Collection: Radical Reconstruction, or Anti-Fascist Pedagogy (ca. 1942-1945).
ISR Memos on Chauvinism, Democracy, & an Inter-European Academy.
Editor’s note.
The first installment of a series devoted to the earliest plans for post-war reconstruction and models for anti-fascist pedagogy drawn up by the Institute for Social Research (ISR) in the 1940s. Though these proposals are largely speculative in nature (particularly the unfinished and unsent Horkheimer sketches), the program which informs these proposals is a clinical extension of the critical “socio-psychology” of liberal-democratic capitalist societies—in their struggles with fascism from within and without—first proposed in their drafts of the (unexecuted) Germany-project (1939-1941) and later reframed for their (executed) studies in anti-Semitism and prejudice (1939-1949). The strangeness of these documents undoubtedly derives from their formal constraints, their actual or intended audience, as ‘memoranda’ to be sent out to public or private, American or Allied agencies preparing for post-war German reconstruction—for which German (and German-Jewish) emigres were already being recruited as early as 1942.1 Despite being written and/or revised in English, the texts collected here that have previously been published have only been published in German translation. Materials sourced from the Max-Horkheimer-Archiv [MHA]. Unless marked otherwise, translations are the author’s. In the near future, I hope I’ll have the chance to write a more comprehensive survey of the distinctive program for post-war reconstruction the ISR advanced throughout the 1940s, as well as their conception during that same period of the task of post-war critical theory.
Contents.
Adorno and Marcuse: On the Elimination of German Chauvinism (August 1942).2
Pollock: Memo. Notes on Post-war Reconstruction in Europe (4/20/1943).3
Horkheimer: The Chances of Democracy in Germany [Fragment] (ca. 1943/44).4
Horkheimer: Program for an Inter-European Academy [Draft] (1944/45).5
Appendix: Johannes Urzidil: International Universities as Peace-Keepers (9/8/1944).6
Adorno and Marcuse: On the Elimination of German Chauvinism (August 1942).
Summary.
After the destruction of the Nazi regime by force of arms, the United Nations will be faced with the task of eradicating National Socialist influence over the minds of German youth.
This memorandum discusses some of the methods to be employed in the fields of education and leisure time activities. The period following the collapse of the German Empire was marked by a resurgence of chauvinism among German youth (similar to the chauvinism that manifested itself in 1805 after the destruction of Prussia by Napoleon), which potently contributed to the rise of National Socialism. The democratic powers must take steps to prevent the recurrence of such movements after this present war.
Education. In pre-Nazi Germany, education kept aloof from politics. The schools were conservative; the teacher’s authority was based on his superior knowledge. Traditional cultural values played a predominant part in the curricula. National Socialism has introduced a spirit of ruthless pragmatism. The new educational methods, more or less authoritarian in appearance (the teacher is only “one of the gang”) actually further adjustment and uncritical submission to the totalitarian state machine. Nazism has made up to the young for the loss of previous freedom by giving them perverted ideals, and has won them over by giving them a secure place in the productive process.
Democratic education must take the changes wrought by Nazism into account. It is not enough to restore traditional learning, respect for intellect and other cultural values. In view of the pragmatic state of mind prevailing in Germany, education in democracy must be practical, that is, supported by actual performance. The new generation must be given a place in the work of democratic reconstruction. Pre-Nazi aloofness from politics must be replaced by a deliberate effort to connect education with the realities of the democratic way of life. The memorandum discusses tentative measures covering the organization of the new schools, the curricula and the selection of the teaching personnel.
Leisure time. Leisure time activities always reflect the actual conditions of everyday existence. In Germany, they have a definitely chauvinistic character. Just as in the field of education, active steps will have to be taken to cope with this situation. In the field of sports, Anglo-Saxon free competitive games must be encouraged at the expense of the semi-militarized Turnen (gymnastics) so popular in Germany. Careful attention must be paid to the cultural activities of the average people as consumers of books, radio programs, moving pictures, etc. This “intermediate culture”, which is radically different from American mass culture, is an effective vehicle for Nazi ideas, but it contains elements which are directly opposed to Nazism. The memorandum proposes concrete measures (esp. with regard to the radio and film industries) aimed at utilizing existing media to further the spirit of democratic citizenship. The memorandum also discusses the necessary democratization of German social activities (student societies, clubs, etc.) particularly among the young.
A program of field studies and research work is appended.
Introduction.
National Socialism can be eradicated as a political activity only by military means. Even then, it might survive as a myth in the younger generation. To prevent this, its influence must be broken by persistent education. There is a relation between the two seemingly divergent phenomena: German barbarism as manifested by the atrocious crimes of the Nazis and German constructive ability as demonstrated in the German contribution to universal culture. Hitler has mobilized the potentialities of the German character in a perverted form and has put them to perverted use. If the peace is to be won, these potentialities must be liberated, refashioned and directed towards the future construction of a community of nations. In foreign policy Germany can only be met with force, but the heritage of the Nazi spirit must be fought by peaceful educational methods.
At a moment when all available energies must be subordinated to the goal of winning the war and when the responsible statesmen of the United Nations have imposed a wise restraint upon themselves in matters of post-war reconstruction, a discussion of secondary questions, such as the liquidation of the psychological heritage of National Socialism, may seem premature. We must remember, however, that the disastrous developments following the first world war resulted largely from lack of planning. Important aspects of the peace problem were left to the blind interplay of socio-psychological factors. A satisfactory outcome could be taken for granted in democratic countries, but not in Germany where the special conditions required vigorous democratic guidance from outside. This guidance Germany did not receive after 1918.
It has often been asked whether the German people as a whole or only the Nazi Government is responsible for setting the world afire. Clearly the Nazi government could not have arisen and could not have pursued its criminal policies without the support and active participation of the German people. But it must not be overlooked that hardly a single young German who has grown up under the Nazi system is strong enough to resist the overwhelming impact of the social forces operating in Germany and the Nazi machinery created by these forces. One might say that not the individual German, but Germany as a whole, was designed for National Socialism. Let us assume that an American child was taken to Germany in 1930 and educated under the Nazi system. Exposed to exclusive National Socialist influence, he could easily have become a perfect Nazi despite his American heritage. His boyish confidence, good faith, and enthusiasm could be turned into evil in a regime that destroys his critical sense, understanding, and independent judgment. That is the situation of many German boys and girls today.
The disappearance of the Nazi system will not automatically result in a new state of mind. The defeatism of the post-war generation and a simple reaction to the tremendous pressure exerted upon the individual by National Socialism might create a destructive nihilism all over again. The German atmosphere will be thrown open once more to irrational instability and to all kinds of shrewd mimicry. The Germans will be much too exhausted to be immediately capable of democratic attitude. America and France won their revolutionary wars. The Germans never had this experience. They bear the mark of aggressive authoritarianism acquired during their political past. Democracy will eventually come to them through defeat. The spiritual fate of Central Europe will depend largely on the knowledge and perseverance of those who decide and shape its political fate. The idea of cultural isolationism is obsolete.
There is hardly a province in German life which will not have to be cleansed of the overt and concealed influence of National Socialist philosophy. In certain of the most important spheres of German culture, education for democracy will require an almost complete remodeling of the prevailing forms and activities. These spheres are elementary and higher education, athletics, popular culture, and the organization of leisure time. This memorandum will discuss problems chosen at random from these fields, with special emphasis on education and leisure time. Our slogan might well be: who wins the youth wins the peace. Those whose education was completed under National Socialism may or may not be entirely lost for democracy; they are certainly beyond the range of planned education.
The following considerations are all of a preliminary and merely illustrative nature. Even where they are presented in the form of affirmative statements, they are meant to be no more than hypotheses and should not prejudice the systematic studies proposed. It is the aim of this memorandum to stimulate such studies rather than to anticipate the conclusions to which they may lead.
I. Education.
The old time Prussian school teacher has been given credit for the victories of the Bismarckian era; the universities have been blamed for the failure of the Weimar Republic; and the National Socialist school reform has been described as one of the most effective instruments for perpetuating the Fascist spirit. Be that as it may, one thing is unquestionable: the German school has always played an important role in inculcating chauvinism and racism. This function has become even more important with the mobilization of the entire social and political system for National Socialist world conquest. This mobilization involved such a break with the established patterns of culture and such an increase in the burdens of the population that the success of National Socialism depended, to a great extent, on the education of the youth, on the younger generation’s willingness to go along with the regime and to accept the ethics of imperialism. Unfortunately, there can be little doubt that Nazi education has been successful and that German youth is today a pillar of the New Order. It is the youth, together with the top strata of the industrial, governmental and military leadership, which most consistently propagates the spirit of National Socialism. The downfall of the regime cannot be expected to eradicate the effects of National Socialist education automatically or to make German youth immediately susceptible to the democratic way of life. Post-war reconstruction will require a new planned system of education that will gradually remove the psychological roots of National Socialism and prepare the ground for the acceptance of democratic patterns.
a. The Need for Reeducation.
