A much more renowned thinker than Klages, Heidegger preached “authentic Being”, and harshly criticized modern technology, and is therefore often celebrated as a precursor of ecological thinking.

Heidegger’s critique of anthropocentric humanism, his call for humanity to learn to “let things be,” his notion that humanity is involved in a “play” or “dance” with earth, sky, and gods, his meditation on the possibility of an authentic mode of “dwelling” on the earth, his complaint that industrial technology is laying waste to the earth, his emphasis on the importance of local place and Heimat (homeland) his claim that humanity should guard and preserve things, instead of dominating them - all these aspects of Heidegger’s thought help to support the claim that he was a major ecological theorist.

Heidegger was an active member of the NSDAP party, and enthusiastically supported the Führer.

His mystical panegyrics to Heimat (homeland) were complemented by a deep anti-semitism, and his metaphysically phrased broadsides against technology and modernity converged neatly with populist thought.

Although he lived and taught for thirty years after the fall of the Third Reich, Heidegger never once publicly regretted, much less renounced, his involvement with National Socialism.