Heidegger joined the Nazi party by conviction, not convenience

Evidence

In April 1933, all doubts about Heidegger were blown away when he accepted the post of rector of Freiburg University, a job that required him to enforce the new Nazi laws. It also required him to join the party. He did so, and then he delivered rousing pro-Nazi speeches to the students and faculty. He was reportedly seen attending the Freiburg book burning on 10 May, trooping through a drizzly evening by torchlight towards the bonfire in the square just outside the university library — almost on the steps of his own philosophy department. In private, meanwhile, he filled notebooks with philosophical thoughts alternating with Nazi-flavoured anti-Semitic remarks. When these ‘Black Notebooks’ were published in 2014, they provided yet more confirmation of something already known: Heidegger was a Nazi, at least for a while, and not out of convenience but by conviction. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 269

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the chapter’s theme of phenomenological ‘authenticity’ versus Heidegger’s actual public actions; also bears on the standing question of whether existentialist philosophy is complicit. — connects to: Heidegger embraced Nazism out of conviction, not convenience or coercion. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 269
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what precisely did the 2014 Black Notebooks add that wasn’t already established by the rectorate and speeches?

Broader Connections

• Heidegger embraced Nazism out of conviction, not convenience or coercion. #corroborates (1.00) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 269