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" ("parlamentarische Diskussion ")(Sinn,11). This derivative version of the Socratic dialogue is no longer concerned with "summoning forth the hidden mystery [das verborgene Geheimnis ] out of the depths of the soul by way of an intimate communication with a neighboring soul; rather, what is supposed to be found [in parliamentary discussion] from among all the competing opinions and from the counting up of the majority is a kind of public opinion and truth" (Sinn,11). For Haupt, this form of parliamentary discussion "develops along intellectual lines a common opinion which does not in the least reach into the depths of what Socrates, of what Nietzsche and Kleist wanted to attain through the dialogue" (Sinn,11).
          If Socrates is not to be associated with abstract universal concepts, how does Haupt understand the Socratic dialogue? This is of crucial importance because it concerns the question of logic and how logic is related to the National Socialist revolution. If Haupt wants to retain the Socratic dialogue as a fundamental form of pedagogy within the National Socialist revolution, then he must somehow show that the purpose of the Socratic dialogue is not to establish abstract universal concepts disconnected from life.
          Haupt tries to show this by claiming that Greek philosophical thinking was organically connected to life. He quotes from Hans Heyse’s essay "The Idea of Science and the University" ("Idee der Wissenschaft und Universitaet ") which affirmed the existentiality of Greek religion, tragedy, and philosophy. In his denazification proceedings, Heyse said that he had had long talks with Heidegger in the spring of 1933 and that they were both convinced that the movement had great significance for Germany but that it also needed spiritual development (Becker,185). Haupt goes on to say the following:

                                                 The Greek and German spirit is best understood in

                                                 relation to the essence of the idea which originally

                                                 is the inner and primordial image [das Inbild und

                                                 Urbild ], the developmental law of an organic formation.

                                                 For Aristotle, the form is still the indwelling formative law

                                                 in organic material or material that is to be organized; thus,

                                                 the idea and spirit of the Greeks lives as sensible meaning

                                                 in the sensible gestalt (Sinn,25).

Although Heidegger and Haupt are vaguely similar in the sense that they both call for something like a deconstruction of concepts back to Greek origins, they are not so similar beneath the surface in that Haupt anchors the originary experience in organic being (race) whereas Heidegger does not. Moreover, Haupt understands language "as an expression of the Volk-soul" (Sinn, 94). For Haupt, it is not language that shapes the Volk, but rather "the Volk that shapes the language" (Sinn,94).
          As much as there may be an agreement on the surface between Haupt and Heidegger that the Greeks are important, there is a fundamental disagreement about logic, language, and Volk-soul. Haupt tends to throw logic out the window along with the abstract conceptuality of liberalism which he sees as disconnected from life. However, just because the abstractness of logic may alienate someone from life, that in itself is not an argument against the truth of logic.
          In his first course in 1934 after stepping down from the rectorate, Heidegger engaged directly the question of logic. No doubt Heidegger wanted to shake logic to its foundations, but this fundamental questioning of logic does not throw logic out the window; rather, it thinks along with it into its own foundations. Those who were opposed to logic think that Heidegger is on their side because of the revolutionary position Heidegger takes, but Heidegger clearly states that this is a false perception:

                                                 Indeed, it seems as though the opponents of

                                                 logic occupy a position of superiority and go

                                                 along with us. But this is a mistake [Taeuschung ].

                                                 nothing is accomplished when one rejects logic

                                                 as an empty canon of rules. The fact that one evades

                                                 [aus dem Wege geht ] matters of the spirit does not

                                                 mean they are overcome; they come back without

                                                 our wanting it with even greater power (GA 38,8).

The following semester (the winter semester of 1934-35) when Haupt may well have been writing his book, Heidegger took Haupt’s (and Rosenberg’s) view of language to task.
          Rosenberg and Haupt shared the same view of language as the expression of a Volk-soul grounded in race. Heidegger vehemently criticized the whole notion of art as the expression of experience, whether it was the expression more directly of a racial soul (Rosenberg) or the expression of a Volk-soul (Haupt). For Heidegger, "This whole way of thinking in all its forms is profoundly untrue and lacks essence" (GA 39,27).
          For Heidegger, language is not simply an ability or tool that human beings possess or have; rather, it is language which has or possesses human being (GA 39,67): "language as such constitutes the original essence of the historical being of man" (GA 39,67). Thus, human being and the Volk do not shape language like some sort of product. Even Haupt saw the danger of this view when he says near the end of his book that "the national socialistic bearing [Haltung] means a kind of human formation and not the education of an instrument for limited purposes" (Sinn,105).

