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The Frankfurt School and Fascism

Lars Fischer

On 9 May 1945, one day after VE Day, first instance, of an empirical and practical Theodor W. Adorno, who was in Los Angeles, nature. Much as the members of the Frankfurt wrote to Max Horkheimer, who was in New School and their associates sought to develop York. ‘I feel the need’, he explained, a conceptual understanding of fascism in general and National Socialism in particular – to send you a few lines today, even though I have as significant political movements and no ‘pragmatic’ reason to do so, simply because it regimes whose policies and crimes they is a pity that we have not experienced the demise of the Nazis together. Hitler’s regime has, after all, witnessed – this was a rather different under- been the immediate cause of all the external devel- taking from subsequent (and current) opments in our lives for the last twelve years, and attempts to develop some sort of definitive, the expectation that things might change has been succinct and yet all-encompassing definition one of the decisive forces that have kept us alive. of fascism and/or National Socialism. To be Conversely, the fact that our two lives have sure, their concept of fascism doubtless become conjoined is inextricably linked to fascism. Due to this phase good fortune and misfortune became rather too inclusive in the course of have become indissolubly entangled for us.1 the war. Even so, at the time, the task of iden- tifying who or what was fascist was, for the The centrality of fascism in general and most part, not one of the principal challenges National Socialism in particular to the faced by Horkheimer, Adorno, and their col- Frankfurt School’s evolution that Adorno leagues and associates because they lived in stressed so clearly in this letter is obvious a world in which fascists and their supporters enough. It needs to be historicized in an for the most part proudly professed their own appropriate manner, though. The dealings of fascism in all too inescapable a way. For all the Frankfurt School with National Socialism that fascism was generally rather more hesi- were indeed immediate and they were, in the tant to speak its name after 1945, evidence

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for the ‘afterlife’ of National Socialism in the fate of fascism after 1945 towards the end post-war Germany too was so palpable and of this chapter. abundant that it could be identified without What all the contributions to the debates any great finesse. The critical theorists’ among the members and associates of the assessments of fascism were heavily concep- Frankfurt School had in common, however, tual because they assumed that all descriptive was the fact that they were meant to serve work needed to be inherently conceptual to one purpose before all others: to facilitate be of any genuine use, not because they the most effective possible opposition to assumed they were in the process of analyti- Nazi Germany and its fascist allies. This cally isolating some unique category called desire was to varying degrees complicated fascism. They, in any case, focused most of by the fact that for all those involved, the their descriptive and conceptual work on distinction between fascism in particular fascism on German National Socialism, and capitalism in general was ultimately occasional cross-references to Italy or to one not of kind but of degree – ‘Fascism has ‘international fascism’ notwithstanding.2 only revealed what was already inherent in The discussion of fascism among the liberalism’.5 Yet this by no means prevented members and associates of the Frankfurt most of the members of the Frankfurt School School comprised a variety of positions and from actively supporting the US war effort although Horkheimer and Adorno sided with with their expertise – and with Horkheimer’s Friedrich Pollock’s concept of state capital- unreserved encouragement. To be sure, given ism, no one ‘official’ stance ever emerged – I the Institute’s dwindling finances, he was will discuss the one (rather improbable) text also relieved that some of its members were that arguably comes closest to formulating an able to secure employment elsewhere, but it ‘official’ position on the topic in some detail is quite clear that Horkheimer whole-heart- later. Indeed, at least in terms of their progno- edly endorsed their activities anyway. As is ses, even Horkheimer and Adorno did not see now well documented,6 from 1942 onwards, entirely eye to eye, as the latter noted in his Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, Otto letter of 9 May 1945: Kirchheimer, Leo Löwenthal and Arkadij Gurland worked in various capacities for As usual when we disagree it has turned out that the Office of War Information (OWI) and we were both right. My bourgeois thesis that the Research and Analysis Branch (R&A) Hitler could not last has come true, albeit with a of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). delay that makes it ironic. In other words: the forces of production of the economically more Pollock acted as a consultant for the Justice advanced countries proved stronger than the Department and participated in discussions technological and terrorist spearhead of the late- about post-war European reconstruction comer: The war, following the overall historical under the auspices of Eleanor Roosevelt; trend, has been won by industry against the mili- and Adorno too co-authored at least two tary. Yet your thesis about the historical force of fascism is also true, except that this force, memoranda with Marcuse for circulation 7 like the embourgeoisement of Europe following in Washington. Neumann rose to deputy Napoleon’s fall, has moved its abode.… Technically head and eventually acting head of the R&A speaking, the [German] attempt to come to an Central European Section. Marcuse joined understanding with the West at Russia’s expense 3 him there and was widely respected as ‘the has failed but it was inspired by the world spirit. 8 The conflict between the two absolute tickets leading analyst on Germany’. from which there will no longer be any escape is Raffaele Laudani has argued that the R&A clearly looming.4 Central European Section produced ‘a cohe- sive interpretation of the Nazi “enemy” with I will return to Horkheimer and Adorno’s a clear Frankfurt imprint’, though he also notion of ‘ticket mentality’ and their take on concedes that Neumann and his colleagues

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‘nearly always lost’ the ‘political “battles”’ form of state capitalism, the statement that they provoked ‘inside the American admin- the current ‘democratic and humanitarian istration’.9 As the war drew to a close, they administration’ already held the ‘unprec- played a crucial role in putting together a edented governmental power necessarily Handbook on Nazi Germany and Civil Affairs associated with state capitalism’ in its hands Guides for the War Department’s Civil might well be understood as a ‘veiled attack Affairs Division,10 and Marcuse drew up a on the Roosevelt administration’.15 list of entrepreneurs and economic officials Ambiguities of this kind were also reflected who, despite not being members of the Nazi in the terminology deployed by Horkheimer party or apparatus, had played an essential and his colleagues and associates in their role in Nazi Germany.11 Neumann eventu- grappling with fascism. The terms fas- ally travelled to London, where he headed up cism, National Socialism, state capitalism, a special research group on war crimes and authoritarianism and totalitarianism were worked with Robert H. Jackson, the US chief occasionally contrasted but most of the time prosecutor at Nuremberg. In this capacity they were used more or less interchangeably. he evidently pushed his ‘spearhead’ theory State capital­ism, to some extent, was the odd of antisemitism so successfully that it was one out insofar as we do find the occasional adopted by Jackson, which helps explain why vague hint at the possibility – more precisely the Shoah played such a relatively subordi- perhaps: at the desperate hope – that it might nate role at Nuremberg.12 In other respects, also be able to exist in a democratic, non- his suggestions were repeatedly ignored, totalitarian guise. however, and Neumann resigned only days In part, this relatively loose use of ter- after the main trial opened. minology reflected a genuine double bind There is a certain irony to Neumann’s that invariably arises if one insists, as one ‘career’ in the OSS, given that he had initially should, that fascism in general and National warned against undue identification with the Socialism in particular were ultimately not United States. In his preface to the State fundamental aberrations from the course of Socialism issue of the Studies in Philosophy Western history but a logical consequence of and Social Science (on which more later), certain potentially problematic elements inte- Horkheimer wrote: ‘The unprecedented gov- gral to that history. Fascism and non-fascism, ernmental power necessarily associated with far from being radically distinct entities, are state capitalism is now in the hands of a dem- thus placed on a continuum and the crucial ocratic and humanitarian administration’.13 question then concerns the transition, the He then went on to stress the importance qualitative leap, from a non-fascist state of of ensuring it stayed there and the difficul- affairs in which the potential for fascism nev- ties this was likely to entail. Commenting ertheless inheres to a fascist state of affairs in on a draft version of the preface, Neumann which, in turn, many of the characteristics of wrote: ‘It goes without saying that I disagree the non-fascist state of affairs are still present with your positive assessment of American and yet take on a radically different meaning. democracy but I am happy to drop my objec- With the benefit of hindsight, it is evident tion, given the political situation’.14 It is that the relatively loose use of terminology indicative of the complications that arose also reflected erroneous assumptions on the from the contention that fascism in particular part of the Frankfurt School about the over- and capitalism in general differed not in kind arching socio-economic processes they were but by degree that Adorno took issue with the encountering and which they saw, at the time, same passage, albeit precisely with the oppo- as leading inexorably to only one possible site motivation: given Horkheimer’s evident outcome, which they identified fundamen- scepticism about the viability of a democratic tally with fascism. Yet the critical theorists’

