Heidegger and the Myth of a Jewish World Conspiracy

160 Pages·2015·1.35 MB·English

by  Peter Trawny

Heidegger & tHe Myt H of
a JewisH world ConspiraCy

PETER TR AWNY
TranslaTed by andrew J. Mi Tchell
The UniversiTy of chicago Press
chicago & london
peter trawny is professor of philosophy and founder and director of
the Martin Heidegger Institute at the University of Wuppertal in Germany.
He is the author of many books and editor of Martin Heidegger’s Black Notebooks.
andrew J. Mit CHell is associate professor of philosophy at Emory
University and the author of The Fourfold: Reading the Late Heidegger.
Originally published as Heidegger und der Mythos der
jüdischen Weltverschwörung
© Vittorio Klostermann GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, 2014.
3rd, revised and extended edition 2014.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2015 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2015.
Printed in the United States of America
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5
isBn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 30373- 4 (cloth)
isBn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 30387- 1 (e- book)
doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226303871.001.0001
The translation of this work was supported by a grant from the Goethe- Institut,
which is funded by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Trawny, Peter, 1964– author.
[Heidegger und der Mythos der jüdischen Weltverschwörung. English]
Heidegger and the myth of a Jewish world conspiracy / Peter Trawny ;
translated by Andrew J. Mitchell.
pages cm
“Originally published as Hiedegger und der Mythos der jüdischen Weltverschwörung
© Vittorio Klostermann GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, 2014.
3rd, revised and extended edition 2014.”
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 978-0-226-30373-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — isBn 978-0-226-30387-1 (ebook)
1. Heidegger, Martin, 1889–1976—Views on Jews. 2. Antisemitism. 3. Jews—Identity.
I. Mitchell, Andrew J., 1970—translator. II. Title.
B3279.H49t639513 2015
193—dc23 2015014460
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso
Z39.48-1 992 (Permanence of Paper).
To be German: to cast forth the innermost burden of
western history and to take it upon one’s shoulder.
Martin Heidegger, Über legungen VII
///////////////
And can you bear, Mother, as once on a time,
the gentle, the German, the pain- laden rhyme?
paul Celan, “Nearness to Graves”

CONTENTS
/////////////////////////////
Preface to the English Translation ix
Introduction: A Thesis in Need of Revision 1
The Being- Historical Landscape 8
Types of Being-H istorical Anti-S emitism 18
The Being- Historical Concept of “Race” 38
The Foreign and the Foreign 47
Heidegger and Husserl 55
Work and Life 64
Annihilation and Self- Annihilation 69
After the Shoah 79
Attempts at a Response 92
Afterword to the German Second Edition 99
Afterword to the German Third Edition 103
Abbreviations 105 Notes 109
Bibliography 137 Name Index 145

PREFACE T O THE
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
/////////////////////////////
As the discussions of Heidegger’s anti- Semitism began earlier
this year with the publication of the philosopher’s Überlegungen,
the first sequence of the Black Notebooks, the effect was unforesee-
able. That holds still today. The question is: what future is there
for a thinking that sees in “world Judaism” a destructive power
of history—a form of destruction that ultimately destroys his-
tory itself?
In the meantime, the first attempts (along with mine) to deal
with and delve into this question have appeared.1 Other attempts
will certainly follow because the ongoing publication of the Black
Notebooks will confront us with further problematic statements
on Judaism and the Shoah. On the other hand, trusted voices
have remained silent. Thus the apologist branch of “Heideggeri-
ans” finds itself in a crisis—because in the face of the Heidegge-
rian idea of “world Judaism” the usual defensive and reflexive
justifications of Heidegger are infinitely more difficult to pull
off than are the customary attacks on a thinker whom one has
always already assumed to be an anti-S emite. Renowned Heideg-
ger scholars find themselves in an intellectual bunker seeking to
save whatever there is to save. The moral Inquisitors are the only
ones to triumph. Both answer these questions in their own way.
To have to speak of “Heidegger’s anti-S emitism” is pain-