Essays & Correspondence
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Letters : 1925-1975
When they first met in 1925, Martin Heidegger was a star of German intellectual life and Hannah Arendt was his earnest young student. What happened between them then will never be known, but both would cherish their brief intimacy for the rest of their lives.
The ravages of history would soon take them in quite different directions. After Hitler took power in Germany in 1933, Heidegger became rector of the university in Freiburg, delivering a notorious pro-Nazi address that has been the subject of considerable controversy. Arendt, a Jew, fled Germany the same year, heading first to Paris and then to New York. In the decades to come, Heidegger would be recognized as perhaps the most significant philosopher of the twentieth century, while Arendt would establish herself as a voice of conscience in a century of tyranny and war.
Illuminating, revealing, and tender throughout, this correspondence offers a glimpse into the inner lives of two major philosophers.
The ravages of history would soon take them in quite different directions. After Hitler took power in Germany in 1933, Heidegger became rector of the university in Freiburg, delivering a notorious pro-Nazi address that has been the subject of considerable controversy. Arendt, a Jew, fled Germany the same year, heading first to Paris and then to New York. In the decades to come, Heidegger would be recognized as perhaps the most significant philosopher of the twentieth century, while Arendt would establish herself as a voice of conscience in a century of tyranny and war.
Illuminating, revealing, and tender throughout, this correspondence offers a glimpse into the inner lives of two major philosophers.
Editorial Reviews
PRAISE FOR HANNAH ARENDT AND KARL JASPERS:
CORRESPONDENCE 1926-1969
"A moving intellectual and emotional portrait of two major 20th century thinkers who struggled for decency and integrity in dark times."-The Washington Post Book World
CORRESPONDENCE 1926-1969
"A moving intellectual and emotional portrait of two major 20th century thinkers who struggled for decency and integrity in dark times."-The Washington Post Book World
Readers Top Reviews
robin friedmanwang x
Martin Heidegger (1889 -- 1976) and Hannah Arendt (1906 -- 1975) were among the most influential Twentieth Century thinkers. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger remains best-known for "Being and Time" (1927) and for his later "turn" to poetry and exegesis. Hannah Arendt escaped from Nazi Germany and became and American citizen in 1951. She became a political philosopher and the author of books including "The Origins of Totalitarianism", "The Human Condition" and "Eichmann in Jerusalem." The long personal and intellectual relationship between Heidegger and Arendt is chronicled in this collection of letters written between 1925 -- 1975, published and annotated by Ursula Ludz. In 1924, Arendt, a young and impressionable student, fell under the intellectual and personal influence of Heidegger at the University of Marburg. At the time, Heidegger was 35, married, a father, and working furiously on "Being and Time." The teacher and student began a passionate affair which gradually evolved into a lasting friendship. The affair was intense on both sides. "I must come see you this evening and speak to your heart.", Heidegger writes to Arendt in the opening letter of October 11, 1925. In a much later letter of 1950, after the two had resumed contact after 25 years, Heidegger writes of a recent photograph of Arendt: "You do not realize that it is the same gaze that leaped toward me on the lectern -- oh it was and will remain eternity, from afar and intimacy."(letter no. 60) For her part, Arendt left Marburg abruptly in 1926 and soon thereafter made a bad marriage which ended in divorce. Arendt married her second husband, Heinrich Blucher, in 1940 and the marriage lasted until Blucher's death in 1970. Ludz arranges the letters in the collection in three groups. The first group, headed "At first sight" covers the period between 1925 -- 1933 to include the love affair and its immediate aftermath. Notable in this group is the final letter, no.45 written by Heidegger in 1932 or 1933 in which he tries, in an unconvincing way, to respond to allegations of anti-semitism that Arendt had asked him about in a letter that has not survived. In 1950, after an absence of 25 years, Arendt and Heidegger began to correspond, with Arendt visiting the philosopher and his wife, Elfride. This section of the letters, captioned "The second look" covers the period 1950-1965. Heidegger and Arendt have a difficult reconciliation, with Arendt struggling to allay the jealousy of Heidegger's wife, Elfride. Heidegger had at first concealed the affair from Elfride (research subsequent to the publication of this book shows that the Heidegger's had an "open marriage")and subsequently admitted to it. The issue, apparently, was the concealment. Heidegger and Arendt discuss in a restrained manner their former relationship, but these letters include a great de...
a reader
Speedy delivery; book in yet better condition than I expected; everything beyond satisfactory. Many thanks.
