Did Dog-Joke Cause
Heidegger's Downfall?

"Mein Hund     hat keine Nase!"

Oh well, at least we can be thankful that the Nazi fanatic and Hitler thurifer  Heidegger didn't copy his master's loony belief in astrology and incorporate the movement of the spheres as part of his bizarre kiddy-wink 'philosophical' infantilism. It's a pity really, for had he done so, he certainly would have increased his chances of achieving his ambition of becoming Hitler's private philosopher. It's a shame really - for otherwise some flickering early colour-film might have survived of the philosopher of Nazism, Eva Braun, Hitler's dog 'Blondie,' together with der Fuhrer's near-dwarf personal astrologer cavorting on the terrace of the Eagle’s Nest which lies high above Berchtesgaden perched atop the Kehlstein mountain.

Ironically, according to one of Heidegger's colleagues: Julius Furzarsch head of the Faculty of Racial Science at Freiburg, who later survived three years in a Soviet Labour Camp for peddling porn on the Reiperbahn, it was a reference to Hitler's dog that caused Heidegger's downfall from his influential position in the Nazi Party.

      In 1949 Furzarsch wrote an account of his days as a member of staff at Freiburg during Heidegger's Rectorship [or should that be "Rectalship?] Due to the political climate of the times the book was never published. The original manuscript has now been discovered and a book released by Nuremburger Presse under the title: 'Herrumbummeln mit Heidegger' (Bumming around with Heidegger) and it has just hit the German bookstalls.

     According to Furzarsch's account it was a chance remark - a silly thoughtless joke -  that Heidegger made which put a stop to his meteoritic rise in the Nazi hierarchy.

Furzarsch reports that the pint-size philosopher Heidegger once told a group of colleagues that Hitler had once commented thus to a group of Romanian fascists:

'Mein Hund hat keine Nase.'

'Wie riecht er? asked one of the Romanian visitors politely.

'Schrecklich,' laughed Hitler.

Translation:
Hitler: "My dog has no nose."
A Romanian: "How does it smell?"
Hitler: "Terrible."

According to Furzarsch this got back to the dog-lover Hitler who immediately ordered that Heidegger should tender his resignation as rector.

And so apparently ends all the speculation, about whether Heidegger actually did resign his high position because he became disenchanted with the party, or that his activities as a secret liberalising mole burrowing into and undermining the racial obsessions of his party colleagues was proving to be fruitless, or that he suddenly decided that the writings of the mad poet Hoelderlin were of more import that the mad dictator Hitler, or that Elfride rang the Gestapo and reported her husband's affair with a Jewish teenager etc., etc. - all these guesses were wrong.

It was therefore all down to an insensitive joke that Heidegger made about Blondie, [whose nose had been half-bitten off by one of the guard dogs at Berchtesgaden - which was later hung with piano-wire over the heavily fortified entrance-gate as a warning to other dogs.] In fact, Hitler's Blondie didn't attend his funeral, though I'm sure she would have -- if her master hadn't tested his cyanide pills on her first.

                                                Well - at last we know!

German who trained 'Nazi dog' escapes jail

BY ROGER BOYES AND AP IN BERLIN

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-990445,00.html

February 05, 2004

A German businessman who trained his dog to perform a Nazi salute was today sentenced to 13 months' probation for violating laws banning neo-Nazi activities.

Judge Wilhelm Brand told Roland Thein, 54, a right-wing fanatic: "You are very close to going to jail for a very long time. I don't want to hear of you again, not another provocative word."

Thein, who runs a prosperous truck dealership and a wine import business, responded by taking out a comb and brushing his hair to resemble Hitler's distinctive fringe. He was already sporting a toothbrush moustache.

"You are trying my patience," said the judge.

The judge had earlier ordered Thein to remove a T-shirt depicting a baby with Hitler's head superimposed. Officials also confiscated a picture of the German flag with his dog at its centre.

The charges against Thein included the wearing of a shirt with banned Nazi symbols, including the swastika; the taunting of foreign schoolchildren; the shouting of Nazi slogans in the middle of a Turkish market in Berlin and insulting a policeman.

These incidents were only the tip of the iceberg, according to witnesses.

Thein, accompanied by his dog, Adolf, criss-crossed Berlin looking for people to provoke, the court was told.

The dog, which lives in a fortified kennel marked with his name, was an essential prop. For years, it has allowed Thein to shout out Nazi slogans while pretending to bark orders.

When he spotted a foreigner coming in his direction, Herr Thein shouts: "Sieg Heil! Adolf - sit! Give the salute!" The dog - vaguely resembling Hitler's favourite dog, Blondie - obeys.

German lawyers have been unsure as to whether yelling Nazi catch phrases at a dog constitutes an offence. As a result, Thein has escaped serious punishment, getting away with a £100 fine and probation.

Thein could have been imprisoned for three years. German authorities started to take a tougher line with him when he and his dog started to become minor celebrities featured in the tabloid press.

Japanese tourists have come to visit the dog and police have become used to frog marching Thein and his faithful companion out of public meetings after loud homophobic tirades against Klaus Wowereit, the mayor of Berlin.

Thein was unrepentant, telling the court that the only good judge there had ever been in Germany was Roland Friesler, Hitler's hanging judge.

The leniency shown to the businessman is largely because he is not linked to any recognised neo-Nazi group. "He is simply a very offensive eccentric loner," said a court official.

Thein said: "I am a German. I was born in Bavaria, the son of a cavalry officer, and I grew up this way – I don't know any other way."

"Adolf is a very sweet dog," said Nicole Bumann-Zarske, the man's lawyer. "He loves biscuits, just like his owner!"

A friend of the man, who declined to give his name, said that the dog had been hit by a car, damaging his right paw. "It's all bent, he can't stick it out anymore.”

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As to the benefits of astrology for mankind - what about this? Elsbeth Ebertin was an astrologer whose prophecy concerning Hitler caused much discussion in 1923-24. I quote directly from Ellic Howe's Astrology: A Recent History Including the Untold Story of Its Role in World War II.[10] "Frau Ebertin was just about to compose a series of generalised predictions for persons born with their natal Sun in Aries, when she received a letter from one of Hitler's many enthusiastic woman supporters. Her correspondent enclosed Hitler's birth date (but not his birth hour) and asked what she thought of his horoscope. Frau Ebertin published her answer, without revealing Hitler's name, in her year book which was on sale by the end of July 1923:

'A man of action born on April 20, 1889, with Sun in 29 degrees Aries, can expose himself to personal danger by excessively incautious action and could very likely trigger off an uncontrollable crisis,' she wrote. 'His constellations show that this man is to be taken very seriously indeed; he is destined to play a Fuhrer-role in future battles. It seems that the man I have in mind, with this strong Aries influence, is destined to sacrifice himself for the German nation, also to face up to all circumstances with audacity and courage, even when it is a matter of life and death, and to give an impulse, which will burst forth quite suddenly, to a German Freedom Movement. But I will not anticipate destiny. Time will show ...'"

One of the favourite debunking techniques of opponents to astrology is the "Hitler ploy," which goes more or less like this: Lots of people were born on the same day as Hitler, so if astrology is destiny, how come they weren't all dictators?

That reminds me - I must look up what Elsbeth Ebertin had to say about men born on Sept 26th 1889 and to see how many of them became philosophers of Nazism?