32 Habermas: An intellectual biography
“sociological inquiry into the political awareness of Frankfurt
students,” was part of an Institute series on the relationship of
university and society. The idea behind the project was to assess
the political attitudes of university-educated elites. Habermas was
tasked with writing the theoretical introduction.^16 Simitis, a fellow
Mitarbeiter at the Institute, introduced Habermas to the field of
constitutional law.^17 Also a young researcher at the Institute, Simitis
recently had completed his dissertation in law under Abendroth
at Marburg.^18 Habermas’s introduction to Students and Politics was
entitled, “The Concept of Political Participation.” While the book
did not appear in print until 1961, Habermas’s essay was com-
plete in 1958. Although Adorno considered the essay a “tour de
force” – the best analysis of the current political situation he had
read – Horkheimer was alarmed by what he considered its radical
Marxist politics.^19 Horkheimer had become deeply conservative,
even a defender of the Christian Democratic Union, since returning
from exile in the United States in 1950. But the tensions between
Horkheimer and Habermas were personal as well as political.
Horkheimer was an “authoritarian” who “bullied” all the
young assistants, according to Habermas.^20 In the late summer of
1958, Horkheimer wrote to Adorno that Habermas’s introduction
“presents theses similar to those in the article in the Philosophische
Rundschau” – a 1957 article on “Marx and Marxism” by Habermas –
that Horkheimer had seen as grounds for dismissal from the
Institute.^21 Horkheimer wrote to Adorno that
The word “revolution,” probably under your influence, has been
replaced by “the development of formal democracy into material(^16) For further discussion of the methods and findings of Student und
Politik, see Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School; and Alex Demirovic, Der
Nonkonformistische Intellektuelle: Die entwicklung der Kritischen Theorie zur
Frankfurter Schule (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1999), 223–63.
(^17) Author’s private correspondence with Habermas, June 7, 2005.
(^18) Spiro Simitis, “Die Faktischen Vertragsverhältnisse,” Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Marburg, 1956 ; idem, Der Sozialstaatsgrundsatz in seinen
Auswirkungen auf das Recht von Familie und Unternehmen (Habilitationsschrift,
University of Frankfurt, 1963 ).
(^19) Adorno to Horkheimer (March 15, 1960). Cited in Wiggershaus, The
Frankfurt School, 554.
(^20) Author’s private correspondence with Habermas, June 7, 2005.
(^21) Horkheimer to Adorno (September 27, 1958). In Max Horkheimer,
Gesammelte Schriften Bd. 18: Briefwechsel 1949–73, eds. Günzelin Schmid-
Noerr, Alfred Schmidt.(Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1996), 437–52.