Martin Buber and Martin Heidegger
in Dialogue
Paul Mendes-Flohr / University of Chicago Divinity School
In the late spring of 1957, Martin Buber and Martin Heidegger met at the
bucolic grounds of a castle perched some three hundred meters above the
eastern shore of Lake Constance, with a view of the Swiss Alps and the upper
Rhine valley to the south.
1
The two septuagenarian philosophers strolled
for hours in animated conversation. Recalling years later their meeting,
Buber humorously mused that they must have appeared “a ` la Rumpelstilt-
skin like two dwarfs, gnomes with disproportionate large heads”—neither
stood more than five feet two inches tall—in “chthonic” conversation, Hei-
degger setting the cadence, fervidly gesticulating with both hands.
2
The
castle, located in the township of Altreuthe, belonged to Prince Albrecht of
Schaumburg-Lippe ð1900–1984Þ, the brother-in-law of Clemens Count Po-
dewils ð1905–78Þ,
3
the general secretary of the Bavarian Academy of Fine
Arts in Munich.
4
Heidegger and Buber had come to Prince Albrecht’s es-
tate to confer together with Carl Friedrich von Weizsa ¨cker ð1912–2007Þ,a
physicist and philosopher of science—the eldest brother of Richard von
Weizsa ¨cker, who in 1984 was to become the president of the Federal Re-
public of Germany—and Count Podewils on the organization of a confer-
ence on language ðdie SpracheÞ to take place in Munich under the auspices of
the academy.
1
Clemens Count Podewils to Martin Buber, February 22, 1957, and May 13, 1957, ms. var.
350/chet 588b:1, Martin Buber Archive, National and University Library, Jerusalem ðhere-
after cited as MBAÞ. The meeting took place over a period of two and a half days, from May
29–30, 1957. See protocol: “Niederschrift der Besprechung von 29/30 5 ½1957 in Altethe
u ¨ ber eine geplante Sprachtagung der Akademie ½der Ku ¨nste bei Albrecht von Walburgs und
Schaumburg-Lippe,” ms. var. 350/chet 588b, MBA.
2
Hans A. Fischer-Barnicol, “Spiegelungen—Vermittlungen,” in Erinnerung an Martin Heideg-
ger , ed. Gu ¨nther Neske ðPfullingen: Neske, 1977Þ, 71.
3
Prince Albrecht was married to Walburgis, ne ´e Baroness ðFreiinÞ von Hirschberg, the sister
of Podewil’s wife Sophie Dorothee.
4
Like Albrecht, Count Podewils belonged to the former Bavarian royalty.
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