(b) Haupt’s Arrest , Krieck’s Heidelberg Circle, and the SD

          As a National Socialist, Haupt was an idealist and a maverick who wanted to maintain his independence in the Party. Of course, it eventually caught up with him. At the beginning of 1935, a police action was taken in relation to homosexual activities between teachers and students at the Napola of Schulforta (Braeuninger,75). The office behind the investigation was the SD (Sicherheitsdienst ), the Security Service of the SS headed by Reinhard Heydrich. According to Braeuninger, Himmler once arrived at a Napola conference unannounced, and Haupt did not greet or acknowledge him (Braeuninger,75). Haupt’s snub of Himmler may have come back to haunt him. It is not known whether Himmler directed Heydrich to "get" Haupt, that is, whether Haupt was the ultimate target of the investigation.
          Nevertheless, during a house search of one of the teachers (Paul Hanfried Dietrich), four letters from Haupt to Dietrich were found by Reinhard Hoehn who was "head of the Zentralabteilung II/2 in the SD headquarters in Berlin" (Braeuninger,75; Jerry Muller,272-273). Hoehn, a close friend of Krieck, was "responsible for ‘Gegnerforschung ’ (research on enemies) and for reporting on opinion within broad areas of German life. Among his primary concerns was ensuring the ideological orthodoxy of the German professoriate" (Jerry Muller,272-273).
          The whole affair brings up the question of Krieck’s and Krieck’s friends’ relationship to the SD in the SS. Let me backtrack for a moment. Krieck who as rector of the University of Frankfurt had had a difficult time trying to tame the "red" university, received a call on January 13,1934, to the University of Heidelberg (Heiber,460). Krieck had been in office as rector of the University of Frankfurt for only about 8 months. There was talk of closing the university if he left. Krieck accepted the call to Heidelberg as early as January 19, 1934, but Rust did not officially discharge him from Frankfurt until April 4. On April 12, 1934, Krieck transferred the rectorship at Frankfurt and on the following June 9, Krieck gave his inaugural address as a Heidelberg faculty member (Heiber,462).
          Hugo Ott seems to think that Krieck retired from politics after his move to Heidelberg:

                                              But who was Krieck anyway? And who paid any attention

                                              to Volk im Werden ? We know that Krieck, a ‘jumped-up

                                              primary school master,’ soon disappeared from the political

                                              scene when he became a professor at Heidelberg; as one of

                                              the ‘old guard’ he was treated with a certain dutiful deference,

                                              but it was as much as the Party could do to pay its respects

                                              on the appropriate anniversaries (Ott,254).

This is news to me.
          Reinhard Hoehn who had done his doctoral studies in law was also teaching at Heidelberg in the summer of 1934 (Mueller,118; Jerry Muller,251) and had already joined the SS in the autumn of 1933 (Jerry Muller,251). Krieck and Hoehn by this time were already very well acquainted from their collaboration together in their attempt to take over the German Sociological Association in the fall of 1933. Krieck, Hoehn, and a number of others set up an alternate conference to the German Sociological Association’s conference in order to force the coordination (Gleichschaltung ) of the Association. Hoehn organized the renegade conference and also delivered a paper at that conference which convened on January 6-7, 1934. Krieck who had been an ardent admirer of Freyer (Jerry Muller,250-251) was keenly disappointed with him. After being elected as president of the German Sociological Association with the help of Krieck and other radical National Socialist members, Freyer agreed with more conservative members to shut down the Association (Jerry Muller,246-254). Gerhard Mueller states that Hoehn had been a disciple of Krieck since 1930 and remained one thereafter (Mueller,118).
          After Hoehn, Krieck also joined the SS late in 1934 or early in 1935 and functioned as a referent for recommendations in science and scholarship for the SD (Mueller,118). Thus, Hoehn became the "point man" for Krieck and his circle of friends at Heidelberg. Besides Krieck and Hoehn, this circle included Gustav Adolph Scheel, another of Krieck’s close friends at Heidelberg who was recruited for the SD by Hoehn in 1935 (Franz-Willing,15-16,79). Scheel became Reichsstudentenfuehrer for both the NSDStB and the DSt in 1936. Heidegger also mentions him in "The Rectorate: Facts and Thoughts" as the student leader who grinned when Heidegger turned in his resignation during his so-called confrontation with Wacker and Fehrle over the appointment of deans at Freiburg (Neske,28). Another close friend of Krieck was Franz Alfred Six who was also recruited into the SD by Hoehn. Six later took over the editorship of Volk in Werden and when Hoehn himself was denounced at the end of 1937, Six took over his position in the SD (Mueller,495,n.502). In his book on Hans Freyer, Jerry Z. Muller makes the following assessment of Hoehn: "As a man who enjoyed Himmler’s personal confidence, and with the power of the SS to back up his recommendations, Hoehn became one of the most feared figures in the cultural apparatus of the Third Reich" (Jerry Muller,273). Hoehn was responsible not only for the denunciation of Haupt as a homosexual but also for opening Freyer’s personal correspondence (Jerry Muller,272-273) as well as the downfall of Carl Schmitt (Jerry Muller,273,n.21).
          Krieck clearly saw his own membership in the SS and his close association to his disciples in the SD (Hoehn, Scheel, and Six) as a way to eliminate political opponents in education in order to clear the way for his own educational reforms. Krieck and Hoehn certainly had their revenge on Freyer and his circle of friends among whom were Theodor Litt, Joachim Wach, Felix Krueger, and Carl Schmitt (Jerry Muller,280-285). Tactics included denunciations, harassment, and even the removal of Krueger from his position as rector of Leibzig University because Krueger was not of pure Aryan background (Jerry Muller,284).
          Thus, it is hardly the case as Ott claims that Krieck withdrew from politics after he went to the University of Heidelberg. Actually, he was as involved as ever. The difference is that it could now be done "quietly" behind the scenes through Krieck’s friends in the SD. Krieck and his circle operated this way from 1935 to 1938. In addition, we mustn’t forget that Krieck became rector of Heidelberg University on April 1, 1937 (Mueller,Krieck,128-129). One of the major problems in this area is that little research has been done on how Krieck, Hoehn, Scheel, and Six functioned together in relation to the SD.

