Description: At the height of World War II, the most influential
philosopher of the 20th century delivered a series of lectures
on a poem about the Danube River by one of Germany's greatest
poets. The philosopher was Martin Heidegger, who in 1927
achieved worldwide fame with his magnum opus, "Being and Time."
Heidegger embraced the National Socialist "revolution" in 1933,
becoming rector of Freiburg University. His inaugural address
culminated in "Heil Hitler!" After clashing with the Nazi
bureaucracy, he resigned the rectorate in 1934. Nine years
later, as the tide of the war was turning against Germany,
Heidegger spent the summer semester lecturing on the poetry of
Friedrich Hölderlin. He focused on a poem about the Danube known
as "The Ister." Rather than an esoteric retreat into the world
of poetry, Heidegger's lectures were a direct confrontation with
the political, cultural and military chaos facing Germany and
the world in 1942, a time the philosopher characterized in his
lectures as "the stellar hour