594 Notes to pp. 417– 421
30 In his brief but instructive historical survey of West German cultural
magazines, Heinz Ludwig Arnold describes the Kursbuch, which was
published by Wagenbach from 1970 on, and then by Rotbuch Verlag, as
the ‘flagship of the student movement.... Whether or not that was true,
it undoubtedly captured the mood of the new generation and continued
it into the 1970s. It not only opened their eyes to abuses in their own
country, but a series of well-researched articles and dossiers introduced
them to the problems of the Third World.... If one were to sum up the
stance adopted by the Kursbuch in three expressions, they would have to
be: belligerence, curiosity about theory, and international orientation’
(Heinz Ludwig Arnold, ‘Über Kulturzeitschriften nach 1945’, p. 504).
31 See Ralf Bentz (ed.), Protest! Literatur um 1968, p. 36f.
32 Horkheimer, Briefwechsel, GS, vol. 18, p. 629ff. (The NPD was an extreme
right-wing splinter group that emerged at the same time as the Grand
Coalition and had some electoral success at regional level, thus raising
fears of a resurgence of National Socialism. However, it never gained any
seats in the Bundestag [trans.].)
33 Adorno to Grass, 4 November 1968, Frankfurter Adorno Blätter, VI, 2000,
p. 80.
34 Adorno to Horkheimer, 15 December 1966, in Horkheimer, Briefwechsel,
GS, vol. 18, p. 633. A letter to John Slawson of the American Jewish
Committee makes it quite clear that Horkheimer too had his doubts about
the new government of the Grand Coalition. For many Germans, he wrote,
‘it represented a new national strength... the first obvious step to a greater,
more powerful Germany. We must be aware that this new nationalist
wave... in continental Europe derives in essence from hostility towards
the USA.... The mistakes and the false background knowledge about the
American intervention in Vietnam as well as a dislike in principle of an
open society favour a powerful consensus about the USA between people
who otherwise think very differently from one another.... What shall we
do? The question is hard to answer because at the moment it is much
easier to make serious mistakes than to do good.’ Ibid., p. 637f.
35 Adorno to Enzensberger, 10 September 1965, Theodor W. Adorno
Archive, Frankfurt am Main (Br 361/14, 15). Adorno wanted to begin
his incisive critique of positivism right away, but it was not finished until
the end of 1968, when it appeared as the introduction to the volume Der
Positivismusstreit in der deutschen Soziologie, which appeared in 1969.
36 Adorno to Enzensberger, 23 September 1965, Theodor W. Adorno
Archive, Frankfurt am Main (Br 361/22).
37 Adorno and Haselberg, ‘Über die geschichtliche Angemessenheit des
Bewußtseins’, p. 487ff.
38 Ibid., p. 492.
39 Ibid., p. 494.
40 Ibid., p. 497.
41 See Rüdiger Safranski, Martin Heidegger. (The reference in Safranski and
here is to Paul Celan’s verse in the Todesfuge [Death Fugue] that ‘Death
is a master from Germany’ [trans.].)
42 Adorno to Horkheimer, 13 March 1960, Horkheimer–Pollock Archive,
Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek, Frankfurt am Main.
43 Ernst Bloch, Briefe 1903–1975, vol. 2, p. 451.