Frank H. W. Edler
Metropolitan Community College (Omaha, NE)
Copyright © 2002, Frank Edler

          The beginnings of this article go back to 1989 shortly after the English translation of Victor Farias’ Heidegger et la nazisme was published. In the Foreword of the English edition written by Tom Rockmore and Joseph Margolis, a statement at that time caught my eye: "Farias has usefully shown Heidegger’s continued cooperation with Krieck, even after he resigned as rector, in the union of German academics [?] concerned with recasting the entire university system" (Farias,XVI). This was news to me, that Heidegger cooperated with Krieck after he resigned as rector.
          I questioned the statement at that time because Ernst Krieck began his rather ugly polemic against Heidegger in his journal Volk im Werden about the same time Heidegger resigned. The end of Heidegger’s tenure as rector was April 23, 1934 (Ott,249); Krieck’s first attack against Heidegger occurred in the second issue of Volk im Werden (1934) which came out in April, 1934. The volume I have is dated April 28, 1934. Two more short articles by Krieck attacking Heidegger followed: the second and third attacks occurred in the fourth and fifth issues respectively of Volk im Werden (1934). These are available in Schneeberger’s Nachlese zu Heidegger (Schneeberger, 182-184, 225-228, 228-230). Given these attacks, it seemed to me then, and still seems to me now, highly unlikely that Heidegger would have cooperated with Krieck after he resigned as rector.
          On November 15, 1989, I sent a letter to Joseph Margolis, co-editor of the English translation, stating that I was not aware of any evidence to date which supported the claim that Heidegger cooperated with Krieck after resigning as rector. In my letter, I asked Margolis what the basis was for his and Rockmore’s claim. On January 26, 1990, Tom Rockmore responded stating that Joseph Margolis had passed my letter along to him and that he, Rockmore, was responsible for the claim in the Foreword. Rockmore specified that as far as he could recall, Heidegger cooperated with Krieck until 1937. Thus began a correspondence that lasted until December 27, 1991 (more on this later: see the last section entitled "Correspondence with Rockmore").

          The issue of Heidegger’s cooperation with Krieck after the rectorate goes to Heidegger’s own sense of personal integrity. Had Heidegger continued to cooperate with Krieck after his attacks, I would doubt very seriously whether Heidegger had any sense of personal integrity. To cooperate with Krieck would be tantamount to saying that there was no injustice in Krieck’s odious attacks or that Heidegger was willing to overlook the injustice to promote himself and/or National Socialism. The issue, then, deals with the extent to which Heidegger was willing to allow himself to be used for the sake of National Socialism as he understood it. To put it bluntly, was Heidegger willing to sell his philosophical soul to politics? To an extent, he had already done so in taking on the rectorate – and Heidegger admits it:

                                                The rectorate was an attempt to see something in

                                                the movement that had come to power, beyond all

                                                its failings and crudeness, that was much more

                                                far-reaching and that  would perhaps one day

                                                bring a concentration on the Germans’ Western

                                                historical essence. It will in no way be denied that

                                                at that time I believed in such possibilities and for

                                                that reason renounced the actual vocation of thinking

                                                in favor of being effective in an official capacity [my

                                                italics] (Neske,29; SdU,39).

The part I have highlighted is an astounding admission and has hardly ever been emphasized in the vast secondary literature on Heidegger’s relationship to Nazism.
          I think it comes rather close to Herbert Marcuse’s assessment of Heidegger’s infamous remark that only the Fuehrer is German reality and its law: according to Marcuse, "…this is actually the betrayal of philosophy as such, and of everything philosophy stands for" (Journal, 1977,34). Heidegger says he renounced [Verzicht ] the "eigensten Beruf des Denkens " (SdU,39); I would translate this not as the "actual vocation of thinking" but rather as the "ownmost vocation of thinking," the vocation of thinking that is the most intimate possible. In other words, Heidegger sold his soul to politics and, as it turned out, to the devil in 1933. If, as Safranski shows, Heidegger – in relation to the 1930 call to Berlin – did not yet feel " ‘sufficiently equipped to fulfill the Berlin professorship,’ " that was no longer the case in 1933 (Safranski, 211). If Heidegger felt better equipped in 1933, then the disillusion of what Nazism actually turned out to be, especially after he gave up the most intimate vocation of thinking for the sake of politics, must have been a terrible blow. Reiner Schuermann made the analogy that Heidegger’s political engagement was like a child getting his hands burned. To extend that analogy, Heidegger not only burned his hands; he also burned his soul.
          This is why it is difficult for me to see Heidegger collaborating with Krieck after he resigned as rector. Not only had he been burned (from his perspective) by his own university and the Baden ministry of education (Wacker and Fehrle), but about the same time he resigned, he got burned again – publicly humiliated – by Krieck’s ugly articles in Volk im Werden. For Heidegger to have collaborated with Krieck after this double devastation would have been tantamount to the admission that Heidegger had abandoned any sense of personal integrity. It is, of course, possible that Heidegger did collaborate with Krieck after he resigned as rector. If evidence were to be found of such a collaboration, I, for one, would certainly amend my estimation of Heidegger.
          There are, of course, Heidegger’s own denunciations. These are, to be sure, highly damaging; however, all the circumstances surrounding the denunciations are not yet known and await further clarification. Nevertheless, the fact that Heidegger participated in denunciations at all is in itself morally reprehensible.

Was there a triple alliance?

          Before returning to my correspondence with Tom Rockmore on the issue of the extent to which Heidegger collaborated with Krieck, I would like to challenge another claim which maintains that all three, Heidegger, Baeumler, and Krieck, collaborated together as a group. In his work entitled Heidegger’s Crisis: Philosophy and Politics in Nazi Germany, Hans Sluga claims that an alliance existed among Heidegger, Baeumler, and Krieck:

In opposing themselves to the powerfully conservative

   wing within German philosophy, Baeumler, Krieck, and

    Heidegger all identified with Nietzsche. The alliance they

   struck in the spring of 1933 was above all an alliance of

 Nietzschean radicals against a traditional philosophical

                                                      establishment (Sluga,151).

I questioned this claim in my review of Sluga’s book (Edler,531). To date, I have not been able to find any evidence whatsoever that supports the existence of such an alliance.
          Sluga’s statement that all three identified with Nietzsche is incorrect. Baeumler certainly did and championed Nietzsche with respect to his interpretation of National Socialism. Heidegger identified with Nietzsche too, but with strong reservations: (1) Nietzsche’s interpretation of early Greek philosophy was not able to overcome the assumptions of the 19^th Century and (2) Nietzsche’s philosophical position remains caught in metaphysics, and, thus, he was unable to go beyond those metaphysical assumptions (Nietzsche’s position is a reversal of Plato’s position). In An Introduction to Metaphysics , Heidegger says that "Nietzsche did not attain the true center of philosophy (Introduction,199). Krieck, however, did not identify with Nietzsche. Gerhard Mueller states that after 1918, Krieck thought that both traditional socialism and individualism, represented by Marx and Nietzsche respectively, were eliminated by the Great War: "According to Krieck, Nietzsche’s ‘will to power,’ the last flower on the stem of western subjectivism, proved to be the excess of bourgeois ‘Overmen’ by the end of the war" (Mueller, 208). This is very clear from the attack that Krieck wrote against Nietzsche in his article entitled "Die Ahnen des Nationalsozialismus " ( "The Forerunners of National Socialism") in Volk im Werden (1935, no. 3, 182-184). In this article, Krieck brings up quotations from Nietzsche against nationalism, quotations in favor of mixing the races, and quotations positive to the Jews. At the end of the article, Krieck summarizes by saying that "Nietzsche was a great destroyer of traditional ideologies – there where he wasn’t just fighting against phantoms. But it is no National Socialist ideology – and it does not point the way into the future for the German people" (ViW, 1935, no.3, 184 ). Thus, Krieck did not identify with Nietzsche as Sluga claims.
          The primary basis for Sluga’s claim about an alliance among Heidegger, Baeumler, and Krieck is Hugo Ott’s statement in his book Martin Heidegger: A Political Life (Martin Heidegger: Unterwegs zu seiner Biographie):

                                               Both names [Baeumler and Krieck], as we have already seen,

                                               cropped up at the beginning of April [1933] in Heidegger’s

                                               letter to Jaspers. There must have been an understanding between

                                               them based on shared political views, which lasted until their one-time

                                               alliance swiftly turned to mutual hatred and antagonism; but that did

                                               not happen until the end of the year or the early months of 1934

                                               (Ott,193).

