Letters 1925-1975

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«When the storm hisses around the hut ... - writes Martin Heidegger in
1925 - I spend a quiet pause dreaming of the image of a girl
that with his raincoat, his hat pulled down over his big quiet eyes, he entered
for the first time in my office and, shy and reserved, she gave a short answer
to all the questions - and that's when I bring the picture back to the last days of
semester - and only then do I understand that life is history ». Shy and naive, emblem
of purity, similar to a Greek goddess or a saint: this is how the
student Hannah Arendt by her authoritative professor in the first letters of
this correspondence. They mark the beginning of an intense emotional bond, which, however
in very different forms over time, it binds two of the most important throughout life
thinkers of the twentieth century.
The correspondence, now published for the first time in Italy in its entirety,
marks the history of this bond in three stages: from the letters of the relationship between
the teacher and the pupil, seeing each other , until the calm friendship of their autumn
life, going through the most difficult moment, seeing each other again , when Hannah Arendt
he returns to Germany many years after abandoning his love without
prospects and his country prey to Nazism.
The richness of these letters, however, transcends the personal dimension: among the
the mesh of daily conversation shines through the depth of reflection
on the world of the two authors. It is intertwined with their love until it gives birth to
a particularly suggestive overlap between the level of feeling and
that of philosophical thought.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was a pupil of Heidegger, Bultmann and Jaspers.

Emigrated to Paris at the advent of Nazism, in 1941 she moved to the United States.
Lecturer at the University of Chicago, Berkeley, Princeton and, since 1967, at the New
School for Social Research in New York, she is the author of numerous works, including
which we recall, in Italian translation: The banality of evil (Feltrinelli, Milan
1992 3 ), Vita activa (Bompiani, Milan 1989), The origins of totalitarianism
(Community Editions, Turin 1999 2 ), On the revolution (therein 1999 2 ) and What is it
politics (therein 2001 3 ).
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was born in Meßkirch, Baden. He was a pupil of

H. Rickert, assistant and later successor of E. Husserl in Freiburg from 1928 to 1945.
Rector for ten months at that same university in the winter of 1933-34
under the Nazi regime, he was suspended from teaching from the end of

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world conflict to 1951. Among his numerous publications in translation

Italian we remember: Being and time (Longanesi, Milan 1997 12 ), Paths
interrupted (La Nuova Italia, Florence 1989), Introduction to metaphysics (Mursia,
Milan 1990), Nietzsche (Adelphi, Milan 1994), Time and being (Guide,
Naples 1998).

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Ocr and conversion by Natjus
Library thieves

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Original title Briefe 1925 bis 1975. Und andere Zeugnisse
© 1998 Vittorio Klostermann GmbH, Frankfurt am Main
© 2001 Community Editions, Turin
Translation by Massimo Bonola
www.comunita.einaudi.it
ISBN 88-24-50627-5
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Hannah Arendt Martin Heidegger
Letters 1925-1975
and other testimonials
Published from bequests by Ursula Ludz
Italian edition edited by Massimo Bonola
Page 7

Index
Letters 1925-1975
See each other
See each other again
The autumn
Epilogue
Appendices
Notes to documents 1-168
Additional documents from bequests
Afterword by Ursula Ludz
Bibliographic indications
List of published documents
Index of names
Page 8
Letters 1925-1975

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See each other

1. Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt
10.11.25
Dear Miss Arendt!
Tonight I have to go back to show up with her and speak to her heart.
Everything between us must be straightforward, clear and pure. This is the only way we will be
worthy of having had the opportunity to meet us. The fact that she was mine
pupil and I her teacher 1 is only the external opportunity of what there is
happened.
I will never be able to have her for me, but from now on she will belong to my life,
and it will draw new life from it.
We never know what we can become for others through the
our being. Perhaps however a meditation can clarify which action of
destruction and hindrance we exercise.
We cannot know which path his young life will take. We have to
resign ourselves to this. And my devotion to her is only to help her
to remain true to itself.
That she has lost the "restlessness" means that she has found the core more
intimate of her essence of pure girl. And one day he will understand and feel
grateful - certainly not to me - that the visit made during
"Reception time" was the decisive step to go beyond the path traced,
bringing it back to the fruitful solitude of scientific research, which only man
bears - and only the one who has received both the burden and the fury of being
creative.
«Rejoice! »- this has become my greeting for her.
And only if she rejoices can she become the woman capable of giving joy, and
around which everything is joy, security, relaxation, admiration and
gratitude towards life.
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And only in this way does she remain in the right disposition
to appropriate what the university can and must offer. In this there is authenticity and
seriousness, not already in a forced scientific attitude of many of its kind -
an industriousness that one day somehow breaks, making them desperate and
unfaithful to themselves.
And just then, when it comes to self-help spiritual work, the thing
the decisive factor remains to keep the most authentic female essence intact.
We want to keep the fact that we are here as a gift
they could meet, without ruining it in its pure vitality with no illusion;

that is to say that we do not want to imagine something as a spiritual friendship,

which never exists among human beings.
I cannot and do not want to part her confident eyes, her dear figure,
from her pure dedication, from the goodness and honesty of her childlike essence.
But in this way the gift of our friendship becomes a bond in which we want
to grow up. And it is this same thing that makes me ask for forgiveness for leaving
go, on our way, for a moment.
But I wish I could thank her one day and kissing her pure forehead I wish
appropriate in my work the purity of its essence.
Rejoice, she who is goodness in person.
His MH
21.11.25
Dear Hannah!
Because love is rich beyond all measure compared to other human possibilities
and does such a sweet burden result for whom is involved? Because we transform ourselves
in what we love while remaining ourselves. We would then like to thank the one who
we love and find nothing that is enough to do it.
We can only be grateful to ourselves. The love
transforms gratitude into loyalty to ourselves and trust
unconditional towards the other. Thus love constantly increases its mystery
Deeper.
Proximity in this case is being at the greatest distance from the other - one
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distance, which does not lead to confusing anything - but places the "You" in the transparent - but
elusive - pure and simple being-here of a revelation. The breaking in of the
presence of the other in our life is something that no feeling can manage
dominate. One human destiny gives itself to another, and the function of pure love is
to keep this giving awake as on the first day.
If you met me in your thirteenth year, or it just happened
a decade later - there's no point in guessing. No, it happened now,
when your life is quietly preparing to become that of a woman, in
moment when you have to welcome the presentiment into your life forever, the
nostalgia, blossoming, laughter - the time of your youth as a source of
goodness, of faith, of beauty, of always-only-giving oneself feminine.

A
Tankde w
cahraet tchaant Inodtohirnigghbtrneoaw
ks? in you; that the difficult and painful aspects
purify themselves of your past; than the extraneous things and all that you have endured
soften.
The possibilities of female nature in your environment are completely
different from what the "student" believes and far more positive than she is
not suspicious. In front of you every vain criticism must fail, and every arrogant
denial withdraw.
May human asking learn a profound respect for dedication plus
simple; that the commitment of each one learns the breadth of the world
from the original totality of the female being.
Curiosity, gossip and school vanities will not be eradicated; alone
the woman, in the way she is, will be able to give nobility to the free spiritual life.
When the new semester begins, it's May, and lilac sways over the walls
ancient, and flowering trees sway in hidden gardens - and you go,
dressed in a summer dress, through the ancient door. Summer evenings will come in
in your room and for you in your young soul will resonate with the quiet
serenity of our life. Soon the flowers that your dear hands will bloom
they gather, and the moss in the dense forest, that your happy dreams run through.
And I will soon go to greet the mountains on a lonely journey to the mountains
of which one day you will meet the rocky quiet, in whose profile you will find the
firmness of your character. And I want to look for the mountain lake to look down
from the steepest side of the cliff in its quiet depth.
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Your
M.
27.11.25
Dear Hannah!
A demonic force hit me. The silent pray of your dear hands
and your luminous forehead they have protected her in a feminine transfiguration.
Such a thing had never happened to me.
Under the storm, on the way back, you were even more beautiful and grandiose. And I
I would have liked to spend whole nights walking with you.

As a symbol of my gratitude, accept this booklet 1 . Let it be at the time

itself a symbolic reminder of this semester.
Please, Hannah, give me a few more words. I can't leave you
go away like this.
Before leaving you will surely be in trouble. But I ask you only a few
words; and not written "well".
As you write. Just that you to have written them.
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Your
M.
I am happy for your mother 2 .
Freiburg, 2 m [arzo] 25
Dear H.,
On the back the path of our climb 1 . I just had a good two hours
with Husserl 2 .
5 . Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt

6,111.25
Aff. Greetings
M.
Letter follows.
Todtnauberg, 21.III.25
Dear Hannah!
Up here the winter has become splendid, and so I have been able to go hiking
stupendous that restore.
But a week ago I also got back to work, and we're already there
preparing to go down to the valley on 24 March.
I often wish you could rest as well as me up here. There
solitude of the mountains, the quiet pace of life of the mountaineer, the closeness
elementary of the sun, the storm and the sky, the simplicity of a trace
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lost on a large, copiously snow-covered slope - all this holds

the soul more than ever far from any disturbance and worry of existence.
And here is the home of pure joy. One no longer needs «something of
interesting »and the work has the same regularity as a lumberjack's ax blow
that echoes in the distance in the woods.
I would have loved to have taken you with me to see all these things when
you "casually" found yourself once again on my path and came to
greet me.
But on the other hand, I also knew that you would have a great vacation
joy in the heart. So, thinking of you, I was calm, even though I wished myself every day
that you rest.
I think that everything that the semester has involved of unbalanced, the disagreements, the
adversity and oppressive things, you can truly overcome them starting from you
itself.
I read with great joy that Lichtenstein 1 was still with you. During
evenings in Husserl's house 2 the most unpleasant thing was trying to be at each
cost higher than the others. All the more reason, therefore, I was pleased to see you
sitting quietly on the sidelines. I conversed most of all with Lichtenstein.
Now he doesn't come anymore, and I probably won't be going on in this evenings

way. I would be in favor of establishing a kind of "circle" in the sense

traditional. Its success, however, depends not so much on the subject as on the
choice of people. And I had already pointed out to you that during the summer I would like
return to take "the young" with me 3 . And I would like to prepare them in such a way that I can
try something again with them. Now i often come back to i
Freiburg semesters 4 ; many of the things I had attempted to do then were
premature and hasty - but the work as an educational activity was a real e
own involvement; now it has become an inculcation and feeding. I know the
things won't stay that way. And the authentic work, on the other hand, will have to take place
always in the solitude of asking.
Since this winter, Marburg has become more pleasant for me, and for
the first time I think with joy about the time to return.
The mountains, the woods and the ancient parks will be adorned with a particular
beauty when you return there. Perhaps then the spirit will also be cast out
paralyzing that the place had from the beginning towards me.
But perhaps the stagnation is common to all our universities. What me you
now tells of Freiburg is just as disturbing. But in the end it is pure
always something better than everything that perhaps "happens" in Berlin.
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Did the winter last longer than usual with you too? Or you are
really went to the sea 5 ? After having received the exact bibliographic indication
of the title of the correspondence between Rahel and Alexander von Marwitz 6 I tried to
find it, but without success. The library copy was already on loan. I have a
pressing need to be able to read again in complete isolation. But I try
no time to do it. Now I am tormented by the preparation of mine
Cassel's lectures, which for the moment are all still in shape
too difficult. In philosophy, making things simpler is a strange thing
matter - the simpler things become, the more mysterious they remain. And I
I would not like to put it in the public's head that philosophy can respond to his
requests.
What really matters to me is to shed some light on the difference between the formation of the
world view and scientific-philosophical research, precisely in relation to
concrete problem of the essence and meaning of history. However even this
clarification is possible only through scientific-conceptual paths.
And so my research always ends with the finding that the
conferences become a contradiction in front of a "general" audience. But me
I have made this commitment and now, even if I struggle, I must proceed.
From the 24th to the 27th I am in Freiburg at Husserl's and I am very happy with
these days. Then I go to my hometown (Meßkirch, Baden) and stay here
until 3.IV. Would you like to write to me once there? And tell me about your holidays?
When the storm hisses around the cabin, "ours" comes to mind

storm »- either I retrace the silent path that runs alongside the Lahn - or I pass
a quiet pause dreaming of the image of a girl you are with
the raincoat, the hat pulled down over the big quiet eyes, went in there
first time in my studio and, shy and reserved, she gave a short answer to all of them
the questions - and it is then that I bring the image back to the last days of the semester -
and only then do I understand that life is history.
I keep my affection for you.
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Your
Martin
24.III.25
Dear Hannah!
Our youngest son 1 got injured while skiing and as a result mine
travel plans are revolutionized. The little one has ruptured a tendon and he is
forced up here to immobility. In the next few days I will let you know with major
accuracy if I go to Meßkirch. Maybe we will have to stay in Freiburg for one
longer period.

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An affectionate greeting
Your Martin
Freiburg, 29.III. [1925]
Dear H.,
I don't go to Meßkirch because it is too difficult to carry the baby. You

I write soon.
The days I spent with Husserl 1 were disappointing because it is
very tired and aged extraordinarily quickly. The city is
again gorgeous.
Aff. Greetings
M.
Marburg, 12Iv.25
Dear Hannah!
I live immersed in the fury of work and the joy of being able to see you again soon.

I thank you affectionately for your postcard.

I moved next door to the previous examination room 1 . The noise of the
road was no longer bearable.
Cassel's lectures cost me a lot of work. On the 16th I leave for
Cassel, where I will stay until the 22nd. I live in a hotel - but I don't know which one yet.
Would you like to write me or send me the letters you wrote? And do you have a photograph of yourself?
Does your mother come in the summer?
You should already have received the photographs from Jakoby 2 . Here you get more
very beautiful to see.
Write to me immediately so I can take you with me to my conferences.
Page 18
I live a lot with Hölderlin, and you are close to me everywhere.

I feel great joy for the summer semester!
I will not start before the 28th. Maybe I will even start only in May.
Where will you go to live? And when do you arrive?

Page 19
Your
M.
Address: at the Secret Advisor Dr. Boehlau 3 Kassel,

Lessingstr. 2
17.iv. pom. [1925]
Dear Hannah!
Quickly. Thank you very much for your letter.

It's wonderful that you come. I hold conferences on 20 and 21 at the
Landesbibliothek (Friedrichsplatz) at eight cum tempore.
Of course Bröcker 1 is here! I told him that friends of
Königsberg wanted to come. I don't know who. You and Jakoby.
I assume that we will therefore not be able to go to Marburg all together. But one
once there we want to meet - in any case in the evening after my lectures.
I'll see you maybe Monday night in the break. I live outside, near the castle of
Wilhelmshöhe, a very stately place. Maybe you will be able to stay at the «Stift» - not
I know if I have time to pick you up - I don't even know exactly what time
Arrivals.
Anyway, after the conference I will take leave - as I do every day -
by acquaintances and guests to then go up to the terminus of the Wilhelmshöhe with the
tram number 1 - maybe you could take the next ride - without getting high
note. I'll take you back later.
Until we meet again.
11. Hannah Arendt for Martin Heidegger

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SHADOWS
Whenever he woke from that prolonged sleep, dreamy and yet

deep, in which one is at one with oneself and with what one dreams of, she had the
same timid and hesitant tenderness towards the things of the world, with which we do them
it made it clear how big that piece of his life was that was gone
away while she was completely absorbed in herself - as if she were sleeping - yes
he would say, assuming that there is something comparable in everyday life.
In fact, for her the strangeness and tenderness soon threatened to become the
same and identical thing. Tenderness means shy and reserved dedication, it wasn't
a give-yes, but rather a testing the ground, caressing, happiness and amazement for
extraneous forms.
Maybe it all came from the fact that, before it even blossomed completely
his youth had been touched by the extraordinary, the magical, so much so that yes
she was used to sharing her life - with a naturalness that later on
it frightened - in two parts, a "here-now" and a "there-then". I don't mean the
nostalgia for something definite, something to achieve, but nostalgia like
something that can shape a life, become constitutive of it.
Because in the end, the things around her were such as hers
autonomy and its strangeness depended on the fact that one had taken over in her
true passion for oddities, and therefore from getting used to seeing aspects
extraordinary even in the most natural and banal things; and this came to a point
such that even when it was the simple and most common things in life that struck her,
she never suspected, in her thoughts and feelings, that what
it happened could be trivial, an insignificant thing, that anyone would give
for granted and not even worth talking about.
But not that anything like this ever became explicit to her. Furthermore,
in the city where she grew up and to which she remained faithfully and intimately attached, the
sky was too narrow, she herself was too reserved and too absorbed in herself
itself. He knew a lot of things through experience and attention always
alert, but everything that happened to her immediately sank into her soul
and he remained isolated and closed in on himself. His tension and his reticence
they prevented us from establishing a relationship with events that was not deaf
pain or dreamy and enchanted isolation.

devoSteo asnhye d
atitdenn'tiuon, ervsetan
n idn aittsaellncwhhaanttm
sheenst,hiofuw
ldedcoanwith herself, and she couldn't
calling him, which naturally grew towards heights of ever greater absurdity
Page 21
the deeper and more radical she became, to the point of not recognizing either
to know other than itself. Not that anything had been forgotten; Rather
he had sunk completely - some things disappeared from view, others
they remained vague, without order or discipline.
His state of mental confusion, caused perhaps only by a youth
desperate and betrayed, she expressed herself in the withdrawal on herself, with which she blocked e
she hid every access to herself, every vision of herself. The ambiguity of his
being emerged here in such a way that she herself hindered her own
I walked, and the older it got, the more radical, exclusive it became,
blind.
For her there was no limit or boundary to the enchantment, the superhuman,
absurd. A radicalism, which always went to the extreme, prevented her from
defending herself, disarmed her, never spared her the bitterest drops of the chalice
emptied to the bottom. All good things ended badly and all bad things
ended well. It is difficult to say which of the two alternatives is more unbearable.
Because the most unbearable thing - it takes your breath away if you think about it with that
boundless terror that destroys reticence, and makes a person not feel
never again at home - it is precisely this: to suffer and to know, to know in everyone
minute and in every moment, with full awareness and with cynicism, which must be experienced
gratitude even for the worst of pains, and indeed that it is precisely for
this suffering that must and is worth feeling gratitude.
There was therefore no possibility of taking refuge in the refined pleasures of
culture and good taste. What were such things for, what importance
they could have, if anything became decisive, and it involved a person
helpless, yet it did not involve her, she did not belong anywhere or ever there
it would have belonged. His sensitivity and vulnerability, which they always had
conferred a trait of exclusivity, they consequently grew almost to
grotesque. An animal anguish to be safe, since he did not want to and did not
he could defend himself, linked to the objectively considered expectation of someone
brutality made things in life more and more impossible for her
simple and more obvious.
In the timid and austere beginnings of his young life, when he was not yet in
conflict with her hesitant tenderness, nor with social conventions, nor
with the need to express her innermost being, they had opened up in her
coveted dreams of reality, in which sad or joyful dreams, no matter if sweet or
bitter, they overflowed with constant happiness for life.
When then, later, she broke and rejected the worlds of her youth

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exerting a violent and destructive tyranny on itself - like a lie

and something inadequate, then they turned away from the one who had exiled
in itself, and the terror of reality overwhelmed this helpless creature: a void
terror without sense and without reason, before whose blind gaze everything is canceled,
and produces madness, desolation, disaster, annihilation. Nothing is more terrible than
this anguish, nothing is more lethal than one's own reflection. And this is it
characteristic and, at the same time, the sign of its shame. What was supposed to appear to her
more horrible and incomprehensible than its own reality?
She had fallen into anguish the same way she had been before
of nostalgia, again it was not a precise anguish in front of
something definite, but of the anguish for existence in general. He had it
already experienced before, as he had experienced many things. Now it was
fall at the mercy of it.
Perhaps the reversal of nostalgia into anguish due to a destructive one
thirst for power, for a violence against itself enslaved and tyrannical at the same time,
it becomes more understandable and clear if we reflect that the possibility of events
monstrous was partly rooted in an age as neglected as
desperate, and all the more the more acutely and consciously a taste for
more difficult and refined nature was opposed to the explicit and extreme
temptations of despair of an art, a literature and a culture that
they miserably prolonged their apparent existence with isolated attitudes
eccentric to the point of reckless shamelessness
But as this is certainly only an attempt to explain the occasion,
to humanly approach, in a certain way, what is private and intimate, like this
certainly the real possibility of this despair lies in the realm
of the human in general, it is awake in every instant and is here open like every other, e
only from here it is possible to really understand the threatening character e
ghostly of the process.
It may be that in falling prey to anguish and nostalgia there is
something identical, that is: to have fallen into it, to be entangled in a passion -
the inflexible dedication to something unique, when the empty gaze forgets
multiplicity or he no longer pays attention to anything, completely absorbed
in the eagerness and passion. But it may also be that nostalgia has opened the
her realms, strange and colorful realms, where she felt at home, and that she could
to love with that joy of living that has always remained the same; it may be that anguish
closed everything indiscriminately, taking her breath away and leaving her petrified e
as hunted. If one wanted to point out how much this made her more detestable e

Page 23
common to the point of dullness and indiscipline, it is granted, provided that it is

also accords the freedom of indifference at all times towards a fellow man
evaluate and discuss.
Stiffness and feeling hunted - so that joy and sadness, pain and
desperation pierced her, piercing her as if she were dead flesh - they disappeared
every reality, they let the present bounce, so to speak, and it remained as one
certainty that everything has an end. Thus his radicalism, which once the
he had allowed him to endure the worst things, he had changed so much that now
everything would have dissolved or dispersed if she hadn't made an effort, with meekness
devotion, to remain attached to it, pale and colorless and with its terrible hiddenness
strangeness of fleeting shadows.
It is possible that his youth will free himself from this spell, and his soul
- under a different sky - you find the possibility to express yourself, to free yourself and so on
to overcome illness and bewilderment, to learn patience, simplicity and
freedom of organic growth. But she is more likely to keep wasting it
his life in senseless experiments and in an illicit and unrestrained curiosity, until the
death, so long and so fervently hoped for, will surprise her by decreeing one
arbitrary end to this futile and useless affair.
Königsberg, April 1925
April 24 25
My dearest,
When I gave you the manuscript today you overwhelmed me with a rush of
joy so spontaneous that I was perplexed. I gave you a piece of the
my soul - too little for your love - but your joyful thanks have
exceeded everything.
It was a coincidence that you brought manuscript 1 with you , just when
I had decided to ask you to give it back to me and then be able to give it back to you -
give it away - as a symbol of the fact that you, from now on, live together with mine
work - with the inexhaustible impulse of your "timid and reserved dedication" 2 with
you have discovered your being with a clarity that is rarely encountered.

Page 24
Since I read your diary 3 , I can no longer say "you don't understand this".
You foretell it, you - and proceed with it. There are "shadows" only where there is the
Sun. And this is the depth of your soul. You approached me just starting
from the center of your existence and you have become a force that acts forever
in my life. Dissension and despair cannot generate something like the
your love in the service of my work.
The letter you sent me to Cassel moved me for days and days. The
"If you want to have me" - "if you want"; what should I still do in front of this yours
waiting, shy yet so sure of herself? And what did I bring you if not the
worse, and wasn't it all a constant sacrifice of your soul? And you
you only had your shy, whispered "yes" in the station concourse. And when I
you forced to be away from you, only then did you feel close, and this revealed to me
my being. In this instant - without a word - you spoke to me completely
freely. From this miraculous departure, which has thrown me into guilt
-I feel calm and happy with your life, and its security and impetus.
"Shadows" were the projection of your environment, the period of
forced maturation of your young life.
I would not love you if I did not believe that you are not this, but rather that I am
deformations and deceptions, created by an unmotivated self-defibration e
externally induced.
Your heartwarming confession will not cause me to lose faith in
authentic and rich impulses of your existence. On the contrary, the
fact that you freed yourself - though your way out of these
deformations of the soul, which do not belong to you at all, will be long.
My life has been, by its origin, environment and possibilities, simpler than
that of many young people today - it was easier for me to conduct it with confidence
beyond the instincts, it is easier to reach reality and look for a job. I might as well
easily, even towards you, make you wrong in understanding you. But the proximity of the
your being - and now of your images - is so indisputable to me that,
completely apart from the awareness of love, I will never believe that you
can live and that you will live your life "in senseless experiments" 4 .
You arrived today so happy, radiant and free, just as I hoped you would be
that it was your return to Marburg 5 . And I was stunned by the splendor of
this human being - to whom I can be close to the point of using the you. And when you,
realizing that I seemed almost absent, you asked me if you should
leave, then I was with you - completely alone - free of worries
of the world and thoughts - in the luminous joy of being there.
Page 25

I teach again on 11 6 ; You know what that means?

Good night dear Hannah!
Page 26
Your

Martin
1. v. 25
Dearest!
Love would still be the great faith, which arises with it in the soul, if
did he have only this left to keep in reserve, to wait for and keep? This
to be able to wait for the beloved - it is the most wonderful thing - because in him the beloved
it really represents the "present".
With this faith, let me inhabit the most intimate and purest place of yours
soul. What you have revealed to me with your diary and with your silence in a
tormented encounter, is that in your life there is a certainty and a security
indomitable.
And I am guilty of precisely this timid freedom and of
this confident hope of your soul.
And I pushed your cold soul not towards the blooming of roses, towards
the clear stream, the heat of the sun on the fields, the raging of the storm, the
silence of the mountains - as happened to little Pierino - but rather towards the
ugly - the desolate - the stranger - the unnatural.
And when we recently found ourselves surrounded by the quiet and the
coolness of the evening, and the river glistened among the dark trunks, and the frank step of the
horse walked along the deserted road and you just felt happy with everything
this - then it struck me again what I made you suffer.
I put your "note" among the pages of your diary; it is the original and certainly yes
to the first of the two questions with which it ends: you found yourself why
you never could nor can you get lost. And this gives you joy, because it expresses
humility towards the being that God has given us. And you can imagine
something that is greater than being able to wait for this being for all
eternity?
Page 27
Your
Martin

8.V.25
Dear Hannah!
I have to send you a warm greeting for Sunday. After the concert I was like that
agitated by your proximity that I could not last longer - and I am
gone, while I would have much preferred to walk with you in the night
of May - go quietly next to you, feel your dear hand and
feel your gaze that sweeps - do not ask why and for what purpose, but
only "to be".
It is your being that makes you learn this - and I feel the strength with which in this
you welcome your life within yourself. Even there, where you and yourself - you are a
unleashed elf - who manages to subdue dance, cinema and society.
You said that when we took our first step, he attacked you
the anguish of what might have happened. But what else could he do
happen ? Was n't that already everything and won't everything always be like this? We could have done it
something?
And what can we do, if not just - open up to each other - and leave
be what it is. Let it be in the way that for us is pure joy and source of
every new day of our life.
Peace of mind to be what we are. And yet each would like to "say" to the other and
open; but we could only say that the world is no longer mine and yours - but it is
become ours - and that what we do and try to achieve does not
it belongs to me or you but to us. That the summit and the trails and the mornings of May and
the scent of flowers - they are ours. And that our life is an infinite goodness towards
the others and it is for them of an authentic and spontaneous exemplarity. What a fight
exultant - and the steadfast commitment to something we have chosen - is ours.
Our. Which can never be lost again - but only has the option to
become richer, clearer - more certain, to develop into a great one
passion of existence.
Now you've found your place - you don't have much to take notes - it's better
that you listen and that you try to proceed together. The contents of my lessons there
Page 28
public in autumn 1 , and you will receive a copy of the treaty.

Would you like to bring me the George 2 poems you told me about recently?
Best wishes for a happy Sunday and a warm kiss.

Page 29
Your
Martin
13.V.25
O my day, so great for me

and so quickly stolen from me! 1

This time all speech fails - and I can only cry,
cry - and there's not even an answer as to why - and it sinks in -
waiting in vain - in gratitude and trust. «I like how much
the angel points to me " 2 .
Starting from the day he brought me everything - you - while you still could
feel the spell of Wetzlar 3 around you - while you still had it in your hair
a flowery dream - the rush and the outline of the mountains on the forehead, and the tremor
of the evening chill in your dear hand.
It's your big moment, where you become a saint, where you become visible. THE
features of your face stiffen - driven by the inner strength of a - punishment
that your life bears. Child - that you can do this - and into that you have become
respectful and you have grown up. Life opens up to profound respect - and gives it
size.
In your great looks, between happiness and the evening farewell - in your face
otherworldly I feel, and I am grateful, that in your soul it has been invoked for you
a great forgiveness and that you keep it under it. All that the
your diary tells - it is here - but it is outdated - not forgotten and rejected,
but internalized in the authentic element of the most intimate life. And ultimately you
you are too shy - which means, true shyness is always too shy
to provoke the yes of God, who knew you and accepted you to make you mistress of yours
soul; but holy - keep this shyness - keep her yes to you - and a
philosopher - he sees with Augustine only the child he would like on the beach
pour the sea into a small pit, but he fails in his attempt in front of it
to life.
So you were the present to me when you became the ultimate gift to me.
Nothing drew near - of what was only earthly - blind -
wild and illegal.
Page 30
And I owe this only to you - that you were this. Now I bring it to me
in my soul - and I pray to God that you also keep my hands to keep the treasure.
And so, on this morning of a feast day, it sits on top of my papers and mine
notebooks, as I read Augustine's De gratia et libero arbitrio .
I thank you for your letters - because you welcomed me into your love - mine
dearest. Do you know this is the hardest thing a man has to endure?
For everything else there are ways, aids, boundaries and understanding - only here everything
it means: to be in love = to be pushed to the most authentic existence.
Augustine once said: amo means flight, ut sis 4 -, I love you - I want you
be, what you are.
Beloved heart, you have said nothing to the account of my behavior -

swileenarcee.both people who speak with difficulty - but who also understand the
I thank you for the fragrant flower, which holds for me the memory of a
May day of your young life.
And I thank you for " your " poems 5 .
And I thank you - although I cannot and am not allowed to do so - for your love.
Would you like to come and pick me up next Friday afternoon at four for
take a short walk through the meadows?
Please bring Scheler 6 with you .
20.V.25
Dearest Hannah!
For me it's like we haven't seen each other for years. And soon you will go to
walking among my beloved mountains 1 in this splendid month of May.
I'm not leaving for now, because I need the vacation days for
work on my Logic [Logik] 2 , and in this period, due to a mysterious
cold, I'm not in the best of my condition to be able to work.
And our concert tomorrow, which we haven't talked about at all, is ruined
from a meeting of mine.
Nevertheless, I live happily thinking that you too are happy, you work, and
you become familiar with the things you do.
And in the few pauses I read poems.
Page 31
Only for a short time will I be able to resist nostalgia for you.

Page 32
Your
Martin
[21/22 May 1925]
So I have to be on call in the evening for unexpected interviews - and so it is

difficult that we can see each other again this week. See you anyway
Tuesday 26. Will you still be there? But only after nine. I'll take you there too
letter to Husserl 1 .
(Destroy this ticket!)

29.V. [1925]
My dearest!
I thank you with all my heart for the good wishes. What a coincidence it was, being there
still seen early in the morning, on my way back from rowing. Only in the evening
it then occurred to me as I was preparing my work for the day
next, which I was supposed to show up at half past six.
The day of your trip the weather was as good as it is dreary
today. But in the "south" it may already have changed.
I start my course only on June 9th, and the seminar on June 15th; yes it already is
a large number of students justified, so that it is not worth it.
I will keep your letter in the depths of my soul as an absolute secret
with the phrase of Augustine.
It is absolutely the most autonomous and free thing I have about you. And so it is
magically free as you were yourself, lately, when we are here
reviewed on the bench 1 .
I had to keep repeating myself: now everything is fine. The secret of the last
communication is that you have truly freed yourself. For this reason also in the institution
Catholic confession there is such an immense existential possibility -
Page 33
which, moreover, underlies an equally great abuse.

A communication of this kind is a gift for the other who receives it - not
is that he has knowledge - it is not about that: he will guard it in such a way as to
he does not "know" - "not to think about it" - but rather he keeps it in his love than he does
protects. What such knowledge knows is not what happened, but only and
only that something happened according to destiny - and with that we are one
entrusted to the other.
So that now the shyness in front of the soul of the other does not diminish - but
increases.
So that only belonging to the life of the other is authentic union. He is alone
it allows every joyful closeness to be a source and light.
I don't know where these lines will find you. But the stupendous joy of the
Pentecost for me is that they take you happy, open and well-disposed towards all
what's this.
M.

14.vi.25
My dear!
I wonder if I've ever been so pleased with another human being like
this last evening. I would like never to let these moments of ours vanish again
life, and should always be there, when we falter, hesitate,
we forget to be good.
There was nothing between you and me. The plain and simple being for each other -
without restlessness and without pretensions, without asking and reflecting - so totally
free that I would have liked to exult, if the profound respect for this moment does not me
had made it even happier.
Then - while I was still awake - your diary 1 came to mind , and I have
tempted to compare the image of you that it offers, with the one that I carry
inside, well alive in my soul. In that I found only shyness, but that
now it has transfigured. There's a different expression on your face - I noticed that
already during the course - and I was stunned. The journey, the mountains:
they would have remained mute and poor if you had not brought with you an inner joy
Page 34
and a free and secure being. You said you never felt like that from yours anymore
childhood. Now you have it again - the beaming eyes, the serene forehead and the shy,
benevolent hands.
Child - since now you have managed to achieve all this again, you are not
you will lose more. Your childhood will not be for you a simple gift of nature, but
foundation of your soul and strength of your being.
During the time you were away, I often read poems, and yours
life has been more and more present to me. I am so happy and grateful that you are here - where
I myself am now excited about my stuff. If I am "sick", then it is pure
always a sign that it is "good".
I almost feel your intense closeness.
You've been so good to me lately - and I didn't deserve it for
nothing.
Keep your heart well-disposed and happy.

Page 35
Your
M.
22.vi.25
Dearest!
Thank you for your letter. If only I could tell you how happy I am with you
- to be able to be next to you when life and the world unfold
for you for the first time. And maybe I can't see how much you understand yourself
itself and how all this is a design of destiny. Human beings ignore
than experimenting with yourself, every way to come to terms, all
techniques, all the moralizing and all the expedients to come to terms with oneself,
they have only the sense of restraining and transforming the design of existence. AND
this reversal depends on the fact that we, among all the surrogates of the
"Faith", we have no authentic faith in existence and neither are we
willing to receive it. This belief in this design does not "justify" anything, it does not
it is by no means an expedient to make peace with oneself.
Only a faith of this kind, which as faith in the other - is
love, manages to take the "you" seriously. When I say my joy in yours
comparison is big and growing, it means that I have faith with you in all that
it's your story. I do not construct myself an ideal - much less could I ever be

tempted to educate you about it or something; rather, I love you

as you are and how you will stay with your story. Only then is love also strong
for the future and it is not reduced to the easy enjoyment of an opportunity - then it is seized
the possibility of the other, and it is strong in the face of crises and conflicts, which is not
will miss.
But a faith of this kind is also protected from the danger of abusing,
in love, in the trust of the other. A love that can rejoice as you progress towards the
future, has taken root.
The activity and being of the woman - is for us more originally - a design,
because it is less obvious - but more elementary.
We only act to the extent that we can give - it doesn't matter if the
gift is received immediately or not. And we have the right to be only to the extent
where we manage to pay attention. Because we ourselves can only give
Page 36
what we demand of ourselves. And it is only the depth with which I can
to expect my being from myself to decide on my being towards the other.
The legacy that makes us happy in existence is that love is there, that it can be.
And so the new stillness, which spreads over your face, is not a reflection of one
bliss that hovers in the air, but rather of the solidity and goodness in which
you are completely yourself.

Page 37
Your
Martin
26.vi.25
My dear,
As the weather is not very good and next week I am here alone,
I would like to ask you to come to me on Sunday evening (28.vi) after nine.
Many beautiful things.

Page 38
Your
M.
1.vii. 25
My dear!
I was just thinking about you and in a short break from my work I was together
to you, when you passed this way with Clärchen 1 . Please come on Friday
evening, like last time. And when you are alone, even if you will not be still
well, I will be equally happy.
I am in a very unpleasant situation, because someone caught me of
surprised with a dissertation already completed that I have to examine thoroughly -
even just to reject it.
In the midst of the best job, half a week is lost. I hope
that you are done before you arrive. At least I want to be finished, since I am you
always very willingly close, starting with my work onwards.
9.VII.25
Dear Hannah!
The evening and your letter. Thank you, my good friend! They both tell me
I'm not strong enough for your love yet. "Love does not exist
at all.
If I had been strong enough, I might not have helped you the other night -
but at least I would have given you greater goodness. It went like this, as if I had

some pretense that you feel good when you come instead of having to
to come to me when you are not well.
The fact that I was not up to par at the time shows that I have not
passed the test. You, on the other hand, do, to the extreme. Don't you want to, dearest Hannah,
that we continue to talk about it. We do not want to "analyze" what happened. I can though
Page 39
beg you, my dear, not to be afraid of these "tired" hours and days, and
ask yourself that in the future they will not become something for you that does not also belong to
myself.
Man is not that boring thing that always stands up to it
of admiration, luck and risk. So don't let yourself go to
blame yourself for my refusal.
I have nothing to excuse - rather I just have to thank you for yours
radiant goodness from the other night. Your speeches and your stories expressed this
so much serenity and such a carefree joy that I was happy for you. And it
you know that these are always my most beautiful moments, when I am fully happy
for you ? But I am perhaps less close to you, should I be sad about yours
tiredness?
I already told you once that I forget as easily as you young people
live today with greater difficulty - although I do not want to consider myself a
"old".
But the current era, the environment and the structure of the generation bring too many
things and so early in your life that your life is forced to warn you
fatigue more easily and more often, in a period that does not allow to give
nothing - which makes everything grow old quickly - in which only those who are very strong and
calm can commit to something inconspicuously and without doing
noise.
All that today offers possibilities, can only free the forces, if
these are already present.
And they do not spring from without - they are released from stillness
confidence in oneself and in others.
You told me how determinedly you young people feel there
lack of an ordinary life and being and you seek them.
I had already written to you in the first letters what the task is right here
I see intended for women in university and how little is understood.
I started reading The Magic Mountain 1 - it's exciting for me,
because I already know all these things from my only friend's letters
youth 2 , and I lived this world with him from afar in the time I was
student.
Sure, the magnitude of the exhibit - it's incredible; what I have been able to do so far

to derive from the "time" of reading is nothing shocking - but it would be

ridiculous if I wanted to try to grasp the work on the basis of this.
But that a phenomenon such as existence is experienced by its environment
Page 40
surrounding and the fact that living it personally is just a presumption, is

developed with such mastery that for the moment I remain focused
solely on this. I'm a lazy reader, and right now
I am very tormented by my "horn" on my forehead 3 and my strength is reduced.
I hope the infection doesn't go any further and it won't ruin the next ones as well
weeks. Bultmann 4 came to see me on Wednesday morning and advised me
to suspend the course. In fact now I have rested, because they already were
several nights that I did not sleep. And I know you will be patient with me too.
When you spoke to me on Monday, it was very different from before. The security
within you and this belonging-to-me clear and free.
It was enchanting the way you beat on the glee for happiness
shoulders of good Jakoby, while it was my turn!
And just as you were close to me in that brief interview, you were also close to me
daily during the course.
Your life will be rich and will never fail. This faith is worth more than all of this
that grabs us and that we manage to obtain.
Rejoice, my dear.

Page 41
Your
Martin
[17.vii.b5]
My dear Hannah!
Would you like to come to me this Sunday evening (19.vii)? I live savoring the
happiness of these hours. Come around nine!
If the lamp in my room is on, it means that I am being held by a
interview. In this unlikely eventuality, come at the same time on Wednesday.
Unfortunately on Tuesday I am busy reading the Greek classics 1 .
When you come, bring me the second volume of The Magic Mountain, if any
you have it at your fingertips. On the days when I couldn't work I read the first one
volume all in one breath. Of course, however, it should be "studied".
I am very overwhelmed by exams, meetings and opinions, and I feel more like one
employee than a man.
For this I would be even more happy to relax with you.

Page 42
Your
M.
24.vii.25
Dear Hannah!
Thank you for your dear letter. It is so safe and free that I could
share your joy in a particular way.
Theology gets you to work. No wonder. It is in its nature. And the fact that
you believe that the efforts made so far have been in vain is not a bad sign.
It is just a matter of properly distributing the necessary seriousness - that is
an "art". Maybe you have to want to know a lot more through
enthusiasm - this does not need either to be "curious" or to perceive something
external, but to keep oneself open to the possibilities of understanding.
But let's not exaggerate with zeal! This danger is particularly
recurring in our environment - just think of Bultmann's work and mine. I have
always the impression of chatting, young people take too much on
their "seriousness" is serious. They have nothing of that impetuous way of doing that we do
we had and that, I think, we still have, just a little bit modified. They don't know what it is
an adventure and they always forget that, for Bultmann as for me, the basis of
departure is a completely different historical evolution: we were capable of
to be enthusiastic about our mistakes and we also knew how to draw the strength of a job
so intense, capacity that today has been lost.
Those who still have some ardor and passion for sure will one day
will tire of this stale and senseless "seriousness" - which, moreover, is based on a
contamination of "seriousness" with "yes" - without however falling
in the other extreme, just as senseless, of a tired irony about everything - what now
more than ever it is bewilderment.
So, mischievous wood nymph, this is not a "lost semester",
but rather of a piece of lived life - that is, of the attainment of a being.
I would give something to once again have the chance to "lose" some
semester.

Page 43
Your
Martin
31. VII. [1925]
Dear Hannah!
I'm still here and can't meet Husserl right now because of one
damn meeting I have to attend on Monday 1 .
It's a bit of a strange family organization, because starting tomorrow there
our maid is no longer with us. Now I am suddenly a student again.
Would you like to come to me tomorrow at eight forty-five? If in mine
room the light is off, then it rings.
2. viii. 25
Dear Hannah!
I thank you for the "goodbye".

It was a wonderful semester; and I return to devote myself to my work with
a lot of momentum. It is also your merit. And my mountains must offer me peace,
tranquility and impetus, so that everything becomes as I feel it inside of me.
Now I'm not at all sad about the delay, because it still brought me there
beautiful evening and your words.
I accompany you on your paths and in your dreams. I am happy with your goodness,
of your maturation and your strengthening.
And bring a warm greeting to your mom.
Rejoice, love life and live with great serenity, so that this year can bring you
a beautiful late summer.
Page 44

Your
Martin
23.viii. [1925]
Dear Hannah!
My stay up here 1 was first of all a healthy rest, following the

which however I caught a bad cold that forced me to
interrupt my work for a long time. So I couldn't even
go down to the village at the post office.
In the meantime, making some stops, you should have come to your mother.
Recently I suddenly realized, thinking back to your face, the way it is
often seen when we came back from Lahn, that you look like yours in every way
mother.
I wish you too had taken so much of the
semester and end of semester, how many I have brought here with me. And I hope to
to be able to use them for good already during the next few weeks. Today the
mountains are covered in thick fog - while there was still sunshine yesterday
shining and you could see the entire chain of the Alps from the Bernese Oberland
up to Mont Blanc.
Here I live again immersed in nature, in my native land, and I feel
how thoughts mature. Wandering in the fir woods is also one way
wonderful to meditate. I very seldom come across any lumberjacks - here
there are no spa guests and other such types. I know every open track
in the woods and every little spring, every roe step - every rooster post
grouse.
In such an environment the work has a different consistency, compared to
when you move in the midst of quarrelsome and intriguing professors.
Bultmann recently wrote to me enthusiastically from the sea 2 . He promised me one
long letter, but so far it has not reached me. I have finished reading the Mountain
enchanted. Actually, the beginning of the second volume seemed a bit weak to me
and uncertain - the conclusion is consequently artificial. Scenes like that of
night feast set up by Peeperkorn, are not things anyone is in
able to accomplish. This character is really of "race", and the story of
Page 45
Madame Chauchat is beautifully developed - because it is a conclusion

without a real end, and therefore I am convinced that Hans Castorp, when later
found himself with his rifle on the battlefield in a soggy trench, he had to
"Think" about her, and that somewhere - she "thought" about him, and continues to do so
Also today. What remains so unspoken on the whole is really the most
positive.
For me the distinguishing mark of the work lies in the fact that I will reread it soon -
even only of the single parts. And these must be studied. You won't have to
taking too much into account "time". But perhaps here the criticism is particularly
meaningless.
I'm often in Königsberg - not just because I'm reading Kant «for
relax "and doing it I realize how badly what is today is reduced
it spreads under the name of philosophy - even if only in attitude and in
style.
Lowith wrote to me these days from Munich 3 - still fails to
find yourself in the old world. Comes to Marburg this fall.
I would like to advise you, I forgot, to think about preparing for the
seminar of Bultmann 4 , in order to know something. On the subject of the
seminar in the strict sense there is almost nothing, and in any case nothing of
satisfying. A libretto of which I know only the title: Lüdemann, Die
Anthropologie des Paulus , could only be an anthology of texts; maybe you can
look for it one day in the library.
One-sided - but very well written, is Kabisch's book, Die Eschatologie
des Paulus. Then I think I have already mentioned Bousset once, Die Religion des
Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter. It is written completely following the
method of the historical-religious school, but it is very rich in materials and instructive
from the point of view of the history of concepts.
Soon the holidays will be over again - for me, from a certain point of
sight, all too quickly. But I hope to still have some good weeks of
work.
The list with my name in first place 5 is already in Berlin. I assume there
it will hibernate for quite some time and will be subjected to the danger of new ones
maneuvers and intrigues. In case he gets nominated, the fight for my successor
it will be even more furious anyway. There are people who see in these things
the most exciting element in a professor's life.
Will you be able to convince your mother that you want for next winter
receive ski equipment? Among the few books I keep on my desk
Page 46
there is the Hyperion of Hölderlin. This can suggest to you that you and your love
you belong to my work and my existence. And I wish the holiest of gods
remember you get as close to you as to me. It will always work
a warning to me, so that I become more worthy of this life with you.

I have a secret project. If Clärchen comes to live during the winter

near you, sometime i'll make me play something 6 . Perhaps your "art" can
be able to do this.
I plan to leave soon for my hometown 7 . Then I'll write you mine
address to also receive news from you.
I'll write to you again soon.
Page 47
Affectionately
Your Martin
Todtnauberg, Sept. 14 25

My dear Hannah!
Autumn has already settled up here with cold nights and days
beautifully sunny. I threw myself into my work with a lot of enthusiasm 1 e
now, without university commitments, I can freely dedicate myself to the things I do
interest. This time I'm afraid of the semester - not just because it will bring more
paperwork, but because it distracts me from creative work. The task that I am myself
prefix, the further elaboration of "time", I will not carry it out. I got it though
encountered new issues, which for the moment hold me still. Mine
Logica has therefore continued to deteriorate - so I cannot expose it in the
current version. I assume that this is absolutely not possible in a construction
closed - but rather in the articulated elaboration of single issues, including
the problem of "negation" takes a particular position.
I have already unlearned the aspect of the "world", and it will seem to me that I am a
mountaineer who comes down to town for the first time. But in this loneliness, what
it can give unsuspected forces, even human affairs become simpler
and stronger, losing their most fatal aspect - everyday life. We have to
continually convince us that everything is new, like the first day - and this is it
what productive work offers us by isolating ourselves.
Often, when I feel very excited, I climb the mountain
closer and let the storm rage whistling in my ears. I need
of this closeness of nature; and often, when around two in the morning, finished
work, I look down into the quiet of the valley and feel the closeness of the sky
starry - then I am only action and life. Then I think you will rejoice too
these things and that you too must perceive them.
I have already written to you that I am reading Hyperion. I slowly begin to understand it.
You should feel it in every line, dear one, how it rages inside me and I have to
just try to deal with it the right way.
I received a long letter from Husserl 2 . He repeated the invitation to
go to him in Tyrol. But I had to decline the invitation because I can't wait to
Page 48
carrying out my most personal matters. It seems to me that Husserl is not going
later, and I'm afraid his creative ability has come to an end. He needs
of a scientific stimulus, and in Freiburg he does not have much support in this regard.
The 1 or October I go to my hometown (Meßkirch, Baden) and will remain for eight
days. Then I go to Heidelberg for ten days from Jaspers 3 . I will be in Marburg
around 20.
If I can get rid of my work, I'll go to Freiburg on 21 September -
at the Collegium Musicum, Gurlitt 4 holds a baroque music concert
German playing the organ of Prätorius (Prätorius, Scheidt, Pachelbel,

Buxtehude) and invited me.

Have you worked diligently for Bultmann? In the seminar on Hegel 5 I will discuss
in a first time still by Kant, and precisely by the Critique of Reason
pure (transcendental aesthetics on time; then the transcendental logic on
schematism and analogies of experience). Maybe look at these things for a while
more thoroughly.
How's your ski equipment doing? During my walks I imagine myself
already where I can wander with you.
I got back in great shape training in the mountains, and it will feel like it
a strange thing to have to walk heavily on the plains again.
Right now the setting sun illuminates the entire chain of the Alps since
Mont Blanc in the Bernese Oberland. If it were still summer, it would be a sign
of the approach of bad weather. Up here, apart from some
stormy days, we were spared.
Please write to me in Meßkirch.
Page 49
Affectionately
Your Martin
Freiburg, 7.X.25
Dear H. Yesterday I went back down to the "plains" and stayed two more days
with Husserl. Then I go to Meßkirch until the 17th. I am writing to you from there more extensively. The
the last few weeks in the mountains have been indescribably beautiful! I am
fully tanned to a copper brown color and relaxed into

best of ways.
An affect. greeting
M.
Heidelberg, 18.X.25
Dear Hannah!
I thank you with all my heart for the letter you sent me to Meßkirch.
I arrived in my country with a severe cold which then degenerated into one
very troublesome bronchitis; it ruined my stay and almost thwarted mine
rest.
I feel pretty well now - but I still can't concentrate
with clarity about my work. The things that I have worked out in the solitude of
mountains stand before me as something foreign. And I will need to
a long time to be able to completely regain possession of them. I fear that
this horrible winter semester, with its bureaucratic paperwork, I don't
will allow.
Glad you are okay and patient with me.
I start the course on November 2nd - the seminar for beginners in the same
day, and Tuesday, November 3 I do the preliminary meeting of the seminar
advanced 1 .
Page 50
You must help me, with your dear presence, to make sure that everything goes well.
Unfortunately I can keep me here by Jaspers only briefly 2 , because the
There's a meeting again next week that I can't miss.
You will only arrive in Marburg at the end of October - that is, in a few days. For
me it's like we met last night. The hours spent in intimacy, they have us
given so much, they remain and repeat themselves - and only thus do they reveal themselves endlessly.
And your dear letter tells me how you live with these hours. I'll see you again like this -
in the history of these hours, and your dear eyes will announce joy and your way
peculiar to being for me - your joy in being available.
But I would also like you to come back relaxed and serene as you were in the summer.
I hope to be able to get back to work by being with Jaspers. For the
moment everything seems very unreal to me, especially the fact of having to keep a
course. But at the same time this is a sign of how much the weeks have gone by
working hard have been really fruitful.

Shortly before coming down from the mountains, I received a letter from Dr.
Stern, who describes the painful situation in which he found himself. In fact he says
to have written an essay during the summer (on environment - situation - resistance) 3 ,
for which, while working on it, he was unable to distinguish between the ideas that
they belong to me and those that are his own. Now Jonas 4 has read him the
my summer course 5 and he therefore saw the perfect coincidence of his ideas with
mine. However, I would ask you to read your contribution before the
publication, to be so sure that you have not misinterpreted me.
Such a thing could only be afforded by Mr. Stern, who has been for years
procured everything I said during the tutorials and seminars. I have him
briefly answered 6 : «when I am not able to distinguish what ideas they are
properly mine and as those of another, then I do not think of one
publication. With a friendly greeting ».
Perhaps Mr. Stern is truly one of the worst - but when they do
such experiences, one sometimes remains uncertain whether it is worth spending so much effort
for teaching rather than concentrating all the work on research.
In the end, however, the possible positive effect remains hidden, and it is good so.
From Bultmann I recently received a long letter 7 - in
which also unbuttons on personal matters. Our friendship has grown more
Viva. Unfortunately, however, I have not yet been able to answer him because I was dead tired.
A dear kiss. Until we meet again
Your Martin
Page 51
On the 20th I go to Marburg.
Marburg, 5 Nov. 25
My dear Hannah!
Today I greeted you during my lesson and I rejoiced thinking of you.

The course is still very tiring for me, but I hope to free myself and not
get the flu like my wife. It degenerated into pneumonia - days and
the nights have been very heavy for me. All our rest had vanished
by magic.
Even the children were sick, so the last few days have not been for
nothing beautiful.
My wife will take quite a long time to recover, and for the

at the moment I still don't see how we are going to carry the house forward. We will have to
probably resort to some help.
I write these things to you - although I know you don't expect any
"Justification" for my silence. I'm glad you're back here, and
I hope we will see you soon.
The days with Jaspers were very important to me, and here we are
draw closer. Although we already fight over everything, it's still a tough fight for
a friendship.
Today I was still too tired and nervous to be able to go to seminary
by Bultmann.
Bultmann told me briefly about the comical mistaken identity of which
you have been object - but it has not been possible for me to understand who he has you with
exchanged. It must have been very ridiculous when he greeted you
telling you "Does he want to come get his money?"
These days Bultmann was touching.
Although the circumstances are so severe, I am still happy
of the beginning of the semester and of the work that awaits me.
And your closeness is sunlight.
Page 52
Many beautiful things
Your Martin
Marburg, 10.xii.25
Dearest!
Please come tomorrow (Friday) around eight fifteen in the evening at ours
Park bench.
I'm very happy.
If I am unable to come, I'll tell you after class.

Page 53
Your
M.
Marburg, Jan. 9 26
My dear Hannah!
I would be really happy if I came from tonight (Saturday) at eight forty-five

myself. If the light is on in my room, I'm home.
But perhaps you only arrive in town tomorrow evening; it would be a pity. Until we meet again
Jan 10 26
My dear Hannah!
The evening - which I have been thinking about with joy for weeks - and your letters. I understand,

but this does not make it easier to bear. Much less, because they are
aware of what my love demands from you. That you have been
pushed to the limit of losing trust - even for the most lively fidelity it is not
such an impossible thing, as romantic idealization would instead.
I have forgotten you - not out of indifference, not out of external circumstances
that got in the way, but because I was forced to forget you and I will forget you
whenever I find myself having to work with absolute concentration. It is not
a matter of hours or days, but it is a process that is prepared in the
course of weeks and months, and then it goes out.
And this detachment from all human things and the severance of all relationships is,
as far as creative work is concerned, the greatest experience I know
of all those humanly possible - it is the most infamous thing that can happen in
relationship to real life situations. It's like they take your heart out of it
chest while you are perfectly conscious.
And the worst thing is that this isolation cannot be justified
Page 54
appealing to the results it has achieved, because there are no criteria for them
measure and why you can't just put it on the same scale
renunciation of human relationships. All this, however, must be endured - doing in
so that we talk about it as little as possible even with those who are closest to us.
And under the weight of this necessary isolation, I also want one every time
total external isolation - I would almost say an only apparent return among the
men - and the strength to maintain a definitive and lasting distance from them.
Indeed, only in this way could they be preserved from any
sacrifice and necessarily being rejected.
But this agonizing desire not only cannot be granted, but
it is even forgotten - to the point that now the most lively human relationships
they become sources again and provide impulses to be pushed again
in isolation. Everything therefore falls into indifference and violence of its own
towards the people who are most dear to us and to whom we are most attached - and one
such a life ends up being just a continuous claim, without ever having
a justification for that. To exist as a philosopher means to resolve
positively this situation - and not take sides by fleeing in
some way.
What I tell you - cannot and must not be a way to apologize; but
I am aware that in this way I return again and strongly to
come close to me, because you can understand and this constitutes a strengthening of
our friendship located at the extreme limits, only to make hers more penetrating
necessary sense. "Tragic" is a cliché and has lost all meaning for the
our positive consciousness of existence, ie where the break comes

grasped as the authentic force.

If I had kept quiet about what I said, and only assured you
directly that in the end you had been deceiving yourself lately, then all of it
it would have been only a dissimulation.
And if I told you that now I'm terrified of any external activity - I mean
refer to the request for "holidays", which no ministry can grant, but which
instead it is necessary to tear it away by stealing it from oneself. And almost everything happened yesterday
according to a disturbing symbolism - you called me a "pirate" - I nodded
smiling, but, at the same time, I felt in "fear and trembling" the
cold and the storm of navigation.
If you tell me about your jokes, anecdotes and mockery of the "philosophers" - it is
a very funny thing, and it would be foolish and pedantic to want to judge a thing
similar or even just wanting it not to exist. If that was the only thing that
Page 55
he kept the minds busy beside the purposes of learning and concluding
studies, then all this would be terrible for young people.
And your decision 1 - I say "no" to it, if I think about myself, and I say " yes "
if I think of myself in the isolation of my work. But the positive must
turn into a concrete decision - and in this case it's not about a place
as common as that of an academic course or seminar. In the latter
decision, regardless of you and me - it is clear that you, in your youth
years and in your semesters that have been receptive, you don't stop there. They blame themselves
always the young when they do not find the strength to leave. It is a sign that the
freedom of instinct has been dying out, and that therefore, even if they remain, they
no longer have a positive development - regardless of whether this kind of
Here pupils burn all the news in an instant and from the beginning take the
hand even to me. I can hardly believe that "Heidegger's pupils"
they do not look pleasant at all. What is spreading and becoming
alarming is a way of thinking and questioning and disputing completely
forced. These characteristics of the environment are more stubborn than the individual, e
resisting them one is only crushed.
And maybe your decision becomes an example, and helps me set the mood
more free. If it gets a positive effect it is only because it requires a sacrifice from
part of both.
The evening and your letters give me a renewed certainty that all is well
so and it will be successful. Just as I forget and have to forget in cases of
force majeure, in the same way you too must still rejoice in yours
situation, like someone who has a young heart and is strong in waiting and believing
knows how to rejoice in a new world - learn something new, a breath
fresh air, a development. The proof of our love lies in the fact that each
of us remains at the height of the existence of the other and this means at the height of

freedom to believe and the inner need for a serene trust.

My life flows - without my intervention and without any merit on my part
- in a certainty so disturbing as to lead me to believe that this new emptiness,
that will be determined with your departure, is something that must necessarily
happen. The isolation that has been increasing for some weeks because of mine
productive commitment, the desire, on the part of Husserl, to spend longer periods
long together, your decision - they are all different forces that want to free me
the path so that I can start my new projects and works. And so
the cold lonely days will return - in which existence, sick for her
problems, is driven by indomitable enthusiasm and necessity. What if you
Page 56
keep your faith, you will sometimes feel the greeting and prayer in your heart
of loneliness, and you will rejoice and be confident.

Page 57
Your
Martin
Marburg, 29.vii.26
Dearest!
I thank you affectionately for your kind regards. You came to my mind
often - this summer, and it always seemed to me that you should be fine.
When J. showed up I was very excited, and I just listened to that
what he said about you and your mother. I only took him as your messenger -
although I can also say that J. 1 is very advanced.
I've often tried to figure out a way to get to know yours
address 2 . I didn't dare write like that, haphazardly, in college.
I'd much rather tell you verbally. I have a project.
The printing of my book is halfway through 3 ; but I have to do one
little pause because the "paperwork" of the semester has taken me long enough.
Husserl invited me to spend eight days with him in Silvaplana in the Engadine.
From there I go back up to the cabin to work.
Here I still have to do until early next week. I presume to
leave for Freiburg on Wednesday 4th then continue to Switzerland on 6th day. Non
could we maybe meet, for example in Weinheim? And you should allow me
to invite you there. I would then continue the journey on 5.
J. had told me, however, that you were planning a trip on the
Main, and maybe you won't be able to receive this letter anymore.
It just needs to be seen if you can still arrange things this way. In
if so, send me an official postcard with a greeting for the end of
semester in Heidelberg. I'll write you something more specific about it later.
However, I leave on Wednesday 4 with the direct train, which arrives in Freiburg

aWbeoiunthtehirm
ee. in the afternoon. At the moment I'm not sure if it stops at
If this letter reaches you late, but still before
Wednesday, and you could come without being able to warn me, know that you
in any case I wait in Weinheim, or in Mannheim or Heidelberg. You must only
make sure exactly where the train passes and where it stops.
Page 58
I am writing to you in a hurry. If we do not meet, I am writing to you from Engadine to

Königsberg 4 .
With a very affectionate kiss.

Page 59
Your
Martin
Marburg a / L., 7.XII.27

Barfüßertor 15
My dear Hannah!
Flight, ut sis! 1 This is the only answer I can find for your letter, so dear.
Although you have always remained in my present as the first day, yours
letter brought you very close to me. I hold your hands in mine and pray with you
for your fate.
Read the letter I wrote you in wonderful days about
«Shadows» 2 - and you will know everything. No, not quite everything. You know nothing of my joy
for your fate. You, my dear child, have only the "hope" that I want
trust you? Ask it to the bottom of your heart, that often
shone through your wonderfully deep eyes; tells you: basically
I am absolutely sure of this trust.
Your letter troubled me just like my first meeting with you.
I thank the words dictated today by your love for bringing me back to those days
so elementary.
When in August I heard from Jo [nas] that in the fall you would be coming to
Heidelberg, my only wish was to find you there. A serious and complicated one
form of otitis cheated me of the best time to work and did
postpone my projects. An important work with Husserl 3 kept me at
Freiburg in early October. What most made me happy during
these weeks has been the fact of being able to pass, every day, for the
Schwimmbadstraße, where you too have passed, and, as I have now learned, you have
lived so free and self-confident. Only later, in October, after visiting
I came to the grave of my mother, who passed away in May, for a few days
by Jaspers 4 .
I couldn't stand wandering the streets of Heidelberg anymore, hoping to
meet you at any moment. I had to talk to someone about you,
and I asked Jaspers about you. And he told me things like that about you and your work

Page 60
beautiful, that I could hardly help myself. It hadn't been one for a long time
conversation in which we are content to talk about others and to report what we are
heard - when he told me that, as he had seen himself, he believed I was
girlfriend 5 .
Without pointing this out, I tried to finish the interview to be alone.
Dear Hannah, it was as if I had received the grace to give away one last
thing, something great, to receive the gift back, and the very act of giving,
in a new possession. I haven't been able to elaborate yet, much less
to say conceptually, what I saw unexpected in our existence in
these hours.
I started looking for you again and again to rejoice with you - until when
I was seized with euphoria and walked away.
Jaspers has only communicated to me what he "believes", and I have not been
to investigate further, "with whom" and "since when" and things like that. In our
interview everything remained so distant from any gossip that I could
see with joyful gratitude how much Jaspers truly and seriously values you
is it your job.
Thanks to this interview, I got even closer to him.
And your dear letter has now even relieved me of the concern of
not knowing how to tell you that I was "aware" of your engagement. A
"Interview" would need only a few words, or even
of none.
Now I am sorry that you are so distressed.
What I have come to know I have not understood, not even for a moment,
as if it were "brought back" to me by "someone", but as something that you yourself
you had trusted in our distant yet so close talks, during which yours
dear presence continues to reveal itself to me. So, even though I was already a
"Knowledge" of these things, your letter was something "new" for me,
because it was you who told me directly.
Now, at this moment there is nothing left for me to do but divert the desire to
you and your deep joy in the fury - of work.
You have read my book [Being and Time \ - that is, you have fused your love together
with your new fate.
Take all the joy of your heart into your hands, so that they slip through
an instant on my forehead and I may keep the power of the intact within me
your love.
Always in your present.

Page 61

Page 62
Your
Martin
Greet your mother affectionately.

Write to me again if I ask you.
Marburg, 8.11.28
My dear Hannah!
Would you like to tell me something about yourself these days? Even my silent one
talk with you in the quieter days of the holidays will be again
impregnated with the events of your life.
Do you have your own photographs of the sea? I wish I had your dear picture - as well as
I keep the shyness and goodness of your heart deeply in me.
Keep me in your present.
Page 63

Your
Martin
Are you coming back from the south right away?
Marburg, 19.11.28
My dear Hannah!
You have given me great joy. I am affectionately grateful to you. In

definitive, it is almost impossible to write a letter "to order". But it i
it's so expensive anyway, and the fact that you don't know where to start, though
excess of joy, it is so powerful, so immediately strong, that you actually
you could directly express all your joy to me.
You are "simply happy". Your letter shines with this sentiment.
All the "shadows" have gone away. I am so happy, to be able to take part in the
your wonderful and intense tranquility.
I know, my dear, that you are often present here on my extreme path
loneliness - as happens in the mountains when a flower in front of a large one
rock waits, or rather: it is simply there. I think then that "eternity" is
this; otherwise I do not find it.
I'm glad you gave me both photographs. In one, where
your face is leaning on hand 1 , you are so "just happy". And the other: in
this other one you are as I have seen you every time in the course on Plato, when I entered
in the classroom. You are just like that, that is, you are both at the same time:
simply happy and on the way to happiness.
What a strange thing! - or not - during the Christmas holidays I read Un
vagabond. Hamsun is a philosopher, but he is without his art resulting from it
weighed down. And this splendid closeness to the land, the landscape, the instincts, the
elementary things - this uninterrupted totality of life, which he always manages to
represent with three sentences only. I still know little about him, because I am
especially a very slow reader. But now I've already ordered The Extreme
joy and I want to enjoy it during the holidays.
You know well that the end of the semester is not a good thing; but I rejoice in that
despite thinking of the Schwarzwald, which is now even more dear to me, since
Page 64
I know you like it so much too. Perhaps our fate will want you to

can visit.
I have a pair of wonderful new Norwegian skis and that makes me happy as
a child would be. I hope there is enough snow again.
Jaspers invited me for April 2 and I'm already thrilled with joy at the thought of
to be able to see you. I will first write to Königsberg, when my projects of
holidays will be quite certain. Because it may be that the holidays are not
very restful and require a decision on my part: the Faculty of Freiburg
he proposed me unanimously as the only candidate 3 , and if everything goes smoothly a
March will come the call. But, my dear, consider this news in a way
absolutely confidential. However, during the summer I will still be here. So I can
conduct negotiations at my discretion without confusion.
In September I was invited to lecture at
Herder University in Riga. I will probably accept the invitation because I am
curious enough to know the landscape of those places. Maybe I can do
visit you and your mother on the return trip 4 .
During the summer semester I teach a course on Logic - completely
new. I hope to have the peace of mind of constant concentration. Everything is like that
splendid - and ten lives would not be enough to exhaust it.
I kiss your dear hands.
I belong entirely to you.
Page 65
Your
Martin
Greet your dear mother affectionately and tell her that her greeting made me

very pleased.
In the next week I am writing to you from Schwarzwald; you can too
write to me there, or in Freiburg or here.
Todtnauberg, April 2, 28
Dear Hannah!
I accepted the call to Freiburg yesterday. Even apart from the fact of
having been called, they offered me such extraordinary conditions
favorable that I just could not refuse. However, I will only move on the 1st of
October 1 , and therefore during the summer I will still be in Marburg. In the course of my
return trip from Berlin 2 , where I was on 28.III for the negotiation, I am
stopped for a day in Heidelberg. I made an appointment with Jaspers for
April 15th and I'm supposed to stay until about the 20th. The best thing would be
that you give me your Heidelberg address at the post office
central post office, so we can arrange an appointment. I am
very happy.
The past four weeks have been really hectic, and now
I hope I can still have 14 days of real work. I am teaching a course again
on Logic; but with completely different contents. These days I have been experimenting
in a very short time the difference between Berlin and Schwarzwald; I understand one
time more what's my place. I still can't quite believe that in the ride
in a few days I'll see you again. I recently went to Heidelberg with this status
mood 3 .
I hold your dear hands in mine and greet you with affection.
Page 66
Your
Martin
An affectionate greeting to your beloved mother.

Heidelberg, April 18 [1928]
My dear!
I only arrived last night, because my journey extended to Freiburg for

way of buying land 1 .
I'm supposed to stay here until next Monday if I don't come
called back for some meeting (successor to my professorship!) 2 .
If I don't visit you this afternoon between two and four, wait for me
please tonight at ten in front of the university library. So we can then
give us an appointment.
Affectionately.
Page 67
Your
Martin
42. Hannah Arendt to Martin Heidegger
Heidelberg, 22.iv.28
I think I understand - that you will not come now 1 . However I am afraid and in all

tm
heysetedriaoyussIlyhpaveneebtreaetnincgo.ntinually and suddenly assailed by a fear
What I want to tell you now, after all, is nothing more than a pure exposition and
simple of the situation. I love you like the first day - you know it, and I have
always known, even before this meeting. The path you had for me
indicated is longer and more difficult than I thought. It takes a whole long life.
The solitude of this journey is voluntary and it is the only possibility of life that
it is granted to me. But the desolation that fate has reserved for me would not have me
only removed the strength to live in the world, out of isolation, but it would have me
also blocked the way through the world, because this path is long
and you can't do it in one leap. Only you can have the right to know, why
you always knew. And I don't think I'm ever insincere even in this case
in which in the end I am silent. I always give everything that is required of me, and the way
itself is none other than the task that our love assigns to me. I would have missed the
my right to life, if I lose my love for you; but I'd lose this love and
its reality , if I evaded the task to which it pushes me.
"And if God wills /

I will love you even more after death " 2 .
H.
[1929]
Dear Martin,
I think you have probably already heard from me through other sources
Page 68
occasional. This takes away the ingenuity of communication, but not the trust
that our last meeting in Heidelberg once again strengthened,
renewing it and making me happy. So I present myself to you with the ancient sense of
security and with the ancient request: do not forget me, and do not forget how much
may the awareness that our love has become there be strong and profound in me
blessing of my life. This awareness must not waver, either
today, when I found roots and a sense of belonging that relieves
my restlessness next to a man, whom you could hardly have
understand 1 .
I often hear about you, but they are all things reported with that coldness and
that detachment that is already inherent in pronouncing a famous name - so for me it is

dtoifkfincouw
lt thooiw
deynotiufya.rY
e,ew
t Ih'datloyvoeu taoreknwoow
rk-inIg'monso, aim
ndpat
hoiw
entyou are in Freiburg.
I kiss your forehead and eyes

Your Hannah
[Sept. 30]
Martin,
Forgive me if today, when I saw you, I immediately started to fix the

what's this. But in the same instant the image of you and of Günther flashed into my mind,
you two together at the window and me alone on the sidewalk, so I couldn't
evade the diabolical clarity of what I had seen. Excuse me.
So many things have coincided that they have troubled me to the core
of the soul. It wasn't just, as always, that your gaze rekindled it
my awareness of the clearest and most compelling continuity of my life, of the
continuity of our - please let me tell you - love.
There is more: I was there in front of you for a while, you could have seen me - me
you looked in passing. And you didn't recognize me. When I was my little one
mother once scared me madly with a game like this.
I had read the tale of a gnome whose nose had grown out of all proportion so that
no one recognized him anymore. My mother pretended this had happened to me.
I still remember the blind fear I felt as I kept screaming: but me
Page 69
I'm your baby, I'm really Hannah. I felt that way today.
Then the train pulled away quickly. And then it happened exactly
what I had imagined, what perhaps I had wanted: you two high above
me, and I alone, completely helpless. As always, there was nothing that
I could do but let that happen, and wait, wait, wait.
[Winter 1932/33]
Dear Hannah!
The rumors that disturb you are slander, quite similar to other experiences
that have touched me in recent years.