          Between the end of August when the DSt leadership was sacked and September 22 when Staebel was appointed to take over the DSt, Heidegger received two offers for appointments: a call from Rust to Berlin on September 4 (H/B,71) and a call from Schemm to the University of Munich on September 5 (Farias,164). That the calls were so close together and came closely on the heels of the downfall of the DSt, does not seem mere coincidence. Were Heidegger’s calls to Berlin and Munich part of Rust’s and Schemm’s response to the loss of the DSt, a kind of rebuttal to Frick and Schirach? Did it amount to something like the following: if you take away our student organization, then we’ll elevate those professors who helped the DSt to higher, more prestigious positions? Heidegger finds out, for example, that he is being considered for the directorship of the Prussian Academy of University Professors from Achelis in September of 1933.
          Rust may even have thought he was doing Heidegger a favor by offering him a way out of Baden. Dr. Otto Wacker, Heidegger’s minister of culture in Baden, relied upon Frick; Wacker’s minister of education, Eugene Fehrle, was very close to Krieck. In addition, Wacker had filled ministry positions with Krieck’s cronies (Mueller,117). There was no way Heidegger could institute his own university reforms in Freiberg when the deck was stacked against him in his own ministry; hence, the offers by Rust and Schemm would have allowed him not only to move out of Baden but also to continue his university reform in a more ‘hospitable’ environment. Alfred Baeumler’s letter of reference (Gutachen ) for Heidegger must have been written for the directorship of the above academy.
          Hugo Ott in his biography of Heidegger does not venture a guess as to when the Krieck-Jaensch opposition to Heidegger began. He picks up the opposition after it is well established: "One thing is surely clear: an anti-Heidegger group existed within the Party by the spring of 1934 at the latest, led by his former colleague Erich Jaensch and Ernst Krieck" (Ott,254). Farias brings up Jaensch’s letter denouncing Heidegger in the context of Hans Schemm’s offer of a position at the University of Munich. According to Farias, Lothar Tirala is the one who notified Schemm of Jaensch’s letter of denunciation. Farias places this incident around the mid-to-latter part of October, 1933 (Farias,166-167). Safranski is also vague about when this opposition began: "In the background of Heidegger’s candidacy for the Berlin and Munich posts, there circulated an expert opinion by the psychologist Jaensch, a colleague from Heidegger’s time in Marburg" (Safranski,268).
          Helmut Heiber states that Jaensch’s letter to Krieck denouncing Heidegger was sent on September 8, 1933 (Heiber,493). If Heiber is correct, then Jaensch’s letter is much earlier than suspected: it means it was written only two days after Heidegger’s letter to the Baden ministry (Wacker or Fehrle) of September 6 in which Heidegger says that he’s going to meet with Wolf, Neumann, and Krieck in Bad Homburg.
          In his September 8 letter to Krieck, Jaensch says reliable sources have informed him that Heidegger’s call to Berlin was imminent. Since no chair in philosophy was vacant at the University of Berlin, Jaensch infers that Heidegger’s call must have something to do with the task of reorganizing the universities (Heiber,493). This is rather remarkable: Heidegger himself has just received the call to Berlin which was associated with a political task only a few days earlier on September 4 (H/B,71). So Jaensch knew of the call almost the same time Heidegger did. Jaensch may have gotten the information from his brother Walther who was a medical doctor in Berlin (Heiber,493-494) where he could have had inside connections to Rust’s Prussian Ministry of Education (Farias,203-204).
          The glut of ressentiment that pours forth from Jaensch’s letter, which includes his brother’s report, ressentiment that goes back to Erich Jaensch’s association with Heidegger in Marburg, is nothing short of astonishing: Heidegger is intimately associated with Jews like "the Jew Friedlaender" and "the Jew Husserl;" his way of thinking is "Talmudic;" he is schizophrenic" and has a "sick mind" etc., etc. (Heiber,493-494; Farias,167, 203-204;Ott,255-257). Oddly enough, Jaensch’s own work prior to 1933 such as his book Eidetic Imagery refers to Heidegger’s work Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics as this "latest and most penetrating interpretation of Kantian philosophy" (Jaensch,118). He refers to Friedrich Gundolf who was Jewish and one of the foremost literary critics in Germany in positive terms as in "Gundolf’s penetrating book" and Gundolf’s "delicate intuition" (Jaensch,25,48). The real shocker occurs when Jaensch, now a true-blue National Socialist, referred in his earlier work to the Weimar statesman Gustav Stresemann as "our great political leader Stresemann" (Jaensch,82). Needless to say, Jaensch would not have repeated that statement in 1933.
          Jaensch’s hunch that Heidegger was being called to Berlin to reorganize the universities must have aroused Krieck’s ire. No doubt Krieck thought of this as his domain alone insofar as he considered himself to be the philosopher of National Socialism. Krieck sent Jaensch’s denunciation on to Berlin to Rust’s Prussian Ministry of Education (Heiber,494). Prior to Krieck’s action, there had been no open public break between Heidegger and Krieck, however wary the two men may have been of each other. Krieck’s decision to send Jaensch’s denunciation to Rust’s ministry represents the open public break between them. Sending the letter to Berlin, to be sure, was not an open public act; yet it was the promoting of a denunciation that would eventually make the rounds and start gossip. Krieck sent the material prior to September 18 because Achelis in Rust’s office responded to Jaensch’s denunciation on that day (September 18) (Heiber,494).
          Apparently, there were at least two major "waves" of denunciation letters by Krieck and Jaensch: there is the first wave in early September of 1933 which included Jaensch’s letter of denunciation that Krieck sent to Rust’s office. Jaensch also sent the letter to Schemm’s ministry to block Heidegger’s nomination to the University of Munich (Farias,167). The second wave occurs around February of 1934 and was more organized and widespread.
          The first wave was met with resistance (at least in part) and was ignored to a fair extent by Rust’s and Schemm’s ministries. For example, J. D. Achelis, a close friend of Hans Freyer and ministerial counselor in Rust’s office, quashed Jaensch’s denunciation. On September 18, Achelis "strongly criticized Jaensch’s procedures and asked him to abstain from such mediation [interference] in the future, warning him that failure to heed these warnings could bring disciplinary actions" (Farias,205). Achelis says that he will regard Jaensch’s letter as a private letter, otherwise it could be misinterpreted as sabotage (Heider,494-495).
