No, he thought of them as dominated by an indifferent mass: 'Russia and America ... are metaphysically the same', because of 'the domination in those countries of a cross section of the indifferent mass'. (Introduction to Metaphysics, p.45-6)
>2. Why did the Nazis reject Heidegger's articulation of their philosophy?
Heidegger sympathised with Ernst Rohm's brownshirts in the inner party struggle, and his faction lost out. Like many Rohm supporters, he was not entirely trusted. Notably Heidegger dated his own (wholly hidden) doubts about the movement to 1934 - the date when the brownshirts were defeated.
In June 1933 Röhm wrote 'there has been a great victory, but not the true victory', and called for a 'second revolution'. Rohm's slogan is echoed in Heidegger's writing. Just as Röhm was making the demand for a Second Revolution, Heidegger looked forward to a 'second and more profound awakening'. (quoted in Rudiger Safranski's biography, p.236) Heidegger made Freiburg a model of Nazi pedagogy. Along with the Nazi salutes Heidegger instituted a 'scholarship camp' in the woods, during summer break, 'SA or SS service uniforms will be worn'
>3. Is there A philosophy behind Nazism, or, more likely, are there as many
>forms of Nazism as there are Nazis?
For sure there are differences, but there is an underlying set of beliefs, that resonate throughout Heidegger's philosophy.
Heidegger's nationalism is not pride in the constitution or even the people. In 1935, as the Führer-Principal of Freiburg University Heidegger lectured on the "collapse of German idealism": 'It was not German idealism that collapsed; rather the age was no longer strong enough to stand up to the greatness, breadth and originality of that spiritual world, i.e. truly to realise it' (An Introduction to Metaphysics, p45).
The German military clung to the belief that they could have won the First World War if the Weimar politicians had not stabbed them in the back by imposing a negotiated peace after the 1918 revolution. Heidegger's view that the 'the age' was not adequate to the German spirit corresponds to the military theory that the Weimar democracy had failed the spirit of the nation. Heidegger clung to his belief in the special mission of the Germans even as late as 1943, in his lecture on Heraclitus: 'The planet is in flames. The essence of man is out of joint. Only from the Germans, provided they discover and preserve "the German," can world-historical consciousness come'.
The authentic, Western Germany that is being betrayed all around lives also in the thinking of the Nazi leadership. It is characteristic of the special pleading of German chauvinism. At a meeting of the top Nazi brass in the same year as Heidegger's Heraclitus lecture 'all agreed that something decisive must be done... our situation is such that only dangerous decisions can change it' (Goebbels' Diaries, p327). Like Heidegger's belief that 'the essence of man is out of joint', Goebbels' desperation arises out of the disjuncture between Germany's ambitions on the one hand and its impending defeat on the other.
>4. Just how the fuck does being-toward-death correspond to the "Nazi death
>cult" (whatever that is -- I could have sworn they had a cult of strength,
>not death). Other than both containing the word "death"?
Heidegger's morbid construction of agency has its histrionic character because he can only see the return to authentic being as a revolt against the onward march of the They (the working classes, that is, and their greater influence over events). The outlook of the German middle class is that they face extinction if they do not revolt against democracy. Heidegger calls this 'being-towards-death', or 'freedom towards death - a freedom which has been released from the illusions of the "they"'. (Being and Time, p.311) This is also called 'decisionism' in Schmitt's philosophy. This is very much part of Nazi thinking and tactics, a number of ever-greater gambles, the leadership willfully pushing Germany into ever more precarious positions, because only in that heightened sense of emergency is their own histrionic style of leadership acceptable. Goebbels says the same in his Diaries (p 200): ''Experience shows that a movement and a people that has burned their bridges fight with much greater determination than those who can still retreat''. The cult of sacrifice has always been a component of militarism, but the Nazis pushed that to extremes with a veritable cult of death, deaths head insignias, and so on. The idea was that in the face of death, the true German hero would feel a sense of liberation from ordinary social constraints ('the illusions of the They').
5 & 6 - I'll happily drive on the nazi autobahns, and in the Volkswagen, and I'll credit them discovering the link between cancer and smoking, too. The more technical aspects of Heidegger's meanderings are harmless enough. But he knew that his philosophy was more than a technique, and more than an investigation of perception, but had a moral dimension - which is why he resisted over an again invitations to distance himself from his Nazi past.
"I am quite willing to debate Heidegger with someone who knows what they are talking about, such as Andie or Chuck or Jeffrey."
Include me out!