recently published Notebooks corroborate this point. On the grounds of his inner conviction that his time is a time of danger, Heidegger interprets Hitler's rise to power in terms of a struggle against a petrified status quo. But Heidegger considers such a struggle valuable 30 SOFIA PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW only to the extent that it shakes previous certainties and gives to thinking a new impetus. He is by no means willing to give his blessings to a new National Socialist status quo. On the contrary, he is rather critical toward the slogans and catchphrases of the national socialists.77 It is important to keep in mind that, when Heidegger says that the prisoners will most likely want to return to their shackles, he does not mean that they would wantSocialism as a movement that emerges out of historical necessity (the destitution of the West) and has the potential to bring the German people in front of a decision that will either liberate them or plunge them into the most dreadful downfall. National Socialism carries, according to Heidegger, both a promise 77 Martin Heidegger, Ponderings II-VI: Black Notebooks 1931-1938, trans. Richard Rojcewicz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016), 89. 78 Ibid., 84. THE POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF HEIDEGGER'S READING OF THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE 31 and a threat. On the one hand, the promising prospect of National Socialism is that it may bring the German people back to their historical existence. The dangerous prospect, on the other hand, is that National Socialism may forfeit its liberating possibility and end