I argue against the consensus that the publication of Heidegger’s “Reflections” (the Black Notebooks, 1932-1941) has proven a substantial link between Heidegger’s philosophy and Nazism. First, many of the most notorious remarks have precedents in prior volumes of Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe, in reports of personal interactions, and in class notes. Second, the new remarks in the “Reflections,” including the most notorious ones, do very little to link his philosophy to Nazism. Third, his political remarks, as typically oblique and ambiguous as they are, are far more typically anti-Nazistic or anti-modern than Nazistic or anti-Semitic. Fourth, the lion’s share of his remarks here as everywhere else in his work concern the abandonment of radical questioning and the forgetting of truth and being. On my account, Heidegger’s selective affirmation of Nazism transformed it largely into his own philosophy and dispensed with much of the concrete racial, political, and economic doctrines that characterize it. What seems most Nazistic about his philosophy is Nietzschean, but there are very substantial differences between Heidegger’s Nietzscheanism and the official Nietzsche of Nazi Party theoreticians.

Among the Black Notebooks, the one entitled Considerations and Hints III, gives us Heidegger’s thoughts from his time as the rector of Freiburg University, April 21, 1933–April 28, 1934. In it we find Heidegger proposing and defending his own peculiar conception of a “spiritual National Socialism [geistige Nationalsozialismus]” (GA 94: 135). Insofar as “National Socialism” is a political determination and “spirit” an ontological one, Überlegungen III presents us with Heidegger’s “political ontology,” what I will term a thinking of “mediation,” properly understood. Delving into this ontology shows that mediation, the condition of being “in the middle,” of being “between,” is no stable state at all, but one prone to collapse and cancellation. This paper explores three factors in the Notebook that are antagonistic to mediation, and thus to spiritual National Socialism. Two of them Heidegger himself identifies—mediocrity and forgery—the third he does not: enmity. Spiritual National Socialism is doomed to failure, but not for the reasons Heidegger decries. It fails due to the antagonism that necessitates an enemy as Heidegger construes it. Among the Black Notebooks, the one entitled Considerations and Hints III, gives us Heidegger’s thoughts from his time as the rector of Freiburg University, April 21, 1933–April 28, 1934.159 The bulk of the notebook consists in the central section “From the Time of the Rectorate,” which includes entries dated from the very last day of the rectorate, attempts at the wording of a farewell speech, mottos, titled assessments, and retrospective glances over the year just past. In it we find Heidegger proposing and defending his own peculiar conception of a “spiritual National Socialism [geistige Nationalsozialismus]” (GA 94: 135). Insofar as “National Socialism” is a political determination and “spirit” an ontological one, Überlegungen III presents us with Heidegger’s “political ontology,” what I will term a thinking of “mediation,” properly understood. Delving into this ontology shows that mediation, the condition of being “in the middle,” of being “between,” is no stable state at all, but one prone to collapse and cancellation. Today I wish to explore three factors that are antagonistic to mediation, and thus to spiritual National Socialism. Two of them Heidegger himself identifies—mediocrity and forgery—the third he does not: enmity. Spiritual National Socialism is doomed to failure, but not for the reasons Heidegger decries. It fails due to the antagonism that necessitates an enemy as Heidegger construes it.