          Farias does not mention the early date of Jaensch’s letter to Krieck (September 8, 1933) nor does he mention that Achelis’ harsh reply to Jaensch was dated September 18, 1933. In other words, there is no real sense of this first wave of Krieck-Jaensch letters in early September in Farias’ work.
          The second wave of denunciation letters from Krieck and Jaensch began in February,1934. On 14 February 1934 according to Farias, Krieck wrote a letter to Jaensch stating he heard "confirmed rumors that say that Heidegger may receive the post of director of the Academy [Prussian] of professors, which would put him in control of a whole generation of Prussian professors" (Farias,203) This, of course, will strike the reader as familiar: isn’t this what Jaensch intimated to Krieck in Jaensch’s September 8 letter? Was Heidegger considered more than once for the same position? In the same letter to Jaensch, Krieck goes on to say the following: "I beg you for a report on this man [Heidegger], on his behavior, his philosophy, his use of the German language, so that I can send it to the highest levels of the party" (Farias,203). This is strange indeed! Here is Krieck writing to Jaensch on 14 February 1934 requesting information about Heidegger when Krieck had already received Jaensch’s denunciation five months earlier on September 8, 1933!
          Why the charade? The charade makes it look like Krieck knows nothing of Heidegger and is asking Jaensch for a report on Heidegger for the first time. Obviously, Krieck already knew Heidegger from the KADH, from the Congress of Rectors, and from his meeting(s) with the "gang-of-four" rectors as Ott calls the group. Again, why the charade? The charade allows Krieck and Jaensch to start the denunciation all over again, especially in relation to those who were not aware of the first denunciation and with those who were dead set against Heidegger. This time the denunciations would be going to the "highest levels of the party." Clearly, Krieck expects his letter to be read by other higher-ups and, thus, he protects himself by making it appear as if he knows nothing of Heidegger and that he is asking for a report for the first time.
          It may also be that Krieck knows that private correspondence is already being opened by party officials; thus, private correspondence is no longer protected. This practice by the SD was already underway in 1935; I am not sure to what extent it was practiced in 1934.
          About 12 days later on 26 February 1934, Walter Gross who was head of the Department of Racial Purity of the NSDAP wrote to Thilo von Trotha about Heidegger concerning the Prussian Academy of Professors. Gross says that he "asked for information from Jaensch at Marburg" and that he received a "totally negative report" (Farias,193). In addition, Gross asks Trotha to "inform Rosenberg of this so that, should he not be aware of it, he can decide whether to take a hand in this clearly dangerous affair" (Farias,193).
          In this second wave of denunciations against Heidegger in February of 1934, Krieck and Jaensch changed tactics: instead of sending their denunciations to Rust’s and Schemm’s ministries on the regional level, they were now going to higher Nazi officials like Gross to influence the highest levels like Rosenberg. The idea was to put pressure on Rust from above to block Heidegger from getting the leadership of the Prussian Academy of Professors. Rosenberg was chosen as one of the highest officials because Rosenberg’s new office or Amt had just been authorized by Hitler in January of 1934, and Rosenberg was in the process of structuring it. Clearly, the word on Heidegger reached Rosenberg; he wrote a letter to Rust on March 6, 1934, stating he had received warnings about Heidegger and recommended "that Rust discover what he could" (Farias,193). Rosenberg took no action other than to inform Rust of the warnings he had received.
          Krieck and Jaensch, however, did not stop merely with letters of denunciation; by April of 1934, Krieck published his first of three articles slamming Heidegger in his journal Volk im Werden (ViW,1934,no.2,128-129). Krieck and Jaensch were no doubt aware of the problems Heidegger was having as rector of Freiburg University. This time Krieck and Jaensch pulled out all the stops. It was a concerted effort to denounce Heidegger through letters at the highest levels and through the journal publicly in a series of articles.
          Heidegger countered by becoming a member of the Committee for the Philosophy of Law at the Academy of German Law (Farias,205). This committee was founded in May of 1934 and included Rosenberg as well as Erich Rothacker, Hans Naumann, Hans Freyer, and Baron von Uexkuell who were more of a revolutionary conservative stripe. Krieck, Jaensch, and even Baeumler were not listed as members.
          By the fall of 1934, Baeumler joined Roseberg’s office, and Heidegger receded into the background as a minor player. It was Krieck and Baeumler who then fought out what the philosophy of National Socialism was supposed to be. It is an odd conflict because neither one acknowledges the existence of the other; however, both are aware, especially after the Roehm purge of 30 June 1934, that doing "philosophy" is possible only under the protection of a higher Nazi authority. For Baeumler, that authority was Rosenberg; for Krieck, it was the SS and SD (Himmler and Heydrich). Baeumler and Krieck finally clashed only in the end: in 1939 two entries are listed presenting essays on philosophy in the book dedicated as a gift for Hitler on his birthday, one by Baeumler and the other by Krieck. Krieck’s final essay (he had by then been muzzled by Heydrich) in that birthday book for Hitler was a stunning critique of National Socialism and a put-down of Baeumler’s philosophy (Heiber,471-474).
          Heidegger was not willing to work for a higher Nazi authority as Baeumler and Krieck were willing to do. In 1934-35, he clearly moved away from National Socialism defined in racial-biological terms and affirms the priority of language over race by redefining the National Socialist revolution in relation to Hoelderlin’s poetry.
          To say as Tom Rockmore does that Heidegger collaborated with Krieck until 1937 is simply false. There is, of course, evidence of some collaboration early in 1933, but it is a restrained, wary collaboration at best. This collaboration ended by early September of 1933 when Krieck sent Jaensch’s letter of denunciation to Rust’s ministry. There was no further collaboration after September, 1933.

