Gaining Recognition for Critical Theory 373how high our reputation stands here.’^25 This referred to the USA, where
Horkheimer had made his name with the Studies in Prejudice and Adorno
had done the same as co-author of The Authoritarian Personality. In
Germany, Horkheimer’s reputation was that of the public face of Frank-
furt University where, as rector, he had received the likes of Thomas
Mann, Theodor Heuss and Konrad Adenauer. By the end of the 1950s
Adorno too was no longer an unknown, and this was connected with
the fact that, in addition to his books and articles, he had become a
public figure through his activities in the media, particularly the radio.
There were regular broadcasts – talks, interviews, round-table discus-
sions – on Hessen Radio, South-West Radio and Radio Bremen, mainly
thanks to his personal contact with people such as Alfred Andersch,
Adolf Frisé, Gerd Kadelbach, Volker von Hagen, Horst Krüger and
Helmut Lamprecht.^26 The topics treated included ‘The Administered
World’ (September 1950), ‘Philosophy and Music’ (January 1952),
‘Mythology and Enlightenment’ (September 1952), ‘Lyric Poetry and
Society’ (April 1956), ‘What is the Meaning of “Working through the
Past”?’ (February 1960), ‘Society between Education and Pseudo-
Culture’ (April 1961), ‘Why Still Philosophy?’ (January 1962), ‘The
Jargon of Authenticity’ (April 1963) and ‘The Teaching Profession and
its Taboos’ (August 1965).
Adorno had also suggested to the poet Gottfried Benn, somewhat
surprisingly, that they should join in a radio talk show on the subject of
‘The Loss of the Centre’. He wrote to Alfred Andersch, the director of
the Evening Studio on South-West Radio, saying that he ‘was extremely
interested’ in strengthening his ties with Benn.^27 This proposal came to
nothing even though Benn and Adorno met at a conference in Bad
Wildungen in the summer of 1955. Benn was an essayist and lyric poet
who had once been part of the expressionist movement and after that
was for a time sympathetic towards National Socialism. His meeting
with Adorno impressed him sufficiently for him to give a detailed
account of it in a letter to his close friend, the Bremen businessman
F. W. Oelze. ‘I made the acquaintance of Mr Adorno who also gave
a talk; a very intelligent, not very good-looking Jew, but with such an
intelligence as really only Jews have, good Jews. We flew into each
other’s arms, only he is very egotistical, vain and in need of recognition,
to be sure in a very legitimate way.’^28 Adorno admired Benn’s linguistic
artistry and regarded him as the consistent representative of a modern
literature, without however deluding himself about the nature of his
political errors. As he wrote to Peter Rühmkorf, ‘Politically, Benn has
committed atrocities, but in a higher political sense he is still closer to
us than are many others.’^29
In addition to his work for radio, Adorno produced contributions for
the two major daily newspapers in Frankfurt. He had access to the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung through Karl Korn, and to the Frank-
furter Rundschau through Karl Gerold. He also wrote increasingly for