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concepts need to be judged not against cur- before was inescapable, yet neither could one rent insight but against the backdrop of the reasonably claim that it had nothing in com- convulsions of the first half of the twentieth mon with the order it replaced. Was fascism, century. That capitalism underwent massive then, ultimately, more of the same in a more changes and experienced a profound crisis at extreme form or was it a qualitatively distinct the time is obviously undeniable. Across the phenomenon? Was fascism ultimately cre- board, be it in the United States, in Europe or ated and determined by economic necessity the Soviet Union, industrial production was or had fascism submitted the economy to its subject to a previously unimaginable degree own political ends (or was it in the process of centralization, streamlining and state of doing so)? Given its extreme, violent and intervention, leading to an equally unprec- rapacious nature, was fascism inherently edented regimentation and functionalization unstable and set to implode of its own accord of labour. From the perspective of the 1930s in a relatively prompt fashion or did it rep- and 1940s, this economic regimentation was resent a new order that could be sustained largely matched by ever more crass forms of indefinitely or at least for the foreseeable political and cultural regimentation, which future? As we will see, the question of fas- eventually played out against the backdrop cism’s potential to remain stable in the long of a previously unimaginable measure of run was a major preoccupation for the critical destruction and barbarism. The apocalyptical theorists. The explanation for this is simple account of an inexorable descent into a fascist/ enough: any suggestion of its acute instabil- National Socialist/authoritarian/totalitarian ity might have been taken to mean that fas- hell on earth, which the Frankfurt School cism was a problem that would resolve itself offered in the 1940s, may seem too teleologi- in fairly short order and/or whose implosion cal, mono-directional and all-encompassing might yet precipitate a successful (proletar- with the benefit of hindsight. And yet, to ian) revolution in Central Europe. Assuming want to accuse the Frankfurt School of undue fascism was indicative of a new developmen- alarmism seems an odd conceit against the tal phase of capitalism, was this new form of backdrop of increasing repression and ter- capitalism inevitable and/or irrevocable? If ror, the danger and then reality of the Second fascism was a form of state capitalism and World War and, especially, the Shoah – not state capitalism was the newest form of capi- yet in its capacity as conceptual putty but as talism, could this new form of capitalism also an ongoing, unfolding, seemingly intermina- take on a democratic guise or was fascism the ble genocide. only mode of sociation that it allowed for, When all is said and done, however, the and what exactly did that mode of sociation Frankfurt School’s relatively loose use of entail? And if fascism did represent the new- terminology was also just that – loose. Or, est developmental phase of capitalism, would to be more precise, it was indicative of the it be possible to defeat fascism without also overlap of a number of conceptual concerns overcoming capitalism? that, certainly for Horkheimer and Adorno, In response to these and a host of attendant were ultimately complementary yet com- questions, the critical theorists deployed a peted with one another as they sought to range of conceptual approaches including the work them out. I repeat: it is important to state capitalism concept, the racket theory,16 remember that many of the questions that the evolving conceptual frameworks of the continue to preoccupy scholars of fascism to integrative force of the culture industry, the this day were, for Horkheimer, Adorno, and dialectic of enlightenment and the adminis- their colleagues and associates of immedi- tered world – and, far from least and closely ate practical import. That fascism differed connected to all of these, the core contention in possibly decisive ways from what went Adorno formulated in 1940 as follows: ‘if it

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is true that one can understand antisemitism Texts only if one understands National Socialism, then it must be equally true that one can The final two issues of the Zeitschrift für understand National Socialism only if one Sozialforschung, now Studies in Philosophy understands antisemitism’.17 As we will see, and Social Science – volume 9, numbers 2 contrary to the widely accepted narrative, and 3 – formed the crucial focal point of the Horkheimer and Adorno were in fact quite Frankfurt School’s contemporaneous grap- selective in their endorsement of Pollock’s pling with fascism. Adorno expressly referred concept of state capitalism. Clearly, though, to the first of these as ‘the State Socialism Pollock’s emphasis on the elimination of the issue’ [Staatskapitalismusheft].21 It contained sphere of circulation in state capitalism reso- the following essays: nated strongly with them and it is hard to resist the impression that this was so because it Frederick Pollock, ‘State Capitalism’; allowed them to hang their conceptualization A. R. L. Gurland, ‘Technological Trends and of antisemitism rather neatly (to their minds) Economic Structure under National Socialism’; Otto Kirchheimer, ‘Changes in the Structure of on a materialist and ‘empirical’ hook. As Political Compromise’; Adorno had written to his parents in February Max Horkheimer, ‘Art and Mass Culture’; 1940, ‘fascism in Germany, which is inextri- T. W. Adorno, ‘Spengler Today’. cably linked to antisemitism … represents a universal tendency with an economic foun- The journal’s final issue drew in part on a dation, which you yourself, Dear WK [i.e., lecture series delivered by Institute col- Adorno’s father, Oscar Wiesengrund], rec- leagues at Columbia University in November 22 ognized fairly early on, namely, the demise and December 1941. The lectures were: 18 of the sphere of circulation’. The ongoing Herbert Marcuse, ‘State and Individual under attachment to this notion is indicated not National Socialism’; least by the prominent role this particular A. R. L. Gurland, ‘Private Property under National ‘element of antisemitism’ continued to play Socialism’; in their discussions, even as their much more Franz Neumann, ‘The New Rulers in Germany’; Otto Kirchheimer, ‘The Legal Order under broadly contextualized work on Dialectic of National Socialism’; 19 Enlightenment progressed apace. Frederick Pollock, ‘Is National Socialism a New The Frankfurt School’s grappling with Order?’ fascism per se, then, was, for the most part, pragmatic in nature, on the one hand, and The line up of the issue, which came out 23 ultimately subsumed under more wide- towards the end of May 1942, was as ranging conceptual concerns, on the other. follows: This was also reflected in Adorno’s letter Max Horkheimer, ‘The End of Reason’; to Horkheimer of 9 May 1945. Having just T. W. Adorno, ‘Veblen’s Attack on Culture’; emphasized how central a role fascism had Herbert Marcuse, ‘Some Social Implications of played in their lives, Adorno promptly added: Modern Technology’; Frederick Pollock, ‘Is National Socialism a New Order?’ It is remarkable that life nevertheless takes on so Otto Kirchheimer, ‘The Legal Order of National much momentum of its own that one becomes Socialism’. quite oblivious to this reason, much as the bet on which his fortunes hinged is forgotten Presumably Neumann’s lecture was omitted in the course of Faust’s long existence. Only due to its overlap with the relevant discus- Mephistopheles perfunctorily and hastily thinks of it again at the end, yet it no longer bears any sion in his Behemoth, the first edition of genuine meaning for the life, which has become which came out just before the final issue of autonomous.20 the journal.24

