ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two aspects: firstly, on Heidegger’s efforts to outline an ontology of political space based upon concepts like leader, living space, spiritual space, and homeland; secondly, on his understanding of Germanness in terms of people, belonging, groundedness, and resoluteness. The correlation between living space and political space also serves as an ideological excuse that justifies the conquering of new territories and the expulsion of the nomads, which, in practice, means supporting Germanic expansionism and adopting a marked anti-Semitic perspective. Science can help establish the conditions by which someone belongs to a community, including the biological and racial criteria. By questioning the scientific criteria that explain the makeup of a people, Heidegger also rejects the argument of descent. Heidegger displays much skepticism regarding the cosmopolitanism and liberalism of the Weimar Republic, which he considered responsible for the weakening of the German State.
