In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

BEING-IN-THE-WORLDS OF 1926
Martin Heidegger,
Hans Friedrich Blunck,
Carl Van Vechten
Not a Good Year
From a professional perspective, 1926 was not a good year for the
philosopher Martin Heidegger. In 1923, he had left the University of
Freiburg and his beloved retreat at Todtnauberg in the Black Forest
(where his wife had built a cabin for the family the previous year)1 to
accept a long-awaited offer from the University of Marburg. But his new
position was only an Extraordinariat, which, like an associate professorship
in the American academic world, left at least one further step to
climb on the career ladder. This was probably why-although the new
appointment gave him and his family financial stability in the hard times
of postwar Germany, and although his relatively short list of publications
made him academically vulnerable-Heidegger would never be satisfied
with his employment at Marburg. Even in his acceptance letter to the
dean of the Faculty of Philosophy (June 18, 1923), he seemed to be using
delaying tactics with his new university, by not giving the titles and topics
of the courses he was expected to teach:
To Your Spektabilitat: 2
I humbly confirm that today I received an offer from your university
concerning an Extraordinariat in philosophy, with the rights and status
of an Ordentlicher Professor. I shall accept this offer. At the same time,
I humbly ask Your Spektabilitat the favor of transmitting to the vener-
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