Ahmed
First I thought 'used' wouldn't be that satisfying for a book-worm like myself. To my surprise it turned out to be, you know, as if had just come out of print. Thanks alot, appreciated. Great service that you offered me. Glad to have that great book in my huge collection. one more thing that Heidegger, such a heavy kind of a philosopher, turned out, in every single letter to the other even heavier philosopher Hanah Arendt, to be so romantic and kind of shy when, in such beautiful language, trying to pass on his feelings. one can learn alot from that great 'affair'. Back to the book, the cover, desighn and translation were really great. I would never hesitate to recommend that book to those interested in other side of the truth or getting to know more about these two philosophic celebrities; Heidegger and Arendt.
Short Excerpt Teaser
1.
10.II.25
Dear Miss Arendt!
I must come see you this evening and speak to your heart.
Everything should be simple and clear and pure between us. Only then will we be worthy of having been allowed to meet. You are my pupil and I your teacher, but that is only the occasion for what has happened to us.1
I will never be able to call you mine, but from now on you will belong in my life, and it shall grow with you.
We never know what we can become for others through our Being. But surely some reflection can make clear how destructive or inhibiting the effect we have might be.
The path your young life will take is hidden. We must be reconciled to that. And my loyalty to you shall only help you remain true to yourself.
You have lost your "disquiet," which means you have found the way to your innermost, purest feminine essence. Someday you will understand and be grateful-not to me-that this visit to my "office hour" was the decisive step back from the path toward the terrible solitude of academic research, which only man can endure-and then only when he has been given the burden, as well as the frenzy, of being productive.
"Be happy!"-that is now my wish for you.
Only when you are happy will you become a woman who can give happiness, and around whom all is happiness, security, repose, reverence, and gratitude to life.
And only in that way will you be properly prepared for what the university can and should give you. That is the way of genuineness and seriousness, but not in the forced academic activity of many of your sex-activity that one day somehow comes apart, leaving them helpless and untrue to themselves.
For it is at the point when individual intellectual work begins that the initial preservation of one's innermost womanly essence becomes decisive.
We have been allowed to meet: we must hold that as a gift in our innermost being and avoid deforming it through self-deception about the purity of living. We must not think of ourselves as soul mates, something no one ever experiences.
I cannot and do not want to separate your loyal eyes and dear figure from your pure trust, the honor and goodness of your girlish essence.
But that makes the gift of our friendship a commitment we must grow with. And it prompts me to ask your forgiveness for having forgotten myself briefly during our walk.
But just once I would like to be able to thank you and, with a kiss on your pure brow, take the honor of your being into my work.
Be happy, good girl!
Your
M. H.
2.
21.II.25
Dear Hannah!
Why is love rich beyond all other possible human experiences and a sweet burden to those seized in its grasp? Because we become what we love and yet remain ourselves. Then we want to thank the beloved, but find nothing that suffices.
We can only thank with our selves. Love transforms gratitude into loyalty to our selves and unconditional faith in the other. That is how love steadily intensifies its innermost secret.
Here, being close is a matter of being at the greatest distance from the other-distance that lets nothing blur-but instead puts the "thou" into the mere presence-transparent but incomprehensible-of a revelation. The other's presence suddenly breaks into our life-no soul can come to terms with that. A human fate gives itself over to another human fate, and the duty of pure love is to keep this giving as alive as it was on the first day.
If you had met me when you were thirteen, if it had been after only a decade-such speculation is futile. No, it has happened now, when your life is silently preparing to become that of a woman, when you will take the intuition, longing, blossoming, and laughter of girlhood into your life and keep it as a source of goodness, of faith, of beauty, of unending womanly giving.
And what can I do at this moment?
I can take care that nothing in you shatters; that any burden and pain you have had in the past is purified; that what is foreign to you and what has happened to you yields.
