(October 14, 1906 - December 4, 1975) was a German-Jewish political theorist. She studied philosophy with Martin Heidegger, with whom she embarked on a long relationship for which she was later criticized because of Heidegger's support for the Nazi party while he was rector of Freiburg University.

She married Günther Stern, later known as Günther Anders, in 1929 in Berlin (they divorced in 1937). Her dissertation on the concept of love in the thought of Saint Augustine was published the same year, but Arendt was prevented from habilitating, a prerequisite for teaching in German universities, because she was Jewish. She worked for some time researching anti-Semitism before being interrogated by the Gestapo and fled Germany for Paris. Here she met and befriended the literary critic and Marxist philosopher Walter Benjamin, her first husband's cousin. While in France, Arendt worked to support and aid Jewish refugees. She was imprisoned in Camp Gurs but was able to escape after a couple of weeks.

In 1941, Arendt fled with her husband and her mother to the United States where she became active in the German-Jewish community in New York.

After World War II she returned to Germany and worked for Youth Aliyah. Later she resumed relations with Heidegger, and testified on his behalf in a German denazification hearing.

On her death in 1975, Arendt was buried at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where her husband taught for many years.