Post-war education cannot pick up the threads of pre-National Socialist education for several reasons.
The social and political transformation that has been going on for more than ten years has dissolved the traditional ideas of education and calls for a new concept. In Germany, education was formerly bound up with an essentially “non-political” culture, that is to say, with the belief in eternal values. “Truth” was supposed to be independent of the changing social and political reality, or at least sufficiently remote from this reality to be transmissible in a fixed and permanent form. It was something to be taught and learned “from above”, and to be accepted by the pupil without question. A firm body of principles, concepts and values constituting an official cultural heritage governed the curricula. The German school system was by its very nature conservative and authoritarian.
The Weimar Republic introduced numerous changes into this system, but none of them radical enough to alter its foundations. The situation was only partly the fault of the democratic leadership. The impact of the post-war crisis upon the life of the younger generation was far more to blame. The traditional system of education became meaningless and unequal to the new conditions. The demand for jobs and security, the ever growing protest against frustration and injustice, the mounting “discontent” with civilization in combination with rapid spread of modern technology and pragmatic rationalism helped to develop an attitude of disillusioned matter-of-factness, a cynical “debunking” spirit which regarded cultural values as a swindle. That attitude lies at the bottom of the irrational mysticism of National Socialist philosophy which serves to justify the removal of the traditional “humanistic” restrictions on the ruthless utilization of every available force for the conquest of power. Under National Socialism, the German youth has learned to treat cultural values as mere instruments of power. It is this spirit which precludes a return to the prewar system of education.
By terrorist methods, National Socialism has transformed German society into a highly rationalized and mechanized industrial apparatus. In doing so, it has made up for decades of German backwardness and has profoundly changed the pattern of the German mind. Under the heel of National Socialism, the Germans have become the most ruthless pragmatists in the world. They have been trained in forms of thought and behavior minutely adapted to the requirements of mass production and mass organization. They think and feel in pragmatic terms; their actions are reactions to the demands of an omnipresent machine; and ideas and principles have only an operational value for them. To be effective, post-war education in Germany will have to be practical and pragmatistic. Democracy will have to be taught as an actual system in operation and learned as actual performance in the promotion of the general welfare. If German youth sees that the system works, that it is more efficient than National Socialism and more capable of satisfying their needs, and that they themselves can handle it, they will be more effectively trained in the democratic way of life than by any sort of education “from above.”
Freedom from want and production from use have been proclaimed the objective of the post-war world. These goals are so different in quality from either the National Socialist system or its predecessors that they require new methods of inculcation. The younger generation in Germany has grown up under a philosophy of scarcity and privation, toil and restraint, and this philosophy has taken deep roots. It cannot be replaced by just another philosophy that teaches the opposite. Production for freedom from want is an idea so contradictory to the National Socialist production for conquest that it can be put across only by a carefully planned educational program following the actual practice of producing for freedom from want. Under National Socialism, youth has learned to toil and sacrifice for the New Order by practicing this order, that is to say, by performing the functions which provided material security and psychological compensation. The new youth will have to learn to work by building and testing institutions, machines and organizations that function in the service of production for use. We cannot expect the factories, shops, offices, or the various planning agencies to reeducate the workers who have been treated like inert “human material” (Menschen-material). The process of education must teach the workers to regard themselves as free men. The transformation begins in the family, the school, and the other institutions which guide the education of youth.
The development of such an educational system cannot be taken for granted. It is a task that must be undertaken systematically as soon as the National Socialist regime is overthrown. The young people have been so tied to this regime that they will regard its downfall as an absolute catastrophe. Trained in wholesale contempt for all promises, ideals and treaties, and suddenly deprived of the totalitarian security and regimentation which insured their lives, they will be the most dangerous obstacle to the construction of a new society unless they are at once mobilized for this construction.
The rise of National Socialism began on the day when the younger generation realized that the Republic could not provide jobs. They waited more than ten years before surrendering to Hitler. The youth who passed through the school of National Socialism will not be so patient. One of the secrets of Hitler’s success was that he did provide jobs for the young, even for the very young; that he gave them things to do. Post-war education must not only prepare them for jobs, but must also provide jobs. National Socialism has made farm and factory work part of education; with the abolition of the National Socialist system, this kind of training can be incorporated into the general plan of reemployment according to the needs of the nation as a democratic community. The school and the agencies supporting and continuing it must perform a new social and economic function without losing their character [as] educational institutions, they must become institutions of productive work.
b. The National Socialist System of Education.
The profound change in the mind and character of the German youth has been brought about by a radical reform of the institutions of learning.7 National Socialist institutions have deeply influenced the younger generation. Their effects cannot be totally destroyed unless the institutions themselves are fully understood.
The various types of schools have been rigidly standardized, the curricula have been simplified and centered around physical, “racial,” and character education; the demands on intelligence and study have been decreased; the Gymnasium has lost its standing; the qualitative difference between elementary and higher learning has been abolished, and the teacher is no longer an “intellectual” but a “racial comrade.”8 Strange as it may seem, the inculcation of authoritarianism has adopted the anti-authoritarian educational model. The habits of absolute command and unconditional obedience are fostered by the spirit of the “gang” in which the leader is only first among equals. The authority of the teacher is no longer rational, based on superior knowledge; the teacher is now the better “sport”, he shows “how to do things,” sets the example of strength, skill and efficiency. His main qualities are physical fitness, an aura of “blood and soil,” sportsmanship, toughness and endurance. His authority is thus derived from tangible qualities, manifesting themselves in concrete, practical activities (in the fields, in the workshop, or gymnasium, on hikes, in military training). A false pragmatism perverts the methods of the Arbeitsschule. “Results are accomplished first by the use of hands and eyes in methodical practical work; second, by direct observation of work going on in field and factory; and third, by physical culture through games, gymnastics, and walks.”9 “The aim is to base the education of the pupil on his own independent activity. Knowledge is not transmitted. Under the guidance of the teacher, it is acquired by personal observation, experiment, and independent conclusion.”10
Such an educational system cannot remain within the narrow limits of the school (which in Germany was always insulated from the everyday world). National Socialism has systematically thrown the school open to the social and political realities of the totalitarian state. The Hitler Youth plays a predominant part in school and its activities take up much of the time allotted to education. Moreover, education develops “without transition into labor and employment through the farming year,” the Labor Service (Arbeitsdienst) and military service. Even the four upper classes of the elementary school are expected to “prepare the pupil for a ‘practical’ career.”11
c. The Restoration of Learning.
We have seen that National Socialist indoctrination is effected chiefly by the transformation of traditional learning (the transmission of knowledge) into preparation for a “practical career” which,12 however, presupposes political reliability and compliance on the part of the candidates. The degradation of the intellect, the suppression of critical and independent thinking, are not a matter of official policy (there are many official statements to the contrary), but simply “practiced,” and practiced in such a way that they perpetuate themselves in the minds of the younger generation. Every job is a reward for unthinking political submission, for unquestioning docility, and can be retained only by continued submission and docility. Spontaneity and initiative are encouraged only within the narrow limits of a specialized job which fits into the general authoritarian scheme.
The authoritarian character of education for a practical career will of course disappear as soon as the jobs for which the youth is prepared apply to democratic reconstruction, but there is no guarantee that the cynical pragmatism and anti-intellectualism of the youth will also disappear. And it is this anti-intellectualism that threatens to perpetuate the National Socialist spirit almost automatically. The restoration of learning to its rightful place, education in free critical thinking, which is indispensable for the functioning of the democratic freedoms of speech, press, religion, and assembly, is also indispensable for the conquest of the German youth. This is perhaps the only point in which reeducation can assume an authoritarian character. The old humanistic Gynmasium was certainly not a model educational institution, but it was certainly not the most fertile breeding ground for National Socialism. One of the tasks of post-war education will be to lead German youth back into humanistic civilization from which it has been so effectively removed by National Socialism. The Germans have to re-learn this civilization, its history, their part in it, and its promises and potentialities. This learning, the acquisition of true knowledge, cannot be left to the “independent activities” and abilities of a generation which has been formed by the hard-boiled, pragmatic cynicism of National Socialist philosophy. Such knowledge must be transmitted to them by teachers who actually live with this knowledge, and who, by this very fact, wield the rational authority of intellectual leaders.
d. The New Teacher.
This leads at once to the problem of selecting and training teachers. The influence of the National Socialist teacher derives from his ability to typify the “German man”, and his qualification is primarily one of “character and personality”, that is to say, political fitness and reliability. The new teacher must be trained in the spirit of international collaboration, but without appearing “foreign” and imposed upon the pupil. At least a selected number of teachers and students should spend part of their training time in foreign countries. The international exchange of teachers and pupils should be developed systematically and should not be confined to an intellectual elite but should include students and teachers from work and training schools. Fellowships should facilitate the constant exchange of experience between Germany and abroad. This may make it possible to build up a new educational leadership which, although German, is free from chauvinism. If the exchange policy proves successful in promoting an adequate “rotation” of elites (otherwise there will always be the danger of creating an “alien” staff over the German population) attempts could be made to have foreign languages and history of foreign countries taught by natives of these countries.
e. Reeducation and Reemployment.
