ABSTRACT
The Philosopher, the Psychologist, the Poet, and the Jurist: each of them had a flawed relation-ship to the dramatic breakthrough of Hitlerism in their time. In that first year of Hitler's thousand-year Reich Martin Heidegger accepted the appointment as head of Freiburg University and delivered his muchdisputed Rektoratsrede. It was only for a moment, for what our four souls also had in common was that they could never quite fit, no matter what the shape of the times, into any established order. They surely tried, but were soon frustrated, or weary, or disappointed, or involved in conflict. Hitler no doubt had won over most of the German student body, if somewhat fewer of the professors and dons. Power has its fasciations, and they become overwhelming when they are perceived as coming en masse from the people. When the moment of compromise came it went rather further in Carl Schmitt's case than, say, in the Heidegger incident in Freiburg.
