Heidegger's Inaugural Address

[edit] Inaugural Address

Heidegger's inaugural address, delivered May 27, 1933, the Rektoratsrede, was entitled "The Self-Assertion of the German University," and later became notorious. It culminated in three "Heil Hitlers". In this speech, he declared that "the essence of University was science", as well as the need to "exploit at its best the fundamental possibilities of the originally German stock and to conduct it to domination."^[3] His discourse was a call to his students for a national regeneration, during which he openly positioned himself in favor of Hitler: "Let not theories and 'ideas' be the rule of your being. The Führer himself and he alone is German reality and law, today and for the future."^[1]

Heidegger praised "the historical mission of the German Volk, a Volk that knows itself in its state." He also invoked "the power to preserve, in the deepest way, the strengths [of the Volk] which are rooted in soil and blood."

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