«Wir brauchen Historie zum Leben». The presence of Nietzsche in Heidegger's Sein und Zeit

«To revive the dim shadows of the past», returning to life in the present world in «flesh and blood». These quotations, from the two philosophers and friends Wilhelm Dilthey and Count Paul Yorck von Wartenburg respectively, identify certain landmarks in Martin Heidegger’s attempt to place Dasein in a historical context. In Martin Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit, the name of Friedrich Nietzsche appears just three times. While the first two references are not particularly significant, in the case of the third the focus is rather more interesting. In the paragraph 76 of his masterpiece, Heidegger drew inspiration from Nietzsche’s cutting remarks of his second Unzeitgemässe Betrachtung. In Heidegger’s eyes, Nietzsche is a masterful precursor of a genuine relationship between life and history. Generally seen as a glorious but infertile burden relegated to museum status, history needs to be once more linked to life, as a resource for the present and, above all, for the future. Such an attempt can pave the way for philosophical liberation and bring back history into the service of life. Despite different horizons, Heidegger and Nietzsche may again be read with a view to reviving the inevitable relationship between history and life, constantly in danger of becoming pathological.