Correspondence with Tom Rockmore

          The correspondence I had with Tom Rockmore (November 15, 1989 to December 27,1991) mentioned at the beginning of this essay bears this out. In his first letter (26 January 1990), Rockmore stated that Heidegger continued to cooperate with Krieck until 1937 but that he (Rockmore) was unable to locate the reference. I disagreed but did not press for a reference at that time. Developments in other areas, however, brought the question up again.
          In the spring of 1991, preparations were underway at The New School for Social Research for the final editing of the Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal which consisted of a special double issue entitled "Heidegger and the Political" edited by Marcus Brainard. Since I was contributing an article and a translation to the issue, I had close contact at that time with Brainard. During a conversation, he mentioned that Rockmore was also contributing an article on Heidegger and Nazism (by this time the journal had already gone to press). I asked Brainard if Rockmore was still holding the claim that Heidegger cooperated with Krieck after he stepped down from the rectorate, and he answered in the affirmative. I also asked Brainard if Rockmore had given a citation for claim and Brainard said he had not.
          In my next letter to Rockmore (15 May 1991) written from Medellin, Colombia, I mentioned my discussion with Marcus Brainard:

                                               He [Brainard] mentioned in passing the article you

                                               submitted. I asked him if you were still claiming that

                                               Heidegger cooperated with Krieck until 1937 because,

                                               if so, I am still interested in locating your source.

                                               Marcus Brainard confirmed that you were and that you

                                               had provided no reference for that claim.

                                               In light of your letter to me (Jan. 26, 1990), I find it

                                               difficult to believe that you would still make such a

                                               factual claim without any proof. If you have evidence which

                                               you did not cite in your article, would you let me know what

                                               it is? I am as interested as you are in the complete factual

                                               case of Heidegger. However, I would hope that if you have

                                               no evidence, you would retract or modify your claim.

