Death is a possibility of being that Dasein always has to take upon itself. With death, Dasein stands before itself in its ownmost potentiality-of-being. In this possibility, Dasein is concerned about its being-in-the-world absolutely [schlechthin]. Its death is the possibility of no-longer-being-able-to-be-there. When Dasein is imminent to itself as this possibility, it is completely thrown back upon its ownmost potentiality-of-being. Thus imminent to itself, all relations to other Dasein are dissolved in it. This nonrelational ownmost possibility is at the same time the most extreme one. As a potentiality of being, Dasein is unable to bypass the possibility of death. Death is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein. Thus death reveals itself as one's ownmost, nonrelational, and insuperable [unüberholbar] possibility. As such, it is an eminent imminence. Its existential possibility is grounded in the [251] fact that Dasein is essentially disclosed to itself, and it is disclosed as being-ahead-of-itself. This structural factor of care has its most primordial concretion in being-toward-death. Being-toward-the-end becomes phenomenally clearer as being toward the eminent possibility of Dasein which we have characterized.
The ownmost, nonrelational, and insuperable possibility is not created by Dasein subsequently and occasionally in the course of its being. Rather, when Dasein exists, it is already thrown into this possibility. Initially and for the most part, Dasein does not have any explicit or even theoretical knowledge of the fact that it is delivered over to its death, and that death thus belongs to being-in-the-world. Thrownness into death reveals itself to it more primordially and penetratingly in the attunement of anxiety.8 Anxiety m the face of death is anxiety "in the face of" the ownmost, nonrelational, and insuperable potentiality- of-being. What anxiety is about is being-in-the-world itself. What anxiety is about is simply the potentiality-of-being of Dasein. Anxiety about death must not be confused with a fear of one's demise. It is not an arbitrary and chance "weak" mood of an individual, but, as a fundamental attunement [Grundbefindlichkeit] of Dasein, it is the disclosedness of the fact that Dasein exists as thrown being-toward-its-end. Thus the existential concept of dying is clarified as thrown being toward the ownmost, nonrelational, and insuperable potentiality- of-being. Precision is gained by distinguishing this from mere disappearance, and also from merely perishing, and finally from the "experience" ["Erleben"] of a demise.
Being-toward-the-end does not first arise through some attitude which occasionally turns up; rather, it belongs essentially to the thrownness of Dasein which reveals itself in attunement (mood) in various ways. The factical "knowledge" or "lack of knowledge" prevalent
8. Cf. § 40.