"ChrisD(RJ)" <chrisd at russiajournal.com> asks of my aside that Heidegger's comparison of modern agriculture and gas chambers was taken out, "it was yanked from the published version?"
As far as I can work out. The version in the Basic Writings (p296) reads 'Agriculture is now the mechanized food industry. Air is now set upon to yield nitrogen...' etc etc This version is the same as in the US edition of The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, translated by Wm. Lovitt. It is based on the German text of Vortrage und Ausatze (1954).
The paper originally called 'Enframing' was given in 1949. J-F Lyotard (Heidegger and "the jews", Minnesota 1990, p85) takes a quotation from the original paper, citing Schirmacher, Technik und Gelassenheit: Zeitkritik nach Heidegger, Freiburg, 1984, p25, Victor Farias gives the same reference, in fact Lyotard might have taken it straight from Farias):
'Agriculture is now a mechanized food industry; in essence it is no different than the production of corpses in the gas chambers and death camps, the embargoes and food reductions to starving countries, the making of hydrogen bombs'.
Incidentally, the comparison with the holocaust and the measures against East Germans in the immediate post-war is one that Heidegger also made in correspondence with H Marcuse, to minimise the singularity of the holocaust, reproduced in the back of vol1 of his collected papers, Technology, War and Fascism, Routledge, 1998. -- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explained is available at GBP11.00, plus GBP1.00 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'