That I could hardly have excluded Jews from school invitations

it follows from the fact that in the last four semesters I have not had any
invitation to the institute. The fact that I do not greet the Jews is such a malicious slander that
I'll remember it for the future.
To explain what my relations with the Jews are, I will list you
simply the following facts.
In this semester I am on leave 1 and therefore I have made known in time, since
this summer, that I would like to be left alone and that I will not accept jobs either
other duties.
Nevertheless there is someone who, having to urgently obtain the
doctorate, he came to ask me, and I accepted it: he is a Jew. There is another
who comes to me every month to tell me about a big job being done
elaboration (which is neither a doctoral nor a free teaching thesis) and is by
again a Jew. Still another sent me an extensive one a few weeks ago
I work to see him again urgently: he too is a Jew.
The two fellows to whom I have given gods in the last three semesters are Jews
Subsidies from the Notgemeinschaft 2 . Yet another Jew got thanks to me
a scholarship for Rome 3 .
Whoever wants to call this "militant anti-Semitism", do so.
Moreover, in university matters I am as anti-Semitic 4 now as I was
ten years ago in Marburg, when this anti-Semitic position of mine even took hold
the support of Jacobsthal and Friedländer 5 .
Page 70
This has nothing to do with my personal relationships with Jews

(e.g. with Husserl, Misch, Cassirer 6 and others).
And much less can it affect my relationship with you.
That I have been withdrawing into myself for a long time is explained by the fact that all the
my work has met with the most bleak misunderstanding, and with experiences
unpleasant personalities that I had to do in my teaching business. IS
some time ago, however, that I lost the habit of expecting myself from the so-called pupils
any gratitude or even just a decent attitude.
For the rest I am happy with the work, which is becoming more and more difficult, and I salute you
of heart.
M.

Page 71
See you again
Freiburg-Zähringen, 7 Feb. 1950

Rötebuckweg 47
Dear Hannah,
I am delighted to have the opportunity to continue now, in a later period

of life, our initial meeting as something that remains.
It would be nice, if you could come to me tonight around eight. My
wife, who knows everything, would gladly greet you. But unfortunately tonight

has a commitment.
His letter arrived only this afternoon 1 . Like us in Zähringen
we do not have a private telephone and not even the possibility to call, if not
during the opening hours of the public place, I bring this ticket to yours myself
hotel and review at half past six.
MH
Freiburg i. Br., 8 Feb. 1950
Dear Hannah,
After you left, my room remained suffused with a quiet light

auroral. My wife had summoned it. You helped bring it. Your
"Maybe" was the ray that answers and resolves. But in the glow of this light
auroral the guilt of my silence appeared . It will remain.
Page 72
But now the auroral light has dissolved something dark that loomed over the
our first meeting and waiting in the distance.
"Clear is beautiful." These words from Jaspers that you told me last night to me
they moved permanently, while the conversation between you and my wife did
it evolved from misunderstanding and suspicion towards the harmony of hearts
thoughtful.
The conversation had this only purpose, and that is that the meeting of the two of us is that
what remains of it reached the pure element of conscious trust between
the three of us, according to my and your will. My wife's words aimed
only to this, and not to demand on your part the admission of a fault in his
comparisons.
My wife did not want to violate the fate of our love in any way. The
his intent was solely to purify this gift from the stain that
it had to remain with him because of my silence. This silence was not
just an abuse of his trust. I deeply hurt his confidence
precisely because I knew that my wife would not only understand the
joyful character and the richness of our love, but he would also accept it
as a gift of fate.
In most cases we talk too much; sometimes, however, we talk too much
little. I should have talked to her and you out of trusting my wife. So not
only the trust would have been preserved, but the character of would have become clear to you
my wife, and all this would help us.

Now is the time to remedy this omission and do

lead harmony into authentic mutual knowledge.
Like the house, my studio with its panorama was born from a
my wife's carefully thought-out project.
In this way, the harmony achieved will, in the future, match the warm tone of the walls
of wood of this room.
I am glad that your thought can be present here and embrace with it
look at this studio and, through its panorama, can move on the meadows and
on the mountains.
The randomness of yesterday's beautiful evening and today's soothing morning
remains. The essential always happens suddenly. In our language
lightning [Blitz] properly means gaze [Blick]. However, what happens
suddenly, for better or for worse, it takes a long time to be able to
consolidate. This is why I regret that the hours were so short. And for
that I hope, with even greater pleasure, that you return, dear Hannah. It will be there
Page 73
most beautiful thing; for now the before and the after have been brought to light with purity.
I know that you yourself are immensely happy with this purity and are attached to us.
I greet you affectionately and thank you again for coming. My wife you
greets affectionately.
Your
Martin
The leaf belongs to a tendril whose stock years ago was taken from mine
wife of Schwarzwald peasants. They decorate their rooms with this
ivy, knowing nothing more of the crowns of the God who liked to adorn himself with
ivy. The leaf always accompanies you as a greeting from my room.
M.
Wiesbaden Alexandrastraße 6-8
February 9, 1950
I have been writing this letter ever since the moment I left the house and climbed in

car. And now, it's late at night, I'm no longer able to write.
(I type because my fountain pen is broken and so is my handwriting
has become illegible).
This evening and this morning are the confirmation of an entire life. In fact, one
totally unexpected confirmation. When the waiter told me your name
(in fact I was not expecting you, because I had not yet received your letter) is
it was as if time had stopped. Then, all of a sudden, I realized what
before I would have admitted neither to myself, nor to you, nor to anyone else - but mine
impulsiveness, after Friedrich 1 gave me your address, he has me
miraculously preserved from really doing the one act of disloyalty
unforgivable and from ruining my life. But you have to know one thing (since
we have not communicated much, and without excessive sincerity), than if I had
done, it would have been only out of pride, that is, out of pure and simple, crazy stupidity.
Page 74
For no other reason.

I came without knowing what your wife expected of me. I had read the
letter in automobile 2 , half asleep. If I had known, I would not have hesitated
an instant. My initial hesitation was motivated only by what is meant
with "German woman", which I was told just in the afternoon
while we were having tea. Please don't get me wrong; for me
personally it's the same thing. I've never felt like a German woman, and I have
long ago stopped feeling like a Jewish woman. I feel what I am in
reality, a woman who comes from afar.
I was and still am shaken by the frankness and vigor of the reproach. But
I had said "maybe" taken by a sudden feeling of solidarity in her parents
comparisons; and from a deep sympathy suddenly erupted. I could
add objectively that I remained silent, as is natural, not
only out of discretion, but also out of pride. But also for the love I feel for
you - not to make things more difficult than they already are. I left
Marburg purely because of you.
The Broken Paths [Holzwege] are on my bedside table, and I have begun
with great pleasure also Heraclitus'. I feel happy with the πολλά τά δεινά - is
fully successful 4 . In a way I was lucky: when I am
arrived here I had to send the car back together with the driver, and I have
so two days of tranquility to spend here. I can postpone everything and be
available for March 4th or 5th. Saturday I fly to Berlin to stay there until Friday
(my address is Parkhotel, Berlin - Dahlem). Then Saturday or Sunday I come back
here, and soon after I go to the British sector. If you next Saturday or
Sunday you could join me - far north - you could be my guest.
Since you don't read newspapers and only the back cover of books, you
I send a couple of 5 clippings , not only for you but also for your wife.

Hannah
49. Hannah Arendt to Elfride Heidegger
February 10, 1950
Dear Mrs. Heidegger -
Page 75
Just now the letter from Martin has arrived, about which I hear the
need to answer you. I'm glad I came, and I'm glad too
that everything went well.
There is a type of guilt that arises from reserve, and that has little to do with it
lack of confidence. In this sense, it seems to me, Martin and I are there
probably guilty both towards each other and towards her. I do not mean
thereby exonerate. She didn't expect me to, nor could I. She has
broke the ice against me, and for this I thank you with all my heart. The
why it didn't occur to me that she expected anything from me, is
that - in relation to this love story - I have done a lot of things afterwards
worse that it never occurred to me to worry about those events
remote. You see, when I left Marburg, I was absolutely determined never to love
plus a man; and then I got married, just to get married, to a man who doesn't
I loved. Since I considered myself absolutely superior to things, I believed I was
to be able to dispose of everything, precisely because I did not expect anything for myself.
This all changed only when I met my current husband 1 .
But that's another story.
Please believe me on this point: what stood between us, and what
perhaps it still stands in the way, have never been similar personal matters, and in each
case for my conscience it is not so. Of course she never made any secret of hers
opinions, nor does it today, including those that concern me. This his way of
thinking makes a conversation nearly impossible, because whatever
the other one can say is already stigmatized in advance and, forgive me, cataloged -
Hebrew, German, Chinese. I am willing at any time, I have already done so
also present to Martin, to discuss these issues objectively and under the
political profile, because I think I know something, but on condition of excluding
every human and personal aspect. The argumentum ad hominem is the bane of
any understanding because it implies something beyond freedom
of man.

I would like to know one more thing, but if you prefer not to tell me, it doesn't matter.
How did you come up with the idea of calling Jaspers to act as arbiter between us ?
Just because she accidentally found out we're friends ? Or maybe because it has
so much faith in him? It caught me too off guard for me to
to react; now this question does not leave me alone.
We will meet again soon. Until then please accept mine
greetings and thanks.
Page 76
Her
Hannah Arendt
50. Martin Heidegger for Hannah Arendt: five poems.
[WITHOUT TITLE]*
Suddenly, being strikes us.

We look at it, we guard it - we throw ourselves into the dance.
YOU
Jet of flame
immediately released!
Is this the door,
from whose depth
all of a sudden, high above,
towards the breadth of silence -
that evoked him -
finding oneself was lost.
THE GIRL WHO COMES FROM FAR
Remoteness,
that keeps you away from yourself,
as ?
Mountain of joy
sea of pain,
the desolation of desire,
auroral light of a future event.

D
thiasttathnecew:ohrolme eogfinthsa. t gaze
db
Starting is a sacrifice.
Sacrifice is the hearth of faithfulness,
that still pokes the ashes of all embers -
and turns on:
Page 77
burning sweetness,
semblance of silence.
You, stranger of the distance -
may abide in the beginning.
CORRESPONDENCE
God without God

alone, and otherwise nothing
some things -
only death again
matches
in the ring
to early poetry
of being.
DEATH
Death is the mountainous region of being

in the poetry of the world.
Death saves yours and mine
in the heaviness that falls -
upwards, towards a stillness
towards the star of the earth.
For the friend of the friend.
* See fig, 1.

Freiburg, February 15 1950
Hannah,
Page 78
Listening is liberating. You followed the rumor, resolving everything for good and
thus giving a new guarantee to the retractatio. Good needs goodness
of the heart, a good that sees because it has already foreseen everything in terms of salvation
of man in his essence; the inscrutable sense of ἑώρακεν όρά
[ heoraken hora] 1 , of the perceived gaze; continuous miracle of language that
he is more thinking than us; the French regarder.
"To save" does not mean and is not only to remove from danger, but
to free oneself, from the beginning, in one's own essence. This infinite intention is there
finiteness of man. From it he can go beyond the spirit of
vengeance. I have been meditating on this for a long time, because to succeed it is not
a purely moral attitude is sufficient, much less a suspended education
up in the air.
Man must experience the most intimate articulation of being in order to be able
to arrive at that place where he proves that justice is not a function at all
of strength, but the ray of goodness that saves. The element purely
international and the "united national" are always and only nourished,
covertly, of an essentially non-free national element. The peoples of the
world must first of all give their most peculiar force to intention
infinite of saving goodness, so that humanity increases in historical dignity
relative to the destiny of being and thus be saved.
I am grateful to you for the pages you sent us. The 1944 essay 2 contains
an essential insight that goes beyond the case of the German people. It is
impetuous and courageous. But again it became clear to me, what by the way
we spoke to the other night, which in its hidden core "organization" does not
refers to the technique, but to its essence according to the history of being. It would do me
nice to read you something about it, when you are back here.
For the two of us and for our relationship with those to whom we are connected, for the whole and
for the historical moment, it is a gift that was reserved for you, the fact of saying "yes" and
to come. The spontaneous harmony between my wife and you is something that remains; And
it is only necessary to remove a residue of misunderstanding whose true root is
perhaps the superficial chatter of others. You must return as you are
discharged. You couldn't maybe add a day or two before March 4th either
immediately after 5 3 ? See Hannah, we have a quarter of a century of our life from
recover; I would also like to know more of what you do and what you think today, for
to make the harmony that makes us happy vibrate in a unison that here and there in
distance begins to resonate and softens the language you spoke of

Page 79
so beautifully and snugly, it softens the strangeness.

After many trips to the destroyed country you should then take the splendor with you
paths, woods and mountains, keep them in your heart and bring them to yours
husband.
Martin
Please let us know in time when and how you intend to return!
My wife greets you affectionately, thanks you for your letter and confides
in a good dialogue.
Freiburg, 27 Feb. 1950
Hannah -
These lines of mine are only a greeting for your return journey 1 .
I am glad when you are here.

I believe everything will be fine.
If most loved friend 2 has to expect that long, most loved friend doesn't have the
right to delay things; even in the run-up to his farewell. But, any
what happens, it is a goodbye in intimacy.
Martin
As soon as you wire, I'll get you the room.
53. Martin Heidegger for Hannah Arendt
A. Stifter, Limestone
«The two tiny white patches of the solino, which fell on the
black neckerchief and they were the only white thing he wore, they attested
its charge. From time to time, while he was so seated, they would barely poke through

Page 80
just from under the sleeves something like cuffs, which was always busy
to push back with a stealth gesture. They were perhaps in such a condition as
having to be a little ashamed of it ".
«I walked my way along the high road always thinking of the parish priest. The infinite
poverty, which I had never before found in a person above the state of
beggar, and above all never in those who must be model for others
order and cleanliness, still did not leave my mind. It is true that the parish priest was
scrupulously clean, but precisely this cleanliness accentuated the poverty in a way
even more painful and showed the slow plot, the impropriety and the indecent
of the dress ".
"This woman had a little daughter, a girl, no, she was no longer a girl, a
to tell the truth then I didn't know if she was a girl or not. The little daughter had
cheeks and lips delicate and red and innocent eyes, which brown looked innocent
around him. Over the eyes large and light lids were lowered, hence
long lashes with a tender and chaste air fell. Dark hair was parted
neat and smooth from the mother with a seam and were nicely held gathered on the
nape. The girl often carried a nice oval wicker basket on top of the basket
a nice white cloth was stretched out and there must have been very fine linen inside
little girl had to bring to one or the other lady.
With what delight I observed her ».
«Sure she is beautiful; my mother says that the linen is after the first silverware
good of a house, it too is fine silver white and when dirty it can be
clean and return fine silver white. He gives us our noblest and most intimate garments ...
At these words of the little girl I remembered that I had really always seen on
body of her who was speaking, at the edge of the neck and sleeves, the finest and
white linen, and that her mother always wore a white bonnet like
snow with a graceful frill around the face ».
[The parish priest continued to tell:]

“In all this time my way of life has become a habit and me
like it. Against this life of savings I have only one sin on my conscience,
in fact, I still possess the fine linens which I had provided in our room
garden wing. It is a grave fault, but I have tried to atone for it by saving
even more on my person and in other things. I'm so weak that I don't

Page 81
I can get used to it. It would be really too sad if I had to give it away
linen. After my death it too will give a profit and the most conspicuous part
I don't use it at all.
I knew now why she was ashamed of her beautiful underwear. "
No other tale of a love story is so shy, none

sweetness of never forgetting is so powerful.
I have been reading Limestone since Christmas 1905, perhaps from the time you lived
in your mother's womb, every year for my birthday.
Freiburg, March 10, 1950.
H/M
IF ONLY THANKS STOLEN ...
March 11, 1950
HAS
NOVEMBER 1924
If only, some graces stolen,

only one was still granted to me!
That on all future paths

to the heart of pure stillness
my repentance is ever more sincere:
that childish modesty regenerate me,

her gaze that invoked trust,
I presume my refusal.
Page 82

THE MAN
Who knows the silence of which the world unfolds?

Who dares to live where luck escapes?
Who calls the sudden in his year?
To whom the event assigns custody
of being?
Who corresponds to the poem?
THE CALL
In the distant path of proximity

lives;
take care,
of its wild suddenness
of the sweet look
in perpetuated destiny,
to which they belong,
those who listen to the call:
" The gift ! "
There he hides,
whirlwinds,
the junction of being.
WORLD
In the exchange of glances

by means of the quadrature
destinies rest
the shepherd rises
the slot opens
the vocation proceeds
by underground routes
in the construction of the plans.
Page 83

THE MORTALS
We are advent
that enters the game of the world
that resonates with confidence
song that bursts,
return; almost blind
paralyzed in the jumble.
PERSON
You want to leave the self for the person

without knowing that a sound
must first resonate through the image:
the sound of stillness
that quietens without wanting it,
a sound that resonates softly,
because he is tempered by reconciliation
that founds the inobtainable,
and binds the farthest hearts together.
THE EVENT
In full light and sound

the marriage of the world takes place.
Who is the bride,
by whom is it looked at?
The event expropriated love -

because his modesty
remained sovereign -
of the difference,
and left it to separation,
in a search that only finds
Page 84
if he entrusts every find

to the crown of the self.
Light: thin out: let-come-out - what springs:
Φύσις

Sound, resound: break the silence and collect the silence:

(«To collect»: harvest).
Λόγος
[WITHOUT TITLE]
What hearing is ever awake for this poem?

The plant still dominates.
First comes the desert, until he himself breaks in.
Poetry rests for a long time in its origin.
Freiburg, March 19, 1950
Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 3

Second movement. Cheerful.
Hannah,
The gift of the return and the gathering of five decades frightens my thought
incessantly. In it you, from farther beyond the sea, are near and present,
even just thinking about the most loved things here and all the things that belong to you.
These days every hour that passes takes you further and further towards the
big city, and yet, through the distance, it makes yours even closer
personal way of being. Because you will not look away, but you will arouse the
closeness in the distance.
It is a peculiar mystery that concerns time: that it returns like this and can
transform everything. Everything is given to us new. We will never be able to figure it out:
with thanks for what happened to us.
I was aware of it, when on February 6 1 I found myself again in front
to you and I said «you! ". I knew a new one would begin for us now
Page 85
growth, but also the thoughtful effort of cultivating all this in a relationship of
open trust.
If I tell you that I have only now found my love for my wife in the
clarity and vivacity, for this I have to thank his fidelity and his
trust in us and in your love.
When I spoke of "beautiful", it is because I was thinking of Rilke's verse that is beautiful

it
acicsonrdoitnhgintgo bwuhtitchhe bbeeaguintynicnagn oufntihtee oteprprib
osliete; aenxdtreIm
weass aanlsdom
thaiknekiintgsoam
boeuthtiH
ngölidnetirm
lina'tse.idW
eahso,
Does it reach the depth of beauty if not lovers?
Hannah, stay close to Elfride, just as you were close to her when you were here.
The more ours becomes ours, the more his and mine are saved. I have
need his love, which for years has patiently endured everything, and is
remained ready to grow. And I need your love, which, mysteriously
kept in its primitive bud, it makes its essence spring from
depth. Likewise I would like to nurture a tacit friendship towards your husband,
who has been your companion in these painful years.
What is unique in its essence every time and retains its uniqueness is also
of a unique strength in recognizing the uniqueness of others.
I believe that we continue to have insufficient confidence with the tacit ones
laws of uniqueness and fortitude, which we need to stay
large in them. But perhaps the task assigned to us is precisely this: to think
these laws and found them starting from love. That love needs
love is more essential than any need and support.
I dedicated myself every day to the final draft of Einblick [Look].
In writing, our talks swing on the paths to the forest and to the
Castle. How beautiful is this understanding that immediately thrills,
almost still unexpressed, based on an affinity that has ancient roots, it comes from
far away, and was not upset by evil and confusion. Don't abandon us
more on the basis of deeper intimacy: that this helps you and me, each of
we according to his need, his tribulation, his weakness.
If the big city attacks you too frantically, think, Hannah, of them
soaring fir trees rising before us over the winter mountains in the air
mild midday.
I thank you for your last greetings from Europe, from Basel, and for the beautiful one
Braque's portfolio from Paris. The daisies, sunflowers and the "blue jug" are i
more beautiful sheets, but everywhere the colors are very bright.
This is my first and clumsy greeting to your heart, Hannah, beyond the
Page 86
sea. It appeals to your solid heart and your breezy gaze.
Martin
Say hello to your dear husband and friend.

Elfride greets you affectionately.
56. Martin Heidegger for Hannah Arendt: four poems

FIVE LUSTRI
H. over the sea
It will be this shape

which has been able to preserve itself
in the secret of that time
will be the lawn
of all the silent stars
that the golden autumn gives us?
EARLY MARCH
For H.
Her gesture tells her «free! "

in abiding from her.
They are blossoming flowers: decorations
of the crown of being:
a sip of the darker wine.
"INTERRUPTED PATHS"
For H.
Leave the name here

to you and me
to be a single decoration:
Page 87
than the early seed

and late ripening
they understand it,
he stops with us,

she has yet to arrive
as embers, which we need.
(stop at one thing: don't arrive at yet)

THINK
A look at the lightning of being

it is thinking;
because, struck by it,
breaks in the crack
of a word: thunderbolts of a glance,
that - never owned -
overflowing from the mug
of a wine
a secret vine.
They disengage themselves from a land,
which must become heaven for the shepherd.
Freiburg i. Br., April 12, 1950
Beethoven, Opus III

Slowly, Finale
Hannah -
What is more beautiful? Your picture or your letter? Only you are beautiful, and it is
nice that you sent both. In the photograph hovers something he has
Page 88
started to shine in the last days of your stay here and that
on the way back it made an even clearer impression on yours
features. I don't know what to call it. But it is the dearest part of that love that
it shone in my room when you and Elfride were embraced. Only
little by little we will realize what has happened to us: that you have come,
that our closeness has become the closest closeness; than in everything
it helped Elfride that our love needs hers
love; that everything, including your positive coming home, is mirrored
reciprocally, it is clarified and affirmed.
Regarding all this, I often think of Augustine's words, that
you certainly know: Nulla est enim maior ad amorem invitatio, quam
to come by loving 1 .
This praeventus is the quiet echo of a hidden adventus ; it reaches the
mystery of freedom; it is the source of the law that is being formed.

The miracle that happened has its place here. Your image, and the way
you appear in it, has collected it. But also everything that chased you away and pushed you
for the world, it is erased in it: omnia et sublata et conservata et elevate 2 . For
this, and because now peace and help are closer, no fiction can
insinuate themselves into the confidential relationship.
What you say I do not feel foreign, nor will I forget it. The
our letters must not evade anything.
In my power 3 considerations I have not yet seen what you
do you mean by "radical evil" 4 ? A few years later, when I recognized the
will to power the will to will, I thought of the unconditional rise of
an absolute selfishness in being.
But since you have been here and you remain there starting from this "here", everything has been done
closer, to us and to you. At the same time it stimulates us to see more
the growing threat of the Soviets is clearer, more than we see it now
the west. Because now it is we who are directly threatened. Stalin did not
no need to declare the war you are referring to. Every day one wins
battle.
Also I am not fooled that my thinking and I are among the
most threatened, those who are eliminated first. Not only can we
being overwhelmed "physically" within a few days; it can also happen that for
a long time it is no longer possible to convey anything great and report
nothing essential; that we no longer have to hope for a future that is unveiling now
what is concealed retains the original. Perhaps planetary journalism is the first
Page 89
convulsion of this incipient desertification of every beginning and its own

tradition. Should we then abandon ourselves to pessimism and despair?
No ! Rather we must devote ourselves to a thought that rethinks in what sense the
history represented only historiographically does not necessarily determine
the essential being of man; that reflects on the fact that the duration and its
length are not the measure of the essential; that half of an instant can
to be "more being" than suddenness ; that man must unfold on this
"Being" and learning another memory; that with all this has something in front of it
of supreme; that the fate of the Jews and the Germans certainly has its own
truth that our historiographical consideration does not grasp.
If the evil that has happened and is happening is, then only starting from here is the being
through the thinking and acting of man it rises to the mystery; then the fact that something is
it is not, as such, already good and right. But this cannot be either
an addition to the real, made only morally, and to the human will.
In political matters I am neither expert nor gifted. But in the meantime I have
learned, and would like to learn even more in the future, not to neglect anything too
in thinking. So also what is ours must remain in this space. When

we met for the first time and you came to me in your beautiful dress,
nevertheless you have passed for me over the last five decades.
Hannah, you know what the brown of a freshly plowed field looks like in the sunlight
sunset? He has overcome everything and is ready for anything. Your brown suit stays for
me the sign for every moment of seeing each other again. May this sign become for us always
more significant.
It was a great comfort for me to know that your homecoming was like this
nice and everything was fine. When I spoke of "companion" I meant what
you say. This word means: to face every dangerous situation together.
And Hilde - say hello to your friend. The fact that a person, in his pain, puts
a couple of lines of my verses under the pillow of the clinic, is valid for me
infinitely more than all the celebrity put together. You can also show the
your friend what I am enclosing to the letter, if you think she likes it.
And now Hannah, on top of that, you also gave me Beethoven 's Opus III ,
accompanying him with affectionate words. The sound of this opera has already joined with
that splendor of which I spoke at the beginning of this letter.
Elfride returns the greeting and kiss wholeheartedly and is delighted that yours
homecoming went well. Say hello to your dear husband for me.
Hannah, all the flowers in the garden that Elfride grows, the daffodils, the tulips, and i
cherry blossoms greet and greet you.
Page 90
Martin
The photograph will reach you, hopefully, in the next letter. I feel yours
laughter about my "address"; but I thought for a big city there
the numbers wanted.
58. Martin Heidegger for Hannah Arendt: two poems
[WITHOUT TITLE]
Keep in the deepest ravine

every pain of your soul.
Because it opens to the air
of an untouched wood, where pain dwells,
the jewel forged for us as a refuge of being,
where the flame is restored in the crystal,
where fire became law:
starting from their essence.

heal [ nesen]. νεόμαι, to return happily

νόστος: return to oneself and return home
to recover: [ genesen]: to gather in what leads back home,
essence: the persistence of the custody
Saying goodbye to the friend of the friend 1 . M.
[WITHOUT TITLE]
How long it is
every path
passing through proximity!
How are you

without access.
Who saw
Page 91
still the favor

of supreme grace,
to the light
of an art
that as patience :
gave up
would come, free,

to the border stone of love,
May it: - be
when he no longer stayed
any choice?
Mal: [border stone]: like Denkmal [sign that invites us to remember]; In the
same time: mal [time], μέτρον [measure]; at the same time: Fleck
[place], space and time left free.

Freiburg, May 3, 1950
Hannah,
This greeting is hasty. I have the possibility to go to Messkirch on my own

brother in a car. I stay there for about three weeks to work on the book on
Kant, which I would like to have finished before the summer holidays in the cabin. Thanks for
letter, for repetitions, for Heraclitus 1 and manuscript 2 .
I am writing to you tomorrow from Messkirch and I will send you the photo.
Many beautiful things
Martin
As an address it is sufficient:
Prof. Μ. H. Messkirch. Baden.
Page 92
French area.
Germany.
Meßkirch, May 4, 1950
Hannah,
I salute you from the "unpleasant distance of three thousand miles"; which
hermeneutically it means the abyss of nostalgia. Yet every day they are
happy that things are as they are. But very often I would like to pass
the five-tooth comb in your frizzy hair, especially when your darling
photo looks me straight to the heart. You don't know it's the same look that shone
turned to me on the desk - ah, it was, is and remains eternity, from afar in the
nearness. Everything had to rest for a quarter of a century like a grain of
grain in the deep furrow of a field, to rest in a ripening of the absolute;
because all the pain and the multiple experiences have gathered in your self
look, whose light reflects on your face and makes the woman appear.
In the image of the Greek goddess there is this mysterious thing: in the girl she is
hidden the woman, in the woman, the girl. And the peculiar is: this same
hide in thinning out. This happened in the days of the Sonata sonans 1 .
All that is previous has been safeguarded in this.
On March 2, when you returned here, "the center" happened, which brought the

already been in what lasts. Time has gathered in the fourth dimension of
closeness, as if we were to arrive directly from eternity, and then
come back. You were wondering if this was really the case. Oh, being was too
passed. But, my closest friend, you must know: « thoughtfully and
tenderly » 2 - nothing is forgotten, but it is just the opposite - all yours
pain poorly considered, and all my shortcomings, without wanting them
to disguise, rang out from a long chime of the world's gods bell
our hearts. It resounded in the dawn, which, in the following days, brought out
for us that now distant period of belonging. You - Hannah - you.
Your Martin
Page 93
FROM SONATA SONANS
In a storm
THE SOUND
In resounding
the dull sound
it lets itself swing
in the Already of youth
in the After that comes then,
where one joined the other,
pushed away from him,
kidnapped close to him,
for a sweet kiss of reward from afar:
the overabundance of affections.
Only for you
- MAKING IT HAPPEN -
That it is over
this ascension
in the supreme ascent
of your coming from so far away.

What is it - the future - that makes us happen?
Nothing but the wave

rising from the blazing flame,
safeguarded,
thoughtfully and tenderly.
Only for you
Page 94
THE LIGHT
Never will you be discovered

where your unfathomable circumventing
opens up to propitious grace,
to find the savage of sweetness.
That from this refuge of being

let out a ray of light in high-sounding words,
consecrates abundant gifts to sacrifice,
lets us think in the Same.
The fullness of being then flows thoughtfully

inside and outside our essence.
BEAUTIFUL...
In the harsh scent of suffered times

your beauty grew, to the point that both of you -
sweetness and wild spirit - united them in your supreme love,
by the tears held back and guarded
from the never exhausted nostalgia in "you and me",
finally, by weeping, he obtained his ardor, his splendor.
Only for you
ΠΥΡ ΑΕΙΖΩΟΝ

Πΰρ άείζωον
άπτόμενον μέτρα καί άποσβεννύμενον μέτρα.
Heraclitus, Fragment
Indestructibly imperishable burning-light

that flares up according to measure and second measure goes out.
Page 95
Your "yes"!
- deeply sighed -
resulting from the proximity of pain,
reconciled in the deepest intimacy,
stay here.
And carry, this deep-guarded cry,

of placated joy,
in the night the glow
of the inextinguishable sun
from the farthest casket,
where one is the same -
fire that flares up according to measure
is estranged in the same,
immense in what is sure.
Only for you
"THOUGHT AND TENDERLY"
"Thoughtfully" -
help me to dare
to say this.
Listen! "Thoughtfully"
now it means: awakened:
scared
in all the abyss of that anger,
from which the laments escape
of your blood, listen to me!
Now my bond with you
it is only through a "Cry! Ask ! "

a burden that you weighed down on me

every time you come,
a close weight, ever closer,
that hurts deeply,
torn in the swing of every emotion,
Page 96
and is nourished in tenderness

contact.
Thoughtfully: awakened ...

rest forbids,
fate prevents.
"Thoughtfully and tenderly"

the burning suffering
forges, divides,
freely diminished in this "e"
for the trip.
What had resounded returns to sound.

It overturns in the never-weeping,
sings to what was not dared,
making happen, made by the crown,
what we love,
and that makes us suffer,
in the same.
Only for you
[WITHOUT TITLE]
And now talk to her
you close friend,
for you,
in your heart.
And then burn it,

for me,
that I looked at her
between two candles.

F
froormutsh:ethcerukciisbsleofocflnoosewn.ess
Page 97
Messkirch, d. May 6, 1950
Hannah -
Despite the three thousand miles away your letter, by the strength of yours
repeated parentheses, sounded and sounded close. Everything you have shipped is
arrived. But if you have something to ship in the future, choose the usual mail and
save the expense. How nice that you made me make a copy of the
manuscript 1 ; and even more so that you sent it to me a year and a half ago.
But during that time I have often not received mail from abroad - not even from
Jaspers. Yesterday, while I was reviewing my previous manuscript on interpretation
by Kant (I'm still working on the book on Kant) I came across the
sketches of your manuscript. Everything is about "being there", about being able to
get there by distancing oneself from the subject and conscience. To this attempt
belongs to a lecture I gave in November 1924 in Kòln: Being there
and be-true 2 (άλήθεια [ aletheia ]), which later appeared in part in the introduction to
course on the Sophist. The starting point was set in my last free course
lecturer in Freiburg in the summer semester of 1923: «Ontology of being there». Today
I am amazed that I have entered this mine and its pits. There is
a lot of "underground" work. The question about being itself, formulated again
according to Aristotle's metaphysics, on which I was able to stop for a long time at
reflect (between 1920 and 1922), I left it aside, in the open, hoping
so you can get out of the dark again. But I walked out into the daylight from
quite the other hand, and only through many vicious turns and retracing my steps
I had to deepen the study of being, that is, the relationship between being-there and being.
While having clearly seen the openness of being there starting from
άλήθεια, and having tried to stick to it, then I was not yet able to
to think starting from ΆΛήθεια, that is, not only to retro-think being there, but
also "the being" and the "and" of being and being there in the space of ΆΛήθεια, and of
to understand this "going back" as a precursor.
Starting from these projects, I saw that the analytic of being-there is a path that
it develops constantly on the crest, on which the
double threat of a precipice, both on the side of a subjectivism only
modified, both on that of ΆΛήθεια, which still remains unthinkable - that
it remains absolutely inaccessible when one starts from metaphysical thought.

Page 98
This suited me only in 1935, once I was freed internally

from the year of rectorate, when little by little I recovered my strength. Then I received
another push in 1937-38, when the catastrophe of the
Germany 3 , and from this weight radiated a pressure that made me even more
tenacious and freer in thinking starting from the thing in question. That's when that
the fundamental lines of Heraclitus [ Heraklit ] saw the light . But the Parmenides
[Parmenides ] I did not place it in the same dimension. Just as it doesn't
they are the same, they belong to the same. This is the reason, Hannah, for
which I can not make up my mind at publication. But perhaps all of this has its own
weight as part of a journey, as well as the corresponding discussions a
About the Λόγος [Logos] of Heraclitus, which you do not yet know.
By 'written on the numbers' I mean Jaspers, but not Jaspers
Logik 4 ; moreover, at that time nothing was known about a Logik by Jaspers; and also
personally at that time he never told me about it. What sounds "false" to you,
it sounds "only" desperate: it is the idea of the Logic of philosophy , which Lask 5
published in 1910, which influenced Jaspers and me quite differently.
It is at the same time the desperate idea of the "philosophy of philosophy" that Dilthey
he had attempted to accomplish. It is the reminder of our mistake. But you have it fully
reason, these thrusts are useless. Not mentioning the name, things
they are different. I'm not saying this to justify myself, but also Jaspers, where
he polemics against "ontology" in his Philosophy 6 , he did not mention me.
Subsequently, in the new edition of his Psychopathology 7 he recovered
in a somewhat mean way. But this is nonsense, which we do not keep
mutually grudge.
I did not know the beautiful poem by G. Keller 8 ; there is a lot to think about. I am
happy for you that you have your books back in your home. This with «the weight of the
failure »stands in« I am frost, immersed in fire » 9 - at the same moment in which
perhaps you wrote these things, I thought about the weight of failure.
Hannah, reconciliation is something that hides within itself a wealth that
we must spread until the turning point where the world goes beyond the spirit
of revenge.
The pending things flutter more than ever in disorder on the ground. All
remains as before; it hasn't been a good few weeks for us. Even a little
that's why I went away, to escape the university environment. The faculty
seems to think seriously about it. But the most authoritative political and religious institutions
they don't want me. I understand it perfectly. But one should have the courage
to say it plainly. The beautiful copy is ready in manuscript 10 . The 6th of June

Page 99
I have to speak (on the Thing [Das Ding]) 11 again in a narrow scope;
subsequently goes to the copy. You will then receive the text.
The tree in the wooded valley is awash with the scent of tender little leaves
and greets you. I too was no longer able to understand "time". Elfride, who
reciprocates your affection wholeheartedly, says that here we are six hours in
advance. Do you like photography 12 ? Won't you write me anything about Hilde?
May you be protected and rich in peace.
Martin
63. Martin Heidegger for Hannah Arendt: five poems
SONATA SONANS
What had resounded returns to sound.

It overturns
in the never-crying,
sings to what was not dared,
making happen, made by the crown,
what we love,
and that makes us suffer,
in the same.
ROCKY WALL
So far,
Earth! is your star
mysterious circular space of stillness
around the glaciers of the rock face,
that sets aside a world,
for you a tender game,
a peaceful death,
all stretched out
towards the district of favor
of the last God:
a grace that comes from afar

Page 100
a long legacy, a sweet invitation.
Rocky wall: the cliff (in other words death, which towers over the world).
THE SECRET GROWS
Five decades
a long time, a very long time,
the time that has hidden us
in its confusion
to one another -
made you go away,
it made me wander;
but so he kept us.
Always trembling,
in wondering if one of his comings
may still save us
in the place where
what was agreed
it would be transfigured into intimacy
from which a new law would flourish,
seed and first fruits
of a saving beginning.
SEEING YOURSELF
For February 6, 1950
If love grows in thought,

the being has turned to him.
If the thought opens a clearing to love

grace has brought its splendor to him.
LANGUAGE
Page 101

"Ah! "
A sign of joy
cry of suffering,
simplicity of their intimacy;
laceration that breaks the stillness
early harmony of the closest proximity.
"Ah! "
You correspond immediately

at their sudden appearance,
in correspondence first you do not interpret
and meaning nothing what is said
led to itself as a sign
under consideration of praise,
resounds when talking together,
swinging towards the word,
towards the blacksmith,
which finally adds stillness to stillness,
and save the simplicity in things.
"Ah! »- you -« ah! "
Go back freely
in your wreath and dance
the pain of being
at the hearth of the world,
whose embers ignite,
while its light shines
what arose from it.
You «ah! "
The poorest legend of the unspoken,

but refuge for the word:
Page 102
is the first answer and the last question.

Messkirch, May 16, 1950
Oh you! my closest friend - if only you were here - and yet you are - but I would like
make you appear as if by magic by means of your word. But there is one
great expanse of water. The language [Die Sprache \ contains my thoughts on the
language; it's not philosophy about it. But you will remember when, during one
walk in the wooded valley, we talked about the language. A About
reconciliation and revenge you are right 1 . I think about it a lot. In all of this
think you are so close. Then I dream that you would like to live here, walk for the
intersecting forest paths, sharing all the quiet domain of the
things and being in the midst of ultimate joy. Thus, I have "only" yours
image, but in my heart I have your heart, and the nostalgia and hope that we
we want to increase each other with ever greater simplicity in the pure
innocence. The second image is something else; but you must have it too.
Whether you are in the distance as at your home, you - my closest friend, you who
you came back, you who arrive - Hannah - you.
Martin
[the following note was attached to the letter]
Maybe I have to go back to Freiburg as early as 22 May. Answer me there with

the indispensable hermeneutics to the letters I sent you from here. I would like
know which of the photographs you like best 2 ; of those you wish you would receive later
an even more beautiful copy. And if by any chance you have one too, attach it to yours
letter. Everything is so far away. If you want to give Tillich Heraclitus 3 , the thing gets me
pleasure. But otherwise, the course lecture notes must not circulate.
Before my departure from Freiburg I received Virgil 's Death by
Broch. Do you still have your review? 4 Here I have achieved a good one
concentration. But everything becomes more and more thrifty in regards
the words. I took the Introduction of Jaspers * 5 with me . "History" you have it for me
told during my visit to Heidelberg in cottage 6 .
Page 103
You -
M.

* Have you read it? Speaking of the writing on the figures, you can perhaps give me a few
little explanation.
[A second note was attached to the letter]:
To you
You - Hannah,
The authentic "e" between "Jaspers and Heidegger" is only you.
It's nice to be an "and". But it is the mystery of the goddess. It happens before each
communication. It resonates with the low tone of the "u" in "you".
M.
Freiburg i. Br. 27 June 1950
Hannah,
Your dear letter went unanswered for a long time, at least without
written answer. The conference on the Thing was held on June 6 in Munich 1 ; here
I ended up in the den of the Bavarian lion, which unlike the other lions has
the hair is black and very thick. With my sixth sense I felt immediately
a divided and offended atmosphere; luckily, at my explicit request, they were
present the young people. In the evening there was a nice conversation in a small circle
of people; I was sitting between Guardini 2 and Orff 3 , facing Max Pulver 4 , yes
he still remembered very well an interview we had in Zurich in 1935. Yes, it is
caused a bit of a stir, evoking this or that other thing. But the thing more
overwhelming is that only a few manage to imagine that the
thinking is a rigorous profession, even if calloused hands and all are not exhibited
the corresponding equipment.
You are absolutely right about the verse of Valéry 5 . It is not the illusion
Page 104
of perfection to make me hesitant, but the experience that the little is more than
very. Of course, if this is not complemented by the artisan training e
kept alive, everything easily ends up stiffening.
Elfride and I were then invited to the countryside; the whole was excessive and
exaggerated, so that ultimately I did not find myself particularly well.
Also, I haven't come up with my book on Kant 6 yet ; after twenty years, e

th
boattchyedar. sI, w
moauklidngnomtolirkeeatdodeitlieovnasteweovuelnd tm
heakaeftietraww
orodrskacnodmthpeleateftleyrwords to a literary genre
appendices to the afterwords. Therefore the book goes to print without changes to the text,
with only a short preface.
I continually ponder the possibility that there is still a way to hold
together and simply present two things: first, that thinking is
an extremely slow and rigorous activity; second, that thinking is itself a
act, as it lends a hand to the essence of being. Meister Eckhart says in a
passage from his comment to John: ipsa cogitatio ... spirat ignem amoris 1 . To this
point we had to arrive.
In the meantime, the volumes of Kafka's works 8 have arrived . I thank you for
all heart for this great gift. I browsed them just out of curiosity and I could
note however that reading them will actually be a lot of work.
At the beginning of July we would like to go up to the hut, hoping that the weather, in
this stormy summer, be fairly propitious. The first part of
Einblick [Look] on the thing I sent it to my brother to make a copy.
After the experiences in Munich, even with the youngest, I noticed that I
I speak from another place, and in current conceptions, even of philosophy, not
I find no more asylum, and not even a starting point.
What is clear to very few is above all this: the history of being a
starting from ΆΛήθεια until the eternal return of the same is not the story of a
decay, within which philosophy could have ended up on a road
wrong, and from which Heidegger would lead her back. History of being
it is not at all history in the sense of the occurrence of a connection of effects. For the
at the moment these opinions are probably not surmountable.
How are you? You have any hope of going to the mountains for more than four
days and leave the city behind? How's Hilde? I am almost exaggerating
with my requests; Do you still think about your mother's beautiful photograph? I could
get Harder 9 an entrance ticket to my Munich conference.
He then wrote me a letter full of joy, which revealed all the splendor and
the authentic knowledge of his genius. Schadewaldt 10 now resides in Tubingen, e
Page 105
everything is going well. I canceled the Heidelberg 11 conference . For the rest,
nothing has changed here and everything is in a miserable situation. But there
are more important things. It would be nice to be able to talk to you about language
walking in a path among the meadows, but everything was resolved, despite him
upheavals in the world, and it went well that way.
I greet you, Hannah, with gratitude for the gift that has happened to us.
Martin

Elfride greets you dearly. Send your next letter to Todtnauberg,

Schwarzwald-Baden.
Todtnauberg, July 27, 1950
Hannah,
Sorry if I was so lazy in writing to you. But there would be several

sheets to fill in, if I had to write down everything that comes to mind
thinking about you. The unwritten is mysterious and carries with it a lot of strength that it does
to mature.
I'm so happy to hear you out in the open, by the sea and in the trees - and I'm happy
that you can swim at your leisure - you will never get enough of
to swim. And if the sea carries you and you peer deep into the sky, then this is it
the mirror game of the world.
Thanks for the photo of Mom 1 ; I love to read everything that is reflected in it.
In the small photo of Meßkirch 2 you can see the bell tower next to the castle;
up there I often stopped in the company of jackdaws and swifts and
I fantasized about the countryside. On the left is the castle where Count Werner von
Zimmern wrote his chronicles. Behind it the park of lime trees, and then a
left the path between the fields leads out beyond the edge of the image. The grass
tremolina that Elfride had enclosed in the last letter perhaps got lost for you.
Blake 3's verses are beautiful and instructive. Jaspers has been silent for weeks. Now mine
retirement is complete, and the outward desolation is eliminated 4 . But I think
to no longer belong to the university. We are seriously worried and troubled by
Page 106
our daughter-in-law 5 . And in short, it is not exactly pleasant. If the steamroller comes
I really don't know where I have to escape with my works of the last few years, what not
they have still been transcribed and of which only the autograph exists. The Russians, or the
NKWD 6 , they won't take me alive.
The Munich conference was only about The Thing, the first of four
parts (the thing, the plant, the danger, the turning point). Now I'm dedicating myself, for that
say, to the final draft; but I sleep badly, and the heart sometimes does not cooperate.
Not a day goes by without a visit, almost always insignificant. These don't
they are complaints, my dear, but only observations. I'm happy with the photos
that you sent me and I do not give any weight to their technical perfection.
I wish you the best of things, as I think with ceaseless joy about your return

ntheextexFpelborsuiaorny.. EDvoenr'yttw
hionrgrywiinllctausren iotugtoaess iw
t silhdohueldrego. You.
Martin
Elfride greets you cordially.

The day Hilde died, I was talking in Munich and thinking about you with
love.
67. Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt with a poem attached
September 14, 1950
Hannah,
My dear, I have not "thrown away" any of the photographs I thank you for
verses attached to the letter. We liked them very much. They complement each other perfectly
the one with the other. Your bearing with your coat fluttering in the sea wind me
communicates many suggestions and makes me think of the birth of Aphrodite. Before
this image I can suddenly think of something that so far is me
remained hidden. Too bad that your eyes, being the gaze turned
towards the sun, are not as openly radiant as your person is,
yet this look is unique. ("Every day I go out") 1 .
But what is missing in this photo appears in the other one on the deck chair.
Why do I particularly like it? Because here you are identical to how you were in mine
Page 107
Freiburg room. The days are kept in it - with all the beloved and dearest
malice.
And in the photograph in the hammock, I seem to see the whole world around you
tiredness of the big city, but in a way that already heralds its surrender
to the waves, to the wind, to freedom.
The format of the photos is singularly beautiful, very appropriate for portraying yourself,
especially in the one where you are standing.
I am happy to see lawn, trees, wind and light around you, instead of
houses and scaffolding in the city, which the plant installs everywhere.
But perhaps you can overcome it and thus master it as an element.
The photos are a warm greeting, as you say.
Martin

[A note with a poem and dedication was attached]:
To you
FLUTS
Quiet in the intense murmur
that the sea impresses on its waves,
the hand lingers on the hair
whose perfume carries high into the sky.
As a comment to the pictures
H/M
September 15, 1950
Hannah
Because of the restlessness, this week I didn't want to feel obligated to

write any letter. In the meantime, your letter of September 5th has already arrived.
Page 108
I would not even want to intone a lamentation; concern for ours

daughter-in-law has grown further and we are all quite taken by it.
Especially Elfride; for her, maternal compassion takes more and more of the
windward; and since no competent doctor makes a precise diagnosis,
we are very tense. So the weeks pass unproductive for me, and the disturbance
that visits bring me, despite all precautions, is nevertheless great.
My question was decided in a very strange way; the provision
University 1 official provides a biased version. I am retired with
8% of the salary; in other words, I am no longer a member
of the university. This retired individual was assigned
at the same time a teaching assignment, like an artistic director
of theater which has the task of "teaching a course" on theater. It is an unworthy thing,
although I have no desire to take a stand again
specifies or to "get my professorship back", as the
international press, which falsely presents the situation as a given
done and comments on it accordingly.
In the worst case, I will hold exercises; but the difficulty almost

the choice of participants is unsurpassed. An exercise with more than twenty

people don't make sense. But I assume two hundred will show up.
Equally impossible, after having carried out some admission tests,
accept only the older ones, who are now recommended as the best
from the current ordinary.
I have the feeling that I am no longer suited to the university environment, but I know
just as well, on the other hand, that nothing can replace the safe driving of the
spoken word. I don't see any other way out. Invitations to
I get conferences almost every day, and I could spend the next six months
traveling from conference to conference, if only I felt like dedicating myself to
this activity to effect. Equally, I am perplexed and very skeptical of it
of any immediate consequences of my business. The "world history",
in its mad rush, it has already leaped far too far.
You are absolutely right: the issue is resolved through civil wars 2 .
This is the end for Germany and for Europe in general. I don't believe that
America will go all the way. On the whole, the
wanting to orient oneself through historical conceptions in the face of unleashed powers.
Sometimes it occurs to me that I keep worrying about securing the
own things are part of a way of thinking of the past. But you know that I,
despite everything, regardless of the length of my personal life, I have a lot
Page 109
weather.
That Jaspers writes to you regularly is a cause for joy and comfort for me. At
my two letters of April no longer replied 3 . In the «Monat» it must have appeared
a review of unflattering Interrupted Paths 4 , behind which it is supposed
unanimously there is Jaspers. But I don't read any reviews; therefore the
what is indifferent to me. In the «Basler Nachrichten» of 1 August 1950 there is
wrote that I would ruthlessly kick my predecessor out of office
Jewish and I would take his place 5 . Basically the world does not change;
he wants the same things everywhere and in so doing forgets the same things.
I thank you for your letter so dear and close. I'm glad your life
proceed calmly. Elfride greets you with much affection and with that sympathy
that you must have warned.
I think of you with all the affection.
88 Letters 1925-1975
Freiburg, 6 October 1950

Hannah,
Wishes for your birthday have been on the road for some time already. IS
a carlina that grows in the meadows around the hut.
If space allows, you should hang it with a silk thread from the ceiling
over your bed. From there it would reflect the sun to you. At the slightest breath yes
it would swing and turn. In bad weather it sometimes closes. In it I am
all thoughts and wishes. Let's just hope she got there,
unexpected, at the right time.
Thank you for your birthday wishes and for thinking about Stifter 1 . We
we had to interrupt our stay in the cabin early. The
the weather was bad, cold, wet and stormy.
I continue to proceed along interrupted paths. You know the fourth (last)
movement of the first Brandenburg concert?
We both greet you fondly on your birthday with all the pluses
dear wishes.
Page 110
Martin
Meßkirch, 2 Nov. 50
Hannah,
A few days ago, the day before I left to come here, he arrived
through Switzerland your beautiful gift, completely unexpected. I took it with me
the sound of this extraordinary quartet. I am deeply grateful to you, and
Elfride too thanks you wholeheartedly. It's nice to always hear from you particularly
close, when these sounds, expression of noble feelings, make them vibrate
their waves inside my room.
I am tormented by the doubt that carlina has reached you as well
unexpected - it was already difficult, in this September so wet, stormy and
cold, find a nice one that suits you. It must keep everything in itself and
greet you every day as it has grown in close proximity to my thinking.
On my birthday we had to stop ours
stay in the hut; I have caught a cold so stubborn it torments me
even now, and so I feel the restorative lack of work.

The Einblick [Look] is bad again, so I keep beating around the bush with
the beautiful copy, which I can roughly consider final. Also I tried to
say something about language at a memorial service for
Max Kommerell 1 at the Bühlerhöhe.
Here in Meßkirch I still have some notes on the language that
date back to the years 1938-39 2 . There is a connection between all elements
simple, the basic lines of which require exposure as well
linear. But I can't do anything here; I wait, continuing to
procrastinate in vain, until I manage to formulate it.
I often think how nice and profitable it would be to be able to have it in
I give you a pleasant talk with you about all these things. The writing becomes
immediately formal and unilateral, even if you are able to integrate it starting from
your own thinking.
The day after tomorrow I go back to Freiburg, where, during the semester, I try to keep
an exercise 3 for a very small group of people, moreover composed in
randomly and at my house. But I have the feeling of not finding more points of
Page 111
contact and that the current times are too disturbing to demand it from others
an effort to think in a way that does not offer ready-made recipes and does not satisfy.
However, today we want nothing more than this, and perhaps we can no longer want it
nothing else. Any contact with the "academic world" and with "the university"
horrifies me. Some think it is a hidden grudge and a
irritation never completely overcome. I have to let these people think
Like this.
Write little about yourself. So I keep your photo of this summer handy and
I wish you in my heart to continue on your way. What takes place at the level of
world history is a mysterious intrigue, hence our limited conceptions there
keep away. But at the same time there are waves and neighborhoods and something
inexhaustible in remembering, so our luster remains only a hint.
I salute you, Hannah -

Martin
Freiburg i. Br., 18 Dec. 50

Hannah
Thank you for your story. In the meantime you will have returned home 1 . Now
I can imagine your work and surroundings a little better, though
in the few weeks after your letter something may have changed

in the atmosphere. The individual does not see in the center of the vortex of the world, and all the more
he is involved in it, much less does he see us. As for the closest things, yes
it limits to the external aspects. Nobody knows what Germany will look like and
Europe in the late summer next. Just a year ago you were near here, without
that I knew. And now it's like you were only here yesterday. Near the window
now there is a turntable, so your records can finally play
perfection. "The implant" is indeed an enigmatic thing; much less do we seek
to elude its mystery, the more one day we will be able to correspond to his
essence. At first it appears as if only its destructive side
should come to be fully realized. With the language you must still have
a bit of patience. A conference mostly has the advantage of introducing us
the question, but it is also forced to give up letting the thing speak for itself
its core.
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In the meantime I too, like you, take care of the Greeks 2 under different aspects,
but in other areas, provided it is possible to operate divisions. I deal with
Heraclitus, Fragment 16 3 ; it must speak even more simply and al
at the same time more illuminating. Regain the original experience of the 'Α-
Λήθεια [ALetheia] seems to me to be the germ and the seed from which we must start
to prepare a new dwelling for man. Over the years I learn to understand
Goethe, whom you mentioned in the first hours we met again. His fight against
Newton in favor of phenomena, on this historical basis of the distinction between
«Aesthetic» and «heretic», it is however oriented in the direction of saving the earth a
advantage of the world against pure calculation.
Without saying it explicitly, I analyze in my "reading exercises" 4 la
causality (Aristotle, Phys. B 3) in the perspective of this intent. If
contrasts on the one hand what Aristotle and the Greeks say about αἰτία [aitia,
cause], and on the other what today's physicists think about it (such as
The "rigorous formulation" of the law of causality applies here: "if we know the
present, we can calculate the future "), one feels faint, but in the same
time we are enlightened.
During the exercises I don't say anything about my ideas; I took some
beginners, and so I learn with the students to proceed and I make them
learn to see how thought, while dealing with what is less
flashy, it is already the most essential thing, so that at first it makes itself known
it is superfluous to pretend to speak of the great problems. I am glad that this
simple to conduct them I find it easier and with a greater overview
compared to thirty years ago. It is another thing, of course, to ask if the students to whom
reflections on God and the world are exhibited, on Kierkegaard, Pascal and Hegel, i
who relate all this to the ideological sphere, find satisfaction in these
exercises. Sometimes I read in their eyes that they manage to make understandable

even a simple thing can please both. If we can

to go back to this beginning of thought, I am satisfied. The book about Kant e
the collection of essays on Hölderlin you will receive them 5 . As a Christmas wish I am attaching you
a recent photograph 6 . The Christmas period we would like to spend with the children in
hut. Even down here there is already snow.
In these restless days you will see that you will be able to keep quiet and reflect on
what remains. Thus we will be mutually united in this memory. I salute you.
Martin
Page 113
Elfride thanks you and greets you.

Say hello to your husband and Tillich too.
Hannah,
This greeting was supposed to come to you on the 6th of February 1 . This year it is
flew away in an instant. Everything continues to stand in the same light as last year;
the coming year becomes brighter and brighter, although the historical reality seems
become more and more somber. Glad to hear you returned from your trip. The
Christmas days, which we spent in the hut, were beautiful because, after
several years, we were able to have our children 2 back with us ; there was a lot out there
snow but it wasn't windy at all; the wood was covered in snow and covered with rime.
Only the sun was missing, which has only rarely been seen so far. You
I wholeheartedly thank you for your warm greetings from France 3 ; equally you
thanks Elfride for the nice fabric.
At the beginning of January we were invited to Munich for the execution
of Orff 's Antigone 4 - the entire Holderlin translation in music. Since a long time
long time I had not tried something like this. We have witnessed it twice
execution. In between, Reinhardt talked about it one day
of the Holderlinian translation of Sophocles ' Antigone 5 . It was a conference
grandiose; In my opinion, Reinhardt first found a key to
illuminate the darkness of Hòlderlin's "Annotations" to its translation.
Orff has grasped that something that goes back to the original unity of gesture, dance and
word, and from it grows in an elementary way. Passing through Hòlderlin, Orff
he managed to trace his own way to the Greek world. For a moment the gods

were present. I hope you have had the opportunity to experience the
gender.
In it, something is manifested which distances itself from the very beginning from all that
it has been so far, yet creatively appropriating what has been
handed down.
Later I wrote an essay on the Λόγος of Heraclitus in one go. It will become the
counterpart of my lecture on language, which I also rewrote; both of them
Page 114
they must reach a higher level by contributing to each other

improve, so one day I will be happy.
My practice guys seem to be growing now, at least
some. Sometimes I think that what we have tried now, I should have discussed it
with those people who, almost thirty years ago, helped me learn. Things on
which is reflected often become more and more enigmatic. So one day comes
to the point where it becomes necessary to try to express what is totally
incomprehensible, regardless of the comprehensibility that becomes wider e
aggressive.
After our return from Munich, our daughter-in-law ran away from her relatives
from Tubingen, she came here suddenly, and is looking for a job
any. Is still here. But let's hope he goes to his sister now.
Clinical examinations were carried out; but so far they have not given any results.
For all of us this is a big concern, about any decision either
advice is groping in uncertainty, and the whole thing wears the nerves very well.
I had a pleasant exchange of letters with Staiger, the historian from Zurich
of literature, on a verse of the poem by Morike Auf eine Lampe 6 .
It ended during the Christmas holidays and is to be published. You do
you will receive a special edition. Among other things, in this period Staiger is found in the
United States for one semester. I am glad that you gather and stir up around you a
to ask and a lively poet. Write me again soon, even if I am
rather tired. Greet your husband and Tillich warmly. To you I only say
what you already know.
Elfride greets you affectionately
Martin
The tree greets you.
Freiburg, 1 April 51

Hannah,
I thank you for your dear letter and for the beautiful passage of M. Claudius 1 who, for
its simple poetic beauty calls into question the whole art of hermeneutics.
Orff's music is not music at all in the sense we understand it, and
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it is not even modern in the current meaning of this term.

Just as you rightly assumed, it is a developed recitative
completely starting from the rhythmic element. Reinhardt should publish the
his lecture in a Munich 2 yearbook , but I don't know if we'll be able to
convince him.
I especially urged him to also publish his studies on Heraclitus 3 ;
he too seems to have such a project in mind, as he will now ask
to be placed at rest. Among other things, Hermann Frankel, who teaches
at Stanford University, is in the process of publishing one there
important work in German on the thought and poetry of the archaic Greek world 4 .
It will certainly be an excellent work.
You quote Plato. I always keep it close at hand; but first it is me
it is necessary to come to the head of some questions in order to be able to grant myself the
nice to read it all over again. In my reading tutorials
with the students, who begin as early as April 17, I will continue with Aristotle, for
then groped a leap towards Leibniz.
In the week before Easter Beaufret 5 was here with us . Accuracy
of his questions is stimulating, they arise right now from a free one
assimilation of my attempts. Finally we read Valéry, La jeune together
Parque e Ebauche d'un serpent 6 .
A small volume Aus Taschen has just been published from Rilke's bequest.
Buchern und Merk-Blattern 1925. It is evident from it that for him the year
1924 was indeed a new beginning, which led to very beautiful poems. You
I enclose two copies 7 .
Recently I went down to the valley at the birch, which greets you, [as well as] the
first primroses, in front of the slope where we went up. Spring is a lot
hesitant. In the upper Schwarzwald there are still two meters of snow.
I hope that you have completely recovered and that you are dispensed with too many
unnecessary chores.
Something new comes out about H. Broch 8 , or it is not possible to know
nothing ?
According to the medical report, our daughter-in-law was recognized as mentally ill.
Everything drags on sadly for her and for all of us. For a long time already
Elfride wanted to thank you for the fabric. But since the maid who

we had previously gone, housework does not leave her that

free time that would be needed. The Λόγος of Heraclitus and my Language
they slowly arrive at the necessary compliance, and both offer me ground
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best for the question about the relationship between thinking and poetry.
Happy birthday beyond the distant waves
Martin
Elfride sends you her regards.
2.iv.51
H-
I still hadn't closed the letter when your card arrived with
the announcement of your book 9 , which I will take a look at, despite the "consistency" and the
my "English" insufficient.
Already in my previous letter I wanted to ask you about my books, why me
it was amazed that you didn't even mention it. Then I thought, and I think even now:
but these are things you know.
They both left here about ten days before Christmas, just in time
the same in which the publisher, from time to time, sent them to me; I shipped first
Hölderlin in the normal way 10 . Please write me immediately what type of shipment
you think it is the safest. For the rest, it is certain that my mail is that
internal and that for abroad, is still subject to censorship. Recently again
Beaufret told me it would be better not to send him the books, but to give them instead to
of friends who come here.
Best regards to you and your husband.
M.
Freiburg, 14 July 51
Hannah
Thanks for your two letters; each of them was a cause for joy for me.

I have not gone dumb. A fortiori there is no reason that I
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induce to neglect to write, indeed only: I did not. Due to a

reading exercise on Aristotle ( Physics B 1), during which I am
managed to achieve some results for young people, they determined in
proceeding of my thought a considerable shift and a non-digression
indifferent. So for a few weeks now I've been nagging myself about my lecture for
the Darmstadt colloquium («Man and space») of 5 August 1 . I had chosen the
theme: Building - living - thinking [Bauen - Wohnen - Denken], The company is
all the more difficult because I would like to deal with all this in a simple and concise way. Yup
then it dealt only with the conference; but on these occasions it ends up being
called into question the entire itinerary of my thought. Many things come to
fall, the questions are absolutely simple, and yet not at all visible
for those who look at them with the usual "natural attitude". Then stay
blocked, the word escapes you and you can never help her on her journeys again
adventurous. So I often think of our conversation on language while
we walked the path towards the birch (the valley rests quietly between the mountains and
greets you and greets you again). Although now the business of teaching me
involves only marginally, I often have the feeling that, however much it may
being important in itself, it considerably disturbs the authentic
development of one's own style. So it would be nice to have an interview
far-sighted, even if you, with your head supported by your arms because of rheumatism,
I had to lie next to my desk. Also I reworked again
the Λόγος of Heraclitus for the Bremen conference. The text is transcribed and the Greek is
been reported. You will receive it by regular mail 2 .
Although I didn't know Hermann Broch, reading the nice obituary written by
Vietta 3 I have known enough not to take this death lightly.
These events brought about by the case procure a strong inner pain in the months
successive, which apparently return to tranquility. But it is good thing, that
you have finished suffering, at least in the outer life 4 .
Surely the posthumous legacy still contains things of high value, which
the author usually underestimates. But when the rushing wind of the living does not
expires more, it is quite another thing.
We are grateful to you for your book 5 , which I cannot read because not
i know enough english. Elfride would like to read it carefully in the future;
but for now the period we are going through and the situation at home are too much
restless. Separation 6 has now been declared (due to mental illness, the
whose course cannot currently be predicted, but can be assumed).
However, everything remains very painful, because it is not easy to get free

Page 118
of the matter even after what the court ruling established.

It would be nice if you asked your "troublesome" questions to the book on Kant.
The questions become so rare, and the dogmas instead increase continuously.
This summer you no longer have the opportunity to spend a nice stay at
sea? Yet last year you returned to the city from your holidays very reinvigorated.
We go to the cabin until the day of the Darmstadt conference. Around
on 8 August I go for two weeks in the surroundings of Salzburg 7 , provided that
get the visa. The month of August last year, which we spent in
hut, was very disturbed by the visits. In recent weeks the loneliness up there
it's over. All the curious arrive.
Elfride sends you to greet you cordially.

Say hello to your husband.
Yes - and "The weight of the ball falling to the ground" 8 -
To you all the affection.
Martin
Write to me soon despite my apparent deafness. The copy of the essay on the
Λόγος leaves at the same time along with a small surprise.
75. Martin Heidegger for Hannah Arendt To you
ON A DRAWING BY HENRI MATISSE *
Enigma of breadth -
oh you, great face -
reserved in its intertwining

from the simple flight
in a single feature
sure of his trait
for you suddenly: a sign.
He has seen
the distant becoming near.
He had regard for it.

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To have regard: to take care of the essential.
From the hut, 2 Oct. 51
Hannah,
For your birthday, this greeting comes too early; but

the interval between my letters must not increase further 1 . I was
buried from work and still are. But first of all the sincere wish that everything
remain beautiful and quiet around you - and may you fully express yours
gifts without excessive external worries.
To the text of the conference that will come to you on your birthday, I have imprinted,
in another draft that I am finishing these days, yet another turning point
higher towards theoretical elaboration. I'll send it to you later.
Your question about Λόγος 2 is anything but annoying. But I have to answer you
soon comprehensively and calmly, when I will deal with it again
Greek gods.
For my birthday, I now have ordinary retirement 3 . Now
I am expected to return to give a course or otherwise participate more
intensely. Now I have to decide. For the moment it seems to me that they hold a
course is the heaviest assignment that can be entrusted to me. Things become
simpler, therefore more difficult, we become even more cautious and increase the
our demands. What will come of it?
In any case, something slow; but this way of proceeding is also that
which best suits a retired professor, although I don't feel like it at all
elderly, as you have been able to warn from afar over the ocean.
But the air that draws today in the university, a pseudotheological air, I
annoys perhaps most of all. You cannot say clearly what you think.
Perhaps it is a mistake to believe that today one can still, alone, create
an atmosphere.
Dolf Sternberger called my Darmstadt lecture a 'philosophy
very comfortable » 4 . Do you also find that this is the case?
When and where does Broch's stuff come out? By the way Benn begins to
Page 120

let me down 5 .
The conference Building - Dwelling - Thinking will presumably get you a
little later.
Then I still have a surprise - nothing of mine - but something that concerns us
two 6 and it will certainly please you.
For the rest I find it very unpleasant to think that in the next semester
I have to introduce myself somehow. But the exercise formula adopted
so far, in particular the possibility to choose the participants, was certainly not that
right. Finally, I hope for a good autumn and I am happy that you are doing well.
With much love
Martin
Elfride thanks you for the greetings and returns them cordially. Also say hello
your husband.
* See figs. 10 and 11.
Freiburg, 14 Dec. 51
Hannah,
It's almost Christmas before I answered you. I'm glad yours

situation is calmer and that you can carry out your favorite projects.
Translating Hòlderlin's lyrics into English 1 - I could imagine that something of the
genre can fully succeed, especially since I reread Keats some time ago
(in English with translation). You know that now the second volume of
Hòlderlin in the great edition of Stuttgart - in large format and with a large
additional volume of textual criticism? However, I am doubtful of the fact
that this expenditure of philology manages to go substantially further
Hellingrath 2 .
We recently went to Zurich; I spoke in front of the students about both
the universities. Topic: ... man lives poetically ... [... dichterisch wohnet
der Mensch ..,] 3 . The conference text has not yet been copied. But the whole
Page 121
he succeeded; the next day I held a seminar with the students of Staiger and of

Spoerri, scholars of Romance philology. I have seen that I am still capable of

to do it; a seminar protocol 4 will be printed in an off-trade edition . The
you will receive then.
Now, in a separate mailing package, a copy of La is coming to you
Cosa 5 , in a special limited edition, and the surprise that it finally is
arrived at destination 6 . We hope that everything goes well overseas.
In the meantime, I started teaching an hour on Friday again
from five to six on the topic What does it mean to think? [Was heifit denken?].
The lecture hall is already occupied from one o'clock, and around four it is gone
no place for anyone - even for me there is little; the lesson is then broadcast in
two other classrooms; altogether there will be twelve hundred auditors who hold
hard. Among all these perhaps some unknown. I speak more
simple and immediate - but this involves a much greater effort for me
in the preparation of the lesson, in which I have the opportunity to practice the art of
'omit. Many listeners are deceived by the simple; because only
now I come into the right proximity of the things that are truly worth-of-
be-think.
During the exercises (Aristotle, Physics, book Γ, on κίνησις [ kinesis ]) I
I realize that in the last five years the students have not learned much. Do not
they know at all what it means to "see"; they reason, thus ending up to such an extent
in the sciences that the free air of thought is foreign to them. For
to be exact - I teach in my old "kindergarten" and - in the same
time I keep learning. In the summer I will continue the course.
Elfride is fine. We spent wonderful autumn weeks in the hut.
Here at home there is a lot to do because Hermann, who is attending the institute
superior for teachers who moved to our city, lives with us, and there is also a
our 7 grandson studying forest science. Jòrg studies at the Technische
Hochschule of Karlsruhe; the separation is decided; his poor wife is sick,
and everything remains painful. Jòrg works on his big project 8 and is slowly
reinserting oneself in one's environment; next year he would like to finish his
cycle of studies. But we do not press for it.
Around Christmas we are up in the cabin. But before the New Year we let the
camp to young people.
Otherwise, the world presents nothing pleasant; and above all it seems
don't learn anything. And how could it, since we probably have to
learn first of all to learn.
Page 122
I enclose two cards to be glued on both publications 9 .
I greet you over the waves of the sea.

