Eugen Fink was born and first educated in Konstanz, where his reading in philosophic classics (Giordano Bruno, Kant, and Nietzsche) began in the Gymnasium. He took up the formal study of philosophy at Freiburg in 1925 during a period of extraordinary richness: Edmund Husserl, in the chair previously held by Wilhelm Windelband and Heinrich Rickert, was at his peak in both philosophic labor and renown when he retired in 1928; he was succeeded by Martin Heidegger—Husserl's own choice—after several years at Marburg. Fink's dissertation under Husserl was completed in December 1929 with Heidegger as coevaluator (Korreferent), at a point in time when a long-smoldering break between Husserl and Heidegger was fully manifest.

On Husserl's retirement he chose Fink as second research assistant, alongside Ludwig Landgrebe—who had been Husserl's assistant since 1923. As Landgrebe turned to his Habilitation, he relinquished his assistantship with Husserl (March 1930), and...