Adorno’s Years in California 319of having to agree to make a statutary declaration in response to a
request from Katia Mann, who needed support in defending an accusa-
tion of plagiarism against Thomas Mann.^217 In the declaration, he said:
‘During the entire work on the novel Doctor Faustus I gave friendly
advice to Thomas Mann on all musical matters. I was a witness to the
writing of the book. At no point was it the writer’s intention to give the
impression that twelve-tone music was his invention.... No less absurd
is the insinuation that Thomas Mann made illegitimate use of my “intel-
lectual property”, simply because the musical portions of the novel were
written with the full agreement of us both.... Finally, I wish to state as
emphatically as possible that I never received any material remuneration
of any kind from Thomas Mann.’^218 This unusual legal step did nothing
to prevent further slanders. It was undoubtedly the expression of
Adorno’s own helplessness and impotence in the face of mud-slinging
in which he had no wish to participate. He had, it is true, given a talk on
Thomas Mann in March 1962 in connection with an exhibition about
the writer.^219 This talk contains one of the most perceptive descriptions
of Mann ever to have been written. But he did not carry out his plan of
writing a monograph on Mann, something which he had been considering
in the 1960s. This was because he felt himself to have ‘been slandered
from beyond the grave’^220 by the publication of two letters that had
been written between 1948 and 1955.^221 Mann had told the literary
historian Jonas Lesser that Adorno had been boasting about his work
on Doctor Faustus now that he, Thomas Mann, had turned the spotlight
on to him. The idea that Adorno was making too much fuss about
his contribution was evidently the predominant if not the unanimous
view within the ‘Magician’s’ family and the immediate circle of his
admirers. Katia Mann and her daughter Erika, in particular, later spoke
about Adorno in extremely disparaging tones.^222 Adorno was spared
the knowledge of this and hence the need to defend his good name.
Nevertheless, he did learn of Thomas Mann’s own brief utterances,
and these were painful enough. It was therefore readily understandable
that Adorno should have preferred to keep his own counsel and
remain silent instead of publishing further writings on Thomas Mann
and his works.
This attempt to keep his distance was the final stage of a cooling-off
process that had already begun during Mann’s lifetime. For the fact
was that the paths taken by these two great figures of the century had
already begun gradually to diverge towards the end of 1949.
Despite growing political difficulties in the USA, where he was
regarded as a communist,^223 Thomas Mann for a long time resisted the
idea of returning to post-fascist Germany, even for a visit. In contrast,
no sooner had the war come to an end than Adorno started to think
about going back to Europe. He found the idea of his former homeland
attractive precisely because a destroyed Germany had a position of
only marginal importance on the world stage. For this reason, he was