In his article entitled "On Heidegger and National Socialism: A Triple Turn?" Rockmore states that "It is also less than clear that the break [Heidegger’s break with National Socialism] was absolute or when it was consummated, since it seems that even after his decision to step down as rector, Heidegger continued for a time to cooperate with Krieck" (Journal, vol.14, no.2—vol.15, no.1,1991,431). Rockmore had at least softened his claim by including the word ‘seems.’
          Rockmore replied on June 5, 1991 and maintained his claim about Heidegger’s cooperation with Krieck after the rectorate. He presented two sources: Victor Farias’ book and H. F. Haug’s Deutsche Philosophen 1933 (Hamburg: Argument-Verlag, 1991). He went on to maintain the intrinsic plausibility of Heidegger’s continued collaboration with Krieck after April 23, 1934. I was disappointed with the sources because Rockmore gave no page references. On 12 June 1991, I sent him the following reply:

                                                 I think we have now come full circle in our

                                                 correspondence. In your letter, you cite

                                                 Farias and Haug as sources which

                                                 substantiate your claim that "Heidegger

                                                 continued to collaborate with Krieck after

                                                 he resigned from the rectorate." However,

                                                 you were unable to give any precise reference

                                                 from Farias or Haug. In my original letter to

                                                 Prof. Margolis, I stated that there was no such

                                                 evidence in Farias. You keep claiming there is

                                                 evidence but will not tell me what it is. So let me

                                                 ask you once again: would you please give me

                                                 a precise reference (page number) from Farias

                                                 and/or Haug which substantiates your claim?

Rockmore responded on 23 July 1991 from France. Since he did not have access to the sources and did not wish to elude my question, he informed me that he had written to Otto Poeggeler for his appraisal of the matter. He was confident that Poeggeler would be able to provide a precise reference for Heidegger’s continued collaboration with Krieck.
          I was surprised by this development but welcomed Poeggeler’s expertise. On August 13, 1991, Rockmore, now back in the United States, told me he had received a response from Poeggeler and kindly included a copy of it in his letter to me. The upshot of Poeggeler’s letter is that he did not answer the question nor did he address it directly. Rockmore said he was sure Poeggeler had the information but simply got bogged down in the details of his response. In addition, Rockmore said he would now turn to Hugo Ott who in his estimation was the best historian on the matter.
          I thanked Rockmore in my letter of September 4, 1991, for sending a copy of Poeggeler’s response. I also stated my feeling that if Poeggeler had had the information, he would have stated it directly. I looked forward to what Ott would have to say on the matter. On October 1, 1991, Rockmore informed me that he had written to Ott.
          In his next letter of 28 October 1991, Rockmore had received a reply from Ott and kindly enclosed a copy for me. In Ott’s letter, he confirmed that there was no evidence of any collaboration between Heidegger and Krieck after the spring of 1934.
          I responded on November 11, 1991, by thanking Rockmore for the copy of Ott’s letter and for taking the initiative in writing to Poeggeler and Ott. I wished him good luck with his forthcoming book entitled On Heidegger’s Nazism and Philosophy. At that point I thought the matter closed.
          On December 9, 1991, I received a letter from Rockmore that surprised me. It would turn out to be his last letter. I shall quote the line that surprised (and disturbed) me because I quoted the line back to him in my response on December 27, 1991. In his letter, Rockmore stated the reason why Heidegger had captured his interest which had to do with philosophy itself. Rockmore thought that the way in which philosophy searched for the truth was, for the most part, hardly disinterested. He went on to remark about " ‘the disgraceful manner in which so many are trying hard to look the other way in order to continue business as usual with respect to Heidegger.’ " What surprised and disturbed me is that this seemed to fly in the face of reality, that is, fly in the face of the outpouring of articles on Heidegger’s politics that followed Farias’ publication.
          What follows is my last letter to Rockmore on December 27, 1991. The complete text of the letter is given because it summarizes my position on Heidegger in many ways:

                                                 Dear Prof. Rockmore,

                                                 Thank you for your letter. I was surprised and somewhat

                                                 baffled, however, by your remark about "the rather disgraceful

                                                 manner in which so many are trying hard to look the other

                                                 way in order to continue business as usual with respect to

                                                 Heidegger." Surely you are aware of the avalanche of articles

                                                 (and books to follow, no doubt) occasioned by the publication

                                                 of Farias' book in France, Germany, and the United States?

                                                 Who are the "some many" you have in mind? It seems to me

                                                  that just about every noteworthy Heidegger scholar I can think of--

                                                  Poeggeler, Derrida, Schuermann, Sheehan, Zimmerman, Scott,

                                                  Caputo, Nicholson, Ott, Franzen, Schwan, Martin, to mention

                                                  only a few -- has addressed the issue one way or another. Since

                                                  about the fall of 1987, it seems to have been anything but "business

                                                  as usual" concerning Heidegger. Even our own correspondence

                                                  is an example of the attempt to take the hard look rather than the

                                                  look away.

