Kommerell's account of his visit to Heidegger in Todtnauberg with Strauss's correspondents Gerhard Krüger and Hans-Georg Gadamer present

(1941)

“…One must remember that he feels he could still hand out halos, martyr's crowns, and fiery tongues. Contrary to expectation, after he has laid aside the small and very carefully inscribed manuscript [on Hölderin’s “As When on a Holiday”]—which, as I see, he crossed out and shot through multiple times and confusingly with green, yellow, and blue pencil—he shows himself quite inclined to engage with questions. He even listens to mine with the greatest indulgence. Strange turns occur. Once, with a quiet priestly gesture, he speaks of the Holy, and reveals that this Being, which lives both in the concealment of its Self and in "un-concealment," does not wish to be asked for its reasons. Another time, in response to Krüger's irritated outburst, "Yes, but that is wrong," he gives only the calm reply: "I do not see what is supposed to be wrong there." Another time, when Krüger says he prefers the speeches of Christianity as being, after all, a few degrees more comprehensible, he asks: "So you find that with me one must believe even more than there?" Immediately, however, shocked by a consequence of his words, he wishes to avoid under all circumstances, because getting into a suspicious neighborhood. With these and similar works, he only wanted to "attune the future" to a new inclination of Being to occur, nothing else. Sometimes he smiles finely and a little, little bit madly. How sympathetic he became to me through that….” (1941)