Notes to pp. 240–243 543manner and not to say a word that could be given a political interpretation.
Expressions such as “materialist” should be avoided like the plague.... Your lecture should avoid... giving the impression that accusations
about the materialism of the institute are in any way justified. Make every
effort to talk as simply as possible. Complexity is always suspect’ (Adorno
and Horkheimer, Briefwechsel, vol. 1, p. 513).
128 Ibid., p. 498.
129 Ibid., p. 515.
130 Adorno, ‘Im Jeu de Paume gekritzelt’, GS, vol. 10, p. 325.
131 Adorno to his mother, 24 September 1950, Theodor W. Adorno Archive,
Frankfurt am Main; Adorno, ‘Amorbach’, GS, vol. 10, p. 304.
132 Horkheimer, Briefwechsel, GS, vol. 16, p. 392.
Chapter 14 Adorno’s Path to Social Research1 Adorno and his wife had made the ocean crossing on the Champlain,
a steamer of 28,094 tonnes and a capacity of 1086 passengers. The boat
struck a German mine and sank off La Pallice in 1940.
2 At this time, compared with other countries, the USA had relatively liberal
immigration laws. Furthermore, America was ‘younger, less constrained
by rigid traditions, and had a more open social structure which enabled
different nationalities to co-exist... It was elastic enough to enable it to
absorb alien elements’ (Helge Pross, Die deutsche akademische Emigra-
tion nach den Vereinigten Staaten 1933–1941, p. 33). Up to the outbreak
of the Second World War around 100,000 people fled from Germany and
Austria to the USA, 7.3 per cent of whom were members of the academic
professions. New York was the centre for immigrant intellectuals. Cf.
Klaus Mann, Der Wendepunkt, p. 377, and also Joachim Radkau, Die
deutsche Emigration in den USA, p. 23ff.
3 See Adorno, ‘Scientific Experiences of a European Scholar in America’,
in Critical Models, p. 216f.
4 Benjamin and Adorno, The Complete Correspondence 1928–1940, p. 241.
5 Adorno to Horkheimer, 28 June 1938, Horkheimer–Pollock Archive,
Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek, Frankfurt am Main.
6 A sister of Rudolf Kolisch and Gertrud Schoenberg.
7 Egon Wissing was a doctor, a cousin of Walter Benjamin, who had
married Liselotte Karplus, a dentist.
8 Adorno to Horkheimer, 10 August 1941; also Gretel Adorno to
Horkheimer, 19 August 1941, Horkheimer–Pollock Archive, Stadt- und
Universitätsbibliothek, Frankfurt am Main.
9 The volume with Grab’s stories was reissued in 1995; one story, ‘The
Attorney’s Office’, is dedicated to Theodor and Gretel Adorno. Hermann
Grab, Hochzeit in Brooklyn, p. 115.
10 Adorno to Horkheimer, 18 August 1940, Horkheimer–Pollock Archive,
Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek, Frankfurt am Main.
11 See Adorno and Krenek, Briefwechsel, p. 129f.
12 Adorno, ‘Amorbach’, GS, vol. 10, p. 304ff.
13 Benjamin and Adorno, The Complete Correspondence 1928–1940,
p. 265.