J.P. Stern in LRB in 1989: ‘Heidegger was born in 1889 in Messkirch, a small town in the Black Forest with a strong minority of Old Catholics, the son of a cooper and salaried verger; he died at the age of 87, having lived in four successive German states – the Kaiserreich, the Weimar Republic, Hitler’s Third Reich and, after an interregnum of three blank years, the Federal Republic.’

Also: ‘Since he [Hugo Ott] is neither a philosopher nor a historian of philosophy, he offers no comprehensive appraisal of Heidegger’s many writings: Heidegger’s claim to be “the philosopher of Being” is neither confirmed nor challenged in philosophical terms.’

And: ‘Of all those thousands of intellectuals who only did “what one does”, said “what one says”, and thought “what is thought’” he alone devised a category for their conformism.’

The distinction between being and conforming is almost non-existent.

(a sf 2182)