                                                  You seem to imply that the only thing worthwhile to talk about in

                                                  Heidegger is his relationship to Nazism and that everyone who is

                                                  "doing" Heidegger without focusing on this relation is acting

                                                  disgracefully. If so, you will have to include the likes of Herbert

                                                  Marcuse in that category. Marcuse, in his interview with Olafson

                                                  about Heidegger, made the following remarks: "I would like to add,

                                                  after all criticism (and I still stick to every word I’ve said) I want to

                                                  stress that I did learn from the early Heidegger. (…) I still think that

                                                  perhaps Heidegger’s greatest philosophical achievements are his

                                                  interpretations of Greek philosophy…." In relation to Heidegger’s

                                                  interpretation of the history of Western philosophy, Marcuse said

                                                  that "it is important and again it contains elements of truth…."

                                                  ( Journal, Vol.6, No.1, 1977,p.37)

                                                  Surely someone is not acting disgracefully if he or she works on

                                                  Heidegger’s interpretation of the Greeks and does not focus on his

                                                  relation to Nazism.

                                                  I agree that all forms of Nazism are unacceptable and that is why I

                                                 do welcome the whole discussion about Heidegger and his

                                                  involvement in it. The problem does not end by saying that

                                                  Heidegger was a Nazi; rather, that’s where it begins. Since

                                                  Heidegger’s thought as a whole cannot be equated with

                                                  Nazism – at least not out of hand – the question comes down

                                                  to which aspects of Heidegger’s thought belong to his political

                                                  involvement and which do not. If someone is concerned with the

                                                 disinterested search for truth, then it seems to me that this is

                                                  the place to begin. But it means "doing" Heidegger well enough

                                                  to find out where the fault line runs in his thought. Farias’

                                                  problem is that he tried to "get" Heidegger without remaining

                                                  disinterested. I applaud his attempt to gather the material

                                                  together but I abhor his use of unproved association and innuendo.

                                                  He discredits his own work when he indulges in it. This may do in

                                                  the short run for juicy press but it will not ultimately "get" Heidegger.

                                                  The only thing that will "get" Heidegger is the truth.

                                                   I look forward to your book but can make no promises; I have so

                                                   little time for my own work just now. My best wishes to you for the

                                                   holiday season.

                                                   Sincerely,

                                                   Frank Edler

Abbreviations

Becker                                                 Die Universitaet Goettingen unter dem Nationalsozialismus , eds.                                                             Heinrich Becker, Hans-Joachim Dahms, and Cornelia Wegeler (Muenchen,                                                             London, New York, Oxford, and Paris: K. G. Saur, 1987).

Braeuninger                                          Werner Braeuninger, Strahlungsfelder des Nationalsozialismus. Die                                                               Flosse des Leviathan (Schnellbach: Siegfried Bublies, 1999).

Braeuninger 2                                       Werner Braeuninger, "Die innere Opposition im NS-Studentenbund
                                                            1930-31" located at
                                                             http://www.geheimes-deutschland.de/texte/anrich.html
                                                             on 10-25-2002 at 2:00 pm.

Edler                                                     Review of Hans Sluga’s Heidegger’s Crisis: Philosophy and Politics in                                                              Nazi Germany (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993) in Journal                                                               of the History of Philosophy , Vol. XXXIII, No.3 (July 1995) 530-532.

Edler 2                                                  Frank H. W. Edler, "Alfred Baeumler on Hoelderlin and the Greeks:                                                               Reflections on the Heidegger-Baeumler Relationship" in Janus Head: Part I                                                              in Vol.1, No.3 (Spring 1999); Part II in Vol.2,No.2 (Fall 1999); Part III in                                                              Vol.3, No.2 (Fall 2000).

Edler 3                                                  Frank H. W. Edler, "Philosophy, Language, and Politics: Heidegger’s                                                              Attempt to Steal the Language of the Revolution in 1933-34" in                                                              Social Research, vol. 57, no. 1 (Spring 1990).

Farias                                                    Victor Farias, Heidegger and Nazism, tr. Paul Burrell and Gabriel R.Ricci                                                               (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989).

Fischer                                                  Klaus P. Fischer, Nazi Germany. A New History (New York,                                                              Continuum,1995).

Franz-Willing                                         Georg Franz-Willing, ‘Bin ich schuldig?’ Eine Biographie: Leben und                                                                   Wirken des Reichstudentenfuehrers und Gauleiters Dr. Gustav                                                               Adolf Scheel (Leoni am Starnberger See: Druffel Verlag, 1987).

GA 38                                                   Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe, v. 38, Logik als die Frage nach dem                                                               Wesen der Sprache (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1998).

GA 39                                                    Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe, v. 39, Hoelderlins Hymnen                                                                "Germanien" und "Der Rhein" (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann,                                                                1980).

