Hannah Arendt Karl Jaspers: Correspondence 1926-1969

About this book

The correspondence between Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers begins in 1926 when the twenty-year-old Arendt studied philosophy with Jaspers in Heidelberg. It is interrupted by Arendts emigration and Jasperss "inner emigration " and it is resumed immediately after World War II. The initial teacher-student relationship develops into a close friendship in which Jaspers wife Gertrud is soon included and then Arendts husband Heinrich Blucher. These letters show not only the way both philosophers lived thought and worked but also how they experienced the postwar years. Since neither ever dreamed that this correspondence would be published and each had absolute trust in the other they reveal themselves here - for the first time - in a personal and spontaneous way. Brilliant vulnerable forthright Arendt speaks about America her adopted country. About American universities American politics from McCarthyism to Kennedy American urban decay. She speaks about Germany the country she left: its anti-Semitism its guilt for the Holocaust its politics. And about Israel which she always supported as a Jew but also criticized especially in her controversial book about the trial and execution of Adolf Eichmann in 1961. In his dialogue with Arendt the thoughtful generous concerned Jaspers considers the question of the German essence and of the Jewish character. He speaks about philosophers past and present - Spinoza Heidegger. About old age and retirement. Corrupt journalism. Suicide. Mans future on this planet. Here is a fascinating dialogue between a woman and a man a Jew and a German a questioner and a visionary both uncompromising in their examination of our troubledcentury.