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In addition to these two journal issues State Socialism and Neumann’s Behemoth, further key texts were: It is generally accepted that a fundamental Horkheimer’s ‘Die Juden und Europa’ [‘The Jews divide ran through the Frankfurt School in and Europe’] (1939);25 the late 1930s and early 1940s in terms of Horkheimer’s ‘Autoritärer Staat’ [‘Authoritarian their understanding of the nexus between fas- State’], originally written in 1940 with what cism and capitalism. This controversy pitted would become the State Socialism issue of Neumann, Gurland and Kirchheimer, on the the Studies in mind.26 In the event, it appeared in the mimeographed memorial publication one hand, against Pollock, Horkheimer and 32 for Walter Benjamin published by the Adorno, on the other. On Pollock’s account, Institute in 1942;27 fascism corresponded to a new, qualitatively Horkheimer’s text on ‘The Sociology of Class distinct phase of capitalism, that of state 28 Relations’ (1943); and Adorno’s corre- capitalism in its totalitarian guise (though, as sponding ‘Reflexionen zur Klassentheorie’ [‘Reflections on Class Theory’] of 1942,29 already indicated, he had relatively little to neither of which were published at say about its potential non-totalitarian coun- the time. terpart, democratic state capitalism). The chief feature of state capitalism was the All nine volumes of the Zeitschrift für redundancy of the market whose functions Sozialforschung/Studies in Philosophy and had been resumed by the political sphere. Social Science – and with them most of these That political sphere, in turn, now consisted texts – are now readily available online. of a range of competing rackets. While Neumann’s Behemoth has consistently been Pollock thus insisted on the primacy of poli- widely circulated and repeatedly reissued, tics in state capitalism, and Horkheimer and and diehard scholars of critical theory can Adorno endorsed his position, Neumann, even access all five drafts of Horkheimer’s Gurland and Kirchheimer continued to insist ‘Sociology of Class Relations’ online among on the primacy of economic factors in under- the digitized holdings of the Horkheimer standing the dynamics at work in Nazi Archive in Frankfurt. Consequently, the Germany.33 It is no coincidence that this disa- debates reflected in these texts can easily be greement mapped neatly onto the assessment reviewed by anyone whose interests go of the significance of antisemitism. While beyond the aspects I can reasonably discuss Adorno and Horkheimer insisted on the cen- in this chapter. trality of antisemitism to National Socialism Helmut Dubiel and Alfons Söllner pub- and linked it to the ostensible demise of the lished a German-language selection of these sphere of circulation supposedly characteris- texts in 1981, focusing specifically on analy- tic of state capitalism, Neumann maintained ses of the National Socialist economy, law that ‘one can offer an account of National and state.30 While a selection obviously needs Socialism without attributing a central role to to be selective, Horkheimer and Adorno the Jewish problem’.34 would surely have been deeply resentful of Yet while all this is certainly the truth and this separation of the more obviously politi- nothing but the truth, it is anything but the cal and economic contributions from those whole truth. To what extent Horkheimer and that were, prima facie, more ‘feuilletonistic’ Adorno genuinely subscribed to Pollock’s in character, insistent as they were that ‘the conceptualization of state capitalism is, as analysis of a single work of art can lead more already indicated, a rather moot point.35 deeply into the inner structure of society than While generally full of praise, Horkheimer the most elaborate questionnaire with a giant had already expressed certain reservations apparatus for investigation and with tremen- about Pollock’s outline for the essay that was dous statistical results’.31 going to open the State Capitalism issue of

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the Studies. He had two principal reserva- Having been asked by Pollock to comment tions. Firstly, he feared that the portrayal of on a draft of the article itself, Adorno was state capitalism, including its totalitarian vari- highly alarmed. As he explained to ant, i.e., fascism, as the logical and ultimately Horkheimer, the ‘critical suggestions’ he had inevitable contemporary guise of capitalism made to Pollock could be understood as an expression of par- tisanship for totalitarian state capitalism, a could deal only with details and questions of pres- concern he reiterated on reading a draft of the entation and it would have been simply impossible 36 to alert him to the actual extent of my concerns. essay itself. That this was an ongoing issue Impossible, first, because as a non-economist I do for Horkheimer is demonstrated by the fact not have the authority required to present those that he also raised it in the context of his harsh concerns but also, second, because it would have critique of Henryk Grossmann. Grossmann, been psychologically irresponsible of me to articu- Horkheimer suggested, was being Hegelian late a critique genuinely reflecting my point of view. I can best summarize my concerns about this in that he subscribed to ‘Hegel’s crucial mis- essay by saying that it represents an inversion of take’, which had lain ‘in his confusing theory Kafka. Kafka presented the hierarchy of the office and justification … Do you really think’, as hell. Here hell turns into a hierarchy of the he asked Grossmann rhetorically, ‘that the office. Moreover, the whole thing is so thetical and objective necessity of fascism, which draws it is written to such an extent, in the Husserlian sense, ‘from above’ [‘von oben her’] that it lacks all all the currents of late capitalism into itself conviction [Eindringlichkeit], not to mention the like a vortex, cannot be demonstrated just as undialectical assumption that a non-antagonistic easily as that of all the previous phases – per- economy can exist within an antagonistic society. I haps even more so?’37 anticipate a genuinely aporetic situation. If the A second, more general worry was that essay comes out in this or a similar form it will only harm the reputation of the Institute and, above all, Pollock’s account was, by Horkheimer’s and Fritz’s own reputation, and unleash sardonic howls Adorno’s standards, insufficiently dialecti- of triumph from the Lowes,42 Neumanns e tutti cal. In his outline, under the final heading, quanti. On the other hand, it would be a grave ‘End of the Economic Era’, Pollock had setback for the State Socialism issue if it were not 43 suggested a scheme of thesis (feudalism), published. antithesis (private capitalism), and synthesis His own essay on Spengler ‘only works as a (state capitalism).38 To Horkheimer’s mind, philosophical link to the problem of state the conceptualization underlying this scheme capitalism’, Adorno added – clearly demon- was ‘still extremely shaky’. After all, it was strating the integral connection Horkheimer ‘certain aspects of Imperial Germany’, not and Adorno envisaged between the ‘political’ fascism, that ‘seemed like a sort of synthesis and ‘feuilletonistic’ contributions in the between feudalism and private capitalism’.39 journal – but it was ‘far too modest to carry He also expressed his unease at Pollock’s such an aspirational issue’. The only solu- contention that, in the new (state capitalist) tion, Adorno suggested, would be for state, ‘the seemingly independent institutions Horkheimer to rewrite Pollock’s essay in a namely party and economy are only its spe- manner combining it with the motifs ‘in your cialized arms’:40 “State Capitalism”’. After all, the central Party and economy (their coordination with ‘and’ motifs in Pollock’s text is presumably just an oversight) are not just slaves but just as much masters, or rather: the means obviously originate in your essay but they have shape those who deploy them – and by economy been simplified and de-dialecticized [entdialek­ I don’t mean just the laws of the market under tisiert] to such an extent that they have been liberalism and by party not just the hierarchical turned into their opposite. I am pretty certain that, form but also the interests that assert themselves if one could convince Fritz that this offers an within it.41 opportunity to publish your theory in connection