Any post-war reconstruction of the educational system must fill the transitional period between the total breakdown of National Socialism and the normal functioning of the new democratic order. Everything depends on the ability of the planners to cope with this transition period, that is to say, on their success in occupying the younger generation until it is absorbed by the normal economic process. It will not suffice to extend the school curriculum and raise the age of graduation, unless these measures are coupled with the extension of professional training and employment. Today the state, the party, and the great industrial enterprises have their own schools. There is no reason why the functions of these institutions should not be taken over by the regular schools and supervised by international committees of businessmen and educators. This might be an effective instrument for breaking the domination of those economic groups which have always fostered the spirit of totalitarianism. Vocational training should not only be made an integral part of general education but should also be reconstructed according to the requirements of a democratic economy.
f. The Danger of Specialization.
Gradual abolition of the principle of rigid specialization will be necessary. For all its emphasis on many-sidedness in the development of the individual, National Socialism has consistently followed a policy of “atomization” even in the field of vocational training. Men are trained in one, and only one, series of performances. Their initiative and spontaneity are rigidly directed toward one, and only one, kind of skill, speed, precision, and efficiency. Individuals are thus insulated from each other, and their performances depend on unceasing authoritarian coordination from above. “Atomization” is one of the pillars of National Socialist bureaucratization.
To counteract this trend, which is incompatible with democratic reconstruction, vocational training must be oriented to a systematic “democratization of functions.”13 Such democratization has been made possible by the prevailing state of mass production and mass consumption. Mechanization and rationalization have spread to almost every department of the productive process and have reduced the various activities to a common level. Consequently, the student can be taught the most varied functions in the most divergent branches of production and administration. This might be a more effective means for the stabilization of a democratic society and the prevention of a new authoritarian bureaucracy than any external political control. Atomization is the reverse side of totalitarian coordination, and, unless it is destroyed at its very roots, it will always beget authoritarianism.
g. School and Family.
One of the strongest weapons of National Socialist education is the dissolution of the family. The decline in paternal authority and the destruction of the “home” (particularly through the omnipotence and omnipresence of the Hitler Youth) has not made the younger generation freer, but more submissive. The authority of the father, already weakened by the economic process, has been replaced by stronger authorities (the party and its various deputies and representatives). Their discipline is much more “reliable” and efficient than that of the family which offered some refuge from the totalitarian control of the state. The old family sometimes fostered elements of rebellion and opposition.
It may not be possible to restore the traditional family immediately. Economic development and the need for full employment (including women and low-age groups) stand in the way of such restoration which is also impeded by the material and psychological compensations the younger generation has received for the loss of the home: Work and Security. In addition, the young people have systematically been brought together in common activities and entertainments of their own (Strength Through Joy). They have been flattered and pampered as the most valuable asset of the totalitarian state, and its destruction will not automatically alleviate the conflict between the generations.14 The democratic state cannot win over the youth by giving it back to the family and the home.
Under these circumstances, the boarding school system may help to stabilize the youth front on a new basis. It permits rational supervision and guidance that are not imposed upon the young people from outside but which grow out of their own interests and activities. It leaves them free to organize leisure time but not to abuse it. It is perhaps the institution which can most naturally impart the new social and political content to the younger generation because it builds the most natural bridge between the school and private life. Moreover through the boarding school, youth could develop organizations and activities of its own, replacing mass coordination by a true community of interests. The schools could organize their own clubs, workshops, excursions, and theatres, thus strengthening and extending the community of interests instead of atomizing it, as has been done by the mass activities of Strength Through Joy. And the international exchange of teachers and students, if applied to the boarding schools, would as a matter of course communicate to the German youth the intimate customs and habits of other people and thereby help to obliterate their chauvinistic tendencies.
The vast majority of German families will be unable to afford the costs of a boarding school. The public contributions for the maintenance of boarding schools should be made as large as possible. This will help to eliminate caste spirit and snobbery. Admission to boarding schools should be determined by merit, but political considerations should also play a part. This may seem to be an imitation of National Socialist practices, [but] actually it is indispensable for destroying their effects. For more than ten years, National Socialism has taught the German youth that all institutions, relations, and values are ultimately political and that the attainment of the “good life” is in the final analysis a political problem. The new generation knows politics only in its National Socialist form, and this form is “beyond good and evil,” right and wrong, true and false, an amoral activity aiming exclusively at power. The German youth will have to learn that politics is not naked power, that there is truth and falsehood in politics, and that the democratic freedoms presuppose this distinction. The acquisition of such knowledge is not only a matter of education but also of practice. The isolation of learning from politics would throw the German youth into a vacuum from which it will seek an outlet in secret political activities. Fear of a “politicalizing” [sic] of the school was one of the most serious handicaps of the Weimar Republic and gave easy access to the National Socialist philosophy.
h. The New Curriculum.
Political methods will be necessary to restore objective learning and true knowledge to their proper place in school curricula and textbooks. The elimination of National Socialist falsifications from the textbooks will contribute to democratic reeducation. It is especially important to tell the whole truth about the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. Social reality should be laid bare by removing the veil of ideologies. Yet we must guard against the fallacies of so-called scientific sociology (Wissenssoziologie) and “debunking” which have been skillfully used by the Nazis for their own political ends. National Socialist pseudo-materialism and naturalism must be exposed by developing the true content and function of the humanities and of all culture. The destructive naturalism of National Socialism cannot be overcome, however, simply by recentering the curriculum on the humanities. The natural sciences should hold a predominant place as they supply powerful weapons for extirpating the heritage of National Socialism. If biology, physiology, etc., are taught in a truly scientific manner, they will make manifest the absurdity of the National Socialist doctrines, provided that the objective intellectual refutation is concomitant with a social and political refutation of National Socialism by a better working system.
The National Socialist school reform has tried to abolish the “dryness” of textbooks by relating the material to everyday life and concrete political struggles. At the same time the textbooks have been “glamorized” by tales of heroism, sacrifice, and final triumph. The pupil has been led to identify himself with those who served the National Socialist cause. Educational reconstruction could retain the first two features, which will lose their authoritarian implications when the concrete conditions referred to are no longer those of the totalitarian but of the democratic order. The image of the authoritarian hero, however, cannot simply be supplanted by that of another here. The task here should rather be the destruction of traditional identifications and the rehabilitation of forgotten or “discredited” ideals. The student must again learn to develop his imagination. He must find the courage to cling to his own images, hopes and longings. The rebirth of intellectual freedom will probably be one of the most important psychological factors in the destruction of authoritarian compliance. Education, of course, cannot create and cultivate the imagination, but it can help to remove the restrictions and taboos which totalitarian mechanization and rationalization have placed upon it. The reading of fiction should be encouraged, and the selections should be made not only from the classics but also from the militant democratic and anti-fascist literature.
i. Political Education.
The National Socialist reform has succeeded in closing the gap between elementary and higher learning, but, in so doing, it has brought the universities down to a low level unprecedented in the history of modern education. They can be restored to their former status without recourse to the former gap. The intellectual preparation and selection for the universities must begin much earlier than it did in pre-Nazi Germany. Various subjects which were reserved for the universities should be introduced in the high schools (philosophy, logic, social and political science). The preparation of students for the university should begin before they have reached the age of admission. Thus they will not be helpless when they face the new subjects and methods of learning. The intellectual unpreparedness of the young university students (a consequence of the gap between school and university) was probably one of the reasons why the German youth fell victim so easily to the reactionary teachings of the old and new chauvinists in the universities. The youths who entered the universities directly from high school had no fund of resistance to the overwhelming authority of their professors, and no political education protected them from the violent propaganda of the “folkish” student organizations.
The German universities combined two different functions which were only superficially connected: (1) specialized professional training (especially in law and medicine), and (2) Bildung in the sense of comprehension and integrated knowledge (especially in the humanities). The aloofness and autarchy of the latter facilitated anti-democratic political indoctrination. Under cover of scientific independence, the anti-democratic professors could freely attack and discredit the democratic forces. Open political education in the democratic spirit would not only provide an organic link between the two hitherto separate functions of the university, but would also give a positive content to the idea of scientific independence. If the student is made aware of the political implications of the various philosophies with which he is confronted, he will be able to think them out to the very end. Freedom of science implies the liberty to apply the findings of science wherever such application furthers the development of the community, and politics no less than industry offers a field of application.
