the implications of the fact that eighteen million Germans belong to the German people, but not to the German State because they live beyond the state frontiers."
Martin Heidegger. Follow the Fuhrer 1934. Translated by D.D. Runes.

"This resolve is no longer an empty dream- and why not? Because through the National Socialist State our entire German reality has been altered, and that means altering all our previous ideas and thinking, too. The words "knowledge" and "scholarship" have acquired a different meaning, and so too have the words "work" and "worker."
Martin Heidegger. Follow the Fuhrer 1934. Translated by D.D. Runes.

"The knowledge of true scholarship does not differ in its tradition from the knowledge of farmers, lumberjacks, miners and craftsmen.
Knowledge and its possession, as National Socialism under- stands these words, do not divide the classes, but rather bind and unite the people in the one great will of the State."
Martin Heidegger. Follow the Fuhrer 1934. Translated by D.D. Runes.

Our Führer Adolf Hitler, let us give a threefold 'Heil!'"

"To become one of his loyal following means to desire wholeheartedly and undeviatingly that the German people may once more find its growing unity, its true worth and true power, and may procure thereby its endurance and greatness as a work State. To the man of this unprecedented resolve, our Fiihrer Adolf Hitler, let us give a threefold 'Heil!'"

Martin Heidegger. Follow the Fuhrer 1934. Translated by D.D. Runes, in German Existentialism, Dagobert. D. Runes, ed; Wisdom Library, New York, 1965 pp. 37 - 42.

Academic freedom" is being banished
"The much celebrated "academic freedom" is being banished from the German university; for this freedom was not genuine, since it was only negative. It meant primarily freedom from concern, arbitrari-ness of intentions and inclinations, lack of restraint in what was done and left undone. The concept of the freedom of the German student is now brought back to its truth. Henceforth the bond and service of the German student will unfold from this truth.

The first bond binds into the community of the people. It obligates to help carry the burden and to participate actively in the troubles, endeavors, and skills of all its estates (Stande) and members. From now on this bond will be fixed and rooted in the being (Dasein) of the German student by means of the Labor Service (Arbeitsdienst).9


The second bond binds to the honor and destiny of the nation in tlie midst of other peoples. It demands the readiness, secured by knowledge and skill, and tightened by discipline, to give all. In the future this bond will encompass and penetrate the entire being (Da-sein) of the student as Armed Service (Wehrdienst).


The third bond of the student body binds it to the spiritual mission of the German people. This people shapes its fate by placing its history into the openness of the overwhelming power of all the world-shaping powers of human being (Dasein) and by ever renew-ing the battle for its spiritual world. Thus exposed to the most ex-treme questionableness of its own being (Dasein), this people wills to be a spiritual people. It demands of itself and for itself that its leaders and guardians possess the strictest clarity of the highest, widest, and richest knowledge. Still youthful students, who at an early age have dared to act as men and who extend their willing to the future destiny of the nation, force themselves, from the very ground of their being, to serve this knowledge. They will no longer permit Knowledge Service (Wissensdienst) to be the dull and quick training for a "distinguished" profession. Because the statesman and the teacher, the doctor and the judge, the minister and the ar-chitect, lead the being (Dasein) of people and state, because they watch over it and keep it honed in its fundamental relations to the world-shaping powers of human being, these professions and the training for them have been entrusted to the Knowledge Service. Knowledge does not serve the professions, quite the reverse: the professions effect and administer that highest and essential knowl-edge of the people concerning its entire being (Dasein). But for us this knowledge is not the settled taking note of essences and values in themselves; it is the most severe endangerment of human being (Dasein) in the midst of the overwhelming power of what is. The very questionableness of Being, indeed, compels the people to work and fight and forces it into its state (Staat), to which the professions belong.
The three bonds-by the people, to the destiny of the state, in a spiritual mission-are equally primordial to the German essence. The three services that stem from it-Labor Service, Armed Service, and Knowledge Service-are equally necessary and of equal rank."



The Jewish Contamination of German Spiritual Life

"In what follows, I want to make more explicit what I could only indirectly hint at in my recommendation. Nothing less is at stake than our undeferrablc facing of the fact that we are confronted by a crucial choice: Either to infuse, again, our German spiritual life with genuine indigenous forces and educators, or to leave it at the mercy, once and for all, of the growing Jewish contamination, both in a larger and a narrower sense."

devotedly yours,
Martin Heidegger

From a letter to Victor Schwoerer (1929)
Written Freiburg i. Br., 2 October 1929
Translated by Manfred Stassen