Martin

Elfride affectionately returns your greetings.
Hannah
My answer took a long time for several reasons. There has been with us
the flu; I had to have the course suspended. Now it's better, if you leave it aside
from some ailments of which it is not surprising in this snowy and gloomy winter.
For these reasons our plans for the future and relative times were not
still defined. We were invited on a trip to Italy 1 which should
presumably to take place from March 20 to April 6. At the end of April, around the
24, there will be a marriage in the kinship 2 and other things that I won't be here for sooner
of the beginning of May.
You're going to do a half-world tour 3 but, being you a lot
trained, it will certainly be easier for you to do it than it is for the rest of us
take a trip to Italy, which should only take us as far as Tuscany.
During the winter my course and I have "floundered", but I would like to be
more prepared for the summer. The listeners resisted divided into three classrooms; but the thing
remains difficult, because the prerequisites available to the listeners are almost
unknown.
What I can see through the exercises is that they are young people
diligent and willing, but I have not raised any heir, so almost everything
remains too difficult. The English edition of Physics edited by Ross 4
in the context of Aristotle's edition he made available to us at least one
good text; and numerous people, despite the high costs, have procured it.
But to start something productive again I would probably have to keep
a course of four hours per week and two exercises. In relation to my strength
current this is no longer possible, especially if other things do not have to remain
Page 123
still.
A second edition of the Interrupted Paths has just come out, unfortunately on one
worst quality paper. The work on the essays of the last period and on the issues ad
inherent to them I had to almost completely leave them out.
In the meantime, critical voices "multiply". Were they at least "critical";
but it is still the same story, which I have known well enough since 1927.

bad Wstairtth 5his article in the «Neuen Rundschau», Lowith allowed himself one
. Evidently he hasn't learned anything. According to him Being and
time in 1928 it was a "disguised theology", in 1946 it was pure atheism, and today
?
I wonder what all this means. Martin Buber 6 has a whole other thing
attitude - but obviously he hasn't the faintest idea of philosophy; maybe
he doesn't even need to have it.
The second volume of the great Stuttgart edition of
Hólderlin - an almost ultrafilological edition; and a very careful study is needed
in order to be able to trace the "progress" that it certainly presents, I respect
at the Hellingrath edition.
For the rest in Europe there is very little of beauty. You have to be prepared for
any surprise, because today everything happens suddenly e
unexpectedly. It is as if the horizons of Europeans wanted to narrow
increasingly.
Nietzsche says of the "last men", who live as long as possible, that
"Wink" 7 .
Have you already made a definitive travel plan?
To you and your husband warm greetings from

Martin
Freiburg, 21 April 52
Dear Hannah -
Now I know where you are. For us Italy was wonderful; in the car you can see
otherwise - Florence was the most beautiful thing; we lived outside, in Fiesole. He goes there
very well if you come from May 19th onwards; maybe you can listen to a lesson; there
Page 124
I have Friday from 5 to 6 pm 1 ; in this semester I don't do any

exercise, because I'm going to devote myself to something else. Thank you for the
«Misprints» - the second edition came out in flat print and on
poor card 2 . Maybe in Paris you will get to know Jean Beaufret 3 , che
recently been here for a few days.
I would be very keen to hear from Basel.
For sure this is the best time in Paris, which I still don't know.
The attachment is for personal use 4 .

We greet you affectionately

Martin
Messkirch, 5.vi.52
Hannah,
Unfortunately I remain here only until the day after tomorrow and I have to go back to
Freiburg. My cold got worse. But even apart from it I am
feel tired.
It is good that you do not write now and do not come to visit us. Everything is painful and
hard. But we have to put up with it. Something about the Λόγος will come
soon.
Martin
Freiburg, 15 Dec. 52
Hannah,
Now comes to you as a Christmas wish what he had to wish you good
birthday 1 . In the rush before leaving for a longer business stay a
Messkirch I inadvertently sent you a pamphlet that was sent to
Page 125
myself; the emphases it presents are not mine either. I would therefore like to pray to you
to send the booklet back to me, sending it as a print, when you have it
the occasion.
Meanwhile, the copy of my Summer Semester 1935 Introduction course
to metaphysics [Einfùhrung in die Metaphysik] is ready to be printed. There
its release as a stand-alone publication at Niemeyer is expected to take place in
spring, at the same time as the new, unchanged edition of Being and
time, and should be a kind of introduction that also allows for
to perceive something of the path between Being and time and interrupted Paths. Now
I am preparing for the press the summer course What does it mean to think ?, of which
you got to hear some lessons. The difficult interpretation of

tPhaerm
leesso
nidness,,aw
ndithit w
hahsom
to tchoemceouorusteinentdhse, pIroinntloyupt.aIrttihailnlyk eIxhpaovseedcoitmdeuarinligttle further
close to the matter. In truth, everything is inexhaustible. However today it remains difficult
keep in mind this simple fullness towards representation
dominant.
At the beginning of October, at his express wish, I gave a lecture on
Georg Trakl at the Buhlerhòhe on the occasion of the 65th
birthday of prof. Stroomann 2 . Mr. von was also present in the room
Ficker, editor of the «Brenner», friend and protector of Trakl. Was a
nice meeting. I felt taken back to the year 1912 when I read as a student
the "Brenner" in the university reading room and I came across it for the first time
in Trakl's poems. They have never abandoned me since. The conference
(a discussion of the poem) should come out in the spring.
Elfride and I spent August and September in the cabin. But time is
it was as bad and unfavorable as it had never happened this season. But
we resisted.
Some time ago Jaspers wrote me 3 . But I did not understand the letter for
nothing. The best would perhaps be to wait for a good chance for a
interview. You value situations better and you will agree with me if I don't
I expose. The fact that, as you told me, in August you were in the mountains in
company of Jaspers 4 has certainly brought about something beautiful and positive.
During this winter season I do not teach any courses, because I would like to
complete all the publications I have told you about. What will I do in the summer, is
Still to be defined. The masses discourage. It is difficult to find a few people and
suitable for exercises.
Meanwhile the world becomes more and more oppressive. We all don't
Page 126
they do nothing but fight. In the unfortunate situation of being in a big one
vice one should expect the opposite. "Europe" is just more of a name than
it will hardly be possible to fill it with content. The essence of the story becomes
more and more enigmatic. The abyss between the most essential effort of man and
the immediate ineffectiveness becomes more and more disturbing. All this is up to
mean that our usual ability to represent limps behind
situations that it is no longer able to reach.
Thus, only resignation would remain. Instead, on the contrary, despite
the growing external threat, I see an arrival of new, or rather, of
most ancient mysteries. These perspectives are the basis of my conferences of the
recent years, and I also hope to be able to expose them more organically e
clarity.
Our forests and our mountains continue to exist and are not at all
tired of their essence. They greet you for this Christmas season in a

world that here we find it hard to imagine. What are you working on
now ?
It should be released soon in the Hòlderliniana edition of Stuttgart il
volume with its versions from the Greek.
I greet you remembering you with affection

Martin

Say hello to your husband too, and when you see him, Tillich.
Messkirch, 6 Oct. 53
Hannah -
Remembering you is dear to me 1 and it was a great joy to spend

hours and days of incessant remembering.
I am immersed in work; I keep looking after the Greeks and I always see them
clearer - or at least, so it seems to me.
I hope you are fine.
How can it be otherwise - in what remains.
Page 127
Martin
Get to know the beautiful edition of the Sofa with Max Rychner's comment
published by the Manesse Bucherei in Zurich?
Do you still remember which lines of the Divan you quoted when we met again for the
first time in Freiburg 2 ?
M.
Freiburg i. Br., 21 Dec. 53
Hannah,

With the two photographs, which in their own way are authentic and excellent, you have me
made very happy 1 .
Later I will send you some things that will be published in the next months,
including the Munich conference on technique, which you may have heard of
talk 2 .
On December 9, Elfride and I went to Marburg where I talked about Science and
meditation [Wissenschaft und Besinnung] in the lecture hall (the conference was
broadcast in connection with the Auditorium maximum of the palazzo del
Landgrave). Unfortunately, Bultmann wasn't there; during this winter he gives lessons
as a visiting professor in Zurich. On 11 December I spoke in Kassel at the
same company where, twenty-eight years ago, I lectured on Dilthey and the
historicity 3 .
In this period I returned to take care of Heraclitus; dialogue with him e
with Parmenides it no longer gives me peace, much less the more it becomes clear to me of what
genre these dialogues are (i.e. how limited and in what way they are
they ask for the same thing but also different things), that in one way or another yes
they misunderstand them when they are considered "interpretations". What I said in the
my lecture on technique about τέχνη [ techne] goes back a long way
back in time, namely to the introduction to my Sophist course that you have
could hear.
Page 128
Say hello to your husband

Elfride and I greet you affectionately
Martin
21 April 54
Hannah,
Your letter made me very happy, and I have to thank you wholeheartedly for
having taken on the task of translating so quickly 1 . It would be certain
a wonderful and important thing if the translation of my thoughts into the world
of the Anglo-Saxon language took place under your supervision and remained under the
your surveillance. But I hardly dare to think that you can even take it upon yourself
this last but decisive supervision, taking into account your further

work overload.
You master both languages as well as authoritatively
the topic and the paths of thought. I am in great embarrassment and not
I am able to judge. Almost every month now it comes from the United States there
request for this or that translation; in Latin American countries instead
they translate, without asking, what happens before their eyes.
Robinson made a very nice impression on me; the thing suits him
really care. But he sure needs help; from the translation test,
that you have conducted, there may be noted notable errors, similar to what you have
spread through the first French translations - and that is almost now
inestirpable: "to be for death" [Sein zum Tode]: "être pour la mort", instead
of "vers la mort".
Prof. Jaeger 2 , very thoughtful and, in that
Germanist, more reliable from a linguistic point of view, but, as he himself has
admitted, not quite familiar with philosophy.
Then there are two young people who are translating the Letter together
on Humanism [ Humanismusbrief \ and some parts of the interrupted Paths. Their
works have strongly impressed us. Their address is 3 :
Page 129
Henry E. Beissel John W. Smith
303 Glan Road
Toronto 5, Ont. Canada
In addition, the lady asked several times:
Edith Kern
c / o Butler Hall, Apt.3D,
88 Morningside Drive NY 27.
Second address:
c / o 857 Yale Station

New Haven, Conn.
It's still:
Elizabeth Williams

133 East 56th Street

New York, 22
I would have liked to know how you are and what you are working on. I me
I am dedicating to publish, bringing them together, the lectures and 4 essays that have appeared
in recent years in single editions, but I would like to make their intimate
cohesion can transpire explicitly and clearly. This retractatio is a lot
greet.
At the beginning of February I held the Science and Meditation conference in Zurich
- Swiss Radio should broadcast it on May 2nd. On this occasion I have
met Bultmann, who last winter gave a course on the Epistle to
Galati as a guest professor in that same city. He was very depressed though
the attack of Jaspers 5 - I found it very aged. Of course he is too
saddened by the decline of Marburg.
Elfride is just as happy as I am that you are doing the translations in
Page 130
so decisive, and sends you to greet you affectionately.

The composition of my lessons What does it mean to think? it was
completed and corrected and in these days they go to print, so that by May
they will come out in the same format as the Introduction. You will receive a copy.
Also write to me, when you have the opportunity, which of my publications you
still missing.
I have stopped giving "courses" and with lectures I intend to become more
thrifty than it has been up to now.
The mountain of the unpublished continues to grow to such an extent that mi
anguish and admonishes me. On the other hand, I still don't feel like it at all
devote myself only to my "posthumous work". In Meßkirch, soon,
I will work with my brother during the summer semester 1934, the one I have
held after I resigned from my rectorate: Logic as a question
on the essence of language.
You well know, because of our dialogues walking the paths around
Zähringen, how firmly is this question at the center of my thinking?
a question without which even reflection on the relationship between thinking and
poetare would remain without space and soil.
A pupil of E. Staiger has recently published a
excellent work entitled Hölderlin und Heidegger *. It proposes
a completely new, and for me convincing, interpretation of the late Hölderlin,
especially of the "turning point of the homeland". The interpretations advanced so far, including the
mine, are unsustainable. If you are interested in this work of a 26-year-old author, you
I will get a copy; in this period he is here with a scholarship

Swiss.
Remembering you
Martin
PS
Through the Schulz bookshop I have the following sent to you by ordinary mail
my writings and excerpts:
1. The country path [Der Feldweg] - currently on the market.
2. Thought and poetry [Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens ] - idem.
3. The question of technique (conference held in the autumn at the conference of
Monk).
Page 131
4. ... man lives poetically ..., in the first issue of the magazine "
Akzente », which is probably going to fail.
5. On the essence of truth [Vom Wesen der Wahrheit ], third edition.
6. A French translation of the Letter on "humanism"
[Humanismusbrief] published in the «Cahiers du Sud» 7 . The translator is a young man
Jesuit, who left the Order a year ago.
M.
April 29, 1954
To Professor Martin Heidegger -

Rötebuck 47
Freiburg / Br. Zähringen, Germany
Dear Mr. Heidegger,
It was with great pleasure that I learned a few weeks ago that the
Prof. Robinson of the University of Kansas is preparing an English translation
of Being and time. 1 I have carefully read one of its chapters (pp. 52-
63) and I answered him exhaustively 2 . As Mr. Robinson himself knows, e
The translation explicitly pointed out to me in his letter, as well as yes
presents now, it is not ready to print. It still contains some errors,

an
natdu,rienom
f ythviniegw
s,, aitnids iunnpnaercteistsiasriallysolodnuge-w
tointhde df.aT
cthtihsaitsM
inr.thReobinson
always strives to be as faithful as possible to the letter of the text. I am
convinced that only in this way a translation can truly succeed e
I was pleased to see that Mr. Robinson preferred to choose in all
cases the hard way rather than the easiest (and which is then easily
trivializing). I took the liberty of calling your attention to some
discrepancies, and I think this was your intention.
The need to have a translation, and, if possible, a bilingual edition
(many philosophy students and professors know enough German by then
do it yourself) is very big, and as far as I know, it is growing.
Page 132
This became particularly clear to me over the past winter, in

occasion of the trips that I have undertaken to lecture in some of the more
important universities 3 . I was asked everywhere about his philosophy.
But this is also the time when they most easily happen
misunderstandings. So I have been and am perhaps a bit exaggeratedly pedantic
in the revision of the text. I hope Mr. Robinson will understand what it is
it was my intention - to encourage and not to intimidate. For the little that
so far I've got to see, I can think the final outcome should be
optimal.
Best regards to you and your wife
Her
Hannah Arendt
May 8, 1954.
Martin,
Your beautiful letter, which has so disconcerted me. Now at least I know what you are
you waited; and you know, I hope, that you could hardly have given me a joy
bigger. (With that, if you succeed, something should fall into place since
principle did not go well, and that then of course it was further
complicated). I have often thought of offering you something similar in scope
English linguistic; it was pretty obvious; but I didn't mean to embarrass you
to want to say no ("not practiced enough in philosophy" 1 ) and to look for excuses.
("How long is / each path / that passes through proximity" 2 ?)
Robinson hasn't responded yet. I hope he was not offended. But so

how was the translation could not go. I have reviewed it so thoroughly
because my previous experiences with translators convinced me that one
very thorough supervision at the start can save you a lot
more work in the next phase, and it can get everything back on track. Not me
I am still put in contact with the other translators. The two young people from Toronto
have already worked for some specific magazine or publisher. "Partisan Review",
one of the best non-academic journals (a bit like the «Nouvelle Revue
française »of Paris), often wanted to publish something, but was always afraid of
Page 133
having to deal with the problem of translation. The best would be perhaps that
you, should you receive any requests, simply turn them over to me. Self
it works, it's a good thing; otherwise you can hardly do anything.
Here the Letter on "humanism" has already been translated once 3 ; I don't have it
seen, but the editor of the Partisan Review 4 , who had been offered that one
translation, and who knows German well, had told me that it would be one
inconceivable thing.
You ask me what I'm working on. For about three years I have been trying to
to deal with three issues, which in several respects are reciprocal
connected, 1. an analysis of the forms of the state, starting from Montesquieu, with
the intent to go back to the point at which the concept of domination entered the realm
political ("in every political community there are those who command and those who are commanded" 5 ), e
how the political space is constituted from time to time in different ways. 2.
starting perhaps from Marx for one verse, and from Hobbes for the other, an analysis of
fundamentally different activities which, initially considered starting from
contemplative life, they were then usually all thrown into the cauldron of life
activa ·. that is to work - to produce - to act, in which to work and to act were understood
on the model of producing: work became "productive" and action came
interpreted in the half-end connection. (This I could not have thought,
if I can, without the things I learned from you in my youth). And 3.
starting from the myth of the cave (and your interpretation), an exposition of the
traditional relations between philosophy and politics, more precisely the position of
Plato and Aristotle towards the polis as the foundation of every theory
policy. (It seems decisive to me that Plato takes agathon as the supreme idea
[άγαθόν] and not the kalon [καλόν] 6 ; I believe for "political" reasons).
Written in this way it sounds more pretentious than it is intended
really. All the more so as I cannot express it in a more concrete way
without going to get me into a speech that never ends. I stumbled upon
these things when I have had the time to devote myself to the issues that I am
they were constantly disturbing already during the writing of the book on dominion
totalitarian; and now I can't get out of it. During this winter I have tried for
the first time to present these questions in an experimental form - in a series

of lectures at Princeton and Notre Dame, and in individual conferences 7 . I have them in Princeton
exhibited only in the presence of members of the faculty and the Institute for
Advanced Studies. (There was also Maritain 8 ; but even apart from this the
what turned out to be very satisfactory). I draw the courage to do this
among other things from the negative experiences I have had in this country in the past
Page 134
years, and from the comic-desperate situation of political science.

We personally are fine. Heinrich has had an assignment two years ago
teaching at a college; at the same time he holds a course and a seminar, one
once a week, at New School 9 . From Monday to Thursday, during the
semester of teaching, he is not in New York. This is not very pleasant, but in
this way I have a lot of time and peace of mind. However at the moment I have
had to put everything aside because I have to translate my book into German 10 -
which bores me terribly.
Jaspers' attack on Bultmann - totally incomprehensible. It pains me
very much that Bultmann was so offended. I think Jaspers expected
an answer. I had seen Bultmann in Marburg in 1952; even then it was quite a lot
aged.
Are you publishing the Science and Meditation conference ? Will you let me know? Appearance
look forward to the course on Logic. I still continued to reflect on ours often
talks about language. In your letter this winter he made me
I particularly like what you write about the Dialogues, which in one way or
in the other they are misunderstood as "interpretations" 11 . Also because I had
tempted to clarify something similar to the good Friedrich, which unfortunately he is
a bit silly, in a very heated exchange of letters about yours
interpretations 12 . Probably to no avail. Well, and how it goes with
Heraclitus and Parmenides? I am delighted to receive the text of the conference on
technique. I plan to use it for a communication that I will hold in September at
American Political Science Association Annual Meeting 13 .
Greet Elfride affectionately. Best wishes for your summer.
Freiburg, 10 Oct 54
Hannah,
I thank you affectionately for your greetings and best wishes, for your faithful memory
and not least for your invaluable help in the translation work.

Your good proposal with the two covers of the book has already been realized; And
the first copy of the Essays and Discourses [Vorträge und Aufsätze ] arrived at the hut for
Page 135
my birthday. You don't know some details yet. Everything has been
further revised. The book may not come to you for your birthday yet.
Therefore I greet you now affectionately beyond the waves of the ocean and I wish you to
to be able to do the work that satisfies you most internally.
What I do? Always the same things. And I would like to review mine further
works on Plato, started with the Sophist of 1924-25, and read again
Plato. In general - I'm starting to see a little more clearly right now and
freely what I have always sought. But saying still always remains a
torment, and this means nothing but that seeing is very difficult. And if so
could he dissolve language from dialectics?
If you browse the collection of essays of the new volume *, you will notice how it was
constructed, that is, as the first of the essays recalls the last and vice versa. To a certain
point I had thought of expressly lending a hand to the reader again. But it's
better that the interested ones get by themselves.
Elfride and I stayed in September and the first week of October in
hut, where the weather was generally bad. From 16 to 18 October is the
365th anniversary of the founding of my high school in Konstanz 1 , and us
we hope to spend some autumn days on the Bodensee.
Are you always in the big city?
In the echo of "always".
Martin

Say hello to your husband.
* The issues concerning language I have kept in reserve 2 .
Freiburg, Dec 17 59
Dear Hannah,
My last two writings will reach you through the publisher Neske 1 . The book

on language will remind you of our talks relating to this "object", which
Page 136
object is not at all. I thank you for the good wishes and for the greetings. In Basel I don't have
more written, intentionally 2 .
I recently saw a beautiful photograph of you in the «Spektrum» 3 . It remembers
a distant past.
May your work bring you joy.
A cordial greeting.
Martin
Elfride sends you a cordial greeting.
PS
The sheets are to be glued 4 .
28.x.1960
Dear Martin,
I have instructed the publisher to send you a copy of my book 1 . In
However, I would like to tell you something.
You will notice that the book bears no dedication. If things had turned out between us
for the right way - I mean between and not for me or for you - I would have asked you to
to be able to dedicate it to you; began to take shape from the earliest days of
Freiburg, and he owes you, in every respect, almost everything. As they stand
things, it seemed impossible to dedicate it to you; but I wanted to at least tell you, one way or
in the other, what is the pure reality of the facts.
I wish you all the best!
[Handwritten thank you card for the wishes of the

75th birthday]
The greetings, best wishes and gifts that have been given to me on the last stretch of
path of thought are encouraging, and at the same time they are signs

Page 137
in the undeserved. How can anyone give proper thanks for these congratulations?
Unless you ask undeterred:
What does it mean to think? It means:
Bring Thanksgiving?
Martin Heidegger
[Handwritten addition on the back]
Freiburg, April 13, 1965
Dear Hannah,
My thanks for your memory comes to you late because I was uncertain about yours
address. Now Gadamer 1 gave it to me from the «Jahrbuch der Deutschen Akademie
fur Sprache und Dichtung » 2 . I think that despite the multiple publications
dedicated to other areas, you have always kept close to philosophy.
Of course, here it must now give way to sociology, semantics, and
psychology. Meanwhile the end of philosophy could become the beginning of a
other thought. I still often think about our walk when
we discussed language together.
Greetings cordially
Martin

Page 138
The autumn
91. Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt with two attachments
Baita, Oct. 6 1966
Dear Hannah,
For your sixtieth birthday I greet you affectionately and wish you, for
the incipient autumn of your existence, to be up to the tasks that you
you proposed yourself, and of those who await you even if you do not know it yet.
The joy of thought will continue to manifest spontaneously always
new and will be accompanied by the awareness of what today, in this
confused world, thinking is still unable to do. But it is enough if the
underground transmission is somehow allowed.
It seems that a long time has passed since my attempt to interpret the
Plato's Sophist 1 . But often for me it is as if the already state is gathered in one
only instant that holds what remains.
In the next winter semester, after a long break, I will participate in a
Fink's seminar on Heraclitus and Pamenides 2 .
In the meantime, three stays in Greece 3 with Elfride - partly in
cruise, partly to Aegina - they manifested one thing to me, still not
thought enough, that the Ά-Λή'θεια [A-Letheia] is not at all a
simple word, and not even the object of etymological reflection, but rather
the still dominant power of the presence of all essences and things. AND
no plant can hide it.
Thinking of you
Martin
Elfride greets you too, remembering you fondly.
Page 139

[Attachment 1]
Hòlderlin
AUTUMN 4
Exalted vision is the splendor of nature,

where the god ends with many joys
and the splendor of the year ends,
where together the fruits shone gladly.
The horizon is adorned and rare is heard

a sound for open fields, the sun warms
of the sweet autumn the days, is the countryside
what a vast view, the aura blows
through branches and leaves in a happy rustle:

when already empty the fields are transformed
live the full sense of clear images,
as an imago in suspended golden splendor.
November 15, 1759
(written one year before his death, 12 July 1842)
[Attachment 2: postcard size photograph, handwritten on the back]
Landscape seen from the studio of the hut 5
For
Hannah
for his sixtieth birthday
Page 140
Martin

92 . Hannah Arendt to Martin Heidegger
New York, October 19, 1966
Dear Martin,
Your autumn letter was an immense joy for me, the greatest joy
that I can imagine. It accompanies me - with poetry and with the landscape
of the beautiful living water fountain seen from your studio in the Schwarzwald and me
will accompany you for a long time. (To those whose hearts spring has given and broken,
autumn heals it 1 ).
From time to time I hear about you. You would be writing the second tome
of Being and Time, entitled Time and Being [Zeit und Sein]. Then mine
wishes go to your triangle, Freiburg - Messkirch as hypotenuse and then
Todtnauberg. Now there is also Aegina 2 , where we too have been several times.
My thoughts too often turned to the Sophist course . What remains,
it seems to me, it is where we can say: «Beginning and end are still the same
what " 3 .
Say hello to Elfride for me. Heinrich greets you with great affection.
As always - Hannah
Freiburg i. Br., August 10, 1967
Dear Hannah,
The day after our meeting, Friday 28 July 1 , I found the pass
to which the Mallarmé quotation found in Benjamin belongs. I followed in
about the old notes, which show Mallarmé's passages on thinking and
poetry.
The quotation belongs to the text Variations sur un sujet (Editions de la
Page 141
Plèiade, p. 355 ff.) And is on pp. 363 et seq. The text is very difficult and
it deserves a timely translation.
When you started your lecture by addressing me 2 , I was afraid
suffered a negative reaction. Later that too came, and you don't

it will certainly hit. For years I have been admonishing young people, who, in case they want
be successful, avoid mentioning Heidegger by showing that they share his
thought.
But your lecture simply got hold of reasonable people
for its level and its structure. Such a thing is increasingly rare in ours
university; but the courage to say things as they are is also increasingly rare.
Unfortunately our afternoon talk on language and dialectics has
had too little time. You couldn't come back and find me another one
time, for an afternoon, before August 19th? Or are you too busy?
I had tried to call you at the hotel on August 29 [July] in the morning. But you were
already left.
Then last week I had several visits.
Yesterday I received an excerpt with a compendium of "Soviet philosophy"
current 3 - a thing to be pitied, considering that these people have for sure of the
talent. I got to see it here as a student, before the great war.
In case you are short on time, I might come to Basel for a few too
Now.
I salute you as always
Martin
Basel, August 11, 1967
Dear Martin,
How nice, that you have written again. And what a pity you can't now
see the exhibition of Klee 1 . There are several very beautiful paintings, of which it seems not
reproductions exist.
Of course I can come back to visit you before the 19th. Preferably the 16th,
17 or 18. Write me a ticket or call me at the hotel, preferably at
Page 142
in the morning until about ten. (Telephone number 24.45.00).

The "negative reaction" - I saw it too; if I had foreseen it I would have perhaps
made it a little more theatrical. However, only one worries me now
question: did it make you uncomfortable that I turned to you? It felt like it to me
most natural thing in the world.
And thanks for the Mallarmé 2 quote . I am very happy to see you again.

Say hello to Elfride, Heinrich greets you.
As always
Hannah
Freiburg i. B., August 12, 1967
Dear Hannah,
It is a great joy that you come back once again. You must come on Thursday 17
August, possibly in the early afternoon, to have a little more time for the
our interview, but you have to see the timetables of the most comfortable trains.
How could I not feel deeply happy when you turned to
me in your speech? I was just worried it might spread a
bad mood towards you and that this was then unpleasant for you. From the
reaction that there has been you can deduce in retrospect that your speech,
considered "objectively", she had been very courageous.
Say hello to Heinrich for me. Elfride greets you
As always
Martin
18.viii.67
Page 143
Dear Hannah,
It was good that you were here.

I found these drafts again early this morning 1 .
As always
Martin
Greetings from Elfride Greet Heinrich

97. Hannah Arendt to Martin Heidegger with attachment
September 24, 1967
Dear Martin,
Kant's thesis on being [Kants These uber das Seìn] 1 is an essay

splendid. As I read it, on the return journey, it integrated
perfectly with my memories of your readings and interviews with you. I am attaching you
an aphorism from Kafka that I thought of when you mentioned empty space and the
empty time, and then again, in the text on Kant, in the first paragraphs a
about the future understood as something that "is to come" and "reaches us".
In fact, the two enemies of Kafka's parable are certainly past and future.
(I am also attaching a draft that was double. Maybe you can use it to complete
another copy of the essay's drafts).
I still have questions, but only one of them, albeit probably
marginal, it is urgent for me (on p. 23): «The real is always the real of a possible, and
the fact that it is a real ultimately refers to something necessary ». This lo
do you say or does Kant himself say it, if his thought is integrated? If the real is there
reality of a possible, how can it then refer to something necessary? We think
the real - the inescapable, that which cannot be denied - as necessary because not
do we see any other possibility of "reconciling" with it?
I still don't know anything more precise about the publisher's affair 2 . Glenn Gray
he wrote me that he wants to call him in the next few days. It seems that it is not
still decided nothing. I have not called Wieck for the moment, because I would like to
before talking to Gray. I don't want to give the impression that you want me
Page 144
meddle in the matter.

I am happy to have been to Freiburg and I am grateful to you. I wish you every
good for next year. Say hello to Elfride 3 . Heinrich greets you affectionately.
As always - Hannah
[Attached]
He has two opponents: the first presses him behind, from the origin, the second
cuts the way in front of him. He fights with both of them. Really the first one

he helps itnhethsecifognhdt iw
nitthethfieghsetcwointhd b
theecafiurset bheecw
auasnetsittopupsuhsehs hhiim fboarcwka.rTdh,iasnhdosw
oetvoeor
only in theory, since there are not only the two opponents, but also him
himself: and who can say they know his intentions? Of course it would be his dream
to go out once, in an unobserved moment - it is true that this is what it takes
a dark night like never before - from the fighting line and on his own
experience in the struggle be appointed judge of his opponents, which
they fight each other.
Kafka, He, Annotations of the year 1920, vol. V, 287 4
Messkirch, Sept. 29 1967
Dear Hannah,
My thanks for Kafka's letters 1 and Kojève's book on Hegel 2

arrives late. They both enriched me. It is in the letters that it is reflected
the work, or is it exactly the opposite? Kojève shows a rare
passion for thought. French thought of the last few decades is an echo of
these lessons. Stopping these communications is also an idea. But
Kojève reads Being and Time only as anthropology.
It was nice and good that you came 3 . I am here for a few days at
to put in order the unpublished manuscripts. The unusual autumn weather invites you to
Page 145
retrace the old paths of the native land between the Bodensee and the high Danube 4 .
Yesterday my brother showed me in a newspaper the news that the Academy of
Darmstadt intends to reward your prose 5 . This matches your relationship
with our language, that is to say your love for it.
I'm happy for you. Sometimes they don't just grasp what is right but
even the true.
I greet you and Heinrich.
As always.
Your
Martin

99. Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt with attachment
Messkirch, October 30, 1967
Dear Hannah,
I trusted you to come to Darmstadt, although you told me you wouldn't

embarked on a trip to Europe again. Such ideas belong
to the sphere of play, which we cannot escape.
Thank you for such successful photographs, which testify at the same time
moments of our interview, invisible in the visible 1 .
Glad you like my essay on Kant. The step on the modalities goes
understood in the sense of Kant. My personal ideas about it are constant
ferment for thirty years. With the discussion of the ontological problem this part
substantial part of metaphysics will collapse and will need other determinations, a
starting from the Greek, and non-scholastic-Latin, interpretation of δύναμις - ενέργεια
[dynamis - energeia]. With the "translation" through the terms potentia and actus,
the groundlessness and uselessness of any dialectic is already beginning.
But it is still too early to say anything about it.
Kafka's text is very instructive. I share your interpretation.
However, what does not give me peace on the subject of the "clearing" is that it is not
simply of open space and time, but of what guarantees space and
time to space-time as such, and therefore is by no means the supra-temporal e
Page 146
the extraspatial. The loophole of the distinction between time and eternity is too much
petty. Perhaps it is enough for theology, but for thought it remains one thing too much
coarse.
I am attaching the examples for the transitive use of the verb, which I had searched in vain.
I have the [ Wegtnarken] signpost sent to you via the publisher . By correcting the
drafts I have learned many things - the premise suggests something in
about it.
Glenn Gray's second letter gives hope for a favorable prospect
for the continuation of the translation work.
Look good and be happy with your work.
As always
Martin
Greet Heinrich affectionately. Elfride is in Badenweiler for treatment

until tomorrow. The day after tomorrow I go back to Freiburg.

[Attached]
IN THE DARK 2
The soul is silent the blue spring.

In the evening humidity of the branches
He bowed the lovers' foreheads with a shudder.
EVENING SONG 3
Spring clouds gather over the gloomy city,

that the noblest time of the monks is silent.
New York, 27.11.67
Dear Martin -
Page 147
Thank you for the letter, thank you for the "examples" of the transitive use of silence
(very nice, I think I immediately understood); but not good for
Mallarmé, because tacite is only an adjective, the verb taire can also be
transitivo, taire la venie), and thanks for the high Danube 1 . In Darmstadt they are not
could have come; of course I would have come willingly, but not really a
Darmstadt; if I can avoid such things, without hurting anyone,
I always do it very willingly. However, I cannot hide that
recognition I was pleased, for the exact reason you said.
What you write about "modalities" is more important to me than it is
is able to explain to you. This is a question that has tormented me for many years; the
consequences for our thinking seem to me from various points of view
absolutely extraordinary. Everyone seems to agree that it can have
sense only what is also necessary. I think this is a poor opinion. The
your concept of truth is unique, precisely because it has nothing to do with the
need. In that passage of the essay on Kant it was not clear to me whether you were speaking alone
in the sense of Kant.
I only sent you Kafka's text because of the concept of the future - the
future comes to meet us 2 . The last sentence - the one with springing - falls within

of course entirely within the tradition; is the leap of Parmenides and of

myth of the cave, with the only difference being expressed here in the tonality
of the dramatic modern despair. However, it is remarkable that the
metaphors remain the same; in fact, I believe that I can almost completely exclude
that Kafka knew Plato or Parmenides. I know, the "clearing" is right there
in the middle of the woods.
On the other hand - you know Klopstock's saying: «Generally, in a good one
poetry the unspoken goes back and forth as the gods do in the battles of
Homer, which only a few can see " 3 .
Here at the moment it is not at all easy to find a moment of peace, and then
keep it. The country is in the throes of a kind of revolt 4 , fully legitimate, e
from every side, continuously, one is pushed to take a position. To the extent in
to which these [requests to take a stand] come from students,
we cannot escape. The conflicts of conscience of this generation are a lot
serious, and although it is not possible to advise them directly, and perhaps not even yes
should do so, dialogue is still useful.
I talked to Fred Wieck, who was here with me. At least it emerged
that Harper is seriously determined to continue the Heidegger editorial project.
Page 148
But all the rest of this philosophical sector obviously want to liquidate it.
Changes in the direction of the publishing house, which unfortunately are here
on the agenda. This publishing house, which still until very recently
ago gave particular value to the university, now he prefers
evidently dealing with sensational nonsense - the Manchester book
on the Kennedy assassination, the so-called memoirs of Stalin's daughter 5 , and so on
Street. The only comforting thing is that these gentlemen obviously did
bad their accounts; despite the indescribable publicity, the public did not
reacted enough. Their decision not to let themselves escape in any case
Heidegger, the fact that Being and Time sells itself may also have contributed
very well and the sales are growing steadily. Glenn Gray had written to me
a short letter announcing a visit from him next month.
You wrote that you had put in order manuscripts in Messkirch, and one more
I once thought anxiously about the fact that there is none of those manuscripts
copy.
I am waiting to receive the Signposts and I am happy with them.
Take care, say hello to Elfride; Heinrich, who is reading your Nietzsche, ti
greets with even more intense affection.
Hannah
As always

New York, 17.3.1968
Dear Martin,
For a long time I have been writing this letter to you in thought, standing
lying on the sofa. The Signposts were a comfort and a flash of light in
this somewhat gloomy winter. I reread it all very slowly; not
I only knew the last two chapters on Leibniz and physics. I think I know
what do you mean when you say you learned from proofreading. If you read the
book, as it is now structured, each part of it still appears under another
light, and their being united reveals itself as a unity, which is otherwise difficult
to reach. I keep keeping the book on my desk, kind of like a talisman,
out of superstition, but also partly because now, having grasped enough
Page 149
the overall meaning, I simply leaf through it and read here and there very willingly.
A couple of days ago Harper sent me the drafts of What It Means
think? 1 . I reread some parts of it, comparing them carefully with the text
German, and made a very good impression on me. (But I'm not done yet, and I haven't
still written to Glenn Gray). The translation is very accurate, often
surprisingly ingenious and happy in her lexical choice. (Eg
thought-provoking for bedenklich [doubt]). It reads fluently and so
say without contortions. A subsequent translation seems safe; the resonance
of these things among today's students is very strong.
The bleak winter: First Heinrich was seriously ill, with phlebitis
(probably a thrombosis); but now he's fully recovered. Then the
political issues, which you will have already been roughly put to the head
current. For a couple of days it seems to be going better and I re-emerge happily
from my depression. The best thing that can happen to this country, that is
to the republic, is to lose the war. This will have consequences
unpleasant, but which are nonetheless preferable to imperialist adventures e
to the bloody pax americana. The opposition within the country is
extraordinary, and not only among students, but also in Parliament and in the press,
and in general in universities. We could get by once again with a
black eye, especially because this time, for the first time, the opposition
extra-parliamentary, especially the "young", goes hand in hand with that
parliamentarian, especially in the Senate.
I wonder how things are going with you. How do they go to you. What are you at
working. The plans for the summer are still completely uncertain. It would be nice

to see you again. It would be nice to talk to you. However, I think you are fine.
And the very thought makes me happy.
Heinrich sends you his regards; greets Elfride.
Greetings as always - Hannah
For mom., Messkirch, April 12, 1968
Dear Hannah,
I've been here for three days working with my brother. I was two before
Page 150
weeks with Elfride in Badenweiler, for the first time in my life in one
spa town, which had the effect of making me really lazy.
At the beginning of January, on the 10th, suddenly, in the evening around twenty, it is
suffered a viral flu - as was later diagnosed.
Suddenly I got a persistent cough and a fever of 39.6 °. The next day,
when the doctor came, it had already dropped to 38.4 °, which he interpreted as a
positive sign. However, to prevent the complications typical of old age,
I took a penicillin medicine for three days, which is very bad for me
debilitated. Meanwhile, having to cure me, Elfride too had been infected.
We have had to deal with this disease for weeks, so we have
then decided to go to Badenweiler. Now I feel fit again, ed
Elfride as well. This account of the disease is only intended to introduce -
contrary to the rule - my reply to your letter of March 17, which I
was very pleased. My first wish is that, in the meantime, you will be there
remission from depression, regardless of the "conditions", which everywhere
they are constantly getting worse. The fact that Heinrich has recovered
he should also have helped you.
Thank you for your supervision of the translation of What does it mean
think? In Freiburg there is a rumor that it is very bad. On the contrary, I am myself
personally convinced that Glenn Gray actually understood the matter.
I am very happy that it is translated and made accessible to young people
generations just this course.
Illness forced my job to stop. But I'm getting slowly
recovering and continuing to be on my way to the same thing, striving to
express it simply - perhaps in about sixty pages 1 . Voluminous books e
works in multiple volumes, in the field of thought, you write them only if you continue to
turn around the subject, from the outside, and ideas remain confused.

I saw, even if only in passing, that you have something important from
communicate on the «Merkur» 2 .
I declined the invitation to appear among the prominent personalities of the congress
International Philosophy in Vienna; I have never participated in demonstrations of the
gender.
There is still an "alternative" to the disturbing phenomenon of "dimension
public "? To be clearer: before this chat about "alternatives",
is there still a criterion for discerning the essential things? For what hells must it
still pass the man, before being able to understand that it is not he who produces if
same?
Page 151
The signboards are an experiment; only those who already know them can afford
to read them as you read them. They are very few. But these few would already be
enough. They would be able to wait. This is absolutely different
from hoping. Hope belongs to the realm of machination and of
fabrication of "bliss".
If you come, let us know in due time (i.e. in advance) of your plans. Say hello
Heinrich. Elfride greets you.
Greetings as always - Martin
August 23, 1968
Dear Martin,
Having no longer received any news from you, I too have never written to you again. Was
however superfluous, because Heinrich was sick and I couldn't
walk away - as Glenn Gray may have let you know. Now instead me
I am suddenly determined to come to Europe, at least for ten or fourteen
days. I will be in Basel starting September 1st or 2nd, at the Hotel Euler, e
I will presumably be there for a week. In case you can see each other,
write me something at that address. I am not bound by a schedule
precise and probably we could still meet also in the second
week of September. Only I should know quickly. I think you already are
aware that Glenn won't come until October.
Heinrich sends his regards. Say hello to Elfride.

I salute you as always

Hannah
Le Thor (Avignon), 6.IX.1968
Page 152
MRS HANNAH ARENDT, HOTEL EULER, BASEL
UNTIL 9 SEPTEMBER I AM BY RENÉ CHAR 1 . YOUR VISIT IS

WELCOME SEPTEMBER 12 TO ZÀHRINGEN. CHEERS. MARTIN.
Freiburg, 11 Sept. 68
Dear Hannah,
We are expecting you tomorrow at four for tea and we would like you to stay at
dinner.
I too am as happy as you are
Martin
Friday [February 28, 1969]
Dear Martin -
I came here for Jaspers' burial. Only for a few days. I would see you
very gladly. It's possible ? Wednesday next week I'd like it
very good.
As always
Hannah
You can find me easily by calling here in the morning.

Freiburg, March 1, 1969
Page 153
Dear Hannah,
Next Wednesday is fine for me too - preferably in the afternoon -

because I need the morning to work.
As always
Martin
108. Elfride Heidegger to Hannah Arendt
April 20, 1969
Dear Hannah,
Today I am writing to you to ask you a favor: after a terrible flu

we recently decided to leave our large two story house and
build, on a piece of our rear garden, a small house on
one floor only, with an exit on the ground floor towards the garden. It would come to
cost around 80,000 - 100,000 marks, which of course we don't have. But
we have things of value. Martin just showed me the original manuscript of
Being and time. But since we don't understand anything about money, we don't have the
faintest idea of the possible value of this manuscript, much less
we know who it could possibly be offered to sell it to. Glenn and Ursula
Gray, whom we spoke to yesterday, thought they were addressing you; but I prefer
do it myself with this letter. Please handle this whole matter with the
maximum discretion. We would appreciate a quick reply.
For the rest we are fine again now, as I hope you and your husband too.
We greet you affectionately.
Elfride
Martin
Martin adds:
the manuscript of the courses on Nietzsche 1 can also be put up for sale .

Page 154
April 25, 1969
Dear Elfride,
To answer your request, I immediately write to you what I know, that

It's not much. Of course, there is no doubt that the manuscript of Being and Time
possess a considerable value, equally there is no doubt that this value will go
still growing considerably over time. The same is true of course
also for the Nietzsche, although its present value is probably for the
lower moment. Manuscripts may therefore be of interest not only to the
public institutions, but also collectors, as an investment 1 . The most
simple, but not necessarily the best, would be to turn to the firm most
important in Germany and also better known abroad, which he sells at auction
that kind of thing.
It is: JA Stargardt
355 Marburg
Universitatstrasse 27
They trade manuscripts of all types and of all centuries, even those of
contemporary authors - for example Ernst Junger, Hofmannsthal, and so on.
They ship their rich catalogs all over the world. Of course, in this case
"discretion" is out of the question, although you can, as often happens,
contact these people through an intermediary that appears to you
appropriate. Maybe you could have their catalog sent to you to do it before
all an idea.
There are undoubtedly other possibilities as well. I can try to find out
here. But the difficulty lies in the fact of discretion. Because it's really about
a very special thing, no one is able to express a judgment without
know what it is. Can I ask a librarian I know,
extraordinarily appreciated in the specialist field, and that I can pray for
maximum discretion. Now he is here as a professor at Columbia, he is originally from
German, and was until recently (retirement) director of the
Jewish Library of Jerusalem. He knows these things better than anyone
other. Secondly, I could go to Kurt Wolff's widow, Helene
Wolff, who is a friend of mine. He has experience of these things and at the same time

Page 155
it is reliable, if you ask for discretion.

Finally - I could probably turn to the director of the manuscripts section
Library of Congress 2 , which I hardly know. But I would only do that if Wormann (the
librarian above) would recommend it, and of course if you are
agree. These officials are usually trustworthy from the point of view of
discretion; but in this case I would not have a personal guarantee. The trouble is that the
his advice would not be disinterested at all, although he thinks the
Library of Congress is only interested in American authors.
Glenn Gray 3 had already written me about the bad flu. It was the same as the
last year? Has it left you extremely debilitated? Heinrich had
this winter the so-called Hong-Kong influence, but in a mild form;
five days of high fever and then that's it, without medicine and without after-effects.
We come to Europe at the end of May for several months. I will show up in
following. Here the situation is not very pleasant.
I wish you both all the best. Heinrich greets you
affectionately.
April 28, 1969
Dear Hannah,
We sincerely thank you for your quick response. It is excluded that the
manuscript is offered for sale. We thought we would propose it to one
public collection or to an institution such as the Library of Congress that you have
you spoke. Please, if it doesn't cost you too much effort, ask the professor,
you have indicated as a particularly experienced librarian, as much as one
collection of such manuscripts could pay us off. Further requests,
as well as a written reply from you are not necessary; we are pleased to be able to you
see us again as soon as possible: we can then continue talking about it verbally.
Here too there is nothing "pleasant", but the study is safe and sound.
The flu is also outdated.
At the end of May we are still here, then we leave for a while,
since the last ten days of July you can always find us here.
Thanks again and warm regards to you and your husband

Page 156
Elfride
[handwritten addition of Μ. H.]
Warm greetings as always and also for Heinrich.
Martin
Thanks also for the photos and the film that arrived from Basel 1 .
New York, May 17, 1969
Dear Elfride,
My librarian friend, Wormann, was with me the day before yesterday, and I am writing to you
immediately, so as not to run the risk of forgetting some details.
All of the following are his recommendations:
1. Libraries which may be particularly interested: in Germany,
especially the Schiller-Archiv of Marbach, which also buys manuscripts of
philosophy, and has substantial funding. In France, the Bibliothèque
Nationale, which sometimes also buys German manuscripts (for example, some
year ago, a large collection of Heine's manuscripts), if they are noteworthy
interest in France - which is particularly true for Being and time.
But I think that for the moment they have no money to spend.
In America: first of all Yale - in whose editions the
Introduction to metaphysics 1 . They have the collection of multiple German manuscripts
great (?), also very much Rilke. Other important collections of German authors
they are also in the possession of Princeton and Harvard.
Probably, the highest price would come in Texas, which is new in
this field, and buys a lot of things at very high prices. (From the Library of
Congress doesn't even talk about it; buy only American authors).
2. The manuscript must not be offered for sale. So how do you do a
propose it? Wormann reminded me how easy it is to inexperienced people
are scammed or make mistakes. The best solution would be that

Page 157
the offering of the manuscript was through Stargardt - which I already had there
mentioned; in fact this company not only organizes auctions, but also acts as a
intermediary for offers of this kind. Of course they get one
percentage, but it's worth it. It should be one of the family members, to make the
best thing, to get in touch with the company, saying they had the
manuscript as a gift or to have inherited it in some way. Wormann thought
also that this would allow for tax breaks - I don't quite understand why.
3. However, if you want to propose the manuscript directly, also in
this case should be done through an intermediary. In
America could do it Glenn Gray, who undoubtedly, in his role as
editor of the translations, it would in a certain way be legitimized. For the
Germany was not so sure, even above all he wondered who he is
should direct the offer, in order to get a reasonable price.
The greatest experience in this field is possessed by Professor Kòster della
Deutsche Bibliothek in Frankfurt, who is also a person to be trusted. It's a
disciple of Eppelsheimer, whom I know and has been of great help to me, when,
years ago, I surveyed the lost Jewish cultural heritage 1 . It is in
retired, but still very lively and active. A cosmopolitan man, with whom he does
nice to have to do.
4. As far as value is concerned, there is of course no iustum pretium.
The price can go up a lot if there are several offers. He made me some
examples: an Einstein correspondence of little interest, consisting of 52 letters, was
was valued in London at 5,000 British pounds (from the largest house
auction, Sotheby's, Bond Street), and was then sold for triple. But
this company is excluded because it only makes auctions. (Unlike Stargardt then).
Berlin bought Gerhart Hauptmann's posthumous legacy for more than two
million and a half marks.
He would gladly avoid giving an evaluation, but then he told me on the spot
that according to him, Being and time should yield from a minimum of 70000 up to
100,000 marks, therefore without the manuscript on Nietzsche. It could also be
much more.
5. Bottom line: Wormann also warned me that such things
they can remain reserved only until the moment in which the sale goes through.
The institution that concludes the deal makes its purchase public. After that
also all the others, to whom it was proposed, no longer feel bound
the obligation of discretion. Schocken, for example, liquidated a few years ago
its precious German collection, through various intermediaries; nevertheless
Page 158

today everyone is aware of it.

I write in a hurry. We are close to leaving, and the semester is not over yet.
On May 28th we are in Switzerland: the address is Casa Barbaté, 6652 Tegna, Ticino,
tel. 093-65430. I think we will see each other in late June or early July.
Good things from home to home - Hannah
112. Martin and Elfride to Hannah Arendt
June 4, 1969
Dear Hannah,
I am very grateful to you that you wrote me so thoroughly, despite you

is very busy. We too had thought, at first, of
Marbach, as well as the Goethe Foundation in Frankfurt; I am only afraid that the
their offerings will be too poor.
Also: if a sale is successful, the deal does not need to be
confidential; with our request we just wanted to avoid that, even before the
sale, began a run for this manuscript on the international market
autographs.
We are happy to see you again here - maybe at the end of June? Meanwhile
we wish you and your husband the relaxing vacation you are sure to have
need after NYC.
We greet you with much affection
Martin and Elfride
Freiburg i. Br., June 23, 1969
Dear Hannah,
We are delighted to receive your visit and look forward to seeing you on Thursday 26 June, in
early afternoon.
Page 159

As always
Martin
Freiburg i. Br., 2 August 1969
Dear Hannah,
We therefore look forward to seeing you on August 16th afternoon. Dominique's address
Fourcade 1 is as follows: Rue Théodule Ribot, 16, 75 Paris 17th. He is a young man
nice, friend of René Char. He was our guest a few years ago, up at the hut,
together with Jean Beaufret.
In the meantime we have concluded a favorable agreement with Marbach 2 ,
so it is no longer necessary for you to give yourself any further work.
We hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday with them
parts 3 .
We greet you affectionately and look forward to seeing you again soon
know.
As always
Martin
PS. The conversation with H. Jonas was very pleasant 4 . It is completely

removed from theology.
Tegna, August 8, 1969
Dear Martin,
I am writing to you only to confirm our visit on day 16. We will be with you
around four o'clock. For any eventuality, from the 15th evening we are in Zurich, at the hotel
Waldhaus Dolder.
Page 160
I just finished reading the Le Thor 1 Seminar . It is a document

extraordinary. In every respect. For me personally it has a meaning
particular, because it brought me back to the Marburg period, when you were mine
teacher, but at the same time deeply reunites him with your thought

current. I read below the original draft of Logik [Logica] 2 , on which you have
caught my attention (the writing on the difference 3 I do not know, and here
I have no chance to find it). It's amazing how simple they were
things in the beginning.
I will write to Fourcade now. He sent me two volumes of
poems with a touching dedication. Without address. Jonas was here - delighted
for the meeting in Zurich, of which he told me every detail, as his own
usual. He has "completely departed" from much more than theology.
All good to you two
As always
Hannah
For you
for September 26, 1969
after forty-five years
as always
Hannah
Ladies and gentlemen,
Martin Heidegger turns eighty today, and along with his eightieth
birthday also celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of its public
teaching activity. Plato once said: «The beginning is indeed a deity, and
as long as he is among men, save all things "( Laws 775) 1 .
Let me start from the beginning of this public activity of yours, not
with 1889 in Meßkirch, but with 1919, the year in which it enters as
lecturer in German academic life at the University of Freiburg. The fame of
Heidegger, in fact, predates the publication of Being and Time, in 1927,
indeed one wonders if the unusual success of this book - not just it
Page 161
a sensation that immediately aroused, but above all its resonance

extraordinarily long-lasting, with which very few publications of this
century can compete - it would have been possible without, as they say, that
success as a teacher who had preceded him and which he nevertheless confirmed
in the opinion of the students of that time.
There was something strange about this early fame, perhaps even more strange than

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means by public, and yet they exerted an extraordinary influence. In
this case, in fact, there was nothing on which fame could have been founded, nothing
written, with the exception of university lecture notes, which passed from hand to hand;
and his courses dealt with texts that were known to all, did not contain any
doctrine that could have been repeated and communicated to others. There was therefore
what a name, but this name ran from mouth to mouth all over Germany,
like the fame of a hidden king. It was a completely different thing
from the "circle" gathered around a "teacher" and directed by him, for example
the "George-Kreis", a club which, well known to the public, nevertheless remains
separated from it by the aura of a supposed mystery, known only to his own
members. Here there were neither mysteries nor adepts; sure, who had been joined by
fame was known, because they were all students; sometimes there was a relationship between them
of friendship, and later gangs also formed here and there, but not there
it was never a circle or anything esoteric.
Who were the ones who were achieved by [Heidegger's] fame and what
he said? Back then, after the First World War, in German universities no
there was a real rebellion, but a widespread unease in the activity of
teaching and study, in all faculties that were not simple schools
professional, and among all students who did not intend to study only as
preparation for the profession. Philosophy was not a profitable study
to live, but rather a study of genuine starvation, than just for
this they were rightfully demanding. Their aspirations were not to follow the
universal wisdom or the wisdom of life, and who cared about the solution of each
enigma had at his disposal a rich choice of conceptions of the world and of
party ideologies; there was no need for philosophical studies to choose. But
then they didn't even know what they wanted. The university generally offered
they or the schools - Neo-Kantian, Neo-Hegelian, Neo-Platonic - or the old
scholastic philosophy, in which philosophy, suitably divided by subject, such as
gnoseology, aesthetics, ethics, logic and the like were not so much transmitted as
Page 162
liquidated with immense boredom. Against this rather convenient practice, and his own
also absolutely serious way, there were then, even before the appearance of
Heidegger, few rebels; there was, in chronological order, Husserl with his call
"To the things themselves", which meant "away the theories, away the books", to create
a philosophy as a rigorous science, which might well have figured alongside
other academic disciplines. This of course was meant in a sense
absolutely naive and not rebellious, and yet it was something they could
calling first Scheler and later Heidegger. Furthermore, in Heidelberg there was Karl
Jaspers, knowingly rebellious and coming from a tradition other than

the philosophical one, which, as is well known, was a long-time friend of Heidegger, precisely
because he liked the idea of rebellion present in Heidegger's project,
something philosophically original in the midst of academic chatter
on philosophy.
What these few had in common was - to use the words of
Heidegger - the fact of being able to distinguish «between an object of learning and a thing
thought » 2 and that the object of erudition was quite indifferent to them. There
fame then reached those who, more or less explicitly, were a
knowledge of the rupture of tradition and of the "dark times" that had begun, e
who therefore considered scholarship in questions of philosophy precisely as
an idle game and were ready to submit to academic discipline only
because for them it was "thought things" or, as Heidegger would say today,
of the "thing of thought" 3 . The voice that attracted them to the free teacher a
Freiburg and a little later in Marburg he said that there was someone who really did
things that Husserl had proclaimed, one he knew it was not about
academic matters, but the questions of men who think, and not
only since yesterday or today, but always; and who rediscovered the past, precisely
because for him the thread of tradition was broken. Technically, it was crucial
for example, the fact that Plato was not spoken of or his doctrine was expounded
ideas, but which for a whole semester was followed and examined step by step
I pass a dialogue, until the millennial doctrine disappeared, leaving instead
only one extremely topical issue emerges. Today this way of
proceeding is probably quite familiar to us, because many do
Like this; but before Heidegger nobody did it. Fame said it so
very simple: thought has come back to life, the cultural heritage of the past,
who believed himself extinct, has started talking to us again, and expresses very different things from
those that, with diffidence, he was supposed to tell us. There is one who teaches, maybe it is
possible to learn to think.
Page 163
Hence, the hidden king of the realm of thought: a realm that belongs
certainly in this world, and yet which is so hidden in it that it cannot be
never know for sure if it really exists, although its inhabitants are more
numerous than is believed. In fact, how else could one explain the
extraordinary influence, often underground, of Heideggerian thought and of
his readings so intensely thinking, that it extends far beyond the circle of
pupils and even what is commonly understood by philosophy?
It is not, in fact, Heidegger's philosophy, about which it is even legitimate
wondering if there really is a 4 , but Heidegger's thought to have
contributed in such a decisive way to tracing the spiritual physiognomy of
our century. This thought has its own peculiar penetrating characteristic which,

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something. With this absolutely non-contemplative activity, he penetrates into
depth, but not to discover or to derive in this dimension, which first -
one might say - it had never been discovered in this way and with so much
precision, an ultimate and reassuring foundation, as much as to trace, remaining
in depth, paths and to place "trail signs" 5 . This thought can
set oneself some tasks, take an interest in "problems"; of course it always has something
something specific to deal with, or rather, something that stimulates him, but you can't
to say that it has a goal. It is incessantly active, and the very fact of tracking i
paths serves more to the opening of a dimension than to a goal established a priori
and then achieved. The paths can easily be "interrupted paths",
that precisely because they do not lead to a destination located outside the woods e
«All of a sudden they end up in places not traveled» 6 , for those who love the forest and in it
feels at home, they are far more suitable than problem roads
built with care, on which the research of the talented moves quietly
philosophers and scholars of the sciences of the spirilo. The metaphor of "interrupted paths"
it is about something very essential, but not, as it initially appears, the fact
that someone has ended up on a path that is lost in the woods, on which it is not possible
proceed further, but rather than someone, as does the lumberjack, for whom the
bosco is the place of work, he proceeds on paths that he himself has traced, since
this tracing of paths is no less part of his profession than cutting wood.
In this profound dimension, opened only by his penetrating thought,
Heidegger laid out a vast network of thought paths, and the only result
immediate, which of course was followed and taught, is that he did
collapse the edifice of traditional metaphysics, in which however for a long time
Page 164
time no one felt more comfortable, as well as underground movements and

excavation works bring down what does not have a sufficiently stable foundation
and deep. This is a historical problem, perhaps even of primary importance,
but of which we, who do not belong to any corporation, not even in that
of historians, we can help but care. Che Kant, from a particular
point of view, he might rightly be called the "food processor", he doesn't have much
what to do - unlike his historical role - with who Kant was. And for how long
it concerns Heidegger's role in the collapse of metaphysics, which it was nonetheless
imminent, we must be grateful to him, and to him alone, if this collapse has happened
in a way worthy of what was there before, that is, if metaphysics at the end
it was thought and not only overwhelmed, so to speak, by what came
after it. «The end of philosophy», as Heidegger says 7 , but an end that the
does honor and does not diminish her prestige, caused by the one who was her most
deeply connected. Throughout his life Heidegger has placed his own at the base

seminars and his lectures the texts of philosophers, and only in old age he dared to go out
in the open by holding a seminar on his own text 8 .
I said that fame was followed to learn to think, and what came
what was learned was that thought as pure activity, that is, not propelled
neither from the thirst for knowledge nor from the longing for knowledge, one can transform into one
passion that not so much governs, but rather orders and dominates all the others
skills and talents. We are so used to the old antitheses between reason and passion,
spirit and life, which to some extent surprises us with the idea of a thought
passionate , in which thinking and being-alive become one. Heidegger
himself - according to a reliable anecdote - once expressed this becoming
one with a single lapidary sentence, when, at the beginning of a course on Aristotle,
instead of the usual biographical introduction, he said: 'Aristotle was born, worked and
died ». The fact that things like this are given is certainly, like us
we can recognize a posteriori, the condition of possibility of philosophy in
general. But it is more than doubt that, without Heidegger's thinking existence,
we would never know in our century. This thought that arises as
a passion from the simple fact of having-come-into-the-world, and which now «thinks
that sense which dominates all that is » 9 cannot have an ultimate goal - the
knowledge, knowing - as life itself cannot have. The end of life is there
death, but man does not live in function of death, but because he is a being
living; and thus he does not think in terms of some result, but because he is «being
who thinks, and this means: the being who meditates " 10 .
It follows that thought actually behaves towards its own
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results in a destructive, or rather, critical way. Philosophers have certainly shown,

since the philosophical schools of antiquity, a fatal tendency to build
systems, and today we often struggle to dismantle the constructions that they
they built, to find out what they really thought. But this
tendency did not spring from thought itself, but from needs totally
different, also absolutely legitimate. If you wanted to measure the thought in
all its immediate and passionate vitality, in relation to its results, then
it would happen to him as with Penelope's canvas - what was woven during the day
it would be inexorably and again undone at night, in order to start over
all over again the next day. Each of Heidegger's writings, despite the
occasional references to previous publications, it reads as if he
start over each time again, and each time just pick up the language again
which he had previously coined, hence the terminological aspect, where however i
concepts are only "signposts", in whose direction a new one is oriented
path of thought. Heidegger remembers this peculiarity of thinking when
emphasizes "to what extent the critical question , which is the thing of thought,
it necessarily and constantly belongs to thought "; when he says that "the

thought has the character of a turning back ". And he enacts the return
back when he subjects Being and time to an "immanent criticism", or ascertains
that a certain interpretation of Platonic truth "is not tenable",
or he speaks altogether of the "retrospective look" on his own
work, "which is always transformed into a retractatio ", that is, not into a revocation, but
in thinking in a new way the already thought 11 .
Every thinker, once he is old enough, must
strive to dissolve what properly represents the outcome of his thought,
with the simple fact of subjecting it to a new reflection.
(In Jaspers' words he will say: “And right now, I wanted to start
for real, it's time to go! »). The thinking self has no age, and for thinkers, that
they really exist only in thought, the fact of growing old without
getting old is as much luck as it is bad luck. With the passion of
thought, it happens just like with other passions: what we know
commonly as the qualities of the person, the whole of which, subjected
to the aegis of the will, it turns out to be the character, it does not resist the assault of
passion that grasps man and person, and in a certain way it is
takes hold. The ego, which thinking "insists", as Heidegger says, in the storm
unleashed, and for which time literally does not pass, not only is it without
age, but it is also without quality, although it is always specifically different. The I.
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thinking is quite different from the Self of consciousness. Plus the thought, like
Hegel once observed with regard to philosophy, it is "something solitary" 12 ; And
this not only because - as Plato says - in the «silent dialogue with me
himself » 13 , I am alone, but because in the dialogue something always transpires
"Unspeakable", something that cannot be expressed completely orally, which cannot
it can be said with language, and therefore it is not communicated, not only to others,
but also to those involved. It is precisely this "unspeakable" that Plato speaks of
in Letter vii , what makes thought so lonely, is that
nevertheless it constitutes the fertile and always different ground from which it arises and continues
to renew itself. You might imagine - but that's definitely not the case with
Heidegger - that the passion of thought suddenly assails man more
sociable and you ruin him because of loneliness.
The first and, as far as I know, also the only one who talked about thinking as
of a " pathos ", of something that assaults us and that we endure undergoing it, it is
Plato, who points to the origin of philosophy in wonder 14 , does not
naturally meaning with it the mere amazement that arouses in us, although not
attacking us like pathos does , when we are faced with something strange.
Indeed wonder, which is the origin of thought - as wonderment perhaps is
the origin of sciences - concerns the everyday, obvious, well-known and

known; this is also the reason why it cannot be appeased by

No knowledge. Heidegger once spoke, precisely in the Platonic sense,
of the "ability to marvel at the simple", but differently from
Plato added: "and to take up residence in this marvel" 15 . This
addition seems to me decisive for a reflection on who Martin Heidegger is.
Because perhaps not all, as we continue to hope, but many nonetheless
men know thought and the loneliness connected with it; but certainly not
they have their dwelling there, and when they are overcome by wonder in the face of the simple, and
yielding to wonder they abandon themselves to thought, they know they are
torn from the stay assigned to them in the continuity of occupations and
activities in which human affairs take place, and which will return to you anyway
after a short time. The dwelling of which Heidegger speaks is therefore,
metaphorically speaking, far from the homes of men; and although
here too there can be many storms, but they are still storms
even more metaphorical than what we call storms of the time.
Compared with other places in the world, with the places of human affairs, the
abode of the thinker is a "place of stillness" 16 .
It is the wonder itself that originally produces and spreads stillness, and it is
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by virtue of this quiet that being protected from all noises, even from noise
of one's own voice, becomes the indispensable condition because of the wonder
a thought may arise. In this, a detail is already defined
transformation to which everything is subjected ends up within the radius of action of this
thought. In its essential separation from the world, thought always has a
dealing only with what is absent, with things or facts that are subtracted from
immediate perception. If by any chance you come across a man, face him
face, one certainly perceives him as a being in flesh and blood, but one does not think about
he. If you do, then between the two who meet there is already a wall, yes
secretly withdraws from an immediate encounter. To get closer in thought to
a thing or even a person, they must be far from perception
immediate. Thought, Heidegger says, is «to come-into-the-proximity of what is
far away " 17 . This can be easily recalled by thinking of one
experience well known to all. When we travel to visit a lot of things
distant that deserve to be seen closely, it often happens that only in memory
retrospectively, when we are no longer under the influence of the impression, we
we feel the things we have seen really close, as if they were opening up
their real meaning only now that they are no longer present. This
overturning of relationships and relationships, the fact that thought pushes this away
which is close, or rather, withdraws from what is near and brings distant things closer, it is
a decisive element to be able to clearly understand the dwelling of the
thought. Memory, which in thought becomes remembering thought, has played

such an eminent role in the history of thought over thought as a faculty

intellectual, because it reassures us that closeness and distance, as they are
given sensibly, they are in general subjected to an overturning of this
gender.
Heidegger spoke about the "abode" assigned to him, the abode of
thought, only occasionally, for hints and mostly negatively - like
when he says that the questioning of thought «does not come within the usual order
of daily life " 18 ," in the context of urgent things, urgent needs
to be satisfied », but rather that« it is the same to ask to be outside
of the order ". But this relationship between closeness and distance is his
overturning in thought runs through all his work from top to bottom, as one
keynote on which everything else is in tune. Presence and absence, conceal
and to reveal closeness and distance: their concatenation and their reciprocals
relationships have little or nothing to do with the foregone truth that they might not
there be any presence, without having experienced absence, which would not exist
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proximity without distance, nor to reveal without concealing. If you look from the
perspective of the abode of thought actually around it
dwells, in the "customary order of daily life" and human affairs,
dominates the "withdrawal of being" or "the oblivion of being": the withdrawal of that with which the
thought, which by its nature addresses the absent, has to do. The overcome
this "withdrawing" is always paid for with a subtraction of the world of
human affairs, and this even when the thought reflects precisely on these
chores in the solitary quiet that is proper to him. So already Aristotle, who had
Plato's example is still very much alive before the eyes, he recommended with
insistence on philosophers that they do not want to play the role of kings in the world of
policy.
«The ability to marvel», at least occasionally, «in front of the
simple », presumably it belongs to all men, and the thinkers of the past
and of the present, known to us, should therefore be characterized by the fact of
knowing how to develop from this marvel the ability to think, or rather the thought
which from time to time suits them. Things stand completely
different with the ability "to take this wonder as a home". This
ability is extraordinarily rare and we find it somewhat documented
with certainty only in Plato, who has expressed himself several times, and in the most popular manner
drastic in the Teeteto , on the dangers of this dwelling. As is well known, in that work
he is also the first to tell the anecdote of Tale you and the Thracian servant, who
he saw the "wise man" fall into a well for having wanted to observe the stars while turning
looked up, and laughed at the fact that one, who wanted to know the sky,
ended up not knowing where he put his feet anymore 19 . Thales, if we want to believe

Aristotle was very angry, especially since his fellow citizens were used to it
mock him for his poverty, and so he wanted to prove, with a well speculation
successful on the olive presses, which for the "wise" would be easy to get rich, if
only thought it important 20 . And since, notoriously, books don't
are written by the servants, the witty Thracian girl has yet to hear from
to say from Hegel that he had absolutely no sensitivity to higher things.
Plato, who, as is well known, not only wanted to prohibit poets from exercising theirs
art within the state, but also wanted to prohibit citizens from rice 21 ,
at least to the class of guardians, he feared the laughter of his fellow citizens more than the
opinions hostile to the claim of absoluteness of the truth. Maybe he really is
realized that the dwelling of the thinker, seen from the outside, looks like
easily to Aristophanes' world of clouds. In any case he knew that the
thought, when he wants to bring his thought to market, he is incapable of
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defend oneself from the laughter of others; and it may be this, among other things, that has pushed him, already
in old age, to travel three times to Sicily, for
go to the aid of the tyrant of Syracuse by teaching the
mathematics, which seemed essential to him as an introduction to philosophy. Not yes
he realized that this extravagant initiative, if you consider it in perspective
of the servetta, appears far more comical than the misadventure of Thales. And for sure
measure rightly: as far as I know, in fact, no one has laughed, and I don't know
no exposition of this episode that has even elicited a
smile. Evidently men have not yet discovered what the
laughed, perhaps because their thinkers, who were never good at talking about the
laugh, on this issue they have left them in the lurch, even if from time to time someone
he puzzled over its immediate causes.
We all know that Heidegger also once succumbed to temptation
to change his "abode" and to "intervene", as was then said, in the world
of human affairs. And as for the world, he got a little bit too
worse than Plato, because the tyrant and his victims were no further than the
sea but in his country 22 . As for himself, I believe that things are
otherwise. He was still young enough to learn something from shock
of the shock that, thirty-five years ago, after only ten feverish months, drove him back into the
residence assigned to him, to give him a place and make it take root in his thought
to the experience he had lived. What resulted for him was the discovery of the
will as the will to want and therefore as the will to power. In the era
modern, and especially in the contemporary, much has been written about will,
but not much has been thought about its essence, despite Kant and Nietzsche.
However, no one before Heidegger has seen how much this essence is in
contrast with thought and act destructively on it. At the thought
"abandonment" belongs, and from the standpoint of the will the thinker must

say, in a way that is only apparently paradoxical: "I want the non-
want"; in fact only "through this", only if "we lose the habit of
want ", it is possible for us" to be led back to the essence of thinking we seek,
which is not a will " 23 .
We who want to honor the thinkers, even if our home does
found in the middle of the world, we can hardly help but find
surprising and perhaps unfortunate that Plato like Heidegger, the time he is
they are engaged in human affairs, whether they have turned to tyrants or to the Führer. That is
it could be due not only to the circumstances of the moment, much less
to a character already formed, but rather to what the French call
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déformation professionelle. Indeed the inclination to tyranny can be

theoretically demonstrated in almost all great thinkers (Kant represents the
great exception). And if this inclination is not attested in what they did, it is
only because very few among them, besides the «ability to marvel in front of the
simple ", they were willing to" take this marvel as a dwelling ".
And for these few, it is ultimately indifferent where the storms of theirs
era can throw them. Indeed the storm that blows impetuously in the thought of
Heidegger - similar to the one that still after millennia comes to us from the opera
of Plato - does not come from this century. It comes from the beginnings, and what
leaves behind is something accomplished which, like everything accomplished,
returns to the beginnings.
'And if rapacious time grabs my head of strength

and Necessity and bewilderment overwhelm
my mortal life down among mortals,
let me think about the silence of the deep sea then "
Hölderlin, The archipelago
Contemporaries remember the eightieth birthday of the master,

of the teacher, some also of the friend. They stop and try to make themselves known
I realize what this life meant for them, for the world, for the time
which, gathered in its fullness, now appears as an actual presence - it is not
perhaps this is the blessing of old age?
- To this question, everyone can have a different answer ready, and then
hope that the answer will to some extent do justice to the enthusiast
fullness of this life, of which the work is the testimony.