The Nazis have made extensive use not only of political education but also of the application of science to politics. They have made government and mass domination a highly specialized technique, in which the organization of terror is constantly tested and controlled, in biological, psychological, and physical laboratories. The state has become a machine, functioning with almost automatic precision. The Adolf Hitler schools and the Ordensburgen are model institutions for scientific training in the exercise of terror. The pupils of these schools will not so easily forget this experience, and their knowledge can easily turn into a destructive force feeding a new terrorism unless it is adequately utilized and developed. This means that the idea of political education must be retained and concretized in a comprehensive program of training in democratic leadership. Democratic reconstruction will require that this training be made an integral part of the general education rather than a specialized professional course, for democratic leadership is not a closed bureaucracy but is open to all strata and vocations. Such training should therefore begin as early as possible. The university should only be the culmination, introducing specialized training according to the various governmental and administrative functions. The university faculties, which were particularly rigid in structure, should be opened to include teachers active in government, administration, and industry. This policy would further broaden the student’s background and counteract the rise of a narrow chauvinistic spirit.
II. Leisure Time.
In Germany as elsewhere, leisure time attitudes depend primarily on the highly rationalized and mechanized process of industrial labor. This implies a strong tendency to “relax” from the strain and drudgery of work, and an equally strong tendency to reproduce the behavior patterns created through the working process. People are too exhausted to develop spontaneously during their leisure any attitude that would be antagonistic to the one stamped on them while they work. This factor is exploited by the centralized Nazi agencies of mass culture, which deliberately encourage the tendency towards psychological repetition. The leisure time attitude is grounded in the actual life of the population more than in their memories, customs acquired from the past, or peculiarities of German history and “mentality.” If the whole industrial system of Germany is changed after the war and the big industrial combines are broken up, the leisure time attitude may itself be affected. This would be a long term process, however, probably lagging considerably behind the change of the industrial setup. We shall therefore confine ourselves to problems facing people as they are today, not with distant processes.
We select as examples three aspects of German life: sports, the consumer’s culture of the average man and German “social life” in the sense of group formation, clubs and other collective activities. A complete study of this subject would have to cover all the activities of leisure time including religion, the German attitude towards nature, adult education, reading and listening habits, etc. Since German chauvinism results from certain basic expansionist tendencies in German society as a whole, practically every kind of leisure activity has been infected. Leisure time provides the opportunity for the German people to anticipate in play the real business of conquest and war. While actually at work, people are more or less confined to the conditions of their own life and that of the Nation. In leisure time, however, the aggressive imagination is unchecked.
a. Sports.
There can be no doubt that the Germans have acquired a very strong sense of sports which, though channelized by the Nazis, is most likely to survive the regime. There is a close relationship between athletics and German “prowess.” It would be a mistake to expect this trend to disappear automatically with a change in the political system. The one thing that can be done is to sever it from its Nationalist features and to develop those tendencies within sports that are in harmony with more human and democratic concepts. Here are some casual observations:
The German athletic spirit is permeated with authoritarian features and governed by severe discipline. This is particularly noticeable in the most German of all forms of athletics, Turnen (gymnastics), unvented by the post-Napoleonic “folkish” movements which had so much in common with Nazism. Turnen involves the collective repetition of certain “exercises” (Uebungen), with or without paraphernalia, under the command of a leader who tries to behave like an officer. Mechanical precision and simultaneity are the main idea.
The men in charge of physical training should be carefully selected. There is a strong a priori likelihood that men who choose athletics as their profession are frustrated Prussian officers, disguised Nazis, and other resentful bearers of the aggressive spirit. The whole process of selecting and educating these men should be changed. Sergeant Flagg types must be automatically excluded.
Everything even remotely associated with Wehrsport should be forbidden, in school as well as outside. This applies to everything from the German type of synchronized goose-step marching to the Geländersport (cross country maneuvers) so much in favor with the Nazis.
Every kind of sport which encourages individual achievement along with [] teamwork should be encouraged as against the more brutal and blind forms of sport discipline.
The most important educational asset of athletics in the Anglo-Saxon countries is the spirit of “fair play.” The idea of fairness does not carry the same weight with the Germans. Characteristically enough, the Germans have no word of their own for fairness and when they wish to refer to the idea they must resort to the English term. From earliest childhood the greatest emphasis ought to be laid upon the idea of fairness. This should not be done by moralizing but as rationally as possible, that is to say, by pointing out to each child individually that the idea of fairness protects him as an individual, whereas his adherence to unfair collectivism always implies the surrender of himself as an individual. Children who come from enlightened families consciously experience these ideas at an early age.
b. Mass Culture.
It is a mistake to assume that a cultural lag behind the level of material production is specifically American. Though it is hard to decide whether such a lag prevailed formerly in Europe, there can be no doubt that it exists today and that the problems it creates are partly responsible for the development of the Nazi mentality. One may even say that this lag has a much more menacing character in Germany than in America because those who “lag behind” are not fresh strata of the population who cling to a pioneer attitude and see culture as a hopeful goal before their eyes, but rather disillusioned and desperate people, mostly youngsters fed up with and defiant toward a culture that has become more and more incompatible with the concrete conditions of their existence.
A comparative analysis of the cultural lag in the two countries and a survey of possible remedies—similar as well as different from those applied in America—should therefore be undertaken.
One point may be emphasized. In the United States there is a gap between the culture of certain small, educated and advanced circles of the population and the mass culture catering to the majority and manufactured to order. The situation is not quite identical in Germany despite the existence of strong tendencies towards such a mass culture which the Nazis have exploited. It will suffice to note that in Germany every city of more than 100,000 inhabitants has its own theater and often even its own opera, and that the difference between city and country is much greater than in the United States. The movies, for example, are not so omnipresent in rural German districts as they are in America, and the German peasant is far less familiar with motor cars than the American farmer. Though it would be wrong to say that class differences, measured in economic terms, are greater in Germany than in America, they are certainly more static and therefore tend to establish much more definite cultural levels for the different sections of the population.
There is in Germany an “intermediate culture,” consumed by the lower middle classes and by the upper classes, except for high society and the intellectuals with a humanistic background. Even many university graduates share in this intermediate culture, particularly engineers and natural scientists. The intermediate culture, though neither streamlined nor entirely permeated with political ideologies, has probably done more to prepare the German population for National Socialism than articulate Nazi literature, the effect of which was more or less limited to the vanguard of the “leaders.” This culture, however, has accustomed the bulk of the middle classes to ideals and attitudes which automatically become Nazi once they were transferred to the political sphere.
An analysis of this intermediate culture and its role in forming the mentality of the German middle classes will be an essential task. It cannot be completely separated either from the intellectual culture nor from the mass culture [of Germany]. It shares with the former a more individual procedure, a pretension to inwardness and soul, and a strong penchant for psychology. It is closely related to mass culture insofar as it shapes the motifs of individual culture into cliches for consumption. It is therefore easily absorbed by mass culture, which then eliminates every trace of independent thought and criticism.
In Germany, the intermediate culture finds its chief expression in books. Mention may be made here of such titles as Die Heilige und ihr Narr by Agnes Guenther, Zwei Menschen by Richard Voss, Heideschulmeister Uwe Karsten by Felicitas Rose, Ferien vom Ich by Paul Keller; and of writers such as Frenssen, Loens and Rudolf Herzog. Certain nineteenth century writers still enjoy a tremendous popularity in the intermediate sphere, Gustav Freytag and Felix Dahn, for example, whose historical novels have probably done more to spread the real Nazi spirit than even Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Alfred Rosenberg.
It will be one of the most difficult tasks to cope with this whole sphere, for it involves a dual trend. On the one hand, it strongly expresses certain specific drives and desires underlying Nazi mentality. It is the playground for every kind of expansionist dream, the self-sacrifice of the individual, the degradation of the intellect, and the glorification of the mythical past. The basic technical requirements of the movies and the radio, the main vehicles of mass culture, do not as easily permit the expression of such trends. Whereas innumerable Germans probably still enjoy reading Ein Kampf um Rom, even a Nazi moviegoer would burst into laughter if a bearded Teuton were to appear on the screen. In this sense the intermediate sphere is more reactionary than modern mass culture, a swamp of musty self-righteousness and anti-civilizationism.
On the other hand, the intermediate culture is a bulwark within the actual consciousness of the German middle class against the standardization and manipulation implied by modern mass culture as well as by the Nazi spirit. It is strongly individualistic, full of criticism and even of hatred against the practical spirit, and bound up with Sehnsucht, particularly on the part of women. It may well be that some of its characteristics are taboo with the Nazis.
It is too early to venture concrete suggestions concerning the intermediate sphere and technical mass culture. We merely want to draw attention to a very complex phenomenon which might easily escape scrutiny because it is more or less unfamiliar to the American observer. The reactionary nationalist and pseudo-mystical spirit of the intermediate culture will have to be exposed and uprooted while the spiritual needs and demands of the population of which it is an index are fulfilled in a more legitimate way.15
People must be made aware of the implications of the intermediate sphere in action. They must be shown concretely that it works as a substitute, as Ersatz for needs which they cannot or dare not fulfill in reality. Examples for such a concrete demonstration already exist, for instance in some of Odon Horvath’s plays. As a general rule, one should fight the spirit of chauvinism not so much by contrasting ideologies in which the Germans have lost their faith, but rather by pointing everywhere to its function, by showing the difference between the theory and the reality, and particularly by making people as conscious as possible of the cui bono.
