Volume 46, Number 18 · November 18, 1999
Ménage à Trois
By Mark Lilla
Briefe 1925 bis 1975 und andere Zeugnisse
by Hannah Arendt, by Martin Heidegger, edited by Ursula Ludz
Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 435 pp., DM68 (paper)
It is now well known that in their youth Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger were briefly lovers. Their affair was first reported in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl's absorbing biography, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (1984), though it received little popular attention at the time, thanks largely to Young-Bruehl's discretion and sense of proportion. A few years ago, however, the affair became the subject of distasteful polemics following the publication of Elz·bieta Ettinger's study Hannah Arendt/Martin Heidegger (1995). Professor Ettinger hoped to create a scandal with her little book and she succeeded. While working on a biography of Arendt she acquired permission to read the Arendt-Heidegger correspondence, which, under the terms set by the literary executors, few had seen and no one had been allowed to quote from. Having read the letters, Ettinger then rushed an account of the love affair into print, paraphrasing Heidegger's letters at length and quoting directly from Arendt's replies.
Review, 4983 words
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