Notice Ott’s supposition: "There must have been an understanding between them [italics mine]…." Why? Just because Heidegger may have collaborated with Krieck and also collaborated with Baeumler does not necessarily imply that all three of them must have struck an alliance.
          Sluga goes on to say that "Even though they would eventually end as bitter enemies, they [Heidegger, Baeumler, and Krieck] considered each other friends in 1933" (Sluga,144). The evidence Sluga provides for this is found in his note 46: "Heidegger explicitly mentions his friendly relations with Krieck in the fall of that year" and then cites the German edition of Ott’s biography (Sluga,271). Sluga is referring to Ott’s mention of a letter that Heidegger wrote to his ministry of education (I assume Ott means the Baden Ministry of Education) in early September, 1933, in which Heidegger stated that he would be meeting " ‘with my three friends, the rectors of Kiel [Wolf], Goettingen [Neumann], and Frankfurt [Krieck]’ " (Ott,198; Ott gives no citation for the letter itself).
          This letter may indeed show that Heidegger was still on friendly terms with Krieck in early September of 1933, but in no way does it offer any evidence that all three – Heidegger, Baeumler, and Krieck -- "considered each other friends" or that they struck an alliance. Of course, this leaves open the possibility that there was an alliance. To date, however, we must acknowledge that there is no evidence which shows that there was a friendship or an alliance among all three.
          Having said that, there is no doubt, however, that Heidegger, to one degree or another, worked with Krieck and with Baeumler in 1933. Heidegger’s friendship and collaboration with Baeumler was stronger than his friendship and collaboration with Krieck during 1933. I doubt seriously if the term ‘friendship’ can even be used to describe the relationship between Heidegger and Krieck.

Some historical background

          The earliest mention of Martin Heidegger and Ernst Krieck together at some function is in 1930 when both gave talks at the Baden celebration of its leading citizens at a congress from July 11-14. The title of the celebrants’ meeting in Karlsruhe was "Kongress der fuehrenden Badener in Wissenschaft, Kunst und Wirtschaft " (Congress of Leading Badeners in Science, Art, and Economy") (Schneeberger,9). Krieck, listed as affiliated with the Pedagogical Academy of Frankfurt, gave a talk entitled "The German Educational Ideal" ("Das deutsche Bildungsideal ") and Heidegger from the University of Freiburg gave one called "On the Essence of Truth" ("Vom Wesen der Wahrheit ") (Schneeberger,10). We do not know whether Heidegger and Krieck had any discussions, but it may have been their first encounter with each other at close range.
          Both Heidegger and Krieck had achieved a certain notoriety by 1930: Heidegger as the author of Being and Time who had returned from Marburg to take up Husserl’s chair at Freiburg in 1929, was perceived as one of the young stars of German philosophy, especially after Heidegger’s disputation with Ernst Cassirer at Davos in 1928; Krieck had made a reputation for himself as an educational radical who had come up the ranks as a school teacher. In 1917, Krieck met Arthur Moeller van den Bruck and was associated with his conservative circle (Mueller, 56-57) After the publication of Krieck’s book Philosophie der Erziehung (Philosophy of Education) in 1922, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Heidelberg which was highly unusual for someone just over forty (Mueller, 49). The man who nominated Krieck was Ernst Hoffmann ( Mueller, 49), and Heidegger in his correspondence with Jaspers did not seem to have a very high opinion of Hoffmann’s work. In 1925, Heidegger wrote the following to Jaspers (three years after Krieck was awarded the honorary doctorate):

                                                Just one more comment – your colleague Hoffmann

                                               during the Berlin conference of the Friends of the

                                               Gymnasium made such a lamentable impression

                                               that one generally posed the question of how it was

                                               possible for such a man to attain a professorship in

                                               philosophy (H/J,50).

If this reflects Heidegger’s opinion of Hoffmann, then he may well not have thought particularly well of Krieck’s honorary doctorate either. Whatever Heidegger’s opinion may have been, Carl Heinrich Becker, the Prussian Minister of Culture, offered Krieck the position of professor at the Pedagogical Academy of Frankfurt in the summer of 1928 (Mueller,77).
          More importantly, by 1931 Krieck had become a cause celebré  for the Nazis as the result of an incident that occurred on June 20, 1931, for which Krieck was punished by the new Prussian Minister of Culture, Adolph Grimme (Mueller,90). On the night of June 20 at the summer solstice celebration, Krieck gave a speech to a small circle of students from the Pedagogical Academy of Frankfurt which ended with " ‘ Heil dem Dritten Reich [Hail the Third Reich]’ "(Mueller, 88; Jerry Muller, 207-208). Grimme, who was a Social Democrat, interpreted the end of Krieck’s speech as an endorsement of the National Socialist Party. Krieck, however, meant it, apparently, in a more general sense as an allusion to Moeller van den Bruck’s "Third Reich." Krieck was suspended from the Pedagogical Academy of Frankfurt and transferred to the Pedagogical Academy of Dortmund. A large brouhaha followed in the press about the politics of the Minister of Culture and freedom of speech (Mueller,89-90).
          After Krieck’s suspension by Grimme, Alfred Baeumler organized a protest of university professors against the suspension. Thus, Krieck, who knew Baeumler from his introduction to the work of J. J. Bachofen, had a correspondence with and was supported by Alfred Baeumler in 1931. Gerhard Mueller does not mention Heidegger as one of professors who signed the protest (Mueller, 93). What is odd in all this is that later in March of 1933 when Krieck was putting together the membership for the KADH, he invited Heidegger but not Baeumler. Heidegger wrote to Krieck on two separate occasions in April of 1933 to include Baeumler (and Hans Heyse) in the KADH, Krieck apparently refused (Farias,152-153). Why Krieck refused to do so when Baeumler earlier had organized a protest on Krieck’s behalf is unclear. Was Krieck resentful of the fact that Baeumler had been offered the professorship of pedagogy and philosophy at the University of Berlin? Perhaps it wasn’t resentment, but the recognition that with the professorship in Berlin, Baeumler would become a powerful rival (Mueller, 94)? Whatever it was, it was not a momentary tiff. From the correspondence between Heidegger and Georg Ploettner, head of the science and education department of the Deutsche Studentenschaft or DSt (German Student Association), we know that Krieck was scheduled to participate with Baeumler and Heidegger in the two-day conference in Berlin (July 10-11, 1933) sponsored by the Deutsche Studentenschaft. (Farias,136-137; Ott,193,224-225). Krieck, however, withdrew from the conference and did not participate (Ott,Zeitschrift,109).
          On 1 January 1932, Krieck joined the National Socialist Teachers Union (NSLB) founded by Hans Schemm who in 1933 became the Bavarian Minister of Culture and offered Heidegger a position at the University of Munich in September, 1933 (Mueller,102;Farias, 164). Joining the National Socialist Teachers Union also made Krieck a member of the NSDAP (No. 710670) (Mueller,102). At the time, it was quite a coup for the National Socialists. This was followed by the publication of Krieck’s book Nationalpolitische Erziehung (National Political Education) which "became the standard for all questions of education for the National Socialist movement, at least in the years 1932-1934" (Jerry Muller, 104).