It seems to me that life and work have taught us what it means

THINK, and that the writings will remain exemplary testimony, exemplary
also for the courage to dare to go into unexplored immensities, to expose oneself
in all respects to what is still unthinkable, the courage it must
to distinguish the one who has not founded his life on anything but
precisely on thought and its disturbing depth.
May those who come after us, when they remember our century and
his men, trying to remain faithful to them, do not forget also about the
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devastating sandstorms by which we have all been swept away, each at the
his way, and yet something like this man and the
his work.
Freiburg i Br., 27 nov. 1969
Dear Hannah,
The celebrations in Meßkirch and Amriswil 5 were beautiful.

The Amriswil one also delighted our children and grandchildren. But four days
after my birthday my brother's wife died of a heart attack. After i
celebrations we spent a few days in October, extraordinarily
beautiful and mild, resting in our hut.
The small tokens of my gratitude will come to you with an expedition
postal separately. There are not yet, because they are only in preparation: 1. The
text of my speech at the conference held at the Akademie der
Heidelberg Wissenschaften 6 . 2. The text of the speeches given in Meßkirch 7 . 3. The
text of the program broadcast by the second television channel
German 8 . 4. The text of the speeches given in Amriswil 9 . The collective volume of
written in my honor published by Klostermann with the title Durchblicke ,
contains contributions by authors under the age of forty, with the sole exception of
H. Jonas 10 . As far as you can understand by probing the drafts here and there, the level
of the interventions seems to be satisfactory.
After he left, we never heard from Glenn again
Gray. But, according to what her sister-in-law says, everything should be fine.
We greet you affectionately with our best wishes
As always
Martin

The parcel sent separately contains:
1. The volumes edited by my hometown.

2. Time and Being (Niemeyer), in which I inserted two clippings from the NZZ's
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September 21 and October 5, 1969 11 .

3. Art and space [Die Kunst und der Raum], Erkenpresse, ST. Gallen.
4. The Theology and Philosophy Conference [Theologie und Philosophie ] (1928) e
a text from 1964 12 .
A nice, white, quiet Christmas 1969.
Dear Martin,
Thanks for your letter! By now you should be almost done with i
thanks, and all of that should have given you some pleasure, and if not all,
at least in part some of these thanks. Soon after, the death of yours
sister-in-law - life is like that, it goes from one extreme to the other. What will you do now
brother? Does this mean that you will no longer be able to go to Meßkixch?
The nice parcel that you sent separately and that you announced to me is not
still arrived. Before there was the airmail service they tell me that there
mail by sea from abroad took about ten days; now employs
about six weeks. Progress is like this. Having to go to Chicago soon after
New Year 1 , I will end up having to wait until the second half of January.
I read Time and Be 2 very carefully several times (you gave me a
corrected copy of the drafts). I already knew Tempo and Being , and the seminar
that follows it is extraordinarily instructive. (You continue to always be a
teacher). The end of philosophy [Das Ende der Philosophie ]: if we overcome in
certainly how he will free the next two decades, which of course it is not
at all said that it happens, then what good is in this end will result, and
what good it will leave to those who come after us. I have always
thought, after the turning point, that instead of Being and time we should mean: being
and think. Now you say: "clearing and presence". This is very convincing
and gives a lot to think about.
You should remember that when we were in Freiburg, I mentioned one to you
lost poem by Pindar. I found it in Snell, Greek Culture and the Origins of
European thought , pp. 126-27 [Die Entdeckung des Geistes, pp. 125-126] 3 :

"From an orator of later antiquity we learn the following (Aristide,

II, 142; cf. Coric. of Gaza 131 = Fr. 31): Pindar says that at the wedding of
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Zeus, having asked the gods if something was still missing, they had it
prayed to create more gods who embellished with words and music
those great works and all that he had done ».
And Snell adds, interpreting this passage: «There can be no beauty
perfect if there is no one to celebrate it ».
I would also like to inform you that, a few months ago, I received a very letter
cute of Fourcade 4 , in which she wrote me that you had praised me «de vive voix». Me
I still feel blushing with joy now.
Of course, writing and reading are a poor substitute for seeing each other and for
talk. I think we will return at the beginning of the year, I assume again in Tegna;
but I'm not quite sure yet. If so, we'll see you soon and
we'll talk. Joan Stambaugh 5 has been here several times with me; also Heinrich has
made friends with her. She is really very, very nice and she is certainly one
talented person; it's a pleasure. Glenn Gray arrives at the end of the week;
is fine. He ordered a lunch from us along with Joan and Robert Lowell 6 , a
American poet, my old friend, with whom he too made friends because
Gray's book The Warriors 7 had been liked by Lowell and greatly enjoyed it
served.
We're fine. The daily rage that involves reading newspapers does
very well to Heinrich and I am happy to have obtained, for this year,
exemption from teaching 8 .
To both of you I send my best wishes for the new year. Heinrich greets
affectionately.
As always
Hannah
119 a. Hannah Arendt to Elfride Heidegger
25.12.1969
Dear Elfride,
I have just written a long letter to Martin, but I did not want to enclose it
the article that I am attaching to you. The whole thing is too stupid to be worth it
to disturb him with it. As you can see, Ms. Blumenthal does indeed have

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published Martin's letter - if I remember correctly - correctly, even if the

translation was not really the best. Subsequently, to get out of
this matter posed the question from another point of view. At first
moment I had thought of answering her; but as she is completely unknown (mi
I am informed), and since the newspaper is not at all famous, I am
of the opinion that any answer would only offer you that
advertising that it would otherwise be impossible to achieve. The best thing is
really let it go.
How are you? How did you spend your birthday? And how is the construction of the
home ?
Warm regards - Hannah
New York, March 12, 1970
Dear Martin,
For a long time I have wanted to write to you and thank you for the wonderful things that I have
you sent. I have also often written you long letters - too long for
then really write to her, because this would require you to go to the
think tank (sofa or rocking chair) at the typewriter. And the letters of
really long thought and thanksgiving are unwillingly interrupted.
I am continuing to reread Tempo e essere , especially the essay on La fine
philosophy and the task of thinking. This is of course also the end of
positivism and the many neo-positivistic attempts. For several years already - since
when I read the Introduction to Metaphysics - I am convinced that you, with yours
think-about-the-end of metaphysics and philosophy, you have truly created the space
for thought - without parapet 1 , perhaps even without abstractions, but in freedom.
The space essay is very beautiful 2 . It seems to me that it suits a lot more
to architecture, to the Greek temple, rather than to sculpture. Sounds to me like you
I had guessed it from the temple of Aphaia, or even from that of Basse or Sounio - da
these incredible constructions raised freely in the landscape, which every time
they mark the landscape as if they were already part of it.
Above all, I wanted to write to you about the libretto of Meßkirch, e
precisely of your brother's letter 3 . In its stately simplicity and

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realistic it really belongs to the group of those great German letters,

that Walter Benjamin collected in the 1930s. You know the brother's letter
by Kant? 4 Here it is quite another thing, much less formal, so spontaneous and
affectionately mocking, but still somewhat similar. Also there
photography is very beautiful.
In January, I went to Chicago to give a couple of lectures with the outbuildings
seminars - it was very enjoyable. A surprisingly good company,
smart and open. But that's the way it is only in Chicago. In February I was in
Colorado for a couple of 5 conferences (mostly for the money), I was also
from Glenn Gray, who is fine, but was very worried because he no longer had
heard from you. Here I met Joan Stambaugh several times, inviting her
together with some of our poet friends, which pleased her. These girls
talented people find themselves in difficulty, a difficulty which is all the greater the more
less they are willing to think once so seriously on the whole
women's question, which has already been so well messed up even by
women's movement. Here with us these nonsense starts again in relation to
liberation movements, and the students ask me how to do it
continue to please men. And if they are told that they have to cook well,
that having a job is not a dishonor, and so on, they remain completely
be amazed.
We originally intended to return to Tegna once again for already
the middle of March. But Heinrich got phlebitis, which he is now doing
disappearing. But we still don't know when we will be able to leave. You
I'll let you know then.
I hope your silence towards Glenn Gray is motivated only
from work or from residual "thanks". I hope you both are well.
How's the house doing? Is it already under construction? Greet Elfride wholeheartedly.
To both of you, best wishes for every good and affectionate greetings from Heinrich.
As always - Hannah
121. Fritz Heidegger to Hannah Arendt
779 Meßkirch, 27.4.70
Dear Mrs Hannah Arendt!

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On Tuesday (April 21) I had to leave and I was away for four days;
as a precaution I had called Augsburg on Monday evening; here I was told
that my brother's condition was "excellent". He has been home since Saturday 1 .
Perhaps the best thing now would be a convalescence in a small clinic;
at the end of this week I will visit the patient.
A friendly greeting from

his Fritz Heidegger
May 16, 1970
Dear Hannah,
Thanks for your regards. Martin is really better; except a slight

impediment in the movements of the right hand, paralysis did not leave
after-effects. Now Martin just has to look carefully at himself
consideration of his age. We love to see you, but please
wanting to wait to visit us until about July. If possible,
we would like to go to the Schwarzwald for two weeks in the second half of
July.
With the hope that you can feel good in Southern Switzerland 1 .
Warm greetings from the two of us to you two.

Elfride
July 2, 1970
Dear Hannah,
Thanking you for your greeting, I would like to invite you to visit us right away on Tuesday
Page 177

July 21, or Wednesday July 22.

You choose the day that suits you best.
From yesterday the other we are home again and we are well rested. Naturally
Martin must now adopt a more prudent lifestyle. Affectionate greetings a
both from the two of us.
Elfride
Tegna, July 28, 1970
Dear Martin,
I hope my visit didn't tire you too much 1 and thank you both
with love. Attached here is the manuscript; I got one done
photocopy 2 . The second manuscript, the one in your hand, that you wanted to give me in
photocopy together with the other, I could not find it here with me. Gotta have It
forgotten in your home, on your desk, because there was not even in the hotel, where
I immediately phoned. This saddens me a lot.
Before writing to you, I wanted to read Heraclitus [Heraklit]. A very book
particular, of which ultimately I have read very carefully only the part
that concerns you. Fink's approach is rather foreign to me. In this
seminar you assume the role of the teacher much more than in that of Le Thor, e
I have learned many things; but the French attempts are more unitary and even more
synthetics. This is in the nature of things.
The enclosed manuscript ( Die Herkunft der Kunst und die
Bestimmung des Denkens [The provenance of art and the determination of
thought]). It should be published immediately, especially because of the pages
on cybernetics, which are absolutely extraordinary. When you speak of Athena in
meditation perhaps you mean the small bas-relief of which you have a reproduction a
your house, on your desk? Are you sure it's in the Acropolis museum? It's me
that Heinrich we are both convinced to remember that he is in the Museum
National.
One more word on cybernetics - on pp. 10-11: You say that the
cybernetics represents the future as something that «meets the
men " 3 . Are you sure this is correct? On the next page you yourself
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you affirm that futurology always has to do only with a «present

prolonged "- and this would be exactly the opposite of what comes to us
encounter. Or is it not so? Since men always only have to do
with a "prolonged present," they are wrong, and usually they are grossly wrong.
Ultimately it seems to me that all this leads to the abolition of the future -
and I fear this is by no means as utopian as it seems.
I wrote to Glenn Gray right away. I had found a letter from him here,
according to which already on the 29th, that is tomorrow, he leaves by plane from New York,
go to Sils Maria first, and arrive here for this Saturday, August 1st. I wrote him
letting him know how critically important it is that you prepare for
wrote down her questions, but I'm not sure she got mine
letter before leaving. Anyway, I'll tell him and Joan again when
they will come here, then you will be the one to arrange things as you see fit.
Likewise, I also wrote to Saner 4 , begging him to send me right away -
that is, next week - to express a photocopy of the review to
Jaspers 5 . I hope this works and that I can report it to you on the 9th of August (by
again around four, if that's okay with you).
About our conversation on Greek pessimism, I later came to
mind what I was looking for - or Xenophanes : dokos d'epi pasi tetyktai [δόκος δ'έπί
πάσι τέτυκται] 6 .
Our stay here is coming to an end again. Day 8
we leave for Zurich (Hotel St. Gotthard) and take the flight to New York on 10
- crying softly.
See you soon and good for both of you
Hannah
Freiburg, 4.VIII.70
Dear Hannah,
Thank you for the postage and for the recall of the passage on cybernetics. The text
it's not clear enough. Future, as "what comes our way" is
an expression placed in quotation marks, and today represents a phrase of the "it is said"
that says nothing. In the "prolonged present" the future is blocked, and this
it means, as you have rightly noted, that it is already "abolished". (See in
Page 179
about the 1969 Le Tbor Seminar , p. 43, on "orderability" 1 ) ·

The photocopy of La poesia [Das Gedicht \ is here and is being reproduced. The
bas-relief of Athena is in the Acropolis Museum. The seminar on Heraclitus does not
I continued it due to the general distraction. We look forward to your visit on

August 9, at six.
Warm greetings from us for both of us
Martin
Thanks for the quote from Xenophanes.

δόξα θεοϋ [doxa theou ] also means "the splendor of God".
Freiburg i. Br., 9.xi.1970
Dear Hannah,
Now you are also asked for this goodbye 1 . The closeness of Heinrich itself is
transfigured. You will have to bear with care what happens to us and for which
we have no name, and you will have to trust that the pain will turn into peace.
Our participation also comes from a closeness, since, in
occasion of your visit, we have been able to know the friendly and clear
Heinrich's nature.
By the same mail, in which the news from Glenn Gray arrived today, it is
A letter from Bultmann 2 has also arrived , in which he writes: «I don't even dare to invite you
to visit me in Marburg. You would find yourself in front of a suffering and tired old man, who
he is no longer able to sustain a long interview ».
A short time ago I had dedicated and sent Bultmann's lecture
Marburg Phenomenology and Theology [Phanomenologie und Theologie], just
exit. You'll get it too, as soon as more copies arrive from
Klostermann.
In this letter I don't want to talk about anything else; only one more thing:
that the two of us are fine here and that the house under construction has reached the roof.
We think of you with affection remembering you
Page 180
Martin and Elfride
[Attached]
From Gadachtes [Thoughtfully]

W
HoEwATloHER
ng ?
Only when it stops, the clock,
with the to and fro of the swinging pendulum,
you feel it: it goes and
it comes, it goes and it doesn't go anymore.
Already late in the day
the clock,
faded trace of time,
which is close to finiteness
from which it springs.
MH
New York, Nov. 27 1970
Dear Martin,
For days, weeks, I want to write to you, at least to tell you the good that I am
did your letter, feel involved, the poem about time as an aid to
reflect. Together with the other, many, many years ago 1 .
Death is the mountainous region of being in the world game.
Death saves yours and mine in the falling heaviness.
In the height of a pure stillness towards the star of the earth.
(I hope I haven't mentioned it incorrectly, I don't want to check).
But I am unable to write; I could possibly speak, but write not
I can. Between two people it happens that sometimes, very rarely, a world is born.
This world is their homeland, it was however the only homeland that we were
willing to acknowledge. A tiny microcosm, where you can always
Page 181
save from the collapsing world, when one goes away. I'm leaving, I am
very quiet and I think: via 2 .
Thanks to you and Elfride. When do you move into your new home? I always have a
within reach the last seminar of Le Thor - «la finitude est peut-être la
condition de l'existence autentique " 3 .
For now I am unable to make plans. I would still be happy with
know where you will be this spring.
As always - Hannah

Dear Martin -
My thanks for your writing on theology comes to you late 1 . Not me

I felt like writing. Read the two texts together, separated by over thirty-five
years, it is an instructive and particularly stimulating experience. It would be nice to have them
immediately available also in translation. In fact in recent years the interest
for theological questions it has greatly decreased among students, but all that
comes from you arouses the greatest interest. I know several students who
they study German "to be able to read Heidegger." In general here the students
they are very pleasant, but they are also the only thing that I am right now
please.
I have a couple of questions about the second text - the 'thought and the
non-objective language ". You say (p. 43) that speaking is «a saying ... what
listening ... makes one say ». But then what happens if you listen to a talk, in the
reciprocal dialogue between men, a talk that has "made itself say" something else?
What is the relationship between saying and speaking? It seems to me that the saying comes from
think, but that this does not happen instead, at least not immediately, with the
talk. Does speaking come from saying? What is the reciprocal relationship between speaking and
to say ?
On obicttivating thought: it is not possible to say that it is not really
think at all? Thought certainly comes from experience as wanting-
knowing referred to the object, but the thought runs after the invisible, which is
specifically contained in each experience - «the red-being of the rose, [which
Page 182
it is] neither in the garden, nor ... it can swing here and there in the wind » 2 - while the
want-to-know deals directly with the squad. But without experience also the
thought can't do it; it needs the garden and the rose, but then there
perceives something else. How strange that we, to perceive it, must
see something we can't see. What is truly an experience and the
his two-faced face?
One more small remark. You say that by speaking, more or less
explicit, we say "is" everywhere. Now, you know of course that this doesn't
it happens at all in the Hebrew language. This language lacks copula. Which
consequence will it have?
If all of these things are bothering you, leave them alone. Indeed the real reason

sino tIhaemsew
corintdinhgatlof y
ofouAtpordilaoyrisevtoenasink M
yoauyr.sIellfeaifvae vhiesriet fwroitm
h smew
om e ofruieldndsusiotnyothue 4th
April and, via Paris, flight to Sicily 3 ; I presume to be in Zurich from the 18th of April
and to remain there until the end of the month. From there I can come to you anywhere
moment. Later I assume to continue to Munich and Köln, and then
go home via England. I have to be back here at the latest for
on May 25th.
I have one last question, which I may not be able to ask you directly
voice. It is still possible that I will be able to finish a book, which I am working on
- a kind of second volume of the Vita Activa. It concerns human activities
that go beyond a pure activity: thinking, willing, judging. I have not the slightest
idea, if and especially when I'll finish it. Maybe never. But if I succeed - I can
dedicate it to you?
With warm regards to both of you

Hannah
PS Until April 3 you can join me here. Then from 5 to 8 in Paris, at

West, Rue de Rennes 141, Paris 6. I've been in Zurich since 18: at the American
Express is best.
H.
I am sending you an old article from Kojevnikoff 4 separately , which was

written at least sixteen years after his interpretation of Hegel. I found it
interesting, because here he really says what he thinks.
Page 183
Freiburg i. Br. 26.III.1971
Dear Hannah,
I should have written to you for a long time; but I use the best hours to work.
When, in your last letter, I read the line that says: “I absolutely am
quiet and I think: go », I had meant the last word as« path ». Goes better
Like this. Thank you for your letter today and for photocopies of Kojève's text, that is
very important for my dispute with the dialectic 1 . Referring to the second
part of Phenomenology and Theology you raise ancient questions, of which we will be able
discuss better when you come to visit us. Your visit is possible from

April 20 2 ; in fact, for the last ten days of the month a visit of
Biemel 3 and that of a friend who will stop and sleep with us; anyway there
we can make an agreement if you call us here, after nineteen, when you will be at
Zurich.
Elfride has carried out the construction and furnishing of the most a long way
comfortable little house in the garden. We will be moving in the course of the summer.
During your stay in Paris you may have heard of a publication for
René Char 4 , written by his friends; the volume also contains something of mine.
You will then receive the extract, which I hope will reach me before then, as well as La poesia
by Hölderlin [Erläuterungen zu Hölderlin].
Your second volume of Vita Activa will be as important as
difficult. I am thinking at the beginning of the Letter on "humanism" and at the interview
included in L'abbandono [Gelassenheit ]. But all these things remain
insufficient. We must strive to achieve at least what is insufficient.
You know, I'll be happy with your dedication.
Elfride and I have spent this winter unscathed. We make a life
very withdrawn and we hardly ever go to town. We recently received the
visit of Friedrich 5 , who made us very happy.
I hope you have a nice day in Sicily.
Remembering you we greet you affectionately.
Martin
Page 184
Freiburg i. Br., 17.V.71
Dear Hannah,
We thank you for the beautiful bouquet of flowers and for the little book about Benjamin e
Brecht 1 . Its composition is instructive in itself. Both texts argue
essential questions: will readers notice?
In your dedication you have left out, perhaps intentionally, the quotes for one
thing and the other.
I hope you were happy with your long stay in Europe 2 .
Perhaps you can continue our short interview on the
language with further questions.
The completion of the house continues to proceed. I will bring "little" with

me in my studio.
In the days of the commemoration of Heinrich 3 we will be there too,
joining your memory.
Best wishes and affectionate greetings
Martin
Elfride greets you.

Say hello to Glenn Gray, J. Stambaugh and the other contributors.
New York, July 13, 1971
Dear Martin,
It was nice, on the way home, to find your letter here. Since then, different
sometimes I wanted to write to you, but I haven't been able to make up my mind to do so. You know
as. Your things accompany me, they become a kind of environment
habitual. I read the entire volume on Hòlderlin 1 again , paying
Page 185
particular attention to what you say about thought and deinon [δεινόν] - pp.
60, 102, 113, 129. Now I reread Time and Being , because I have to review again
once the translation of Joan 2 before it goes to print. She should be a
Freiburg soon. And you, have you already moved?
But the reason I'm writing today is I'm mad at Piper 3 for things
which I will now explain to you. Saner just wrote to me and I think the best thing is
directly transcribe the most important sentences of his letter:
“So here's my anger: one day before my arrival (in Munich) Piper
sent a letter to Heidegger. In it he declares his willingness to pay a
compensation of 4,000 marks - but interprets this compensation as follows:
2 000 marks - for publication in the volume of Reflections 4 (this is the title
of the volume that collects the most important reviews and critical contributions on
Jaspers, published throughout his life), the other 2000 brands - such as
advance payment of a down payment for a publication in the Piper Series. The
the interview we had about it was extremely unpleasant. The
I pointed out that with this expedient he would in fact halve the fee
and I begged him to make these conditions explicit by putting them in writing in
plainly ... I told Piper that Heidegger probably won't be
agree. In this case he would be willing to pay the 4,000 marks. At the

publishing house I learned that it was he who wanted to try again,

even against the advice of Dr. Rössner 5 . In my opinion the most reasonable thing is
that you write to Heidegger immediately, begging him to abide by the agreements
previously: 4 000 marks for publication in the volume of
reflections. For my part, I will put pressure on Piper (Saner is the curator of the
volume): either you do it with Heidegger or you don't do anything. He will be obliged to yield ».
I hope you haven't answered yet. When I had talked to Piper, not
he had still told me nothing about it. Unfortunately, he is pathologically stingy.
Why on earth would you have to change publisher because of him? Your great essay is
the only original contribution present in the volume. All the remaining material that
Saner has collected has already been posted elsewhere. So you have to see to reserve yourself
literary property, while Piper should eventually grant you to
publish your essay with another publisher after two years. In the case of
you should agree with him in publishing your essay in the Series
Piper, he has to pay you a corresponding fee. Jaspers was always too
angry with him about the fees. [...]
To you and Elfride the warmest greetings -
Page 186
Hannah
PS The photographs I have attached to you 6 : the Greek theater is the small theater nearby
in Syracuse, Palazzolo Acreide, which archaeological excavations have brought back to
light for only a few years and is built of black speckled gray stone. The
your two photographs are from 1970.
Freiburg, 15. vii. 71
Dear Hannah,
After your last visit here and your subsequent interview with Piper,
I had been waiting for a long time for your reply. Now it has come, at the beginning of
month: «Calculation of the amount of the remuneration of 4000 marks according to the
following proposal:
2 000 marks for publication in the collective volume on Jaspers;
2 000 marks on the calculation of the compensation for the sales from a possible one
publication of the contribution in the "Piper Series".
The latter eventuality is absolutely excluded. I have given my «assent of

maximum "only on the basis of the assumption of a single publication.

Now this should come out in a volume of "Reflections"; among other things, together
to a contribution from Habermas 1 , who is now having Suhrkamp republish his
immature controversy, released a few years ago on the FAZ. This makes me hesitant
in granting my final consent; certainly, with respect to the question of
compensation, these are secondary considerations.
During our last interview, you yourself spoke about diversity
of my text; when the possibility of
publish it, I told you that in the review I was not interested
intentionally of Greek thought, and in particular of Aristotle 2 .
Now, by rearranging my manuscripts, I have found my attempts on
Aristotle, with whom my review is closely related. Therefore I would like
keep them both in store for publication together on a future or later occasion
entrust the review to Jaspers in a cultural context that does not suit her and that
leaves the reader disoriented. Today, fifty years later, with embarrassment
of the thought that there was, who will ever be able to reflect on the review
Page 187
detached from its context?

However, I would like to inform you of these things before revoking mine
assent.
We will move in early September.
I hope you are doing a little better.
As always
Martin
Elfride greets you.
c / o West Main Street Castine, Maine 04421

July 28, 1971
Dear Martin,
Our letters crossed, and today I am writing you a little late

because in the meantime, for the rest of the summer, I escaped from the heat of New
York with friends in Maine; you can join me here until the end of
August, beginning of September. Here the place is very beautiful, a very small town
very old (already inhabited at the beginning of the 17th century), with beautiful old houses, a
enchanting fishing port, the forest that extends to the seashore

(as in Samland), but the coasts are indented as in the fjords of Norway
and they form very deep inlets, only there are no mountains here and
of course, being further south, there is a much warmer sun and one in the morning
snow-white mist. The country is still fairly sparsely populated, with
few tourists, deserted streets, above all no hustle and bustle of entertainment, a
forty kilometers away from the nearest city with an airport,
without buses and without rail connections.
The few summer guests, in their own homes, are mostly professors and a
couple of writers. We decided to do some French practice and
read Montaigne together.
As you learned from my previous letter, Piper came up with
the expedient of the publication in his "Series" only after my meeting with
him in Munich, and I was also completely unaware that he doesn't have you
Page 188
written immediately , as we agreed. All these things I only learned from

Saner's letter. It is obvious that you could not have consented to this offer, of the
which one had never talked about; Saner told him right away. He might
himself did not believe it, but just wanted to give it a try, not thinking
out of sheer stupidity - that is, the inability to see it from the point of view
of the other - that something serious could happen to him. And this aspect of the
question, I must admit, makes me quite happy. For the rest I believe that
this whole thing should be considered a rather normal case, albeit now
more now less pronounced, of annoyances with the publisher, which in any case often are
considerable.
From your letter it is not clear to me if you have already permanently revoked a
Piper your assent to the publication. (In a passage of the letter you write: «This
it makes me hesitant to grant my final assent ”, and then at the end of the
letter you say you want to «inform me of these things before revoking the
my assent "). In case this has not happened, I would like to tell you again
something about your further concerns.
Here, for the first time, the "cultural context" is really relevant
importance. I then brought you the list of co-author names, and you didn't
had no doubts; I think I remember that Habermas already was too
in the list, but I'm not sure. I don't know his controversy in yours
comparisons, but he in no way represents a context - as if you had to
appear here in the midst of well-known contributions from the Frankfurt school. Self
instead you think you only want to appear with your peers, then you can post the
your work only on its own and in a separate edition; you already know for yourself that not there
they are your peers. There is not even a circle, even that of your students,
where you might fit. The co-authors are chosen in relation to the object; the
reference point is Jaspers. This seems to me absolutely correct. Do not

I understand well why you are against the title Volume of reflections ( whatever
says a working title).
You write that this would be of secondary importance, and you call the
my observation on the peculiarity and diversity of your text. With that I
I meant several things - which is the only original contribution, which is a text of
extraordinary relevance; but I also wanted to say that here the reference point
of course it is double: as it is your text, Jaspers cannot be the only one
point of reference, it cannot be above all because it is a
manuscript which in my opinion is of decisive importance for the understanding of the
development of your thinking. In your letter, you underline it yourself, albeit in a
Page 189
other way. Perhaps this may have been the reason you initially have
hesitated to give your consent.
The only objection would be, objectively, what perhaps you yourself already have
realized, that is, that on the other hand it was not at all a coincidence that the
Worldview Psychology has allowed you to say things (although
not publicly) for which otherwise, in the academic world of the time, not
you had found no opportunity. Ultimately it was this manuscript that, in
somehow, he laid the foundations for a friendship with Jaspers that lasted years. It's at
regardless of any personal aspect, regardless of the next
course of your friendship, all of this is part of the history of philosophy
German of our century. And in that sense, it seems to me that your job should
be inserted in a volume whose point of reference is necessarily
Jaspers.
I hope you don't blame me for this. I lingered
intentionally a few more days before sending the letter, why not
I wanted to create the impression that I wanted to put pressure on you. It is not
in the least in my intentions. You have to decide what you think
right.
Best wishes for the move and warm greetings to you and Elfride.
As always
Hannah
Freiburg i. Br., 4 ag. 71
Dear Hannah,

I sincerely thank you for your two letters of 13 and 28 July, as well as
for beautiful photography. We are glad that you have found a place to stay
nice and quiet to rest. I haven't answered the Piper publisher yet. Yours
second letter touches on the decisive questions. Simultaneously with your letter
of July 28 I received a letter from the editorial board of Piper, which
urges me to respond to Piper's impossible letter (signed Dr. Róssner).
I answer now, requesting a draft contract on the basis
of the insurance, contained in Piper's first letter, which would be a
Page 190
only publication of my text in the planned collective volume; with the request
of the remuneration you communicated in your Munich interview; with
an indication of the number and typographical format of the extracts. A
publication in the Piper Series is out of the question.
And the other publisher - Harper & Row? Niemeyer writes to me on 07/29/71:
“As the publisher of the original text, I make use of the right to write myself
the same contract for the translation rights to be stipulated. There
Harper's contract proposal contains a number of conditions that were not
subject of the agreements between you and Harper, much less of those
between us. Moreover, the only condition that you had given a particular
relief, that is, that the translation of her book by Miss Stambaugh e
Hofstadter is carried out under the auspices of Ms Prof. Arendt,
it is not contained in the contract ".
Niemeyer attached copies of the latest correspondence with Harper
& Row, which I will show Joan Stambaugh when she comes to see me here at the end
of the month.
Elfride still had a lot to do with the little house; but it's getting a lot
beautiful, comfortable and quiet; in late August or early September at the latest
we move. I only take a few things with me. I'm dedicating myself to putting
in order and sifting through my manuscripts.
I have tried to think in a more stringent and rigorous way some things of the
Gedachtes [Thoughtfully] 1 .
I hope that you will soon find the pleasure of thinking and be able to work.
As always
Martin
[Annotation in the left margin of the letter]
Up: «Reflections» cf. Essays and Speeches, p. 94 [Vortràge und Ausfsàtze , p. 85].
cf. Nietzsche , p. 916 [Nietzsche II, p. 465] cf. Paths interrupted , p. 224

[Holztvege , pp. 222]
[Attached]
Page 191
CEZANNE
The pressing and doubting duplicity saved

of "what is present",
transfigured in the work in simplicity. *
The trace of a barely visible path

which refers to the same thing
poetry and thinking.
Abandoning oneself to reflect,

the quiet of the quiet
figure of the old gardener Valtier
on the Lauves trail.
* see What does it mean to think [Was heisst Denken ?, 1954, p. 144]. cf. In
path towards language [ Unterwegs zur Sprache 1959, p. 269].
Castine, 19.8.1971
Dear Martin,
Your letter with attachments, the poem about Cézanne and the old drawing by
Jonas 1 were a great joy. Did you send Jonas a photograph as well? Yup
complained that the drawing was lost. The poem about Cézanne belongs to the cycle
Gedachtes [Thoughtfully] 2 ? And among the most beautiful. Unfortunately I can not
deepen the references you have indicated because I do not have the books here; on purpose
but it occurs to me that it would be really important to have a species filled in
index of the topics of all your published works 3 . It would be a great opportunity
for a student to earn his doctoral cap.
After receiving your letter I wrote to Glenn Gray right away, why not

I know almost nothing of the other publishing story, the one between Niemeyer and Harper & Row.
Glenn 4's response came yesterday : he wrote to Joan and Carlson right away, the
Page 192
Harper's editorial consultant who deals with the matter, for you to review i
contracts or correspondence or contract proposals. I suppose that
this letter has time to reach you for your interview with Joan
Stambaugh.
I have some doubts about the conditions you have set. I believe it is
It is questionable whether to establish conditions relating to well-being persons by contract
precise. (For example Hofstadter is not at all interested in the volume in
question 5 ). Men are mortal, and when there is a certain contract
like, it can become very difficult to revoke conditions, even if not
make more sense. As it stands now, that is, with Glenn Gray as curator and with
Joan Stambaugh who supports him, as has been recently decided, has been done
to the essentials. I don't need to be mentioned in the contract; to the extent that
Joan and Glenn are the curators of the work, I mean officially, I receive
certainly in vision all manuscripts before publication. I also feel
It is very unlikely that Harper will forever consent to a constraint of this
gender. As far as the choice of translator is concerned, this is in and of itself
task of the publisher, who then passes it on to the editor of the series. In the case of
this curator fails for any reason, this right must
return to the editor. In other words: I'm assuming Harper didn't come in
tacitly about your condition for these very reasons. This is
my guess; I don't know, but I think this kind of constraint is
even against your interest.
Dealing with Niemeyer doesn't seem like a pleasant thing at all, and Glenn
he thought that Joan should perhaps go to Tubingen and try to catch them a
bit'. (Glenn didn't say that.)
It will soon be time to move, and you are taking only a few with you
what's this. I often think about it. You will keep a space in the larger house where you can
keep the books and manuscripts that you would perhaps miss?
With best wishes and regards to you and Elfride
Hannah
[September 24, 1971]
BEST WISHES FOR THE NEW HOME AND THE NEW YEAR.

Page 193
HANNAH
New York, Oct. 20 1971
Dear Martin,
I have to ask you a favor. Ernst Vollrath 1 from Kòln told me a few months ago
that you know some of his works, and you would have "praised" them. I would like to know what about it
think. Of course this opinion of yours, if you want, would remain entirely
confidential. These are applications for the assignment of cathtebrae to the New
School, where Werner Marx 2 tried again to find a place. I have
refused to consent to it. In my opinion it could be taken into consideration
Vollrath; but nobody here knows him. I don't know him well myself. He had a
heavy quarrel with Biemel, to which, however, I do not intend to give any importance,
considering how academic relations are in Germany. Tell me what about it
you think, and in case your answer is positive, let me know too if I can
possibly call you into question.
For the rest, today I received a letter from Patrick Lévy from Paris, which he wants
to edit a collection of your essays in France. He translated and published on
«Critique» my essay on you 3 . Now he writes me that Beaufret advised him to
republish my contribution as a preface to the collection. Would you be
agree?
One last thing: you sent me a photograph of Jonas dei's drawing
Marburg times, but you forgot to send it to Jonas too. He would have
Pleased to lend him the original, because he thinks he can do one here
better reproduction. Do you think it would be possible to please him?
To you and Elfride I wish all the best possible.
Your
Hannah

Page 194
Freiburg, 24.x.71
Dear Hannah,
In the meantime we have settled in well in our residence for the

old age, which in the spring you had found not yet furnished. At the beginning of
this month we spent two weeks of complete relaxation at the «Auf
der Halde »of Schauinsland. The hotel is located at just the same altitude
of our hut, which will soon turn fifty years old, in which we,
at our age, we cannot live for long periods.
In the meantime, you will have returned from your rest stay with friends
to the now lonely environment of your working days.
So far I have not received any response from the Piper publisher regarding mine
request to send me the draft contract. The manuscript of the «Notes», that is
been kept in store for decades, I would have gladly posted it in this one
occasion in memory of Karl Jaspers. A few weeks ago Dr. Saner got me
written that the text he wrote would be available.
Patrick Lévy recently sent me the issue of the magazine "Critique",
in which his translation, in which you yourself had collaborated, of the
your text for my eightieth birthday.
At the same time, the French translation of Nietzsche appeared ; but not
I still looked at it. Here, too, the usual difficulty of the
translate from German into a Romance language.
After the brief visit of Joan Stambaugh I have not heard anything more about
disputes between Harper & Row and Niemeyer.
Next weekend W. Biemel arrives and will stay here for a few days
to resolve with me the definitive arrangement and subdivision of the fund of
manuscripts.
In the meantime, you have managed to proceed further with your studies on θεωρία
[theoria] 2 ? In the field of philosophical non-fiction the production is
extraordinarily abundant and it is always voluminous studies, but I have not
any judgment in this regard.
We look forward to your last visit.
We greet you with our best wishes and fondly remember
Heinrich.
Martin

Page 195
[In the margin of the first page of the letter]
Dear H. Right now comes your letter which I will respond to (positively )
as soon as I have reviewed Vollrath's writings. I'm up in the old house with the
remainder of the essay «about H.». Affectionately yours Martin.
Freiburg, 28.x. 1971 Fillibach 25
Dear Hannah,
In the two attached pages I have tried to say a few things about the
scientific contribution by Ernst Vollrath 1 . You can make use of the text by quoting
explicitly my name. It would be good if you read the essay yourself
published in the journal; I'm sure it is also available from you in the
libraries.
I agree with Jean Beaufret's proposal to P. Lévy.
Unfortunately we have not yet found the original of Jonas' drawing. In the
too much has accumulated over the past fifty years .
We spent two weeks in the «Halde» (Schauinsland) and recovered
excellently.
We greet affectionately with best wishes for you
Martin and Elfride
New York, February 2, 1972
Dear Martin -
So late comes my thanks for the letter about Vollrath! Yesterday me

called Joan Stambaugh and read me your letter. So I came to
to know that you are okay. Here we have had more and more difficulties in
Page 196

faculty 1 , which are still not outdated at all, and I find myself for the first time in
know the so-called academic politics. I had always hoped to send
in port the matter of Vollrath -but marameo. Maybe it will take a while longer
before anything is decided here. But, at least, as a first step I could
convince my closest colleagues 2 ; your letter caused a great deal
impression. Then yesterday I also received a letter from Saner, which he wrote to me
showing me his happiness for the visit he paid you. I'm glad you
saw it; I love him very much, and I know he very much wanted to visit you.
I have a fairly intense semester of activity behind me and I'm a bit
exhausted. I taught a course and a seminar on the history of will - from the Epistole
to the Romans of Paul up to the abandonment of Heidegger 3 - with whom I am
tormented for good. The students were very satisfied, I was much less. And to that
add the interminable meetings; according to the contract I would not be required to
attend any meeting, but if it gets hot, I don't want to
be there.
Also I always thought the book on Schelling was coming, and I tried to
receive it here, where no one knew anything about it. I look forward to it; I have always
had a hard time with Schelling. It seems to me much more difficult to understand than Hegel.
In the last few weeks I have relaxed a little, I have read for the first time
Merleau-Ponty 4 , which you certainly know. It seems much better and more interesting to me
by Sartre. What do you think?
And since we're talking about books: have you heard of Uwe Johnson 5 ?
A few years ago he wrote a good book, Considerations on Jakob, and now he writes
a strange book in three volumes of which the first two came out, Jahrestage, which are
almost inclined to consider a masterpiece. It is however the first novel
postwar German that you seem worthy of consideration. I would have it
gladly given as a gift for the new home, but I'm afraid: giving away books is always
a shameless thing. Write me if you like to receive it. We talk about the period
Nazi in a village in Meklenburg, remembering him in the background of New York,
from the point of view of the descendants. It is very meditative and often the tone draws
Hamsun.
Now to get to the real purpose of this letter: when it would suit you
that I came to see you? I am for sure in Europe from the end of July to the end
September, but I could also, if it were better for you, come a little earlier -
March or April. In May I am back at the university for a few weeks
Chicago. I really want to see you again.
Page 197
From the heart

Hannah
141 . Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt with attachment
Freiburg, 15.11.7 2
Dear Hannah,
Thanks for your letter. From 1st or March until towards the end of the month we are
Badenweiler (Anna House). We are fine, but Elfride needs once in a while
be distracted from household chores, although the "home of our old age"
proved to be excellent. In April we will have visits from relatives; therefore it will be necessary
wait for the summer for your visit which we will arrange in due course.
However, if you have any urgent questions, you can also write to me; but this is always
complicated. What does the θεωρία [ theoria] do? Your book should go in
meanwhile in those places where now one raves about "theory". (At a conference
of Horkheimer in Switzerland 1 Cardinal Dòpfner made his appearance).
I have finally delivered my Schelling; unfortunately the light of
composition was set too high of a line, notwithstanding
the indication I had given in due time. You are right: Schelling is a lot
more difficult than Hegel; it dares more, and sometimes it abandons any shore
reassuring. Remaining on the tracks of the dialectic, it cannot happen to Hegel
nothing.
You must read Gadamer's 2 studies on Hegel and the third volume of his Kleine
Schriften. He is currently located in Syracuse (USA). Saner's visit was
very pleasant; I guess it must have been a help to Jaspers
important and reliable.
I only know Uwe Johnson by name, by the title of the book and the photo. Of
We two don't read ponderous books anymore, but we are grateful to you for having addressed them
this thought.
Merleau-Ponty was on the way from Husserl to Heidegger. You died too soon
eight days before the planned trip to Freiburg. But I don't know enough about i
his works; A volume of posthumous writings has also been released 3 . The French have great
difficulty with their innate Cartesianism.
The universities of the Federal Republic of Germany are quickly falling apart.
Presumably there is no longer even the usual academic policy.
Page 198
Get to know Schelsky's excellent essay 4 Die Strategie der Systemu-

berwindung published in the FAZ of xo.xii.71: it can be obtained by requesting it
to the editorial office as an excerpt.
Ernst Vollrath's essay 5 on politics and metaphysics [Politik und Metaphysik ]

I've only started reading it; the subject is difficult and comes to touch on
foundations of thought.
Friedrich recently gave a nice lecture at a
meeting of the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Heidelberg which was held here
on Mallarmé's prose poetry Le Nénupbar blanc 6; we had discussed it
together long ago.
Returning your greetings

Martin
Elfride greets you.

Say hello to Joan Stambaugh and Gray.
[Attached]
THANK YOU
2 to draft
In belonging to the appropriating call

indulge
to walk the path right in front of the town
of complex thinking
against himself -
reported relationship.
In all poverty it holds almost nothing

an unspoken will:
say the άλήθεια
to name the clearing:
reveal how much it contains
of an ancient function
starting from the beginning that lasts.
Page 199
New York, 21 Feb. 1972
Dear Martin,
Today I am writing about an editorial issue that perhaps interests you. Someone

weeks ago Mr. Wolf Jobst Siedler, director of the

Propyläen Verlag. He came as a friend and editor of one of his authors who
I know well, Joachim Fest 1 , who wrote a good book years ago, Das Gesicht
des Dritten Reichs, and also dealt with the memoirs of Speer 2 . During
evening the talk fell on you, and Siedler was recounting, I think without knowing that
I know you, I have always been extremely interested in getting you published for
his publishing house. But above all it would take a lot for one to be made
complete edition of your works; he would have talked about it with Neske 3 who has him
explained how this would be too expensive. He would have said he was
willing to do it immediately, including everything that has not been published (of the
whose importance in any case does not know anything), paying an advance in your favor of
100 000 marks. I have not written you any of this because he himself proposed to
to fix his offer in writing. He repeatedly said he prayed to Neske to
inform you, but never had an answer. However, he stressed that he did not
be interested in the profitability of the initiative.
Your letter of February 7 addressed to me reached me only today
because I was not in New York. He writes the following:
“In the meantime, I have made some inquiries into the matter
Heidegger. On I.vn.1971 we had proposed to Mr. Niemeyer a contract for
a paperback edition of Being and Time , which included a guarantee advance of
10 000 marks; this offer was declined by Mr. Niemeyer in a letter from
5.vii. 1971. A few months earlier, therefore in May, I had been to Pfullingen
at the publisher Neske and I had asked him to inform him anyway
Heidegger of my willingness to publish a complete edition of his
works, including unpublished manuscripts (?), regardless of commercial profit
of the initiative. I have never had any response to this offer. "
Since I didn't know Siedler, I called Helene Wolff (the widow of
Kurt Wolff who now runs the Kurt Wolff editions at Harcourt,
Brace, Jovanovich, and who is a good friend of mine) and I begged her to hire
information - of course without explaining what it was. You talked about
Page 200
he in a very friendly tone - an honest person, very intelligent and generous.

However, it is somewhat related to the Springer publishing group. I myself do
I had a very positive impression - it is the first German publisher I know
with which normal speech can be made. For sure there will be others too, but me
do not know them.
Of course I have no idea if you are interested in this project in general, and if the
his suspicion that Neske never informed you is true. In
in case you are interested, he will surely come to visit you willingly to talk about it with you.
If you want me to talk to you, drop me a line, and I'll let him know. If instead

you want to contact him directly his address is: 1 Berlin 61,
Lindenstraße 76, telephone 1911 (1).
As you may recall, he did not repeat the down payment he had in writing
verbally mentioned. The person appears to be honest, and I don't think this
mean something.
Happy birthday to you both

Hannah
Badenweiler, 10.III.1972
Dear Hannah,
Thank you for the concern you have devoted to the issue of the publisher. I can not
imagine a complete edition of my works 1 ; I would like to shy away from this
classicism. My three editors know this too; so I guess Neske doesn't have
replied. The publication of the unpublished and of the thought as unexpected (this is the
essential question) will not be easy; in this regard there are several
annotations.
The book on Schelling already contains something of what I mean by the saying; more
whether or not after I finished my "turning point" I took care of him 2 . In
in the meantime you should have received the book. If you find the time to read it and tell me
your ideas about it would be very important to me. Please greet the
Mr. Siedler and to thank him for the interest he has shown in mine
comparisons.
We have been here for a week; there is a bad and semi-winter weather,
Page 201
in the village there is a lot of noise and noise - the new treatment establishment
thermal is nearing completion, excessive car traffic - but Elfride
is far from the housework and can finally recover from the fatigue of
house construction. I sometimes reflect and find that a descendant
of Parmenides should, as far as quantity is concerned , say no more than
preserved fragments; as regards the content, necessarily of
less. The current and belated expenditure of books and complete editions of the works is
a fatal sign.
I believe that there are not so many things worth thinking about, as it can
look like when looking at libraries and book markets.
From Palm Sunday we are home again.

I wish you peace and quiet and greet you as always

Martin
Elfride greets you.
Dear Martin,
Your beautiful February letter with poetry crossed with mine, like
you will have understood. Your letter of reply then arrived in March, and I waited
some more time, hoping that Schelling would also arrive , since
Jonas has already received his copy. But it didn't come - I think because of the
post office situation in New York. That you didn't want a complete edition
of the works was something I could have sworn on. Only then I was
really so mad at the publisher - especially Piper 1 - that I thought
that everything is to be expected from this rabble. This explains the question that
I addressed you.
Speaking of poetry, I would have gladly asked you something. In my opinion i
decisive lines are those that are in the middle
against himself -
reported relationship.
Page 202
and just these lines I don't understand them completely or I don't know if I understand them
well. Then there is the "locality of thought". I've been struggling with it lately
quite a lot - where we really are, when we think: the philosopher's topos in
Sophist. You know Valéry's occasional notation: “Tantôt je pense, tantôt je
suis » 2 ? There really is something there.
Thanks for your reading suggestions; I haven't been able to put them on yet
in place, because the New School has procured me and continues to procure me useless
tasks, not to mention the dissertations of degree and other similar quarrels
academic. In May I'm back in Chicago, in June I'm back in New York,
where should I dedicate myself to honorary degrees ; I have received some this year
five 3 - a real inflation, for which we have to thank the movement of
women completely gone mad. I guess next year will be the turn
even of homosexuals.

I was very interested in your note on Merleau-Ponty. The extract

I ordered from Schelsky's article. True, maybe the universities are going to the bottom.
Here with us things are different than in Germany, France and Italy;
but in the long run they could also end up falling apart. Among my colleagues and
among the university rectors I know only one who knows what he wants and what
have an idea of the university - the dean of the University of Chicago 4 . In this
case you also see how much you can do and how much you can avoid, with a little bit of
courage and intelligence.
But let's go back to my summer projects: I would like to come in mid-July,
go to Zurich again for two weeks. I know Joan too during that time
will be in Freiburg. Perhaps it can still be organized. In fact, in August I am at
Lake Como 5 , where the Rockefeiler Foundation maintains a house to work in
quietly and relaxing and afterwards I would like to spend some
week in Tegna (Locamo), another place where I can work in peace.
Of course I can also reach you from here; but from Zurich it would be more
comfortable.
Right now the mail comes and brings me your book on Schelling! Many
thank you. Now I would no longer want to continue writing, I would rather read.
I have already seen how essential it will be to my problem of will, now, later
a thorough reading of your book on Nietzsche.
One more thing: Mr. Heinz called me here a few days ago
Lichtenstein; maybe you remember, he was in Marburg, he belonged to the group of
Königsberg was then the nicest of us all. He was a psychiatrist,
Page 203
I haven't heard from him for decades and I was amazed when
suddenly he called me. It was about this: he has the notes of
some courses from the Marburg period, namely the following: Semester
winter 1924/25: Sophist [ Platon: Sofistes ] the second volume of the notes
Summer semester 1925: the concept of time [Prolegomena to the history of
concept of time ] [Prolegomena zur Geschichte der Zeitbegriffs], two volumes,
full course
Winter semester 1925-26: Logica [Logica. The Problem of Truth], two
volumes, full course
Summer semester 1927: Fundamental problems of phenomenology [Die
Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie ], a large-format volume, course
business suit
Winter semester 1928-29: Einführung in die Philosophie [Introduction
to philosophy] two volumes.
He does not know what to do with it, now he is elderly, he wants to retire, his parents
heirs would not know what to do with them. He was asking me for advice. I told him that
I would have asked you if you wanted to do something with these volumes. Write me a few lines.

And let me know what your summer plans are like.

Badenweiler - I hope it was at least a little springtime. Here hisses the
wind and the only spring thing is two hyacinths in the room. In any case
I hope that Elfride was able to recover well - looking after the house and
especially the burden of life, which men mostly don't know much about.
Best wishes and warm regards - Hannah
Freiburg, 19.iv.72
Dear Hannah,
Plan your visit preferably during the period of your stay a

Zurich, because we are here all the month of July.
I remember very well the group of students from Königsberg in Marburg. The
course notes that are in the possession of Heinz Lichtenstein - I take this opportunity
to send them my regards - they find their best use if at first
moment they are handed over to Joan Stambaugh and then go afterwards
to the Marbach archive. I assume you have the notes yourself.
Page 204
I miss both my manuscript and any collection of notes

of the important course of the summer semester 1924 on Aristotle, second book of the
Rhetoric 1 . Maybe you yourself or Lichtenstein will remember that it was talked about
this course.
Too many "hats" end up devaluing the honor he deserved. Yet
some things about your questions.
When I speak of "locality" it is a question of the locality of "being", which
however, traced back to the event, it includes man's belonging to the event
same. (Cf. "topology of being" in Thought and Poetry [Aus der Erfabrung des
Denkens, 1947, p. 23], and. Signpost, p. 240 [Wegmarken p. 240]). "Verhaltnes
Ver-Haltnis "is an expression that must be understood starting from the lines that the
precede: «gelassen gehòren» - that is, to wait for encouragement
retaining itself within itself; this way of thinking knows no concepts and "interventions",
no conceptus that already interprets ρισμός [ hoùsmos] in a different way . THE
Greeks did not know any "concept"; but the actual "thought" for
"Models" at least familiarize himself with this heresy. «Thinking against oneself
himself "- that is, against the primacy of metaphysics, which belongs to Kant
to the "nature of man".
Maintain a "relationship" in the sense of preserving, guarding; Not "relationship"

is a simple relationship, but rather has the sense of a reference ( Signpost ,

pp. 140 ff. [Wegmarken, pp. 213 ff.]).
In the "relationship" something "docile" speaks.
"Unveiling what is hidden" is only possible in keeping within oneself of the
be told.
"Thanksgiving" as a fundamental trait of poetry and thinking,
however, intending thinking as the thought of ἀλήθεια [ Aletheia ]
(Signpost , p. 264 [Wegmarken p. 272]). The "other beginning" is not a second beginning,
but the first and the only, in another way.
All of this perhaps represents a stammering attempt to outline a
thought destined to arrive with "dove step" and therefore, in
current din of our world, necessarily remains unheard.
After two weeks we left Badenweiler in favor of ours
quiet abode for old age.
Warm greetings from us
Martin and Elfride
Page 205
New York, June 18, 1972
Dear Martin,
The book on Schelling: I have now thoroughly examined it twice together

to the writing on freedom 1 . And while I was studying it I felt like I was back
back almost fifty years, when I was learning to read by attending yours
lessons. The rare and profound opacity of thought is incomparable
Schellinghiano lights up there and eventually becomes completely transparent. Nobody does
lecture or has ever lectured like you know how to do. I feel truly relieved from
fact that it will certainly be Joan Stambaugh who will translate it 2 ; faced with this, the
the question of which publisher the book will be published is indifferent to me.
Besides, it should be relatively easy to have one
very good text translation. In the last year I have worked a lot on
will; in the course and in the seminar I concluded with your L'abbandono 3 .
I didn't mention Schelling, because I never figured it out on my own.
Now it seems to me that, presumably without knowing her (?), He thought
to the reflection on the will of Augustine and Duns Scotus in its more meaning
deep.
Many things remain problematic. For me above all the reflection on

bad. With the utmost irreverence, two always come to mind in this regard
verses by Stefan George 4 - «Who has never aimed at the point where
stab his brother / how poor his life is and how foolish his is
thought "- and I consider this a Christian prejudice ( Luciferon , pride
etc.), just a very bad prejudice.
I still owe you a thank you for your April letter, and for your replies
to my questions. The references to the passages of the books were particularly useful.
Instead of the many dissertations "on" Heidegger one should, for once,
assign a well-prepared student a reasoned index of what he is
published 5 . I see from the book on Schelling that you now have some help 6 . Perhaps
we can stimulate someone to earn a doctoral hat in such a way
respectable and humble.
Joan has already received Lichtenstein's lecture notes. Who
he reciprocates your greetings with much affection and is delighted that you remember
still of him. I don't have the notes because I wasn't on good terms with them
Page 206
authors (I think it was Poldi Weizmann). I will borrow from Joan Stambaugh the
course on the Sophist and of course I can have everything from her at any time
what I want. Lichtenstein did not know about Aristotle's Rhetoric course
nothing. That anger!
My travel plans are now quite defined. In the second half of
I'll be in Zurich in July, and if that's okay with you, I'd gladly come around July 20th.
We want to fix for day 20 - in the afternoon as usual? I also live
this time at the Ascott Hotel 7 , General Willen Strasse, where of course
I can also be reached by phone - 051-361800. You sure can
find here until July 4th.
All cordiality to you and Elfride

Hannah
Freiburg, 22.vi.72
Dear Hannah,
Thanks for your letter. About Schelling we will talk in person on

20 June from 3 pm.
I assumed you had the «Marburger Nachschriften», otherwise you have them
I would of course have had it shipped.

Does "Hotel Ascott" still apply to Zurich?

Ms. Dr. Feick has edited an index of Being and Time, which it contains
at the same time a concordance with all subsequent works, starting with
however, from Being and Time, and therefore limited (second edition, 1968, Editore
Niemeyer).
I too am very happy that Joan Stambaugh translates the course on
Schelling.
I hope to hear about your work, otherwise I have none
chance to learn more.
In the information age, the chances of learning to read again do
are extinct.
Martin
Page 207
July 21, 1972
Dear Martin,
First, the addresses:
from 1st August until 23rd:

c / o Rockefeller Foundation
Villa Serbelloni
22021 Bellagio (Como) Italy
Tel. 031-950.105
from 24 August to 17 September:

Barbaté house
6652 Tegna, Ticino, Switzerland
Tel. 093-65430
Yesterday was good, and I'm happy for September. It occurs to me now that
I have to be careful not to get in your way on day 26 1 .
I thought about it for a long time. If the thought, as it happens to you,
it really starts again every morning, it can't help but cover the results
previous. This is the price of the original "orality" of the activity of thought

Iit w
reiqllusihreips to w
yoruitea.sTshoeorne ais aIngeatmmuysincagrrdesmbarckk.bK
y aKnat nstaoyns this subject, that
more or less: the results are contrary to reason, it always continues to
dissolve them 2 (Socrates).
The June issue of «Merkur» fell into my hands. How long
concerns the visit of Weizsäcker 3 : you probably know his recent book Die
Einheit der Natur. In the «Merkur» there is an extensive review by a certain Gernot
Böhme entitled: Die Physik zu Ende denken. Maybe it might interest you.
For the Melville, Billy Budd 4 , I took care to have it shipped here and
I assume it arrives tomorrow already. I will then have it sent back to you directly from
bookshelf.
Page 208
With all the best wishes, especially for the «sixty pages» 5 .
As always
Hannah
Greetings to Elfride
Freiburg, 12.9.72
Dear Hannah,
Due to a terrible misfortune that happened in our family the calendar

of our appointments was completely upset. We look forward to yours
visit and please decide which day you will come yourself. Except the
day 16, in this month we are free.
Thanks for the Melville, which I have so far only been able to browse. In these days
the first copies of the early writings have arrived .
Greetings affectionately
Martin
Elfride greets you.
Freiburg 17.IX.72

Dear Hannah,
Thanks for your postcard. We look forward to seeing you on 24 September 1 at the usual time -
My niece 2 , my sister's only daughter who died prematurely, was staying
taking a walk in the Schwarzwald with her husband and two children.
In that while the husband was run over by a truck carrying gravel -
of those who travel by the piece - and died instantly. When are you going to visit us,
we don't want to talk about it anymore.
Page 209
We greet you with affection

Martin
Freiburg, 8.XII.72
Dear Hannah,
Thanks for the 1 magnifications , of which the smallest size ones are
succeeded better. I'm sorry this thing took so much effort. A little while ago,
wanting to have a look at my personal copy of Die Technik und die Kehre
[The technique and the turning point] I have your copy in my hands. You obviously have it
left here the last time you were with us and I, believing it was mine,
I had put it back in my books.
Now you will immerse yourself completely in the elaboration of your lessons for the
Scotland 2 and you will try to keep any distractions at bay.
One of these would probably be the reference to the nine hundred page book of
Walter Schulz, printed in large eighth, which he himself sent me some
weeks ago: The new ways of contemporary philosophy (publisher Neske), then:
a "transformed" philosophy.
It is structured "dialectically" in the sense of a "Schaukel system".
The last part, "Responsibility", a "transformed" ethics, perhaps it could
interest you.
I am not in a position to judge why studying this inventory me
it is impossible.
Only by way of impression: a beheaded Hegel and a capitulation
in front of the "present".
On the contrary, I think: philosophy is necessarily "out of date"; and if it falls
in "fame" [ Gerühm ] (a term of Jakob Burckhardt), this fact is based on

a lasFtionrgthmeisruen
std,ewrsetalinvdeinwgi.thdrawn as usual and we greet you with affection
Martin and Elfride
Page 210
Dear Hannah,
Thanks for your letter. Your opinion about the big book captures in
sign. Since we take care of the stabilitas loci , in May we are here, and we are
look forward to your visit.
The winter has gone on for a very long time, and there is a lot of snow in the mountains.
In the meantime you should have come to the conclusion of your lectures,
so that she can leave Scotland rested.
The information age develops its "style" uncontrollably e
everywhere; he is probably not even capable of great remorse anymore.
I got a letter from Joan Stambaugh from which I learned, like me
you wrote too, that Glenn Gray has a big hit 1 . I'm happy.
We live extremely withdrawn; I am happy every day not to
being distracted from my work. Of course it is difficult to say what is not flashy,
if there are not many words to say about it - this is to be taken in meaning
literal.
We greet you affectionately with the best wishes for the conduct of the
your lessons.
Martin
Greetings to Glenn Gray and Joan Stambaugh.
Freiburg, May 5, 1973
Dear Hannah,
Thank you for your letter that came to me today. The most favorable day

i1t5w
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sdearyh2e2ren,dbM
utatye.nW
daeylsooakgofothrw
eraerdwtaos ysotiullr hvailsfitaam
t tehteeruosufaslntoiw
mei,nbtehteween 15 and
Schwarzwald.
Page 211
We wanted to invite Sherry Gray 1 these days. For the past few months I have been working
very.
We look forward to your visit and greet you with affection
Martin
Greetings also to Sherry if she is still there.
Freiburg, 9 July 1973
Dear Hannah,
My thanks for the two volumes of Cornford 1 , for the autobiography of

N. Mandelstam 2 and for the essay on the verb εἶναι [einai] 3 arrives late. But the
June and early July were quite busy: we have
received several visits just when the
usual aids for Elfride.
In the meantime, Glenn Gray should have written to you. We have found it
exhausted, especially after his return from Italy.
For now, I have only leafed through the volumes mentioned above.
I hope that in Tegna you have found the necessary concentration to work.
How long do you plan to stay there? We would love to know when you come back
to visit us.
In this summer, the sultry heat is quite heavy and prevents you from working.
I continue to compare myself with Parmenides, and philosophical essays with all
its results seem superfluous to me.
How does one lead contemporaries to simple questions, to
useless questions?
All the prerequisites are still missing for it to even be prepared
the step back that leads us back before the τό γάρ αυτό νοειν έστίν τε καί είναι
[the same is thinking and being] 4 .
In this situation I say to myself every day: "do your thing" - what remains and
which is greater has its own destiny, which remains hidden from us.

Page 212
Greetings affectionately
Martin
Elfride greets you too.
Casa Barbaté 6652 Tegna, Ti Tegna, 18 July 1973
Dear Martin,
I plan to stay here until the end of August and return to New York
at the beginning of September. When would you be better off - if it's not too much for you? For
me it would be fine between August 31st and September 4th.
I still have to congratulate you on Biemel's book from Rowohlt 1 ;
is by far the best I've ever read about you. Moreover it is written in
an absolutely original style - almost a raisonné commentaire. In each
way, I don't know anything like that. Also - in case you are interested - di
Kojève, of whom we had had occasion to speak about his
interpretation of Hegel 2 , extremely authoritative, and that in the course of his
vita had never published a book, two have now come out of Gallimard
volumes of posthumous works: Essai d'une histoire raisonné de la philosophie
paienne. I assume they have already been sent to you. I find them really disappointing.
Warm regards to both of you -

Hannah
Freiburg, 29.VII.73
Dear Hannah,
Thanks for your letter. You're right: Biemel's book is excellent and
brave; quite different from Pöggeler's book on my Way of
thought [Mein Weg] 1 . Find a lot of support. Opens the path of mine

Page 213
ask and keep it open, especially in the conclusion. The volumes of

Kojève did not send them to me. But I have neither time nor desire, and neither do I
the strength remains to read all the "nonfiction" with which I am inundated.
During the last few weeks of holidays and travel we have been marred by
a flood of visits; moreover, at the beginning of the month, the eightieth was celebrated
Elfride's birthday. For the occasion we spent a nice day on
at the hut with both sons and daughter 2 .
During the period you indicated we have planned to take a trip
in Meßkirch. After these eventful weeks, in which moreover Elfride hasn't
could count on the usual help, we both need to relax.
Therefore, we kindly ask you to postpone your visit until next spring -
after your Gifford Lectures.
I hope you weren't too bothered by visits.
We wish you to be able to continue your work period well and we salute you
affectionately.
Martin
Freiburg, 19 Nov. 1973
Dear Hannah,
Thanks for your signs of life. In late August and early September
we were so busy preparing and making my last one
seminar with French friends 1 (three days, for two or two and a half hours at
day), that I was too tired to receive your visit. I do not need
I am going to explain to you that I canceled it unwillingly.
In the last seminar a light flashed on Parmenides, regarding a
text on which I have often struggled in lectures and seminars. If you come in
spring, I can show you something.
The family doctor, who comes to see me once a month, is satisfied
of my health conditions.
On the difficult problem of "will" 2 the first flash of genius
it always remains what is found in the third book of Aristotle 's De anima , di
which nourishes all subsequent metaphysics.

Page 214
The book by a student of mine, Gustav Siewerth, who has worked with me since 1929
to 1932: Thomas von Aquin. Die menschliche Willensfreiheit, Publisher Schwann,
Dusseldorf 1954, contains good "material".
The fact that Joan Stambaugh takes over the task of a new translation of
Being and time 3 is something absolutely deserving and of great importance.
Any other solution would have been botched.
Thinking continues to give me joy. You have to get old to see some
things in this area. And looking beyond and looking back on the same
path make it clear that walking along the path between the fields [ Wegfeld] is guided
by an invisible hand and that we add very little to it.
I hope you are doing well in completing your lessons.
For the rest we live peacefully in the abode of our old age, of course
concerned about the confusion of our times.
Greetings from the heart
Martin
Elfride greets you too.
Freiburg, 14.III.74
Dear Hannah,
Thank you for your letter, which confirmed what I assumed, that is
that in the month of May you dedicated yourself in all respects to completing yours
lessons.
Except for a short trip in May, we're here all the time,
and we are looking forward to your visit after your lectures. Maybe you are able to
define as of now, while you are still in Scotland, the precise deadline of yours
stay in Europe, which is coming to an end.
It is good that you are studying Meister Eckhart. It is amazing what he has
fixed in its German texts in linguistic creativity, but in our era of
destruction of language, all of this has vanished. Perhaps however in this way the
his thought is mostly saved; but for whom? German writings
in the Pfeiffer edition, which Elfride gave me in 1917 for my birthday,
they are still usable today. The great critical edition of the Latin writings e
Page 215

Germans edited by Koch and Quint partly owns it my brother.

Unlike you, I only devote little interest to politics. In
however, the general world situation is clear. The power of essence
of the technique is not recognized. Everything moves on the surface. Against the
arrogance of the "mass media" and institutions the single individual cannot do
nothing more - and a fortiori it can do nothing more when it comes to the
provenance of thought from the beginning of Greek thought.
However, here and there the sensitivity for the useless will remain awake. For this I
I rejoice at the tireless work done by the small circle of people around you
and its translations.
We spent the winter well and live in our quiet retreat
cottage.
Greetings with best wishes

Martin
Elfride greets you.

