Birth of Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger was born on 26 September 1889 in Meßkirch. A German philosopher, Heidegger taught at the universities of Marburg and Freiburg and became one of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the twentieth century. His major work, Being and Time, published in 1927, asked what it means to be, analysing human existence in terms of time, mortality and everyday involvement in the world. He shaped existentialism, hermeneutics and phenomenology and later wrote about technology, poetry and language. His membership in the Nazi Party and his period as rector of Freiburg University in 1933 have raised lasting questions about the relation between his thought and politics. The publication of his private notebooks has intensified the debate.

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