Heidegger physically hid his manuscripts from the advancing Allies

Evidence

Heidegger, now fifty-five, was sent with other men to dig trenches near Alsace to ward off a French advance. This only lasted for a few weeks, but meanwhile he also took the precaution of hiding his manuscripts in safer places in case of invasion. Some were already stored in the vaults of the Messkirch bank where his brother Fritz worked; he squirrelled others away in a church tower in nearby Bietingen. In April 1945, he even wrote to his wife about a plan to put several volumes of writing into a secret cave which would be closed up and its location recorded on a treasure map, entrusted to just a few people. … Heidegger’s precautions were not irrational: Freiburg was badly damaged in air raids, and Todtnauberg was not large or secure enough to store much safely. He may also have feared that some items were incriminating. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 561

Categorization

• XREF: Suggests a possible literary angle: Walter Benjamin, who at nearly the same moment was carrying a similar briefcase of manuscripts over the Pyrenees and died by suicide when set to turn it back. — connects to: Heidegger repaid Towarnicki with an inscribed Antigone translation recalling the manuscript rescue — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 576

Broader Connections

• Heidegger repaid Towarnicki with an inscribed Antigone translation recalling the manuscript rescue #expands (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 576