466 Part IV: Thinking the Unconditional
Despite the disruptions caused by the student unrest, and despite all the
unforeseen extra burden of duties arising from the conflicts in the uni-
versity and the constant discussions about reforming university studies,
Adorno tried as far as possible to stick to his accustomed way of life.
On the one hand, there were his academic duties, his lectures and sem-
inars, as well as a large number of examinations in both philosophy and
sociology. On the other hand, there was a growing pressure of work
connected with his public lecturing and his publishing activities. In addi-
tion, there were the meetings in the Institute of Social Research and the
flood of correspondence that this brought in its train. More than ever,
he wrote letters on a daily basis to people dear to him or important, or
to those with whom he felt he had to remain in contact.
Apart from all that, Adorno’s life was given a structure by the four-
to six-week vacation that he spent in the Swiss mountains every year in
July and August, for many years in the Engadine and later on in the
Valais. In early spring he and Gretel preferred to take a break in the
spa of Baden-Baden, where they stayed in the luxurious Brenner’s Park
Hotel, with its rich traditions and a clientele drawn from the fashion-
able world, with prominent representatives of the aristocracy and the
worlds of business, politics and culture. He liked to spend the periods
free of teaching in September and October travelling to Paris, Vienna
or Rome. Since recovering his German citizenship he had had no
opportunity of travelling to Britain or the USA; his effective radius was
confined to Central Europe. In the many letters he wrote while on
vacation he claimed that he did no reading at all, apart from thrillers,
and that he never picked up a pen. But such statements should be taken
with a pinch of salt. In reality he used the holidays as an opportunity to
plan lectures, to take notes in his various notebooks or at least to jot
down key ideas for essays he planned to write. Nevertheless, he was
no workaholic, not a man unable to do anything but carry out his
obligations in a kind of blind rage.
The times when he could retreat to his desk to write were rare and all
the more precious for that reason, as were the hours he would spend at
the piano playing either his own compositions or those of others. In an
essay on ‘Free Time’, he wrote, evidently referring to himself:
I take the activities with which I occupy myself beyond the bounds
of my official profession, without exception, so seriously that
I would be shocked by the idea that they had anything to do with
hobbies – that is, activities I’m mindlessly infatuated with only in
order to kill time – if my experience had not toughened me against
manifestations of barbarism that have become self-evident and
acceptable. Making music, listening to music, reading with con-
centration, constitute an integral element of my existence; the word
hobby would be a mockery of them. And conversely my work, the
production of philosophical and sociological studies and university