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First influenced by Nicolai Hartmann and Rudolf Bultmann, Gerhard Krüger (1902-1972) was one of Heidegger’s most gifted students and one who followed the unfolding of his thought with utmost critical acumen. He was impressed by Heidegger’s resurrection of the question of Being and of metaphysics, and by his destruction of the modern subject, but it is a wholly different idea of Being, metaphysics and human existence that he opposed to Heidegger. He did so in landmark studies on Kant (1931) and Plato (1939) which can be read as cogent counter-proposals to Heidegger’s view of the history of metaphysics and his understanding of philosophy.