          Whatever the personal and professional rivalry may have been between Krieck and Baeumler as well as between Krieck and Heidegger, Krieck’s withdrawal from the conference also brings up the political conflict between the Deutsche Studentenschaft (the German Student Association; hereafter abbreviated as DSt) and the Nationalsozialistische Studentenbund (the National Socialist Student Union; hereafter abbreviated as NSDStB). The conference in Berlin on July 10-11, 1933, was sponsored by the DSt and not the NSDStB. A serious rivalry existed between the leadership of these two groups, a rivalry not recognized by Farias and Ott. Indeed, Farias and Ott confuse the two groups with each other. For example Farias when he writes about Ploettner and the DSt says that "this organization was a bastion of the SA [Sturmabteilung led by Ernst Roehm]; its most important chief, Dr. Oskar Staebel, was a man from the south like Heidegger" (Farias,136). Staebel, of course, was not the head of the DSt; rather, he was head of the National Socialist Student Union (NSDStB). Gerhard Krueger was head of the DSt (Giles, 129-130).
          On the other hand, Ott makes no distinction between the two groups. It makes no difference to Ott because both groups were under the control of National Socialism. Ott says that "Heidegger’s links with the National Socialist movement went back some time, notably via the student groups of the National Socialist German Student League (NSDStB). He was acquainted, for example, with Gerhard Krueger, the leader of the German Student Union [DSt] (which came under the de facto National Socialist control long before 1933), and with a Dr. Staebel in Karlsruhe, the area head of the NSDStB (South-West region)" (Ott,21). It is true that both student groups had become "coordinated" or aligned with National Socialism, but as Michael Stephen Steinberg says in Sabers and Brown Shirts :

                                                Rivalry between the Deutsche Studentenschaft [DST] and

                                                the National Socialist German Student Union [NSDStB] was

                                                a continuing problem for several years. To be sure, the Student

                                                Union had won control over the fortunes of the Deutsche

                                                Studentenschaft in Graz in 1931. But the leaders of the Deutsche

                                                Studentenschaft , although theoretically subject to the Student

                                                Union discipline, refused to take orders from Student Union leaders

                                                and took an independent course (Steinberg,142).

It is quite possible that Krieck could have favored the Student Union (NSDStB) rather than the DSt and did not want to participate in a conference sponsored only by the DSt.
          As Geoffery Giles states in Students and National Socialism in Germany , " the German Students’ Union [DSt] was responsible to the state and the NSDStB to the Party…." (Giles,129). This meant that the leadership of the DSt was responsible to Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick and the NSDStB to the Reichsjugendfuehrer Baldur von Schirach (head of the Hitler Youth) who was accountable to Hitler. Apparently, Baldur von Schirach’s job title changed on 17 June 1933: instead of Reichsjugendfuehrer of the NSDAP, he was now Jugendfuehrer des Deutschen Reiches (Youth Leader of the German Reich) (Koch,100) and now responsible to Interior Minister Frick and Justice Minister Franz Guertner instead of being responsible directly to Hitler (Koch,101). Thus, Frick was in a powerful position to make final decisions that affected the leadership of both the DSt and the NSDStB. The situation, however, was lopsided in the sense that the NSDStB could count on Schirach to exert pressure on Frick whereas the DSt could only count on Bernard Rust for support. Rust indeed "defended the independence of the Deutsche Studentenschaft [DSt] as the state-recognized student organization" (Steinberg,143). In the summer of 1933, however, Rust was only the Minister of Education for Prussia (a regional ministry) and, thus, was in a weaker position than Schirach. Rust did not become Reichsminister of Education (for the whole of Germany) until 1 May, 1934 (Steinberg,143; Giles,145). In addition, Schirach was aided by Dr. Robert Ley, chief of staff of the party organization (Steinberg,142-143).
          Ley and Schirach were probably jealous of Rust who had already developed a system of elite schools in the spring of 1933 called National Political Institutes of Education (Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten) designed by Joachim Haupt, Rust’s ministerial counselor:

                                              On April 30, 1933, the fuehrer’s birthday, the education

                                              minister [of Prussia], Bernhard Rust, officially presented

                                              Hitler with an unusual birthday gift in the form of an elite

                                              school system called "National Political Institutes of

                                              Education, known largely by their acronym ‘Napolas’

                                              (Fischer,351).

According to H. W. Koch, Joachim Haupt was the founder of the Napolas (Koch,180), but the name of the schools was "originally made by the NS pedagogue Ernst Kriegk [sic]" (Koch,182). There must have been some relationship between Haupt and Krieck in the spring of 1933. Additional evidence for the relationship is based on the fact that Haupt wrote a number of articles for Krieck’s journal Volk im Werden, most of which appeared in 1933.
          In relation to the Napolas, Haupt designed them (how much Krieck may have helped in the designing of the Napolas is unclear) to be identified with the state rather than with the Party:

                                              The identification of school, teachers, and pupils with the

                                              ‘state’ rather than with the National Socialist Party was to him

                                              [Haupt] most important, a choice which also illustrates the fact

                                              that at this early stage the distinction between party and state

                                              could still be made and was allowed to be made (Koch,182).

In 1933, Ley and Schirach in opposition to Rust were already planning a system of schools "separate from state institutions to produce exclusively an NSDAP elite…" (Koch,196). These were called Adolf-Hitler-Schulen (Adolf-Hitler-Schools or AHS) and the "driving forces behind the AHS were … Dr. Robert Ley and Schirach, who hoped by means of the AHS to have an effective rival instrument to Rust’s NPEA [Napolas]" (Koch,196). For Ley and Schirach, it was crucial that the DSt be placed under the control of the NSDStB so that Ley and Schirach would have control of all student organizations as they designed and carried out the building of the Adolf-Hitler-Schools.
          Schirach certainly wanted control to make sweeping changes in education: "Schirach aimed at creating also a new type of student, a new type of university, a new type of university teacher, and a new concept of the ‘body of knowledge’, in other words an overall reform of the German university structure and the contents of its teaching" (Koch,175). The personal rivalry between Schirach and Haupt must not be forgotten either. Haupt had been sympathetic to previous challenges seeking to get rid of Schirach, and Hitler had offered the leadership of the Hitler Youth to Haupt first who declined it. When Haupt designed the Napolas for Rust’s Prussian Ministry, it was no doubt a red flag for Schirach.
          But where does Krieck stand in all this? Did he side with those supporting the state or with those supporting the authority of the party? It is important to note that Georg Ploettner, head of political education and scholarship for the DSt, was the student representative to the KADH and, thus, a member of that organization (Farias,153). No representative of the NSDStB is mentioned as a member of the KADH. Oskar Staebel, national head of the NSDStB, was not listed as a member either. Thus, the KADH (with Krieck’s approval) seemed to favor the DSt. But when Heidegger joined Baeumler and Haupt to participate in the DSt conference on July 10-11, did this provoke a shift on Krieck’s part? Was Krieck’s refusal to participate in the DSt not only a refusal to participate with Heidegger and Baeumler but also a movement away from the DSt to the NSDStB?
          Nor should we forget that Alfred Baeumler took a very active and prominent role in the student book-burning in Berlin on May 10, 1933 (Schneeberger,33-35). The book-burnings were organized by the DSt independently of the NSDStB: "The Deutsche Studentenschaft assumed charge of the action [book-burnings] early in April" (Steinberg,138). Furthermore, the DSt did not inform the NSDStB about its plans:

                                                The national Deutsche Studentenschaft leadership under

                                                Gerhard Krueger nevertheless insisted that the student

                                                governments continue to play an independent role. The

                                                campaign against the un-German spirit [the book-burnings]

                                                was in part an effort by Krueger and his supporters to prove

                                                that the Deutsche Studentenschaft was a thoroughly Nazi

                                                organization and that it had an important part to play in the

                                                new university. The Student Union [NSDStB] was not

                                                immediately informed about the book-burning campaign

                                                launched independently by the Deutsche Studentenschaft

                                                (Steinberg,142).

          Indeed, all three who participated in the DSt conference of July 10-11 (Heidegger, Baeumler, and Haupt) were more interested in creative possibilities than in simply enforcing a new orthodoxy. Krieck may have withdrawn from the DSt conference for the same reason that he later joined the SS and cooperated with the SD (Sicherheitsdienst ), the Security Service of the SS: Krieck was more interested in patrolling and enforcing ideological boundaries in order to weed out "reactionaries" than in creating new possibilities. Rather than engaging his own sense of what the new possibilities were with others, he was more interested in eliminating any new possibilities that competed with his so that his own ideological pedagogy would triumph. Thus, Krieck’s withdrawal from the DSt conference could well have been a decision to affirm the power of the NSDStB over the DSt.
          Herman Nohl clearly recognized this aspect of Krieck’s pedagogy and had the courage to say so in 1935, although not as bluntly as he may have liked. Nohl saw the obsession of ensuring ideological orthodoxy that Krieck represented in education as a movement from Socrates to Plato. Socrates represented the pedagogical tendency to move from the individual to the whole while Plato represents the tendency to move from the whole to the individual (Nohl,281). Nohl claimed that in the spring of 1933, Germany moved from the Socratic form of pedagogy to the Platonic one, and identified Krieck as the leader of the latter movement insofar as Krieck starts from the whole as a total state (Nohl,283). For Nohl, a healthy education must balance both the Socratic and the Platonic tendencies. As Nohl says, "No organization and no law of the whole can replace what is lacking in the disposition and thinking of individuals" (Nohl,282). Nohl’s pedagogical institute at the University of Goettingen was dissolved, and Nohl was let go on March 3, 1937 (Becker, 209).

