BEING AND BUILDING
The Relationship of Martin Heidegger’s
Thought to Hitler’s Architecture
FRAMING THE QUESTION
The Puzzle
• Martin Heidegger
• Among the most
important philosophers
of 20th century.
• Also, ardent supporter of
National Socialism
• What gives?
Research Question
• Were Heidegger’s politics in fact a betrayal of his genius,
or was Nazism a logical extension of his philosophy?
• Some possibilities:
• Heidegger was reluctant, confused, or separated politics and
philosophy.
• Heidegger’s Nazism was logical; his philosophy supports
autocracy, submission of the individual to the political community,
exclusionary and reactionary politics, etc.
• Heidegger’s Nazism was mistaken; he got the best of his
philosophy wrong.
Procedure
Heidegger
Hitler and National Socialism
• Being and Time
• Collected speeches
• Poetry, Language,
• Albert Speer
Thought
• “Building Dwelling
Thinking”
• Nazi architectural projects
COMPETING
INTERPRETATIONS
Themes in Heidegger’s “Dwelling”
• Dwelling is being at home in the world, “for one’s place to
show up as a dwelling-place” (Julian Young)
• Deep Ecology
• Dwelling in Nature
• Building Community
• The Fourfold, Heroism, and the Divine
Deep Ecology
• Heidegger as non-
dualist, nonanthropocentric
• “letting things be”
• East Asian philosophy
(Mahayana Buddhism,
Vedanta, Taoism)
• Not similar to Nazism,
but also a misreading
Dwelling in Nature
• Allow nature to be a
• Romantic, pastoral
place where humans
dwell
• Anti-urban, but to what
extent?
elements to Nazi
ideology
• However, Hitler
obsessed with urban
planning, inhuman
scale
Building Community
• “worlding of the world”
through art, through
architecture
• Late-Heideggerian
dwelling occurs in such
a community
• Interpret building as
the work of a culture
The Fourfold
• Dwelling brings the Fourfold together
• The Fourfold: earth, sky, gods, and mortals
• What does Heidegger mean by “gods,” or “divinities”?
• If an extension of “heroes,” exemplars of a particular
heritage, from his early work, deeply problematic.
• “Only a god can save us now.” (Der Spiegel)
CONCLUSION
Can Heidegger be saved?
• All the interpretations of Heidegger offered are
problematic
• Perhaps a fifth explanation can be given: that Heidegger’s
thought is rich, complex, and open to interpretation. Yes,
Heidegger’s emphases on rootedness, community, and
the spiritual rebirth of society lend support to totalitarian,
revolutionary movements.
• However, Heidegger also provides profound insights and
new thoughts.
• The tension need not be resolved.