fetching [holen] from the traditional [überlieferten] understanding of Dasein the existentiell potentiality-of-being upon which it projects itself. Resoluteness that returns to itself and hands itself down then becomes the repetition [Wiederholung] of a possibility of existence that has been handed down. Repetition is explicitly handing down [Überlieferung], that is, going back to the possibilities of the Dasein that has been there. The authentic repetition of a possibility of existence that has been—the possibility that Dasein may choose its hero—is grounded existentially in anticipatory resoluteness; for in resoluteness the choice is first chosen that makes one free for the struggle over what is to follow [kämpfende Nachfolge]* and fidelity [Treue] to what can be repeated. The handing down of a possibility that has been in repeating it, does not, however, disclose the Dasein that has been there in order to actualize it again. The repetition of what is possible neither brings back "what is past," nor does it bind the "present" back to what is "outdated." Arising from a [386] resolute self-projection, repetition is not convinced by "something past," in just letting it come back as what was once real. Rather, repetition responds to the possibility of existence that has been-there. But responding [Erwiderung] to this possibility in a resolution is at the same time, as a response belonging to the Moment, the renunciation [Widerruf] of that which is working itself out in the today as "past." Repetition neither abandons itself to the past, nor does it aim at progress. In the Moment, authentic existence is indifferent to both of these alternatives.
We characterize repetition as the mode of resolution handing itself down, by which Dasein exists explicitly as fate. But if fate constitutes the primordial historicity of Dasein, history has its essential weight neither in what is past nor in the today and its "connection" with what is past, but in the authentic occurrence of existence that arises from the future of Dasein. AB a mode of being of Dasein, history has its roots so essentially in the future that death, as the possibility of Dasein we characterized, throws anticipatory existence back upon its factical thrownness and thus first gives to having-been its unique priority in what is historical. Authentic being-toward-death, that is, the finitude of temporality, is the concealed ground of the historicity of Dasein. Dasein does not first become historical in repetition, but rather because as temporal it is historical, it can take itself over in its history, retrieving itself. For this, historiography is still not needed.
* "Nachfolge" has several senses here. It refers not only to what follows, to a succession, but also to a sort of imitation. "Nachfolge Christi," the "imitation of Christ," is a phrase that comes to mind in this passage. There are a number of words in this paragraph that echo one another-holen-Wiederholen [fetch-repetition], ErwiderungWiderruf [response-renounce]—and there are a number of words that refer to a movement in some direction—Rückgang, Fortschritt, Zurückbinden, Wiederholung, Wiederbringen, vorlaufen, überliefern, überkommen, Nachfolge. At the center of these words is the word "Wiederholung" ["repetition"], which refers back to the title opening section (§ 1) of Being and Time with its announcement of the "The Necessity of an Explicit Repetition of the Question of Being." [TR]