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with his work and merge the two pieces, he would construct in future too? I feel in no position genu- go along with anything, and you would be able to inely to answer this question. My instinct is as fol- turn it into the essay we envisaged. Perhaps the lows: the truth of the concept lies in its pessimism, essay could appear under both your names, which i.e., the view that the chances of domination in its would surely be a matter of great satisfaction immediately political guise being perpetuated are for Fritz.44 greater than those of getting out [from under it]. Wrong is the optimism, even for others. What is Adorno did admit, though, that it was hard being perpetuated is not so much a stable and in to dismiss ‘the argument that it would some way rational state of affairs but rather, for the foreseeable future, a relentless succession of be a shame and uneconomical simply to catastrophes, chaos, and terror – but with that, omit your essay on state capitalism in such conversely, also a renewed chance of escape.47 an issue’.45 By ‘your “State Socialism”’, Adorno meant Horkheimer’s aforemen- Eventually, Horkheimer wrote a rather longer tioned essay on the ‘Authoritarian State’ preface than usual for the State Socialism (eventually published in the commemora- issue to place Pollock’s article in the ‘right’ tive publication for Benjamin), which had context. Adorno certainly felt that Horkheimer originally borne the title ‘Staatskapitalismus’. had done an excellent job of solving ‘the This surely means that Horkheimer’s essay tactical challenge of ruling out the misunder- on the authoritarian state is a much better standing that Fritz’s essay actually acknowl- source for the understanding of Horkheimer’s edges the possibility of a non-antagonistic and Adorno’s approach to state capitalism form of state capitalism [on the one hand] than Pollock’s flagship article on state capi- without making the slightest concession to talism in the Studies. the official Marxist optimism [on the Horkheimer thereupon tried to impress on other]’.48 Pollock once again, this time in somewhat Responding to the draft of the preface, clearer language, though to little effect, the Neumann wrote to Horkheimer: need to place greater emphasis on the ‘entan- you interpret Pollock’s essay in a manner that ren- glement and ambiguity of the phenomena …, ders it entirely harmless so that it [the essay] the crossover between the concepts etc’. entirely contradicts your interpretation [of it]. He urged Pollock to revise the text so that Anyone who reads Pollock’s essay and your ‘it might all come across in a slightly less preface must conclude that you have misunder- 46 stood each other. I appreciate entirely why rigidly administrative manner’. Adorno you have undertaken this reinterpretation seems to have been slightly more successful [Uminterpretierung]. You want to avoid distancing in suggesting to Pollock, as he reported to yourself from Pollock. I think it would be much Horkheimer, that he revise ‘the final part of better to let the disagreements become apparent, the essay on democratic state socialism’ by rather than hiding them and suggesting to the uninitiated that the two directors of the institute giving it ‘the guise of questions and issues are talking past each other.49 for future research. The intercalation of this protective device seems to me to be the only In his response, Horkheimer assured way to avoid embarrassing ourselves in the Neumann that, eyes of our friends by giving the impression that we endorse theses, which simply cannot since my trust in your study of the economic pro- cesses in Germany is unlimited, I take your word be endorsed. What do you think? In terms of for it that Germany in its current state comes the content’, he continued, nowhere close to being a form of state capitalism. On the other hand, I cannot shrug off Engels’s the crucial problem is: does the tendency towards opinion that society is heading towards such a a crisis-free command economy presented in the state of affairs. Consequently, I have to assume text really express the objective tendency of reality that it is in all likelihood looming and, to my mind, or does the current antagonistic state of affairs this renders Pollock’s construction a valuable basis continue to preclude the notional purity of this for discussion, all its flaws notwithstanding.

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He added that he could only agree with Pollock’s essay on state socialism as ‘contra- ­everything that Neumann had to say about dicting the Institute’s theory from beginning the ‘profound identity’ between the fascist to end’ and signalling a ‘departure from state of affairs and its predecessors.50 Marxism’55 – expressly confirmed that ‘I find Nor does the story end there. Rolf the formulations excellent and fully agree Wiggershaus has pointed to Neumann’s essay with the first 4¾ pages … The formulations on ‘Approaches to the Study of Political are exemplary and I would not want to Power’, published in 1950.51 There Neumann change them in any way’.56 explained that ‘the Soviet Union presents Given my earlier remarks about the a clear-cut marginal case where political critical theorists’ preoccupation with the power not only has made itself supreme transition or qualitative leap between non- but has become the fount of whatever eco- fascism and fascism it will hardly come as nomic power positions exist’, adding that, a surprise that Horkheimer began his pref- ‘had there been no war or had the Nazis been ace by explaining that ‘the articles in this victorious, the Soviet pattern would have issue deal with some problems implied in prevailed’ in Nazi Germany too.52 In short, the transition from liberalism to authori- he conceded that a primacy of politics was tarianism in continental Europe’.57 Note conceivable and that the momentum in Nazi also the reference to authoritarianism rather Germany was indeed headed in that direc- than fascism. He then went on to develop tion. Adorno, conversely, felt no compunc- a typological juxtaposition of pre-modern tion about praising Neumann’s Behemoth society (implicitly), ‘classical’ liberal capi- to his students in 1968 as ‘the most congru- talism (or, as Adorno called it, ‘competitive ous socio-economic account of fascism to capitalism’ [Konkurrenzkapitalismus]),58 date’,53 though admittedly this praise hinged monopoly capitalism and state capitalism. principally on Neumann’s implicit appropria- Initially, he explained, tion of the racket theory. Neumann, Adorno emphasized, had demonstrated that the osten- private industry consisted of numerous independ- sible integration of society under National ent entrepreneurs who in each country competed with likewise independent traders and bankers for Socialism had been superficial at best. In social power. The outcome of this struggle fact, ‘under the mantle, the very thin man- expressed itself in the relative size of the capital tle of the total state, an almost archaic and controlled by each of them. Dominion over men anarchic struggle between the various social and things was distributed among the members of groups’ had raged.54 this diversified social group according to the rules of exchange.

In contrast to the early modern absolute state Horkheimer’s ‘Preface’ in the that had gone before, Final Issue of the Studies in power had become decentralized; it had been Philosophy and Social Science transferred from relatively well-organized privi- leged bodies to the multitude of proprietors who One might well argue, then, that Horkheimer’s possessed no other title than their wealth and their resolve to use it. The course of social production preface to the State Socialism issue of the was the resultant of their respective business Studies in Philosophy and Social Science is policies. the closest there is to an ‘official’ contempo- raneous statement on fascism by ‘the Frankfurt The ‘seigneurial ordinances’ of pre-modern School’, especially since, Horkheimer’s society had been ‘replaced by anonymous re-interpretation of Pollock’s article aside, laws and autonomous institutions, by eco- Neumann too – who had characterized nomic, legal, and political mechanisms

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which reflected the size and composition of Combining the state capitalism concept, the nation’s industry’. In the next phase, racket theory and elements clearly prefigur- ing the notion of the ‘administered world’, [c]ompetition among independent entrepreneurs Horkheimer continued by arguing that eventually culminated in the giant concerns of monopolist industry. Under their hegemony com- [r]igid discipline such as ruled inside the factory has petition assumed a different form. Their urge to now spread throughout the hinterland, borne for- compete with equals within the nation declined, ward by élites who in their composition and func- and with it the motive for increased investment tion have combined economy and politics. The and full employment. The great leaders of business leaders of industry, administration, propaganda, and other avenues of social life found their peers and the military have become identical with the only across the various national borders. Rivalry state in that they lay down the plan of the national among equal powers shifted more and more to economy as the entrepreneur before them had laid the international scene alone. down policy for his factory.62

