alt Hacker NewsNot 'defending' Arendt, as I don't know enough about her or Heidegger to do so. But doesn't her relationship with Heidegger underscore her point? At the time it would have seemed like two adults indulging everyday human impulses.
When you're looking to get laid you don't ask a lot of questions about politics. Same goes when you're looking for a job. Soon enough, you -- or your offspring -- are part of the machine. And that's the banality of evil.
The point is that Arendt didn't just have an affair with Heidegger but worked in the post war era to conceal how fully Heidegger had embraced NAZIism earlier. That a part of their overall relationship.