Adorno

564 Notes to pp. 319–328

former companion in exile: ‘In my own definite experience, he is not only

pathologically conceited, and not only does his conceit go hand in hand,

logically enough, with a high degree of paranoia – but in addition he is

a great bluffer. He consciously throws sand in people’s eyes; he quite

consciously and intentionally writes incomprehensibly and quite often his

highly concentrated and all-embracing expertise merely hides his total

ignorance’ (Erika Mann, Briefe und Antworten, p. 166). Marcel Reich-

Ranicki rightly points out in his commentary on this malicious description

of Adorno that these statements ‘say more about the writer than their

subject’ (M. Reich-Ranicki, Thomas Mann und die Seinen, p. 183).

223 See Donald Prater, Thomas Mann, Deutscher und Weltbürger, p. 558ff.

224 Adorno, Minima Moralia, p. 56.

225 In spring 1947, the Arts Faculty of the University of Frankfurt had

discussed the circumstances in which Horkheimer and also Adorno might

be able to return to the faculty. The dean informed the rector of the

University that Horkheimer had had a special chair and that Adorno

could only be offered the post of a Privatdozent. However, since the

rector, Walter Hallstein, had already invited Horkheimer to rebuild the

Institute of Social Research at the end of 1946, the latter had decided to

make the journey to Europe. See Horkheimer, Briefwechsel, GS, vol. 17,

p. 765; Notker Hammerstein, Die Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität,

p. 810ff.

226 Adorno, Vier Lieder nach Gedichten von Stefan George für Singstimme

und Klavier, GS, vol. 18, p. 552.

227 Adorno, ‘Amorbach’, GS, vol. 10, p. 304.

228 Horkheimer, Briefwechsel, GS, vol. 18, p. 67f.

Part IV The Explosive Power of Saying No

1 Adorno, Negative Dialectics, p. 404f. (translation slightly altered).
2 Clemens Albrecht et al., Die intellektuelle Gründung der Bundesrepublik.
3 Adorno, Minima Moralia, p. 217.
4 Adorno, ‘On the Question: “What is German?”’, Critical Models, p. 212.
5 Ibid.
6 The essay containing this sentence was written in 1949 and first published in
1951 in the volume Soziologische Forschung in unserer Zeit. See Adorno,
‘Cultural Criticism and Society’, Prisms, p. 34. For responses to this statement,
see Petra Kiedaisch (ed.), Lyrik nach Auschwitz?: Adorno und die Dichter.
7 Adorno, ‘Scientific Experiences of a European Scholar in America’, Critical
Models, p. 239.

Chapter 16 Change of Scene: Surveying the Ruins

1 For Adorno’s assessment of Heuss, see ‘Worte zum Gedenken an Theodor

Heuss’, GS, vol. 20.2, p. 7ff.

2 On these ‘voices from the beginning’, see Helmut Dubiel, Niemand ist frei

von der Geschichte, p. 37ff.