In order to create a new, critical consciousness of cultural problems, the formation of small working groups (Arbeitsgemeinschaften) would be preferable to mass education, such as radio courses, etc., though the difficulties are considerable. Of course, in Germany as elsewhere one must reckon with deep-rooted resistance to real creative culture. The idea of “enjoyment”, together with the specifically German soporific function of art, is the arch-enemy of understanding. In order to overcome these obstacles, the revaluation of artistic phenomena has to be brought as closely as possible to immediate experience (for instance, music appreciation while an actual rehearsal takes place), linked up with some artistic activities of the members of the group.
The fact that radio is non-commercial in Germany has led to the neglect of some potentialities which should be made fruitful for our purposes. One should try to reformulate the Serial in a way adequate to our cultural aims, thus reaching the house wives (who are the main consumers of the intermediate culture) and slowly changing their attitude. The function of chauvinism, its links with war and horror, could be demonstrated most effectively by using as a model the fate of plain people. The Quiz program ought to be modified in such a way that discussions on important matters, new discoveries, social issues, and art are broadcast and independent thinking furthered. (The interest of the Germans in every form of art can hardly be overestimated and it is a very characteristic German feature that basic social and political issues are often raised in the form of discussions that seem to deal with artistic matters. This has been shown most convincingly in Rudolf Oldens’ biography of Hitler.)
Movies. The whole organizational setup of the German film industry will have to be changed fundamentally, since it is controlled by the thoroughly reactionary and chauvinistic UFA concern. The industry should be placed under a responsible cultural board made up of Americans as well as progressive Germans, including independent intellectuals, producers, actors, representatives of political opinion, and psychologists and sociologists who have worked in the field before. This board would have two main tasks: (1) ideological control, that is to say, the power to suppress any chauvinistic moving pictures. This should not be limited to the immediate political or social content of the pictures but should apply even more to their deeper implications. The famous movie Flüchtlinge, for example, did not contain a single reference to Nazism, but by its implications, by the type of the main actor (Hans Albers), and by many other factors, it tended to glorify the Führer principle. (2) The board should not be confined to negative tasks. It should make positive suggestions with regard to subject matter and technique. It should act as a powerful link between film experts, who are in Germany often appallingly illiterate, and the productive artists of the nation, above all writers, but also producers, actors and even photographers.
The idea of a board is equally applicable to other cultural fields. Radio in pre-Hitler days knew of something similar, but these Kulturbeiräte were dominated by the obscurantism of certain pressure groups and precautions will have to be taken to prevent the boards from perverting their functions. Coordination of the boards in the different fields may help.
The situation may be summed up as follows. Post-war Germany will be so poor that she will be incapable of paying for [] large-scale cultural activities. Thus she will depend entirely on the United States and any cultural experiments undertaken by America will not be handicapped by German vested interests. We could therefore attempt to discover what can be done in the artistic field with very limited economic means where the business motive is kept in check. This would be an effective antidote to the showy, self-assertive, pompous spirit of Nationalism.
c. Group Activities.
German chauvinism is closely associated with a peculiar feature of German social life which has an intrinsic tendency towards collective aggressiveness. Wherever three Germans meet they are not only likely to found a Verein but also to shout “Wacht am Rhein” after a couple of beers. The German Vereinsmeierei is essentially different from the Anglo-Saxon club because the ideas of “social life”, of the smartness of the upper classes, and of adapting oneself to their standards of cultural behavior are largely absent from the German Verein. The typical Verein is characterized by shirt sleeves and beer rather than by the tuxedo and the cocktail. It is not so much a place where one learns and displays good manners as a place where one feels at ease and lets oneself go. Insofar as the Verein does have form and discipline, they do not result from consideration of one’s neighbor but rather from the imitation of some military pattern.
Since these collective tendencies of the Germans are very deep-rooted and go far beyond the enforced collectivization of the Nazi system, it would not suffice to suppress them. An attempt will have to be made to change them essentially and to transform the hordelike collectivism into truly democratic solidarity.
The collective trends usually begin to operate in adolescence. The typical German Vereinsbruder is a man in his forties, but his mentality has been shaped at a much earlier age. These earlier years are favorable to clannishness not only for sexual reasons. Though people in their teens are no longer children, they are not yet absorbed by their jobs and they are therefore seeking something which is neither play nor business. This something, apart from love and friendship, is primarily some sort of collectivity. We regard as clannish those groups which have as their guiding ideology the basic and automatic exclusion of others and which take particular pride in this exclusion. Since it may be assumed that the clannish tendencies so outspoken among German youngsters are not due to their own primary attitudes but rather to imitation of what they find at home, it should not be too difficult to fight them successfully. One intelligent teacher may suffice to break down the barriers of clannishness in a whole school class.
In general, argumentation is probably not the best way to get at the hub of this tendency. One has to look for its basis within the lives of the youngsters and try to fulfill their needs in a way different from the nationalist way. We offer just two suggestions as an example of how this could be done. Group formation in the teens is due to a desire for reality before one enters practical life. This does not necessarily mean that the adolescents want to behave like job holders before they have any jobs, although there is such a tendency. Many children, for example, delight in all kinds of small barter transactions or in making money by services. There is also a strong counter-tendency, the hatred of every useful activity which, as they realize, will later occupy their whole lives. The hunger for reality is to a large extent the hunger of the adolescent, more or less confined to his inner world, to enter into a relation with the objective world and to be redeemed, as it were, from his restriction. It is this desire, with all its sexual components, which makes for group formation. Even clannishness is sometimes bound up with the longing for a sphere of complete intimacy—“secrecy”—guarded against the intrusion of the outside, practical world, while preserving the character of an objective “institution.” The best way to fight the perversion of this desire by nationalism may be to give these groups a deeper and more specific fulfillment of their desire for reality than is offered by nationalism.
Youth groups should be given every opportunity to learn as much about real institutions as possible. They should have the broadest possible access to the problems of every art and science. They should be shown around factories, airports, offices, research institutions, etc., all on a strictly voluntary basis. Particular stress ought to be laid on production for human wants and needs, on its peaceful and positive character, instead of glorifying power, organization or industrial capacity as such. The impressions gathered should be utilized in debating clubs, institutions unknown in Germany. If started in a few universities they would quickly spread to colleges, high schools, and clubs. Every precaution will have to be taken to prevent their becoming machines for political bosses, reactionary school teachers, and other such forces.
There is in Germany, particularly among the young, a widespread distrust of people who can talk well. The majority show an inarticulateness almost inconceivable in Anglo-Saxon countries. The success of demagogues such as Hitler and Goebbels is largely due to the fact that while feeding on the prejudice against the intellectual, they themselves were capable of expressing themselves without any inhibitions, without any shyness or self-restriction, in a way which is totally denied to most Germans who hate and secretly envy it. If the taboo against speaking and language were broken, chauvinistic oratory might easily be deflated. If everyone is capable of expressing himself in words, speech is less likely to act as a magic power. In this connection, the study of foreign languages in small free groups also has much to recommend it. In all these activities, the collaboration of American cultural organizations of all types is indispensable.
With regard to “Stoffhunger” (the hunger for material), the keen and spontaneous knowledge which so many youngsters have of the mechanics of the motor car, the radio, and the airplane should work as a stimulant for the formation of special study groups. The less amateurish people are with regard to technology the less likely they are to transform it into a new form of religion.
The repressive features of German organized social life are partly due to the large size of the organizations. The more members an organization has and the more hierarchical its structure, the less opportunity the individual members have to know each other and share in immediate human relationships, and the more probably their spontaneous solidarity will be replaced by automatic discipline and a sense of prestige of belonging to such a large and powerful organization. This produces in Germany a strong and ever-lasting antagonism between collective life and private life. We may almost say that one of the essentials in any fight against German chauvinism is to teach the population privacy. Yet this cannot be achieved simply by slogans like “back to the family,” which are largely inconsistent with the material process of production and whose effects would be even more repressive than the German type of collectivism. We see the best approach towards a new privacy in the spontaneous formation of small units of young people who follow up specific common interests and who are given every help and opportunity by State agencies, and are under no circumstances to be melted into huge, powerful, and showy mass organizations. Such groups already exist among youngsters who hike, play chamber music, or read together. The essential point is that these groups will be held together by the real interests of their adherents. The only link between them is that the collective pursuit of these interests proves to be more productive than the isolated approach, or their enjoyment of each other’s company, but never the prestige value of any group as such. If a youngster does not want to participate, no pressure should be brought to bear. The spirit of democratic citizenship is by no means concomitant with a penchant for collective activities but may often strive better in seclusion, meditation, and even loneliness.
