uni'alumni 2012_ENG

Holy Father is and remains livable. What this means concretely is coordinating and organizing the flood of requests for appointments, mail, audiences, trips, etc. in such a way that the Holy Father is not crushed by it all. In addition, I ­accompany him at all important meetings. Do you miss pastoral work? Yes I do. What experience with Benedict XVI are you especially fond of looking back on? The trips are always special experien­ ces, even though they are stressful and exhausting. You were born in the Black Forest but have now lived for many years in Rome. What do you consider home? My home is where my roots are: in the Black Forest. My years in Rome have of course allowed me to broaden my hori- zons considerably. My perspective has become broader, greater. Do you have a tip for alumni of the University of Freiburg on what they shouldn’t miss on a trip to the Vatican? Every visitor should go to St. Peter’s Basilica and St. Peter’s Square, which I see daily from my office, and the Vati- can’s museums are also a must. I only give insiders’ tips in person. She achieved world fame with her analysis of totalitarianism: Hannah ­Arendt is one of the most important po- litical philosophers of the 20th century. She was born in 1906 in Hanover and grew up in a secular Jewish family that had a bookcase with the works of the world’s great philosophers. Even before leaving home for college, she had al- ready read Immanuel Kant and Karl Jaspers. Starting in 1924 she studied philosophy, theology, and Greek in Marburg. A Secluded Life in Freiburg She soon entered into a love affair with her teacher Martin Heidegger, but only in secret. He remembered her as the love of his life, his muse, writes ­Arendt’s biographer Ingeborg Glei- chauf on the unequal pair. When Hei- degger, a married man and a father, saw his reputation as an upstanding citizen endangered, Arendt was forced to continue her studies in 1926/27 with Heidegger’s teacher Edmund Husserl in Freiburg. She lived a very secluded life in Freiburg, meditating on her years in Marburg. In 1928 she completed her PhD under Karl Jaspers at the Univer- sity of Heidelberg. After the National Socialists seized power in 1933, she immigrated to France. In 1940 she was sent to the Gurs internment camp but managed to escape four weeks later. She ended up fleeing to New York, where she died in 1975 as an American citizen. In the 1960’s she attracted a lot of publicity as a reporter for the magazine The New Yorker at the trial of the former SS Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. In the subtitle of the book collecting her reports on the trial, she coined the controversial phrase “the banality of evil.” Eva Opitz HISTORICAL GREATS: HANNAH ARENDT Philosopher with a Passion Hannah Arendt studied at the University of Freiburg in 1926/27. Photo: University of Oldenburg 13