At this point Horkheimer moved beyond the The ‘streamlined unconcern for material and predominantly economic line of argument, ideal barriers’ shared by the rackets that had stressing that ‘the transition affected culture usurped the state and their need to defend as a whole’. He then moved straight on to their status against the claims of the general- ‘the advent of fascism’ – without offering ity did not, however, any explanation as to how fascism related to 59 endow the ruling group with a real solidarity … To monopoly capitalism. ‘Would it not be a counterbalance their antagonism, no common faith good idea’, Adorno had asked after reading exists, as among the medieval clergy, no belief in the draft of the preface, chivalry and princely blood, as among the seigneurs of absolutism … The unity of fascist leaders is to say something explicit about the relationship cemented merely by their common fear of the people between monopolism and fascism? I would be all they tyrannize, by their dread of ultimate doom. the more in favor of a differentiation at this point because Kirchheimer’s essay [‘Changes in the In fact, ‘the big industrialists attack the Structure of Political Compromise’] is far too fuehrers for their expensive political appara- crude in equating the two. One could do this in a tus; the fuehrers blood purge the underfuehr- very Hegelian way and conceive of fascism as ers because of their radical claims; the monopolism that has come into its own. Through its totalization, monopolism develops the new generals would like to get rid of all of them’. quality of fascism. The total domination of the The ruling ‘clique’, in short, ‘does not monopolies transforms economy and society become the dupe of its own ideologies; it because it is identical with the elimination of the shuffles them about freely and cynically very market previously dominated by the according to the changing situation, thus monopolies.60 finally translating into open action what Yet evidently Horkheimer was not convinced modern political theory from Machiavelli of the need to explain this transition. ‘With and Hobbes to Pareto has professed’. the advent of fascism’, then, The next two sentences then read:

dualisms typical of the liberalistic era, such as indi- These are the basic features of authoritarian soci- vidual and society, private and public life, law and ety as it took shape after the debacle of European morals, economy and politics, have not been tran- liberalism, and most typically in Germany. Under scended but obscured. Individuals have become National Socialism the distribution of goods is car- less and less independent of society, while society ried on by private means, though competition has has fallen to the mercy of mere individual interests. become even more one-sided than in the era of With the decline of the individual, moral feelings the 200 families. that stood against authoritarian law have lost their force, while authoritarian law has been entrusted Evidently, then, fascism, authoritarianism to a perverted moral sense.61 and National Socialism could all be equated.

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This alone makes it very difficult to discern All the rhetoric to the contrary notwithstand- what Horkheimer assumed the dialectic of ing, ‘the blind calculative rationality of busi- continuity and discontinuity to be in these ness life, so bitterly denounced by fascism, developments. Did ‘the debacle of European has carried over to the authoritarian society’. liberalism’, for instance, mark a caesura or In it, the previous ‘irrational rationality’ of simply a stage in the logical progression of liberal capitalism had been replaced by ‘mad- capitalism? That Horkheimer and his col- ness with method’. While genuine socialism leagues should not have been troubled by this would be characterized by a humankind that lack of clarity, I would argue, only bears out is ‘conscious of its common good and soli- my contention that the Frankfurt School did darity’ and ‘guides its own destiny’, under not see itself as engaging in the purist distil- ‘this so-called socialism … the natural condi- lation of an essentialist concept of fascism tions, the pressures of the masses, the rival- but was putting up a desperate fight to take ries of cliques play themselves off against on, both in conceptual and practical terms each other in the sinister hearts of the fuehr- and in the most pragmatic way they knew ers and emerge as the blind laws of fascist how, a host of evidently interrelated and economy’. To be sure, ‘during the earlier deeply troubling developments. periods of private industry’, too, ‘the achieve- ‘Intra-national competition’, Horkheimer ments of men turned increasingly against continued, ‘turns into oppression.… As long them; no masterpiece of engineering, no as its power had been decentralized’, he gigantic factory, no ladies paradise arose explained, without enhancing the power of society as well as its misery’. Now, however, industry, propelled by its self-interest, had to cater to the needs of the population and, willy- in authoritarian society, technical, social, military nilly, promoted technical, political, and social advances are the handmaids of doom and disaster. progress, at least to a certain degree. But under Every frontier torn down by fascism only strength- its totalitarian set-up big industry is in a position ens the walls separating men from each other, not only to impose its plan upon its former com- every means of communication it improves only petitors, but to order the masses to work instead places them farther apart, every scientific invention of having to deal with them as free parties to a only blinds them the more to nature.65 Progress in contract. Popular needs determine production far the abstract triumphs. The world belongs to the less than they did through the market, and indus- clever, and the devil take the hindmost, – try converges on the production of instruments of destruction. he continued, and then added: ‘this is true Having reiterated the notion of the elimina- more than it ever was’, a formulation tion of the market that was crucial to the state that surely epitomizes the intimate entangle- capitalism concept, Horkheimer now moved ment of continuity and discontinuity in squarely into dialectic of enlightenment terri- Horkheimer’s account. ‘The soul of fascism’, tory. ‘Planned waste of intelligence, happi- he went on, was ‘the principle of letting noth- ness, and life’,63 he continued, ing lie still, of stirring everyone to action, of tolerating nothing that has no utility, in a succeeds the planless waste caused by the frictions word, dynamism … Moral taboos and ideals and crises of the market system. The more effi- are abolished; true is that which has proved ciently authoritarian planning functions and the serviceable’.66 What Horkheimer described more smoothly nature and men are exploited, – in this instance as ‘the soul of fascism’ the more are subjects and objects of the plan would, of course, resurface in Dialectic of dominated by dead matter and the more sense- less, exorbitant, and destructive becomes the Enlightenment as Horkheimer and Adorno’s whole social apparatus which is maintained for the critique of the Enlightenment that had yet to perpetuation of power exclusively.64 develop a sense of its true purpose and power

