Hannah Arendt und Heine. Ein roter Faden in der verborgenen Tradition

The name Heinrich Heine appears repeatedly in Arendt's work, and important pages are devoted to the poet, which in turn are referred to selectively in Heine research. Nevertheless, the decisive role of this controversial classic of German-language culture in Arendt's intellectual journey has not yet been recognized. If Arendt's life and work can be recounted through her dialogue with literature, then the figure of Heine allows us to identify several stages in Arendt's engagement with Jewish tradition, particularly German Jewish tradition. The explicit or implicit reference to Heine in Arendt's writings and correspondence accompanies and influences her reflection on the failure of assimilation, the post-assimilation crisis, the developments of Zionism, the tradition of German Judaism up to the founding of the State of Israel and beyond. In short, Heine proves himself repeatedly and with different connotations to be a figure of identification, a decisive role model for Arendt's self-image as a German Jew, not least in view of her special attachment to German as her mother tongue.