The whole question, of course, also implies the problem of the relationship of the sexes and the idea may be ventured that small groups containing members of both sexes will show considerably less chauvinistic tendencies than those for boys or for girls only. This presupposes a solution of the problem of co-education in Germany which remains outside the scope of the present memorandum. The formation of small groups in the “natural” way has as its easiest field the school, where pupils with common interests often unite and form small groups. Here again the utmost caution is necessary since there is no doubt that the old German chauvinistic spirit will try to rise again under the cloak of Pfadfinder and all sorts of youth groups. The specific content of any such group activities ought to be the decisive viewpoint, whilst any abstract pursuit of collectivity, void of a specific and truly democratic idea, may, at any moment, become prey to chauvinism.
Research and Field Studies.
The foregoing remarks constitute only a general framework for special research and field studies which must supply the preparatory material for effective educational reconstruction. We suggest a few of these studies:
A comparative study of the organizational and administrative pattern of the institutions of learning in Central Europe and the United States. This study should be undertaken by a joint committee of American and European experts and should be guided by the question whether and how the European system facilitated anti-democratic and chauvinistic trends even prior to its open coordination with the totalitarian state.
An analysis of the professional and vocational stratification of the German people with regard to a possible correlation between certain vocational groups and chauvinistic and anti-democratic leanings. The correspondence between vocational and political groups seems to be much more definite in Germany than in this country, and the data on the social composition of the political parties in Germany seem to provide enough material for an attempt to establish correlating trends. The results of such a study might enable the educator to cope with certain hidden influences of the vocational family background which would otherwise remain outside his reach.
Another study should be devoted to the developmental tendencies of the German youth movement before Hitler came to power. This study should find out whether the Hitler Youth is actually, as it claims, the natural result of this movement or whether it has replaced it by force. If the latter is true, the heritage of the German youth movement can be made productive for a democratic reeducation. Which are the intrinsically democratic and anti-democratic sections of the youth movement? Some material pertaining to these questions has been gathered by the Institute of Social Research.16
A study should be made of German clubs (“Vereine”) and private corporations, including Studentverbindungen and “Korps.” What role did they play in German public life, which socio-psychological trends were developed, and how were they related to German chauvinism? Was there a primary tendency towards chauvinism in the German Vereine, or were they merely tools in the development of Nationalism, like all the other institutions of the German middle class? Did they breed any counter-tendencies against Nationalism? This study could be based partly on periodicals and books published by such Vereine, such as the Deutsch-Oesterreichische Alpenverein, by the organization of hunters, Turner, Sängerbünde, Schützenverbünde, Kegler, and many others.
In the memorandum itself, we have not dealt with the problems of religious education. It should be the subject of a separate study. There are specifically German forms of Protestantism and Catholicism, and the study of these forms in their theological organizational patterns may shed new light on the problem of German chauvinism. Whereas religious education as such has been essentially hostile to National Socialism, some religious groups have undoubtedly promoted or at least accepted the National Socialist spirit (for example, the Deutsche Christen). We may assume that, after the war, religion may again be used as a cloak for political indoctrination, operating under the shield of the democratic liberty of worship. A thorough knowledge of the psychological and organizational inroads of political religion is necessary in order to strengthen the truly religious forces in German life. The study should be undertaken jointly by American and exiled German theologians.17
Analysis of a statistical survey of National Socialist teachers under the Weimar Republic, distributed according to the various disciplines (physical culture, civics, language, history, physical science and mathematics, law, medicine, philosophy, theology). At present, such an analysis could be carried out only with regard to university teachers. The quota of National Socialist teachers in the scientific disciplines might point to an “affinity” between the latter and their political utilization. The material might also help to establish correlations between certain types of teachers (the “personality”, the conservative and the radical type, the “good chap”, etc.) and the National Socialist spirit.
An analysis of the role of the progressive school and the Arbeitsunterricht in the educational system of the Weimar Republic and National Socialism. We have mentioned that the Nazis have retained some features of progressive education without relinquishing or even weakening the principle of authoritarianism. This might indicate certain weak spots in the structure of the progressive school, which must be found out and corrected.
Pollock: Memo. Notes on Post-war Reconstruction in Europe (4/20/1943).
General political presupposition: Homogeneous occupation of all Europe by Anglo-Saxon armies for an indefinite time.
(a) Economic Reconstruction.
Basic Structural Elements of the Present Economy. According to our opinion (which we share with most modern economists) the present-day economic situation is characterized by the following four elements:
Reasonably full employment as precondition for survival of any future government;
Planning as the only workable method for the coordination of today’s economic units;
The government controls money and credit;
The methods for coping with all economic problems are known and available. Their application depends on political factors only.
Economic Alternatives and the Chances of their Realization:
In constructing types to describe economic alternatives we ask three questions:
In ruling out the possibility of a return to a laissez-faire economy, four economic types may be distinguished, two of them transitory and two essentially stable for the visible future.
Type A: Status Quo Type.
Type B: Authoritarian Collectivism of the Power Type (authoritarian planning for power)
Type C: Authoritarian Collectivism of the “Welfare” Type (planning for “welfare”).
Type D: Democratic Collectivism (planning for welfare).
(b) Political Reconstruction.
I. International Relations.
Every lasting solution to Europe’s political problems depends upon her economic unification. An economic structure of Type C demands as a basis resources of such size and wealth as no single European country can muster. This presupposes the abandonment of the principle of sovereignty.
Nationalistic resistance against encroachment into sovereign rights can be met by the following arguments:
Economic unification under conditions of type C will guarantee to each individual freedom from want and fear from the very beginning in the form of a European Beveridge Plan.
Autonomy will be guaranteed in all fields where it does not prevent the functioning of economic unification in terms of type C (example: cultural and constitutional autonomy).
In a Europe so organized, the different cultural regions of Germany together with all other national groups will be integrated into a European economic unity.
The problem of dismembering Germany rises only if the other states are unwilling to relinquish their political and economic sovereignty. Accepting the other states’ sovereignty as permanent while denying it to Germany would amount to creating an irredenta which would cause permanent disturbances.
II. Domestic Policy.
Under the existing political and military conditions, the question whether the allied nations should keep off from any interferences with autonomous revolutionary uprisings on the European continent need not be debated.
In view of this fact the general political aim should be to direct the occupation army to prepare the ground for type C. Essential for this preparation is that from the first day on the occupation army deals with and furthers those groups only which are the natural supporters of type C. (labor and progressive managerial and administrative groups.)
Local political organizations should be encouraged only because a premature concentration of power on a national scale could become disastrous. On the occupation authorities falls the task of coordinating local and regional self-administration until new reliable groupings have emerged.
This procedure should be applied in all formerly Nazi dominated Europe.
(c) Educational Reconstruction.
In order that Europe can become a better place to live in, all educational systems in Europe must be revised. For Germany, the following principles should be applied:
Victorious armies and their nationals cannot function as teachers. They lack the first presupposition for successful education, i.e. the confidence of the pupil.
The occupation army should oust in the very first days of the occupation all leading educators from all key positions in the educational system as well as in the youth organizations. The remaining educational staff should work under self-administration for a period of years.
Youth organizations should be taken over and positive purposes in the process of reconstruction should be given to them. Only if the energies piled up in organized youth can be redirected, only then is the task of reeducation feasible. As in the recent past, the youth organizations, not the schools, will be the main tools of character formation.
New educational material can only be gradually developed. Textbooks prepared by Americans would be no good. In the beginning pamphlets should substitute the Nazi school books in all fields. Later more elaborate books can be written. Their effect depends not so much on their contents but on the environmental conditions. Here as everywhere in the educational field, it is performance that counts.
An International Office of Education should take care of preparing generally accepted standards of teaching, international universities and other means for the integration of Europe.
Annex: Remarks on Laissez-Faire and Free Trade.
Laissez-faire economic policy relies on the market laws for the coordination of the independent economic units and for all other processes of adjustment necessary in a growing economic system. Among the many presuppositions for its working the most important is that the economic units as well as the size of the capital required to enter the spheres of production and distribution are comparatively small.
Free competition in the fields of investment, production and distribution becomes disastrous when the economic units (or at least a significant part of them) have grown to twentieth century “bigness.”
The concentration process and the interventionist policy of trade associations and governments are unavoidable and irreversible consequences of the process of economic growth. After having become general practice, the laissez-faire system is doomed.
Free trade and reciprocal trade treaties are based (in theory) on the assumption of a general harmony of interests. Let England produce the hats, and Portugal the wine, and both countries will be happy. In Ricardo’s times, it was possible to overlook that this harmony of interests existed in a very limited sense only. As a basis for a general policy, this theory served to justify the perpetuation of the economic advantages of the most highly developed industrial nation.