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and thus transcend its own limitations. ‘Can that worried the business world can be handled anyone dare question the serviceability of the through authoritarian devices. The article attempts secret police, of concentration camps, blood to destroy the wishful ideas that fascism must eventually disintegrate through disharmonies of purges against the insane, anti-Semitism, supply and demand, budget deficiencies, or relentless activization of the people?’ unemployment. Horkheimer continued.67 ‘Fascists have learned something from pragmatism. Even That said, he clarified, ‘the study is not con- their sentences no longer have meaning, only fined to authoritarian society alone but con- a purpose’.68 ceives the latter as a sub-species of state Fascism, he suggested, capitalism, thus raising the question whether state capitalism might not be workable within feels itself the son, nay the savior, of the world that the framework of democracy rather than bore it. That world collapsed, as Marx had proph- terror’.69 Then followed the aforementioned esied, because after it had reached a certain point ‘positive’ remarks about US democracy that in its development, it was unable to fulfill human needs. Technological unemployment has evi- had worried both Neumann and Adorno. In denced the crisis which cannot be alleviated by the final short paragraph, Horkheimer rela- returning to the market system. tivized the significance of Pollock’s essay by noting that it ‘outlines the economic structure This would suggest that there was indeed no of state capitalism’ and emphasizing that way back. the remaining articles in the issue ‘study the ‘National Socialism attempts to maintain links between authoritarian society and the and strengthen the hegemony of privileged past, as well as the disharmonies that domi- groups by abolishing economic liberties nate its existing forms’.70 for the rest of society’, he went on. Turning finally to ‘the German people’ in general, Horkheimer suggested that ‘in tolerating Hitler’, they ‘went along with the facts; given Auschwitz the prevailing inequality and injustice it was politic to profit from the weakness of the old Within about a fortnight (at most) of the pub- world powers and to supplant them. With the lication of the final issue of the Studies and world as it was, Hitler seemed more practical the Institute’s commemorative volume for than Stresemann. National Socialism became Benjamin, the BBC broke the news of the the die-hard competitor on an international German genocide against European Jewry to scale. And now’, he concluded the general the wider public (though it seems unlikely section of his preface, in a perhaps somewhat that somebody who was as well informed surprising twist, ‘the question is whether and connected and as heavily involved in the long established houses can remodel trying to rescue Jewish relatives and associ- their enterprises fast enough to get rid of it’. ates from Europe as Horkheimer would not Evidently, then, fascism need not have the already have had a fairly good idea of what last word after all. was going on). The impact of the Shoah on Horkheimer then turned to Pollock’s essay Horkheimer and Adorno is well documented. on state capitalism. Its topic was None too surprisingly, it led them to take an even bleaker view of the direction in which an authoritarian society that might embrace the the world seemed to be heading. They also earth, or one that is at least autarchic. Its challeng- became rather less forgiving in their assess- ing thesis is that such a society can endure for a ment of the role of the German population.71 long and terrifying period. Basing itself on the most recent economic experience, it comes to the They now reasoned that the still very young conclusion that all technical economic problems history of fascism (or state capitalism) on its

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own could not possibly account for the emerged from Dialectic of Enlightenment, ‘endless series of inconceivably horrible Eclipse of Reason and the concept of the deeds, the most fiendish acts of organized administered world was the enormous murder and destruction ever accomplished destruction constantly wrought on human life by any people since the beginning of history’ by modern society even when its potential for that were now being perpetrated by ‘the fascism was not realized. German nation’.72 This explicit reference to ‘the German nation’ is indicative of a tension, which, from the final years of the war onwards, After 1945 characterized their assessment of fascism/ National Socialism for a while. Confronted Once it became clear, not only that fascism with the Shoah, the critical theorists became was not in fact taking over the West, but also increasingly preoccupied, even more so and – that the development in many of the Western especially – more explicitly than before, spe- countries might well be characterized by a cifically with German National Socialism, previously unprecedented measure of liberal- on the one hand, while the universalizing democratic governance and social redistribu- tendencies of the Dialectic of Enlightenment tion, Horkheimer and Adorno, as far as I can project also led them to worry very seri- see, conceptualized National Socialism as ously about the possibility that fascism, after both an extreme case and as the dysfunc- the defeat of Nazi Germany, would come to tional other of the administered world. Take dominate the West in its entirety, not least Adorno’s suggestion of 1959 that National given the forces it would need to mobilize Socialism had ‘anticipated the current mode to fend off Soviet Communism. This is what of crisis management in a violent form’; it Adorno meant when he wrote, in his letter to had been ‘a barbaric experiment in state con- 75 Horkheimer of 9 May 1945, that ‘the histori- trol over industrial society’. In an interview cal force of fascism … has moved its abode’, published posthumously, nine days after his and that ‘the conflict between the two abso- death, in West Germany’s foremost weekly lute tickets from which there will no longer news magazine, Der Spiegel, Horkheimer be any escape is clearly looming’.73 made the same argument. ‘Ticket thinking’ featured prominently in Fascism … was the violent anticipation of the uni- the seventh of the ‘Elements of Antisemitism’ versally administered society … National Socialism Horkheimer and Adorno added to the version was unable to function seamlessly because the of Dialetic of Enlightenment published in instruments for the domination of nature had not Amsterdam in 1947. They argued that there yet been perfected. Yet in principle National Socialism had already contrived a fully automated was a tendency for people no longer to make society, as it were – a society without morality and actual judgements and ideological choices. spirit.76 Instead, they increasingly bought into com- prehensive ideological package deals in an As long as the West remained more prosper- effectively automated manner that corre- ous than ‘the East’ (i.e., the countries in the sponded to the developmental phase of state Soviet sphere of influence), ‘the fascist vari- capitalism.74 While many of their observa- ant is more likely to appeal to the masses tions are compelling, the implication seemed than the eastern propaganda while, on the to be that this new mode of ‘ticket thinking’ other hand, one does not feel pressed to marked the universalization of antisemitism resort to the fascist ultima ratio’, Adorno and hence of fascism, though it arguably wrote in 1959.77 makes much more sense in the context of the Their formulations reflect the complex administered world. Ultimately, what clearly and potentially paradoxical dialectic they

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were trying to address. Strictly speaking, if disintegration of society and the appropriation fascism was the extreme case of the adminis- of state functions by competing rackets. tered world then the evolution of the admin- Adorno therefore argued that the tendency he istered world needed to be stopped in its had previously described as coming to a head tracks before it could unfold its potential for in fascism probably did not pertain to the fascism again. If, on the other hand, fascism ‘more peaceful late bourgeois society’ of was the dysfunctional other of the admin- 1968 because the current ‘pluralism we are istered world then the administered world constantly being told about’ was not so much needed to be defended against anything that a reality as an ideological claim and ‘the vari- might subvert it sufficiently to necessitate a ous parallel forces are in fact encaptured and return to fascism. Adorno’s frequently (mis-) integrally determined by the all-dominating quoted statement that ‘I consider the after- social system under which we live’.80 Put very life of National Socialism within democracy bluntly indeed one might say: fascism was potentially more dangerous than the afterlife characterized by great disunity and thus talked of fascist tendencies against democracy’78 all the more about unity; ‘more peaceful late might suggest that, on balance, he was more bourgeois society’, by contrast, talked a great worried about fascism as the extreme case of deal about pluralism and diversity but was in the administered world. fact profoundly integrated and streamlined. In On the other hand, remarks he made in short, it was the continued functionality of the lecture theatre in 1968 seem to point what Horkheimer, as we saw, described as a in the opposite direction. In the same lecture ‘fully automated society … without morality in which he praised Neumann’s Behemoth to and spirit’ that vouched for the fact that soci- his students as ‘the most congruous socio- ety was not threatened by the sort of disinte- economic account of fascism to date’,79 he gration to which fascism might be seen as the explained to them that he saw a fundamental solution.81 This account of fascism as both the dialectic at work in the ever more compre- extreme case and the dysfunctional other of hensive integration of society. Adorno sug- the administered world renders no obvious gested to his students that way out and clearly points towards the contin- ued need for metaphysics and ‘theology or increasing social integration as a visible phenome- whatever one wants to call it’.82 non is generally accompanied by a tendency towards disintegration in the sense that the vari- The legacy of the Frankfurt School’s grap- ous social processes that are melded together but pling with fascism/National Socialism, then, for the most part stem from diverging sets of is the commitment to dealing with this appar- interests, instead of maintaining the measure of ent paradox. We are tasked with pinpointing neutrality, of relative indifference towards one the potential for fascism wherever it shows another that was characteristic of earlier phases of social development, become more and more itself while at the same time adhering to the antagonistic towards one another. principle of determinate negation and thus insisting on the very real differences between ‘It seems to me that this is particularly evi- the potential for fascism and its actual reali- dent’, he added, ‘in extreme situations in late zation. Adorno’s new categorical imperative bourgeois society like fascism’. What, then, depends not only on a keen awareness of the Adorno continued, of the current situation, fact that ‘the objective social prerequisites that i.e., 1968? One of the potentially counter- precipitated fascism continue to exist’,83 but intuitive implications of the racket theory is also on the appreciation of what Auschwitz that not ever increasing all-encompassing actually was, in other words, of what was so social conformity and uniformity and state unprecedented and singular about Auschwitz control is the precursor of fascism, but that the need to prevent its recurrence precisely its opposite: the fundamental merits a new categorical imperative in the

