With his Back to the Wall 449newspapers, which were full of such topics as emergency laws and the
Grand Coalition, was cause enough to reflect on the stability of the
political system. This was particularly true in the light of a study pub-
lished by the institute in 1967 which gave plenty of reasons to question
the future of parliamentary democracy in Germany. The institute study
had conducted surveys of public opinion after such events as the Spiegel
affair of 1962, the metal workers’ strike in Baden-Württemberg in 1963
and the Eichmann trial of 1961.^5 All three studies pointed to education
and the level of information as being significant factors in promoting
politically conscious action and democratic attitudes. Strikingly, the re-
search groups working under Adorno’s direction found a frighteningly
high degree of political indifference. In crisis situations in particular,
such as strikes following disputes about wages, there was the danger
that the widespread tendency to political apathy would slip into au-
thoritarian attitudes. The sociologists Egon Becker and Regina Schmidt,
who had conducted the study based on a model devised by Adorno,
linked this authoritarian disposition to the absence of real power in
society. It was this absence of power that led in their view to a strong
sense of resignation on political issues.^6 The reactions to the sentencing
of Adolf Eichmann by an Israeli court were interpreted as indicating a
reluctance to confront the events from the National Socialist past. Taken
together, the results from these studies seemed to show that in a large
majority of the population the predominant feeling was one of hostility
to politics, an attitude that might well have fatal consequences for
democracy. Egon Becker and Regina Schmidt drew pessimistic con-
clusions from these studies which Adorno shared and had already
formulated in his 1959 essay ‘The Meaning of Working Through the
Past’. They agreed with Adorno that the public’s identification with
West German democracy was superficial, that democracy was ‘not seen
from the standpoint of political self-determination, but primarily from
the point of view of the consumer and de-politicized private person who
wishes to see the status quo guaranteed.’^7
It was not simply the half-hearted attitude of many Germans towards
the democratic state that gave Adorno cause for anxiety, but also his
observation of official government policy. He was highly critical of the
behaviour of the Christian Democrats and Free Democrats who formed
the government coalition. In September 1965, just before the general
elections in October, he wrote to Marcuse, who was working at the
University of California in San Diego: ‘Politics are hopeless. I shall
indeed vote for the Social Democrats faute de mieux, but have refused
to lend my signature to any appeal on the part of intellectuals in sup-
port of Mr Wehner’s party [i.e., the SPD]. Anyway, I am pretty certain
that the CDU will obtain an absolute majority.. ..It really is a joy to be
alive.’^8 However, Adorno’s prognosis was only partly right. The Chris-
tian Democrats gained a clear victory and emerged as the largest party,
with 47.6 per cent of the votes. Despite the Godesberg Programme,