Secretary Hull’s policy of reciprocal trade agreements amounted in practice to minor adjustments of the outrageous USA tariffs. As the guiding principle of future general policy, it holds no promises unless used in the sense of (4).
Horkheimer: The Chances of Democracy in Germany [Fragment] (ca. 1943/44)
In their prefatory remark to the fragment, the editors of Horkheimer’s Gesammelte Schriften write:
The date [viz., of “1947?”] Friedrich Pollock would later assigned to the folder containing the several versions of the work that have survived in the Horkheimer Nachlass fits poorly with certain passages. The text refers to Nazism in the present tense and to the problems of the post-war period in the future tense. […] The text is overwhelmingly devoted to the theoretical question of the relation between culture and modern barbarism. The relationship between this question and the program for the democratization of post-war Germany is expressed best in a formulation from “On the Psychology of Anti-Semitism” (1943), wherein Horkheimer describes democracy as “the highest goal of civilization itself.” The practical-political framework of these theoretical considerations should not be overlooked. The analysis and planning of culture is supposed to be part of post-war planning as a whole. There is a direct connection between the considerations developed here and the (seemingly written at a later date) “Program for an Inter-European Academy.” This academy is supposed to contribute to what Horkheimer here demands in a more universal form: holding fast to those “constructive elements” and transcendent demands in culture in opposition to the contemporary trend towards its dissolution into mechanisms of social control.18
Current ideas about post-war policy towards the Germans are largely determined by two contradictory theses about present-day Germany. The first maintains that Germany is identical with Hitlerism. It has found its most eloquent expression in Vansittart. It is based largely upon the historical and sociological unity between the tradition of German militarism, the frame of mind of the German people, and the Nazi dictatorship. In spite of the highly democratic and progressive constitution of the Weimar Republic the overwhelming majority of the German people did not offer any serious resistance against the rise of Nazi barbarism. This is taken as the strongest corroboration of this first thesis. Whether it is correct or incorrect, it does not offer a sufficient basis for post-war policies. If it is true that Germany as a totality is responsible for Hitlerism, it is also true that it has been responsible for cultural achievements, institutions, and habits so much respected and even loved by the rest of the world. Tomorrow it may be identical with social forms which are as much opposed to Nazi morals. Changes in the political life of a nation are not necessarily less radical than changes in its religious and other cultural spheres. The pessimistic prognostics derived from the specific experiences of the last century or from the general observation of the gullibility of a people are spurious. They are often but a pretext for the very same spirit of imperialist domination for which the others are blamed. The thesis is shared by neo-imperialist power politicians within the Allied Nations and by those German refugees who now indulge in the nationalism of foreign countries after they were not allowed to make common cause with nationalism at home.
The second thesis aims at a clearcut distinction between the German people and the Nazi gang. It implies that there is “another Germany.” The adherents of this thesis range over a very wide field. It is shared by conservatives with a hidden sympathy for German authoritarianism, humane Anglo-Saxons who had good experiences with individual Germans, erudite people indebted to the heritage of German culture, progressive politicians who hate to blame national characters for conditions due to psychological reasons, by religious minds and radicals. This thesis slips over the stern reality which is taken for absolute in the first one. All the examples of moral courage and integrity in the face of the Gestapo do not suffice to refute the fact that the German nation as it stands today has accepted National Socialism wholesale; no theory of Germany as the late-comer nation makes good for the fact that the system of concentration camps and hostages was explicitly or silently excused by the exponents of so-called German culture. In many instances the first and second thesis would have the same practical consequences, they would help the Nazis. The first one put into praxis would imply that the father of a man killed in a concentration camp had to suffer the same punishment as its commander, whereas under the screen of the second thesis the commander might escape punishment by aligning himself with the good Germans. He would easily be covered in their ranks by those who had bribed him when he was still in power. It is illusory to attempt a self-righteous separation of German sheep and Nazi bucks. In a way, humanistic and imperialistic Germany, barbarian and utopian Germany spring from the same root. As German music and philosophy by their very structure challenge the very concept of boundary and tend to transcend the factual, German political aggressiveness never became reconciled to the national frontiers, to go beyond which in imagination was the very essence of the longing of German poetry. Both what is greatest and what is meanest in the German spirit is centered around the revolt against finite, established conditions.
Some writers have tried to mediate between the two attitudes, for instance by playing the cultural aspects of German life off against the political immaturity of the people and the perennial prowess of their leaders. Obviously there are difficulties into which such a middle course leads. They are no less than those encountered by the preceding theses. The objection that the German cultural achievements depended largely on a lack of democratic realism cannot easily be dismissed as totally unjustified. German philosophy, music, and poetry are inseparably bound up with a political situation which directed those creative energies into spiritual channels.
Whereas each of the three theses contains elements of truth, none of them seems to yield a guiding principle to the German problem with which the world will be confronted after the war. None of the historical facts upon which all these theses are based should be regarded as so stolid as to be able to hamper any sincere and serious effort of the United Nations to create the possibilities for a real democratic development in Germany. This ideal has to guide the post-war efforts and can be achieved no matter whether the German nation as a whole today is Hitlerized or not, whether there is a gap between the government and the people, whether German politics and German culture are antagonistic or not. The technological and organizational trends in the whole world, which despite totalitarian conspirings, call for the establishment of adequate forms of society, should prove much stronger than any obsolescent national characteristics liable to vanish under the impact of the tremendous changes the world is likely to undergo in the near future. The democratization of Germany depends much more on the American and Allied unity and resolution with regard to the achievement of this aim in all countries rather than on the character structure of the German masses, which, after all, are composed of human beings none too different from those in other highly industrialized countries.
Yet the analysis of German culture is by no means to be neglected in post-war planning. German culture contains certain formative elements which, though inherent also in other societies, bear a greater emphasis in German life than anywhere else. They have always been recognized by many far-sighted American, English, and French intellectuals in times of peace, but are easily overlooked during and after great historical catastrophes. Conversely, it is just these elements which the German war lords of all times and their intellectual henchmen, particularly Hitler himself, have tried to destroy in their own country because they dreaded their affinity to the idea of a peaceful and solidaristic humanity. It would not only ease the task of post-war policy and reeducation in Germany but be a definite stimulant to political and intellectual development within the democratic nations themselves to dig up those constructive elements under the debris of Nazism.
Military and political victory does by no means guarantee what one might call, in barbarian language, a cultural victory. This does not only pertain to the defeat of destructive tendencies in Germany but also to the persistent danger of cultural disintegration within the democratic countries themselves. Each victory, particularly the one at the end of this war, is followed not only by grave economic but by cultural menaces as well. There is no pre-established harmony between military, industrial, and intellectual success. It is this very problem to which Nietzsche, who is erroneously regarded as a mere forerunner of Nazidom, pointed in vain with regard to the German future after Bismarck’s triumphs. Nietzsche thus was one of the first to foresee the human and social debacle in which the rise of German power resulted. “May it be said,” he wrote at the beginning of his “Thoughts out of Season,” “a great victory is a great danger… Of all the evil consequences which the last war against France brings with itself the worst is perhaps a widespread, even universal error: the error of public opinion and those whose opinion passes as the public one, that it is German culture, too, which has won this struggle and henceforth has now to be adorned with the wreaths due to such extraordinary events and successes. This illusion is highly pernicious not simply because it is an illusion—for there are the most wholesome and blessed errors—but because it is capable of perverting our victory into complete defeat: into the defeat, nay, the extirpation of the German spirit in favor of the German Reich.” Such critical analysis of industrial and political concentration has proved to refer not only to this country but to the whole trend of modern society.
The type of man in whom Nietzsche discovered the germs of future barbarism is neither limited to the Germans as a nation nor the specific conditions of imperialist expansion after some easy triumphs. This type of man owes his existence rather to the leveling and mutilating influence of an ever-expanding society of property-ownership. The well-known traits associated with Teutonism, such as Hurra-patriotism, the spirit of the subaltern (the Untertan), self-indulging sentimentalism, and stubbornness, are only the German variety of a pattern that has become universal: aggressive mediocrity, the self-righteous belief in the average, cheap entertainment as a substitute of joy, pseudo-enlightened progressiveness, the conformist idea that everything in one’s own country and race is basically sound. The Anglo-Saxon brand of this pattern has been depicted by writers such as Aldous Huxley and Sinclair Lewis. The deterioration of culture into conformity together with the spurious illusion of cultural unity produced by the mechanical sameness of human atoms is about to eliminate all critical, non-conformist, truly humane elements of culture which are left. Babbit is the perfect materialization of what Nietzsche called the “Bildungsphilister,” a precursor of Zarathustra’s “last man.” He feels his representing the average type as such a confirmation of his own value that he can easily dispense with the last vestiges of erudition, replace them by the movies and the radio, enjoy his own progressiveness quite unperturbed by historical memories while at the same time he imagines himself as the pinnacle of culture. If this type should universally replace the more blatant and manifest barbarism of Hitler’s Germany, the spirit of the latter will survive by the transformation of the whole world into one great, big Main Street. It is in defense against this danger rather than the danger of German world domination, the specter of which already begins to visibly fade, that the opposite German potentialities, the cultural ones, may be invoked even though they may appear today as partly outmoded, partly utopian.