Greet friends; these days I am writing to Joan Stambaugh. The energy with which
works is amazing.
Freiburg, June 20, 1974
Dear Hannah,
We are happy to see you again and look forward to your visit on Wednesday, that is
say July 10, at the usual time.
After your report on Scotland last year, I was not surprised there
news, reported to me by Joan Stambaugh, that you have had to interrupt your lessons
of this year 1 . Your letter from last February also hinted at
tiredness and sadness, which I understand all too well. A general atmosphere
unfavorable is even more overwhelming than excessive effort is
that you have demanded of yourself by addressing a topic that is already difficult in itself.
Now, however, I hope that in the meantime you have rested in Tegna, and that it is not
too bothered by guests.
Being and growing old is something that confronts us with details
Page 216
needs. The world shows a different face, and it becomes necessary to

imperturbability.
For some weeks I have been dealing with the reorganization of manuscripts, of
copies and course notes, and luckily I found reliable help e
truly participates in Professor Von Herrmann, a student of Fink 2 . There is a lot
to reflect and find the right guidelines for future publications.
For the rest we live quietly withdrawn in the home of ours
old age.
It reassures me a lot to know that Joan Stambaugh has taken on the job
of the translation of Being and time 3 .
I think you should include a stop on your trip to Basel, for
avoid getting too tired.
Greetings affectionately - also from Elfride - I wish you one

complete recovery
Martin
Freiburg, June 23, 1974
Dear Hannah,
Our letters crossed. Everything remains fixed for July 10 at

usual time. Since you're in the de-lazy phase, you're clearly starting to stay
better, and this reassures me a lot. I would also like to advise you to resume a
work slowly and calmly.
The "Siewerth" is important for the content; for the rest I believe it
naturally dogmatic.
We thank you affectionately for the invitation; but also in this case
we would rather not change our habits; in fact we don't go out in the evening anymore -
neither to go to conferences nor to accept invitations. I have not gone anymore
in the city for months and Elfride too rarely goes there.
Warm greetings from us

and goodbye
Page 217
Martin

Tegna, July 26, 1974
Dear Martin,
Thank you for the copies of the two courses that Mr. Von Herrmann has for me
sent 1 . I looked at them immediately and I send them back to you in a mail to
part.
Definitely important to me was Kant's exhaustive interpretation
included in the manuscript on liberty 2 . Nobody can teach a lesson like you know
you do it, and no one before you has been able to do it. About the
problem of will I had left Kant in a fairly position
marginal; contrary to what happens with regard to thinking and judging,
it seemed to me that in this case his position was rather unproductive.
Now I will have to go back to reflect on all these things. I started from
consideration that Greek antiquity did not know neither the will nor the
problem of freedom (as a problem). I had therefore started there
actual discussion with Aristotle ( proairesis [προαίρεσις]), but only for
to show that when the will as an autonomous faculty remains unknown yes
present certain phenomena, to then pass to Paul, Epictetus, Augustine,
Tommaso, up to Duns Scotus. I am attaching here a so-called syllable, a short one
summary of the contents that I have to prepare for the Gifford 3 Lectures and that I don't have
had the opportunity to show you in Freiburg.
What also particularly interested me, and which I did not have up to now
never heard or read anything from you, is the "attacking character of philosophy", the
the fact that it "goes back to our roots" 4 . Was it my oversight?
I'm back at work and I'm happy that the weather is finally nice.
All good to you

Hannah
Page 218
Freiburg, 17.ix.74
Dear Hannah,
I am writing you today only briefly a belated reply, because this month is and
it will be a little rough. Thanks for the "syllabus" of your lessons Gifford; in individuals

arguImnemntys cthoeurreseisoaf 1lo9t3o0f [wVoorm

k; W
weislletnhde elrism
teennesrschhlaicvheeanssFirmeiila
hetietd, O
alnl thes?essence
human freedom] I have been concerned more with causality than with freedom; there
computer theory has made it all the more questionable, that is, even more
corresponding to the character of the plant; "science" thus becomes more and more
flat and, in its sense, more fruitful.
By the "attacking character" of philosophy I mean to refer
fundamentally in comparison with "the oblivion of being", which today
increases to the maximum, but that the "attack" of thought not only fails to
to break but not only to experience.
In the meantime, I assume you have heard that I have made up my mind to cure
a complete edition of my works 1 , or rather, to dictate the guidelines for
this edition. This requires in-depth reflection and a well-planned project
defined, in order to avoid an edition as chaotic as that of the
"Husserliana".
Only apparently defining these guidelines is at the expense of
thought. What most disturbs are the visits, although they have been
limited to cases where it is impossible to refuse.
We are happy that September has passed. I hope you are there in the meantime
rested further and recovered. The capricious summer and the autumn that already is
foretells have disturbed and disturb the vigor necessary to work.
I wish you a good start to the academic year 2 and much concentration on
what is essential.
Also greeting you on behalf of Elfride.

Martin
Greetings to Joan Stambaugh and Glenn Gray.
[After September 26, 1974]
Page 219
A thought of thanks, for their remembrance, is addressed to all those

who have taken part in the effort to meditate in the present age.
More fundamental than poetry,

more foundational than thinking,
thanks remain.
What thanking achieves
leads him back to the front

in the presence of the inaccessible,

which we - all mortals -
from the beginning
we are appropriate.
Martin Heidegger
[Personal add]
For
Hannah
greeting you affectionately
M.
Freiburg, 6.vi, 75 Tel. 52151

preferably around noon
Dear Hannah,
We heard from Glenn Gray that you are in Marbach for a long time and
you are working there 1 . I thought you were in Scotland, finishing the second part
of your series of lessons.
The interval between one letter and another lasted too long. But the reflections
for the complete edition of the works they require more energy and more time than that
I thought.
But since now, unexpectedly, you are nearby, the thing
Page 220
it would be better if you could come from Marbach "here with us" to visit us for a while
day 2 - preferably between 10 and 15 July.
We have many things to tell each other and even more to reflect on. We would be
really happy if you could free yourself in that period.
Since I read little and in passing the newspaper - the local paper - I don't
we didn't even know about the important award that was bestowed on you in
Denmark 3 . We can then celebrate it here with a good glass of
wine, which by the way was particularly liked by Glenn Gray on the occasion of the
his two visits. It seems to me that - together with dr. Krell 4 - have accomplished again
an excellent translation job.
I greet you affectionately, thinking of seeing you again soon also from

Elfride.
Martin
Greetings also to Prof. Zeller 5 .
CH 6652 Tegna, 27 July 75

Tel. 093-811430
Barbaté house
Dear Martin,
It is almost August now, and I would like to know how to do it as soon as possible
for my visit to Freiburg. Here the summer is wonderful, it's not too hot, but
the air is crystal clear and the evenings are warm. After Marbach, where it was raining all
days and it was cold, it is very beautiful and invigorating.
The second part of my lessons in Scotland I will be giving on October 1 . Here I am
slowly resuming work. I don't know if I'll be able to finish it by October
part on judgment 2 , but it doesn't bother me because the course for Scotland
I'm almost done.
Was Zeller able to help you with the complete edition of your works?
The index compiled by Ms. Feick 3 is excellent and represents a big one
Help. Can Krell help you? If in the meantime his German has achieved good
Page 221
level should be possible. Glenn was very happy with him.

I hope you are well and that you are not too harassed by the visits.
Warm regards to both of you -
Freiburg, July 30, 1975
Dear Hannah,
Thanks for your letter. We are happy that you come to visit us; the most day
favorable would be Tuesday 12 August, or Friday 15. The first of two
dates would be better. We are waiting for you between 3 and 4 pm As usual

stay for dinner with us.

During the month of July we were plagued by an annoying cold and
from cough - after-effects of a circulating infection.
We will tell each other verbally; only one thing: the power to judge is one
difficult question.
In the meantime, you too have read that Eugen Fink is dead.
Warm greetings from both of you

Martin
Page 222
Epilogue
167. Martin Heidegger to Hans Jonas
December 6, 1975
DEEPLY PAINFUL I JOIN THE COURT

OF THE CIRCLE OF FRIENDS.
MARTIN HEIDEGGER

168. Martin Heidegger to Hans Jonas
Freiburg, Dec. 27 1975
Dear Mr. Jonas,
I sincerely thank you for your comprehensive letter regarding the

death of Hannah Arendt, of the funeral ceremony 1 and for her obituary, that is
lived up to everything that happened 2 . It was a merciful death.
But in the opinion of man it came prematurely.
Your letter made me realize how steadfast and assiduous Hannah was
the center of a large and multifaceted circle.
Now the rays spin in a vacuum; unless, which we all hope, the
center returns to be filled with the transformed presence of the deceased. My only one
the hope is that this can happen abundantly and fervently.
But as for the rest, words can do little now.
In August of this year which is coming to an end, Hannah was coming to
to find us on his way back from the Deutsches Literatur-Archiv in Marbach 3 , per
then go to Ticino to complete his conferences for Scotland e
Page 223
then prepare everything for publication. I was convinced that the

things would have turned out like this and I was expecting news of this kind. But
evidently everything we expected had gone the other way. Has
a higher destiny prevailed, in contrast to human plans. It remains for us
only the grief and the memory.
Taking your consent for granted, I will send your letter and prayer
funeral to Hugo Friedrich so that he can read it. H. Friedrich belonged to the
Hannah's circle of friends during her university years in Heidelberg.
I am still particularly grateful to you for having made yours available
notes from my courses in Marburg for the reworking of the complete edition
of my works.
I greet you, thanking you and remembering you
His
Martin Heidegger

Page 224
1. Martin Heidegger, autograph manuscript, February 1950 (see letter 50 in this volume).

Page 225

2. Hannah Arendt around 1925 (see in this volume letter 39 and relative note 1).
Page 226

3. Martin Heidegger around 1920.
Page 227

Page 228
4.5 Hannah Arendt at the editorial office of the "New York Times" (18.12.1948) on the occasion of the
signature of the deed of incorporation of the Judah L. Magnes Foundation, and as «cover girl» (Arendt
to Jaspers) on the front page of the "Saturday Review of Literature" (March 24, 1951); in that number
of the magazine had come out Hans Kohn's review of his recent book The Origins of
Totalitarianism.

Page 229
6. Hannah Arendt with Heinrich Blucher around 1950.

Page 230
7. At Manomet, a vacation resort on the Atlantic coast of Massachusetts, in the summer of

1950 (see in this volume, introductory note to letter 67).

Page 231
8. In July 1950 Martin Heidegger sent a photograph of his hometown Messkirch,

describing it like this: «In the small photo of Messkirch you can see the bell tower next to the castle;
up there at the top I often paused in the company of jackdaws and swifts and fantasized about
countryside. On the left is the castle where Count Werner von Zimmern wrote his chronicles.
Behind it the park of lime trees, and then to the left the path between the fields leads out over the edge
of the image "(see letter 66 in this volume).

Page 232
9. Martin Heidegger in 1950. The postcard-sized portrait sent to Hannah Arendt bears the
on the back the dedication reproduced here (see in this volume, note 1 to letter 72).

Page 233
10. Martin Heidegger, autograph manuscript, July 1951 (see letter 75 in this volume).
Page 234

11. Martin Heidegger's poem refers to this drawing by Henri Matisse, reproduced from
Heidegger himself (see in this volume, introductory note to letter 75).
Page 235

12. Advert by Piper publisher in the literary calendar "Spektrum des Geistes" (1960). Martin
Heidegger wrote on December 17, 1959: “I recently saw a beautiful girl of yours in the Spektrum
photography. It recalls a distant past "(cf. letter 88 in this volume).
Page 236

Page 237

Page 238

13-14. Hannah Arendt photographed by Fred Stein in 1966.
Page 239

15. Hannah Arendt photographed Martin Heidegger on August 17, 1967 with her camera
photographic Minox. The photographs are arranged here clockwise (starting from photo 2 above a
left); of the first (in the center) there is also a copy in post card format. After
received copies Marlin Heidegger wrote; «Thanks for the photographs so well done, that
at the same time they testify moments of our conversation, invisible in the visible "(cf. in this
volume letter 99 and related note 1).
Page 240

16. Hannah Arendt, autograph manuscript, 1953; from the diary, notebook VI, pp. 44-45 (see also in
this volume the afterword by Ursula Ludz).
Page 241
Appendices

Page 242
List of abbreviations
Cont. = Container (Folder of archival documents) doc. = document H.

A. = Hannah Arendt (born October 14, 1906, died December 4, 1975)
HAPapers = Papers by Hannah Arendt kept at the Library of Congress in
Washington DC
HGA = Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe: Ausgabe letzer Hand, at
Klostermann publisher, Frankfurt am Main, 1975 ff.
MH = Martin Heidegger (born September 26, 1889, died May 26
1976) NLArendt = Part of the Arendt estate kept at the Deutsches
Literaturarchiv of Marbach NLHeidegger = Heidegger legacy at the
Deutsches Literaturarchiv of Marbach.

Page 243
Notes to documents 1 to 168
1.
MH, February 10, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 HA had begun his university studies in the winter semester 1924-25
of philosophy, theology (Protestant) and classical philology at the University of

Marburg, where MH taught philosophy from the winter semester
1923-24. He had been called in June 1923 as a professor
ordinary ad personam, to fill the post of extraordinary professor of philosophy
at that university.
2.
3.

Presumably a handwritten note was attached to the letter, also

preserved in the Arendt legacy (undated, recipient and signature): Vorresti
hand in your letter at the Kugelhaus - Kugelgasse 2, until 7 am . Entrance to the
staircase on Barfüßerstraße at the concierge of the examination office.
1 It is unknown what book it is.
2 Presumably MH knew HA's mother personally,
Martha Beerwald (born Cohn and widow Arendt, 1874-1948). It wasn't however
possible to be able to discover nothing more precise.
4.
MH, 2 m [arzo] 1925; original handwritten picture postcard, NLArendt,
"Freiburg i. Br. Günterstal ”, addressed to miss stud. in philosophy Hannah
Arendt, Königsberg / East Prussia, Busolstr. 6; without indication of the sender.
1 The path indicated by MH on the picture postcard leads from Günterstal to
Schau-insland, a peak in the southern Schwarzwald region. MH
Page 244
he had walked this path in the company of students after the end of
semester. They had spent the night at the Notschrei pass.
2 Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), teacher, paternal friend and supporter of M.
H., from 1916 was professor of philosophy at the University of Freiburg. Heidegger
he was his assistant from 1919 to 1923. Some details on the history of relationships
between Martin Heidegger and Husserl are contained in this volume at letters 6, 8,
37, 45, 68.
5.
MH, March 6, 1925; original handwritten illustrated postcard, «Todtnauberg
(m. 1021 asl), winter sports resort ", addressed as the previous one;
without sender, NLArendt.
From Notschrei (see previous postcard), where MH met
with his wife and eldest son Jörg (born 1919), the excursion continues
on skis or on foot. The goal was represented by the family cabin
Heidegger, located on the edge of a mountain pasture, above the village of Todtnauberg, which
it was (and is) reachable only by passing through the pastures, and does not have
no path. Elfride Heidegger (born Petri, 1893-1992) had built
the hut in 1922 giving it to her husband as a place to retire to
to work. Together with Martin Heidegger his "hut" has also become famous,
cf. HW Petzet, Auf einem Stern zugehen. Begegnungen und Gespräche mit
Martin Heidegger, 1929-1976, Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1983, pp.
201 ff.

6.
MH, March 21, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 Heinz Lichtenstein, originally from Königsberg, had studied in Freiburg
with Heidegger at the time when the latter was a private teacher. It then became
psychiatrist. See letter 144.
2 No details of the years that have passed since are known
Heidegger to Marburg about what the letter refers to; for the period in
where he was a private teacher see My path of thought and phenomenology,
in Time and Being, Guide, Naples 1988, pp. 194-95 [ed-or. Mein Weg in die
Phänomenologie, in Zur Sache des Denkens, Niemeyer, Tübingen 1969, p. 87]; And
again T. Kisiel, The Genesis of Heidegger's «Being and Time», University of
California Press, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1993, p. 556 (note 13). See
also the comparison with Husserl's thought in his first Marburg course in
Page 245
winter semester 1923-24: Einführung in die phänomenologische Vorsehung.

3 The first semesters are meant; cf. also M. Heidegger and K. Jaspers,
Briefwechsel 1920-1963, Klostermann-Piper, Frankfurt am Main-München-

Zürich 1990, p. 50.
4 MH had obtained the qualification in 1915 at the University of
Freiburg, in which Edmund Husserl was named as the successor of

Heinrich Rickert. As a private lecturer and assistant to Husserl, MH,
as he himself writes "teaching and learning", he was mainly concerned with
Husserl and Aristotle; cf. M. Heidegger, My journey of thought, cit., P. 193,
[and. or. cit., p. 86], The Freiburg courses of the first period (1916-1923) were
published as volumes from LVI-LVII up to LXIII of the HGA (= Martin
Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe. Ausgabe Letzer Hand, Klostermann, Frankfurt am
Main 1975 et seq.), With the exception of volume LXII, in preparation
( Phänomenologische Interpretationen ausgewählter Abhandlungen des
Aristoteles zu Ontologie und Logik, summer semester 1922).
5 A private photograph, taken in April 1925 in Rauschen at
Königsberg, portrays HA outdoors, on a warm and sunny day, in

company of his cousin Ernst Fürst, his future wife Käte (nee Levin) e
of two friends. It was published in the volume: Hannah Arendt : «Lebensgeschichte
einer deutschen Jüdin ... », edited by the Old Synagogue of Essen, Klartext
Verlag (Studienreihe der Alten Synagogen), p. 97.
6 In 1925, the
following volume: Rahel und Alexander von der Marwitz in ihren Briefen: Ein
Bild aus der Zeit der Romantiker, edition based on the original manuscripts a
edited by Heinrich Meisner. HA will deal in depth with Rahel
Varnhagen and will dedicate a chapter of his book Rahel Varnhagen. History of
a Jewess, il Saggiatore, Milan 1988, pp. 165-81 [ed. or. Rahel Varnhagen.

Lebensgeschichte einer deutschen Jüdin aus der Romantik, Piper, München

1959, p. 151 ff.] To Rahel's friendship with Alexander von der Marwitz.
7.
1 The son Jörg.
8.
MH, March 29 [1925]; original handwritten picture postcard «Freiburg i.
B. The cathedral ”, addressed as n. 4; without sender, NLArendt.
Page 246
1 Husserl, who was born on April 8, 1859, was about to turn 66, and has
reached 79 years of life (he died on April 27, 1938).
9.
MH, April 12, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 The Heidegger family lived in Schwanallee 21 at that time.
2 Paul Jakoby (law student) from Königsberg.
3 Johannes Boehlau (1861-1941), then director of the "Fridericianum",
he had invited MH to give some lectures (five two-hour lectures

each) in Kassel, as part of the course program of the «Kurhessischen
Gesellschaft für Kunst und Wissenschaft ”which he founded. For more details yes
see Frithjof Rodi, in "Dilthey-Jahrbuch", n. 4, 1986-87, pp. 164 ff; it's still,
of Rhodes himself, in «Dilthey-Jahrbuch», n. 8, 1992-93, pp. 178 ff.
10.
MH, April 17 [1925]; original handwritten letter, NLArendt. The date is
written in pencil.
1 Walter Bröcker (1902-1992), Heidegger's pupil and assistant over the years
Trenta, in 1937 he became private lecturer in Freiburg, in 1940 he was called to

Rostock and from 1948 to 1970 he taught philosophy at the University of Kiel. With
his wife Käte Bröcker-Oltmanns edited the HGA volume LXI .
11.
HA, April 1925; original manuscript and typescript, HAPapers.
This youthful self-reflection of HA (his only document of this
type we are aware of) is preserved in a double form: handwritten and
typed. The manuscript copy, on which this edition is based, is
consisting of a fair copy text on previously folded sheets (of
about 21 x 16 cm), which were then bound in the form of a notebook, with cover

of blue-lilac handmade cardboard. The title sheet bears the title

manuscript Ombre [Schatten], It can be assumed with sufficient certainty that HA
brought this notebook from Königsberg to Kassel in April 1925 (cf.
the next letter from MH) and gave it to MH It wasn't possible
reconstruct how it later returned to his possession.
The typewritten version, in which the title Ombre has been corrected to Le
ombre [Die Schatten ], and which shows at the end the indication "Written for MH"
added by hand by HA, it does not differ from the manuscript one.
Page 247
In it only one subordinate sentence and two were deleted with a stroke
paragraphs which are included in the handwritten version.
12.
1 In the Arendt estate there is a ten-page manuscript entitled: III.
Dasein und Zeitlichkeit bearing MH's handwritten dedication: «in memory of

20 and 21 April 1925 ". There is also a copy of this manuscript
typed. It is therefore legitimate to assume that MH offered this
manuscript in HA at the end of the semester, that you have transcribed it while you
he found in Königsberg and took it with him to Kassel. The
publication of Dasein und Zeitlichkeit in HGA volume LXIV . See
also note 1 to letter 62.
2 In the Ombre manuscript (supra, doc. 11) the expression «timid dedication and
reserved »translates the German« scheue, züruckgehaltene Zuneigung », while here

a slight variant appears: «scheuen, zurückhaltenden Zuneigung».
3 Means the Ombre manuscript (supra doc. 11).
4 Quote from Ombre (supra doc.i 1).
5 In the summer semester of 1925 HA attended the HD course on
Prolegomena to the history of the concept of time [Prolegomena zur Geschichte des
Zeitbegriffs ] (see the notes to letter 14), also participating in the exercises
for beginners on Descartes' Meditationes .
6 This is presumably room 11 of the old University of
Marburg. Here MH had held, in the winter semester 1924-25, the course of
four hours a week on Platon: Sophistes, and here his gaze met
for the first time that of the young student Hannah Arendt. See MH
in the letter dated 4 May 1950 (letter 60): «[...] when your dear photo of me
look straight at the heart. You don't know it's the same look you shone on
me on the desk - ah, it was, is and remains eternity, from afar in proximity ».
13.
MH, May 1, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.

14.
1 In the summer semester of 1925 MH, as he wrote to Jaspers (M.
Heidegger and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit., P. 50) gave lessons "from 7 to 8
Page 248
in the morning, for four hours a week, on the history of the concept of time "; the
course was then published posthumously: Prolegomena to the history of the concept of time,
Il Melangolo, Genoa 1991 [ed. or. Prolegomena zur Geschichte des
Zeitbegriffs, in HGA, vol. XXIX, 1979]. MH's announcement «I publish them in
autumn »refers, considered retrospectively, to Being and time [Sein und
Zeit], the first drafts of which were already ready in February 1926. Regarding the
complicated story of the publication of MH's masterpiece see T.
Kisiel, The Genesis of Heidegger's "Being and Time" cit., Pp. 477 ff., And FW
von Herrmann, Heideggers “Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie” .Zur
"Zweiten Hälfte" von «Sein undZeit», Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1991.
2 Volume of poems by Stefan George, cf. the next letter.
15.
MH, May 13, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt, without
allocution.
1 These are two lines from Stefan George 's lyric Tag-Gesang . See S.
George, Der Teppich des Lehens und Die Lieder von Traum und Tod mit einem
Vorspiel, Bondi, Berlin 1904 5 , p. 87.
2 Verses from the "Prelude" (III) of St. George, in Poesie, Publishing House Le
Letters, Florence 1990, p. 119 [originally contained in Der Teppich des

Lehens cit.].
3 It has not been possible to find out what MH alludes to here
4 See letters 37 and 12; and also MH to Elisabeth Blochmann, 11 January
1928, in M. Heidegger and E. Blochmann, Correspondence 1918-1969, Il Melangolo,

Genoa 1991, pp. 46-47 [ed. or. Briefwechsel 1918-1969, Marbacher Schriften,
Marbach am Nekar 1990, p. 23]; cf. also the titled Gedachte of MH
Amo: volo utsis, which is expected to be published in volume LXXXI,
Gedachtes, of the HGA. The quote accompanied HA throughout her life; Yes
see, as a first testimony, the letter that Heinrich Blücher wrote to you
(16.7.1946, H. Arendt and H. Blücher, Briefe 1936-1968, Piper, München-Zürich
1996, p. 150); as a late testimony, see instead H. Arendt, Volere, in
The life of the mind, il Mulino, Bologna 1987, p. 424 [Willing, in The Life of the
Mind, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York 1978]. According to Ronald Beiner, in
his commentary to H. Arendt, Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy, ed

R. Beiner, Chicago University Press, Chicago 1982, you would have quoted
frequently this sentence. It may also have influenced the choice
of the topic of his doctoral thesis The concept of love in Augustine [Der
Page 249
Liebesbegriff bei Augustin \. Journalist Alfred Kazin ( New York Jew, Secker
& Warburg, London 1978, p. 199), believes that this very phrase has pushed
HAS to take an interest in Augustine. The quote from Augustine, taken literally, is not
it can be documented, according to what emerges from the drafting of the Augustinian lexicon:
Corpus Augustinianum Gissense to Cornelio May er editum (CAG). If you look
to the meaning of the quotation, a source could be found in Sermo Lambot 27,
3 of Augustine: “Quod quisque amat, vult esse, an non vult esse? Puto here, yes
amas filios tuos, vis illos esse; si autem illos non vis esse, non amas. Age
quodcumque amas, vis ut sit, nec omnino amas quod cupis ut non sit "[What
everyone loves, does he want it to be or does he not want to? I believe that, if you love your children, you want
that they are; but if you don't want them to be, you don't love them. And everything you love, you want
that it is, and you absolutely don't love what you don't want it to be]. St. Augustine,
Works. Speeches, vol. V, Discourse Città Nuova Editrice, Rome 1986, pp. 924-25.
5 Probably some of HA's poems that are published in
appendix to this volume.

6 Presumably a work by Max Scheler (1874-1928). On the importance
Scheler for the philosophical evolution of MH see, by Heidegger himself, Il

my journey of thought and phenomenology cit., p. 195 [ed. or. cit., p. 85]; cf.
also M. Heidegger, In memoriam Max Scheler, as part of the course
of the summer semester of 1928: Metaphysical principles of logic, Il
Melangolo, Genoa 1990, pp. 68-70 [ed. or. Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der
Logik, in HGA, vol. XXVI, pp. 62-64].
16.
1 In the days of vacation for the feast of Pentecost presumably HA
it was first in Freiburg, then continued the journey to Interlaken; Yes

see subsequent letters.
2 M. Heidegger, Logica. The problem of truth, Mursia, Milan 1986 [ed.
or. Logik. Die Frage nach der Wahrheit , Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1976].
17.
MH, [May 21-22, 1925]; original manuscript ticket, NLArendt.
The note bears HA's handwritten note: “Part destroyed
superior of the ticket "; dating is possible on the basis of the indication «Tuesday
26 ". In 1925 there was only one Tuesday that fell on the 26th, that is, in May. In
that year the festivities for Pentecost fell on May 31 and June 1.

Page 250
During the Pentecost holidays HA had been first to Freiburg and then to
Interlaken. Most likely MH stayed in Marburg.
1 The letter (it must have been probably a letter from
recommendation) was not preserved in the bequests of Husserl, Heidegger and

Arendt.
18.
MH, May 29 [1925]; original handwritten letter, NLArendt, with a
precisely Hannah Arendt's manuscript: «received in Interlaken on 2.vi.25».
1 See in this regard also the ticket published in the additional documents
(A3).
19.
MH, June 14, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 We mean the manuscript Ombre cfr. supra, doc. 11 and 12.
20.
21.
22.
MH, July 1, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 It is very likely that this is Clara Beerwald (1900-1931), the half-sister
from HA She studied mathematics, chemistry and languages, and was a good pianist. See
E. Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt (1906-1925). For the love of the world, Bollati-
Boringhieri, Turin 1990, p. 113 [ed. or. Hannah Arendt, For Love of the World,
Yale University Press, New Haven-London 1982] and later in this volume,
letter 28.
23.
MH, 9 July 1925, original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 Thomas Mann's novel The Magic Mountain had appeared in 1924
in two volumes.
2 Probably Fritz Blum (1891-1916) from Markdorf, dead
prematurely. Like MH, he had been a pupil of the high school boarding school

Page 251
archbishop of Konstanz, the Konradihaus. Later he studied medicine. Yup

see also the photograph of the two friends reproduced in W. Biemel, Martin
Heidegger, Rowholt, Reinbeck bei Hamburg 1973, p. 18. They haven't been
preserved letters.
3 A boil.
4 Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976), was professor of theology (Protestant)
at the University of Marburg from 1921 until retirement. During the period in
which they taught together (MH had been at the University of Marburg from 1923 to
1928) a friendship developed which then lasted a lifetime, as they show, not
finally, the multiple passages in which Bultmann's name is invoked in
this volume.
24.
MH, July 17 [1925]; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 The philosophers Heidegger and Nicolai Hartmann, the classical philologist Paul
Friedländer, archaeologist Paul Jacobsthal and church historian Hans von

Soden, had formed a reading group of the Greek classics, of Homer and of the gods
tragic, of Pindar and Thucydides. See W. Biemel, Martin Heidegger cit., P. 33.
25.
26.
MH, July 31 [1925]; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 Presumably a meeting for appointment matters, in the
which he himself was personally involved in; cf. letter 28.
27.
MH, August 2, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
28.
MH, August 23 [1925]; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 In Todtnauberg, cf. introductory note to letter 5; cf. even the letter
next.
2 The letter did not reach us.
3 Karl Lowith (1897-1973) was a pupil of Edmund Husserl and Martin
Heidegger. On his personal choices in the years before and after graduation, see the

Page 252
his «Curriculum vitae» (1959), in Karl Lowith, My life in Germany before

and after 1933, Il Saggiatore, Milan 1988, pp. 191 ff. [and. or. Mein Leben in
Deutschland vor und nach . Ein Bericht , with a preface by R. Koselleck e
an afterword by A. Lowith, Metzler, Stuttgart 1986, pp. 147 ff]. The report
with Heidegger, which was initially very narrow and also concerned the sphere of
private life, it was profoundly transformed after the qualification (obtained in 1928
in Marburg); criticisms, disappointments and offenses took over more and more.
Lowith has analyzed and criticized MH and its philosophy in a series of
publications (collected later in volume VIII of his Sämtlichen
Schriften, Metzler, Stuttgart 1984), while MH expressed his criticisms
rather in private form, as happens in one of the letters published here (cf.
letter 78). In 1936 they met in Rome for the last time before the
war (cf. My life in Germany cit. pp. 85-86 [ed. or. cit., pp. 56 ff .; cf.
also p. 283). Lowith returned to Germany in 1952 from emigration
(Japan, United States), as full professor of philosophy at
the University of Heidelberg. As for the possibility of reuniting with
person, the former pupil and his then teacher took it easy.
That there had been a reconciliation between the two was only known publicly
on the occasion of the conference organized by the Akademie der Wissenschaften of
Heidelberg for MH's 80th birthday in June
of 1969. Here Lowith gave a lecture and took the opportunity to express himself in
exhaustive way on his personal and spiritual relationship with Heidegger, among other things
also on the basis of quotations from their correspondence (Karl Lowith, Die Natur des
Menschen und die Welt der Natur, in H.-G. Gadamer (edited by), Die Frage
Martin Heideggers, «Sitzungberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der
Wissenschaften »Philosophisch-historische Klasse, 1969, IV, pp. 36-49;
reprinted in Karl Lowith, Sämtliche Schriften, vol. VIII, Metzler, Stuttgart
1984, pp. 276-89; cf. also the letter to the editor from Josef Meller ( Söhne über
Väter ) in the "Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung" of 30 January 1998.
4 Bultmann's seminar for the winter semester 1925-26 was
announced under the title Neutestamentliches Seminar (Anthropologie des Paulus).

The complete bibliographic references of the works indicated by MH are: H.
Lüdemann, Die Anthropologie des Apostels Paulus und ihre Stellung innerhalb
seiner Heilslehre, nach den vier Hauptbriefen dargestellt, Universität-
Buchhandlung, Kiel 1872; R. Kabisch, Die Eschatologie des Paulus in ihren
Zusammenhängen mit dem Gesamtbegriff des Paulismus, Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, Göttingen 1893; W. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums in
Page 253

neutestamentlichen Zeitalter, Reuther & Reichard, Berlin 1906 2 . Evidently

Heidegger himself also occasionally intervened in this seminar of
Bultmann.
5 The list of candidates for appointment for the designation of the successor of
Nicolai Hartmann (already Paul Natorp's successor himself) drafted

from the University of Marburg on 5 August 1925; cf. also letter 26. Heidegger was
however called only later, on the basis of a subsequent list, and appointed
finally full professor of the first chair of philosophy of Umvesità di
Marburg on October 19, 1927. For the details of the events concerning this
appointment see M. Heidegger and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit., pp. 56 ff; And
also H. Ott, Martin Heidegger: biographical paths, SugarCo, Milan 1988, pp.
no ff. [and. or. Martin Heidegger. Unterwegs zu seiner Biographie, Campus,
Frankfurt-New York 1992, p. 124].
6 Clara Beerwald was a good pianist.
7 In Meßkirch, where the mother lived (Johanna Heidegger née Kempf,
1858-1927) and his younger brother Fritz, who married on 15 October 1925 (see M.
Heidegger and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit., P. 54).
29.
MH, September 14, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 At Todnauberg MH was working on the manuscript which appeared at the end of April
of 1927 with the title Being and time. According to information provided by
Hermann Heidegger (born 1920), his father, to be able to work undisturbed,
he had rented a room from a farmer, not far from his cabin. Yup
see also MH in the letter to Karl Jaspers dated 23 September 1925 (M.
Heidegger and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit., P. 26), as well as R. Safranski,
Heidegger and his time. A philosophical biography, Longanesi, Milan 1996, p.
176 [ed. or. Ein Meister aus Deutschland. Heidegger und seine Zeit, Hanser,
München 1994, p. 173].
2 The letter did not reach us.
3 MH postponed and shortened this visit to Karl Jaspers (1883-1969),
professor of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg since 1920 (full professor since 1922),
cf. letter 31; about other visits cf. in this volume letters 37 and 40.
After 1933 the two never saw each other again. The complicated personal relationship e
spirituality between MH and Karl Jaspers is documented in the correspondence that was
published in the meantime (Briefwechsel cit.), as well as, by Jaspers, in
two posthumous publications: K. Jaspers, Philosophische Autobiographie, new
Page 254
extended edition, Piper, München 1977, Heidegger section (pp. 92-111); K.

Jaspers, Notizen zu Martin Heidegger, Piper, München-Zürich 1978. See

also the multiple passages of this volume which refer to Jaspers, and that
they document how Hannah Arendt played the role of "third" in this
shipwrecked friendship, especially in letter 64.
4 Musicologist Willibald Gurlitt (1889-1963) taught from 1919
at the University of Freiburg, in 1920 he founded the seminary of musicology

influencing as a precursor the revival of ancient music performed with
original tools. On his fate in the University of Freiburg see E. John,
Der Mythos vom Deutschen in der deutschen Musik: Musikwissenschaft und
Nazionalsozialismus, in E. John et al. (edited by), Die Freiburger Universität in
der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus , Ploetz, Freiburg-Würzburg 1991, pp. 163-190,
in particular pp. 168 ff.
5 See note 1 to letter 31.
30.
MH, October 7, 1925; original picture postcard «Freiburg i. Br., Duomo ",
addressed to young philosophy student Hannah Arendt, Königsberg
(East Prussia), Basultstr. 6, stamped Freiburg, Breisgau, 8.10.25; without
sender, handwritten, NLArendt.
31.
MH, October 18, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 The topic of the course was: Logic. The problem of truth [Logik. Die
Frage nach der Wahrheit]. The seminar was announced with the title: Exercises
phenomenological for experienced students; it was to be the first book of the
Hegel's logic . In the "exercises for beginners" was scheduled
Critique of Kant's Pure Reason. HA took part in both the course and the
exercises. See also letter 29.
2 MH arrived in Heidelberg on October 17 (M. Heidegger and K. Jaspers,
Briefwechsel cit., Pp. 55 ff.), Cf. also the next letter.

3 No publication by Günther Stern was found
corresponds to these characteristics; however, see his collection of essays Über

das Haben: Sieben Kapitel zur Ontologie der Erkenntnis, Cohen, Bonn 1928; And
also retrospectively his interview with Mathias Greffrath (1979) a
about MH's influence on him and his personal
acquaintances in the Twenties, in E. Schubert (edited by), Günther Anders
Page 255
antwortet: Interviews und Erklärungen, Tiamat, Berlin 1987, pp. 22 ff.

Günther Stern (1902-1992) graduated in 1924 with Husserl and then continued his
research activity (among other things also attending Heidegger) to achieve
the qualification. When his application for habilitation was rejected by the University

in Frankfurt became editor of the cultural page of the «Berliner Börsen-

Kurier ». From then on he published mainly under the name of Günther
Anders. Stern-Anders emigrated in 1933, first to France (Paris), then to the
United States (1936). In 1950 he returned to Europe, and settled in Vienna where
he worked until his death as a free writer. In 1929 Günther Stern and HA did
they married (see also letter 43); it was their first marriage for both, but since
part of HA had evidently not been a love match (see letter
49). Already after a few years their paths separated. In 1937 (when HA
was still in Paris and he was already in the United States) divorced, but stayed in
contact for life. Stern-Anders published a fundamental in 1948
criticism of the thought of MH: On the Pseudo-Concreteness of Heidegger’s
Philosophy (in "Philosophy and Phenomenological Resarch" VIII, 1947-1948,
n. 3, PP 337-70).
4 Hans Jonas (1903-1993) studied at the time in Marburg as HA Si
graduated in 1928 with Heidegger and Bultmann. He soon committed himself to the
Zionism, first joining the Zionist student federation KJV (Kartell
Jüdischer Verbindungen). In 1933 he emigrated to Palestine, he enlisted as
volunteered in the Jewish Brigade Group in 1940, he fought in the Second World War
and returned to Germany "in the uniform of the winner". During the
First Arab-Israeli War of 1948-49 was an artillery officer. After
military period he resumed his teaching activity, first in Canada.
He then taught philosophy at the New School for Social Research (where in 1967 he was
called HA) from 1955 until retirement. Jonas and HA have been linked by
a lifelong friendship that went through a moment of crisis when Jonas
he turned away from Arendt because of his book The Banality of Evil. Eichmann a
Jerusalem, Feltrinelli, Milan 1964 [ed. or. Eichmann in Jerusalem, The
Viking Press, New York 1963]. Jonas's relationship with Heidegger remained strained,
despite a reconciling meeting (cf. letter 114) and correspondence contacts (cf.
letter 168).
5 Prolegomena to the history of the concept of time cit.
6 The letters cited are not preserved either in Heidegger's bequest, nor in
that of Stern-Anders (as reported by the curator of the legacy, Gerhard

Oberschlick).
Page 256
7 Presumably the letter was not preserved.
32.
MH, November 5, 1925, original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
33.

MH, December 10, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.

34.
MH, January 9, 1926; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
35.
MH, January 10, 1926; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 When HA and MH secretly met on January 10, 1926, HA gli
he had communicated openly, in a letter that has not been preserved, and then
probably also verbally, that he wanted to interrupt his studies in Marburg. From
summer semester of 1926 he continued his studies at Jaspers in Heidelberg. A
semester, the winter semester 1926-27, he spent in Freiburg, to be able
to attend Husserl's lectures, see also the following letter on this subject.
36.
1 It is probably Hans Jonas, cf. the next letter, in which M.
H. abbreviates it as "Jo". But it could also be Paul Jakoby, a friend of H.

A. of Königsberg, because the abbreviation is not dissolved in the text.
2 In Heidelberg, where HA was studying from the summer semester 1926.
3 Heidegger's Being and Time came out at the end of April 1927 as a volume
VIII of the «Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung», la

magazine edited by Husserl and Scheler; it also appeared in volume in 1927.
4 Since there appears to be no such letter, it is reasonable
suppose that MH and HA met in Weinheim in August 1926,

Mannheim or Heidelberg.
37.
1 See letter 15 and related note 4.
2 If the relevant letter has not been lost, this indication refers to or
Page 257
to letter 12 of 24.4.25 or 13 of 1.5.25.

3 During the summer and autumn of 1927, Husserl worked on his voice
Phenomenology for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and MH helped him. On this
common work cf. Phänomenologische Psychologie, edited by W. Biemel,
Husserliana, vol. IX, Nijhoff, Den Haag 1962, pp. 600-3; cf also W. Biemel,
Husserls Encyclopaedia Britannica-Artikel und Heideggers Anmerkungen dazu,
in «Tijdschrift voor Philosophie» n. 12 (1950), pp. 246-80.
4 See M. Heidegger and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit., Pp. 82 ff.
5 Benno von Wiese (1903-1987), at the time a student of German studies and

philosophy in Heidelberg, in the memories of his life provides indications of his

"Relationship" with HA, and also mentions that Jaspers would have liked him to
married, cf. B. von Wiese, Ich erzähle mein Leben: Erinnerungen, Insel,
Frankfurt am Main 1982, pp. 98 ff. It is likely that HA had told
of his relationship with von Wiese in the letter to which MH replies in this one
occasion (see further in the text).
38.
39.
1 This may be the photograph first published by
Elisabeth Young-Bruehl and dating from the 1920s (see photo insert
of the German edition of Young Bruehl's volume), which was reproduced in
this volume as fig. 2.
2 In April 1928 Heidegger spent a few days with Jaspers, cf.
letter 40 and M. Heidegger and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit., p. 93. On the occasion of
this visit to Heidelberg MH and HA met again, cf. note I to the letter
42.
3 Μ. H. received the call to the chair of philosophy (as successor of
Edmund Husserl) on February 25, 1928 (see M. Heidegger and K. Jaspers,

Briefwechsel cit., P. 90) and accepted it on 1 April of the same year (see letter
next). He began his teaching activities in the winter semester of 1928-
29. See also letter 68).
4 The lectures were connected with the publication of his book Kant et il
problem of metaphysics, Laterza, Rome-Bari 1985 [ed. or. Kant und das
Problem der Metaphysik, HGA, vol. III, 1929, p. xvi]. In the preface to the
Page 258
first edition (p. 6; ed. or. cit., p. xvi) MH wrote in 1929: "The nucleus
essential of this interpretation was exposed for the first time in a course
of four-hour lessons per week in the winter semester 1927-28 and, later,
repeatedly in conferences and lecture series (in the Herder Institut in Riga
in September 1928 and in the courses of the High School in Davos in March of
same year) ". On the journey to Riga and Königsberg, which Heidegger undertook
together with his wife, he later reported to his friend Elisabeth Blochmann in the letter from
17 October 1928. It is not known whether he saw HA in Königsberg.
Elisabeth Blochmann (1892-1972) was a friend of Elfride's youth
Heidegger, and from the time of her studies she had also become friends with Heidegger. The
letters that have been preserved to us are published in M. Heidegger and E.

B
[alnodc.homr.acnint.,, Cpo
. r2r7e]s.pondence cit .; the report of the trip mentioned above is on pp. 51-52
40.
MH, April 2, 1928, original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 The move to the new house built in Freiburg-Zähringen, Rötebuck 47,
Elfride Heidegger curated it, cf. M. Heidegger and E. Blochmann, Correspondence cit.,
pp. 51-52 [ed. or. cit., p. 27]. The Heideggers lived in that house until 1971,
when they moved into the home of their old age, in Fillibach 25., cf.
infra letters 136 and 138.
2 Heidegger refers here to the negotiations to obtain the call to
Freiburg. At that time the Prussian ministry of culture in Berlin was

the competent authority.
3 Before starting negotiations for his call to Freiburg
Heidegger had evidently consulted with Jaspers, cf. M. Heidegger and K.

Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit., Pp. 92 ff.
41.
MH, April 18 [1928]; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 Contrary to what H. Ott writes, Martin Heidegger cit., P. 116 [ed.
or. cit., p. 127], the land was not purchased before accepting the call, but
only after the same, cf. also Hermann Heidegger, in
"Heidegger Studies", vol. XIII, 1997, p. 184.
2 As Heidegger's successor to the chair of Marburg he was appointed
Erich Frank (1883-1949), who had qualified with Jaspers at the University of
Heidelberg. Frank lost his professorship in 1935 and emigrated to the states in 1939
Page 259
United, where he eventually taught at the University of Pennsylvania. Mori ad

Amsterdam after his return to Europe, cf. M. Heidegger and K. Jaspers,
Briefwechsel cit., Pp. 172 ff. and 233.
42.
HA, April 22, 1928; minute letter, handwritten, NLArendt; without
recipient, but signed with "H".
1 This statement refers to a second or third encounter. HA and M.
H. met at least once between 18 and 22 April 1928, cf. the letter
previous and next, and also the notes to letter 64.
2 These are some lines from the forty-third sonnet of Sonnets from the
Portuguese by Elisabeth Barrett Browning. See E. Barrett Browning, Sonnette

aus dem Portugiesischen , translated by RM Rilke, English and German text, Insel,
Leipzig 1991, pp. 90 ff. Rilke translates «... I want (!) To love you better ...» HA

he will later interpret this quote, in a long annotation in his own

diary [Denktagebuch] (May 1953), in the sense of its representation
of love as "devoid of world".
43.
HA, undated [1929]; minute letter, handwritten, NLArendt.
About the dating: on September 26, 1929 HA married Günther Stern
in Nowawes (Neubabelsberg) near Berlin. He had met him in 1925 a
Marburg during Heidegger's seminar and then met him again in Berlin
early 1929. If the word "today" is to be understood literally, HA ha
written this minute on her wedding day.
1 See in this regard letter 31 of MH dated 18.10.25.
44.
HA, undated [September 1930]; minute letter, handwritten, NLArendt.
The date "September 1930" placed at the end of the minute was probably
inserted by HA at a later date. It was not possible to discover the location in
where the scene took place along the station platform and the reason why M.
H. and G. Stern left together. Mr and Mrs Stern-Anders lived at the time a
Frankfurt. MH had planned a trip for the end of September that
it was to have as its destination Köln, Marburg, Göttingen and Bremen (cf. M. Heidegger
and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit., pp. 149 ff).
Page 260
45.
MH, undated [winter 1932-33]; original handwritten letter,
NLArendt.
1 This is the winter semester 1932-33, which Heidegger spent as far back as
from the beginning in his cabin, with the desire «to work until next summer in
absolute concentration ", cf. MH in the letter to E. Blochmann dated 18.9.1932
(M. Heidegger and E. Blochmann, Correspondence cit., Pp. 90-92 [ed. Or. Cit., P. 54].
Since January 1933 he has lived mainly in Freiburg, at least so
refers in a letter dated 19.1.1933 to Blochmann ( ibid. p. 97 [ed. or. cit., p.
57]). On the "sabbatical semester", which is followed by the period of the rectorate (from 1933 to
1934), cf. also in M. Heidegger and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit., pp. 149 ff.
2 It means the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft, the antecedent
of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. It is not known who they were

scholarship holders. HA had received a grant from the
Notgemeinschaft in 1930 to devote himself to a work on Rahel Varnhagen. The
Jaspers had been the guarantor, and MH had written his opinion. See M.

H
Jaesipdeergsg,eCroarnredsK
po. nJdaespnecres1
,9B2r6
ie-f1w9e6c9h,sFeel lctirti.n,ePllpi., 1M2i2lafnf.,1A
98s9w
, pelpl. a3s0H
-3.1A[reedn.dotra. nd K.
Briefwechsel 1926-1969, Piper, München 1925, p. 48].
3 It should have been the bag that Karl Lowith had received from
Rockefeiler Foundation. In the spring of 1934 he left Germany and lived in

Rome until 1936. See his autobiographical notes in My life in
Germany cit., P. 113 [and or. cit., pp. 78].
4 On Heidegger's anti-Semitism cf. Karl Jaspers in his expert opinion
on MH of 22.12.1945, reproduced in M. Heidegger and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel

cit., pp. 270273; more indirectly Bernd Martin who in an article presents a
overview of the problem Universität im Umbruch: Das Rektorat
Heidegger 1933-34, in E. John et al. (edited by), Die Freiburger Universität in
der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus cit., pp. 9-24, pp. 16 ff .; H. Ott, Martin
Heidegger cit. [and. or. cit., pp. 351 ff.]; and R. Safranski, Heidegger and his
cit. time , pp. 309 ff. [and. or. cit., pp. 297 ff.]. In general on anti-Semitism
in German universities see the most recent: N. Hammerstein, Antisemitismus
und deutsche Universität 1871-1933 , Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1995.
5 Jacobsthal and Friedländer, two of the colleagues Heidegger was with
read the Greek classics together (see note 1 to letter 24), they were Jews.
Archaeologist Paul Jacobsthal (1880-1957) taught from 1912 in Marburg, fu
forced to retire in 1935 and emigrated to England, where he had been
Page 261
offered a place at Christ Church College in Oxford. Paul Friedländer

(1882-1968), professor of classical philology in Marburg from 1920, he was also
forced to retire in 1935. At first he remained in Germany, it was
arrested in 1938 (KZ Sachsenhausen) and emigrated to the United States in 1939.
He found a new teaching position at the University of California at Los
Angeles.
6 Georg Misch (18781965) was at that time a colleague of MH at
the University of Göttingen, Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945) at the University of

Hamburg. Cassirer left Germany in 1933 and lived in the States from 1941
United, Misch emigrated to Great Britain in 1939.
46.
1 Apparently HA had spontaneously decided to inform MH of the
his presence in Freiburg, cf. letter 48. She had probably arrived in Freiburg
Monday 6 February, coming from Basel. His visit was connected to his
activity as "executive director" of the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, which had it
conducted in Europe, in November 1949, for the first time after the war. There
his mission, which involved prolonged trips to Germany and other countries

Europeans, consisted in tracing and inventorying those cultural assets (above all
library funds) stolen and stolen by National Socialism (see also letter
III). In Germany HA traveled the length and breadth of her baby girl
Federal Republic (including Berlin) by public transport and by
vehicles of the American Military Command; the head office was Wiesbaden
in the American zone.
47.
48.
HA, February 9, 1950; typewritten copy of letter, NLArendt, with signature
autograph, but without recipient.
1 Hugo Friedrich (1904-1978), teacher of Romance philology since 1937
at the University of Freiburg. HA got to know him during their joint stint
you study in Heidelberg.
2 Probably MH's letter 46 dated February 7, which had been
delivered to HA only on the morning of day 8.
Page 262
3 In the HA bequest there is a mimeographic reproduction of the

Heidegger's course manuscript given in the summer semester of 1943 e
entitled Der Anfang des abendländischen Denkens (Heraklit) [The origins of
Western thought (Heraclitus)], as well as, also reproduced with method
mimeographic, the manuscript of the Wiederholungen zu Der Anfangs des
abendländischen Denkens; Heraklit [Repetitions on the origins of thought
western (Heraclitus)]; see Heraklit (vol. LV of the HGA).
4 πολλά τά δεινά are the introductory words of the famous 2nd act choir
of Sophocles ' Antigone . MH probably sent one of his own to HA

personal translation into German. According to Heidegger's testimony, it
it would have arisen during the summer semester of 1935, on the occasion of the course
entitled Introduction to metaphysics [Einführung in die Metaphysik ] (M.
Heidegger and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit., Pp. 158 ff) and is preserved in two
different versions. The opening verse of each one reads like this, respectively: “Many
these are terrible things, but none the more terrible than man »(M. Heidegger
and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit., pp. 158 ff.); “There are many terrible things, but
no one / moving moves more terrible than man " (HGA, you XL, p. 155, e
HGA, vol. XIII, p. 35). We can't know which lesson HA read
5 Presumably the essay by H. Arendt, Organized Guilt e
universal responsibility, in Judaism and modernity, Unicopli, Milan 1986
[Organisierte Schuld, in «Die Wandlung» I (1945-46), no. 4, pp. 333-44], cf. there
letter 51 and related note 2.

49.
HA to EH, February 10, 1950; typewritten copy of letter (with signature
autograph), NLArendt.
1 HA had met her second husband, Heinrich Blücher (1899-
1970), in February 1936, while she was in exile in Paris, and had married him
in January 1940. Their marriage lasted until Blücher's death in October
1970 (see L. Köhler's introduction to H. Arendt and H. Blücher, Briefe cit.).
HA's previous marriage (1929) with Günther Stern (Anders) was
concluded in divorce in 1937 (see letter 43).
50.
MH, [February 1950]; five poems, manuscript, NLArendt.
The five poems reproduced in this document are preserved in the legacy
Arendt on individual manuscript leaflets (DIN-A-5). There are also copies
Page 263
(presumably drawn up by HA), each with an indication of the date

"February 1950". MH has attached them as loose sheets (and not in a single envelope)
to his letters, or delivered them directly to HA on the occasion of the
his second visit of four days (or during a possible short third
visit) in March 1950.
Links to the February letters are recognizable (MH by the way
of "suddenness", HA on "the woman who comes from afar"). The two lines
«Suddenly, being strikes us ...» are taken up and commented on by HA
later in his diary (entry dated "September 1951")
linking them to a quote from Nietzsche's Gaia Science . "The truth," says the
quote «it can be 'rare', 'sudden' like 'lightning'». Here lies the authentic
connection between Nietzsche and Heidegger. See figs. 1 and 16.
The poem Death was written by Heidegger for HA's friend, Hilde Fränkel,
then died of cancer on June 6, 1950. Hilde thanked her with a letter of April 2
1950: «Dear Professor Heidegger, your poetry moved me immensely.
I always have it with me - day and night - thank you. It is very nice that Hannah
she is here again, although she is aware of the sacrifice it cost her. Is one
of the few human beings that there are. And in these last days, nothing else is desired
that she. For me it is simply everything "(Source: HAPapers, Cont. 9, Folder:
"Fränkel, Hilde, 1949-50 and undated"). See also letter 58. HA will remember
this poem to MH twenty years later, cf. letter 127.
51.

1 έώρακεν όρά \ heoraken hora \ means: he has seen, he sees.

2 It could have been the essay by H. Arendt, Guilt organized cit. In
reality was only published in 1946, but the editors of "Die Wandlung"
assumes it was written in November 1944.
3 HA was in Freiburg a second time from 2 to 6 March, only ed
solely to review MH, cf. also his letters to Hilde Fränkel (dated 2
March, from Wiesbaden, and March 7, from Nürnberg, the source is HAPapers, as
over it); cf. also MH in letter 60 of 4.5.1950. It is possible that he did
a third stop in Freiburg en route from Wiesbaden to Basel, where it was
went to see Jaspers again on 11 and 12 March. On March 13 you leave for Paris,
to embark in Cherbourg for New York and put an end to his
stay in Europe, which lasted almost four months. The first shipments of MH
overseas they carry the date of 10-11 March. The second visit to Freiburg was
Page 264
especially important because MH soon after wrote Karl Jaspers a

"Admission of guilt" (attributable to the mediation of HA); see in
about M. Heidegger and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit., pp. 196 ff .; cf. also
H. Arendt and H. Blücher, Briefe cit., P. 225, and H. Arendt and K. Jaspers, Correspondence
cit., pp. 101-6 [ed. or. cit., pp. 198 and 204].
52.
1 From Wiesbaden, cf. note 2 letter 48.
2 Hilde Fränkel suffering from cancer, cf. doc. 50 and related note, and doc. 58.
53.
MH, March 10, 1950; four pages (DIN-A-5 format, letter paper for
airmail), manuscript, NLArendt.
Quotes from the short story by Adalbert Stifter, Pietra Limarea, Sellerio publisher,
Palermo 1989 PP 12, 17, 67, 69, 74-75 first published in 1847
with the title Der arme Wohltäter and subsequently reproduced with the title
Kalkstein in his collection Die bunten Steine, Ullstein, Wien 1947 [1853]. The
square brackets in the text belong to the quotes of MH Quanto
to the importance of Stifter for the spiritual evolution of MH cfr. his too
speech on the occasion of admission to the Heidelberger Akademie der
Wissenschaften, in «Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der
Wissenschaften ", 1957-58, pp. 20-21; more indirectly HW Petzet, Auf einen
Stern zugehen cit., P. 218.
54.
MH, March 11, 1950; poetic cycle If only stolen graces ...,

manuscript, NLArendt.
The poems are written on folded sheets of
DIN-A-4. They had been collected in a file to which a cover had been added
of cardboard by hand. The title is handwritten on the cover, the dedication "HA"
and the date "March 11, 1950" are on page 2. There are copies in the Arendt estate
some poems (probably made by HA).
55.
1 It must be February 7, cf. MH's letter 46 of the same day, and le
Page 265
letters 47 of 8.2 (MH) and 48 of 9.2 (HA).
56.
MH, [March 1950]; four poems, manuscript, NLArendt.
The poems published in this document are preserved in the Arendt estate
in single manuscript sheets (DIN-A-5, airmail paper), with the addition of
copies dated "March 1950" (probably made by HA).
57.
1 In translation: «There is no greater invitation to love than to prevent
the other by loving him ». Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus, book I, chap. iv, in
Patrologiae cursus completus. Latin series (Migne, Volume XL, Col. 314).
2 In German: Everything is accepted, preserved and elevated (elevated).
3 Means the manuscript Vom Wesen der Macht [The essence of power],
which is preserved in the Arendt legacy and will soon be published in IV

section of Die Geschichte des Seins in vol. LXIX of the HGA.
4 The "allusions" can be reconstructed from his ideas in chapter I
concentration camps, in The origins of totalitarianism, Community Editions,

Turin 1999, pp. 599 ff. [and. or. The Origins of Totalitarianism, Harcourt
Brace, New York 1951, trans. ted. Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft,
Europäische Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main 1955] from a note in his
diary of July 195 or under the title The radical evil, as well as by a long one
I pass in the letter to Jaspers dated 4.3.1951, in H. Arendt and K. Jaspers, Correspondence
cit., pp. 104-5 [ed · or. cit P · 202] This last source shows above all which one
importance also had for HA a comparison with Nietzsche's position
("Nietzsche, it seems to me, has nothing to do with all this," p. 105).
58.

MH, [April 1950]; two poems, manuscript, NLArendt.

The poems published in this document are preserved in the Arendt estate
in single sheets (DIN-A-5 format, paper by air mail); there are also
copies of the same dated "April 1950" (probably made by HA).
1 Hilde Fränkel, cf. note to the letter 50.
59.
Page 266
1 MH used to always start each lesson hour with

a "repetition", that is, with a summary of the ideas that had already been expounded. In
later he had written these materials in writing. For the rest see
letter 48, note 3.
2 It is not possible to uniquely identify it, cf. but notes to the letter
62.
60.
1 See the following poetic cycle From the Sonata sonans.
2 Thoughtfully and tenderly is the title of one of the poems in Dalla
Sonata sonans , cf. doc. 61.
61.
MH, [May 1950]; poetic cycle From the Sonata sonans, manuscript,
NLArendt.
The poems are written on folded sheets of airmail letter paper in
DIN-A-4 format. On a cover sheet (also of writing paper for
post air) the title Dalla Sonata sonans is written at the top and below, on the right,
the addition «In a storm». Some of these poems have also been preserved
copies (likely made by HA). In five of the seven poems, MH has
written, in the upper left corner of the sheet, "Only for you"; the poems II
Sound and Bella do not bear this dedication. See also the poem Sonata sonans, doc.
63.
62.
MH, May 6, 1950, original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 It is not possible to establish unambiguously which manuscript and H.
A. had shipped a first time in 1948 and then again on this occasion
(see also p. 70). It is however plausible to assume that it must be the
MH manuscript, Dasein und Zeitlichkeit [Being there and temporality], datable to
1924, which he had given her with a dedication (see letter 12 and relative note 1). See

also the subsequent passages of this letter.

2 According to the researches carried out by Theodore Kisiel the conference had
held on 4 December 1925 at the Kant-Gesellschaft in Köln. It is evident that M.

H. held the same lecture at several local Kant-
Gesellschaft in the Rhine and Ruhr area; cf. T. Kisiel, The Genesis of
Page 267
Heidegger's "Being and Time" cit., P. 559, note 21.

3 A more concrete version of this personal testimony is found in
letter to Karl Jaspers dated 8.4.1950 (M. Heidegger and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit.,
p. 201), cf. also M. Heidegger, Die Selbestbehauptung der deutsche
Universität - Das Rektorat 19331934, edited by H. Heidegger, Klostermann,
Frankfurt am Main 1983, p. 41. Previously, in 1936, Heidegger had
started working on Beiträgen zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis ) [Contributions to
philosophy (On the event)] which were finished in 1938 but were later published
aftermath (as HGA vol. LXV ).
4 HA probably refers with his questions to the manuscript quoted
in the notes to the letter 48: Der Anfang des abendländischen Denkens cit. (cf.
HGA, vol. LV, pp. 179 ff.). Jaspers returns to the concept of "numbers" in many passages
of his work, see the article (by Hans Saner) which contains a summary
of the concept in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, edited by
Joachim Ritter and Karlfried Gründer, Schwabe, Basel-Stuttgart (1971), vol. I, col.
1001; cf. also in this volume, letter 64.
5 The exact title of the masterpiece by Emil Lask (1875-1915) is the following:
Die Logik der Philosophie und die Kategorienlehre. Eine Studie über die
Herrschaftsbereich der logischen Form. It was published in 1911 by JCB Mohr
(Tübingen).
6 Karl Jaspers, Philosophy, Utet, Turin 1978 [ed. or. Philosophie, 3 vols.,
Springer, Berlin 1932]; see the third volume of the work (entitled Metaphysics),
in particular the paragraph Writing of figures and ontology, pp. 1098-1106 [ed. or.
pp. 157-64] Heidegger is not actually mentioned here. Also in the following ones
edizioni Jaspers has not made any changes regarding these parts.
7 Karl Jaspers, General Psychopathology, The Scientific Thought, Rome
1964 [ed. or. Allgemeine Psychopathologie. Ein Leitfaden für Studierende, Ärzte
und Psychologen, Springen, Berlin 1913]. Starting with the fourth edition of
this work (1946), completely reworked, Jaspers mentions the attempt to
Heidegger of a "fundamental ontology" in a subsection entitled
Philosophy of existence and psychopathology. "In the beginning," writes Jaspers, he had
considered this attempt "a philosophical path to mislead" and motivates his
belief.
8 This is probably the poem The public slanderers, of which I am

preserved several copies in the papers of HA Hannah Arendt also sent it

later, for example with the letter dated 17.9.1974 to Uwe Johnson
(HAPapers, Container 10, Folder "Johnson, Uwe, 1968-1975"). In fact, he writes
Page 268
to J. «[...] Perhaps you know this singular poem by Gottfried Keller, which for
a moment passed from hand to hand between the opponents? ... For me the last verse of
this poem has always been the ultimate conclusion to wisdom for all of this
question (we mean the extermination of the Jews in the Third Reich) ". The last verse
it sounds:
If ever this misery,

slowly broke like a block of ice,
then we will talk about it
as of the Death Star.

Page 269
And the children in the moor

Page 270
they will make a scarecrow

so that joy is kindled by pain,
and from the troubles of the past
the light.
9 These are the first lines of a lyric by Hölderlin, in which they are found
also the following:
... It's a lot

it is to be kept, as on the shoulders
a load of wood ...
F. Hölderlin, The lyrics, Adelphi, Milan 1977, vol. II, p. 293 [ed. or.
Sämtliche Werke, historical-critical edition initiated by Norbert von Hellingrath,
continued by Friedrich Seebaß and Ludwig von Pigenot, Georg Müller-Propylaen,
München-Berlin 1913-1916; vol. IV, p. 71]; see also the letter of HA a
Mary McCarthy of May 28-31, 1971, where Arendt quotes this same verse from
Hölderlin (H. Arendt and M. McCarty, Between friends. Hannah's correspondence
Arendt and Mary McCarty, Sellerio, Rome-Palermo 2000, p. 516 [ed. or. Between
Friends. The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy 1949-
19J5, Harcourt Brace, New York 1995].
10 M. Heidegger, Einblick in das was ist [A look into what is], HGA vol.
LXXIX, 1994, p. 177.

11 Conference held in Munich, organized by the Bavarian Academy
of Fine Arts published under the title The Thing [Das Ding]; cf. even the letter
66 of 27.7.1950. About the circumstances and the resonance aroused by
this conference cf. the description in R. Safranski, Heidegger and his time
cit., p. 474 [ed. or. cit., p. 453].
63.
MH, [May 1950]; five poems, manuscript, NLArendt.
The first four poems are written in the same order reproduced here on
four folded pages of airmail letter paper in DIN-A-4 format.
The typewritten copy in the legacy contains the indication "May 1950"
affixed to the first of the poems. The fifth poem Language was annotated by
It also has the date "May 1950" on the copy, and it is

Page 271
written on a single sheet (also airmail paper). The Sonata poem

sonans is identical to the last verse of Thoughtfully and tenderly, cf. doc. 61;
ahd = Old German. The Rock Wall poem was also sent by MH
to his friend Petzet in June 1950, without the explanations that are provided
here at the end. (HW Petzet, Auf einem Stern zugehen cit., Publishes it as
autograph; fig. 57).
64.
1 As of [«June 1950»] the diary of HA records one more note
extended in which his ideas on the themes of "reconciliation" and of

"vengeance". In that context it makes absolutely no direct reference to
MH, but it has to be assumed that these notes arose from the interviews
that he had had with him or by reflecting on them afterwards.
2 In the photographic archive of the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach are
two photographic portraits of MH from the Arendt estate are preserved (Photo L.
M. Engler, Freiburg). Both bear the stylized dedication «H / M», which
Heidegger liked to use, and the indication of the date "Easter 1950".
3 The Protestant theologian Paul J. Tillich (1886-1965) and MH had been
colleagues, for a short period (1924), at the University of Marburg. HA knew

probably Tillich through her husband Günther Stern, when the latter
he wanted to obtain free teaching at the University of Frankfurt (cf. H. Arendt e
K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit., Pp. 49 ff.); Tillich, which belonged to the
Federation of Religious Socialists, lost his university chair in 1933 and
emigrated to the United States. There he and HA met again. From 1937 to 1955
taught at the Union Theological Seminary in New York, later ad
Harward and Chicago.
4 HA had written a review at the time of publication
of the English edition of H. Broch's novels The Sleepwalkers and The Death of
Virgil which had been published in the magazine "Der Monat" in June 1949:
Hermann Broch and the modern novel.
5 Karl Jaspers, Introduction to philosophy, Longanesi, Milan, 1959 [ed. or.
Einführung in die Philosophie-.Zwölf Radiovorträge, Artemis, Zürich 1950]. On

"The writing on the figures" cf. note 4 to letter 62.
6 It has not been possible to find out what "history" it is, nor what it is
mean in Heidelberg by "little house". It is not even possible to document with

accuracy when MH and HA met in Heidelberg. Based on the
Page 272

letters that we have received the most likely date is that between 18 and
on April 22, 1928, cf. letter 42.
65.
2 Romano Guardini (1885-1968), Catholic theologian and philosopher of the
religion, he taught in Munich since 1948. He and MH had known each other since
pre-war period. After 1945 there were some attempts to
call Guardini at the University of Freiburg, cf. H. Ott, Martin Heidegger cit.,
p. 21 and pp. 308-9 [ed. or. cit., pp. 20 ff., Pp. 328 ff ·] ·
3 Carl Orff (1895-1982) at that time was professor of composition al
Munich conservatory. MH appreciated his Carmina burana and expressed himself

enthusiastically about his idea of setting Antigone to music ; cf.
letter 72.
4 Max Pulver (1899-1952) was a Swiss writer and graphologist.
5 Reference unknown.
6 Heidegger refers to his work Kant and the problem of metaphysics
cit., of which a new edition was to come out, cf. also the following letters.
7 In translation: "Thought itself ... blows the fire of love". Meister
Eckhart, Expositio Sancti Evangelii Secundum lohannem (= ME, Die

deutschen und lateinischen Werke, to treatmentfrom the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft. Die lateinischen Werke , vol. III), Kohlhammer,
Stuttgart-Berlin 1936, p. 440.
8 In 1948-49 they had appeared at the Schocken publisher of New York, hence
HA worked as a reader, two volumes of Franz Kafka's diaries edited by Max

Brod with the text in German and English. HA took care of the edition and had
collaborated in the translation of the first volume. Schocken was also the publisher who
from 1935 he published Kafka's Gesammelte Schriften . It is not known which «volumes of
Kafka »received Heidegger.
9 Richard Harder (1896-1957), classical philologist, had lost his professorship
at the University of Munich due to its membership of the SS. HA had it

known in his youth, because he had been his Greek teacher to
Königsberg (see Benno von Wiese, Ich erzähle mein Leben cit., Pp. 227 ff.).
10 Classical philologist Wolfgang Schadewaldt (1900-1974) was a friend of M.
H. Arendt may have known him personally because he had taught

for a time in Königsberg (1928).
Page 273
11 It was an invitation from the Heidelberg Student Association, vale

according to the ASTA of the University of Heidelberg. MH had informed Karl

Jaspers and had considered the possibility of their meeting (which later
did not happen), cf. M. Heidegger and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit., Pp. 204 and 289, and
in this volume letter 68.
66.
1 We are referring here to a photograph by Martha Beerwald, who evidently
HA had promised to ship; cf. the previous letter. Probably MH

he also met HA's mother in person, who died in 1948.
2 A private photograph, on the back of which MH had noted
«Meßkirch, spring 1950», is kept in the photographic archive of

Deutsches Literaturarchiv of Marbach; cf. also in this volume fig. 8. IS
It is likely that the letter was accompanied by an illustrated postcard, also
preserved in Marbach. It portrays the locality of Todtnauberg and MH ha
marked his "hut" with an arrow. On the back he wrote the initials «H.
M. " together with the date "July 1950".
3 Reference unknown.
4 See also letter 68. Retirement did not yet mean becoming
emeritus professor. This could only legally take place after
completion of the sixty-second year (26.9.1951), cf. letter 76; more
indirectly, with regard to the delays that preceded this decision
at the University of Freiburg, see H. Ott, Martin Heidegger cit., pp. 309 ff.
[and. or. cit., pp. 335 ff.]. With retirement the
ban on teaching. MH gave her first class in front of students after
forced break from teaching, as part of the general study Γ8 July
1950 in Todtnauberg. He spoke of "Reality, illusion and possibility of the university", e
concluding he read four poems by Gottfried Benn to Benno von Oelze,
22.8.1950, (in Gottfried Benn, Briefe an F. W. Oelze 1950-1956, Limes,
Wiesbaden 1980, p. 59 and p. 307); in this regard cf. also in this letter volume
76; cf. also M. Müller, Auseinandersetzung als Versöhnung: πόλεμος καί
ειρήνη - Ein Gespräch über ein Leben mit der Philosophie, Akademie Verlag,
Berlin 1994, pp. 258 ff. The first appearance in the spaces of the university, the course
one hour weekly entitled What does it mean to think? [Was heißt Denken?]
it took place in the winter semester 1951-52, and continued in the summer semester of
1952 (see letter 79).
Page 274
5 This is Dorothea Heidegger, the wife of the son Jörg. It took

long before his illness was diagnosed as
schizophrenia. See also below, letters 68, 72, 73, 74.
4 Abbreviation for Russian «Narodny Kommissariat Wnutrennich

Del »(= People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the USSR); here it is
as a synonym for the Soviet "Secret Police".
67.
MH, September 14, 1950; original handwritten letter (with the
Flutti poem in NLArendt.
The photographs for which MH thanks are not preserved in the bequest
Heidegger. For the picture "in the hammock" it could be the photograph
reproduced by Wolfgang Heuer in Hannah Arendt mit Selbstzeugnissen und
Bilddokumenten , Rowohlt, Reinbeck bei Hamburg 1995 ', p. 115), and in the present
volume as fig. 7.
1 With this expression Heidegger could refer here to the elegy of
Hölderlin who begins with the verses «Every day I leave in search of something else, from
always". See F. Hölderlin, Menon's Lament for Diotima , in Le liriche cit.,
vol. II, p. 87 [ed. or. cit., vol. IV, pp. 77]. [ Elegy is translated here instead
directly from the German edition cit., p. 82].
68.
MH, September 15, 1950; original handwritten letter, NLArendt - without
signature.
1 The «Badische Zeitung» of 29-30 July 1950, p. 6, had reported the
following news: «The state government of Baden has retired, on his

instance, prof. dr. Martin Heidegger, with effect from 1 April 1950 e
with the maximum pension pay. At the request of the university he was
then assigned a teaching position by the Ministry for Worship e
education ".
2 This annotation and the following ones are probably motivated by the
Korean War (June 1950-July 1953).

