Adorno’s Path to Social Research 257with economic theory and problems of world markets occupied some-
thing of a marginal position in Horkheimer’s general programme. They
were both somewhat older and Adorno never had a closer relationship
with either of them.^74
Pollock was present in the institute chiefly because he took part of
the administrative load off Horkheimer’s shoulders and was the person
principally responsible for financing current expenditure, the projects
and the numerous commissions and grants.^75 Löwenthal coordinated
the project work and looked after the editorial affairs of the Zeitschrift
für Sozialforschung, which appeared under the title of Studies in Philo-
sophy and Social Science from 1939 on. The two lawyers, Franz Neumann
and Otto Kirchheimer, had both found temporary shelter in the London
School of Economics. They worked for the institute in New York, but
could only be kept on for a few years because of the financial crisis.
Alongside a number of administrative tasks, both men pursued the goal
of producing a theory of the foundations of the National Socialist
system of rule.^76 Marcuse’s role was that of the chief philosopher of the
institute, together with Horkheimer. In that function he had worked
on the new programme that was destined to become the increasingly
philosophical conception of a critical theory.^77
Adorno’s duties in the institute included, in conjunction with
Löwenthal, editorial work on the Zeitschrift, with whose contents and
general level he was deeply concerned. Moreover, ever since his time
in Oxford, he had been entrusted by Horkheimer with the task of
negotiating with Walter Benjamin about the latter’s publications in the
Zeitschrift. Benjamin was undoubtedly one of the prickliest contributors
in the inner circle. For this reason, it was left to Adorno to conduct the
correspondence once Benjamin had finally submitted the long-awaited
essay on Baudelaire. This piece, on which Benjamin had been working,
though with interruptions, since 1937, hoping to turn it into a book, had
a particular importance. He intended to treat his Baudelaire studies as
a model for his larger enterprise, the arcades project. At the same
time, the essay was conceived as an independent chapter in the future
work.^78 In this preliminary version, Benjamin examines Baudelaire
from a social, not a literary, point of view. What he envisaged was a
materialist interpretation of the writer in the age of capitalism.^79
In October 1938, Benjamin wrote to Adorno, saying that he ‘had
been putting the finishing touches to the second part’ of the Baudelaire
essay, which was to have three parts in all. This was despite the ‘choking
anxieties’ caused by contemporary events, notably the so-called Munich
Agreement of September 1938, which had turned out very much in
Hitler’s favour, and the heightened risk of war following the entry of
the German troops into the Sudetenland on 1 October.^80 A little later
on, he forwarded the entire essay to New York. After a close reading of
the manuscript, Adorno’s reaction was far less euphoric than Benjamin
might have hoped. Benjamin had responded to Adorno’s study of