The name of Martin Heidegger is thoroughly connected with what has been carried on in intellectual discussion in the last fifty years. Just as, for example, the name of Max Planck or Kafka, Martin Buber or Rilke, Max Weber or Gropius, Karl Barth or Klee is a signal which immediately arouses the most varied emotions and provokes points of view, so also is the name "Heidegger.' The discussion over Heidegger is carried on not only in the quiet of reflection and reasonable dialogue, but also in the noisy business of mass media and in university politics, even in pamphlets, comedies and novels. In such discussions, however, the name "Heidegger' is often nothing more than a shibboleth which is handled only too superficially.