3 In M. Heidegger and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit., P. 200 ff., Are
Heidegger's letters of 8.4.1950 and 12.5.1950 published, together with one

comprehensive reply from Jaspers (dated 5/15/50), which was not sent, and one
short answer of 16.5.1950.
4 Kurt Roßmann, Martin Heideggers Holzwege , in «Der Monat» II, June
Page 275
1950, no. 21, ρρ. 236-45 · Roßmann is presented by the editorial staff of the magazine
as a student of Jaspers, who qualified in Heidelberg in 1948, as well as author of
book Wissenschaft, Ethik und Politik (1948) published by Lambert Schneider.
5 See the news, marked with an «ok», «Heidegger gets the
return of his professorship "in" Basler Nachrichten ", no. i, supplement to n.

339, of 11 August 1950, in the column «Art, literature and science». The rectorate

of
whtihceh U
thneivneerw
sistpyaopferFrpeuibluirsgherdeqiuneisttseedn,tbiryetlyette
onr 1o7f 6OO
ctcotboebreurn1d9e5r0t,hae ctiotrlere«ctio
Unna,
rehabilitation of Professor Heidegger '. A copy of the letter signed by
Rector Prof. Dr. Bro. Oehlkers is found in the Arendt estate. On the merits of
question, according to the letter from the Rector, MH received the call to cover
the chair of Husserl at the University of Freiburg in 1928, after Husserl
«Having reached the age limit established by law of 68 years, at his request
had been placed at rest ", cf. also in this volume, letter 40.
69.
1 See letter 53.
70.
MH, November 2, 1950; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 On 7 October 1950 MH gave a lecture entitled II language [Die
Sprache]. Max Kommerell (1902-1944), who belonged to the

circle of Stefan George, from 1941 he was a professor in Marburg. In his last
years of life intertwined with MH a dialogue on Hölderlin, cf. the chapter
Zwiesprache von Dichten und Denken: Hölderlin bei Martin Heidegger and Max
Kommerell by Joachim Storck, in Klassiker in finsteren Zeiten 1933-1945: Eine
Ausstellung des deutschen Literaturarchivs im Schiller Nationalmuseum in
Marbach am Nekar, Marbach am Nekar 1983, vol. 1, pp. 345-65. See JW
Storck, Hermeneutischer Disput. Max Kommereils Auseinandersetzung mit M.
Hs Hölderlin-Interpretationen, in H. Laufhütte et al. (edited by),
Literaturgeschichte als Profession, Narr, Tübingen 1993, pp. 319-43
2 Vom Wesen der Sprache [The essence of language], next
publication in HGA, vols. LXXXV.

3 Also "reading exercises", cf. the next letter.
71.
Page 276

1 HA had held a cycle of lectures in November at
the University of
Notre-Dame (in the American state of Indiana); cf. H. Arendt and K. Jaspers,
Briefwechsel cit., P. 196], and H. Arendt and H. Blücher, Briefe cit., P. 230.
2 HA journals from that period document intensive reading
of Platonic texts (the Politician and the Laws) in the original Greek text.
3 This refers to the contribution to the celebratory volume for the Konstanz high school,
cf. Aletheia (Heraclitus, Fragment 16), in Essays and speeches, Mursia, Milan

1976, pp. 176-92 [ed. or. Aletheia (Heraklit, Fragment 16), in Vorträge und
Aufsätze, Neske, Pfullingen 1954, pp. 257-82].
4 Some notes relating to these "exercises" are
preserved in the Heidegger bequest (see also MH to E. Blochmann 19.12.50, in

M. Heidegger and E. Blochmann, Correspondence cit., P. 160 [ed. or. cit., p. 100]). Do not
their publication within the HGA is expected .
5 It probably means Hölderlin's poetry, Adelphi, Milan 1988
[and. or. Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main

1944, quoted here in reference to the second edition of 1951].
6 It has not reached us.
72.
1 As far as we know, HA arrived in Freiburg on 6 February
1950, and the next day he saw MH again for the first time in twenty years; cf.
also the letters 46 ff. "For the 6", excluding that it is an error of the
memory, would mean: in remembrance of the day HA made it known of
having arrived (see note 1 to letter 55, and the poem Rivedersi). Attached to the
letter there was probably a photograph with the dedication on the back
handwritten: «H. for February 6, 1950 - M. ". The photograph is preserved
in the photographic archive of the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach and comes
sold as a postcard by the Schiller-Nationalmuseum; cf. fig. 9.
2 Jörg and Hermann Heidegger had been prisoners in Russia; Jörg returned to
home only in December 1949, cf. also MH to E. Blochmann in the letter

dated 19.12.1950 (in M. Heidegger and E. Blochmann, Carteggio cit., p. 162 [or.
cit., p. 100]).
3 The "warm greeting" was a bottle of Burgunder, which had been sent
by Anne Weil-Mendelssohn, a childhood friend of HA (see her letter to
Page 277
HA dated 28.12. [1950], HAPapers, Cont. 13).

4 On Heidegger's participation in the execution of Orff 's Antigone a
Munich see also HW Petzet, Auf einem Stern zugehen cit., Pp. 168 ff.
HA, who for her part was an esteem of Orff's music, attended
an execution held in Essen during his 1955 trip to Europe (H.
Arendt and H. Blücher, Briefe cit., P. 437; cf. also H. Arendt and K. Blumenfeld,
«... in keinem Besitz verwurzelt» ·. Die Korrespondenz, Rotbuch, Hamburg 1995,
pp. 241 ff.)
5 January 11, 1951; for the rest see the notes concerning Karl Reinhardt
to the next letter.

6 See M. Heidegger, Letter to Emil Staiger, in M. Heidegger and E. Staiger

D
Stiasipguetra,tiino Eh.erSm
taeingeeu
r,tiZcua,eC
inoerm
boV,eFres rvrar
ona M
19ö8ri9k,ep:pE. i3n1B
-5r0ie[fw
ede.cohrs.eB
l rmieitf M
anaE
rtm
inil
Heidegger, in "Trivium" no. 9 (1951), pp. 1-16. Emil Staiger (1908-1987)
taught modern German literature at the University of Zurich from 1934 (as
ordinary since 1943).
73.MH, April 1-2, 1951; original handwritten letter, NLArendt.

1 It must be assumed that it is the following passage: “As if someone did
he sits in the carriage and wants to go to Königsberg; with this it has by no means arrived at
destination, but the carriage wheels have to turn quite a bit before that
he is where he wants to be, and each relationship has its time, and the second
it cannot be fulfilled before the previous one has been fulfilled etc., and here it often goes
a pain in the ass, and the one who is in the carriage notices it; and in the meantime it must
resist and calm down, because there is no other advice »: M. Claudius, Über
einige Sprüche des Prediger Salomo [for the second verse: Alles hat seine Zeit],
in Id., Werke,]. C. Cotta, Stuttgart 1965, pp. 298 ff. HA reported this
quote in his diary in February 1951.
2 Karl Reinhardt, Hölderlin und Sofokles, in Gestalt und Gedanke: Ein
Jahrbuch, edited by the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, München 1951, pp.
78-102. See also the previous letter. The classical philologist Karl Reinhardt
(1886-1958) was at the time a professor at the University of Frankfurt.
3 Karl Reinhardt had published two essays on Heraclitus in 1942. They
were then reprinted in the posthumous publication Vermächtnis der Antike:

Gesammelte Essays zur Philosophie und Geschichtsschreiburg, edited by Carl
Becker, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1966 2 . No others are known
Reinhardt's publications on Heraclitus.
Page 278
4 It means H. Frankel, Poetry and Philosophy of Archaic Greece, the Mill,

Bologna 1997 [ed. or. Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums: Eine
Geschichte der griechischen Literatur von Homer bis Pindar, American
Philological Association, New York 1951; reworked edition (with title
different), Beck, München 1962 2 ].
5 Jean Beaufret (1907-1982), French philosopher and scholar of the thought of
Heidegger, had fought in the resistance and in 1946 had promoted a

personal encounter with the German philosopher who, in any case, he esteemed. The writing of
M. Heidegger, Letter on "humanism", in Segnavia, Adelphi, Milan 1986, pp.
267-316, fed. or. Uber den Humanismus, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1949]
originally published in 1947, it is an open letter to Beaufret, a response
to the question put to him by Beaufret: how is it possible to restore meaning to
term "humanism"? Beaufret became part of the inner circle of
Heidegger's friends. He became his "apostle" in France in the second

postwar period (cf. R. Safranski, Heidegger and his time cit., p. 426 [ed. or. cit., p.
410], he visited Heidegger quite regularly, alone or with others
like-minded friends, and in the 1960s he organized the Le Thor Seminars.
6 La jeune Parque is a poetic cycle by Paul Valéry, Ebauche d'un serpent
it is a poem from the Charmes collection ; the German translation Die junge Parze
(translated by Paul Celan) and Entwurf einer Schlange (translated by RM Rilke),
comes from P. Valéry, Dichtung und Prosa, in Werke frankfurter Ausgabe in 7
Bänden, Insel, Frankfurt am Main, vol. I, 1992, pp. 55-87 and 150-168.
7 Handwritten copies of the poems Magìa and Cielo notte e
shooting stars, taken from RM Rilke, Sämtliche Werke, edited by the Rilke-Archiv,
Insel, Frankfurt am Main, vol. II, 1956, pp. 174 ff .; in this edition comes
indicated the date of writing of the two poems, the beginning of August 1924 for Magia e
11 or 12 August for Night Sky.
Page 279
MAGIC

Page 280
From indescribable metamorphosis arise

similar creations - feel! and believe!
We often suffer from it: all that remains of flames is ash;
but, in art: dust becomes flame.
Here lies the magic. In the circle of the spell
the common word seems exalted ...
and it is as true as the call of the pigeon
calling the invisible dove.
(Muzot, autumn 1924)

Page 281
NIGHT SKY AND FALLING STARS
The sky is immense, filled with a stupendous stillness,

a supply of space, an excess world.
And we, too far away to adapt,
too close to take us away from it.
Here, a star falls! And the desire addressed to her,
the dismayed gaze turned to the sky, he is immediately enraptured:
what has begun, and what has now passed?
what are we guilty of? and what is forgiven us?
(Muzot, autumn 1924)

RMR
8 Following this question from MH, Arendt asked Broch in the
letter dated 8.4.1951 if a copy of his novel had been sent to Heidegger
Die Schuldlosen, Rhein-Verlag, Zürich 1950. As reported by PM
Lützeier, Broch then asked the Munich publisher Willi Weismann to send one
copy of the book to Heidegger, cf. H. Arendt and H. Broch, Briefwechsel 1946-1951,
Jüdischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1996, p. 156.
9 H. Arendt, The origins of totalitarianism cit.
10 By "Hölderlin" we refer to the second German edition (1951) of
The poetry of Hölderlin cit .; the other writing may have been Kant and the

problem of metaphysics cit. (also in the second German edition of

1951).
74.
1 MH, Building-Living-Thinking [ Bauen-Wohnen-Denken ]. A copy
typescript bearing the words' Conference in Darmstadt, 5 August 1951

(Walchen Castle, 20 August 1951), second draft »is found in the Arendt estate. The
typescript features a series of HA's handwritten annotations See also
letter 76 and related note 1. This manuscript is also commented on in
diary under the date «November 1951».
2 A copy of the original typescript of Λόγος: Das Leitwort Heraklits
[Logos: the key word of Heraclitus], Conference at the Bremen Club on May 4th
1951, is found in the Arendt estate with the dedication «H / M» and notes
handwritten in the margin of HA See also letters 76 et seq.
Page 282
3 E. Vietta, Hermann Broch, deceased on May 30, 1951, in "Der Monat" III,
week 1951, n. 36, pp. 615-29. The writer Egon Vietta (1902-1959), a jurist
highly educated, he had been in contact with Broch since the 1930s. Heidegger had it
heard in the 1920s and after the war he had also tried to contact him
personally. In 1950 his book Die Seinsfrage bei Martin appeared
Heidegger (Schwaben, Stuttgart). Vietta's son Silvio reports reports
of his father and mother Dory with MH in his essay Dialog mit den Dingen,
in G. Neske (edited by), Erinnerung an Martin Heidegger, Neske, Pfullingen
1977, pp. 233-37.
4 HA and her husband were close friends of Hermann Broch over the years
Forty and Fifty (as can also be read in H. Arendt and H. Blücher,
Briefe cit.). His death deeply affected HA (see the relative
entry in the diary in June 1951). Later (1955) Arendt edited the
publication of his Essays in the context of the Gesammelte Werke (Rhein
Verlag, Zürich), and dedicated a long introduction to him. The introduction was
reprinted in Menschen in finsteren Zeiten, Piper, München-Zürich 1989, pp.
131-71; then also in H. Arendt and H. Broch, Briefwechsel cit., pp. 185-223, which
also reports the diary entry.
5 HA, The origins of totalitarianism cit.
6 This refers to the separation of his son Jörg from his wife Dorothea, cf. also
letter 77 ff.
7 At Vöcklamarkt. Here, in the Walchen Castle, where on 20 August MH
gave his Build-Dwell-Thinking lecture , the prince had invited them

Albrech Schaumburg-Lippe. Among the prince's guests who listened to the

MH conference there was among others also the poet and writer of radio plays
Günther Eich (1907-1972), who told a friend about his meeting with MH Si
they also found to make excursions together and to play bowls, cf. G.
Eich to Rainer Brambach, letter dated 30.8.1951 and illustrated postcard dated
22.8.1951. The letter is briefly quoted in the "Marbacher Magazin",
Paper 45/1988, p. 65; the picture postcard, showing St. Wolfgang and his
lake, bears the signatures of Friedrich Georg Jünger, Count Clemens of Podewils, of
Sophie Dorothee Countess of Podewils, by MH, Leo Gabriel and Albrecht
prince of Schaumburg-Lippe; it belonged to the testimonies exhibited in the
Marbach's exhibition (in the catalog, in showcase 8, no. 10).
8 Probably refers to one of Rilke's last poems (Ragaz, 24
August 1926), of which HA wrote down the last lines in his diary in May of
1951. The poem Thirteenth response. For Erika (Mitterer), he says:
Page 283
Dove, which remained outside,

out of the dovecote,
again in the circle and in the house,
united with the night, with the day,
aware of intimacy
when inclusion

Page 284
of foreign territories joins

to the experience of flying.
Among the doves,
the most protected,
never threatened,
knows no tenderness;

Page 285
the heart restored

it is the most inhabited;
freer for renunciation
rejoices skill.
Above being-nowhere
the everywhere extends,
ah, the thrown ball,
ah, the ball risked,
does she not fill her hands,
with his return, in a different way?
she is more,
by the weight of its falling back to the ground.
RM Rilke, Sämtliche Werke, vol. 2 (1956), p. 318 ff.
9 See also letters 76 and 77; it was not possible to find out what yes
treated.
75.
MH, [July 1951]: poem On a drawing by Henry Matisse, manuscript,
NLArendt.
The poem is written on airmail paper (DIN-A-5 format). It was also
preserved the drawing by Matisse, traced on another sheet of writing paper for
airmail. HA marked the copy of the
poem which is reproduced here as an autograph (see fig. 10).
76.
1 This is probably the Building-Living-Thinking conference , cf.

2 See letter 74 and related note 2. In the letters we have received MH
he never answered HA's questions, not even at a later time.

HA applications contained in no longer available letters should be

were similar to those he had made in a note in his diary
(August 1951) with the title of "Ad Heidegger, Heraclitus, Logos".
3 See above note 4 to letter 66.
4 In the discussion during the Darmstadt colloquium, cf. MH,
Page 286
Darmstädter Gespräch 2: Mensch und Raum, edited by Otto Bartning, Neue

Darmstädter Verlagsanstalt, Darmstadt 1951. The published wording of
seminar protocol (p. 124) says: «One (we mean MH; the other was Ortega
y Gasset), some - undoubtedly a certain number - think about the possibility that
man lives in a paradise, an ontological paradise ordered in accordance with
sense, in an ontological paradise with all its relative intimacy, with intimacy
native of paradise ". Dolf Sternberger (1907-1989), who he had studied with
Jaspers in Heidelberg, then graduating in Frankfurt with Paul Tillich with a thesis
on Heidegger, he was at that time one of the editors of the magazine Die Gegenwart.
Arendt had known Sternberger since her university days and she remained hers
friend for life. After the war there were also work reasons, because the
HA's first publications in German appeared in the magazine "Die Wandlung"
curated by Sternberger. The Arendt-Sternberger correspondence (1946-1975), in which
among other things it is also defined a quarrel (1953) about Heidegger, is
kept at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach and in the HAPapers.
Sternberger often commented on MH's writings: cf. also his studio
youth Der verstandene Tod (Hirzel, Leipzig 1934), as well as his articles
collected in his Schriften, vol. VIII: Gang zwischen den Meistern (Insel,
Frankfurt am Main 1987). In this last volume a
chapter on the political philosophy of HA (pp. 379-410).
5 Gottfried Benn (1886-1956), whose political biography shows certain
analogies with that of MH, at that time he was about to become «the poet
representative ”(Walter Hinck) of the young Federal Republic. In October
in 1951 he obtained the Georg Büchner Prize. The reason for the "disappointment" of
Heidegger towards Benn, whom he famously valued (see note 4 to
letter 66), it may have been his lecture Nietzsche nach fünfzig Jahren
(in Das Lot, October 1950, pp. 7-14), cf. HW Petzet, Auf einen Stern zugehen
cit., p. 88.
6 Was not identified; cf. also letter 75.
77.
1 It was probably her friendship with the American poet Randall
Jarrel, a scholar of German poetry, to suggest to HA the translation in

English by Hölderlin; cf. E. Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt. For the love of the
world cit., p. 284, and Arendt on Jarrell (H. Arendt, Men in Dark
Times, Harcourt Brace, New York 1968). The most famous of the translations of
Page 287
Jarrell from the German is Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs: A Tale from the Brothers
Grimm (Penguin 1976 2 ); there are no known translations of Hölderlin's poems
that have been published.
2 Means the edition of the works and letters edited by H. von
Hellingrath: F. Hölderlin, Sämtliche Werke, cit.

3 The conference took place on November 5th. A copy of the typescript
original of the conference with the indication: «Bühlerhöhe, 6 October 1951;

Zurich 5 November 1951 »is part of the Arendt estate. Top left of the
first page is the handwritten dedication «H / M». The specimen does not contain any
precisely from HA Probably he had received it from MH only on occasion
of his visit in May 1952, cf. HA to Heinrich Blücher, May 24, 1952
(H. Arendt and H. Blücher, Briefe cit., P. 275).
4 M. Heidegger, Seminar of Zurich, in Seminars, Adelphi, Milan 1992
[and. or. Zürcher Seminar in Vier Seminare, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main

1977; HGA, vol. XV, 1986]. On Emil Staiger cf. letter 72; Theophil Spoerri
(1890-1974) was professor of Romance philology at the University of Zurich from
1922 to 1956.
5 This copy with dedication, underlining and annotating by HA, is
kept at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach, cf. also letter 62.

6 It has not been identified, cf. also letters 74 and 76.
7 Thomas Heidegger (born 1926) was the eldest son of the brother of
Martin, Fritz Heidegger. Until his retirement he was the director

of the Forestry Office in Bonndorf in the Schwarzwald.
8 It means the work for the qualification for the state exam in engineering
mechanics.
9 The first printed was MH, La cosa, in Id. Saggi e discorsi cit. [Das
Ding, in Vorträge und Aufsätze cit.]. As for the other, it might

having dealt with the Letter to Emil Staiger [Brief an Emil Steiger], but in
Arendt bequest the excerpt of this writing has not been removed.
78.
1 Together with the Boss spouses, cf. also the next letter. Medard Boss,
Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist (1903-1990), began a correspondence

epistolary with MH in 1946. A personal relationship soon developed e
spiritual between the two. Boss organized seminars in Zöllikon (on Lake
Zurich), which MH visited regularly. See Zollikon Seminars, Guide,

Page 288
Naples 1991 [ed. or. Zollikoner Seminare, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main

1987]. MH's "existential analytics" profoundly influenced Boss, who
later he founded his own Zurich school of analysis with others
existential, as well as the institute for psychotherapy and analytic psychosomatics-
existential (from 1970-71 the name "Medard Boss Foundation" was added).
On the importance of Heidegger for Swiss psychiatry cf. below (note 11 to
letter 118) the cited article that Gion Condrau wrote for the eightieth anniversary
Heidegger's birthday.
2 MH's only grandson was Clothilde Oschwald (born 1923), who did
married in Hüfingen near Donaueschingen, cf. also letter 150.

3 II 21.3.1952, HA, who from the previous year was an American citizen,
will arrive for the second time from the United States to Europe (France, Switzerland,
England, Germany). Her trip also took her to Israel, and only in August
returned to the United States. For travel details, see the letters he wrote to
her husband (H. Arendt and H. Blücher, Briefe cit., pp. 235 ff.).
4 The Works of Aristotle, edited by WD Ross, 12 flights., Oxford University
Press, London 1927-1954. The second volume of the edition contains, in addition to
other writings, Physics.
5 K. Lowith, Heidegger. Thinker in times of deprivation , in Id., Essays on
Heidegger, Einaudi, Turin 1966, with the modified title of The existence that is
accepts and the being that gives itself, pp. 3-48 [ed. or. Martin Heidegger: Denker in
dürftiger Zeit, in «Die neue Rundschau» LXIII (1952), no. 1, pp. 1-27]. On the
Lowith's relationship with Heidegger cf. also note 3 to letter 28. HA
discussed by letter with H. Blücher on Lowith's article, cf. in particular the
letter dated 13.6.1952 (H. Arendt and H. Blücher, Briefe cit., pp. 288 ff ·)
6 MH's statement probably refers to Martin Buber,
Religion und modernes Denken , in «Merkur», VI, February 1952, notebook no. 2,
pp. 101-20, an essay in which Buber compares, among others, also with
Heidegger. Martin Buber (18781965), born in Vienna, scholar of religion
Hebrew, was at the time a professor of social philosophy at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem.
7 In the preface to Thus Spoke Zarathustra, quoted (with the indication "
1883, n. 5 ») and interpreted by MH in What does it mean to think ?, vol. II,

SugarCo, Milan 1978, pp. 62 ff. [and. or. Was heißt denken ?, Niemeyer,
Tübingen 1954, pp. 28 ff.].
79.

Page 289

1 HA arrived in Freiburg in May (presumably just Monday 19th),
stayed there for a short week, saw HD several times (with her
wife and without) and attended his lesson on May 23. He reported so
informing her husband of this visit and a subsequent one, on May 30,
during which he was able to listen to another hour of lessons. Both in the first
an occasion that in the second had resulted in scenes of violent jealousy from
part of Elfride Heidegger. See H. Arendt and H. Blücher, Briefe cit., Pp. 253 ff.
and 274 ff. In the diary of HA there are notes relating to the visit a
Freiburg and a larger passage (dated 30.5.52) entitled «The course of
Heidegger ». The Heideggerian course of the summer semester of 1952 was the
continuation of the one started in the previous winter semester, cf. the text
of letters 77 and 79. HA listened to the third and fourth hour of the second
part of the course (What does it mean to think? cit., vol. II, pp. 27-42 [ed. or. cit.,
pp. 91-101, 153-59]). See also MH's retrospective reflection in the letter
81 of 15 December 1952.
2 This refers to the second edition of Paths interrupted [Holzwege], La copia di
this book which was of HA is not preserved in the Arendt legacy.

3 As far as we know, HA and J. Beaufret have never met
personally.
4 Could not be identified.
80.
This letter was written after HA's aforementioned visits to Freiburg, cf.
note 1 to the previous letter. HA followed Heidegger's will and
she never went to visit him in Freiburg anymore. This is what can be deduced from the
letter to Heinrich Blücher dated 13 June 1952 (H. Arendt and H. Blücher, Briefe
cit., p. 288 ff.). It is quite possible that HA only reviewed MH 15
years later, that is, in 1967; cf. letter 92.
81.
1 On the first page of the letter MH added, writing it
transversely to the text of the letter: "The printout contains two essays:
Logos and What does it mean to think? (the latter is reprinted in the magazine
"Merkur").

Page 290
2 The exact date is 7 October 1951; the topic is «Georg Trakl: a

discussion of his poetry ». Gerhardt Stroomann (1866-1957), the founder and
director of the "Bühlerhöhe" clinic in Baden-Baden, was "a doctor of the type of
councilor Behrens in Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain "(R. Safranski,
Heidegger and his time cit., P. 471 [ed. or. cit., pp. 451 ff.]).
3 Karl Jaspers to Martin Heidegger, 24.7.1952 (M. Heidegger and K. Jaspers,
Briefwechsel ài., Pp. 207-11).

4 Between July 31 and August 8, 1952, HA visited the Jaspers in St.
Moritz, cf. the letter she wrote to her husband on that occasion (H. Arendt ed
H. Blücher, Briefe cit., Pp. 319 ff.)
82.
1 Presumably on the occasion of the sixty-fourth birthday on 26
September 1953.
2 HA liked to quote several poems from The Western Eastern Divan of
Goethe. In a subsequent letter to MH, referring to their new meeting of the

1950, cited the poem Without Limits, in The Western East Sofa, Rizzoli,
Milan 1990, p. 115 [ed. or. Unbegrenzt, in Goethes Werkes, Hamburger
Ausgabe in 14 Bänden, 2 vols., Wegner, Hamburg 1960 5 ].
83.
1 Photographs could not be identified.
2 The question of technique [Die Frage nach der Teknik \, lecture
held on November 18 at the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. Safranski

( Heidegger and his time cit., P. 474 [ed. Or. Cit., Pp. 453 ff.]) Writes to
about this event: «That evening the whole meeting had been made
the Munich intellectual elite of the 1950s ... It was probably the most
Heidegger's great public success in post-war Germany ».
3 Or the Society for Art and Science of the Hessian electorate, cf. letter
9. The topic of the 1953 conference was ... poetically inhabits man ...
84.
MH, April 21, 1954; original handwritten letter, NLArendt., on paper
headed: Heidegger, Freiburg i. Br.-Zähringen, Rötebuck 47.
1 It was Edward 's translation of Being and Time into English
Page 291

Robinson (University of Kansas), cf. the next letter from HA

2 Probably the Germanist Hans Jaeger (1898-1971), who emigrated to
1920s in the United States where he taught at various universities. Lastly

(from 1947) was professor of German literature at the University of Indiana a
Bloomington. He has published two volumes in English on Heidegger; in German
appeared: H. Jaeger, Heidegger und die Sprache, Francke, Bern-München 1971.
3 None of the persons named has published a translation of the works of
Heidegger.
4 In 1954, the volume Vorträge und Aufsätze was published in Neske, Pfullingen .
5 On April 27, 1953, Karl Jaspers had given a lecture entitled
Wahrheit und Unheil der Bultmannschen Entmythologisierung on the occasion of the

congress of Swiss theologians in Basel, the text of which was published by the magazine
German «Merkur» in November and December 1953. Bultmann replied on the
"Schweizerische Theologische Umschau," and Jaspers replied with a letter
very detailed. The whole controversy was later published: K. Jaspers and R.
Bultmann, Die Frage der Entmythologisierung, Piper, München 1954. See also
HA in the letter to Jaspers (July 13, 1953), in which he expresses himself extensively, e
sometimes critically, regarding his attack on Bultmann: H.
Arendt and K. Jaspers, Correspondence cit., Pp. 134-35 [ed. or. pp. 257-59].
6 B. Allemann, Hölderlin und Heidegger, Atlantis, Zürich-Freiburg 1954.
7 This refers to the Lettre sur l'humanisme 7 - 77 , in "Cahiers du Sud" XL
(1953), no. 319, pp. 385-406; XL (1953-54), no. 320, pp. 68-88. The translator is
Roger Munier, who also translated What is Metaphysics? (1929, later
reprinted in Segnavia) and was part of the circle of seminar participants
by Le Thor.
85.
HA, April 29, 1954; typewritten copy of letter (with handwritten signature),
HAPapers, with typewritten heading: Hannah Arendt, 130 Morningside
Drive, New York 27, NY
HA had sent a copy of the letter to Robinson.
1 In 1962 the following edition appeared at Harper & Row in New York: M.
Heidegger, Being and Time, translated by J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson. TO

today it is the most used Anglo-American edition of Being and Time . A
new translation was recently published by Joan Stambaugh: Being
and Time: A Translation of "Sein und Zeit", State University of New York Press,
New York 1996 (see also note 5 to letter 119).
Page 292
2 A copy of the letter to Robinson dated April 16, 1954 (five pages

dense typewritten) is preserved in the HAPapers (Cont. 59, Folder

"Heidegger, Martin, correspondence regarding 1952-74").
3 During the winter of 1953-54, HA lectured and lectured at universities
of Princeton, Harward and Notre-Dame. See also the next letter.
86.
HA, May 8, 1954; typewritten copy of letter, NLArendt.
The copy of the letter is unsigned. On the back of the sheet is a passage
activity analysis (referred to point 2), which had been started but
then not included in the letter sent: «what I learned from you during the
youth: this must ultimately lead me to an analysis of society
contemporary, which, as it is a labor society, has also included the
produce in the labor process and consequently no longer manufacture the so-called
consumer goods to be used, but only for their consumption
immediate. Politically this leads to [...] »Here the text stops. In
this letter, making Heidegger privy to his work, HA has
drafted the project of a book that will only definitively take shape
after his lectures at the University of Chicago (April 1956) under the title The
Human Condition.
1 Quote from MH letter 84 dated 21 April 1954.
2 First lines of one of the poems that MH sent to HA in April
of 1950 (doc. 58).

3 The first English translation of Ober den Humanismus appeared, at what
results, in 1962: MH, Letter on Humanism, translation by E. Lohner, in

Phtlosophy in thr Twentieth Century: An Antology, edited and with introduction by
W. Barrett and HD Aiken, Random, New York, vol. II (1962), pp. 271-302. See
above letter 84.
4 It is meant Philip Rahv (1908-1973), Russian by birth, who directed together
to William Phillips the Partisan Review from 1934 to 1969.

5 See Aristotle, Politics 1332 b 12; quoted and interpreted in H. Arendt, Che
what is authority, in Between past and future, Vallecchi, Florence 1970, pp. 101-55
[Was ist Autorität ?, in Fragwürdige Traditionsbestände im politischen Denken
der Gegenwart, Europäische Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main 1957, pp. 117-
68, p. 146].
6 The good - the beautiful.
7 We are referring here to the six lectures that HA gave (between Γ8 October and 12
Page 293
November 1953) with the title Karl Marx and the Tradition of Western Political
Thought from Princeton University; also a cycle of three lessons
Philosophy and Politics: The Problem of Action and Thought After the French
Revolution, held on March 3 and 4, 1954 at the University of Notre-Dame; finally, between

the other, two lectures at Harvard University, one of which probably

on the essence of totalitarianism and the problems of its "understanding" (cf. H.
Arendt, On thr Nature of Totalitarìanism: An Essay in XJnderstanding, in Id.,
Essays in Understanding 1930-1954, Harcourt Brace, New York 1963, pp.
328360). The lessons cited formed the basis for the German publication of
Fragwürdige Traditionsbestände im politischen Denken der Gegenwart cit.
8 The French philosopher Jacques Maritain (1882-1973) taught at Princeton
University since 1948.

9 Heinrich Blücher, HA's second husband, had become in 1952
professor of philosophy at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson (NY). From

1950 he had taught courses in art history and philosophy at the New School for Social
Research in Manhattan (New York).
10 Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft, the German edition of The
Origins of Totalitarianism , appeared in the autumn of 1955 at the Europäischen

Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main.
11 See letter 83.
12 Among the HAPapers is a copy of a letter to Hugo Friedrich dated 15
July 1953 in which HA expresses an opinion on the "interpreting" of

MH The comment refers to the Heideggerian interpretation of Trakl, MH,
Georg Trakl: Eine Erörterung seines Gedichtes [Georg Trakl: a discussion
of his poetry]. HA writes:
On Heidegger I do not share his opinion at all, particularly as far as
it's about interpreting. The "violence" is nothing more than the so-called
"Deformation" of Picasso. The latter arises (indeed already in Cézanne, where
it all begins) from the fact that the world is no longer portrayed (according to the famous
expression of Cocteau, photography really liberated painting) in such a way
from having to make a three-dimensional space appear in perspective on the image; the
painter, on the other hand, paints as if he were himself sitting in the center of the image,
from which the three authentically human dimensions now unfold "in
floor »: above and below, right and left, in front and behind.
Heidegger, it seems to me, does not interpret in the manner of a reportage, in which
first of all the work in question is exhibited and then an interpretation of it. Instead
to proceed thus, Heidegger places himself at the center of the work, he himself calls it the
Page 294
nondetto (which still seems to me a traditional self-misunderstanding). In any case it is

as a reserved space, in which the reader or listener can take his place. TO
starting from here the work develops backwards from its result-printed in a
live speech, to which it is possible to reply. What makes her the impression of one
violence, it seems to me the specific vivacity; in other words, sitting in this
space that is in the work itself, the difference between thinking and thought disappears,

pthoeetw
ryorakndhapsoseptru,njgu.s(tYaosuitkwaswnY
no oteaotrsi,giin am
lly oppreinseionnt, tw
hehemnost important poet
English of the twentieth century, who stated: «Who can behold the dancer from the
dance ". This statement applies to Heidegger as much as it is to Picasso).
Heidegger does not say what the author did not say, (as it sometimes seems
to believe) but scrutinizes the space of the nondetto, which in every great work is something of
specifically different, and from which, thanks to it, the whole work had
originated and organized itself. In this I believe that he is a master just as he is
Picasso. But so naturally it can happen that the "interpretant" has a weight
greater than the "interpreted"; then, but only then, everything becomes "violent",
simply because, instead of bringing the work to life, it blows it up. Me
it seems that this is exactly what happened to him with Trakl, although in my opinion in him
there are very remarkable things; Trakl is not a great poet, despite having
wrote some nice lines; also the thing is wrong when dealing with
symbols, which unfortunately play an important role in Trakl.
13 At the APSA Annual Convention in Chicago (8-12
September), HA intervened with a report on Concern with Politics in

Recent European Philosophical Thougtb. In this relationship they can
recognize for the first time the features of his "political" philosophy (yes
differs on the one hand with respect to the European philosophical tradition, and on the other in
comparisons of the principles of empirical political science of American origin).
Heidegger is represented as an exponent of a philosophy of "historicity"
who discovered the way to break with tradition. The
"Conference on technique", but it is not discussed in detail.
87.
1 For the volume celebrating the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of
gymnasium MH wrote a contribution entitled Aletheia cit.

2 Only in 1959 was the volume Unterwegs zur published by the publisher Neske
Sprache.
Page 295
88.
1 Abandonment and On the way to language [Unterwegs zur Sprache],
2 HA had come to Europe in the months of September and October 1959. Ad
Hamburg was awarded the Lessing Prize (28.9), after which she went to Berlin
and later in Italy. Almost a week passed from 23 October to
Basel by Jaspers. From there he continued his journey by going to Frankfurt, Köln and
Brussels. From Hamburg he had sent MH a telegram for his

70th birthday. HA's journey is extensively documented in

several letters with Karl Jaspers, Heinrich Blücher and Mary McCarthy who are
been published in the meantime.
3 See Piper publisher's ad in the 'Literaturkalender Spektrum des
Geistes », no. 9 (1960), p. 111, where HA is presented among other things as an author
by Rahel Varnhagen cit .; cf. in this volume fig. 12.
4 They are small sheets with a dedication to be pasted on the publications that
they are shipped separately. HA's copy of the essay L'abbandono è

preserved (without dedication) in the Bard-College Library; has not been
You can find his copy of On the Way to Language.
89.
HA, October 28, 1960; typewritten copy of letter, NLArendt.
On this copy there is a small manuscript (with some retouching),
also kept in the Arendt legacy. The text reproduced here corresponds to the
retouched handwritten version (= typed). The minute is signed "Hannah".
1 Means the German edition of The Human Condition, which had been
published, in the translation conducted by Arendt herself, with the title Vita activa
oder Vom tätigen Leben, from the publisher Kohlhammer. In the Arendt legacy, in addition to the
copy of the letter and to the minute, there is a small piece of notes (in
US format), on which HA had written the following dedication in pen:
De Vita activa:
I have left out the dedication of this book.
How do I dedicate it to you,
close friend,
Page 296
which I am and I am not

remained faithful,
always for love.
It must therefore be assumed that Arendt does not send the dedication. The copy of De
vita adiva that MH should have received from the publisher is not available. In the
his letters to HA, Heidegger never entered into the merits of the contents of the
book, but he took note of it, and it seems to have been at least the subject of one of them
interview (see note 1 to letter 105).
90.
MH, April 13, 1965; handwritten text on the back of a business card

than1kTyhoeu ptohiploresossp,hN
erLH
Aarnens-dG
t.eorg Gadamer (born in 1900) was one of the pupils of
MH of the Marburg period, cf. his writing Masters and companions in
journey of thought, Queriniana, Brescia 1980 [ed. or. Philosophische
Lejahre: Eine Rundschau, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1977, especially
pp. 210-21]. After the qualification and the period spent in Marburg as free
lecturer, in 1937 he became extraordinary professor of that same university,
and then, a year later, at the University of Leipzig as full professor. In
1947 he left Leipzig, taught first in Frankfurt, and then from 1949
at the University of Heidelberg (until retirement in 1968). In many of his
publications confronted directly or indirectly with Heidegger, cf.
in particular The paths of Heidegger, Marietti, Genoa 1987 [Heideggers Wege:
Studien zum Spätwerk, Mohr, Tübingen 1983].
2 In 1958 HA had been admitted to the Academy as a member
corresponding; from that moment his address was on the list

Journal of the Academy Members, published annually.
91.
MH, October 6, 1966; original handwritten letter with two attachments,
NLArendt.
1 Allusion to their first meeting in the winter semester 1924-25, cf. Note
1 to letter 1 and note is to letter 12.

2 M. Heidegger, Dialogue around Heraclitus, Coliseum, Milan 1992 [ed.
or. Heraklit, Seminar Wintesemenster 1966-67, Klostermann 1970]. Eugen Fink

(1905-1975), student and private assistant of Husserl, from 1948 he was professor of
philosophy and science of education at the University of Freiburg. He and HA yes
Page 297
they had known since their university days.

3 In 1962 MH had made a trip to Greece for the first time;
he dedicated his travel notes titled to his wife Elfride Heidegger

Aufenthalte [Stays] for his 70th birthday. With this trip
in Greece (which had been planned and canceled twice) MH granted a
"Desire he had for years," he then embarked on the second and third journeys
over a relatively short time (in 1964 and 1966 respectively),
and a quarter (without his wife) at the invitation of the Academy of Sciences and Arts
of Athens in April 1967. The Heideggers made a last trip in
May 1967 in the Aegean islands. For details see M. Heidegger and E. Kästner,
Briefwechsel 1953-1974, Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1986; cf. also HW
Petzet, Auf einen Stern zugehen cit., P. 112 and pp. 172 ff.
4 This poem was first published in 1927 in the magazine
«Gartenlaube». See F. Hölderlin, Poems of the tower , Feltrinelli, Milan 1993, pp.

118-19 [ed. or. Sämtliche Werke (Stuttgarter Hölderlin-Ausgabe), vol. 2,

Stuttgart 1951, p. 299 (Text), p. 918 (Variations and explanations). The version
published by Beissner differs in one passage from that quoted by MH In the fourth
verse of the first verse there is "frohem Glanz" instead of "hohem Glanz".
5 The postcard, showing a fountain on the left (Georg Wolff:
«Near the hut, spring water gushes out of a pipe lined with wood and gurgles
in a trough ... »), is reproduced in W. Biemel, Martin Heidegger cit. p. 71. The
postcard that HA received is kept in the Deutsches photographic archive
Literaturarchiv of Marbach.
ninety two.
HA, October 19, 1966; original typewritten letter (with handwritten signature),
sheet of letterhead: Hannah Arendt, 370 Riverside Drive, New York 25,
NY (and handwritten addition by MH: 10025), NLHeidegger. In the Arendt legacy
the minute autograph of the letter is preserved, with slight differences compared to the
version which was later sent, and which is reproduced here.
1 In the minute originally "A colui [den] (later retouched in a chi
[denen]) whose heart spring has broken, [to him, den] autumn heals it ».
Consequently we are speaking here on the second den [to him].
2 This statement can be justified by reference to 1963,
when HA and Heinrich Blücher embarked on a four-week trip to

Greece. HA wrote to Jaspers (April 14, 1963): «... yesterday we went to Aegina, whose
temple, located at the top of the mountain and with a view that sweeps around up
Page 298
all the islands, it is perhaps the most beautiful of all. We decided to go back
another time before leaving "(H. Arendt and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel cit., p.
536.
3 Quote from the poem Without Limits, in The western eastern sofa cit., P.
115 [ed. or. cit., p. 23].
93.
1 On 26 July HA, who came from Basel, held one in Freiburg
lecture on Walter Benjamin, which he then published in 1968 both in English and in
German. The conference, which took place in the lecture hall of the University of
Freiburg, had been organized by the University's Institute for Atlantic Studies
of Massachusetts (Prof. Marc Ratner, a friend of Heidegger's translator,
Glenn Gray, cf. note 2 to letter 97). MH was aware of the preparations e
he personally appeared in the main hall, which was noted with amazement by whom
He knew me. It was perhaps the first time since 1952 (see note 1 ff. To letter 79),

thealtaM
C n aHt tahnedM
HHA hmuett(aGg.aB
ina,um
moarneno,vEerritnhneedrauyngaefnteranPaPual'usl historic visit
Celan, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1986, pp. 59 ff.). The day following the
HA conference met again, MH gave her a copy of his as a gift
libretto just released by Reclam, The origin of the work of art [Der Ursprung des
Kunstwerkes], with dedication.
2 HA had been greeted with warm applause and started hers
lecture with these words «Most esteemed Martin Heidegger, ladies and gentlemen!
»(Information provided by Joachim W. Storck).
3 It may have been Wilhelm Goerdt's introduction to the volume, da
himself curated, Die Sowjetphilosophie , Schwabe, Basel-Stuttgart 1967.
94.
HA, August 11, 1967; original typewritten letter (with handwritten signature),
NLHeidegger, on Hotel Euler Basel's headed paper.
1 From 3 June to 13 August a
large Paul Klee exhibition, which had previously been set up at the
Guggenheim Museum in New York. Paul Klee (1879-1940) was one of the artists of
which MH dealt closely and whose works he saw in David's collection
Thompson (see HW Petzet, Auf einem Stern zugehen cit., Pp. 154 ff.). See G.
Seubold, Heideggers nachgelassene Klee Notizen , in "Heidegger Studien", vol.
Page 299
IX, 1993, pp. 5-12.

2 HA included it in the written version of his lecture; cf. HAS,
Walter Benjamin in The Future Behind, il Mulino, Bologna 1981 [ed. or. Walter
Benjamin in "Merkur", XXII (1968), nn. 1 2 3 4].
95.
96.
1 See next letter.
97.
HA, September 24, 1967; original letter with an attachment, typewritten (with
autograph signature), NLHeidegger.
1 This is most likely a copy of the proofs ("press sheets") of
essay from the volume Segnavia cit., p. 413. The passage quoted by HA with
the indication of p. 23 can be found in vol. IX of the HGA on p. 466 (without the
underlines).

2 The "Heidegger project" of the publisher Harper is probably meant here

& Row (see below, the letter from HA dated 27.11.1967 [doc. 100]). J. Glenn Gray
(1913-1977), American philosopher, lecturer at Colorado College of
Colorado Springs, he translated into English with his wife Ursula Gray
several works by MH. From the 1960s onwards they were both held in close proximity
contact with both HA and MH Fred Wieck was the competent reader
("Editor") who was in charge of the works of
Heidegger, and who was also a translator.
3 Starting with this letter, HA has always written the proper name of
Elfride Heidegger in the exact spelling, ie only with the "i".

4 The indication of the sources provided by HA refers to Franz Kafka,
Gesammelte Schriften, Schocken, New York 1946 [trad. it. F. Kafka, Confessions
and diaries, Mondadori, Milan 1996]. See also the interpretation of the parable
in the preface (first published in 1961) in Zwischen
Vergangenheit und Zukunft, Piper, München Zürich 1994, p. 11, as also in
HA, Thinking, in The life of the mind, cit. pp. 296 ff. [ Thinking in The Life of
the Mind cit.].
Page 300
98.
1 It was not possible to trace which letter from Kafka was sent from
HA In 1967 it was released in Frankfurt by S. Fischer (in a licensed edition

publisher Schocken Books), in the context of Gesammelte Werke (edited by
Max Brod), the volume Briefe an Felice und andere Korrespondenz aus der
Verlobungszeit (edited by Erich Heller and Jürgen Born).
2 Alexandre Kojève, Introduction ä la lecture de Hegel: Leçons sur la
phénomenologie de esprit de 1933 ä 1939 à l'école des hautes études, gathered and
published by R. Queneau, Gallimard, Paris 1947, edition 1962 2 (edition
Partial German: Hegel: Eine Vergegenwärtigung seines Denkens. Kommentar
zur "Phänomenologie des Geistes", edited by Iring Fetscher, Kohlhammer,
Stuttgart 1958). It is not known which edition shipped HA
3 On 17 August, coming from Basel, HA had been to Freiburg, cf. letter 95.
5 HA was awarded the Sigmund Freud Prose Prose
scientific. The handover ceremony took place on October 21, 1967 (in
absentia).
99.
MH, October 30, 1967; original handwritten letter with attachment, NLArendt.

finds1 aInsethrieesphooftpohgoratopghriacpahricchpivoertorafitthsethDaetuHtsAchheasdLtaitkeeratu
n wriatrhchisv in Marbach yes
Minox camera, probably on the occasion of his visit to
Freiburg on August 17th. Small format copies are numbered HA on the
back (four additional images are in post card format). See in
this volume fig. 15, and also letter 151.
2 Poem by Georg Trakl, MH quotes the first verse. Georg Trakl, In the dark,
in Operepoetics, University Editions, Rome, 1963, p. 247 [ed. or. Die

Dichtungen, in Georg Trakl-Gesamtausgabe, edited by Wolfgang Schneditz, 3
flights., Otto Müller, Salzburg 1948, vol. i, p. 148]. See also MH, Die Sprache
im Gedicht, in HGA, vol. XII, p. 75.
3 Poetry by Georg Trakl (in Id., Opere poetici cit., P. 123; [ed. Or. Cit., P.
81]).
100.
HA, November 27, 1967; original typewritten letter (with signature
Page 301
autograph), NLHeidegger.
1 It is presumably an illustrated postcard (preserved today
at the photographic archive of the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach), on the back

about which HA had written:

Page 302
The Upper Danube

The Istro of Hölderlin
Istro ( Ister is the Greek-Latin name for the Danube River) is a hymn of
Hölderlin which has come down to us unfinished, on which MH had given a course in
summer semester 1942: Hölderlins Hymne «Der Ister» [Hölderlin's hymn
«L'Istro»]. The postcard may have been attached to the letter dated 29
September 1967 by MH
2 See in this regard letter 124.
3 Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, fragment Von der Darstellung (1779), in
Id., Sämtliche Werke, vol. 10 (1855), pp. 193-201, pp. 199 ff.
4 HA refers here to the riots in the universities, to the protests against the
the Vietnam War and their repercussions on political and cultural life
American. On the literary elaboration of these experiences by HA yes
see above all his treatise On violence, Mondadori, Milan 1971 [ed. or.
On Violence, Harcourt Brace, New York 1970].
5 W. Manchester, Death of a President. November 20-November 25,1963,
Harper & Row, New York 1967; German edition, Der Tod des Präsidenten, 20
bis 25 November 196 3, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1967. S. Alliluyeva, Only
One Year, Ewanston-Harper & Row, New York 1969; German edition Das erste
Jahr, Molden, Wien 1969.
101.
HA, March 17, 1968; original typewritten letter (with handwritten signature),
NLHeidegger.
1 Refers to the English edition of What Does It Mean to Think? ·. M.
Heidegger, What Is Called Thinking ?, Harper & Row, New York 1968.

102.
MH, April 12, 1968, original handwritten letter, NLArendt.
1 See letters 148 and related note 5 and letter 149.
2 HA, Walter Benjamin cit., Cf. also note 1 to letter 93.
103.
NLHeidegger.
104.
Page 303
MH, September 6, 1968; original telegram, NLArendt.

1 On the occasion of the second seminar in Le Thor. René Char (1907-1988,
French poet and member of the resistance) and MH had met in Paris
in 1955. A friendship developed which propitiated MH's frequent trips to
Provence. From 1966 they also met in Le Thor for seminars (cf. M.
Heidegger, Séminaires Le Thor, in Seminars [ed. or. in HGA, vol. XV, pp. 271-
421].
105.
In his diary HA noted: «Freiburg-Heidegger: 12.9.68. Photos-
Aphrodite-Vita Activa ».
106.
HA, [February 28, 1969]; original letter handwritten on letter paper
of the Hotel Euler Basel - NLHeidegger.
Karl Jaspers died on February 26. The funeral ceremony took place in
private form on March 3, one day before the official commemoration
of the University of Basel. During the funeral ceremony, HA read verses from the
Bible in German and Hebrew (cf. K. Piper and H. Saner (ed.), In
Erinnerungen an Karl Jaspers, Piper, München-Zürich 1974, p. 186). His
public memorial speech of March 4 is published among other things in H.
Arendt and K. Jaspers, Correspondence cit., Pp. 237-39 [ed. or. cit., pp. 719 ff],
107.
108.
Elfride Heidegger, April 20, 1969; original typewritten letter, NLArendt.

Auto1gM
raepahnsitghneatu
unrieve("rsMitayrtcionu"rbseysM
puHb'slishhaendd)i.n volumes XLIII, XLIV and XLVII
of the HGA, dating back to the winter semester 1936-37, the summer semester 1937 and al
summer semester 1939.
109.
HA to Elfride Heidegger, April 25, 1969; typewritten copy of letter,
NLArendt.
Page 304
1 Curt Wormann (1900-1991), cf. further, in this letter and in that of 17

May 1969.
2 It was at that time David C. Mearns. HA probably knew him
personally, because agreements for

deposit the legacy of Arendt herself at the Library of Congress. The first
delivery took place in 1965.
3 Glenn Gray to Hannah Arendt, April 13, 1969. The letter is kept in
HAPapers (Cont. 10).
110.
Elfride Heidegger, April 28, 1969; original typewritten letter (with signature
autograph), NLArendt., with a hand-added addition by MH
1 It was not possible to reconstruct which photographs and which film yes
treated. According to a communication from Hans Saner to the curator, HA had it

Please send pictures of Jaspers deceased to MH. But he was able to grant
this wish only in June, and MH thanked him for sending them to him
in August 1969.
111.
HA to Elfride H., May 17, 1969; original typewritten letter (with a
handwritten phrase and handwritten signature), NLHeidegger. In the NLArendt it is
kept the copy without the handwritten addition and signature; moreover the
the last paragraph written in the margin is missing as well as the salutation formulas.
1 M. Heidegger, Introduction into Metaphysics, translated by Ralph Manheim,
Yale University Press, New Haven 1959.

2 In the years between 1949 and 1952 HA was director of the «Jewish Cultural
Reconstruction ", cf. note 1 to letter 46.
112.
M. and Elfride H., June 4, 1969; original typewritten letter (with signatures
autographs), NLArendt. on letterhead paper: Martin Heidegger, Freiburg i.
Br., Zähringen, Rötebuck 47.

113.
114.
Page 305

1 Fourcade (born in 1938; today she is one of the most important French poetesses
living) collated in 1971 a volume in honor of René Char in which they were
published poems by MH with the title Gedachtes / Pensivement, cf. letter 129,
2 The details of this agreement are contained in the chapter Das Martin
Heidegger-Archiv, in B. Zeller, Marbacher Memorabilien: Vom Schiller-

National-museum zum Deutschen Literaturarchiv, 1953-1973, Deutsche
Schillergesellschaft, Marbach am Neckar 1995, pp. 479 ff.
3 By the end of May HA and her husband Heinrich Blücher had arrived in
Europe. It was basically a holiday stay in Tegna, a

small town in Italian Switzerland, above Lake Maggiore.
4 MH and Hans Jonas (see note 4 to letter 31) had met a
Zurich, by Jonas' wish. The impressions reported in the interview by

the latter are expressed in the next letter; also, for reflection
retrospective, see Jonas' interview with Jürgen Werner (J. Werner, Von der
Macht des Guten. Der Philosoph Hans Jonas, in «Frankfurter Allgemeine
Magazin », no. 500, 29 weeks 1989, pp. 13-34). Heidegger's consideration
that Jonas "has openly distanced himself from theology" might be referring
to the debate he raised in 1964 on Heidegger und die Theologie (see note 12
under letter 118).
115.
HA, August 8, 1969; original typewritten letter (with signature and greetings
autographs), NLHeidegger.
1 Thor's second seminar protocol was released in 1969 in one
private edition: Séminaire tenu par le Professeur Martin Heidegger sur la

Differenzschrift de Hegel.
2 GWF Hegel, Logic and metaphysics of Jena, Verifications, Trento 1982 [ed.
or. Jenenser Logik: Metaphysik und Naturphilosophie, edition conducted on

original manuscripts by Georg Lasson, Meiner, Leilzig 1923.
3 It means GWF Hegel, Difference between the philosophical system of Fichte and
that of Schelling, in First critical writings, Mursia, Milan 1971, pp. 1-120
[ Differenz des Fichte'sehen und Schelling'sehen System der Philosophie (1801)].

A copy of the paperback edition of this work by Hegel was donated by M.

H. to HA The volume, which bears an autograph dedication «To Hannah in memory
of the summer of 1969 - Martin », is preserved in the Deutsches Literaturarchiv of
Page 306
Marbach.
116.
HA, September 1969; xerocopied typewritten manuscript (with dedication
autograph on added ticket), NLHeidegger.
The manuscript, of which another copy is preserved in the HAPapers, was the
text of a radio speech by HA, which was recorded on 25 September 1969 a
New York and broadcast in Bayerische Rundfunk's «Nachtstudio». The tape of
broadcast recording has been preserved, the version delivered by the
Arendt differs only slightly from the one in print Martin Heidegger ist
achtzig Jahre alt [Martin Heidegger is eighty] first published in
"Merkur", then later in Men in Dark Times (with annotations
conform to the original version). This volume reproduces the version
sent to MH with the text unchanged, except the necessary adaptations a
conform it to the criteria of this edition, and with slight retouching of the notes
inserted by Arendt herself.
1 Read 775.
2 M. Heidegger, Thought and poetry, in On the experience of thinking,
Armando, Rome 1977, p. 37 [ed. or. Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens, Neske,
Pfullingen 1954, p. 9].
3 Time and being cit., Pp. 97-126 [ed. or. Zur Sache des Denkens (1969),
forthcoming in HG A, vol. 14].

4 So argues Jean Beaufret. [I refer in this regard to the
corresponding note of the French edition, in which Pascal David suggests that yes
from a statement made by Heidegger in 1955 to the Entretiens de Cherisy,
quoted by Beaufret in Heidegger and the Greek world, in «L'Arc», n. 2 (1958), then in
De l'existentialisme à Heidegger, Vrin, Paris 1986, p. 101: «Il n'y pas de
philosophie heideggérienne, et méme s'il devait y avoir quelque chose de ce
genre, je ne m'intéresserais pas à cette philosophie - mais uniquement à affaire
et au thème sur lesquels demeure axée toute philosophie ". Editor's note
of the Italian edition].
5 Segnavia, the title of the collection of essays, lectures and lectures of the years
from 1929 to 1962 (1967).

6 From the introductory note to Trails interrupted [Holzwege], a collection of
essays from the years between 1935 and 1946 (1950).

7 Cf. The end of philosophy and the task of thought, in Time and Being
cit., pp. 169 ff. [Das Ende der Philosphie und die Aufgabe des Denkens, in Zur

Page 307
Sache des Denkens cit. ].

8 Cf., in the same work, the «Seminar protocol on the conference
Tempo ed essere ", which constitutes the first part of the book ( Tempo ed essere cit.,
pp. 133 ff.).
7 The abandonment, Il Melangolo, Genoa 1989, p. 30 [ed. or. Gelassenheit
Neske, Pfullingen 1959, p. 15].

10 Ibid. p. 31 [ed. or. cit., p. 16].
11 M. Heidegger, Nietzsche, Adelphi, Milan, 1994 [ed. or. Nietzsche
(1961), in HGA, vol. VI, 1996-97, volume I, p. 618]; Time and being cit., P. 169
[and. or. cit., pp. 61, 30, 78] and Heidegger's preface to the book by J. William and S.
J. Richardson, Heidegger. Through Phenomenology to Thought, Nijhoff, The
Hague 1963.
12 In a letter from Hegel to Zillmann from 1807.
13 See. Sophist 263rd, Theaetetus 190a.
14 Teeteto 155d.
15 As part of an interpretation by Heraclitus cit., P. 177 [ed. or. cit., p.
55].
16 As part of an interpretation by Parmenides in Tempo ed essere cit.,
p. 182 [ed. or. cit., p. 75].
17 The abandonment cit., P. 45 [ed. or. cit., p. 56].
18 Introduction to Metaphysics cit., P. 24 [ed. or. cit., p. I],
19 Teeteto
20 Politician 1259a 6 ff.
21 Republic 388.
22 This adventure, which today, after the abatement of rancor and above all
after the false news has been partially rectified, it is mostly indicated as
an "error" has many aspects, including the relative one
at the time of the Weimar Republic, which did not appear to those who lived there
not at all rosy, as it is seen today against the terrible background of that
that came later. The content of the error differs significantly from what
were then the common "mistakes". Who, besides Heidegger, was already able to
to conceive of National Socialism as «the encounter between planetary technology and
modern man "( Introduction to metaphysics cit., p. 203 [ed. or. cit., p. 153]),
unless he had read some of the writings of the gods instead of Mein Kampf ài Hitler
Italian futurists, to whom Italian fascism, unlike Nazism, is here and there
called there? This mistake is insignificant compared to that bewilderment

Page 308
much more decisive than it consisted in ignoring the reality of the prisons of the
Gestapo and the infernal torture chambers of the concentration camps, which
they arose immediately after the Reichstag fire, in the regions believed to be the most
important. What actually happened in that spring of 1933, he said in
unforgettable way the poet po :polar and German composer Robert Gilbert
in just four lines:
No need to knock anymore
with the ax at every door,
the nation was opened
like a plague ulcer.
[Poetry Aufbruch der Nation, 1933, in R. Gilbert, Mekern ist wichtig, nett
sein kann jeder (1950), Arani, Berlin 1982, p. 67, note from the editor
of the German edition].
Heidegger realized this "mistake" shortly after, and then he has
risked much more than was then used to do in German universities.
On the other hand, the same cannot be said of the numerous intellectuals and so-called men of
science which, not only in Germany, instead of speaking of Hitler, of
Auschwitz, genocide and "elimination" as a permanent policy of
depopulation, they still prefer to stop, according to tastes and ideas, a
Plato, Luther, Hegel, Nietzsche, or even Heidegger, [Ernst] Jünger or Stefan
George, to disguise with the sciences of the spirit or with the history of ideas the
mud of that terrible phenomenon. It can well be said that escape in the face of reality,
meanwhile, it has become a profession, not escaping into a spirituality with which
the mud never had anything to do, but in a ghostly realm of
representations or "ideas" which has slipped away from every experienced and experiential reality
in the merely "abstract" to such an extent that in it the great ideas of the thinkers
they have lost any consistency and mix with each other like cloud systems,
in which the clouds continuously merge into each other.
23 The abandonment cit. pp. 48-49 [ed. or. cit., pp. 33-34].
117.
HA, September 1969, sheet included in the "Tabula gratulatoria" offered to M.
H. for his 80th birthday, in the possession of the Heidegger family.
An outline of this contribution can be found in the HAPapers (Cont. 59, Folder:
"Heidegger, Martin, correspondence regarding, 1952-74"). The text reproduced here
follows the version published after Heidegger's death in Dem Andenken
Martin Heidegger: Zum 26. Mai 1976, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1977, p.

Page 309
9. The verses of Hölderlin chosen as epigraph belong to the last part of the
lirica L'arcipelago, in F. Hölderlin, Le liriche cit., vol. II, p. 151 [ed. or. cit., vol.
IV, p. 101] ( Underline of HA).
1 Reprinted in this volume, doc. 116.
2 Hans Paeschke (born 1911), longtime editor of the magazine
"Merkur" (1947-1978). By «text published in the“ Merkur ”» we mean the

radio speech. It was published under the title Martin Heidegger ist achtzig
Jahre alt.
3 The SZ published an excerpt from the radio speech in the issue of 27-28
September 1969.
4 Reprinted in this volume, letter 117.
5 On the celebrations in Meßkirch cf. publication by the city of
Meßkirck, Martin Heidegger zum 80 °. Geburtstag von seiner Heimatstadt

Meßkirch, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main in 1969 .The festivities to Amriswil
in Thurgau, which had a public character (and were organized by the teacher
Swiss Dino Larese) were held on 28 September, cf. the description provided by
Zeller, Marbacher Memorabilien cit., Pp. 480-82.
6 On 20 and 21 June 1969 a conference on the philosophy of
Heidegger with interventions by Jean Beaufret, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Karl Lowith e

Karl-Heinz Volkmann-Schluck, organized by the Academy of Sciences of
Heidelberg (later published under the title Die Frage Martin Heideggers, Winter,
Heidelberg 1969).
7 Published, edited by the city of Meßkirch, under the title Ansprachen zum
80. Geburtstag am 26 September 1969 in Meßkirch.

8 On 24 September 1969, a television interview with M.
H. (the interviewer was Richard Wisser, born in 1927, at the time a professor of
philosophy at the University of Mainz). A first publication of the text and the
Wisser's considerations as documentation of the event appeared in 1970 at
the publisher Alber (Martin Heidegger im Gespräch, edited by R. Wisser); the reprint
it was later included in G. Neske and E. Kettering (ed.), Antwort: Martin Heidegger
im Gespräch, Neske, Pfullingen 1988, pp. 17-76 [trad. it. Answer. An interview
with Martin Heidegger, Guide, Naples 1992, pp. 53-60].
9 Hans-Georg Gadamer and Emil Staiger spoke in Amriswil; M.
H. gave a thank you speech. Staiger and Heidegger's speeches were

published by the NZZ (see below). Gadamer presented a preview of his
contribution to the collective volume Die Frage Martin Heideggers cit. His
Page 310

speech in Amriswil (Der Denker Martin Heidegger) was included in this

publication of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences (ibid., pp. 62-68).
10 H. Jonas, Wandel und Bestand: Vom Grunde der Verstehbarkeit des
Geschichtlichen, in Id., Durchblicke, edited by V. Klostermann, Klostermann,

Frankfurt am Main 1970, pp. 1-26.
11 The "Neue Zürcher Zeitung", no. 579 (of 21.9.1969, p. 51) had
published a short text by Heidegger, Zeichen, together with a contribution by Gion

Condrau, Martin Heidegger und die schweizerische Psychiatrie: Zum 80 °
Geburtstag des deutschen Philosophen.
II n. 606 of the newspaper (dated 5.10.69, pp. 51 ff.) Contains, among other things, the
speech that Emil Staiger had given in Amriswil ( Martin Heidegger), and the
Heidegger's thank you speech, with the editorial title Fragen nach
dem Aufenthalt des Menschen.
12 The conference Phenomenology and theology [ Phänomenologie und
Theologie] held in both Tübingen and Marburg, was published together with the
letter that MH addressed to the organizers of the conference dedicated to the problem
of non-objective thought and language in current and held theology
at Drew University (Madison NJ): Einige Hinweise auf
Hauptgesichtspunkte für das theologische Gespräch über «Das Problem eines
nichtobjectivierenden Denkens und Sprechens in der heutigen Theologie "
[Some indications on fundamental aspects of the theological debate on «Il
problem of non-objective thought and language in theology
current"]. Having Heidegger renounced to attend the conference (9-11 April
1964), Hans Jonas was invited as keynote speaker. In his critical speech
Heidegger und die Theologie was the subject of debate in the United States. It was
first published in German in the journal Evangelische Theologie (vintage
24, 1964, p. 621-42) with the title Heidegger und die Theologie and then reprinted
in the volume edited by G. Noller, Heidegger und die Theologie .Beginn und
Fortgang der Diskussion, Kaiser, München 1967, pp. 316-340; cf. also in
this volume letter 115.
119.
HA, Christmas 1969; original typewritten letter (with handwritten signature),
NLHeidegger.
1 Although HA had obtained a steady post of «professor
university »at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research
in New York, she still felt committed to her colleagues and
Page 311
students of the University of Chicago (Committee on Social Thought) and already had

announced that he wanted to give lectures and seminars on "thinking" in January 1970.
Shortly before, he received an honorary degree from the University of Loyola, la
whose assignment included the obligation to lecture and attend
a conference. See also the next letter of HA
2 In April and September 1969 the HA diary contains extensive
reflections on thought, in the course of which she compares herself, among others, too
with Tempo and Being by MH Here are recognizable in essence many of the ideas that
they will then be expressed in the following work The life of the mind. See also in
this volume the doc. 116, in which HA likewise mentions Time and Being, and also
letter 120 of 12.3.1970.
3 The exact title is: B. Snell, Greek culture and the origins of thought
European, Einaudi, Turin 1963 [ed. or. Die Entdeckung des Geistes: Studien zur
Entstehung des europäischen Denkens bei den Griechen, Classen, Hamburg
1955 3 ]. The page numbers indicated by HA agree with those of this one
edition of Snell's work.
4 The letter is kept in the HAPapers (Cont. 9). Fourcade responds to
a letter from HA (which is not available, cf. but above, letter 115) and writes
among other things: “Heidegger, of whom you will not be at all surprised to learn that he is
it was he, this profound genius, who first made yours to us
praise, directly from his speakerphone, and which prompted us to read yours
works".
5 The American Joan Stambaugh (born in 1932), professor of philosophy
at Hunter College in NY since 1969, she had studied and graduated from
Freiburg (with Wolfgang Struwe with a dissertation on Nietzsche). He translated
in English several works by MH, including, most recently, Being and Time, cf. note 1
to the letter 85.
6 American poet and playwright (1917-1977) Robert (Cai) Lowell
he belonged to Mary McCarty's circle of friends, and therefore comes often

called into question in H. Arendt and McCarthy, Three friends cit.
7 In German: J. Glenn Gray, Homo furens oder Braucht der Mensch den
Krieg ?, with a preface by Hannah Arendt, translated from the American by Monika
Kruttke, Wegner, Hamburg 1970.
8 HA had been exempted from teaching at New for one year
School for Social Research. This "vacation" period was financed by the
Rockefeller Foundation so that he could work on his "life project."
contemplative "(which later became The Life of the Mind).
Page 312
119 a.
HA, to Elfride H., December 25, 1969; original typewritten letter (with
handwritten signature), NLHeidegger, on paper bearing the caption: From the desk of

Hannah Arendt.
Attached to the letter was an article that appeared on August 10, 1969 in The Seattle
Times »: « Martin Heidegger Clarifies His Role in Germany's Nazi Era ».
The author, Sophie Blumenthal, had published on June 29 in the same newspaper
the report of a conference that he had then sent to MH for him to come to
acquaintance and take a stand. MH replied with an addressed letter
to the author, in which he corrected some inaccurate statements of the latter. There
Blumenthal published his answer in his (second) article quoted above and yes
he apologized for his errors "in particulars", but in essence reiterating his accusations.
MH's letter to Sophie Blumenthal will be published in the original text in
vol. XVI of the HGA.
120.
NLHeidegger.
1 In the original it is written "ohne Gelände". In all likelihood it is a
typo referable to the Arendtian maxim "Denken ohne Geländer"

[think without railings]; cf. in this regard HA in Diskussion mit Freunden und
Kollegen in Toronto (November 1972) [Discussion with friends and colleagues a
Toronto], in Ich will verstehen, Piper, München-Zürich 1996, p. 110.
2 M. Heidegger, Art and space, Il Melangolo, Genoa 1979 [Die Kunst
und der Raum, Erker, St. Gallen 1969].

3 F. Heidegger, Ein Geburtstagsbrief, in M. Heidegger, Martin Heidegger
zum 80. Geburtstag von seiner Heimatstadt Messkirch cit., pp. 58-63.
4 Johann Heinrich Kant to Immanuel Kant, 21 August 1789, in I. Kant,
Briefwechsel, choice and notes by Otto Schöndörffer, Meiner, Hamburg 1986 ', pp.
410-12. This letter from Kant's brother has been reprinted and commented on in
collection by Walter Benjamin, Deutsche Menschen, cf. W. Benjamin, Men
Germans, Adelphi, Milan 1979; the letter quoted is on p. 21 [ed. or.
Gesammelte Schriften, with the collaboration of TW Adorno and G. Scholem, vol.
IV, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1972, pp. 156 ff.].
5 Lectures were held at Colorado College in Colorado Springs,
where J. Glenn Gray taught, and at Colorado State University in Fort
Page 313
Collins. The theme of the first conference was Violence and Power, the other Thinking
and Moral Considerations. The latter was HA's reflection on
criticisms of his book La banalità del male cit., and contained a first
drafting of his considerations on the "contemplative life".
121.

