Heidegger's Silence

Lang interrogates Heidegger's silence for its possible meanings. He asks: What does it tell us about someone who prided himself on his ability to think that Heidegger never felt compelled to address the Jewish Question or to respond to the Nazi genocide? Lang demonstrates that Heidegger's silence after the Holocaust had its foundation in his silence on the Jewish Question before its occurrence. That earlier silence, he suggests, was based in the conceptual and historical role Heidegger ascribed to the Volk and in particular to the German Volk. Heidegger's silence, Lang concludes, was thus not simply an expression of prejudice or of his public persona. It derived from his philosophical thought and becomes, therefore, a necessary consideration in assessing Heidegger as a thinker. In this context, Lang suggests, Heidegger's silence still speaks.