          It is in the midst of this kaleidoscopic context that I wish to introduce the main question of this essay: to what extent did Heidegger collaborate or cooperate with Ernst Krieck? This collaboration is based on three instances: (1) Heidegger’s participation in the KADH in which Krieck was a prime mover, (2) Heidegger’s actions in relation to the Congress or Conference of Rectors, specifically, the meeting of the Congress on June 8, 1933, where Heidegger is said to have walked out of the meeting along with Krieck and several other rectors who belonged to the KADH, and (3) Heidegger’s meeting(s) with Krieck as part of a group of four rectors (the "gang of four" as Ott called the group) during the summer and early fall of 1933.

(a) Collaboration with Krieck in the KADH

          Let me address Heidegger’s participation in the KADH first. There is no question that Heidegger participated in the KADH ( Kuturpolitische Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Hochschullehrer ). According to Farias, he was a founding member (Farias,153) and, thus, clearly agreed with the goals of the organization; however, whether Heidegger specifically collaborated with Krieck to promote these goals is another matter. Being a member of an organization clearly implies agreement with its goals, but it does not necessarily imply specific collaboration with any particular member. Indeed, there may be opposing interpretations of the goals which result in conflicts between members rather than resulting in cooperation or collaboration.
          In his 30 March 1933 letter to Elisabeth Blochmann, Heidegger refers to a meeting of the KADH in Frankfurt and says the following about Krieck:

                                               In Frankfurt, I could at first act only in a preventative capacity –

                                               in relation to the publication of a cultural-political program

                                               composed by Krieck which, in terms of its sentiment, was

                                               guided by some genuine impulses, but, on the whole, was

                                               thoroughly second-rate. Not in the sense that I’m placing any

                                               value on past "spirituality" and "cultivation" – in spite of all the

                                               masterful command of today’s phraseology, there is a lack of

                                               any knowledge about the actual magnitude and difficulty of the

                                               problem. I spoke to Krieck only fleetingly. He will never be able

                                               to overcome the reactionary feeling of the small man who has

                                               worked his way up and thus burdens his work with constraint

                                               [Unfreiheit] – in spite of this – I believe – his seriousness and

                                               his character and his experience will be of some consequence.

                                               In any case, I would set greater store by him than by the tightrope-

                                               walking opportunism of [Eduard] Spranger – (Journal,Vol.14,No.2—

                                               Vol.15,No.1, 1991,571; H/B,60-61).

Both the conflicts and the agreements with Krieck are evident here: Heidegger prevented or helped prevent the publication of Krieck’s cultural-political program because it was second-rate, and yet he saw Krieck’s revolutionary intent to transform the universities and university education as one that was guided by some genuine impulses.
          Heidegger was clearly collaborating with the KADH on the basis of his own understanding of the direction the revolution should take in relation to the universities; however, is Heidegger’s prevention of the publication of Krieck’s cultural-political program to be regarded as collaboration with Krieck? I do not think so nor would Krieck have regarded it as an instance of Heidegger’s collaborating with him. Heidegger’s prevention of the publication of his program probably sparked Krieck’s ire.
          On April 22, the day after Heidegger was elected rector, he wrote to Krieck expressing his disappointment that Baeumler and Heyse were not included in the KADH membership. In a second letter, he repeated his suggestion that Baeumler and Heyse be invited. Heidegger may have pressured Krieck at this time because he felt he was in a stronger position as rector; however, Krieck did not invite Baeumler and Heyse (Farias,152-153). This, too, can hardly be cited as an instance of collaboration, and it is hardly evidence for an "early and intense collaboration" with Krieck as Ott claims (Ott,142).
          Other differences existed as well. Whereas Krieck and his cohorts "called for the formation of a small avant-garde, an activist homogeneous group; Heidegger called for ways to increase membership" (Farias,153). Rather than giving a talk on "Research and Training" to the membership, Heidegger "preferred to see the young members take the initiative to express their wishes and needs" (Farias,154-155). Again, I do not see these instances necessarily as instances of collaboration with Krieck. Farias sees Heidegger and Krieck in the KADH "working together at this time on political convictions that coincide absolutely" (Farias,155). My question is simply this: if their political convictions coincided absolutely, why were there so many conflicts between Heidegger and Krieck in the KADH? The answer is that their political convictions, especially about university reform, did not coincide absolutely. When Heidegger in his letter to Blochmann says that "there is a lack of any knowledge about the actual magnitude and difficulty of the problem," he is referring to Krieck’s cultural-political program and the problem of re-structuring the universities.
          I agree that both Heidegger and Krieck thought (1) the liberal university system was dead, (2) that a radical transformation was needed, and (3) that National Socialism offered possibilities for university reform. Krieck had gone much further with (3): he had not only joined the Party in 1932, but Krieck saw his own philosophy of education as the official interpretation of National Socialist educational reform. He used his journal Volk im Werden as his own instrument to promote his agenda and his conception of a National Socialist university education. He also criticized and ridiculed any philosophy of education that did not conform to his own.

(b) Collaboration with Krieck in the Congress of Rectors

          When Heidegger was voted Rector of Freiburg University, he also became a member of the Congress of Rectors (also referred to as the Conference of Rectors), an organization composed only of university rectors. The sister organization of the Congress of Rectors was the Verband der deutschen Hochschulen (Association of German Universities, also referred to as the Corporation of German Universities in various texts) which was founded in 1920 as a bulwark to preserve academic freedom. It also became a bulwark against any educational reform. As Fritz Ringer says, "The newly founded Corporation of German Universities violently opposed every innovation which was proposed or actually carried out by individual reformers, political parties, or ministries. … Refusing to admit that there was anything wrong with the old school system, they took an uncompromising and often purposely disdainful stance" (Ringer,77-78,).
          The KADH was a group of National Socialist professors established, according to Bernd Martin, in competition with the Association of German Universities and as a possible alternative to it (Martin, 21). The extent of the collaboration of KADH members who also became rectors [Lothar Wolf (Kiel), Friedrich Neumann (Goettingen), Krieck (Frankfurt), and Heidegger (Freiburg)], that is, the extent to which they planned to walk out together in protest from the meeting of the Congress of Rectors on June 8, 1933, is still an open question. There is some doubt about whether Heidegger walked out with the others. Krieck’s own account of the episode in Volk im Werden does not mention Freiburg among the universities that walked out (ViW, 1933,no.3,62).
          In April of 1933, the Association of German Universities was in the process of going through "self-coordination" (Selbstgleichschaltung ), that is, changing its structure in such a way as to conform to the new ideology of the National Socialist Party. On April 22, Professor Tillmann who was head of the board of the Association of German Universities signed a statement which tried to preserve the tradition but also acknowledge a commitment to "new forms of national education" (Farias,149). Rather than face further radicalization or even elimination, the Association appealed for a meeting with Hitler to demonstrate its good faith. "The meeting was approved and planned for May 12, 1933" (Farias,150). This date cannot be correct because telegrams were sent on May 18 and 20 to Hitler in protest of the meeting. The telegrams (Heidegger sent one of them on May 20 asking for a postponement of the Association’s meeting with Hitler) would have been futile had the meeting been scheduled for May 12.
          The attempt to intervene with the meeting started on May 18 with a telegram from the DSt stating that the Association of German Universities was unworthy of a meeting with Hitler. Lothar Wolf, rector of Kiel, sided with the DSt and sent a telegram on the same day in agreement with the DSt that the meeting should be cancelled. Krieck sent a telegram to the same effect. Heidegger did not send his telegram on the 18^th nor did he seek a cancellation; rather, he asked for a postponement. Bernd Martin sees Lothar Wolf as the prime mover behind this intervention and speculates that Heidegger and Wolf (both members of the KADH) could have collaborated on the intervention prior to taking action (Martin, 29). The meeting between Hitler and the Association of German Universities did not take place; a new board was elected for the Association on June 1, 1933.
          The event that has received the most attention in terms of Heidegger’s collaboration with Krieck is the meeting of the Congress of Rectors in Berlin on 8 June 1933, but there are some conflicts here as well. After the war (19 December 1945), the denazification committee made the following statement concerning Heidegger’s involvement with the Congress of Rectors: "In the summer of 1933, Heidegger worked together closely in the Association of German Universities and during the Congress of Rectors with the rectors Wolf (Kiel), Neumann (Goettingen), and Krieck (Frankfurt). This group was considered especially radical and activist in a National Socialist sense" (Martin,200). Bernd Martin, as we have seen above, claims a possible collaboration between Heidegger and Wolf in relation to the DSt’s efforts to block a meeting between the leadership of the Association of German Universities and Hitler. Hugo Ott claims there was a collaboration among the "gang of four" (Heidegger, Neumann, Wolf, and Krieck) in relation to the activities that took place during the Congress of Rector’s meeting on 8 June 1933 (Ott,197).
          The question that day before the Congress of Rectors was whether or not to support the Association of German Universities in relation to its process of self-coordination. Bernd Martin states that Friedrich Neumann (Goettingen) proposed a new election of the Speaker of the Rectors and that the Speaker’s university be shifted from Halle to Freiburg (Martin,29). This motion failed to carry. Lothar Wolf (Kiel) then made a motion to disband the Association of German Universities. The universities of "Frankfurt (Krieck), Freiburg (Heidegger), Goettingen (Neumann), Greifswald (Meisner), and Kiel (Wolf)" all voted for disbanding the Association (Martin,29). When the vote did not carry, the rectors just mentioned got up and left the room in protest (Martin,29-30). Ott says the following about the Congress of Rectors:

