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Books

Ponderings II-VI: Black Notebooks 1931-1938 by Martin Heidegger

Mahon O’Brien asks how far the first English translation of Martin Heidegger’s notebooks show him to be a Nazi.

Martin Heidegger was one of the twentieth century’s most influential philosophers, and his 1927 masterpiece Being and Time is widely regarded as one of the most important philosophical texts of the twentieth century. Yet there has been a longstanding controversy surrounding his decision to become the Nazi Rector of Freiburg University in 1933, and to join the Nazi Party shortly afterwards.

Many of Heidegger’s colleagues, students and friends were initially shocked when he declared his support for National Socialism. Upon assuming the office of Rector, he began to reform the university in line with his conception of it as a Nazi institution. Up to that point Heidegger had appeared anything but political, and certainly kept whatever political views he might have had close to his chest.

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