My Last Meeting with Heidegger in Rome, 1936
Karl Löwith
New German Critique, No. 45, Special Issue on Bloch and Heidegger. (Autumn, 1988), pp.
115-116.
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Mon Jan 14 06:56:21 2008
Karl Lowith I15
My Last Meeting with Hezdegger in Rome, 1936"
by Karl Lowith
In 1936, during my stay in Rome, Heidegger gave a lecture on
Holderlin at the German-Italian Culture Institute. Afterwords, he
accompanied me to our apartment and was visibly taken aback by the
poverty of our furnishings. . . .
The next day, my wife and I made an excursion to Frascati and
Tusculum with Heidegger, his wife, and his two small sons, whom I
had often cared for when they were little. It was a radiant afternoon,
and I was happy about this fink get together, despite undeniable reser-
vations. Even on this occasion, Heidegger did not remove the Party in-
signia from his lapel. He wore it during his entire stay in Rome, and it
had obviously not occurred to him that the swastika was out of place
while spending the day with me.
We talked about Italy, Freiburg, and Marburg, and also about philo-
sophical topics. He was friendly and attentive, yet avoided every allu-
sion to the situation in Germany and his views of it, as did his wife.
On the way back, I wanted to spur him to an unguarded opinion
about the situation in Germany. I turned the conversation to the contro-
versy in the Neue Ziiricher Zeitung and explained that I agreed neither
with Barth's political attack [on Heidegger] nor with Staiger's defense,
insofax as I was of the opinion that his partisanship for National Social-
ism lay in the essence of his philosophy. Heidegger agreed with me
without reservation, and added that his concept of "historicity" was
the basis of his political "engagement." He also left no doubt about his
belief in Hitler. He had underestimated only two things: the vitality of
the Christian churches and the obstacles to the Anschluss with Austria.
He was convinced now as before that National Socialism was the right
" Translated by Richard Wolin. Excerpted from Karl Lowith, Mein Leben in
Deutschland vor und nach 1933 (Stuttgart: Metzler Verlag, 1986) 56-58.
116 My Last Meeting with Hezdegger
course for Germany; one only had to "hold out" long enough. The
only aspect that troubled him was the ceaseless "organization" at the
expense of "vital forces." He failed to notice the destructive radicalism
of the whole movement and the petty bourgeois character of all its
"Strength-through-joy" [Kraj durch Freude] institutions, because he
himself was a radical petty bourgeois.
In response to my remark that there were many things I could under-
stand about his attitude, except how he could sit at the same table (at the
Academy of German Law) with someone likeJulius Streicher,' he remain-
ed silent at first. Then, somewhat uncomfortably, the justification follow-
ed . . . things would have been "much worse" if at least a few intelligent
persons [ W i s s h ]hadn't become involved. And with bitter resentment
against the intelligentsia, he concluded his explanation: "If these gentle-
men hadn't been too refined to get involved, then evelydung would be
different; but, instead, I'm entirely alone now." To my response that one
didn't have to be especially "refined" in order to renounce working with
someone like Streicher, he answered: one need not waste words over
Streicher, Der Stunner was nothing more than pornography. He couldn't
understand why Hider didn't get rid of this guy - whom Heidegger feared.
These responses were typical, for nothing is easier for Germans than
to be radical when it comes to ideas and indifferent in practical fact.
They manage to ignore all indivzdual Fakta in order to cling all the more
decisively to their concept of the whole and to separate "matters of
fact" from "persons." In truth, the program of "pornography" [e.g.,
embodied in anti-Semitic publications such as Der Stunner - trans.]
was fulfilled and became a German reality in 1938;*and no one can
deny that Streicher and Hitler were in agreement on this matter.
In 1938, Husserl died in Freiburg. Heidegger proved his "Admiration
and Friendship" (the terms in which he dedicated his 1927 work [Sein
und Zeit] to Husserl) by wasting no words of remembrance or sympa-
thy, either public or private, spoken or written.
1. A Nazi propagandist and editor of the popular anti-Semitic publication, Der
Stunner (see below).
2. One must recall that Lowith's reflections date from the year 1940. The allusion
to 1938 is undoubtedly a reference to Kristallnacht, when the anti-Semitic propaganda
of the Nazis turned into a bloody and honifying reality.
