Bernard Willms (born 1931), professor of political science in Bochum, focused primarily on political theory and political philosophy, with a research emphasis on Thomas Hobbes. He also advocated controversial theses regarding current German politics. In 1991, he took his own life. Willms' last text, published posthumously and written long before the release of the "Black Notebooks," does not aim at an apology. However, it demonstrates that Heidegger's thinking cannot be silenced by denunciation, but that such actions create an atmosphere in which the level of genuinely philosophical questions is never even reached.