p127

Footnote 14 Staudinger and Heidegger addendum

Recognize clearly that Heidegger did not do this upon some instruction from above, but totally spontaneously. The statement, `”Dismissal rather than retirement may be suitable,” tells us that Heidegger really meant what he did. Japanese philosopher Kida writes that Heidegger’s philosophy and his human meanness should be decoupled, but is such decoupling possible in principle for a philosopher? 

 What happened to Staudinger after the accusation? Read “ The life and work of Hermann Staudinger. Part 3: 1933-1945” . In short, “ what helped him, in the final analysis, was his professional reputation. Heidegger himself advised on 5. March 1934 – reluctantly – that “consideration is given to the position that the person in question holds in his scientific field abroad”, although not without mentioning “that there cannot of course be any change in the facts of the matter. What is only involved here is the avoidance if at all possible of a new foreign policy problem” (quoted from Ott 1992, 208). A retreat, although he continued to insist that sanctions needed to be imposed on Staudinger, albeit in a milder form: Heidegger suggested that Staudinger should not, after all, be dismissed without pay but be allowed to retire instead.”

Introduction to polymer physics

P. G. de Gennes,  Scaling Concepts in Polymer Physics (Cornell UP, 1979) is still a wonderful book.