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first place. The facile lumping together of University Press, 2013); Marcuse, Technology, distinct phenomena or their indeterminate War and Fascism. negation across the board amounts not to a 7 Rolf Wiggershaus, Die Frankfurter Schule (Munich: dtv, 2008), 339. Theodor W. Adorno, Briefe an realization of this categorical imperative but die Eltern, 1939–1951 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, demeans it and obstructs its implementation. 2003), 196, 132, 151. ‘The black outlook notwithstanding – on 8 Quoted in Laudani (ed.), Secret Reports, 3. which we were always in agreement’, Adorno 9 Ibid., 8. wrote in his letter to Horkheimer on 9 May 10 Ibid., 12. 11 Ibid., 14. 1945, 12 Ibid., 20–21. Neumann argued, even in full knowledge of the German genocide against there are grounds for joy all the same; on the one European Jewry, that antisemitism was merely hand, because in a world that topples from one ‘the spearhead of terror’ because ‘the persecu- catastrophe to another even a short reprieve is a tion of the Jews, as practiced by National Social- joy; on the other hand, because the utmost dread ism, is only the prologue of more horrible things was still called Hitler and Himmler and while it to come’. The Jews were just ‘used as guinea pigs could recur elsewhere it has not done so yet. in testing the method of repression’. ‘The exter- Things turned out better than you thought this mination of the Jews’, he concluded, ‘is only the time and maybe they will also turn out better than means to the attainment of the ultimate objec- 84 both of us think in future. tive, namely the destruction of free institutions, beliefs, and groups. This may be called the spear- head theory of anti-semitism’ (Franz Neumann, Notes Behemoth [New York: Oxford University Press, 1944], 550–1). See Lars Fischer, ‘Review: Jack 1 Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Brief­ Jacobs, The Frankfurt School, Jewish Lives, and wechsel vol. 3 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2005), 100; Antisemitism’, in German Quarterly 89, 1 (2016), Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17 93–7, here 93–6. (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1996), 633. 13 Max Horkheimer, ‘Preface’, in Studies in Philoso­ 2 Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 467; phy and Social Science 9, 2 (1941), 195–9, here Herbert Marcuse, Technology, War and Fascism 199. (London: Routledge, 1998), 245. 14 Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 109. 3 This was an ongoing concern of Adorno’s. As 15 Ibid., 134; Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, he wrote in 1959, the development of interna- Briefwechsel vol. 2 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2004), tional relations was among the foremost ‘objec- 196. tive’ factors nurturing the ‘afterlife’ of National 16 See Gerhard Scheit’s contribution to this Socialism in post-war West Germany: ‘It seems Handbook. to justify post facto Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet 17 Theodor W. Adorno, ‘Nationalsozialismus und Union. Given that the Western world essentially Antisemitismus’, in Adorno, Horkheimer, Brief­ defines its unity in terms of its resistance against wechsel vol. 2, 539–95, here 541. On the Frank- the Russian threat, it looks as though it was sheer furt School’s grappling with antisemitism, see my folly for the victors of 1945 to destroy the proven contribution, ‘Antisemitism and the Critique of bulwark against Bolshevism [i.e., Germany] only Capitalism’, in this Volume of the Handbook. to rebuild it again a few years later’ (Theodor 18 Adorno, Briefe an die Eltern, 65–6. I mention W. Adorno, ‘Was bedeutet: Aufarbeitung der this not least in connection with John Abromeit’s Vergangenheit’, in Gesammelte Schriften vol. 8 interesting suggestion that the relatively positive [Darmstadt: wbg, 1998], 560). evaluation of the ‘classical’ capitalist entrepreneur 4 Adorno, Horkheimer, Briefwechsel vol. 3, 101; that formed the foil against which they threw the Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 634. functioning of state capitalism into relief could 5 Max Horkheimer, ‘On the Sociology of Class Rela- be understood as evidence of a reconciliation tions’, Max Horkheimer Archive [MHA], University between Horkheimer and his father (John Abro- Library Frankfurt, MHA: IX, 16, 4 (identical word- meit, Max Horkheimer and the Foundations of ing in all five versions). the Frankfurt School [New York: Cambridge Uni- 6 Raffaele Laudani (ed.), Franz Neumann, Her- versity Press, 2011], 419). bert Marcuse, Otto Kirchheimer, Secret Reports 19 See, for example, Horkheimer, Gesammelte on Nazi Germany. The Frankfurt School Contri­ Schriften vol. 17, 601–2. In Dialectic of Enlighten­ bution to the War Effort (Princeton: Princeton ment, the question of the Jews’ association with

