Arendt lived in Weimar Germany. I think she was perfectly aware that lots of people joined the Nazi Perty for reasons that did not involve anti-Semitism, among them careerism and having a cool uniform making it easier to pick up chicks. Heidegger joined because 1) he was an opportunist, 2) he was waiting for a movement to come around and save Germany and assumed the Nazis were it, and 3) he was a political imbecile and a selfish git.
I think that Heidegger probably had an inchoate feeling that Jews were sort of yucky. So did most Germans (an Europeans in general) at that time. That hardly makes him into an abetter at Auschwitz.
Maybe I'm testy about this because the anti-Semite-baiting in Russia gets sooooooooo tedious. Plus I remember the very inglorious "Heidegger wars" of the early 90s when various petty and mediocre French intellectuals and their American imitators were trying to score points on each other by brainlessly bashing Martin. That was a pretty disgusting period of intellectual history,
--- The heart is a mysterious place, and I would not judge anyone for her commitments. For all that, it would give me pause, as a Jew and a leftistis, to know that my adored, hwoever brilliant, was a "mild anti-semite." As a Jew and a leftist, my erstwhile beloved's joining the Nazi Party would be beyond what I could handle. jks
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