Giles                                                       Geoffrey J. Giles, Students and National Socialism in Germany                                                                (Princeton: Princeton University Press, !985).

Giles 2                                                    Geoffrey Giles, "The Rise of the National Socialist Students’ Association                                                                 and the Failure of Political Education in the Third Reich" in The Shaping of                                                                 the Nazi State, ed. Peter D. Stachura (London: Croom Helm, 1978).

H/B                                                         Martin Heidegger-Elisabeth Blochmann, Briefwechsel 1918-1969,                                                                J.W.Storck, ed. (Marbach: Deutsche Literaturarchiv, 1989).

H/J                                                          Martin Heidegger-Karl Jaspers, Briefwechsel. 1920-1963, eds. Walter                                                                 Biemel and Hans Saner (Frankfurt a. M. and München/Zürich:                                                                  Klostermann/Piper, 1990).

Heiber                                                     Helmut Heiber, Universitaet unterm Hakenkreuz, Teil II: Die                                                                 Kapitulation der Hohen Schulen, Band I (Muenchen, London, New                                                                York  and Paris: K. G. Saur, 1992).

Hellingrath                                               Norbert von Hellingrath, Hoelderlin: Zwei Vortraege, 2nd ed. (Munich:                                                                Hugo Bruckmann, 1922).

Introduction                                            Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Ralph                                                               Manhiem  (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959).

Jaensch                                                  Erich Jaensch, Eidetic Imagery and Topological Methods of                                                                Investigation, trans. Oscar Oeser (New York: Harcourt, Brace and                                                                Company, 1930)

Journal                                                   Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal

Koch                                                      H. W. Koch, The Hitler Youth. Origins and Development 1922-1945                                                                (New York: Cooper Square Press, 1975).

Maennerbund                                         Alfred Baeumler, Maennerbund und Wissenschaft (Berlin: Junker &                                                               Dunnhaupt, 1934).

Martin                                                    Martin Heidegger und das ‘Dritte Reich.’ Ein Kompendium, ed. Bernd                                                               Martin (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1989).

Moehling                                                Karl A. Moehling, "Martin Heidegger and the Nazi Party: An                                                                           Examination," unpublished doctoral dissertation, Northern Illinois                                                                University, 1972.

Mosse                                                    George L. Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology. Intellectual Origins                                                                of the Third Reich (New York, Grosset and Dunlap, Universal Library,                                                                1964).

Jerry Muller                                            Jerry Z. Muller, The Other God that Failed. Hans Freyer and the                                                                Deradicalization of German Conservatism (Princeton: Princeton                                                                University Press, 1987).

Mueller                                                   Gerhard Mueller, Ernst Krieck und die nationalsozialistische                                                                Wissenschaftsreform (Weinheim and Basel: Beltz Verlag, 1978).

Neske                                                     Martin Heidegger and National Socialism. Questions and Answers,                                                                ed.Gunther Neske and Emil Kettering, trans. Lisa Harries (New York:                                                                Paragon House, 1990).

Nohl                                                        Herman Nohl, Die paedogogische Bewegung in Deutschland und ihre                                                                 Theorie, 2^nd ed. (Frankfurt am Main: G. Schulte-Bulmke, 1935).

Ott                                                           Hugo Ott, Martin Heidegger: A Political Life, trans. Allan Blunden                                                                  (London: Basic Books, 1993).

Ott, German                                             Hugo Ott, Martin Heidegger: Unterweg zu seiner Biographie                                                                 (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1988).

Ott, Zeitschrift                                          Hugo Ott, "Martin Heidegger als Rektor der Universitaet Freiburg i. Br.                                                                 1933/34" in Zeitschrift des Breisgau-Geschichtsvereins                                                                    ("Schau-ins-Land") ,1984, no.103.

Ringer                                                       Fritz K. Ringer, The Decline of the German Mandarins: The German                                                                   Academic Community, 1890-1933 (Hanover and London: Wesleyan                                                                  University Press, 1969).

Safranski                                                   Ruediger Safranski, Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil, trans.
                                                                 Ewald Osers (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1998).

Schneeberger                                            Guido Schneeberger, Nachlese zu Heidegger: Documente zu seinem                                                                   Leben und Denken (Bern, 1962).

SdU                                                          Martin Heidegger, Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universität.                                                                   Das Rektorat 1933-34: Tatsachen und Gedanken (Frankfurt a/M:                                                                  Klostermann,1983).

Sinn                                                          Winfrid (Joachim Haupt), Sinnwandlung der formalen Bildung (Leipzig:                                                                  Armanen Verlag, 1935).

Sluga                                                         Hans Sluga, Heidegger’s Crisis: Philosophy and Politics in Nazi                                                                  Germany (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).

Steinberg                                                   Michael Stephen Steinberg, Sabers and Brownshirts. The German                                                                  Students’ Path to National Socialism 1918-1935 (Chicago and                                                                  London: University of Chicago Press, 1973).

ViW                                                          Volk im Werden