                                                 In the weeks that followed … a lively correspondence developed

                                                 between Heidegger and his opposite number at Goettingen. From

                                                 this it becomes clear that this inner circle, this ‘gang of four’, plotted

                                                 together behind the scenes to overturn the majority at the Conference

                                                 of University Rectors and push through their own ideas on

                                                 educational policy, nourished by the spirit of National Socialism

                                                 (Ott,197).

Ott is claiming that from the correspondence between Neumann and Heidegger, "it becomes clear" that Heidegger collaborated with Krieck and others. First, Ott provides no reference for this correspondence. Second, I would like to know what it was in the correspondence that allowed Ott to infer Heidegger’s collaboration with Krieck. Ott does provide a letter written by Heidegger (6 September 1933) to his minister of education in which he mentions that he will " ‘attend a special meeting with my three friends and colleagues, the rectors of Kiel [Wolf], Goettingen [Neumann], and Frankfurt [Krieck]’" (Ott,198; Ott,German,190). This certainly suggests that Heidegger was still on friendly terms with Krieck in early September of 1933.
          There are, of course, things that mitigate against this view. Krieck withdrew from participating in the DSt conference of July 10-11. Bernd Martin suggests that he did so because of his differences with Heidegger (Martin,30). If this is the case, then is the term "befreundeten Rectoren " ("rectors on friendly terms") that Heidegger used in his letter of September 6 a mere surface friendship? Were there real differences below the surface, perhaps even a sense of animosity, masked by a surface collegiality?
          The basis for these questions goes back to Krieck’s own version of what happened at the Congress of Rectors meeting of June 8. In the third issue (no.3) of Volk im Werden (1933), Kieck wrote a short piece called "Von den Hochschulen " ("On the Universities") in which he defends those rectors, including himself, who walked out of the meeting in protest (ViW,1933,no.3,62-64). He lists the following universities that walked out: "Kiel, Bonn, Goettingen, and Frankfurt" (ViW,1933,no.3,62). This refers to Lothar Wolf, the rector of Kiel; the rector of Bonn; Friedrich Neumann, the rector of Goettingen; and Krieck, the rector of Frankfurt. Krieck does not list Heidegger, rector of Freiburg, nor does he mention Heidegger’s name in the article. This could mean that Heidegger did not walk out of the meeting in protest or that Krieck deliberately left Freiburg off of the list of those who walked out. If Heidegger didn’t walk out, then this contradicts Hugo Ott, Bernd Martin, and Victor Farias. If Heidegger did walk out and Krieck deliberately left him out of the account, then this tends to confirm an animosity on Krieck’s part against Heidegger as early as the end of June and tends to mitigate against an "intense collaboration" between Heidegger and Krieck.
          Farias gives no references for his claim that Heidegger walked out in protest with Krieck, Wolf, and Neumann (Farias,152). He does mention letters written on June 18 by Krieck and Wolf to J. D. Achelis who worked in the Prussian Ministry of Education. Farias says that these letters "prove that the rectors of the universities of Kiel, Frankfurt, and Goettingen had threatened to withdraw their universities from the Association [of German Universities] in order to create additional pressure in favor of a ‘true unification’ (Gleichschaltung )..." (Farias,152). The letters may prove that Wolf, Neumann, and Krieck were threatening to withdraw their universities from the Association, but Farias does not mention any letter by Heidegger and, thus, it says nothing of what Heidegger’s intentions were, much less whether he collaborated with the other rectors on this matter.
          Hugo Ott also claims that Heidegger walked out in protest:

                                                But a majority of the rectors [in the Congress of Rectors]

                                                supported the Association [of German Universities], and

                                                Heidegger was forced to rely on a few old comrades-in-

                                                arms, specifically Krieck, who was joined by the rector

                                                of Goettingen, the Germanist Friedrich Neumann, and the

                                                rector of Kiel, Lothar Wolf, who was a natural scientist….

                                                This quartet, having been defeated, left the Conference

                                                of Rectors under protest; their departure excited little notice

                                                (Ott,197).

Ott provides no references for these claims. Indeed, there are no references in the entire paragraph. In Ott’s earlier article "Martin Heidegger als Rektor der Universitaet Freiburg i. Br. 1933/34" ("Martin Heidegger as Rector of the University of Freiburg in Breisgau 1933/34"), the only reference Ott gives for the same claim that Heidegger left in protest is a letter that Neumann wrote to Wolf in the middle of the summer of 1933: " ‘Endlich scheint es mir wichtig, das wir gemeinsam (Heidegger, Krieck, Sie und ich) die Frage der Universitaetsverfassung durchsprechen, nachdem jeder von uns seine Semestererfahrung gemacht hat ’" (" ‘Finally, it seems to me important that we discuss thoroughly the question of the constitution of the university after each of us has had his experience of the semester’" (Ott, Zeitschrift,129,n.21). This letter certainly shows Neumann’s desire to have a meeting at the end of the summer, but it hardly proves that Heidegger walked out of the June 8 meeting in protest with the other rectors.