NLAFrreitz
ndHt. eidegger ad HA, April 27, 1970; original handwritten letter,
1 On April 9, MH gave a lecture on Die Frage nach der
Bestimmung der Kunst [The problem of the definition of art] at Γ

Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. On the return journey from Munich, the
April 10, he was struck by a mild stroke near Augsburg and
hospitalized. After a week he could already be discharged and return
to Freiburg by ambulance, accompanied by Elfride Heidegger. HA notes
in his diary "Martin's Stroke".
122.
Elfride H., May 16, 1970; original typewritten letter (with signature
autograph), NLArendt., on headed paper such as doc. 112.
1 In May HA and her husband had arrived in Tegna and remained in Europe
until August.
123.
Elfride Heidegger; July 2, 1970; original typewritten letter (with signature
autograph), NLArendt., on headed paper such as doc. 112.
124.
HA, July 28, 1970; original typewritten letter (with handwritten signature),
NLHeidegger.
1 On 20 July HA had gone from Tegna to Freiburg to visit
appointment at Heidegger. It is evident that she had gone there alone (without Heinrich
Blücher). In a journal entry dated July 21 and 22, HA records
"Hey:" For me, being is finished. " In response to my objection:
in the interpretation of the Greeks he emphasizes only the φαίνεσθαι
( phainesthai ; in translation, "erscheinen", to appear), but not the δοκεί μοι (dokei
moi; “Es scheint mir gut”, it seems appropriate). We also talked about the
Greek “pessimism” ... ».
Page 314
2 It was the manuscript of the lecture Die Herkunft der Kunst und
die Bestimmung des Denkens [The provenance of art and the determination of
thought], which is preserved in the Arendt legacy and has handwritten notes
of HA corresponding to the considerations set out later in this letter.
3 The indication of the pages refers to the handwritten version of the
conference; cf. also letter 100.

4 Hans Saner (born 1934) had been a personal assistant for many years
Karl Jaspers and after his death (1969) managed his bequest. TO
that time had arranged for the publication Karl Jaspers in der Diskussion

(see note 4 to letter 131).

5 MH's critical review of Jaspers' book, Psychology of Visions
of the world, Astrolabio, Rome 1950 [ed. or. Psychologie der Weltanschauungen
(1919), Springer, Berlin 1922 2 ]; cf. doc. 131 ff.
6 The letter from MH shows the handwritten indication of the source
"Fragment 34". In German (Diels-Kranz): "Schein (meinen) haftet an allem",

cf. H. Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, edited by W. Kranz, Weidmann,
Berlin 1951 6 , vol. I, p. 137.
125.
1 The indication of the page refers to the private edition of 1970,
in the printed edition Vier Seminare cit., p. 106.
126.
MH, November 9, 1970; original handwritten letter (with the poem attached
Time), NLArendt. The signature «Elfride» is autographed by E. Heidegger.
1 On 31 October 1970 Heinrich Blücher had died suddenly of
heart attack. MH got it from Glenn Gray.

2 The letter was not kept. The paper Phenomenology and Theology, in
Signpost cit., Pp. 3-34 [Phänomenologie und Theologie, in Wegmarken cit., Pp.
45-78], bears the dedication: «To Rudolf Bultmann remembering with friendship the years of
Marburg 1923-28 ".
The accompanying Tempo poem corresponds to the letter, but not in the articulation
of the verses, to the one published in the homage to René Char, cf.
Gedachtes / Pensivement cit., P. 414.
127.
Page 315
HA, November 27, 1970; original typewritten letter (with signature

autograph), NLHeidegger.
1 See the poem Death, letter 50.
2 "I'm going" is probably an echo of the organized funeral ceremony
from Bard College for Heinrich Blücher. A colleague of Blücher had read the
famous words of Socrates ' Apology : «Now we must go, I to die and you
to live. What is better, only God knows. " See H. Arendt and M. McCarthy,
Among friends cit., P. 476 [ed. or. cit., p. 392].
3 In German "Finitude is perhaps the condition of genuine existence", cf.
M. Heidegger, Seminars cit., P. 130 [ed. or. cit., p. 97].

1H2A8,. March 20, 1971; original typewritten letter (with signature and additions
handwritten), NLHeidegger. The copy of this letter is kept in the bequest
Arendt, but without the hand-added postscript; the text published here follows
the original.
1 MH, Phenomenology and theology cit. In addition to the 1928 conference, the
publication also contains the letter that MH had sent on 11.3.1964 to

Drew University convention.
2 Cf. MH, "Some indications ...", in Phenomenology and theology cit, pp.
33 ff. [and. or. cit., pp. 33 ff.]; the brackets are from HA and U. Ludz. On the
left margin of the original letter, at this point in the MH wrote: " O .
Of. (Ontological difference), cf. "Language", 7.X.50 ( HGA, vol. XII, pp. 7
sgg.).
3 The friends mentioned are Mary McCarthy and her husband James West, who
had invited HA to make this trip (cf. H. Arendt and M. McCarthy, Tra
friends cit., pp. 497 ff. [and. or. cit., pp. 410 ff.].
4 Kojevnikoff is the non-abbreviated Russian surname of Alexander Kojéve.
The article in question is probably The concept and the times, in "Deucalion",
Cahiers publiés sous la direction de Jean Wahl 5 (Etudes hégéliennes) (= Etre et
Penser, 40), October 1955, pp. 11-20. "Hegel's Interpretation" should
refer to the book cited in note 2 at letter 98.
129.
1 Perhaps we mean the comparison with Hegel, which MH dealt with in
multiple courses and seminars. Published writings on Hegel are found in
Page 316
collection of Interrupted Paths (The Hegelian concept of experience ) and in Segnavia

( Hegel and the Greeks), see also the course on Der Deutsche Idealismus
[German idealism] in HGA, vol. XXVIII, 1997, and The phenomenology of
spirit of Hegel, Guide, Naples 1988 [ed. or. Hegels Phänomenologie des
Geistes, HGA, vol. XXXII, 1980], and the Hegel volume in the HGA, vol. LXVIII,
1993.
2 HA traveled from Zurich to Freiburg after 20 April. In his diary it is
there is an annotation in "Entsagen" (renounce) dated "Freiburg,

April 22, 1971 ". Heidegger himself wrote the guiding word "Entsagen" in his own
notebook in accordance with the corresponding annotation of HA
3 Walter Biemel (born 1918) was at the time professor of philosophy at
the TH of Aachen. In 1973 he published the volume in the "Rowohlts Monographien":

Martin Heidegger cit. See also letter 155.
4 MH, Gedachtes / Pensivement.

5 Hugo Friedrich, cf. also letter 141.
130.
1 H. Arendt, Walter Benjamin. The hunchbacked man and the pearl fisherman, in II
future behind cit. [and. or. Walter Benjamin - Bertold Brecht: Zwei Essays,
Piper, München 1971]. The copy of the volume sent to MH with the dedication that is
commented on later in the note is preserved. The dedication says: «For Martin in
I remember this and that. Hannah, April 30, 1971 '. "This and that," wrote
with or without quotes is a reference to Bertold Brecht, to whom MH for his part makes
reference in a later passage of this letter, when he writes "Poco" with the
uppercase and in quotation marks. It is very likely that these should be associated
references to the first lines of Brecht's lyric Legend on the origin of the book
"Taoteking dictated by Laotse on the way of emigration, in Id., Poems and songs,
Einaudi, Turin 1971, pp. 93-96 [ed. or. Legende von der Entstehung des Buches
Taoteking auf dem Weg des Laotse in die Emigration, in Id., Gesammelte
Gedichte, 2 vols., Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1981 3 , p. 660].
When it was, and already worn out, to the seventy,
even the master wanted to be quiet,
[...]
And he took up what he needed:
A little. However, one thing and the other.
In his essay HA says that this poem «is one of the most peaceful and
Page 317
consolants ... of our century " (Menschen in finsteren Zeiten, Piper, München-
Zürich 1989, p. 283).
2 After traveling from Zurich to Freiburg (see also literal note
previous) HA had continued his trip to Europe by stopping at

Munich, Köln, London, and Cambridge. On May 24, she returned to New York.
3 On May 28, 1971, a ceremony was held at Bard College
posthumous commemorative in memory of Heinrich Blücher promoted by his followers

pupils, cf. HA to Mary McCarthy, February 13, 1971 (H. Arendt and M. McCarthy, Tra
friends cit., p. 512-13 [ed. or. cit., p. 410]).
131.
NLHeidegger. A copy of the letter is also kept in the NLArendt; the two copies
they are identical.
1 M. Heidegger, The poetry of Hölderlin cit.
2 MH, On Time and Being, translation and introduction by J. Stambaugh,

Harp3eK
r l&
auR
s oPw
ip,eN
r e(bworYno1rk91119)7,2e.ditor of Karl Jaspers and many works by H.
TO.
4 Thisrefers to the subsequent publication of H. Saner (ed.), Karl
Jaspers in der Diskussion, Piper, München 1973. In this volume the
Heidegger's review, written in 1920 but not published then, titled:
Notes on the "Psychology of worldviews" by Karl Jaspers (1919-21). Others
details are given in the following letters, cf. also letter 124.
5 Hans Rössner was Piper editorial director at the time.
6 The photograph of the Greek theater in Syracuse has not been preserved.
They are found in the photographic archive of the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach
instead two photographic portraits of MH, on the back of which HA wrote of his own
punch the date "1970". It must be assumed that these images were taken
by Arendt herself on one of her visits in the summer of 1970.
132.
1 In the volume Karl Jaspers in der Diskussion (see the notes to the letter
previous) appeared a contribution by Jürgen Habermas: Die Gestalten der

Wahrheit (already published in the FAZ on February 22, 1958). The "controversy" referred to
Heidegger mentions critically and refers to another Habermas intervention, MIT
Page 318
Heidegger gegen Heidegger denken: Zur Veröffentlichung von Vorlesungen aus

dem Jahre 1935, in the FAZ of 25 July 1953. Both articles were
reprinted in J. Habermas, Politico-philosophical profiles, Guerini, Milan 2000
[ Philosophisch-politische Profile, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1971, pp. 67-
92, pp. 99-108].
2 See HG A, vols. LXI and LXII, with the Friborg courses of the semester
1921-22 and the summer semester 1922, vol. XXXIII with the course of
summer semester of 1931. A further course on Aristotle ( Grundbegriffe der
Aristotelischen Philosophie) of the summer semester of 1924 has not yet been
published.
133.
NLHeidegger. A copy of the same letter is also preserved in the Arendt bequest;
the original that is published here is slightly correct.
134.
MH, August 4, 1971; original letter (with the poem Cézanne attached )
handwritten, NLArendt.

1 Refers to the attached poem Cézanne, cf. also the next letter.
135.
NLHeidegger. A copy of the letter is also kept in the Arendt bequest;
the original and the copy are identical.
1 A drawing by Hans Jonas of MH dating back to the years 1925-26. IS
was reprinted in the photographic appendix of the German edition of the book by E.
Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt cit., P. 369, cf. also under letters 137 and 138.
2 II cycle of poems Gedachtes / Pensivement published by MH while he was
still alive (in HGA Vol. XIII) contains a poem entitled Cézanne, who
however, the title of the volume is not identical to that sent to HA Gedachtes
LXXXI of the HGA which has not yet been published; will contain other poems and
reflections in the form of poetry, supplementing the volume XIII which had still been
designed by Heidegger himself ( Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens). There are three
versions of the poem Cézanne-, the first, as we have said, is that contained in the
volume XIII of the HGA; the second is the one published in our volume; there
third will be published in the HGA volume LXXXI .
Page 319
3 See also letter 146, in which HA expresses the same idea. An index of
this genus has not been compiled so far. However in 1961 it was released at
the publisher Niemeyer un Index zu Heideggers «-Sein und Zeit» edited by
Hildegard Feick, who, as MH writes in the letter dated June 22, 1972
(doc. 147), it is «at the same time a concordance with all the other works
successive, starting however from Being and time, and therefore limited ». See also letter
165. In the meantime, this Index is available in the fourth edition elaborated by
Susanne Ziegler (Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen 1991).
4 Glenn Gray's letter to HA dated August 15, 1971 is preserved in
HAPapers (Cont. 10).

5 This is probably the translation On Time and Being edited by
Joan Stambaugh.
136.
HA, [September 24, 1971]; ticket subject to receipt from the company Hession
& Kather, New York, for sending flowers, NLArendt.
137.
HA, October 20, 1971; original typewritten letter (with handwritten signature),
1 MH wrote the opinion that was requested of him, cf. letter 138.

Vollrath (born in 1932) had obtained the license in 1969 at

the University of Köln. He taught from 1973 to 1976 at the New Graduate Faculty
School for Social Research. Since 1976 he has been a professor of political philosophy
at the University of Köln.
2 Werner Marx (1910-1994) had studied philosophy in Freiburg over the years
Twenty, then passed the state examination for the legal profession in Bonn.
In 1934 he was fired from the public administration, he first emigrated to
Palestine, then to the United States. He resumed his philosophy studies in the evening classes
of the New School for Social Research and graduated in 1949 with Karl Lowith con
a thesis on Aristotle's ontology. In 1964 he became full professor of
philosophy at the University of Freiburg (on the chair that had been of Husserl and of
Heidegger) and in 1970 he became director of the Husserl Archive in Freiburg.
3 An anthology of Heidegger texts edited by Lévy has never been
realized. The bibliographic indication of Martin's French translation

Heidegger ist achtzig Jahre alt is as follows: HA, Martin Heidegger a quatre-
Page 320
vingt ans (translation by Patrick Lévy, with the collaboration of Barbara Cassin,
revised and corrected by the author), in «Critique» XXVII, October 1971, n. 293, pp.
918-29.
138.
1 MH, Nietzsche, translated from German by P. Klossowski, Gallimard,
Paris 1971.
2 Here we mean the studies of HA in relation to his project to write
a "contemplative life".
139.
MH, October 28, 1971; original handwritten letter, NLArendt. The signature
"Elfride" is handwritten by Heidegger's wife.
1 These two pages are not preserved in their respective bequests. How long
concerns the essay published in a magazine and nominated by Heidegger, it is

E. Vollrath, Platons Anamnesislehre und Heidegger These von der Erinnerung in
die Metaphysik, in "Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung" XXIII (1969), pp.
349-61.
140.
HA, February 2, 1972; original typewritten letter (with handwritten signature),

1 In a letter to E. Vollrath (January 16, 1972) HA expresses himself so

more explicit: «Here with us in this period everything is falling apart because of
economies involving all universities. To this are added others
difficulty; the devil knows, what's going to happen to our Philosophy Department
at the New School ". (Source: HAPapers, Cont. 15, Folder «Vollrath, Ernst,
1970-75 ").
2 Among them Hans Jonas.
3 Both courses at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social
Research were announced under the title History of the Will. They were connected
to the elaboration of the second part of the Gifford Lectures on Volere
(subsequently the second volume of the work La vita della mente cit.). See
even beyond, letter 146.
4 Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), French philosopher.
Page 321
5 HA and Uwe Johnson (1934-1984) first met a

New York in 1966 and a friendship developed between them. In his trilogy
of Jahrestage novels (1970, 1971, 1973) Uwe Johnson portrayed HA in
character of Countess Seydlitz. Their relationship was studied by B.
Neumann, Korrespondenzen, Uwe Johnson and Hannah Arendt, in Du. Die
Zeitschrift der Kultur », 10 October 1992, pp. 62-66.
141.
MH, February 15, 1972; original handwritten letter (with the poem attached
Thanks), NLArendt.
1 It was not possible to find out which Horkheimer conference you are
MH report here not even with the help of the curator of the Gesammelte Schriften
by Horkheimer, Gunzelin Schmid Noerr.
2 H.-G. Gadamer, The dialectic of Hegel, Marietti, Casale Monferrato 1973
[and. or. Hegels Dialektik: Vünf hermeneutische Studien, Mohr, Tübingen 1971].
3 After the death of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) several had come out
posthumous volumes: Le visible and the invisible (1964); Eloge de la philosophie, et

autres essais (1965); La Prose du monde (1969); and still university courses that
Merleau-Ponty had held at the Sorbonne or the Collège de France (1964 and 1968).
4 The sociologist Helmut Schelsky (1912-1984), in one of his widely read essays
Die Strategie der «Systemüberwindung» with the subtitle of Der lange Marsch
durch die Institutionen , identifies, as he himself writes, «political strategy
of the radical left ". The article was later reprinted in H. Schelsky,
Systemüberwindung, Demokratisierung und Gewaltenteilung.
Grundsatzkonflikte der Bundesrepublik, Beck, München 1973, pp. 19-37.
5 E. Vollrath, Politik und Metaphysik. Zum politischen Denken Hannah

Aren6dStse,einth"eZseeistsciohnrio
ftf ftührePhoislittoik
r i"c,aX
l-V
phIiIlIo(l1o9g7ic1a)l, sneoc.ti3o,npopf. 21025F-3eb2r.uary 1972 a
Freiburg: «Mr. Friedrich gives a lecture on: Mallarmé,“ The water lily
White". An interpretation, in «Jahrbuch der Heidelberger Akademie der
Wissenschaften für das Jahr 1972 », Heidelberg winter, 1973, pp. 39 ff .; Yes
see also H. Friedrich, Mallarmé, Le Nénuphar blanc: Aus einer Vorlesung
(1952-1971) in Id., Romanische Literaturen: Aufsätze I - Frankreich,
Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1972, pp. 227-36.
The attached poem Grazie had appeared in a first version in the poetic cycle
Gedachtes / Pensivement (reprinted in HGA, vol. XIII, p. 224). There is one
third version, the publication of which is foreseen in vol. LXXXI of the HGA.
Page 322
142.
HA, February 21, 1972; typewritten copy of letter (with handwritten signature),
NLArendt.
1 J. Fest, Das Gesicht des Dritten Reiches: Profile einer totalitären
Herrschaft, Piper, München 1963.

2 A. Speer, Erinnerungen, Propyläen, Berlin 1969.
3 Günther Neske, one of "my three publishers", as Heidegger writes in
his reply. The other two are: Vittorio Klostermann and Hermann Niemeyer.
143.
1 In September 1973 MH changed his mind on the matter
of the complete edition of his works, cf. letter 162.

2 Turn [Kehre] is the concept introduced by Heidegger himself to indicate
a fundamental turning point in his thinking: «from the original setting

ontological-existential to the next thought that reflects on history
of being "(Winfried Franzen). The "turning point" is the subject of many efforts
in the interpretation of Heidegger; there are very different conceptions in this regard,
when, if and how many times a "turning point" has occurred, and how it should be done
to understand the indications that Heidegger himself has expressed on this subject.
See the summary (by W. Franzen) in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie cit.,
vol. IV (1976), pp. 806-9; also FW von Hermann, Das Ende der Metaphysik
und der andere Anfang des Denkens .Zu Heideggers Begriff der Kehre, in Id.,
Wege ins Ereignis: Zu Heideggers "Beiträgen zur Philosophie", Klostermann,
Frankfurt am Main 1994, pp. 64-84. HA in his diary (dated "August 1969")
he interprets this as follows: «Thought like Penelope's veil: being and time are
“Destroyed” in the turning point on the basis of ontological difference; the difference
ontological is taken up again in the “question of thought”, p. 36; cf. p. 61, p. 78 ".

The indication of the pages refers to the original edition of the work by MH,
Time and be cit.
144.
NLHeidegger. A copy of the letter is also present in the Arendt bequest; we report
here the original text, which contains a small and slight handwritten addition
corrections.
Page 323
1 It was not possible to find out why HA at that time (end

1971, early 1972) was "furious" at Klaus Piper or the house
Piper publisher.
2 This annotation expressed in the form 'Tantôt je pense et tantôt je
suis »is found in Valéry's Discours auxirurgiens (1938). HA mentioned it

often, without indicating the source. He also used it, in the original formulation
by Valéry, as the title of chapter xix of the first volume of his posthumous work
The life of the spirit cit.
3 According to information provided by the curator of the Arendt estate, Lotte
Köhler, in 1972 HA received the following honorary degrees : «Legum

Doctor »of the University of Notre-Dame (May 21); "Doctor of Humane
Letters ”from Fordham University (June 3); «Litterarum Doctoris honoris
cause "from Princeton University (June 6); «Doctors of Letters» of
Dartmouth College (June 11). Yale University had them the previous year
awarded the "Doctor of Humane Letters" (June 14, 1971).
4 This refers to the law professor Edward Hirsch Levi (born in 1911),
who in 1967 had become dean of the University of Chicago. HA expresses itself
against him in a similar way in the letter to Mary McCarty of 21.12.1968,
cf. H. Arendt and M. McCarthy, Between friends cit., P. 409 [ed. or. cit., p. 343].
5 The Villa Serbelloni, cf. over letter 148, also HA in the letter to Mary
McCarthy of 22.8.1972 (H. Arendt and M. McCarthy, Between friends cit., P. 554-55
[and. or. cit., pp. 454 ff.]).
145.
MH, April 19, 1972; original handwritten letter, NLArendt. The signature «e
Elfride »is signed by E. Heidegger.
1 We refer here to the course Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie
[Fundamental concepts of Aristotelian philosophy]. The manuscript

of the introduction and three copies of the entire course were found
subsequently. The course will be published as Volume XVIII of the HGA.
146.

HA, June 18, 1972; original typewritten letter (with handwritten signature),
NLHeidegger. A copy of the letter is also kept in the Arendt bequest.
In the original, which is reproduced here, HA made some minor corrections
techniques.
1 FWJ von Schelling, Philosophische Untersuchungen über das Wesen
Page 324
der menschlichen Freiheit (1809).

2 MH's book, Schellings Abhandlung über das Wesen der
menschlichen Freiheit appeared in 1978, translated by Joan Stambaugh, at the

Ohio State University Press with the title Schelling on Human Freedom. There
Schelling's translation on which it was based is the one edited by James Gutmann: Of
Human Freedom: A Translation off. WJ Schelling's «Philosophische
Untersuchungen », Open Court, Chicago 1936.
3 See letter 140.
4 The quoted passage from the poem by George Der Täter (from the cycle II carpet of the
vita cit., [ed. or. cit., p. 51) reads: «Who has never aimed at the point where
stabbing his brother / how poor his life is and how foolish his thinking is
/ to him who did not eat the seeds of the hemlock that stuns! "
6 Hildegard Feick is indicated as editor of the book.
7 The address of the Hotel Ascott on the letterhead used by the letter from
HA dated 21.7.1972 is as follows: Lavaterstraße 15.
147.
148.
HA, July 21, 1972; original typewritten letter (with signature and postscript
autograph), NLHeidegger. A copy of the letter is also kept in the bequest
Arendt. The original, which is reproduced here, is written on Hotel Ascott paper
of Zurich and contains some handwritten corrections as well as an addition to which
over it.
1 On 26 September MH celebrated his 83rd birthday.
2 This statement by HA probably refers to two reflections
contained in Kant's handwritten legacy: n. 5019 and n. 5036, in Kants

Gesammelte Schriften, edited by the Prussian Academy of Sciences, Section
third (Manuscript legacy), vol. V (1928). HA interprets them in this sense in
Thinking, in The life of the mind cit., P. 172 [ed. ted. cit., p. 93].
3 Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker (born in 1912, at the time director of the Max
Planck Institut zur Erforschung der Lebensbedingungen der wissenschaftlich-

technischen Welt) had known MH from 1935; cf. his Erinnerungen an Martin
Heidegger, in Erinnerungen an Martin Heidegger, edited by G. Neske, Neske,
Pfullingen 1977, pp. 239-47. Weizsäcker reports there that he has
Page 325
met MH for the last time "in late autumn 1972". There
review by G. Böhme, who was then a collaborator of the aforementioned institute, is
appeared under the title Die Physik zu Ende denken: Die Philosophie Carl Friedrich
von Weizsäckers, in «Merkur» XXVI (1972), pp. 593-97.
4 Herman Melville's tale Billy Budd is one of the literary texts that H.
A. appeared particularly. In his book On the revolution, Edizioni di

Community, Turin 1999, pp. 86-92 [Über die Revolution cit., Pp. 103 ff.], La
Arendt takes into consideration Melville's poetic conceptions in the
treatment of the "question of good and evil and their role in the course of
human affairs ".
5 This note refers to MH's ideas about what to do
bequeath to posterity (see also letter 102 and letter 143). The "60 pages"
(later also 65 pages) would be the figure of this legacy. According to HA, that it does
relates in a letter to Glenn Gray (August 16, 1975), Heidegger wanted
condense in those pages the "quintessence of his philosophy".
149.
150.
1 HA's visit to Freiburg on 24 September is attested by the dedication of a
copy of the Heideggerian volume Frühe Schriften, 1912-1916, Klostermann,

Frankfurt am Main 1972 [trad. it. Philosophical writings 1912-1917, La Garangola,
Padua 1972].
2 Clothilde Oschwald, daughter of MH's only sister, Maria (1892-
1956). Her husband, Heinrich Rapp, was a notary in Bad Säckingen, cf. also note 2
to the letter 78.
151.
The signature «Elfride» is autographed by E. Heidegger.
1 These are probably enlargements of some photographs by MH che
HA had shot with his Minox camera, cf. above letter

99.
2 As part of the Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen in
Scotland, HA had to hold a series of lectures. He chose Life as his topic

Page 326
of the mind (posthumously in German: Vom Leben des Geistes) and announced the first
lessons for April and May with the title Thinking.
152.
1 In the first half of 1973 Glenn Gray gave a seminar and a course
on Hegel at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research. H.
A. attended seminary regularly and Gray lived in the house
Arendt.
153.
1 The daughter of Ursula and Glenn Gray, who studied at the University of 1972-73
Freiburg on a scholarship from the daad, she had gone to Aberdeen to listen
HA lectures Evidently MH had sent this letter to
Aberdeen.
154.
1 It should have been two of the many publications of
classical philologist Francis McDonald Cornford. It cannot be said exactly of

what "volumes" they are, and there is no Cornford work in two volumes.
2 N. Mandelstam, Das Jahrhundert der Wölfe: Eine Autobiographie,
translation from Russian by Elisabeth Mahler, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1970.

3 Likely Charles H. Kahn, The Greek Verb «to be» and the
Concept of Being, in «Foundations of Language: International Journal of

Language and Philosophy »II, (1966), pp. 245-65.
4 Parmenides B 3; trad. according to Diels-Kranz: «because thinking and being
I'm the same. " See H. Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker cit., Vol. I, p.
231.
155.
NLHeidegger.
1 The monograph by W. Biemel, Martin Heidegger cit.
2 See letters 98 and 129. In all, three posthumous volumes published under the title
quoted in the letter: Essai d'une histoire raisonnée de la philosophie païenne,

Page 327
Gallimard, Paris 1968-73.
156.
1 O. Pöggeler, Martin Heidegger's journey of thought, Guide, Naples
1991 [ed. or. Der Denkweg Martin Heideggers, Neske, Pfullingen 1963].
2 Heidegger calls his pupil Erika Deyle, nee Birle, "daughter". TO
this family gathering on the occasion of Elfride's 80th birthday

Heidegger on July 1st there were also his niece Clothilde Rapp (born
Oschwald) and granddaughter Gertrud (daughter of son Jörg).
157.
1 II Seminano of Zähringen, in Seminari cit., Was held in the house
Heidegger's Friborgese (Fillibach 25) in the presence of Jean Beaufret, Francois

Fédier, Francois Vezin, Henri-Xavier Mongis and Jacques Taminiaux.
2 Apparently HA had informed Heidegger, with "signs of life" that
they have not reached us, which in the second series of the Gifford Lectures he meant
dealing with the theme Will, cf. note 2 to letter 159 and note 1 to letter 165.
3 The German translation of Being and Time edited by Joan Stambaugh is
released in 1996.
158.
159.
1 On May 5th, HA suffered a heart attack in Aberdeen. He had to
spend about three weeks in the hospital (initially under therapy

intensive), before being able to move to Tegna via London, cf. H.
Arendt and M. McCarthy, Between friends cit., P. 628 [ed. or. cit., pp. 510 ff]. The
lessons on Will that had been interrupted had to be completed
in the autumn of 1975 (see below note 1 to letter 165), but by the will of HA
they were postponed to the spring of 1976. They never took place. December 4th
1975 HA suffered a second heart attack which she did not survive. The manuscript
of the Volere course has been left completely completed (The life of the mind cit.,
vol. II).

Page 328
2 Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (born 1934) was at that time (from

1972) private assistant of MH In 1979 he became professor of philosophy
at the University of Freiburg. While MH was still alive he treated the first one
volume of the HGA (vol. XXIV, 1975) and has written twelve other volumes since then
the Gesamtausgabe, that after the death of Heidegger was edited by his son
Hermann. In his essay on Die Edition der Vorlesungen Heideggers in seiner
Gesamtausgabe letzer Hand (in "Freiburger Universitätblätter", no. 78, December
1982, pp. 85-102) von Herrmann illustrated the work conducted together with MH
and its indications for the edition of the works.
160.
161.
HA, July 26, 1974; copy of letter, typewritten (with handwritten signature),
NLArendt.
1 It was Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit [The essence of
human freedom] (summer semester 1930) and Denken und Dichten [Thought and poetry]
(winter semester 1944-45).
2 See MH, Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit., Part Two
(HGA, vol. XXXI, pp. 139 ff).

3 The proairesis Aristotle is interpreted by HA as "choice in the
sense of preference between alternatives one-rather than another "; (in the
translation by Hermann Vetter) «the choice in the sense of preferring one of the
multiple possibilities ", cf. Volere, in Life in the mind cit., Pp. 375 [ed. or. cit.,
p. 59].
4 The summary index of the second series of lessons is identical to
Introduction of the published text of Volere.

5 MH, Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit cit., In particular the former
five paragraphs, pp. 1-38.
162.
1 Detailed information on this decision is provided
in the aforementioned article by FW von Hermann, cf. note 2 to letter 159, and cf.
also letter 143.
2 HA had announced for the fall semester of 1974 at the
Page 329

New School Graduate Faculty a course entitled The Life of the Mind:
Think; the second part, Volere, was to follow in the spring of 1975.
163.
MH, after September 26, 1974; handwritten thank you card e
reproduced on the occasion of the wishes for the 85th birthday, with
personal addition, NLArendt.
164.
1 In June HA had devoted itself in particular to examining the
Jaspers bequest to the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach, including his own

personal correspondence with the philosopher.
2 It is likely that HA made a stop in Freiburg during his trip
back in Zurich after completing his study stay in Marbach

(29/30 June). From Zurich then continue to Tegna, where he arrived on 1 July,
according to what can be inferred from its schedule.
3 On April 18, 1975 HA had received the Sonning Award, which since 1950
it was assigned every two years to a personality who surrendered

particularly deserving for the "European civilization", in memory of the writer e
Danish reader CJ Sonning. HA had come to Europe to participate in the
ceremony at the University of Kopenhagen.
4 David Farrell Krell edited a volume: M. Heidegger, Basic Writings
from "Being and Time" (1927) to the "Task of Thinking" (1964), Harper & Row,
New York 1977. He also translated the two volumes of Nietzsche (also at
Harper & Row, in four volumes from 1979 to 1982). In Basic Writings it is
the introduction to Being and time has also been published , with the following indication
by the translator: translation by Joan Stambaugh with the collaboration of J. Glenn
Gray and the publisher (DF Krell).
5 Bernhard Zeller was at the time director of the Deutsches Literaturarchiv of
Marbach, cf. above note 2 to letter 114.
165.
HA, July 27, 1975; typewritten copy of letter, NLArendt.
1 The lessons on the subject of Will were further postponed to spring
of 1976, but never took place (see above note 1 to letter 159). The
however, the manuscript entitled Volere was completed, and could thus be published
Page 330
posthumously, along with Thinking , by Mary McCarthy; the German title is Vom Leben

des G eistes, with the two volumes Das D enken and Das Wollen.
2 HA p lanned to h old a seminar on Judging [Jundging] at
the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in the first semester
of 1976, as the last contribution before retirement. Judging had to
also become the last part of the trilogy The life of the mind. But it no longer has
I was able to put my hand to the manuscript; cf. however Das Urteilen cit. (in English
Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy).
166.
Evidently they agreed on the first of the two dates mentioned (12 August).
The fact is also confirmed by a notation of HA in its schedule and by
a dedication. Presumably MH donated to HA on the occasion of his
visit Hildegard Feick's obituary, published as a booklet
manuscript ( Frau Dr. Hildegard Feick der langjärigen gefreuten Mitarbeiterin
zum Gedächtnis). The handwritten dedication shown on the copy kept at the
Marbach's Deutsches Literaturatchiv says: "For Hannah-Martin" and is dated:
"Freiburg, August 12, 1975". This was Hannah Arendt's last visit to M.
H. died on December 4, 1975 in his New York home.
167.
MH, to Hans Jonas, December 6, 1975; Western Union Telegram.
The telegram, addressed to Prof. Jonas, 9 Meadow Lane, New Rochelle,
New York 10805 State, dated June 12, 1975 and was delivered in
that same day. Lore Jonas made it available for publication
of this volume, as well as the next letter. Both belong to the
legacy of Hans Jonas.
168.
MH, to Hans Jonas, December 27, 1975; handwritten letter from the bequest of
Hans Jonas.
1 The funeral ceremony for HA took place on December 8 at the
Riverside Memorial Chapelle (in Manhattan, New York) in the presence of approx
three hundred people (see Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt. For the love of the world cit.
p. 525 [ed. or. pp. 636 ff.].
Page 331
Hans Jonas and Mary McCarthy took the floor, then publisher William
Jovanovich and HA's latest assistant, Jerome Kohn. Jonas's speech was
published in the journal of the New School for Social Research, "Social Research"
(no. 43, spring 1976, pp. 3-5). Jonas also paid tribute to HA with a

more extensive critical intervention exhibited on the occasion of the commemorative conference
organized by the New School in April 1976, and then published in the issue
monograph dedicated to Hannah Arendt from the journal "Social Research" (n. 44,
spring 1977, pp. 25-43). The latter essay appeared earlier in the
German version in the magazine «Merkur» (n. 30, October 1976, pp. 921-35) with the
title: Handeln, Erkennen, Denken: Zu Hannah Arendts philosophischen Werk ,
a file to which Jürgen's commemorative interventions also contributed
Habermas, Dolf Sternberger and Erich Heller. To the part of the file entitled
Hannah Arendt in memoriam was preceded by a eulogy by Martin Heidegger,
died May 26, 1976 (pp. 911-20): Martin Heideggers langer Marsch
durch die «verkehrte Welt». The author, Willy Hochkeppel, presented by the director
of the «Merkur», Hans Paeschke, as a scholar and follower of positivism
logical, uses HA as a «bridge» to MH Hochkeppel writes that HA
it would belong to those few "absolutely original thinkers" among whom he appoints
then Jean-Paul Sartre, Karl Lowith, CF von Weizsäcker, and "also" Herbert
Marcuse, who would "never seriously doubt the importance of
Heidegger "(p. 913), and examines his conception of" master of thought "in
relation to the first two volumes of Heidegger 's Gesamtausgabe (voll. XXIV e
XXI) which were released in 1975 and 1976 respectively.
2 Here we mean probably a handwritten version of the speech that
Jonas held on the occasion of HA's funeral (see also next note).
3 To visit Heidegger for the last time, HA went from Tegna to
Freiburg, cf. above the doc. 166. But a few weeks before (end of June), a
as it turns out, during the return trip from Marbach to Zurich, he had made one
stop in Freiburg. On his August visit, HA had provided information on both
to Mary McCarthy (in the letter of August 22, H. Arendt and M. McCarthy, Tra
friends cit., p. 677 [ed. or. cit., p. 546]), which, even earlier and more widely, a
John Glenn Gray (in the letter already cited but unpublished of August 16). It writes of
having returned from Freiburg to Tegna "very depressed". MH had seemed to her
"Inaccessible" as he had never seen it before. So, at the end of the story that
here it is documented, a difference remains: he remembers things differently
from how she tells them to her friend and friend. And the question arises: what is it
reality?
Page 332
Additional documents from bequests

A1
Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt, undated ; two original tickets

autographs, NLArendt; without speech, greetings and signature.
[Both tickets, kept at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv of
Marbach with numbers 76.890 / 13 and 76.890 / 14, presumably date back to
summer semester of 1925, but it is not possible to give a more precise attribution].
Would you like to come to the woods tonight?
But only around ten. I have exams until eight and then I'm invited to dinner by
Bultmann, since I live alone until the end of the semester.
We can then hold back as long as we want.
In case you can't come, it doesn't matter if I make the way for nothing.
Tuesday evening at nine I'll wait for you at the usual bench. If the weather is bad,
then let's do Friday.
A2
Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt, undated ; original letter

handwritten, NLArendt.
[This short letter written on a leaflet is kept at the Deutsches
Literaturarchiv of Marbach with the number 76.891 / 3, and presents on the top right,
written in pencil, indicating the date «Febr. 26 »written by HA's hand]
Dear Hannah!
Page 333
You would like to find you tomorrow (Saturday) around half past eight at our usual one
Park bench?
I'd be happy.
Until we meet again.
Your
M.

A3
Martin Heidegger for Hannah Arendt, undated ; original sheet,
NLArendt.
[This half sheet in DIN-A-4 format is stored in the NLArendt
with number 76.895 / 4. The handwriting, the ink and the paper make one assume that
dates back to February or March 1950, before HA's return to the US.]
As a greeting in reply:
των μεγάλων πάρεδρος έν άρχαΐς

θεσμών άμαχος γάρ έμπαί -
ζει θεός Άφρδίτα
Sophocles, Antigone , Έρως άνίκατε μάχαν
799/801
«The great (nuptial) customs established from the beginning; indisputably

invincible because in the game it is a god who leads the game, Aphrodite ».
On θεσμός cf. Homer, Od. 23.296: λέκτροιο παλαιοϋ θεσμόν ΐκοντο

they sought the custom of the oldest camp
[Note by Ursula Ludz: The verses quoted belong to the "antistrofe" of the third
chorus of the second scene ("Spirit of love") of Sophocles ' Antigone . There
translation of the entire verse conducted by Karl Reinhardt, which is maintained
strictly adhering to the Greek original, it says (retranslated from German): «Also the
Page 334
mind of the just lead to ruin and injustice; this disturbance too,
this conflict of relatives is your doing. The shining desire that is wins
in the eyes of the young bride, a force no less than the most sacred laws: it is the
game of Aphrodite, invincible goddess ».
Sophocles, Antigone, translated and introduced by Karl Reinhart, with Greek text a
front, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1961 3 , pp. 76 ff.].
A4
Poems by Hannah Arendt dating from 1923-26.

[The poems are written on single sheets (typewritten copies) preserved

at the Library of Congress (Cont. 79, Folder: «Miscellaneous: Poems and
stories, 1925-1942 and undated "). The indication of the date is assumed
from the interleaf. The following poems have already been published in the biography of
Hannah Arendt by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, cit.
Winter 1923-24: [without title] There is no word that breaks the darkness; At the
manner of a popular song ; Comfort ; Dream ; Fatigue ; has subway;
Farewell.
Winter 1924-25: Lost in myself.
Summer 1925: Summer Song ; [untitled] Why do you hold out your hand to me;
Late summer. Winter 1925-26: To joy; At night
Winter 1923-24
[WITHOUT TITLE]
There is no word to break the darkness there is no God to raise his hand.
Wherever I look
the earth stands.
There is no form that dissolves, there is no shadow that rises.

Yet I can feel it
too late, too late.
Page 335
IN THE MANNER OF A POPULAR SONG
When will we meet again

white lilacs will bloom,
I will wrap you in pillows
you won't miss anything.
We will be happy,
than dry wine,
than the fragrant lime trees
find us side by side.

When the leaves fall

then we will separate.
Wandering what's the point?
Yet we have to suffer it.
COMFORT
The hours come,

when old wounds
long forgotten,
threaten to corrode.
The days are coming

when there is no budget
of life, of pain
that he can come back.
The hours go by
the days slip away.
There remains a gain:
to exist.
Page 336
DREAM
Feet swimming in solemn splendor.

Me, just me
I'm dancing too
freed from weight
in the dark, in the void.
Crowded rooms of bygone times across vastness
lost solitudes
they begin to dance, dance.
Me, just me
I'm dancing too.
Ironic presumption
I have forgotten nothing.
I know emptiness
I know the weight

but I dance and I dance

in ironic splendor.
TIREDNESS
Evening descending.
Like a low moan
resounds in the cry of birds that I have evoked.
Gray walls
crumble
my hands
they meet.
What I loved
i can't keep it,
what surrounds me
I can't leave him.
Page 337
Everything sinks while

the darkness rises.
Nothing overwhelms me:
the course of life is very little.
METRO
It comes from the dark,

rolls up in the light
quick and careless,
tight and possessed
by human forces.
Carefully weaving
predestined roads,
suspended with indifference
on all hurries.
Quick, tight and possessed
by human forces

he doesn't care about,

flows in the dark
knowing of higher things
it flies by twisting
a yellow beast.
COMMIATO
Now allow yourselves, o suspended days, to stretch out your hands.

You will not escape me, there is no escape for you in the void and in the timeless.
But it is stranger sign this fiery wind that blows on me, I do not want
escape into the void of a stopped time.
Ah, you know the smile with which I gave myself.

You know how much silence I have imposed on myself to lie in the meadows and
belong to you.
Page 338
But now the blood calls, which was never conquered, calls me to the ships that I don't have
never ruled.
Death is in life, I know, I know.
Let yourselves therefore, o suspended days, extend your hands.

You will not lose me. I for you to pledge this sheet and the flame I leave you.
Summer 1924
[WITHOUT TITLE]
I go through the days without direction.

I say unimportant words.
I live in the dark without seeing.
In life I am without a rudder.
Above me there is only a monster like a large black bird: the face
of the night.

TO ...
Take the heavy burden of my desires.

Life is long and in no rush.
There are many countries in the world and many nights under the tent.
Who knows a measure
of the pains of life?
Perhaps it will be in the last few days that all of this will melt away.
[WITHOUT TITLE]
This is not luck

as they believe
Page 339
and strive to gamble and see the celebration from the vestibule e
a consecration that they with understand then turn back with one
mean look and cry over a lost life.
What is luck for whom

it is one with itself
just stamp your foot
where it is taken for him
is the border and the right for knowing-si is the sign in the lineage for naming-
Yes.
Winter 1924/25
DUSK
Twilight declining
who waits with a nod -
Gray is the tide
Silent twilight
who silently turns to an end that warns with a lament and says
without speaking -

Gray is the tide
Consoling twilight
that gently heals
pointing to the dark
turning around the new -
Gray is the tide.
LOST IN MYSELF
Page 340
When I contemplate my hand - foreign thing is one with me -

I'm not in any country,
I'm not on any Here or Now on any Who rests.
Then it is as if you disdain the world, that therefore time passes calmly.
Only that no other signs happen.
I contemplate my hand,
strangely close and one with me, yet something different.
And more than what I am?
Does it make a higher sense?
Summer 1925
SUMMER SONG
Through the ripe harvest of summer I let my hands and limbs slip
aching I stretch out
towards the dark heavy earth.
The fields that resonate s' incline the paths that go into the woods all
it imposes a severe silence: that we can love even if we suffer.
What the offer, what the put

do not let the priest's hand dry out; that in noble, clear stillness there is
let joy stiffen.

As the waters flow away, fatigue wants to annihilate us and us

we abandon life
just to love, to live.
WITHOUT TITLE
Because you offer me your hand

shy and secret?
Page 341
Do you come from a land so far away that you don't know our wine?
Don't you know our most beautiful ardor - do you live so alone? -
With heart and blood being one with the other?
Don't you know the joy of the days spent together with the beloved?
Don't you know the parting of the evening, leaving melancholy?
Come with me and love me.

Don't think about your fears
You cannot fail to trust Come, give and take.
We go through a flowery field - poppy and wild clover -

Later in the wide world
maybe it hurts us.
When we feel that a strong memory blows like a wind

when our soul trembles in a mild thrill
as in a dream.
COMMIATO
You give us the sadness that there is nothing left and you give us the hope that a lot
you still press you show us the sign of joy and pain you show us the ways and there
open hearts.
You join our hands as we never believe in fidelity and

we feel the change we cannot say how united we are alone we can only

cry.
LATE SUMMER
In the evening he covered me

soft as velvet, heavy as pain.
Page 342
I no longer know how love makes, I no longer know how the fields shine, and
everything is about to vanish
just to give me peace.
I think of him and his love is as if he were in distant lands and he is a stranger to me
"Come and give"
nor do I know what kept me.

And the revolt doesn't move anymore
to new joy and sadness.
And all the vastness that called me and all the clear and profound yesterdays not
they can no longer delude me.
I know a large and strange water and a flower that no one calls by name
what more can destroy me?

Winter 1925-1926
OCTOBER MORNING
The pale autumn light makes me suffer and as I slowly count mine
a thousand pains let the dusky gleam of my eyes delight at the sight of everything
what I secretly see and choose.
Ah, who wants to weigh what it does not grasp and who means what it lags behind

break up with -
because as he grasps it with both hands he no longer knows why he still suffers from it.
LAMENT
Page 343
Ah the days fly away useless like a game and the hours give in defenseless to the game
of torments.
And the ups and downs of times

it slowly slips through me and I sing the old songs that I don't know anymore
as it once was.
And a child can no longer go through the course assigned to him in a dream
And an old man cannot know more patiently that life is long.
Yet the pain does not want to appease old dreams, young wisdom and not
let me give up
to the beautiful purity of happiness.
TO FRIENDS
Do not cry over the gentle lament if the gaze of someone who does not have a home is still
timidly looks for you.
Feel how even the purest history can proudly do everything

hide.
Feel how tenderly

gratitude and fidelity tremble.
And you will know that always
new love will be given.
AT NIGHT
Incline you o consoler, softly on my heart give me, o silent one, relief
from the penalty.

escaC
peovfreormwidtahzyzoliunrgslhigahdto.w all that shines: give me the weariness and the
Page 344
Leave me your silence, your cool ease, let your darkness

envelop the evil when the light hurts me with new visions, give me strength,
give me consistency.
NIGHT SONG
Only the days go by, they make our time pass.

Already the same dark signs
it will prepare us, silent, the night.
He has to keep saying the same thing and insist on the same tone
even after new attempts it always shows only what we already were.
The morning attracts us strong and unknown, interrupts the mute and dark vision
with a thousand new worries he returns us to the colors of the day.
Yet the shadows will remain.

To shyly close around the day, we allow ourselves to be pushed towards
distant shores on rapid currents.
Shadows are our homeland.

And if we are deeply exhausted, in the dark pit of the night we hope
in a subdued consolation.
Hoping we can forgive

all the fears, all the worries.
Our lips fall silent -
the day comes in silence.
A5 Annotation from the diary of Hannah Arendt (manuscript), August o

September 1953-
[From: Denktagebuch , notebook XVII, kept at the Deutsches
Literaturarchiv of Marburg under the number 93.37.16; this text was
published in the English translation by Jerome Kohn, cf. Essays in
Understanding, pp. 361-62.]

Page 345
Heidegger proudly says: "People say Heidegger is a fox."

This is the true story of the Heidegger fox.
Once upon a time there was a fox, but so devoid of cunning that it not only fell
continuously in the traps, but was unable to perceive the difference between
a trap and what is not. This fox had another flaw, something
it didn't go into her fur so she was totally devoid of natural
protection against the drawbacks of fox life. This fox, after having
wandered all his youth in the traps of other people and not being them
not even a hair of his fur left healthy, so to speak, he made up his mind
to withdraw completely from the world of foxes and set about building a den
fox. In his gruesome ignorance of what a trap is and what isn't
is, and with his incredible skill in traps, he came up with a very new idea, and
among the foxes, unheard of: he built a trap for himself as a den, took up residence there, gave it
to understand it as a normal den (not for shrewdness, but because it has always been
had taken the traps of others for their lairs), but decided to become, in his own
way, shrewd and to transform his trap, which he had built himself and that
it was only good for her, trapped by the other foxes. Which again attests to one
great ignorance in matters of traps: in his trap no one could
really go in because she was already in it. This irritated her; in the end it is
although it is known that all foxes, despite their cunning, fall from time to time
much in the traps. Why a fox trap, built by the
more experienced in trapping than all foxes, she could not compete with the
traps of men and hunters? It was certain because the trap was not
recognizable as such with sufficient clarity. So our fox ran
in the beautiful idea of decorating his trap in the most elegant of ways and of
equip it everywhere with clear signs that unequivocally said: come everyone
here, here is a trap, the most beautiful trap in the world. From that moment on
then it was very clear that no fox could ever be in this trap
entering by mistake without wanting to. And yet many came. Why this
trap our fox served as a lair. And if you wanted to visit her in the den
where he lived it was necessary to enter his trap. From which of course
anyone could go out and go, except herself. The trap had been her
literally built on him. But the fox who lived in the trap said,
all fair; so many get into my trap, I've become the fox
best of all. And in this too there was something true: no one knows about them
traps better than someone who spends his entire life in a trap.

Page 346
Afterword
by Ursula Ludz
The dates that appear in the title of this volume, 1925 and 1975, are the
temporal extremes of the story of Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger, at least for
as regards its written tradition. The first document is from 10 February
1925; it's a self-invitation. "Dear Miss Arendt," begins the handwritten letter from
professor to the student in her first semester at university, "I have to tonight
go back to speaking to his heart ». Theater of events is the university city
by Marburg an der Lahn. The last document, a letter that opens with
the allocation "Dear Hannah" is dated July 30, 1975. Contains a
invitation that had been urged by Hannah: "We," that is, Martin Heidegger and his
wife Elfride, "we are delighted with your visit." Appointment made, Hannah
Arendt, widow since 1970, left Tegna, her holiday resort, to go
in Freiburg via Zurich. On 12 August the two met for the last time.
Arendt died suddenly, in New York, a few months later, on December 4th
1975, at the age of 69. Heidegger, who was 17 years her senior, outlived her
a little; died May 26, 1976.
The two dates indicate the extremes of a time span of five decades, which
they are placed in the center - equidistant from the beginning and from the end - of that century
particularly marked the story that is documented here. In the
symbology of numbers, and observing the question from the point of view of
protagonists, the year that is at the center of these fifty years and of the century,
that is 1950, is just as significant. It happened then, on Hannah's initiative
Arendt, what Martin Heidegger later celebrated in different ways: the «return and the
gathering of five decades "," re-seeing oneself ", the Sonata sonans 1 . Then, in one
letter (of February 15, 1950) Heidegger spoke of the "quarter of a century of ours
life "that was to be recovered; while instead Arendt, in the exchange of letters with
her friend Hilde Frankel who lived in New York (February 10, 1950), did this
comment: «He has absolutely not realized that 25 years have passed» 2 . AND
he then added (in the same unpublished letter): «Basically I am happy, because I have

Page 347
had this confirmation: that I was right to never forget ».

In the presence of a situation perceived and interpreted in such a way
contradictory and differentiated by the protagonists themselves, those who consider it
in retrospect he finds it extremely difficult to interpret the testimonies
documentaries that have come down to us. It depends primarily on the fact that the
documentation is extremely incomplete. Less than a quarter of the letters
preserved and other documents come from Hannah Arendt. Their value
documentary is further dwarfed by the fact that not always
we have the originals, and therefore we often do not know whether the minutes or the
copies of the letters correspond to letters actually sent, and they have
then reached the recipient. Furthermore, the fragments we have, that
they testify to the different stages of a relationship of love and friendship, they demand
that the interpreter really makes a great effort. Often they become fully
understandable only if one reads not only what is said, but also that
which is silenced - how could it be otherwise with Heidegger? But also
Hannah Arendt, who usually expresses herself more directly, presents a certain
number of puzzles. And the secret, which binds these two people, remains intact, either
he nor she unveils it. He mentions the dimension: «Suddenly, being there
folgora / We scrutinize, we guard - we throw ourselves into the dance ». She "launches
in dance », without however expressing the experience explicitly. To
to interpret we must rather resort to other (scattered) sources; but it is not
what we intend to do in this afterword. Let's just mention a
one question: for the philosopher Hannah Arendt what has been verbally fixed
becomes an object of understanding, and understanding for her means engaging in
a reflection, in a comparison, in a criticism. Heidegger's couplet la
commits. In the summer of 1951, starting from a quote from The Gay Science of
Nietzsche, writes in his diary: "If life is being, then the most living is the most
being. If "the living is only a rare variety of the dead" (Nietzsche), then the
rarer is the most living and the most existing ». At this point Arendt quotes Heidegger,
approximately ("Suddenly the being shows itself ...") and continues
writing: "Then everything is nothing but mediocre decadence, inclination to
universality of death " 3 .
The publication of this documentation therefore allows you to "illuminate"
only partially the res privée from which it originated - but the aura of mystery
surrounding the letters themselves, whose existence was made known to all only with the
publication of the biography of Arendt by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl in 1982, is
dissolved. Young-Bruehl, in his book Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World 4 ,
Page 348

she had made known for the first time what she had come to know
mainly through oral testimony: that is, that between Hannah Arendt and
Martin Heidegger, beyond the relationship between teacher and pupil, and a relationship
intellectual, there had been an intimate relationship. While citing the existence of these
letters, the author did not fail to point out that they were not public
domain. And they would probably stay like that for several more years, well
beyond the date of their current publication, if one fine day Mary McCarthy,
one of the executors of the Hannah Arendt-Blücher Literary Trust, did not
known Elzbieta Ettinger, if she had not supported her project to write
a biography of Arendt, referring it to Lotte Köhler, co-executor
testamentary, in order to examine the unpublished correspondence (referred to at the time
also included the Blücher correspondence). This is how Ettinger had
access to confidential materials. Contrary to its initial intentions, it
decided after a couple of years to publish part of his separately
biography concerning the Heidegger-Arendt relationship 5 . The letters, surrounded by
an aura of mystery, they constituted the main source of the merged materials
in the libretto which, written in English, was later translated and also widely distributed
in other languages. The success found is not however proportional to the quality
of the work. Ettinger has provided the book market of a pamphlet -type
particular, and, intentionally or unintentionally, ended up degrading the relationship between
Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger on the level of gossip.
Although it was not very insightful and tactless, the writing of the
Ettinger had at least one positive effect: Hermann Heidegger, the son to whom
his father had entrusted the task of supervising the publication of his writings
unpublished, he was convinced after this story of the opportunity to publish the letters
filed with the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach. But there was not only
this stimulus derived from external and contingent elements: in fact this
publication appears fully justified even without considering them.
Two eminent figures of twentieth-century intellectual history come like this
to find himself in the public eye - the "king in the realm of thinking" and,
so to speak, the "queen in the realm of judging" (with all the consequences of
chance - even "judging" is not immune from "errors"!). The interest aroused by
biographical aspects and the circumstances of daily life, than the events themselves
they would still be able to arouse, it naturally increases when biographies
concern characters who have achieved notoriety and whose relationship does not have
never seen a real break, continuing for several decades. They can
certainly be good reasons not to comply with this need
Page 349
public opinion (and both protagonists have acted in this way

for their whole life), but then there is a risk of leaving the field free a
all kinds of fantasies, sensationalism and amateurism. In an era that
she is particularly attracted to everything that remains "secret" and so
in doing so, it takes away its own characteristic from the mystery, replacing it with banalities
of everyday life, the only possible remedy seems to be to
re-establish the "reality" attested by the documents by making it accessible to scholars.
In any case, this is how it was decided to do.
The fame of the two correspondents also means that they are not lacking
specialists in the life and work of Arendt and Heidegger. In this correspondence
they will find many and illuminating biographical details, they will be able to underline
or accentuate this or that perspective with greater precision, and follow it
development of unique personal and intellectual relationships in their different ones
facets. In this perspective, the present edition does nothing but
continue an already well established trend. It is part of the series of
posthumous editions of letters which help to complete the mosaic of the portraits of
Arendt as well as Heidegger.
Furthermore, the documents published here, especially those dating back to the
Twenties, are testimonies - regardless of the identity of the
writers and interlocutors - of a culture of intimacy of other times and models of
behavior that might appear unrelated to the generations raised a
close to or after the sexual revolution and thus arouse their interest. There
relationship seems to have been marked, for a number of reasons that is not possible
analyze here, to a "modesty" that is repeatedly invoked. His
implication, a lack of mutual loyalty, instead consciously emerges in
explicitly only in a couple of rare cases. “There is a type of guilt that arises
from secrecy », writes Hannah Arendt to Elfride Heidegger (February 10, 1950), e
almost simultaneously Martin Heidegger acknowledges (February 8, 1950):
“In most cases we talk too much; but sometimes we talk too much
little ".
On the other hand, it follows from this way of relating to the other that in
written communication never crosses the threshold of painful and sad matters. The
reader (without having requested it) becomes the beneficiary of a "high" language,
which on the one hand says too little, and on the other is far too dense. The texts that
they are published in this volume have not only a biographical interest
and historical-cultural, but also have a literary importance. Who on the other hand does not
he doesn't tolerate the typical "perfume" of Heidegger's writing at all
Page 350
otherwise.
All written records preserved and relating to this report
staff are gathered here together for the first time since the Funds
Heidegger and Arendt of Marbach and from the Papers of Hannah Arendt deposited in

Washington DC (USA). They consist, in detail, of 119 letters,

postcards and short missives from him to her, and 33 writings by her, many of which are there
received only in copies or minutes. To these are added some letters
between Heidegger's wife, Elfride, and Arendt (Doc. 49, 108, 109,
110, 111, 119a, 122, 123), as well as a short letter from Fritz Heidegger dating back
to 1970, in which he provides some information on health conditions
of his brother, after the latter had been seized by a mild stroke
near Augsburg (doc. 121). Beyond these correspondence they come then
a number of other documents published: the Ombre manuscript , written by Hannah
Arendt for Heidegger in April 1925 in Königsberg and then delivered to
Martin in Kassel (doc. 11); and then again poems that Martin Heidegger wrote
for Hannah in 1950 and 1951 after they met again, about which she had
way of writing, proudly, to Kurt Blumenfeld of having had the opportunity «to
enrich the German language with some very beautiful lyrics » 6 . Most of
these poems (doc. 50, 54, 56, 58, 61, 63, 67, 75 and illustrations 1 and 10) are
extremely enlightening testimonies, which express what in the letters
it is only said between the lines. This edition also contains some
poems by Hannah Arendt of the years 1924-26 (Appendix, doc. A4), certainly
less beautiful, but equally revealing in their own way, some of which already were
been published by Young-Bruehl. Heidegger's first letters leave
to understand that the student had given her beloved some poems by
its composition. It is therefore plausible that one or the other of the poems here
published was written "for Martin". In general, these testimonials do
they add to the letters communicate some aspect of the mood and of the
spiritual condition of the young Hannah Arendt, and thus contribute to making
hear some accent in his voice, which is in the first part of the correspondence
almost completely absent. Added to this are The True Story of
fox Heidegger, which Arendt noted in August or September 1953 in his
diary (doc. A5), and finally his homage to Heidegger for the eightieth anniversary
birthday on September 26, 1969 (doc. 116, 117).
We must be grateful to Hannah Arendt that the letters and the others
testimonies have survived. Because it is she who has kept and put in
arrangement of the archives most of the materials that are brought here
Page 351
to the light. We do not know if he wanted to publish it or if he had any

even just got the idea. However, she is the one who wrote on the poems of
Heidegger, addressed to her, their respective dates, and most likely it is herself
to have transcribed them. They were so important to her that, along with the letters, the
at the end he kept in a very specific place - a drawer of the desk of the
his bedroom. His awareness of the importance of what he had experienced e

hpaertdiceusliarerlynoim
t tporleestsehdiminfahlelri,nttootohbelpivoiionnt omfuisntdhuacvinegbheenr to break an agreement
caught with Heidegger and therefore not to destroy personal documents. According to
a communication from Hermann Heidegger, his father had confided to him that
there had been an agreement of this kind - so it must be assumed that Heidegger
certainly did not keep the letters received from Hannah in their first one
period.
As for the possibility of finding Arendt's letters in
Heidegger's legacy, which in the meantime has been carefully examined several times
in the context of the works connected with the complete edition of the works, this must be done
absolutely exclude. According to a communication from the Heidegger family,
there is no trace of the missing letters even in Fritz Heidegger's legacy.
We must therefore conclude that all that has been able to be handed down - for
how fragmentary it may be - is fully published in the
present edition. All of Martin Heidegger's letters are handwritten - not
there have never been copies. HA, on the other hand, only wrote the letters of the
first period, so that we still have the minutes of these years, which you
has preserved itself. With regard to subsequent typewritten letters,
sometimes there are copies, sometimes there are the originals in the Heidegger 7 legacy .
We have already mentioned a feature of this edition: the
voice of Martin Heidegger. A second peculiarity consists in the fact that yes
they show phases of very dense correspondence alternating with phases in which it is missing
any communication, with a whole series of intermediate stages. A brief look
overall on the history of the relationship, on the basis of the documents published here, is
enough to prove it. To do this you need to strictly adhere to
facts, without having any intention of proposing an interpretation that goes beyond
beyond them. If sometimes important aspects of the discussion are called into question
on the Heidegger-Arendt report, however, it will not claim to provide any
a comprehensive or concise analysis.
We can distinguish three "great" periods in which this developed
relation. The first begins in "November 1924" (see the poem it bears
Page 352
this title in doc. 54), materialized in February 1925 (Doc. 1-3), undergoes a
slowdown due to a period of absence (Doc. 4-8), and then resume
more intensely in April with the meeting in Kassel (Doc. 9-12). During the
summer semester 1925, in which several (clandestine) meetings took place (Doc. 13-27)
the relationship stabilizes, thus continuing until the end of the 1920s (doc.
28-44), despite the breakdown imposed by Hannah Arendt in January 1926 (doc.
35). At first there is love at first sight. "A demonic force hit me" -
Heidegger then wrote (doc. 3), who will use this force as momentum
creative during the gestation years of Being and time. The period spent a

Marburg, as he will write later (in My journey of thought and the

phenomenology, 1963), was «the most stimulating, the most concentrated, the richest of
events of my existence ". Some of his letters to his beloved attest to 'the
great experience of creative work "(doc. 28 ff.)," the moments of
violence "(doc. 35), reflecting their conditions, joys and needs.
The experience of love is no less important to Hannah, as is us
explain the few documents left at our disposal. The Ombre manuscript
(doc. 11) certifies, so to speak, the status quo ante, and for the end of this phase of the
of his life we find a formulated self-reflection in a minute of letter (doc. 42)
as a solemn promise: «The path you indicated to me is longer and
difficult than I thought. It takes a whole long life. The loneliness of this
journey is voluntary and it is the only possibility of life that is granted to me ». The things
they no longer stand in such a way that «she continues to waste her life in
senseless experiments "(doc. 11). "All shadows are dissolved," as he had
got to observe some time ago.
This first period is followed by an interruption of almost twenty years,
conditioned above all by political events, which begins with a letter
by Heidegger (doc. 45). The letter, written during the winter of 1932_33 , covers a
great importance that goes far beyond the sphere of their private relationship. At the
eve of the assumption of the rectorate, Heidegger expresses himself on the accusations
of anti-Semitism that were investing him, and that Arendt, in a letter that
it has not been preserved, she had brought back to him. Nothing allows us to say if its
answer satisfied you; however, she does not seem to have reacted
immediately, rather closing oneself in silence, first voluntarily, then
due to circumstances. Probably only in 1948 (see doc. 62) is she
to have tried to re-establish contact with Heidegger which, for his part, does not
he had taken no steps in this direction. Finally, on February 6, 1950 it is her
to establish a new beginning - driven by an "irrepressible impulse" (see doc. 48)
Page 353
and from the desire to remain faithful to herself and to her own thinking. Which
reasons may have led you to this? The documents published herein
edition does not allow you to provide a unique answer to this question.
In any case, the second "great" period begins on February 7, 1950. In
evening Martin Heidegger goes to meet Hannah Arendt in the hotel where
he was staying in Freiburg, after she had let him know the day before
through a ticket to be in town. A large number of testimonials from
years 1950 to 1954 (Doc. 47-87) attest that the confidence between the two has been reborn o
it is established again: «How beautiful is this understanding that excites
immediately, almost still unexpressed, on the basis of a rooted affinity
ancient, comes from afar, and has not been upset by evil and confusion.

D
moe, neoatcahboafnudsonacucsoard
niynm
goto
rehoisn ntheedb,ahsis torfibtuhleadtieoenp, ehsitsintimacy: may this help you and
weakness." (doc. 55).
At the same time, the documents of these years, which also belong
predominantly in Heidegger, they are a mine of information for all
those interested in the Heideggerian biography of the early years
Fifty. It is the phase of his life marked by the suspension from teaching e
from the precariousness of his personal situation (until 1951), as well as of the
political and personal attacks motivated by his past commitment to
national socialism; attacks which, however, unexpectedly contribute to
renew its growing fame in postwar Germany. At the same
way, the multiple passages in which he expresses himself on his "
journey of thought ".
Hannah Arendt remains in the background, and the reader learns very little
of its evolution and its biography. At least once, however, she happens to
talk about his work (doc. 86). The paragraph in question suggests that
he had already conceived the general lines of The Human very early (1954)
Condition (1958) or Vita activa. Later (1960) he gratefully recalls in
a dedication, which he could never see (see note 1 to letter 89), «the first
days of Freiburg », ie their talks during his visits over the years
1950 and 1952.
As for Heidegger's work, it had begun at that time
a "dialogue on language" that echoes in some hints (July 14, 1951):
“So I often think of our conversation about language as we walked the
path to the birch "; or, many years later, when thanking her with
many months late for his wishes on the occasion of his 75th birthday (April 13
Page 354
1965): «I still often think about our walk, when we discussed

together on language ".
The decade from 1955 to 1965 is dark, as there are only three i
preserved documents (88-90), including the one just mentioned. Meetings too
personal have become rarer in the meantime; between 195 2 and 1967 Martin Heidegger
and Hannah Arendt never saw each other again. The reasons for this interruption are
many, and we will limit ourselves to mentioning some of them that are immediately evident, on which
we find indications in the documents published here. Based on the letters of
Hannah Arendt to Heinrich Blücher, in which she abandons herself to descriptions of
Elfride Heidegger sometimes very drastic, it can be assumed that they come into play
both intellectual and political issues, and female jealousy. Furthermore,
Heidegger's always tense relationship with the
colleague Karl Jaspers, a relationship to the interior of which Arendt posed as
"The authentic" and "" (Doc. 64). But that's not all, there are still other reasons, not

lastly the fact that in this period both Heidegger and Arendt were both
very busy with their own "things" and which each judged somewhat
I criticize the "activity" of the other (this is what emerges, for example, from the story already
quoted, and published in the appendix, on the Heidegger fox).
It is therefore even more amazing than in the last decade of theirs
life, there is a third "great" period of their relationship. In his letter to H.
Arendt on his sixtieth birthday, 14 October 1961 (doc. 91),
Heidegger sets the tone for this last period: autumn. She agrees:
"To those to whom spring has given and broken their hearts, autumn heals it"
(Doc. 92). And we, readers and viewers of this report, in recent years
we are witnessing for the first time an exchange of letters worthy of the name
(Doc. 91-166). We take part in an authentic exchange, which consists of giving and
in receiving, in the course of which, insofar as it is lawful to make this calculation,
it is possible that she receives more than she gives him. Fall is the season
of maturity and, in the private and personal sphere, it is the season of
authentic reconciliation, that reconciliation in which, on the part of Arendt,
Elfride Heidegger is increasingly included. In the background it continues
however, an ill-concealed intellectual rivalry reveals itself. Keep persisting one
tension - albeit between equals - from which the Arendtian project clearly benefits
to write a "contemplative life". Among the many collateral issues addressed
in the letters of these years the translation and dissemination should be noted
of Heidegger's work in Anglo-Saxon-speaking countries, and that of the reorganization e
of the deposit of unpublished manuscripts. They echo in the speeches of the two
Page 355
corresponding concerns related to the decline of life - expressed

philosophically in the key word "quiet", but also, much more concretely,
regarding Martin Heidegger and his wife, in the construction of theirs
"Home for old age" (doc. 138, see also doc. 130, 136). The effort of
"Thinking in a more stringent and rigorous way" (August 4, 1971) is perceptible in the
Heidegger's letters, while she expresses a desire to perfect her work.
On March 20, 1971 he wrote: "It is still possible that I will be able to finish a book,
I'm working on - a kind of second volume of Vita Activa ",
then asking him to be able to dedicate this volume to him if he is able to
finish it.
1969, the year of Heidegger's 80th birthday, is celebrated
in a particularly intense way, both in public and in private form. Hannah
Arendt thanks the "teacher" from whom he learned to think, and pays him homage
with a radio speech entitled «Martin Heidegger is eighty years old», a
speech that soon became famous and whose text was later published in the
October issue of the magazine «Merkur». Returning to the symbolism of the
numbers, she writes on the typewritten copy of her speech sent to

Heidegger (doc. 116): «For you, for 26 September 1969 after forty-five
years, as always - Hannah ». Before the birthday, accompanied by her husband,
he had visited the Heideggers (Doc. 114); with regard to i
numerous tributes received by Heidegger on that occasion, Hannah came to
knowledge through the letter he wrote to her on November 27, 1969 (doc. 118).
Before Heidegger could celebrate his 80th birthday Karl
Jaspers was dead. Immediately after the funeral ceremony, which was held in Basel (in
February / March 1969), Hannah goes to Freiburg (doc. 106). From this
moment on - and especially after the death of her husband Heinrich Blücher
in October 1970 - «Freiburg» will become his point of reference more and more
important. On the occasion of all his stays in Europe in the following years,
in 1972 and 1975, he will never fail to go there, once or even twice. The 13
July 1971 openly recognizes it: «Your things accompany me, they become
a kind of habitual environment ". His work Vom Leben des Geistes,
published posthumously, it is the testimony. As for his
interlocutor, we read almost incredulous in his letter of June 22, 1972: "
I hope to hear about your work, otherwise I don't have any
opportunity to learn more ». In a copy of his book Kant and the Problem
of metaphysics, of which the fourth augmented edition appeared in 1973, wrote the
following dedication: «To Hannah Arendt, greeting her affectionately, Martin
Page 356
Heidegger ». This results, or at least so it wants to appear, the recognition of

Hannah Arendt as an author, namely the recognition of her work - a
homage he had cruelly denied her over the years
previous. The last dedication he addressed to her is found in a printed booklet
limited written by Heidegger as an obituary in memory of his
collaborator Hildegard Feick. The "follower of Parmenides" limits himself to writing
briefly, as he had done on other occasions: "For Hannah - Martin."
The three great periods of their relationship can be characterized by theirs
respective beginnings. The "re-seeing" of 1950, which Martin Heidegger stared at in one of his
poetry (doc. 63), presupposed a first previous meeting, a "seeing", that
there actually was, concrete and real: a gaze that «shone on me
on the chair ”(doc. 60, see also doc. 12) - an event in which one merged
look and a "love at first sight" giving rise to a first beginning, that
"Destined to last". In the homage copy of Paths interrupted, which Heidegger le
sent in memory of their new meeting in 1950, the philosopher transcribed a
fragment of Heraclitus "τά δέ πάντα οιακίζει κεραυνός", translating it into this
way: «All this, however, with presence governs the gaze». Everything leaves
suppose that even the "autumn" of this relationship still lived on this
Start.