The opportunities for womanly existence open to you are completely different from what the "student" in you believes, and much more positive than she suspects. May empty criticism fall away from you, and arrogant negativity recede.
May masculine inquiry learn what respect is from simple devotion; may one-sided activity learn breadth from the original unity of womanly Being.
Curiosity, gossip, and scholarly vanity cannot be eradicated; only woman can lend nobility to free intellectual life through the way she is.
When the new semester comes it will be May. Lilac will leap over the old walls and tree blossoms will well up in the secr...
10.II.25
Dear Miss Arendt!
I must come see you this evening and speak to your heart.
Everything should be simple and clear and pure between us. Only then will we be worthy of having been allowed to meet. You are my pupil and I your teacher, but that is only the occasion for what has happened to us.1
I will never be able to call you mine, but from now on you will belong in my life, and it shall grow with you.
We never know what we can become for others through our Being. But surely some reflection can make clear how destructive or inhibiting the effect we have might be.
The path your young life will take is hidden. We must be reconciled to that. And my loyalty to you shall only help you remain true to yourself.
You have lost your "disquiet," which means you have found the way to your innermost, purest feminine essence. Someday you will understand and be grateful-not to me-that this visit to my "office hour" was the decisive step back from the path toward the terrible solitude of academic research, which only man can endure-and then only when he has been given the burden, as well as the frenzy, of being productive.
"Be happy!"-that is now my wish for you.
Only when you are happy will you become a woman who can give happiness, and around whom all is happiness, security, repose, reverence, and gratitude to life.
And only in that way will you be properly prepared for what the university can and should give you. That is the way of genuineness and seriousness, but not in the forced academic activity of many of your sex-activity that one day somehow comes apart, leaving them helpless and untrue to themselves.
For it is at the point when individual intellectual work begins that the initial preservation of one's innermost womanly essence becomes decisive.
We have been allowed to meet: we must hold that as a gift in our innermost being and avoid deforming it through self-deception about the purity of living. We must not think of ourselves as soul mates, something no one ever experiences.
I cannot and do not want to separate your loyal eyes and dear figure from your pure trust, the honor and goodness of your girlish essence.
But that makes the gift of our friendship a commitment we must grow with. And it prompts me to ask your forgiveness for having forgotten myself briefly during our walk.
But just once I would like to be able to thank you and, with a kiss on your pure brow, take the honor of your being into my work.
Be happy, good girl!
Your
M. H.
2.
21.II.25
Dear Hannah!
Why is love rich beyond all other possible human experiences and a sweet burden to those seized in its grasp? Because we become what we love and yet remain ourselves. Then we want to thank the beloved, but find nothing that suffices.
We can only thank with our selves. Love transforms gratitude into loyalty to our selves and unconditional faith in the other. That is how love steadily intensifies its innermost secret.
Here, being close is a matter of being at the greatest distance from the other-distance that lets nothing blur-but instead puts the "thou" into the mere presence-transparent but incomprehensible-of a revelation. The other's presence suddenly breaks into our life-no soul can come to terms with that. A human fate gives itself over to another human fate, and the duty of pure love is to keep this giving as alive as it was on the first day.
If you had met me when you were thirteen, if it had been after only a decade-such speculation is futile. No, it has happened now, when your life is silently preparing to become that of a woman, when you will take the intuition, longing, blossoming, and laughter of girlhood into your life and keep it as a source of goodness, of faith, of beauty, of unending womanly giving.
And what can I do at this moment?
I can take care that nothing in you shatters; that any burden and pain you have had in the past is purified; that what is foreign to you and what has happened to you yields.
The opportunities for womanly existence open to you are completely different from what the "student" in you believes, and much more positive than she suspects. May empty criticism fall away from you, and arrogant negativity recede.
May masculine inquiry learn what respect is from simple devotion; may one-sided activity learn breadth from the original unity of womanly Being.
Curiosity, gossip, and scholarly vanity cannot be eradicated; only woman can lend nobility to free intellectual life through the way she is.
When the new semester comes it will be May. Lilac will leap over the old walls and tree blossoms will well up in the secr...