(c) Collaboration with the group of four rectors

          At least two sources exist which refer to such a planned meeting. The first occurs in Heidegger’s 19 August 1933 letter to Elisabeth Blochmann: "Aber waehrend Ihres Fr[an]kf[urter] Aufenthaltes, der wohl laenger dauert, werde ich wohl nach Homburg zu einer Zusammenkunft unserer Rekt[oren]gruppe kommen – " ("But during your stay in Frankfurt which will surely last longer, I will indeed go to Homburg for a meeting of our rectors’ group") [H/B,68]. The second reference is the one that Ott provides after Heidegger received the call to Berlin on September 4. Two days later on September 6, Heidegger writes to his minister of education – I presume this means Fehrle who was Krieck’s good friend – that he would stop at Bad Homburg "to attend a special meeting with my three friends and colleagues, the rectors of Kiel, Goettingen, and Frankfurt" (Ott,198). In other words, Heidegger would be meeting with Lothar Wolf, Friedrich Neumann, and Ernst Krieck.
          Neumann mentioned a meeting at the end of the summer semester; it is possible that the meeting mentioned in Heidegger’s 19 August 1933 letter to Blochmann is the meeting referred to in the September 6 letter to Fehrle. We do not know how many meetings there were. If it involved only one meeting at the end of summer (early September), we can say that there was some collaboration with Krieck. But if it is a matter of one meeting after the June 8 meeting of the Congress of Rectors, I would hardly call that "intense collaboration" or working "very closely" with Krieck as Ott claims (Ott,142).
          Krieck, more than any other radical pedagogue, had positioned himself well in terms of being in the right place at the right time in 1933. He had been instrumental in helping establish and promote Carl Heinrich Becker’s experimental pedagogical academies. He had made a name for himself with the publication of his Philosophy of Education (Philosophie der Erziehung, 1922) and with his National-political Education (Nationalpolitische Erziehung, 1932). When he joined the National Socialist Party in 1932, he positioned himself as the National Socialist educational reformer because the Nazi Party had no unified plan for higher education. Gerhard Mueller identifies the "leftist" or socialistic tendencies of Ernst Krieck and the NSDStB as "the decisive agent of reform" in 1933/34 prior to the execution of Ernst Roehm and many others on 30 June 1934 (Mueller,117).
          We can now begin to see why Krieck may have had some antipathy toward Heidegger and why Krieck attacked him so viciously later in the spring of 1934. Here was Heidegger, an unknown in terms of university politics and pedagogy, entering the political arena. Krieck had marked it off as "his turf." Heidegger was a philosopher’s philosopher, and yet he had a mesmerizing effect on students. Here was a radical philosopher who could relate directly to radical students: a dangerous combination for Krieck’s political intention of becoming the National Socialist educator and reformer. Once Krieck had Heidegger as a member of the KADH, he may have thought he could exert a measure of control over him since Krieck more or less controlled the KADH. But such was not the case.

          Heidegger, already a member of the KADH in late March, was voted rector on April 21,1933 (Ott,147). He immediately pursued his own course. Not only did he send letters to Krieck indirectly expressed his disappointment in Krieck’s leadership for not inviting Baeumler and Heyse, but on April 24 he also wrote to Georg Ploetner, head of the education division of the DSt and student representative to the KADH, to suggest a DSt training conference on education (Farias,136). On May 23, 1933, Ploettner responded favorably to Heidegger’s suggestion. Ploettner presented a program which included "the participation of Baeumler and Krieck" (Farias,136-137).
          This proposal involved a training conference for the entire leadership of the DSt on July 10-11, 1933; it is important to see this as Heidegger’s initiative apart from Krieck and the KADH. We must remember that 9 of the 13 founding members of the KADH were from the University of Frankfurt and, thus, the group weighed heavily in Krieck’s favor (Farias,153). Heidegger not only wanted to open up the KADH to more members, but he also proposed "to organize an open meeting for several days during which this theme [research and teaching], ‘decisive for the clarification and consolidation of our society,’ could be treated" (Farias,155). If Krieck was unwilling to let Baeumler and Heyse join and unwilling to have a more open dialogue, then Heidegger would set up his own conference through the DSt in which not only all three (Heidegger, Baeumler, Krieck) could participate but in which the entire leadership of the DSt could participate as well. Instead of a closed dialogue among professors with one student repesentative as Krieck wanted, Heidegger proposed an open dialogue among all student leaders.
          If Krieck was aligned with the NSDStB, as Mueller suggests, then Heidegger was taking up with a rival organization , the DSt, just at the time when the rivalry was intensifying. In my view, Krieck’s strategy was the following: he intended to "bottle up" the university leadership in such a way that the Party would have no other choice but to choose his pedagogy as the canonical interpretation of National Socialist educational reform. Heidegger, however, was beginning to spoil things by establishing an alternative through the DSt and with rivals such as Baeumler as well as with ministerial counselors such as Joachim Haupt and J. D. Achelis.
          If Krieck had participated in the DSt conference, he would be participating in an initiative that Heidegger had started. This presented Krieck with the following dilemma: either he could stay within his area of control and the KADH or open up to this new initiative which he might not be able to capture under his leadership. Moreover, by participating in the DSt conference, Krieck would be putting Heidegger and Baeumler on a par with him in the sense that they would be regarded as equals to him in terms of university reform. By withdrawing from the conference, he also preserved his relationship with the NSDStB. To attend a conference sponsored by the DSt in the summer of 1933 would have been tantamount to a betrayal of the leadership of the NSDStB.
          Even if Krieck did meet with Heidegger in the late summer and early fall of 1933 as part of the group of four rectors after the DSt conference, it could not have been as intense collaborators. Heidegger had made his move from the KADH to the DSt (and to Baeumler and Haupt). Krieck by this time must have been wary of Heidegger.

          After the Berlin conference of July 10-11, the DSt had established itself as a force to be reckoned with by including such heavyweights as Heidegger, Baeumler, and Haupt. At the conference, Heidegger had announced his new conception of a Wissenschaftslager (academic camp), and his work was in great demand (Moehling,37). In a letter to Ploettner (9 July 1933), Heidegger invited him to the camp: "I hope that we will see each other during vacation. The Todenberg [Todtnauberg] … camp is in preparation" (Moehling,36). The Todtnauberg camp took place October 4-10, 1933 (Ott,228).
          In the latter part of the summer, however, things were heating up between the DSt and the NSDStB. On July 4, 1933, shortly before the DSt conference, Oskar Staebel, head of the NSDStB, "issued an order to his organization giving Student Union [NSDStB] officers control over Deutsche Studentenschaft officers at all levels. Krueger issued a counterorder which insisted on continued independence at least until the Party and state should rule otherwise" (Steinberg,143). Krueger’s refusal to knuckle under to the NSDStB drew the wrath of Baldur von Schirach, Staebel’s superior (Giles,134). Krueger continued to steer the DSt on its own path:

                                                 Yet the latter [Krueger] refused to be cowed and

                                                 announced to his DSt leaders at the Annual Conference

                                                 at Aachen in July 1933 [actually August 6-7 (Schneeberger,

                                                 106-107)] his own political plans for the following

                                                 semester. In the future, all freshmen were to be assembled in

                                                 residential communities (to be known as Kameradschaften )

                                                 for the purpose of intense ideological training (Giles,134).

At the Aachen conference, both Baeumler and Haupt attended and gave speeches as they had done on July 10-11. Heidegger, however, did not attend (Schneeberger,107-110). Why Heidegger did not attend is unclear.
          After the Aachen conference, it was Baldur von Schirach who brought down the leadership of the DSt. Krueger had appointed his own successor which he was allowed to do, but he didn’t consult with Interior Minister Frick and, thus, was accused of insubordination:

                                                  Immediately Schirach complained to Interior Minister

                                                  Frick that the leader principle was being violated, since

                                                  Frick had not been consulted about the appointment,

                                                  though he was Krueger’s superior. Frick was persuaded

                                                  to sack Krueger and make Staebel the leader of both

                                                  student organizations (Giles,134).

As Michael Steven Steinberg says, "Unable to prevent interference by the Student Union [NSDStB] in student government affairs, Krueger and the two Deutsche Studentenschaft elders in the national leadership resigned their posts at the end of August" (Steinberg,143). I assume this included Georg Ploettner, but I am not certain. The DSt leadership, however, did not go down without a fight:

                                                  Indeed Schirach succeeded in raising the ire of the

                                                  Interior Minister so thoroughly that Frick ordered the

                                                  Berlin Police President to arrest Krueger for insub-

                                                  ordination. Staebel, an SA officer, provided the assis-

                                                  tance of an SA unit for this dramatic gesture. Krueger,

                                                  who had been warned of his impending arrest, sent

                                                  word to Ernst Roehm. The SA chief [Roehm] was so

                                                  furious with Schirach’s machinations that he arrested

                                                  Staebel, called out two brigades of Berlin storm troopers,

                                                  and threatened to occupy the Interior Ministry if Krueger

                                                  were not immediately released. Only the hurried return

                                                  of Hitler to Berlin prevented Frick’s resignation and

                                                  further unpleasantness. The situation was no less tense

                                                  at the Berlin University student offices, where rival factions

                                                  faced each other with drawn pistols (Giles,134-135).

