Martin Heidegger

Today in German class I finished my work on a project about the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Here is an English summary of my findings:

1. Martin Heidegger was born in southern Germany, in a province called Baden-Wurttemburg, in 1889. 
2. As a student, he held a great proficiency for philosophy, as well as mathematics and environmental science, and originally wanted to work with the Catholic church. 
3. After his service in the army in the First World War, he returned to, university where he received his doctorate in philosophy, and published his first and most famous book, Sein und Zeit (Being and Time).
4. His thesis: the individual was inextricably related to time, and their environment. He pioneered the concept of Da-sein (being-there) and Geworfenheit (being-thrown-into-the-world). This was a vast departure from philosophy of the past, which dealt with the individual as an entity entirely separate from outside influence; Sein und Zeit was a total rejection of that idea. For this reason, Heidegger is considered the most important European philosopher of the 20th century.
5. In 1931, he met Hitler, and expressed political interest in Nazism. In 1933, he received rectorship at the University of Freiberg. After a year, feeling morally uncomfortable with the position, he resigned to be a professor, but nonetheless maintained Nazi ties.
6. After the Second World War, during the Nuremberg Trials, he was given a Lehrverbot (ban-on-teaching), which prevented him from resuming his position at the University of Freiberg.
7. In 1951, he was granted emiritus status, and taught regularly until 1968, when he retired.