478 Part IV: Thinking the Unconditional
long as much as it does today, the end result is not unworthy.’ Inresponse
to Marcuse’s accusation that the political dimension of critical theory
had faded out, Adorno stressed almost desperately that the currentsocial
situation ruled out revolutionary action and it would therefore be wrong
to imagine ‘that the student protest movement had even the slightest
chance of having any impact on society.’^146 And because it could nothave
any such impact, its influence ‘is doubly’ damaging; it arouses ‘afascist
potential’^147 and, at the same time, there is a danger that authoritarian
attitudes may come to prevail within the militant groups. These were
the fears from which Adorno increasingly suffered after he became the
victim of acts of aggression that were, he said, ‘collective insanity’. ‘Here
in Frankfurt’, he went on in his letter to Marcuse, ‘the word “professor”
is used to dismiss people, to “demolish” [fertigmachen] them, as they
put it so nicely, much as the Nazis used the word “Jew”... .I take the
risk that the student movement may turn to fascism much more to heart
than you.’^148 He took many things to heart at the time: his work on the
Aesthetic Theory, his private problems, and the realization of his pub-
lication plans, which was the most important thing of all to him.
The state Adorno found himself in during the early summer of 1969
was one he himself described as desolate. Exhausted as he was, he
undertook more than he could cope with. In addition to being ‘com-
pletely overworked’ as usual, there was the never-ending torment of the
discussions and disputes with the radical students that just kept going
round in circles. And these were the very students who had sought him
out as the star of critical theory, not least for publicity reasons. Adorno
was not only forced to endure hostility and even open hatred, which
he remained convinced was aimed at him as a theoretician, but he was
also pursued by the nightmare that the general political situation might
easily slip overnight into totalitarianism. In his last, handwritten letter
to Marcuse on 26 July – the typed version did not reach Marcuse until
6 August – he referred to himself as ‘a badly battered Teddie’.
In this depressed state of mind Adorno and Gretel travelled to
Switzerland, where the extended walks normally succeeded in restoring
his equanimity. He now needed the break more than ever. On Tuesday
22 July the couple drove to Zermatt in order to spend the vacation in
the Hotel Bristol in the well-known resort, 1600 metres high at the foot
of the Matterhorn. A few days after their arrival, they went for an
excursion to a mountain peak of some 3000 metres that could be reached
by cable car.^149 This was in spite of urgent warnings from Dr Sprado,
his family doctor and a heart specialist, to avoid all strenuous physical
activity. At the top of the mountain, he started to have pains in his
chest. This made him go back to the resort. The same day, they went
down the valley to the town of Visp, about 30 kilometres away. Adorno’s
mountain boots had a hole that he wanted to have repaired. In the
shoeshop the pains came back again. As a precaution he was taken to
the local hospital. Towards the evening, Gretel Adorno went back to