When the dust settled, Staebel emerged as the victor; Frick sacked Krueger and made Staebel head of both the DSt and the NSDStB (Steinberg,143; Giles,135). Clearly, Hitler’s decision supported Frick and not Roehm.
          About the same time this was going on in late August, Heidegger wrote a letter to Elisabeth Blochmann (30 August 1933) in which he expressed his concerns about the role of students in university government: "Much will be decided this winter concerning the German university, above all whether or not the student body will be successful in gaining a share of the power educationally and spiritually – instead of always just blindly affirming whatever happens to be on their minds (Journal,Vol.14,no.2-Vol.15,no.1,574; H/B,70). Clearly, Heidegger wanted students to have greater power and greater responsibility in decision-making in the university. What was in fact happening, however, was that the leadership of the more socialist DSt was being placed under the leadership of the NSDStB, and thus under the leadership of the Party. Although we do not know what Heidegger’s reaction was to the downfall of the DSt leadership and its loss of independence, I think it is safe to assume that it was negative.
          Later when Bernard Rust was made Reichsminister of Education (1 May 1934), the DSt was placed under his ministry, and he evened the score with Staebel:

                                                Bernard Rust, the Minister, was anxious to establish as wide

                                                a power base as possible for the ministry, and took umbrage

                                                at the de facto Party suzerainty (through the NSDStB) over

                                                the state-controlled and subsidized DSt, which had now

                                                fallen under his own jurisdiction. Rust forced Staebel to hand

                                                over the DSt leadership to a deputy and refused to have any-

                                                thing more to do with him (Giles 2,169).

I bring up Rust again because little scholarly work has been done on him. He is generally characterized as a weak minister who tended to knuckle under to stronger members of the upper Nazi eschalon such as Goebbels, Hess, Ley, and Himmler.
          The clash between the DSt and the NSDStB (while Rust was Prussian Minister of Education) was not a brushfire. An incident in which the Interior Minister threatens to resign, the chief of the SA (Roehm) calls out two brigades of storm troopers and threatens to occupy Frick’s ministry, student leaders stand at gun point to one another, and Hitler has to rush back to Berlin, is hardly a brushfire. I would call it a major explosion. Hitler defused the immediate situation and decided in favor of Frick. Nevertheless, Hitler also tried to appease Roehm: "On 9 September 1933, Hitler issued an order for the creation of university SA offices at all universities" (Steinberg,147).
          What were the political results of this decision to put the DSt under the power of the Party rather than the state? The leadership of the DSt was now controlled by Staebel who in turn was responsible to Schirach. Bernhard Rust and Hans Schemm would no longer have any power over their own DSt organizations in Prussia and Bavaria respectively. In terms of the planning of the Adolf-Hitler-Schools, Ley and Schirach would be in control of all DSt initiatives. It was an early example of an increasingly obvious trend that when there was a conflict between the state and the Party, the Party won.

          Joachim Haupt, then 33 years old, was one of the speakers at the DSt conference along with Heidegger, Baeumler, Walter Voigtlaender (Dresden), and Claus Wilhelm Rath (Frankfurt) (Schneeberger,77). No other members of the KADH participated except Heidegger and Ploettner. Haupt was a Ministerialrat , ministerial counselor, in Rust’s Prussian Ministry of Education. As I mentioned above, Haupt designed the Napolas with some input perhaps from Krieck, but Haupt was quite capable of doing his own designing.
          After belonging to the Youth Movement (Freikorps ), Haupt worked his way through the university doing assorted blue-collar work and studying philosophy and history at Frankfurt, Greifswald, and Kiel (Braeninger, 59-60). In 1927 Haupt, as the Kiel NSDStB leader, was involved in the donneybrook between Wilhelm Tempel and Baldur von Schirach for the leadership of the NSDStB (Sabers,76). Schirach took over the leadership of NSDStB only after Haupt turned down Hitler’s offer of the leadership (Braeuninger,64-65).
          In 1929, Haupt finished his dissertation under Hans Freyer at the University of Leipzig. Werner Braeuninger states that it would be incorrect to view Haupt as a conservative revolutionary because for Haupt the terminology itself implied a lack of unity between word and deed. Haupt agreed with Ernst Juenger’s criticism of the conservative revolution (Braeuninger,64). Haupt and Freyer, however, do share the belief that the primary emphasis of the revolution was the liberation of the Volk from liberalism in order to find its true identity. There had to be a revolution from below. In 1924, Haupt in an article stated that

                                                  Those of us who believe in the Volk [wir Voelkischen]

                                                  want a radical transformation [Umwaelzung ], that is,

                                                  a throwing off [Abwaelzung ] of the foreign rubbish heap;

                                                  we are revolutionaries from the ground up. But not those

                                                  with coarse cries for blood, red-peaked caps, and

                                                  proletarian world-revolution … We don’t want anything

                                                  new at all, but rather what is primordial [Uralte ]: our Volk

                                                  (Braeuninger,63).

By 1930, Haupt was the head of the NSDStB of northern Germany and a "palace rebellion" had begun brewing against Baldur von Schirach spearheaded by Reinhard Sunkel and Ernst Anrich, friends of Haupt. (Braeuninger,65). Sunkel took his case directly to Hitler. Gregor Strasser wanted to see Haupt take over the leadership; however, Hitler supported Schirach and in his response to Sunkel Hitler said the following:

                                                 I don’t want folk [voelkischen ] staff officers, but leaders

                                                 [Fuehrer ] who get to know the mass movement through

                                                 practical service… we have no time for the education of

                                                 leaders who are well-developed mentally and spiritually

                                                 because we are in a time of gigantic change … That is our

                                                 task, not sitting down to pursue greater mental and

                                                 spiritual depth. Later, yes, when we are in possession of

                                                 power (Braeuninger 2,5).

Many thought Hitler meant what he said about deepening the revolution once the Party attained power. They were sadly mistaken. Heidegger and Haupt belong to this category. Nevertheless, Hitler offered Haupt the leadership of the Hitler Youth, but Haupt turned it down, and Hitler appointed Schirach to the position (Braeuninger,65).
          Although Haupt was sympathetic to Gregor Strasser, he did not side with Strasser when Strasser’s relationship with Hitler reached its crisis in December of 1932, and Strasser withdrew from the Party. In January, 1933, Haupt visited Gregor Strasser in Berlin (a definite "no-no"). Strasser told Haupt during their conversation that "He [Strasser] … believed that Hitler and his circle were not capable of governing. He declared this to me personally when I visited him (near the Potsdam Bridge) in January, 1933, when the conflict between himself and the Hitler-group had become public (Braeuninger,66). After 1930, Haupt taught at Ploen where he was relieved of his duties because of his National Socialist activities. After a stint in the Prussian government as a member of the Landestag, Haupt in 1933 moved to Rust’s Prussian Ministry of Education (Braeuninger, 65-66).
          During the time of the early 30s, Haupt "had developed a basic model of thinking in relation to an NS cultural program and the concept of a ‘national education’" (Braeuninger,66). No doubt, this became the basis of the Napolas that Haupt designed. Interestingly, Braeuninger states that "Haupt was too outspoken and candid [zu offen] to find his sustenance only in a political organization. He also made connections to the Stefan George circle and to Martin Heidegger" (Braeuninger,66). Unfortunately, Braeuninger does not elaborate on the connection between Haupt and Heidegger.