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the sphere of circulation featured prominently in 29 Theodor W. Adorno, ‘Reflexionen zur Klassenthe- the third of the seven ‘Elements of Antisemitism’. orie’, in Gesammelte Schriften vol. 8 (Darmstadt: 20 Adorno, Horkheimer, Briefwechsel vol. 3, 100–1. wbg, 1998), 373–91; ‘Reflections on Class The- 21 Ibid., 139; Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften ory’, in Can One Live After Auschwitz? (Stanford: vol. 17, 54. Stanford University Press, 2003), 93–110. 22 See Friedrich Pollock, ‘Is National Socialism a New 30 Helmut Dubiel, Alfons Söllner (ed.), Wirtschaft, Order?’ in Studies in Philosophy and Social Sci­ Recht und Staat im Nationalsozialismus (Frank- ence 9, 3 (1941/42), 440–55, here 440, n1. furt: EVA, 1981). 23 Adorno wrote to his parents on 15 May that 31 [Idea, Activities and Program of the Institute of the issue would now come out in a matter of Social Research], second English-language draft, days, and on 5 June he inquired whether they 22 June 1938, MHA: IX 55, 1, 19. had received both the journal and the Institute’s 32 See Eva-Maria Ziege, Antisemitismus und Gesell­ commemorative publication for Walter Benjamin schaftstheorie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2009), (Adorno, Briefe an die Eltern, 144, 146). 104–8; Moishe Postone, Barbara Brick, ‘Critical 24 Neumann, Behemoth. The preface is dated 23 Theory and Political Economy’, in Seyla Benhabib, December 1941. On 19 April 1942, Adorno sug- Wolfgang Bonß, John McCole (eds.), On Marx gested to his father that he should obtain a copy Horkheimer (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), of Neumann’s book from Leo Löwenthal (Adorno, 215–56, here 215–25. Briefe an die Eltern, 138). 33 Without wanting in any way to feed into the 25 Max Horkheimer, ‘Die Juden und Europa’, in bizarrely decontextualized canard that Hork- Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 8 (1939/40), 115– heimer and Adorno somehow abused Sohn- 36; ‘The Jews and Europe’, in Stephen Bronner, Rethel or willfully withheld assistance they easily Douglas Kellner (eds.), Critical Theory and Soci­ could have provided him with, I would suggest ety (New York: Routledge, 1989), 77–94. On this that they certainly did miss a beat in allowing their text, see my contribution to this Volume of the philosophical differences to outweigh their initial Handbook, ‘Antisemitism and the Critique of enthusiasm for Sohn-Rethel’s extremely inter- Capitalism’. esting analyses of the economy and class struc- 26 See MHA: IX, 12, 1–7. ture in Nazi Germany. See Carl Freytag, Oliver 27 Max Horkheimer, ‘Autoritärer Staat’, in Insti- Schlaudt (eds.), Alfred Sohn-Rethel, Die deutsche tut für Sozialforschung (ed.), Walter Benjamin Wirtschaftspolitik im Übergang zum Nazifaschis­ zum Gedächtnis ([New York Los Angeles], n.p., mus (Freiburg: ça ira, 2016); Johannes Agnoli, 1942), 123–61; also in Horkheimer, Gesammelte Bernhard Blanke, Niels Kadritzke (eds.), Alfred Schriften vol. 5 (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1987), 293– Sohn-Rethel, Ökonomie und Klassenstruktur des 319; ‘The Authoritarian State’, in Andrew Arato, deutschen Faschismus (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, Eike Gebhardt (eds.), The Essential Frankfurt 1973); Christoph Gödde (ed.), Theodor Adorno School Reader (New York: Continuum, 1985), und Alfred Sohn-Rethel. Briefwechsel 1936–1969 95–117. (Munich: etk, 1991). 28 Horkheimer, ‘Class Relations’. This text, parts of 34 Franz Neumann, copy of letter to Theodor W. which were included in The Eclipse of Reason, Adorno, 14 August 1940, MHA VI 1a, 21–3. See has had a somewhat unfortunate editorial his- also Jack Jacobs, The Frankfurt School, Jewish tory. The editors of Horkheimer’s Gesammelte Lives, and Antisemitism (New York: Cambridge Schriften have published a specially commis- University Press, 2014), 59. sioned German translation of the final version 35 Indeed, in John Abromeit’s recent account of (Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. Horkheimer’s ‘turn’ to state capitalism, Pollock 12 [Frankfurt: Fischer, 1985], 75–104) without, plays only a rather subordinate role (Abromeit, however, taking into account the hand-written Max Horkheimer, chapter 9). comments on that version because, on their 36 Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 46, 91. understanding, these were only meant to correct 37 Ibid., 411. the ‘clumsy’ English. Conversely, Todd Cronan has 38 MHA: VI, 31, 333–5, 3. recently published what he claims is the ‘original 39 Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 47. essay in full and in its original English-language 40 MHA: VI, 31, 333–5, 2. format’ online (http://nonsite.org/the-tank/max- 41 Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 47. horkheimer-and-the-sociology-of-class-relations). 42 This was a reference to the sociologist Adolph As far as I can see, he has reproduced the longest Löwe who had recently moved from Manchester of the versions preserved among Horkheimer’s to the New School. papers, which is almost certainly not the final 43 Adorno, Horkheimer, Briefwechsel vol. 2, 139; version. Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 54.

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44 Adorno, Horkheimer, Briefwechsel vol. 2, 140; 66 Horkheimer, ‘Preface’, 197. Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 55. 67 Ibid., 197–8. 45 Adorno, Horkheimer, Briefwechsel vol. 2, 140–1; 68 This notion, which is obviously one of the pre- Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 55. cursors of the ‘ticket mentality’ idea, also played 46 Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 91. a crucial role in Adorno’s analyses of fascist pro- 47 Adorno, Horkheimer, Briefwechsel vol. 2, 160–1; paganda – which one might consequently, with- Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 96. out all too much exaggeration, classify as studies 48 Adorno, Horkheimer, Briefwechsel vol. 2, 194; of propagandists who happen to be fascists, Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 132. rather than studies specifically of fascist propa- 49 Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 110. ganda. See Theodor W. Adorno, ‘Anti-Semitism 50 Ibid., 116. and Fascist Propaganda’, in Ernst Simmel (ed.), 51 Wiggershaus, Frankfurter Schule, 324. Anti-Semitism. A Social Disease (New York: Inter- 52 Franz L. Neumann, ‘Approaches to the Study of national Universities Press), 125–37; ‘The Psycho- Political Power’, in Political Science Quarterly 65, logical Technique of Martin Luther Thomas’ Radio 2 (1950), 161–80, here 176. Addresses’, in Gesammelte Schriften vol. 9.1 53 Theodor W. Adorno, Einleitung in die Soziologie (Darmstadt: wbg, 1998), 7–141. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1993), 79. 69 Horkheimer, ‘Preface’, 198. 54 Ibid., 79–80. 70 Ibid., 199. 55 Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 103, 71 See, for example, Max Horkheimer, ‘Program for 107. Neumann argued that Pollock’s position was an Inter European Academy’, MHA: IX, 39, 1, 12. simply a reformulation of Mannheimian sociol- 72 Ibid. ogy, adding that ‘I have put Pollock forward as 73 Adorno, Horkheimer, Briefwechsel vol. 3, 101; an honorary citizen of Mannheim but note to my Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 634. great satisfaction that the English are gradually 74 For a slightly more detailed discussion see my bombing Mannheim to pieces’. In his response, contribution on Antisemitism in this Volume. See Horkheimer explained that ‘your pathos against also Eva-Maria Ziege, ‘Elemente des Antisemitis- the Mannheimian renegade Pollock strikes me as mus’, in Gunnar Hindrichs (ed.), Max Horkheimer/ being theoretically no less far-fetched than many Theodor W. Adorno: Dialektik der Aufklärung of the things I do not like about his essay’ (ibid., (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017), 81–95, here 92–4. 119). 75 Adorno, ‘Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit’, 562. 56 Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 109. 76 Max Horkheimer, ‘Es geht um die Moral der 57 Horkheimer, ‘Preface’, 195. Deutschen’, [interview] in Gesammelte Schriften 58 Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 133; vol. 7 (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1985), 480–5, here 483. Adorno, Horkheimer, Briefwechsel vol. 2, 195. 77 Adorno, ‘Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit’, 561. 59 Horkheimer, ‘Preface’, 195. 78 Ibid., 556. 60 Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 133; 79 Adorno, Einleitung in die Soziologie, 79. Adorno, Horkheimer, Briefwechsel vol. 2, 195. 80 Ibid., 80. 61 Horkheimer, ‘Preface’, 195. 81 Horkheimer, ‘Es geht um die Moral der 62 Ibid., 195–6. Deutschen’, 483. 63 Ibid., 196. 82 Adorno, Horkheimer, Briefwechsel vol. 2, 222; 64 Ibid., 196–7. Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 163. 65 Ibid., 197. Responding to the draft of the pref- On this issue see the chapter by Julia Jopp and ace, Adorno had written: ‘I would only want to Ansgar Martins in this Handbook. note that it may be that not only alienation but 83 Adorno, ‘Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit’, 566. its opposite too increases under fascism’ (Hork- 84 Adorno, Horkheimer, Briefwechsel vol. 3, 101– heimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, 134; 2; Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 17, Adorno, Horkheimer, Briefwechsel vol. 2, 196). 634.

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