But because of the breadth and depth of Heidegger's thought, he's not just a German philosopher. He does have things to say that are relevant to all human beings. One of the benefits that comes from studying Heidegger is a deeper sense of the sweep of Western intellectual history, the history of Western philosophy in full, which you don't always get in someone like Emerson. Maybe we should read American philosophers and then read Heidegger and then try to understand what is distinctively American in the context of Western thought in general. And I think he's right about that.
Philosophers are human beings.
It's always illuminating to think about the person behind the words. That's the kind of ad hominem argument that isn't legitimate. Heidegger is somebody who, like all great philosophers, struggled with how to live, with the meaning of existence, and left behind a record of that struggle. And anybody who wants to struggle with similar issues can turn to some of these texts, including Heidegger's, and find food for thought there. Not the last word, but food for thought.