(a) Haupt and Heidegger

          When Heidegger, Haupt, and Baeumler met and participated in the DSt conference of July 10-11, 1933, they represented what may be called the "Greek wing" of the National Socialist educational reformers. I call them the "Greek wing" because all three had a deep and abiding interest in the ancient Greeks and, more importantly, all three believed an understanding of the Greeks not only played a crucial role in understanding the revolution that was taking place, but also in guiding the direction of educational reform. Hans Heyse belonged to this group as well and even Hans Freyer, although Freyer as a revolutionary conservative was more wary of the National Socialist Party (he never joined the Party [Jerry Muller,322]). Nevertheless, as early as 1927, Freyer gave a talk entitled "The Meaning of the Greek Polis" which drew implicit parallels to the possibility of a "radical break with Christianity and liberalism and the creation of a new German state on the model of the Greek polis, founded upon a Staatsmythus of German soil, history, and the Volk " (Jerry Muller,187-188).
          Heidegger, of course, already knew Baeumler. I have written elsewhere about their relationship (Edler 2). Here I would like to focus on the significance of the Greeks for Haupt’s interpretation of the revolution and educational reform and the extent to which his works show influences of or parallels to Heidegger.
          Haupt wrote a number of articles for Krieck’s journal Volk im Werden most of which appear in 1933 (nos. 2, 3, and 4) and at least one article in 1934 (no. 4). After the latter article, Haupt did not publish any more articles in the 1934 volume of Volk im Werden (this includes nos. 4-8). Nor did he publish any articles in the first three issues of the 1935 volume. Haupt’s publishing record with Volk im Werden reveals perhaps a cooling of the relationship between Haupt and Krieck precisely at the time Krieck begins his own highly critical pieces on Heidegger.
          In one of Haupt’s articles in Volk im Werden entitled "Der nationalsozialistische Gymnasium " ("The National Socialist High School") which appeared in the fourth issue (no. 4) of the1933 volume, he clearly states the importance of the Greeks for high school reforms:

                                                 Just as bourgeois philosophy [and] the aesthetic

                                                 Victorianism of German Idealism perceived the Greeks

                                                 only in relation to their art, just as the materialism of the

                                                 19^th Century perceived the Greeks primarily in relation to

                                                  their economy, so too will the national socialistic high

                                                  school discover the authentic focal point of its life once

                                                  again in relation to the Greeks: the polis and the political

                                                  form of life as it stands before us [vor uns steht ] in the

                                                  reality and the consciousness of the Greeks in Sparta and

                                                  Athens, in Thebes and in Plato’s republic (ViW,1933,no.4,53-54).

This article came out in September or in early October of 1933, four months or so after Heidegger’s rectoral address. Haupt’s claim that the polis and the political form of life stands before us certainly echoes what Heidegger said in his rectoral address: "The beginning [of Greek philosophy] still is. It does not lie behind us, as something that was long ago, but stands before us [steht vor uns ] (Neske,8; SdU,12-13). What is clear is that when Haupt designed the Napolas in the early part of 1933, he drew on his understanding of the Greeks as a basis and guide for the design.
          The Greeks show up emphatically in Haupt’s book entitled Sinnwandel der formalen Bildung (Transformation of Formal Education ,1935). It is important to note that this was the last work Haupt published as a member of the Nazi Party. He was arrested in October of 1935, thrown in jail for two months, released in December of 1935, put on trial in 1937, and finally drummed out of the Party on June 23, 1938 (Braeuninger, 75-76). More on this in relation to Krieck’s "Heidelberg circle" and the SD (Sicherheitsdienst ) can be found in the next subsection.
          In his book, Haupt states that the main task of the National Socialist educational reform "consists in the rescue and restoration of the cultural heredity [Erbes ] of the Nordic Greeks and Germans in opposition to the innundations and invasions of the Near Eastern, Hellenistic, and Roman conceptual spirit that is hostile to life" (Sinn,27). Here Haupt is very much in agreement with Alfred Baeumler and in some ways with Heidegger too insofar as Heidegger believed that the Roman translation of fundamental Greek terms severely restricted their meanings. Baeumler sees the agreement between Greeks and Germans based primarily on a shared spirit (Geist ) of heroic enthusiasm (Maennerbund,146-147). For Haupt, the decisive theme that the history of the German Volk shares with the Greek is "the struggle for true being [wahre Sein ], for the shaping of the idea inborn in the Volk and its life" (Sinn,24).
          Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to examine the complex background of the Youth Movement, the Wandervoegel , the Stefan George circle, Ludwig Klages, and the concepts of eros and Bund which informs Haupt’s work, it is clear that the concepts of eros and Bund play a central role for Haupt in the German spirit emerging in the form of the National Socialist revolution. In 1924, Haupt wrote that "Others talk about forms of the state and parties; we talk about the Volk and what we mean is the soul-and-blood community that lives under the holy sign of eros, unconsciously bound together by religion and custom through a volkisch style that has been repressed since the days of Tacitus" (Braeuninger,63).
          This repressed Volk that is to be liberated by the revolution is Haupt’s version of the secret Germany (das geheime Deutschland ) set forth in Stefan George’s poetry and elaborated by Norbert von Hellingrath in his essays on Hoelderlin:

                                                  I call us the "people of Hoelderlin" because it is of the

                                                  very essence of the German character that its innermost

                                                  burning core should become manifest at an infinite distance

                                                  below its surface crust of slag, manifest only in a secret

                                                  Germany [in einem geheimen Deutschland ] (Hellingrath,16-17).

Of course, Hellingrath identified the secret Germany with language in the sense that language is the soul or inner core of a people (Edler 3, 212). For Haupt, however, the secret Germany goes beyond language to race.
          In a pivotal chapter entitled "Rasse und Sprache " ("Race and Language"), Haupt talks about the significance of the turn (Wendung ) from language to race in relation to the National Socialist revolution (Sinn,68). Before doing so, it is important to review two claims Haupt makes about the relationship between language and reality, between signifier and signified. The first claim is that language as a system of signifiers had become disconnected from the reality it signified. This development took place in the course of history from Athens to Alexandria (Sinn,68). The second claim is that once the binding between language and reality is broken, language as a closed system of signs becomes hegemonic over reality (Sinn,69). Here we find the source of Haupt’s criticism of the Enlightenment, of liberalism, capitalism, Judaism, Christianity, and modern scientific rationalism. In one way or another, they are all closed systems of signifiers, conceptual counters which no longer show us or bring us closer to living reality. We can even lose our simple capabilities of seeing and hearing as well as "instinctual judging and perceiving" (Sinn,6).
          According to Haupt, what makes matters worse is that the above systems of signifiers are all foreign to the German Volk. What to do? How does the turn from language to race in the National Socialist revolution provide a way to remedy the situation? How is the "organic" to be rescued from the "mechanical"? Haupt says

                                                  All that is needed is to retrace again the course of the

                                                  conceptual spirit in its full development and refinement

                                                  back to its origin, to the emergence of the concept as

                                                  as signifier which does point to a reality. It then turns out

                                                  that the word-signs, as all other signs, want to show a

                                                  direction, not toward new sign or signifiers, but towards a

                                                  designated reality. But this reality in turn cannot be seen

                                                  with the faculty of sign-formation, thus not with the ability of

                                                  conceptualization, but rather it must, in the actual sense of

                                                  the word, be seen (Sinn,69).

Haupt thus implies some sort of historical deconstruction of sign-systems back to their origins. He certainly has origins in mind when he states that "It is a matter of rediscovering the spirit of the preSocratics and also the spirit of the Nordic sagas, knighthood, or also the German Youth Movement, a spirit that has been discovered again and again in the last century dominated by the Enlightenment by highly gifted individual men such as Hoelderlin, Carus, Bachofen, Lagarde, Langbehn, Nietzsche, and today by Klages" (Sinn,70). 
          What Haupt assumes is that a tracing back or deconstruction of signifiers back to their original significations, and, thus, back to what they originally signified, brings us back to an original experience where signifier and signified are organically related. In other words, this tracing back or retrieval strips away systems of signifiers disconnected from reality until an original level is reached where signifier and signified (language and reality) are organically (racially) related.
          The primary Greek philosopher who was to be reinterpreted along these lines was Socrates. This holds true for both Haupt and Hans Heyse. Although Haupt sees the National Socialist revolution as an event that marks the end of the Enlightenment and the beginning of a " new epoch of German history" (Sinn,5), he wants to retain the Socratic dialogue "as a fundamental form of pedagogy" (Sinn,11). This is rather remarkable because Socrates is traditionally associated with the establishment of abstract universal concepts. Since the main criticism of liberalism and the Enlightenment by National Socialist and conservative critics was based on the notion that the abstract conceptual schemas of the Enlightenment were no longer connected to living reality, a criticism that goes back to Nietzsche, it would seem that Socrates would be included in this criticism as the founder of abstract definitions.
          What Haupt wants to get rid of is not the Socratic dialogue but the Enlightenment version of it which he calls "parliamentary discussion" ("<