Yes, Sartre did not know of the Holocaust when he wrote BEING AND NOTHINGNESS, and, yes, he was a frar leftist...He can be viewed without political spin, however, unkless you prefer to totally discredit Heidegger because of his endorsement of Nazism.
I'm sure Howard Dean can be viewed without political spin as well - except that neither he nor Sartre wanted to be seen outside of their politics.
As Sartre himself said, he was "preeminently a man of the Left."
unkless you prefer to totally discredit Heidegger because of his endorsement of Nazism
Heidegger should always be viewed with deep suspicion on this account - while he, unlike Sartre, was an extremely creative and original thinker, his collaboration with the Nazi regime was an intellectual commitment and one which he reconciled with his philosophical viewpoint - he made Nazism, at least temporarily, part of his philosophical project just as Sartre permanently made Marxism a part of his.
One cannot assess a thinker without assessing at least all the work he consciously decided to publish.
the case can also be made that Heidegger's celebrated Kehre was in part a reaction to his disastrous foray into politics.