One point that needs to be stressed is Heidegger’s thought of man as transitionally historical. For example, in this lecture course that was delivered at the height of the Nazi movement in 1942, Heidegger notes the central concepts of polis and apolis in the Antigone, and the central homelessness (apolis) caught between the will of the individual and the will of the collective (Antigone caught between the personal will to bury and state will not bury her brother).  This reflects the historical nature of the Greek polis, which is true of the polis of history and the polis as the historical abode of humankind.  Walker summarizes:

Only the Gods and νόμοι now ruled a citizen of the πόλeις. Herodotus claims in the third book of the Histories that ‘Custom (νόμοj) is king of all.’ Demaratus tried to inform Xerxes that the Spartans’ ‘master is the law and they’re far more afraid of it than your men are of you.’ The words of Demaratus are misleading. The Greeks did not fear the law in the same sense Xerxes’s troops feared him. The law gave a citizen his power to speak and to be heard. The law guaranteed the citizen his land.  Illegal actions could indeed result in punishment from men and gods, but the Greeks loved their laws, the children of their ideals, above all else.  Plato and Aristotle reiterate Herodotus when they describe the ideal state as one that controls every detail of a citizen’s life.  In the Greek mind, there was no distinction between the state and the citizen… The end of the Persian Wars marked the start of the Pentekontaetia, a fifty year period characterized by two important developments: the beginning of the intellectual revolution Greece is most remembered for and Athenian imperialism. During the Pentekontaetia, Greek intellectual investigation gradually shifted from the community of the πόλις to the individuality of Man. This shift in thought ultimately yielded dire consequences for Greek πόλις culture. Though the new humanist movement further empowered the Greek individual, opened up new ways of thinking about the world, and gave birth to science and philosophy, it came at the expense of the culture the Greeks held so dear. It warped the most important aspect of the πόλις culture—ἀρετή…  More importantly, conceptions of ἀρετή also changed during this period. Before, the term referred to the degree of virtue or perfection achieved through contributions to the community. Now it referred to the degree to which man could achieve honor and success for himself. While this might be a noble goal for the individual, it proved disastrous for the πόλις culture. The πόλις could not survive as a political entity without its citizens consciously maintaining and supporting it. Relativism and subjectivism had now seeped into the Greek mind. The celebration of the individual coupled with such skepticism about the world proved a very dangerous combination…  The effects of these teachings manifested at the end of the Pentekontaetia and continued into the fourth century. Politicians throughout Greece began to pursue their own personal interests over that of their πόλις.  This had, of course, been going on since the start of Greek history, but the magnitude of such actions was now greater. In the seventh and sixth centuries this might have resulted in tyrannical rule; in the fifth century, new ideas led to imperialism…  A common thread unites each and every πόλις mentioned above. Influenced by the players within them, who in turn were influenced by the Sophists, the πόλeις sought more power and wealth. Greek leaders justified this desire with the slogan ‘might makes right,’ or attempted to warp tradition and custom (νόμος) to fit their present needs. Often leaders did not bother to justify their actions at all. The long-term effects of the intellectual movement that began in Athens and spread throughout the Greek world fundamentally changed the way the Greeks thought and acted. The πόλις culture died, ground down by the Greeks’ pursuit of an ideal warped by greed and avarice but disguised in tradition. In the emerging culture, the land owning warrior had lost his place,  the ὁπλίτος lost his occupation due to the professionalization of the military, and even Spartan kings were forced to become mercenaries out of necessity. The lives of all people became more private, revolving less and less around the agora.  The final moment for the πόλις came when a worn out Greece was forced to submit to Phillip and the Macedonians in 338 BCE.  The goal of this paper was not to vilify the Sophists.  The intellectual movement of the fifth century sparked the western tradition of critical thinking. It provided the foundation for philosophy, science and democracy. Furthermore, our sources for this remarkable period in history, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon and others, are all products of this movement. Without Herodotus and Thucydides, history might still sound like Homer.  Xenophon himself was a student of the most famous Sophist, Socrates. Yet, he laments the cost of the sophistic influence on Greek thinking. The pursuit of ἀρετή was both the secret to πόλις culture success, and author of its downfall. The Greeks’ views, concerning this idea and how they changed over the course of their golden age, determined which role it played. (Walker, 3-5; 11-12)

It is in this regard Heidegger reenvisioned polis culture during his Nazi period with situating the individual in the state – such as with the Hitler youth.  The Black Notebooks suggest Heidegger was prejudiced against the Jews, but the overarching theme seems to be a reinvigorating of the communal aspect of human life.