More around Heidegger ...

The late 19th and early 20th century was definitely reflected a social paradigm in crises. I appreciate the way in which Heidegger went back to the classics, found refreshment in the classics, as one of the thinkers that tried to lead Germany through its malaise. (I am thinking here especially of his Hereclitus seminars with Fink, and his reverting to the notion of truth as "lifting veils" [ohne Schminke, you might say]. )

Other Germans were doing the same, and even more others were searching out new sources, especially in the Far East.

The crisis leads to the search.
But how much can the past help us there? Is it more so just entertaining ourselves until the forward thinker leads us on? ... or will the forward thinkers necessarily have their thoughts triggered by golden Athens or Eastern China?

Was Kant looking forward, or backward, or walking forward while looking backward ... or how shall we describe his post-dogmatic-slumber walk?