Seeing oneself - seeing oneself again - autumn: this immanent structure, in which i
protagonists configured the moments of their relationship, she was hired
in this edition as a criterion for dividing the text into chapters.
Thanks to the courtesy of Mrs Lore Jonas, it was possible to publish how
Two documents belonging to the Jonas legacy are the «epilogue» of the affair. It is about
a telegram of condolences, which Martin Heidegger sent to New York,
addressing it to Hans Jonas and Hannah Arendt's circle of friends in
occasion of the funeral, and of a letter written some time later, also
addressed to Jonas (doc. 167, 168).
As for the technical aspects of this edition, they have taken into
consideration of the antecedents constituted above all by the editions of the letters
Arendt-Jaspers, Heidegger-Jaspers and Heidegger-Blochmann 8 . They have provided
valuable guidelines for the composition of the text and notes. One of the first
editorial choices, made by mutual agreement with both performers
wills, dr. Lotte Köhler and dr. Hermann Heidegger, was that of
present the texts to the reader by minimizing the intervention on the original text,
reason for which the norm established for the edition of the correspondence was followed
Heidegger-Blochmann, giving up the indices of note 9 inside
Page 357
of the text of the letters. The addresses and final greetings appearing at the beginning and
at the end of the letters have been reported as they are, and as regards the greetings,
their exact arrangement has also been preserved as far as possible.
Within the texts, only minor and extreme changes have been introduced
circumspection, when this was deemed appropriate for the purposes of better readability.
This means, for example, that the conjunction "und", usually abbreviated to
"U." Was written in full; that the abbreviations of the names (for example "J" for
Jaspers, or "Frbg" for Freiburg) have been dissolved, and that the square brackets
of the curator have been included only in the event that it is necessary
provide the reader with truly meaningful information for understanding
some text. Obvious errors attributable to pure e were also tacitly corrected
simple distraction. The underlined or spaced passages by the writers appear in the
italicized text, as well as the titles of all publications cited (although
both authors almost always write them in quotation marks). Punctuation has
represented a particular problem. Incorrect use of commas aside
of Arendt has been corrected; instead they have been omitted when they have been
considered unscrupulous as careless errors. How long
it concerns the hyphens that Heidegger uses, which in his manuscripts often do not
are distinguished by the use of commas and periods, or are used in place of
the latter, they were changed in a few steps when it seemed to us that
this could contribute to understanding. Some commas, the absence of which would have
may have baffled the reader, they have been added.

In the notes, under the number attributed to each document, they are provided
in the first place the indications relating to the written testimonies available, e
subsequently the information relating to the context, in case, online
general, reading the previous or subsequent document does not allow
clarify certain links sufficiently. Taken together, the indications and comments
have been limited to the bare essentials, limiting themselves to related information
to the life and work of the two authors. It was considered necessary to renounce to specify the
sense of the individual concepts and ideas expressed, because this was beyond the criteria
of this edition. Some knowledge of the
Martin Heidegger's language. On the other hand, the two authors themselves indicate, in
genre with great precision, where to find the ideas they face or develop
in their correspondence. For this reason, the titles of the cited works of Arendt
and Heidegger have been brought together in a comprehensive index placed at the end of
volume. This bibliographic apparatus was conceived as an integration of the
Note. The reader will find in this index, and not in the notes, the precise indication
Page 358
relating to the titles of the works of Heidegger and Arendt mentioned in the text of the
letters
Finally, let us remember once again that it is for Martin
Heidegger who for Hannah Arendt, in case of doubt, was always "the work" a
prevail over "life". In the documents that are presented in this volume it is
life to be preponderant, although it is still very clear how
life and work are inseparably intertwined. Here and there, the most sensitive readers do not
they will also fail to perceive something of the spirit that pervades the work
works. And I just have to hope that there are many readers willing to follow the
path of the protagonists of the story that is told on the thread of documents,
reading them carefully, questioning and judging them independently,
perhaps asking himself new questions and returning to reflect on them.
1 What actually happened can be the subject of a

quite precise reconstruction, both on the basis of the published testimonies and
based on letters sent by Hannah Arendt to her husband Heinrich Blücher e
to her friend Hilde Frankel (the latter are unpublished and preserved in the Hannahs
Arendt Papers at the Library of Congress in Washington; cf. even more
forward.
2 The "Freiburg affair", she had written to her husband a few days earlier,
"It had been most unpleasant"; she had been 'treated as if time didn't
had passed ».

3 Heidegger's couplet and an excerpt from Arendt's diary entry

they are reproduced in this volume as autographed documents (see figs. 1 and 16).
4 E. Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt cit.
5 Italian translation: Elzbieta Ettinger, Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger.
A love story , Garzanti, Milan 1996 [ed. or. Hannah Arendt Martin
Heidegger, Yale University Press, New Haven-London 1995]; on the story of
this publication cf. the letter from Lotte Köhler published by «New York
Review of Books », March 21, 1996, p. 52.
6 Letter of April 1, 1951, H. Arendt and K. Blumenfeld, ... In keinem Besitz
verwurzelt cit., p. 52.

7 More detailed information on their transmission is provided
at the beginning of the notes relating to each document. The indications relating to the
version reported in this volume can be taken from the list of
Page 359
published documents.
8 Bibliographic information relating to these three letters can be found
in the bibliographic indications.

9 With the exception of doc. 116, the text of which was written by HA accompanied
of notes.
Thanks.
I thank Dr. Lotte Köhler who allowed me a long time ago to

consult the documents kept by Hannah Arendt and which has me ever since
always supported, with words and deeds. I thank dr. Hermann Heidegger,
who has placed such trust in me that this edition of
see the light, and he offered me great help in transcribing the manuscripts
of his father, not to mention the time he devoted, with admirable
patience, to clarify various passages of the text. Finally, I thank the many
correspondents and interlocutors, whose help was invaluable in illuminating
this or that particular issue. It is not possible for me to mention them all here, because
the number of those I have contacted when asking for information and who have me
replied offering me their help was unusually high. I would however
mention at least one of the many that, in addition to offering me valuable advice, has
favored the establishment of a closer relationship (and which allowed me to put a
his patience hard test): Professor Joachim W. Storck, to whom the
I deserve to have had an important role connected to this edition, for
to have personally received the papers from Arendt's hands in New York
relating to Heidegger in his possession, thus delivering them to the archive of
Marbach. Finally, I thank Dr. Ingeborg Nordmann, my faithful ally in

rebus Arendtianis, and Dr. Elfride Uner for the numerous interviews and hers
critical review of this afterword.
Tutzing, January 1998
Editorial note. Unlike the German edition, in the Italian edition yes
it is preferred to use in the text of the letters the indices referring to the notes, in
compliance with the editorial standards of the Community Editions, and in the
belief that consultation is thus facilitated for the public
Italian.
Always in compliance with our editorial rules, it has also been included in the
Page 360
notes, as well as in the bibliography, the complete indication of the titles of the works of
Heidegger and Arendt on the occasion of the first citation.

Page 361
Bibliographic indications *

Page 362
Works by Hannah Arendt
[The titles of H. Arendt's works in order are shown below first

alphabetical of the original edition, then the titles of the letters].
Between Past and Future. Six Exercises in Political Thought, Viking Press,
New York 1961; [Zwischen Vergangenheit und Zukunft: Übungen im politischen
Denken I, edited by U. Ludz, Piper, München-Zürich 1994; trad. it. Between past and
future, Garzanti, Milan 1991].
Concern with Politics in Modern European Thought (1954), in Essays in
Understanding see, pp. 428-47
Denktagebücher, unpublished manuscript; Quaderno I is kept at the
Library of Congress (HAPapers, Cont. 79), Quaderni dal II to XXVIII are
kept at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach (Signature 93.37.1-
27).
Diskussion mit Freunden und Kollegen in Toronto (November 1972), cf. Ich
will verstehen.
Essays in Understanding, 1930-1954, edited by J. Kohn, Harcourt Brace,
New York 1994.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Viking Press, New
York 1963 [Eichmann in Jerusalem: Ein Bericht von der Banalität des Bösen,
Übersetzt von B. Granzow, Piper, Munich 1964; trad. it. The banality of evil.
Eichmann in Jerusalem, Feltrinelli, Milan 1964].
Fragwürdige Traditionsbestände im politischen Denken der Gegenwart:
Vier Essays, in Zwischen Vergangenheit und Zukunft, Europäische
Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main 1957 [trad. it. in Between past and future,
Vallecchi, Florence 1970 (see Between Pastand Future)].
Hermann Broch und der moderne Roman, in «Der Monat» I (1948-49), n. 8-
9, pp. 147-51.
The Human Condition, Chicago University Press, Chicago 1958 [Vita activa
oder Vom tätigen Leben, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1960; trad. it. Vita activa,
Bompiani, Milan 1964].
Ich will verstehen: Selbstauskünfte zu heben und Werk, bibliography edited by
U. Ludz, Piper, München-Zürich 1996.

UnivLeercstiutyrePsroesns,KCan
hti's
capgoolit
I lilc. a1l9P
82hi[loDsaosphOyr,teedilietned: TbeyxtRe. zB
ueKinaenrt,sCphoilciatigsoche
Philosophie, edited and with an essay by R. Beiner, Piper, München 1985].
Page 363
Der hiebesbegrìff bei Augustin: Versuch einer philosophischen

Interpretation, J. Springer, Berlin 1929 [Love and Saint Augustine, edited by J.
Vecchiarelli Scott and J. Chelius
Stark ;Chicago University Press, Chicago Ill. 1996; trad. it. The concept of
love in Augustine. Essay of philosophical interpretation, SE, Milan 2001].
The Life of the Mind, two volumes: Thinking; Willing , Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, New York 1978 [Vom Leben des Geistes (Contemplative life), 2 vol.
Das Denken, Das Wollen, Piper, Munich 1979; trad. it. Thinking, Wanting, in La
life of the mind, edited by A. Dal Lago, il Mulino, Bologna 1987].
Martin Heidegger ist achtzig Jahre alt, in «Merkur» XXIII (1969), n. i, ρ.
893-902; the manuscript of the speech given at the Bayerische Rundfunk is translated
in this volume, doc. 116.
Men in Dark Times, Harcourt Brace, New York 1968 [Menschen in finsteren
Zeiten, edited by U. Ludz, Piper, München-Zürich 1989].
On Revolution, Viking Press, New York 1963 [Über die Revolution, [1965],
Piper, Munich undated; trad. it. On the revolution, Community Editions,
Turin 1999].
On Violence, Harcourt Brace, New York 1970 [Macht und Gewalt, Piper,
München 1970; trad. it. On violence, Mondadori, Milan 1971].
Organized guilt and universal responsibility, "Jewish Frontier", January
1945; [Organisierte Schuld, in Die Wandlung I (1945-46), no. 4, pp. 333-44; trad.
it. Organized guilt and universal responsibility, in Judaism and modernity,
Unicopli, Milan 1986].
The Origins of Totalitarianism, Harcourt Brace, New York 1951 [Elemente
und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft, edition revised and translated by the author,
Europäische Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main 1955; trad. it. The origins of the
totalitarianism , Community Editions, Milan 1967, Turin 1999].
Rahel Varnhagen. Lebensgeschichte einer deutschen Jüdin aus der
Romantik, with a choice of letters from Rahel and period images, Piper,
München 1959 [Rahel Vamhagen. The Life of a Jewess, edited by L. Weissberg,
John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore Md. 1997; trad. it. Rahel Vamhagen.
Story of a Jewess, Il Saggiatore, Milan 1988].
Thinking, in The Life of the Mind [Das Denken, in Vom Leben des Geistes],
Thinking and Moral Considerations, in «Social Research» n. 38 (1971), pp.
417-46, 199336 [Uber den Zusammenhang von Denken und Moral, in Zwischen
Vergangenheit und Zukunft, pp. 128-155; trad. it. Thought and moral reflections, in
Civil disobedience and other essays, Giuffré, Milan 1985].

Page 364
Walter Benjamin, in «Merkur» XXII (1968), n. 1-2, p. 50-65; n. 3, 209-23; n.

4, pp. 305-15 [trad. it. Walter Benjamin: The Hunchbacked Man and the Pearl Fisherman, in
The future behind us, il Mulino, Bologna, 1981]; the essay was then inserted in
following title.
Walter Benjamin-Bertold Brecht: Zwei Essays, Piper, München 1971;
originally not in English; later included in Men in Dark Times
as then in German in Menschen in finsteren Zeiten.
Willing, in The Life of the Mind [Das Wollen, in Vom Leben des Geistes],
H. Arendt and H. blücher, Briefe 1936-1968, edited and with an introduction by
L. Köhler, Piper, München-Zürich 1996.
H. Arendt and K. blumenfeld, «... in keinem Besitz verwurzelt»: Die
Korrespondenz, edited by I. Nordmann and I. Pilling, Rotbuch, Hamburg 1995.
H. Arendt and H. broch, Briefwechsel 1946-1951, edited by PM Lützeier,
Jüdischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1996.
h. arendt and K. Jaspers, Briefwechsel 1926-1969, edited by L. Köhler and H.
Saner, Piper, München 1985 [trad. it. partial, Correspondence 1926-1969, edited by A.
Dal Lago, Feltrinelli, Milan 1989].
H. Arendt and M. mccarthy, Between Friends. The Correspondence of Hannah
Arendt and Mary McCarthy 1949-1975, edited by C. Brightman, Harcourt Brace,
New York 1995 [Im Vertrauen: Briefwechsel 1949-19-75, edited and with a
introduction by C. Brightmann, Piper, München 1995; trad. it. Between friends. There
correspondence by Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy, 1949-1975, Sellerio,
Rome-Palermo 2000].

Page 365
Works by Martin Heidegger
The titles of the works of M. Heidegger in order are shown below first
alphabetical, then the titles of the letters.
Aletheia (Heraklit, Fragment 16), in Festschrift zur Feier des 350jährigen

Bestehens des Heinrich-Suso-Gymnasiums in Konstanz, Konstanz 1954, p. 60-
76; then in Vorträge und Aufsätze, pp. 257-82 [trad. it. Aletheia (Heraclitus,
Fragment 16), in Essays and discourses (see Vorträge und Aufsätze)].
Der Anfang des abendländischen Denkens. Heraklit-, see Heraklit.
Anmerkungen zu Karl Jaspers' "Psychologie der Weltanschauungen" (1919-
1921), sent to Jaspers in June 1921 and not published at the time; then in H.
Saner (edited by), Karl Jaspers in der Diskussion, Piper, München 1973, pp. 70-
100; in Wegmarken (HGA, volume IX, pp. 1-44) [trad. it. Notes to «Psychology
of Karl Jaspers' visions of the world ”, edited by F. Volpi, in Segnavia, pp.
431-71 (see Wegmarken)].
Aufenthalte: Der Mutter zum siebzigsten Geburtstag - Ein Zeichen des
Beschenkten, edited by L. Michaelsen, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1989.
Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens, Neske, Pfullingen 1954; limited edition
limited to fifty numbered copies, undated; copy no. 50 with
autograph dedication: «A quarter of a century of calm and storm in the Ad
Hannah in memory of Martin / 4 March 1950 », is kept at the Deutsches
Literaturarchiv of Marbach. In HGA, vol. XIII (1983), pp. 75-86 [trad. it.
Thought and poetry, Armando, Rome 1977].
Bauen-Wohnen-Denken, lecture given in Darmstadt on 5 August 1951; then
repeated at Schloss Walchen on August 20, 1951; in Mensch und Raum, Darmstadt
1952, pp. 7284; in Voträge und Aufsätze, pp. 145-62 [trad. it. Building-Living-
Think, in Essays and discourses, pp. 96-108 (see Vorträge und Aufsätze)].
Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), manuscript dating back to the years
1936-38. HGA, vol. LXV (1989).
Brief an Emil Staiger, in E. Staiger, Zu einem Vers von Mörike: Ein
Briefwechsel mit Martin Heidegger, in "Trivium" IX, 1951, pp. 1-16. In HGA,
vol. XIII, pp. 93-109; [trad. it. in M. Heidegger and E. Staiger, Disputatio
hermeneutica, edited by R. Sega, Corbo, Ferrara 1989, pp. 31-50].
Casseler Vorträge; cf. Wilhelm Diltheys Forschungsarbeit.
Dasein und Wahrsein, cf. Wahrsein und Dasein.
Dasein und Zeitlichkeit (1924); autograph manuscript with dedication: «In

Page 366
memory of April 20 and 21, 1925. M. », in NLArendt; in HGA, vol. LXIV (not
still published).
Denken und Dichten, university course of the winter semester 1944-45; in
HGA, vol. L, (1990) pp. 90-160.
Der deutsche Idealismus (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) und die philosophische
Problemlage der Gegenwart ·, university course of the summer semester 1929;
HGA, vol. XXVIII (1997).
... dichterisch wohnet der Mensch lecture held at the Bühlerhöhe on 6
October 1951, then repeated in Zurich on November 5 of the same year and in Kassel
on 11 December 1953; in «Akzente» I, 1954, n. 1, pp. 57-71; copy of the original
typescript with autograph dedication: «H / M» in the NLArendt; in Vorträge und
Aufsätze, pp. 187204 [trad. it. ... man lives poetically ..., in Essays and discourses,
pp. 125-38 (see Vorträge und Aufsätze)].
Das Ding / Über das Ding, lecture given on 6 June 1950 at
the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts (the text has slight changes compared to
a Das Ding, published in Einblick in das was ist ; in Gestalt und Gedanke: Ein
Jahrbuch, edited by the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, Oldenbourg,
München 1951, pp. 128-48. Extract with autograph dedication on a ticket
pasted: «To Hannah for Christmas 1951 / M.», kept at the Deutsches
Literaturarchiv of Marbach; in Vorträge und Aufsätze, pp. 163-85 [trad. it. There
what, in Essays and discourses, pp. 109-24 (see Vorträge und Aufsätze)].
Einblick, cf. Einblick in das was ist.
Einblick in das was ist, Bremen lectures, held in December 1949: Das
Ding - Das Ge-stell - Die Gefahr - Die Kehre, then repeated at the Bühlerhöhe
on 25 and 26 March 1950; the first publication of the entire cycle (conducted on
"Fine copy" of March 1950 and on two copies) is the one included in the HGA, vol.
LXXIX (1994), pp. 1-77.
Einführung, cf. Einführung in die Metaphysik.
Einführung in die Metaphysik, university course for the summer semester of
1935, Niemeyer, Tübingen 1953; HGA, vol. XL (1983) [trad. it. Introduction
to metaphysics, Mursia, Milan 1968].
Einführung in die phänomenologische Forschung, university course of the
winter semester 1923-24; HGA, vol. XVII (1994).
Einleitung in die Philosophie ; winter semester university course
1928-29; HGA, vol. XXVII (1996).
Das Ende der Philosophie und die Aufgabe des Denkens-, communication
held in Paris on the occasion of the conference on «Kierkegaard vivant», organized
Page 367

by Unesco from 21 to 23 April 1964; in Zur Sache des Denkens (1969), pp. 61-
80 [trad. it. The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thought, by E.
Mazzarella, in Time and Being, pp. 169188 (see Zur Sache des Denkens)].
Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung (1936-1968), Klostermann, Frankfurt
am Main 1944; a copy of the 4th augmented edition, Klostermann,
Frankfurt am Main 1971, with an autograph dedication: «For Hannah in memory of
Heinrich April 1971 Martin ', is kept at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv
by Marbach; HGA, vol. IV (1981) [trad. it. Hölderlin's poetry, edited by L.
Amoroso, Adelphi, Milan 1988].
Der Feldweg (1949), Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1953; in HGA, vol.
XIII, pp. 87-90 [trad. it. The country path, in «Teoresi», 1961].
Die Frage nach der Bestimmung der Kunst-, lecture held at the
Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts on 9 April 1970; the text was never
published; the manuscript has not been preserved.
Die Frage nach der Technik , lecture given at the Bavarian Academy
of Fine Arts on November 18, 1953, based on Das Ge-stell, in Einblick in
das was ist-, in Gestalt und Gedanke: Ein Jahrbuch, edited by the Academy
Bavarian Fine Arts, vol. 3, Oldenbourg, München 1954, pp. 70-108; in
Vorträge und Aufsätze , pp. 13-44 [trad. it. The question of technique , in Saggi e
speeches, pp. 5-27 (see Vorträge und Aufsätze)].
Fragen nach dem Aufenthalt des Menschen, speech of thanks in
occasion of the celebrations for the 80th birthday in Amriswill, on 28
September 1969; in "Neue Zürcher Zeitung", no. 6ο6, 5.10.1969, Ρ 5 1 ! i n HGA,
vol. XVI (not yet published).
Frühe Schriften, 1912-1916; with bibliographic appendix and indexes edited by
Friedrich Wilhelm von Herrmann, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1972. Un
copy with autograph dedication: «For Hannah in memory of the visit on 24
September 1972 Freiburg i. Br. Martin »is kept at the Deutsches
Literaturarchiv of Marbach. HGA, vol. I (1978) [trad. it. Philosophical writings 1912-
1917, edited by A. Babolin, La Garangola, Padua 1972].
Gedachtes / Pensivement, for René Char, remembering him with friendship, in D.
Fourcade (edited by), René Char, L 'Herne, sia, Paris (1971), pp. 169-87; in
HGA, vol. XIII, pp. 221-24.
Das Gedicht , lecture given for Friedrich's 80th birthday
Georg Jünger in Amriswil on 25 August 1968; in Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins
Dichtung, HGA, vol. IV, p. 182-92 [trad. it. Poetry, in Hölderlin's Poetry,
pp. 219-231 (see Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung)].
Page 368
Gelassenheit, Neske, Pfullingen 1959; in HGA, vol. XIII, pp. 37-74, and HGA,

vol. XVI (not yet published) [trad. it. The abandonment, Il Melangolo, Genoa
1989].
Georg Trakl: Eine Erörterung seines Gedichtes-, lecture held at the
Bühlerhöhe on the occasion of the celebrations for Gerhard's 65th birthday
Stroomann and in memory of Georg Trakl, October 7, 1952; in «Merkur», no. 7
(1953), Heft 3, p. 226-58 (later also with the title Die Sprache im
Gedicht).
Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie; university course of
summer semester 1924; HGA, vol. XVIII (not yet published).
Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie; university course of the semester
summer 1927; in HGA, vol. XXIV (1975,1989) [trad. it. The fundamental problems
of phenomenology, Il Melangolo, Genova 1989].
Hegel: Die Negativität (1938-39); Erläuterung der «Einleitung» zu Hegels
Phänomenologie des Geistes (1942); HGA, vol. LXVIII (1993).
Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes; university course of the semester
winter 1930-31; HGA, vol. XXXII (1980, 1997 3 ) [trad. it. There
"Phenomenology of the spirit" by Hegel, edited by E. Mazzarella, Guide, Naples
1988].
Heraklit; cf .: "Aletheia ..."
Heraklit; university lectures of the years 1943-44: 1. Der Anfang des
abendländischen Denkens; 2. Logik. Heraklits Lehre vom Logos; HGA, vol. LV
(1979, 1994 ').
Heraklit: Seminar Wintersemester 1966-67; co-author E. Fink, Klostermann,
Frankfurt am Main 1970. A copy with an autograph dedication: «For Hannah /
Martin »is kept in the Bard College library (Annandale-on-
Hudson, NY, USA); in HGA, vol. XV, (1986), pp. 9-261 [trad. it. Dialogue
around Heraclitus, Coliseum, Milan 1992].
Die Herkunft des Kunst und die Bestimmung des Denkens ; conference held
at the Athens Academy of Sciences and Arts on 4 April 1967; in
Distanz und Nähe: Reflexionen und Analysen zur Kunst der Gegenwart, edited by
P. Jaeger and R. Lüthe, Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1983, pp. 11-12; in
HGA, vol. LXXX (not yet published).
Hölderlin; cf. Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung.
Hölderlins Hymne «Der Ister»; university course of the summer semester 1942 .;
in HGA, vol. LIII (1984, 1993 2 ).
Holzwege [1935-1946], Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1950; a
Page 369
copy with autograph dedication: "tà δέ πάντα οίακίζει κεραυνός / but all
things with the present being rules the gaze Heraclitus, Fragment 64 ad
Hannah Arendt in memory of 7 February 1950 Freiburg i. Br. Martin Heidegger "
it is kept in the Deutsches Literaturarchiv of Marbach; HGA, vol. V,

(1977) [trad. it. Paths interrupted, La Nuova Italia, Florence 1968].

Humanismusbrief; cf. Uber den Humanismus.
Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (= Kantbuch, first edition 1929);
a copy of the 4th expanded edition (Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main
1973) with autograph dedication on a glued-on sheet: «For Hannah Arendt / con
warm greetings Martin Heidegger », is kept at the Deutsches
Literaturarchiv of Marbach; HGA, vol. V, (1977) [trad. it. Kant and the problem
of metaphysics, edited by V. Verrà, Laterza, Rome-Bari 1985].
Kants These über das Sein; lecture given in Kiel on May 17, 1961;
Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1963; in Wegmarken (HGA, vol. IX, p. 445-80)
[trad. it. Kant's theses on being, in Segnavia, pp. 393-427 (see Wegmarken )].
Kasseler Vorträge, cf. Wilhelm Diltheys Forschungsarbeit ...
Die Kehre, lecture given in Bremen (see Einblick in das was ist ); first
published in Die Technik und die Kehre, pp. 37-47; in HGA, vol. LXXIX,
pp. 68-77 [trad. it. The turning point, edited by M. Ferraris, Il Melangolo, Genova 1990].
Die Kunst und der Raum - L'art et l'Espace, Erker, St. Gallen 1969; a
copy with the autograph dedication: «For Hannah / Martin», is kept at the
Bard College Library (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, USA); in HGA, vol.
XIII, pp. 203-10; [trad. it. Art and space, Il Melangolo, Genova 1979].
Logik; university course of the summer semester 1928; cf. Metaphysische
Anfangsgründe der Logik.
Logik als Frage; cf. Über Logik als Frage nach dem Wesen der Sprache.
Logik. Die Frage nach der Wahrheit, university course of the semester
winter 1925-26; HGA, vol. XXI (1976) [trad. it. Logic. The problem of
truth, edited by UM Ugazio, Mursia, Milan 1986].
Logos / Λόγος: Das Leitwort Heraklits; conference held at the Club of
Bremen on May 4, 1951; in Festschrift für Hans Jantzen, Gebr. Mann, Berlin
1951, pp. 7-18. Copy of the original typewritten with autograph dedication: "H / M"
it is preserved in the Arendt estate; in Vorträge und Aufsätze, pp. 207-29 [trad. it.
Logos, in Essays and discourses, pp. 141-57 (see Vorträge und Aufsätze)].
Mein Weg in die Phänomenologie; written for the eightieth birthday of
Hermann Niemeyer (1963); in Zur Sache des Denkens (1969), pp. 81-90 [trad. it.
My journey of thought and phenomenology, in Tempo ed essere, pp. 189-97
Page 370
(cf Zur Sache des Denkens)].

Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz; course
university of the summer semester 1928; HGA, vol. XXVI (1978, 1990 2 ) [trad. it.
Metaphysical principles of logic, Il Melangolo, Genova 1991].
Nietzsche I / Nietzsche II, Neske, Pfullingen 1961; HGA, vol. VI, in 2 volumes:
tome 1 (1996) and tome 2 (1997) [trad. it. Nietzsche, edited by F. Volpi, Adelphi,

MilaNnie1t9z9sc5h].e.Der Wille zur Macht als Kunst, university course of the semester
winter 19361937; HGA, vol. XLIII (1985).
Nietzsches Lehre vom Willen zur Macht als Erkenntnis; University course
of the summer semester 1939. HGA, vol. XLVII (1989).
Nietzsches metaphysische Grundstellung im abendländischen Denken: Die
ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen; university course of the summer semester 1937;
HGA, vol. XLIV (1986).
Ontologie des Daseins / Ontologie: Hermeneutik der Faktizität; course
university of the summer semester 1923; HGA, vol. LXIII (1988, 1995 2 ) [trad. it.
Ontology. Hermeneutics of effectiveness, edited by E. Mazzarella, Guide, Naples
1992].
Parmenides; university course of the winter semester 1942-43; HGA, vol.
LIV (1982, 1992 2 ) [trad. it. Parmenides, edited by F. Volpi, Adelphi, Milan
1999].
Phänomenologie und Theologie; conference held in Tübingen on 9 March
(but actually on July 8) 1927; repeated in Marburg on February 14, 1928;
Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1970 (with the addition of: «Some indications
on fundamental aspects of the theological debate on “The problem of a thought and of
a non-objective language in current theology "», pp. 37-47); in
Wegmarken, HGA, vol. ix, pp. 45-67 and 68-78 [trad. it. Phenomenology and theology
in Segnavia, pp. 3-34 (see Wegmargken)].
Platon: Sophistes; university course of the winter semester 1924-25; HGA,
vol. XIX (1992).
Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs; university course of
summer semester 1925; HGA, vol. XX (1979, 1988 2 , 1994 ') [trad. it. Prolegomena
to the history of the concept of time, the Melangolo, Genova 1991].
Das Rektorat 1933-34; cf. Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universität.
Schellingbuch / Der Schelling; cf. Schellings Abhandlung.
Schellings Abhandlung Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit (1809);
university course of the summer semester 1936; edited by H. Feick, Niemeyer,
Page 371
Tübingen 1971; in HGA, vol. XLII, (1988) [trad. it. Schelling. The Treaty of
1809 on the essence of human freedom, Guide, Naples 1994].
Sein und Zeit. Erste Hälfte, in Jahrbuch für Philosophie und
phänomenologische Forschung 8, Niemeyer, Halle an der Saale 1927; HGA, vol.
II (1977) [trad. it. Being and time, edited by P. Chiodi, Longanesi, Milan 1970].
Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universität - Das Rektorat 1933-34:
Rede gehalten bei der feierlichen Übernahme des Rektorats der Universität
Freiburg i. Br. To May 27, 1933; Das Rektorat 1933-34: Tatsachen und
Gedanken (1945), edited by H. Heidegger, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main

1983; in HGA, vol. XVI (not yet published) [trad. it. in Political Writings
(1933-1966), edited by G. Zaccaria, Piemme, Casale Monferrato 1998].
Séminaires Le Thor (1966,1968,1969), in Vier Seminare (HGA, vol. XV, p.
271-421 [trad. it. in Seminars, edited by F. Volpi, Adelphi, Milan 1992].
Sophistes - Kolleg, cf. Platon: Sophistes.
Sprachbuch; cf. Unterwegs zur Sprache.
Die Sprache, lecture held at the Bühlerhöhe in memory of Max
Kommerell, October 7, 1950; then repeated at the Württenbergische
Bibliotheksgesellschaft, February 14, 1951; in Unterwegs zur Sprache (HGA,
vol. XII, pp. 7-30) [trad. it. The language, in On the way to language, pp.
27-44 (see - Unterwegs zur Sprache)].
Die Sprache im Gedicht: Eine Erörterung von Georg Trakls Gedicht (title
original: Georg Trakl ..) ·, in Unterwegs zur Sprache (HGA, vol. XII, pp. 31-78)
[trad. it. The language of poetry. The place of Georg Trakl's poem, in In
path to language, pp. 45-81 (see Unterwegs zur Sprache)].
Sprachvortrag - meine "Sprache"; cf. Die Sprache.
Die Technik und die Kehre, Neske, Pfullingen 1962 (contains: Die Frage
nach der Technik ·, Die Kehre); a copy with an autograph dedication: «For Hannah
Martin / Freiburg, 20 July 1972 »is kept in the Bard Library
College (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, USA); in HGA, see the respective below
titles.
Technik-Vortrag; cf. Die Frage nach der Technik.
Theologie und Philosophie; cf. Phänomenologie und Theologie.
Über das Ding cf. Das Ding.
Über den Humanismus; letter to Jean Beaufret, autumn 1946; Klostermann,
Frankfurt am Main 1949; a copy with an autograph dedication: «To Hannah
Arendt in memory / Martin / 10 March 1950 », is kept at the Deutsches
Literaturarchiv of Marbach; in Wegmarken (HGA, vol. IX, p. 313-64) [trad. it.
Page 372
Letter on "humanism", in Segnavia, pp. 267-316 (see Wegmarken)].

Über Logik as Frage nach dem Wesen der Sprache; university course of
summer semester 1934; HGA, vol. XXXVIII (not yet published).
Unterwegs zur Sprache, Neske, Pfullingen 1959; HGA, vol. XII (1985) [trad.
it. On the way to language, edited by A. Caracciolo, Mursia, Milan
1973].
Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes; conference held at the
Kunstwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft of Freiburg i. Br., November 13, 1935; a
copy of the Reclam edition, Stuttgart 1967, with introduction by HG
Gadamer, bearing the autograph dedication: «For Hannah, in memory of ours
meeting / Freiburg, 27 July 1967 / Martin ', is kept at the Deutsches

Lhiteeroartiugrianrcohfitvhoe fwM
T orakrboafcahr;t,ininHPoalzthwseg
inete(rHrG
upAte,dv,opl.pV
. ,3p-6p9. 1(e-7h4. )W[etrgam
d.airtk. en)].
Vier Seminare: Le Thor 1966,1968,1969, Zähringen 1973, Klostermann,
Frankfurt am Main 1977; HGA, vol. XV (1986) [trad. it. Seminars, curated by F.
Volpi, Adelphi, Milan 1992].
Vom Wesen der Macht; manuscript dating back to the years 1938-40; in HGA, vol.
LXIX (1998).
Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit: Einleitung in die Philosophie, course
university of the summer semester 1930; HGA, vol. XXXI (1982; 1994 2 ).
Vom Wesen der Sprache; Herder seminar of the summer semester 1939; HGA,
vol. LXXXV (not yet published).
Vom Wesen der Wahrheit, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1943; a
copy of the 1949 edition with autograph dedication: «To Heinrich Blücher come
affectionate greeting from Germany / March 1950 / Martin Heidegger 'is preserved
at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach; in Wegmarken (HGA, vol. IX, p.
177-202); trad. it. On the essence of truth, in Segnavìa, pp. 133-58 (cf.
Wegmarken)].
Vom Wesen des Grundes; contribution for a volume of writings in honor of the 70th anniversary
birthday of Edmund Husserl; in «Jahrbuch für Philosophie und
phänomenologische Forschung ", Ergänzungsband, Niemeyer, Halle ad Saale
1929, pp. 71-110; published at the same time, again by Niemeyer, in
separate edition. A copy of a later volume edition
(Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1949) with autograph dedication «Per Hannah, in
memory / Martin / 10 March 1950 »is kept at the Deutsches
Literaturarchiv of Marbach; in Wegmarken (HGA, vol. 9, p. 123-75); [trad. it.
On the essence of the foundation, in Segnavia, pp. 79-132 (see Wegmarken)].
Page 373
Vorträge und Aufsätze, Neske, Pfullingen 1954; a copy of the third

edition (1967) with autograph dedication: «To / Hannah / Martin» is kept in the
Bard College Library (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, USA); HGA, vol. VII
(not yet published) [trad. it. Essays and speeches, edited by G. Vattimo, Mursia,
Milan 1976].
Wahrsein und Dasein. Aristoteles, Ethica Nicomachea 2; conference held
at the Kantgesellschaft of Köln on 4 December 1924; in HGA, vol. LXXX (not
still published).
Was heißt Denken ?; conference held on the Bavarian Radio on May 14th
1952; in «Merkur», VI (1952), no. 7, pp. 601-11; in Vorträge und Aufsätze, pp.
129-143 [trad. it. What does it mean to think ?, in Essays and discourses, pp. 85-95
(cf- Vorträge und Aufsätze)].
Was heißt Denken ?; university course of the winter semester 1951-52 and of
summer semester 1952; Niemeyer, Tübingen 1954. A specimen with dedication

autograph: «For Hannah Martin / Freiburg 7 July 1954» is kept in the

Bard College Library (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, USA); HGA, vol.
VIII (not yet published) [trad. it. What does it mean to think ?, 2 flights.,
SugarCo, Milan 1978 and 1979].
Wegmarken, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1967; HGA, vol. IX (1976,
1996 2 ) [trad. it. Segnavia, edited by F. Volpi, Adelphi, Milan 1986].
Wilhelm Diltheys Forschungsarbeit und der gegenwärtige Kampf um eine
historische Weltanschauung; cycle of ten lessons held in Kassel between 16 and 21
April 1925, notes by W. Bröcker, edited by F. Rodi, in «Dilthey Jahrbuch» n. 8,
1992-93, pp. 143-80.
Wissenschaft und Besinnung; lecture held in Schauinsland on the occasion
of the meeting of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft wissenschaftlicher Sortimenter on 15
May 1953; then repeated in Marburg on 9 December 1953 and in Zurich on 1 and 2
February 1954; in «Börsenblatt für deutschen Buchhandel» X, no. 29, of 13 April
1954, pp. 203-11; in Vorträge und Aufsätze, pp. 45-70 (this version of the
conference was held to a small group of people in preparation for the
conference on «The arts in the age of technology», August 4, 1953 in München) [trad.
it. Science and meditation, in Essays and discourses, pp. 28-44 (see Vorträge und
Aufsätze)].
Zähringer Seminar; 6-8 September 1973; in Vier Seminare (HGA, vol. XV,
pp. 372-407) [trad. it. Zähringen 1973, in Seminar, pp. 145-88 (cf. Seminare)].
Zeichen, in «Neue Zürcher Zeitung» no. 579 of 21 September 1969; in HGA,
vol. XIII, pp. 211-12.
Page 374
Zeit und Sein; lecture held at the University of Freiburg on 31 January

1962, and seminar held in Todnauberg from 11 to 13 September 1962; in Zur
Sache des Denkens (1969), pp. 1-60 [trad. it. Time and being, in Time and
be, pp. 101-68 (see Zur Sache des Denkens)].
Zollikoner Sow: Protokolle-Gespräche-Briefe; Seminars of 1959-69;
Colloquia of 1961-1972; Letters 1947-71; edited by M. Boss, Klostermann,
Frankfurt am Main 1987 [trad. it. Seminars of Zollikon, edited by A. Giugliano ed
E. Mazzarella, Guide, Naples 1991].
Zur Sache des Denkens, Niemeyer, Tübingen 1969; HGA, vol. XIV (not
still published) [trad. it. Time and Being, edited by E. Mazzarella, Guida,
Naples 1987].
Zürcher Seminar, Debate of November 6, 1951 (after the conference
... dichterisch wohnet der Mensch ..., in HGA, vol. XV (1986), pp. 423-39 [trad. it.
Seminar in Zurich, in Seminars, pp. 189-210 (see Séminaires Le Thor)].
M. Heidegger and E. blochmann, Briefwechsel 1918-1969, edited by J. Storck,
second revised edition, Deutsche Schillersgesellschaft, Marbach am Nekar
1990 [trad. it. Correspondence 1918-1969, edited by R. Brusotti, Il Melangolo, Genoa

1991].
M. Heidegger and K. JASPERS, Briefwechsel 1920-1963, edited by W. Biemel
and H. Saner, Klostermann-Piper, Frankfurt am Main-München-Zürich 1990.
Page 375
Works by other authors
CITY OF MESSKIRCH (edited by), Ansprachen zum 80. Geburtstag

(des Ehrenbürger Professor dr. Martin Heidegger) am 26 September 1969 in
Meßkirch; a copy with an autograph dedication "For Hannah / Martin / Freiburg,
9.III.1970 ", is kept in the Bard College Library (Annandale-on-
Hudson, NY, USA).
CITY OF MESSKIRCH (edited by), Martin Heidegger zum 80 °
Geburtstag von seiner Heimatstadt Meßkirch, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main
1969. A copy with an autograph dedication: «For Hannah and Heinrich / Martin und
Elfride »is kept at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach.
H.-G. gadamer (edited by), Die Frage Martin Heideggers: Beiträge zu einem
Kolloquium mit Heidegger aus Anlaß seines 80 Geburtstages, Winter,
Heidelberg 1969.
v. klostermann (edited by), Durchblicke: Martin Heidegger zum 8o °
Geburtstag, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1970.
H. OTT, Martin Heidegger: Unterwegs zu seiner Biographie, new edition
revised and integrated with the addition of an afterword, Campus, Frankfurt-New
York 1992 [trad. it. Martin Heidegger biographical paths, edited by F. Cassinari,

SugarCo, Milan 1988. The Italian edition is based on the text of the first
edition, 1988].
hw petzet, Auf einen Stem zugehen: Begegnungen und Gespräche mit
Martin Heidegger, 192 9-1976, Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1983.
R. safranski, Ein Meister aus Deutschland: Heidegger und seine Zeit,
Hanser, München 1994 [trad. it. Heidegger and his time, edited by M. Bonola,
Longanesi, Milan 1996].
E. young-bruehl, Hannah Arendt. For Love of the World, Yale University
Press, New Haven Conn. 1982 [E. Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: Leben, Werk
und Zeit, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1986; trad. it. Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)
For love of the world, Bollati Boringhieri, Turin 1990].
Page 376
List of published documents

Page 377
Documents published in the text
1. MH, February 10, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt

2. MH, February 21, 1925; original handwritten letter, NL Arendt
4. MH, 2 M (arzo) 1925; original handwritten illustrated postcard,
NLArendt 5. MH, March 6, 1925; original handwritten illustrated postcard,
NLArendt 6. MH, March 21, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
7. MH, March 24, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
8. MH, March 29 (1925); original handwritten illustrated postcard,
NLArendt 9. MH, April 12 (1925); original handwritten letter, NLArendt
10. MH, April 17 (1925); original handwritten letter, NLArendt
11. HA April (1925); Shadows, original autograph manuscript, HAPapers
12. MH, April 24, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
13. MH, May 1, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
17. MH, [May 21-22, 1925]; original manuscript ticket, NLArendt
18. MH, May 29 [1925]; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
19. MH, June 14, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
22. MH, July 1, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt


24. MH, July 17 (1925); original handwritten letter, NLArendt
25. MH, July 24, 1925; original handwritten letter; NLArendt
26. MH, July 31 (1925); original handwritten letter, NLArendt
27. MH, August 2, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
28. MH, August 23 (1925); original handwritten letter, NLArendt
29. MH, September 14, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt 30.
MH, October 7, 1925; original handwritten illustrated postcard, NLArendt 31.
MH, October 18, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
32. MH, November 5, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
33. MH, December 10, 1925; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
34. MH, January 9, 1926; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
35. MH, January 10, 1926; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
Page 378

37. MH, December 7, 1927; original handwritten letter; NLArendt
41. MH, April 18 (1928); original handwritten letter, NLArendt
42. HA, April 22, 1928; minute handwritten letter, NLArendt
43. HA, undated, (1929); minute handwritten letter, NLArendt 44.
HA, undated (September 1930); minute handwritten letter, NLArendt
45. MH, undated (winter 32-33); original handwritten letter, NLArendt
48. HA, February 9, 1950; typewritten copy of letter, NLArendt 49.
HA to Elfride Heidegger, February 10, 1950; typewritten copy of letter, NLA
rendt 50. MH, (February 1950); five handwritten poems, NLArendt
53. MH, March 10, 1950; A. Stifter, Limestone, manuscript,
NLArendt 54. MH, March 11, 1950; poetic cycle If only of the graces
stolen ..., NLArendt manuscript 55. MH, March 19, 1950; original letter
handwritten, NLArendt
56. MH, (March 1950); four poems, manuscript, NLArendt
58. MH, (April 1950); two poems, manuscript, NLArendt
61. MH, (May 1950); poetic cycle From the Sonata sonans, NLArendt


63. MH, (May 1950); five poems, manuscript, NLArendt
67. MH, September 14, 1950; original letter (with the poems attached
Waves), hand written, NLArendt 68. MH, September 15, 1950; original letter
handwritten, NLArendt 69. MH, 6 October 1950; original handwritten letter,
NLArendt
Page 379

73. MH, April 1/2, 1951; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
75. MH, (July 1951); poem: Based on a drawing by Henri Matisse,
manuscript, NLArendt 76. MH, 2 October 1951; original letter
82. MH, October 6, 1953; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
84. MH, April 21, 1954, original handwritten letter, NLArendt
85. HA, April 29, 1954; copy of typewritten letter, NLArendt
86. HA, May 8, 1954; copy of typewritten letter, NLArendt
89. HA, October 28, 1960; copy of a typewritten letter, NLArendt 90.
MH, April 13, 1965; manuscript on the back of a thank you card a
print, NLArendt 91. MH, 6 October 1966; original handwritten letter with
two annexes, NLArendt 92. HA, 19 October 1966; original letter
typed, NLHeidegger 93. MH, 10 August 1967; original letter
94. HA, 11 August 1967; original typewritten letter, NLHeidegger 95.
MH, August 12, 1967; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
97. HA, September 24, 1967; original typewritten letter with attachment,

NLHeidegger 98. MH, September 29, 1967; original handwritten letter,

NLArendt 99. MH, October 30, 1967; original handwritten letter with
annex, NLArendt 100. HA, 27 November 1967; original letter
typewritten, NLHeidegger 101. HA, March 17, 1968; original letter
typewritten, NLHeidegger 102. MH, April 12, 1968; original letter
103. HA, 23 August 1968; original typewritten letter, NLHeidegger
104. MH, September 6, 1968; original telegram, NLArendt
Page 380
105. MH, September 11, 1968; original handwritten letter, NLHeidegger

106. HA, (February 28, 1969); original handwritten letter, NLHeidegger
108. Elfride Heidegger, April 20, 1969; original typewritten letter,
NLArednt 109. HA, to Elfride H., April 25, 1969; copy of letter
typewritten, NLArendt 110. Elfride H., April 28, 1969; original letter
typewritten, NLArendt 111. HA, to Elfride H., May 17, 1969; letter
original typewritten, NLHeidegger 112. M. and Elfride H., June 4, 1969;
original typewritten letter, NLArendt 113. MH, 23 June 1969; letter
original handwritten, NLArendt
115. HA, August 8, 1969; original typewritten letter, NLHeidegger
116. HA, (September 1969; Martin Heidegger is eighty), original text
typescript, NLHeidegger 117. HA, (September 1969); contribution to
"Tabula gratulatoria" owned by the Heidegger family 118. MH, 27
November 1969; original handwritten letter, NLArendt 119. HA, Christmas
1969; original typewritten letter, NLHeidegger 119a. HA to Elfride H., 25
December 1969, original typewritten letter, NL Heidegger 120. HA, 12
March 1970; original typewritten letter, NLHeidegger 121. Fritz Heidegger
to HA, April 27, 1970; original handwritten letter, NLArendt 122. Elfride
H., May 16, 1970; original typewritten letter, NLArendt 123. Elfride H.,
July 2, 1970; original typewritten letter, NLArendt 124. HA, July 28
1970; original typewritten letter, NLHeidegger 125. MH, 4 August 1970;
original handwritten letter; NLArendt
126. MH, November 9, 1970; original letter (with the poem attached
Tempo), handwritten, NLArendt 127. HA, November 27, 1970; letter
original typewritten, NLHeidegger 128. HA, March 20, 1971; letter
original typewritten, NLHeidegger 129. MH, March 26, 1971; letter
original handwritten, NLArendt
131. HA, July 13, 1971; original typewritten letter, NLHeidegger


134. MH, August 4, 1971; original handwritten letter (with the poem attached
Cezanne), NL Arendt 135. HA, 19 August 1971; original letter
typewritten, NLHeidegger 136. HA, (September 24, 1971); ticket
accompaniment to a floral tribute, NLArendt 137. HA, 20 October
Page 381
1971; original typewritten letter, NLHeidegger 138. MH, 24 October

1971; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
140. HA, February 2, 1972; original typewritten letter, NLHeidegger
141. MH, February 15, 1972; original handwritten letter (with the
poem Grazie), NLArendt 142. HA, February 21, 1972; copy of letter
typewritten, NLArendt 143. MH, 10 March 1972; original letter
144. HA, March 27, 1972; original typewritten letter, NLHeidegger
146. HA, June 18, 1972; original typewritten letter, NLHeidegger
149. MH, September 12, 1972; original handwritten letter, NLArendt 150.
MH, September 17, 1972; original handwritten letter, NLArendt 151. M.
H., December 8, 1972; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
152. MH, February 24, 1973; original handwritten letter, NLArendt 153.
MH, May 5, 1973; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
161. HA, July 26, 1974; typewritten copy of letter, NLArendt 162.
MH, September 17, 1974; original handwritten letter, NLArendt 163. M.
H., after September 26, 1974; handwritten thank you card,
NLArendt 164. MH, June 6, 1975; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
165. HA, July 27, 1975; typewritten copy of letter, NLArendt 166.
MH, July 30, 1975; original handwritten letter, NLArendt
167. MH to Hans Jonas, December 6, 1975; telegram
168. MH to Hans Jonas, December 27, 1975; handwritten letter.

Page 382
Documents published in the appendix
A 1 MH, undated (probably summer semester 1925); two slips

original manuscripts, NLArendt A 2 MH, undated (February 1926); letter
original handwritten, NLArendt A 3 MH, undated (February or March 1950);
As counter- greeting (Sophocles, Antigone, 799-801), original manuscript sheet,
NLArendt A 4 HA, 1923 to 1926, twenty-one poems, typescript, HAPapers
A 5 HA, August / September 1953; entry in the Denktagebuch (La vera
history of the Heidegger fox), manuscript, NLArendt

Page 383
Iconographic sources
Hannah Arendt Literary Trust: Ill. 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, 14 Deutsches

Literaturarchiv of Marbach (Part of the Arendt estate): Ill. 1, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16
Dr. Hermann Heidegger: Ill. 3
© Piper Verlag GmbH München 1959: Ill. 12

Page 384
Index of names

Page 385
Adorno, Theodor W., 249.

Aphrodite, 85, 242, 266, 267.
Augustine, 20, 22, 183, 194, 207, 219.
Aiken, Henry D., 235.
Allemann, Bede, 234.
Allilujewa, Swetlana, 242.
Anders, Günther see Stern, Günther.
Arendt, Martha (HA's mother) see Beerwald, Martha.
Aristides, 151.
Aristophanes, 147.
Aristotle, 76, 90, 93, 95, 99, 101, 111, 142, 143,146,165,181,183,191,194,
204,235,253,254,261.
Athena, 156, 157.
Babolin, A., 297.
Bach, Johann Sebastian, 63.
Barrett, William, 235.
Bartning, Otto, 230.
Baumann, Gerhart, 239.
Beaufret, Jean, 94, 102, 137, 171, 173, 227, 233, 245, 247, 260, 300.
Becker, Carl, 227.
Beerwald, Clara, 25, 32, 208, 210.
Beerwald, Martha, 203, 223.
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 66, 68.
Beiner, Ronald, 207, 293.
Beissel, Henry E., 107.
Beissner, Friedrich, 239.
Benjamin, Walter, 119, 153, 162, 249.
Benn, Gottfried, 98, 224, 23.
Birle, Erika see Deyle, Erika.
Biemel, Walter, 162, 171, 172, 189, 190, 209, 213, 239, 252, 259,302.
Blake, William, 84.
Blochmann, Elisabeth, 207, 214, 215, 226, 290, 302.
Page 386

Blücher, Heinrich, 111, 119, 121-124, 126-130, 133, 134, 149, 152, 154 158,
163, 172, 207, 217, 218, 226, 229, 231-233, 236, 237, 239, 244, 250-252, 279,
280, 287, 289, 294.
Blum, Fritz, 209.
Blumenfeld, Kurt, 226, 283, 294.
Blumenthal, Sophie, 152, 249.
Boehlau, Johannes, 11, 205.
Böhme, Gernot, 185, 258.
Born, Jürgen, 241.
Boss, Medard, 232, 301.
Bousset, Wilhelm, 32, 210.
Brambach, Rainer, 229.
Braque, Georges, 139.
Brecht, Bertolt, 162, 252.
Brightman, C., 295.
Broch, Hermann, 81, 94, 96, 98, 222, 228, 229, 295.
Bröcker, Walter, 11, 205, 301.
Bröcker-Oltmanns, Käte, 205.
Brod, Max, 223, 241.
Browning, Elisabeth Barrett, 215.
Buber, Martin, 101, 232.
Bultmann, Rudolf, 27, 29, 31, 34, 36, 37, 105, 107, 112, 158, 209, 210, 212,
234, 251.
Burckhardt, Jacob, 187..
Buxtehude, Dietrich, 33.
Caracciolo, A., 300.
Carlson, Clayton E., 170.
Cassin, Barbara, 254.
Cassinari, Flavio, 302.
Cassirer, Ernst, 50, 216.
Castorp, Hans, 31.
Celan, Paul, 227, 239.
Cézanne, Paul, 169, 170, 236.
Char, René 137, 162, 242, 244, 251, 297.
Chauchat, madame, 31.
Chelius Stark, J., 293.
Clärchen see Beerwald, Clara.
Page 387
Claudius, Matthias, 93, 227.

Cocteau, Jean, 236.

Condrau, Gion, 232, 247.
Cornford, Francis McDonald, 188, 259.
Descartes, René (Descartes), 206.
Deyle, Erika Birle, 260.
Diels, Hermann, 250, 259.
Dilthey, Wilhelm, 77, 106.
Döpfner, Cardinal Julius, 175.
Duns Scotus, Johannes, 183, 194.
Eckhart, master E., 82, 192, 223.
Eich, Günter, 229.
Einstein, Albert, 136.
Epictetus, 194.
Eppelsheimer, Hans W., 135.
Heraclitus, 54, 70, 73, 76, 90, 92-94, 96, 106, 112,117,157,227,289.
Ettinger, Elzbieta, 281.
Fédier, François, 260.
Feick, Hildegard, 184, 197, 254, 258, 262, 289, 299
Fest, Johachim, 177, 256.
Ficker, Ludwig von, 103.
Fink, Eugen, 117, 156, 193, 198, 238, 297.
Fourcade, Dominique, 138, 151, 244, 248, 297.
Frank, Erich, 214.
Frankel, Hermann, 93, 227.
Frankel, Hilde, 68, 77, 83, 85, 218, 219, 279, 280.
Franzen, Winfried, 256.
Friedländer, Paul, 50, 209, 216.
Friedrich, Hugo, 53, 112, 162, 176, 200, 217, 236, 252, 256.
Fürst, Ernst, 204.
Fürst, Käte Levin, 204.
Gabriel, Leo, 229.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 115, 175, 210, 238, 247, 255, 300, 302.
George, Stefan, 19, 183, 206, 207, 225, 246, 258.
Gilbert, Robert, 246.
John (apostle), 82.
Glenn see Gray, J. Glenn.
Page 388
Goerdt, Wilhelm, 240.

Goethe, Johann, 90.
Granzow, B., 293.
Gray, J. Glenn, 122, 124, 126-130, 132, 133, 135, 150, 152-154, 156, 158,

163, 170, 176, 187,188,195-197, 239, 240, 243, 248,249, 251, 254, 258, 259,
262.263.
Gray, Sherry, 188.
Gray, Ursula, 132, 240, 259.
Greffrath, Mathias, 211.
Gründer, Karlfried, 221.
Guardini, Romano, 82, 223.
Gurlitt, Willibald, 33, 211.
Gutmann, James, 257.
Habermas, Jürgen, 165, 166, 253, 263.
Hammerstein, Notker, 216.
Hamsun, Knut, 45, 174.
Harder, Richard, 83, 223.
Hartmann, Nicolai, 209, 210.
Hauptmann, Gerhart, 136.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 34, 91, 123, 144, 147, 161, 174, 175, 187,
189, 211, 244-246, 251, 252, 259.
Heidegger, Dorothea, 224, 229.
Heidegger, Elfride Petri, 54, 64, 65, 67, 68, 77, 82-88, 91-94, 96, 98, 100,
104-107, 112-114, 117, 119-122, 124, 126, 128-130, 134, 154, 162-165, 167
168, 170, 171, 175, 176, 179, 181, 183, 185, 188, 190-195, 197, 204, 214, 232,
238, 240, 243, 249, 250, 255, 257, 259, 260, 279, 283, 287, 288.
Heidegger, Fritz, 154, 210, 231, 249, 283.
Heidegger, Gertrud, 260.
Heidegger, Hermann, 100, 210, 214, 226, 260, 281, 284, 290, 292.
Heidegger, Johanna Kempf, 210.
Heidegger, Jörg, 100, 204, 205, 224, 226, 229, 260.
Heidegger, Marie see Oschwald, Marie.
Heidegger, Thomas, 231.
Heine, Heinrich, 135.
Heinrich see Blücher, Heinrich.
Heller, Erich, 241, 263.
Hellingrath, Norbert von, 99, 101, 221.
Page 389
Hermann see Heidegger, Hermann.

Herrmann, Friedrich-Wilhelm von, 193, 206, 256, 260, 261, 296.
Heuer, Wolfgang, 224.
Hilde see Frankel, Hilde.
Hinck, Walter, 231.
Hitler, Adolf, 246.

Hochbkese,pT
pehlo,m
Waisl,lym
, 2.63.
Hofmannsthal, Hugo von, 133.
Hofstadter, Albert, 168, 170.
Hölderlin, Friedrich, 10, 32, 64, 91, 92, 99, 101, 108, 118, 148, 163, 221,
224, 225, 228, 231, 239, 241, 246.
Hopkins, John, 294.
Horkheimer, Max, 175, 255.
Husserl, Edmund, 6, 8-10, 21, 33, 34, 40-42, 50, 175, 203, 204, 205, 208,
209, 211-214, 225, 238, 254, 301.
Jacobsthal, Paul, 50, 209, 216.
Jaeger, Hans, 107, 234, 298.
Jakoby, Paul, 10, 11, 27, 205, 213.
Jarrell, Randall, 231.
Jaspers, Gertrud, 204, 206, 210-222.
Jaspers, Karl, 33, 35, 36, 42, 43, 45, 46, 52, 55, 75-77, 81, 84, 87, 104, 107,
112, 131, I40, 144. 157, 163-165, 167, 172, 175, 223, 225, 226, 230, 233, 234,
237, 239, 242, 250, 253, 261, 287, 289, 290, 295, 302.
Joan see Stanbaugh, Joan.
John, Eckard, 211.
Johnson, Uwe, 174, 175, 221, 255.
Jonas, Hans, 35, 41, 42, 138, 150, 169, 171, 173. 179. 212, 213, 244,
247,248,253,255, 262, 263, 290.
Jonas, Lore, 262, 290.
Jörg see Heidegger, Jörg.
Jovanovich, William, 263.
Jünger, Ernst, 133, 246, 297.
Jünger, Friedrich Georg, 229.
Kabisch, Richard, 32.
Kafka, Franz, 83, 122-126, 139, 223, 240, 241.
Kant, Immanuel, 31, 34, 70, 75, 82, 91, 96, 122, 124, 125, 142,147, 148, 153,
Page 390
182, 185, 194, 211, 249, 258.

Kant, Johann Heinrich, 249.
Kästner, Erhart, 238.
Kazin, Alfred, 207.
Keats, John, 99.
Keller, Gottfried, 77, 221.
Kennedy, John F., 126.
Kern, Edith, 107.
Kierkegaard, Sören, 91.

Kisiel, Theodore, 204, 206, 220.

Klee, Paul, 120, 240.
Klopstock, Friedrich G., 126, 242.
Klostermann, Vittorio, 150,158, 247, 256, 302. Klotz, Leopold, 204.
Koch, Joseph, 192.
Köhler (Köhler), Lotte, 217, 257, 281, 290, 292, 294, 2 95 '
Kohn, Jerome, 259, 263, 276, 293.
Kojéve (Kojevnikoff) Alexandre, 123, 161, 189, 241, 251.
Kommerell, Max, 89, 225, 300.
Koselleck, Reinhart, 209.
Kranz, Walter, 250.
Krell, David F., 197, 262.
Kruttke, Monika, 248.
Larese, Dino, 247.
Lask, Emil, 76, 221.
Leibniz, Gottfried W., 93, 127.
Levi, Edward Hirsch, 257.
Lévy, Patrick, 171-173, 254.
Lichtenstein, Heinz, 8, 180, 181, 183, 204. Löhner, Edgar, 235.
Lowell, Robert, 152, 248.
Lowith, Ada, 209.
Lowith, Karl, 31, 101, 209, 210, 216, 232, 247, 254, 263.
Ludz, Ursula, 251, 266, 279, 293, 294.
Luther, Martin, 246.
Lüdemann, Hermann, 31.
Luthe, R., 298.
Lützeler, Paul Michael, 228, 295.
Macquerrie, John, 235.
Page 391
Mahler, Elisabeth, 259.

Mallarmé, Stéphane, 119, 125.
Manchester, William, 242.
Mandelstam, Nadesha, 188, 259.
Manheim, Ralph, 243.
Mann, Thomas, 208, 233.
Marcuse, Herbert, 263.
Maritain, Jacques, in, 236.
Martin, Bernd, 216.
Marwitz, Alexander von, 8, 205.
Marx, Karl, in, 235.

Matrixs,sW
e, eHrnener,i,19771,, 223504..
McCarthy (Me Carthy-West), Mary, 221, 237, 248, 251, 252, 257, 260, 262,
263, 281, 295.
Mearns, David C., 243.
Meisner, Heinrich, 205.
Melville, Herman, 185, 258.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 174, 175, 180, 255, 256.
Michaelsen, L., 295.
Misch, Georg, 50, 216.
Mongis, Henri-Xavier, 260.
Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de-, 166.
Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Sécondat, baron of La Bréde and of, 111.
Müller, Max, 221.
Munier, Roger, 234.
Natorp, Paul, 210.
Neske, Günther, 113, 177, 178, 186, 237, 247, 256, 258.
Neumann, Bernd, 255.
Newton, Isaac, 90.
Niemeyer, Hermann, 103, 168, 170, 172, 177, 184, 256, 298.
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 126, 132, 136, 147, 180, 217, 219, 246, 248, 280.
Noller, Gerhard, 248.
Nordmann, Ingeborg, 292, 294.
Oberschlick, Gerhard, 212.
Oehlkers, Friedrich, 225.
Oelze, FW Benno von, 224.
Page 392
Homer, 126, 209, 266.

Orff, Carl, 82, 92, 93, 223, 226.
Ortega y Gasset, José, 230.
Oschwald, Clothilde, 232, 258, 260. Oschwald, Marie, 258.
Oct, Hugo, 210, 214, 216, 223, 224, 302.
Pachelbel, Johann, 33.
Paeschke, Hans, 149, 247.
Parmenides, 103, 106, 112, 117, 126, 179, 189, 191. 245, 259. 289.
Pascal, Blaise, 91.
Paul (apostle), 174.
Peeperkorn, 31.
Petzet, Heinrich W., 204, 218, 222, 226, 231, 238, 240, 302.
Phillips, William, 235.
Picasso, Pablo, 139, 236.

Pigenot, Ludwig von, 221.

Pilling, I., 294.
Pindar, 151, 209.
Piper, Klaus, 163, 164, 166, 168, 172, 179, 237, 243 253, 257
Plato, 45, 93, 111-113, 117, 126, 139, 141, 144, 146-148, 246.
Podewils, Clemens Graf, 229.
Podewils, Sophie Dorothea Gräfin, 229.
Pöggeler, Otto, 190, 260.
Prätorius, 33.
Pulver, Max, 82, 223.
Queneau, Raymond, 241.
Quint, Josef, 192.
Rahel see Varnhagen von Hense, Rahel.
Rahv, Philip, 235.
Rapp, Clothilde see Oschwald, Clothilde. Rapp, Heinrich, 258.
Ratner, Marc, 239.
Reinhardt, Karl, 92, 93, 226, 227, 266.
Rickert, Heinrich, 204.
Rilke, Rainer Maria, 64, 94, 135, 215, 227, 229, 230.
Ritter, Joachim, 221.
Robinson, Edward, 106, 109, 110, 234, 235.
Rhodes, Frithjof, 205, 301.
Ross, William D., 101, 232.
Page 393
Rossmann, Kurt, 225.

Rössner, Hans, 168, 253.
Rychner, Max, 105.
Safranski, Rüdiger, 210, 216, 222, 227, 233, 234, 302.
Saner, Hans, 157, 163, 164, 166, 172, 174, 175, 220, 243, 250, 253, 295,
302.
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 174, 263.
Schadewaldt, Wolfgang, 83, 223.
Schaumburg-Lippe, Albrecht Prince of, 229.
Scheidt, Samuel, 33.
Scheler, Max, 20, 140, 207, 213.
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von, 174, 175, 180, 182-184, 257.
Schelsky, Helmut, 175, 180, 256.
Schmid Noerr, Gunzelin, 255.
Schocken, Salman, 223.
Scholem, Gershom, 249.
Schöndörffer, Otto, 249.

Schubert, Elke, 211.

Schulz, Walter, 186.
Seebass, Friedrich, 221.
Xenophanes, 157.
Seubold, Günter, 240.
Seydlitz, countess, 255.
Siedler, Wolf Jobst, 177, 178.
Siewerth, Gustav, 191, 193.
Smith, John W., 107.
Snell, Bruno, 151, 248.
Socrates, 185, 251.
Soden, Hans von, 209.
Sophocles, 92, 217, 266.
Sonning, C. J. , 261.
Speer, Albert, 177, 256.
Spoerri, Theophil, 99, 231.
Staiger, Emil, 93, 99, 108, 226, 231, 247, 295.
Stalin, Josef, 126.
Stalin, Swetlana see Allilujewa Swetlana.
Stambaugh, Joan, 151, 153, 157, 163, 168, 170, 172, 173, 176, 180, 181,
Page 394
183, 184, 187, 191-193, 195. 2 35, 2 48, 253, 254, 257, 260, 262.
Stein, Brigitte, 281.
Stern (Anders), Günther, 35, 36, 211, 212, 215, 217, 222.
Sternberger, Dolf, 98, 230, 263.
Stifter, Adalbert, 59, 88, 218.
Storck, Joachim W., 225, 239, 292, 302.
Stroomann, Gerhard, 103, 233, 297.
Struwe, Wolfgang, 248.
Thales, 146, 147.
Taminiaux, Jacques, 260.
Thompson, David, 240.
Tillich, Paul, 91, 93, 104, 222, 230.
Trakl, Georg, 103, 233, 236, 237, 241, 297.
Thucydides, 209.
Uner, Elfriede, 292.
Valéry, Paul, 82, 94, 179, 227, 257.
Varnhagen von Ense, Rahel, 8, 205, 294.
Vecchiarelli Scott, J., 293.
Vetter, Hermann, 261.

Vezin, François, 260.

Vietta, Dory, 229.
Vietta, Egon, 96, 229.
Vietta, Silvio, 229.
Volkmann-Schluck, Karl-Heinz, 247.
Vollrath, Ernst, 171, 173, 176, 254-256.
Wahl, Jean, 251.
Weil, Anne Mendelssohn, 226.
Weismann, Willi, 228.
Weizmann, Leopold (Poldi), 183.
Weizsäcker, Carl Fried von, 185, 258, 263.
Werner, Jürgen, 244.
West, Mary see McCarthy, Mary.
West, James R., 251.
Wieck, Fred MH, 122, 126, 240.
Wiese, Benno von, 213, 223.
Williams, Elizabeth, 107.
Wisser, Richard, 247.
Page 395
Weissberg, L., 294.

Wolff, Georg, 239.
Wolff, Helene, 133, 177.
Wolff, Kurt, 133, 177.
Wormann, Curt, 133-136, 243.
Yeats, William B., 236.
Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth, 208, 213, 231, 254, 262, 266, 281, 284, 302.
Zeller, Bernhard, 197, 244, 262.
Zeus, 151.
Ziegler, Susanne, 254.
Zillmann, Christian G., 245.
Zimmern, Werner Graf von, 84.

Letters 1925-1975

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Letters 1925-1975 - PDFDrive.

com 08/01/22, 9:08 AM

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Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was a pupil of Heidegger, Bultmann and Jaspers.

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was born in Meßkirch, Baden. He was a pupil of

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world conflict to 1951. Among his numerous publications in translation

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Ocr and conversion by Natjus

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Original title Briefe 1925 bis 1975. Und andere Zeugnisse

© 1998 Vittorio Klostermann GmbH, Frankfurt am Main

© 2001 Community Editions, Turin

Translation by Massimo Bonola

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Hannah Arendt Martin Heidegger

Published from bequests by Ursula Ludz

Italian edition edited by Massimo Bonola

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See each other

See each other again

Notes to documents 1-168

Additional documents from bequests

Afterword by Ursula Ludz

List of published documents

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See each other

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1. Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt

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that is to say that we do not want to imagine something as a spiritual friendship,

2. Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt

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3. Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt

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As a symbol of my gratitude, accept this booklet 1 . Let it be at the time

I am happy for your mother 2 .

4. Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt

5 . Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt

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6. Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt

lost on a large, copiously snow-covered slope - all this holds

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way. I would be in favor of establishing a kind of "circle" in the sense

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7. Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt

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8. Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt

Freiburg, 29.III. [1925]

I don't go to Meßkirch because it is too difficult to carry the baby. You

9. Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt

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I thank you affectionately for your postcard.

I live a lot with Hölderlin, and you are close to me everywhere.

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Address: at the Secret Advisor Dr. Boehlau 3 Kassel,

10. Martin Heidegger to Hannah Arendt

17.iv. pom. [1925]

Quickly. Thank you very much for your letter.

Until we meet again.