Habermas traced Nazism to Heidegger’s philosophy’s objective structure, not just his politics

Evidence

Among his early articles was one that attracted particular attention and made left-wing intellectuals sit up and take notice: appearing in the Frankfurter Allgemeine in 1953, it was a critical commentary on Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics, first published the same year. … In his book, Heidegger had mentioned, without comment, the inner truth and greatness of this movement'the Nazi movementas an encounter between technology, with its planetary destiny, and modern man’. This opened Habermas’s eyes to the fact that what was objectionable in Heidegger was not just the speech he gave in 1935 as rector, but his philosophy itself: a glorification of Nazism emerged from its objective structure. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 567

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Frankfurt School’s broader thesis that philosophical categories can carry authoritarian commitments, and to Adorno’s critique of Heidegger.