Robert
J
u!ian
HEIDEGGER AND HITLER
Three or four years ago, a new kind of graffiti appeared in
the streets of Paris. Unlike the American-style inscriptions of names
which have lately found a home in the subway, or the stencilled im–
ages on the sides of buildings and monuments of "mythy" figures
such as Rimbaud and Baudelaire, this graffiti could not be associ–
ated directly with young people. Unlike the racist slogans which
amount to free advertising for the ultra-right movement of Jean–
Marie Le Pen, it could not be connected with a political position.
It
could not even be attributed, for certain, to the French. This graffiti
appeared on the plaques which commemorate soldiers who fell dur–
ing the liberation of Paris in 1944, or members of the Resistance , or
victims of the deportation . It generally consisted of two words , a
nuance. Where the plaques read "shot (or deported) by the Ger–
mans," they were changed to read "by the Nazis." It was a way of
marking the passage of time.
Change is less visibly in the air when it comes to philosophy,
though there is considerable stir of late over a book which purports
to make decisive revelations about the Nazi involvement of Martin
Heidegger.
Heidegger et le nazisme
(Paris: Verdier) by a Chilean au–
thor, Victor Farias, has burst upon the French intellectual scene,
causing a tumult which only a few months ago would have been dif–
ficult to imagine . In so doing, it has brought to a close the celebra–
tion of the long-awaited "official" translation of Heidegger's major
work
Being and Time
(1927),
*
which replaced abridged versions of the
work and a controversial, pirated edition available since 1985.
If
the
French have waited over fifty years for their complete translation,
the delay seemed to confer one advantage: in 1986 it could also
crown the author, whose influence in France has never been so
powerful, as the supreme thinker of this century. Since World War
II, Heidegger has exerted more influence in France than anywhere
else, including Germany. Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Lacan, Blanchot,
and Char, not to mention Beaufret, have all helped to "prepare" for
his current institutional importance with figures such as Levinas and
'Etre et temps,
translated
by
Franc;ois Vezin (Paris: Gallimard , 1986).