A pragmatic approach with regard to these elements, however, would necessarily distort them. The understanding of any philosophical or artistic idea, and even more teaching it under the aspect of its usefulness, will invariably affect its contents to turn it into something else, if not into the opposite. The greatest works of German music and poetry expressed not only an aloofness from social reality but a painful antagonism against its actual structure. Such aloofness is very different from the kind of critique implied in French literature during both the 18th and 19th centuries, which attacked the existing forms of society in a direct and aggressive way. Bitter as its attacks may have been worded, they occur on the same level with what they take aim at. Their political consequences may have remained behind the intentions of their authors or gone much farther. But the political arena was at least not heterogeneous to their own spiritual realm. With great German culture it is different. Its opposition to the world as it is consists at least partly in its concern with topics and ways of thought other than those which play a decisive role in politics and social struggles. By consecrating their work to ideas—such as truth, the infinite, spirit, the will, the absolute—without any presupposition regarding the connection of these concepts with any specific matter of private or industrial life, the authors became strangers in their own community. It is this aloofness from the exigencies of the day which caused German speculative thinking to be called “weltfremd” and abstract. However, it is not the generality of these concepts which distinguishes them from any practical notions, including the scientific ones. It is rather the definite refusal to accept the factual data of scientific and practical life as the last criterion of truth and the ultimate justification of human actions. Instead of classifying objects in order to build labor-saving devices and direct social affairs, the German idealists regard empirical realities as objectivations and signs of underlying forces, the cognition of which could yield more adequate forms and more adequate aims of human life. To be sure, this “apolitical” type of thinking is a symptom of political immaturity. But by violating the narrow and often fettering limitations of the “practical” within the given social set-up, they also kept alive certain basic motives of the struggle for political emancipation which were lost in the commercial atmosphere of political realities as they were established in Western countries. German speculative thinking is focused on the meaning and end of society itself without, however, taking for granted the religious views on the subject. It never ceased to antagonize society as it is through the concept of the ideal one. Though Western thinkers stood more outspokenly by liberty and justice than German idealists, the former took such concepts as natural aims which needed much less a profound philosophical meditation than workable definitions in clear-cut terms and translation into workable pragmatic schemes. The fact that great German philosophy was both less and more than political philosophy expresses an ambiguity of the German people themselves. If they never became true citoyens, thus remaining partly uncivilized, they also never became complete bourgeois, complacently reconciled to the intellectual and political status quo. It was only a symbol of this attitude that even Goethe, who, in general, was very practically-minded and coined the phrase of the Forderung des Tages (the postulate or demand of the day), turned to the study of Chinese antiques during the German wars of liberation. Hölderlin, one of whose foremost topics was patriotism and fatherland, thought of himself and of the poet in general as being forced to live apart from the comforting and friendly daily life of the average citizen, in an icy and desperate isolation. The channels through which the substance of such poetry was destined to influence reality, adequate to its own meaning, cannot be enumerated easily—in fact, its reforming influence was supposed to be as deep, far-reaching, and uncontrollable as that of Christianity. This idealism had no political program: it did not know “what to do next.” Just as the spirit of Christianity, the spirit of German humanism proved to be deeply ambiguous when involved with empirical reality. Christian civilization, on the one hand, has inspired the most sublime works and actions and, on the other hand, has brought about the barbarism of the religious wars and the infamies of the Inquisition. Something very similar could be said about the spirit of German culture. The skeptical contention that its attainments could not have any exact bearing upon reality is void. However, the attempts of putting them straightforwardly into practical effect, to translate them on purpose into political terms, to make of Beethoven’s oeuvre one gigantic ‘V’, are most likely to miss the very message of the works which they are supposed to convey and to confuse means and ends, or as the idealists themselves had put it, the finite and the infinite. The only adequate method of dealing with those works is the unrelenting and very troublesome effort to understand them, not so much by expecting them to fulfill one’s own so-called cultural wants and needs as by imbuing oneself with the spirit from which those works emanated.
Today the approach towards culture often resembles all too strongly that of commercial enterprise to its commodities and their distribution. A big radio network, for instance, schedules its programs, after extensive listener research, according to the different topics wanted by different sex, age, and income groups. It divides its presentation into topics, such as religious sermons, popular music, classical music, news, commentaries, soap operas, pedagogical hours etc. However, the concept of culture does not at all surrender itself to such a procedure. Its very substance is opposed to administrative manipulation and regimentation. This comes to the fore not only in the deformation of culture by its absorption through the Western business world, but even more in Nazi Germany. There, the incorporation of all cultural activities into the imperialist power apparatus results in complete sterility in all fields of the arts and humanities. Even the Nazis themselves sense the danger which threatens culture seized by the unifying mechanisms of organized social control. One may even go so far as to conjecture that the unity implied in the very concept of culture is not much older than the beginning of the industrial age which may jeopardize the spiritual substance of what is called culture. Culture is falsified as soon as it is labeled as culture and treated as a branch of social life to challenge and expose rather than having its essence embellished. The misconception of culture as a field of the production of consumer goods fails to recognize that all culture has been a kind of protest against the integration of the totality of human life into the mechanism of production as it has functioned up to now—the rationalization, organization, and unification of practical life. The wants as they are generated in industrial society are not to be confused with human needs, and neither is present-day economic rationality with reason. The dégout one feels in using the term culture is due not only to its being hackneyed but also to the awareness of the word’s common usage being intrinsically antagonistic to what it is supposed to express.
[“1b)”] There can hardly be any doubt that a defeated Germany will be the object of military and political administration by the United Nations. The fact that culture in Germany has become a mere ideological tool of Nazi domination and is thus inseparably bound up with its political machinery will also pertain to the cultural sphere. However, one should be aware of the basic differences between culture and socio-political organization, no less than of their interconnection. The task of the Allied Nations with regard to German culture after the war is almost opposite to the task of political control and systematic reeducation. A far-sighted cultural policy should regard Germany not as an object of administrative manipulation but as a subject from whom one may even have important lessons to learn oneself. The spirit of regimentation is essentially the Nazi spirit. If it is going to be fought by another regimentation, [that spirit] will survive through the very form of the precedence applied, even if the contents of this regimentation should be the opposite of those ordained by Goebbels and Rosenberg. The elements of culture which should be saved for the sake of a truly democratic community of people are those which are ruggedly and intransigently opposed to any kind of regimentation. The paradoxical problem of any “cultural planning” will be to safeguard the very motifs of human behavior which imply the abnegation of the administrative principle itself. Whether one will be capable of protecting democracies against infiltration by the spirit of defeated Germany may largely depend on whether one succeeds […] [Typescript breaks off. ]
Horkheimer: Program for an Inter-European Academy [Draft] (1944/45).
Note: In September 1944, Max Horkheimer made a newspaper clipping of an article from AUFBAU, a proposal by Johannes Urzidil (1896-1970)—Bohemian author, formerly of Franz Kafka and Max Brod’s Prague Circle, and fellow exile—entitled “International Universities as Peace-Keepers.” Around the same time, Horkheimer began writing his own proposal, a “Program for an Inter-European Academy,” perhaps before he learned of Urzidil’s: in a letter dated August 25th, Adorno wrote Horkheimer promising him “remarks re: academy pretty soon”;19 in a letter dated October 9th, Löwenthal wrote Horkheimer asking for a second copy for him to leave his own remarks on, since he’d been shopping the first copy around in an effort to find an outlet to publish it.20
See the editorial prefatory remark in Horkheimer’s Gesammelte Schriften:
The dating assigned by Friedrich Pollock [viz., “(1946?)”] is contradicted by formulations in the text such as: “… at a time when the Allied armies are struggling to put an end to the reign of terror,” which seems to be a reference to the time at which it was composed: by that time, as the beginning of the text clearly suggests, Hitler’s defeat was already sealed. The date of composition is therefore most likely 1944 or 1945. The text of “Program for an Inter-European Academy” has survived in Horkheimer’s Nachlass in two different versions: first, an earlier typescript interspersed with a number of Horkheimer’s own handwritten corrections; second, a later typescript in two carbon copies, one of which, however, includes a number of handwritten corrections and suggestions for revision by Adorno. The fact that there is no further version of the text incorporating Adorno’s suggestions seems to indicate that Horkheimer abandoned his plan to propose the academy. The form of collaboration between Adorno and Horkheimer on display here was so typical that Adorno’s corrections can be regarded as integral parts of the text, even if the text was never finished. Accordingly, the corrections have not been specifically marked as such here. A different procedure was adopted, however, with regard to those marginal notes of Adorno’s that aren’t direct corrections of the text but critical comments on it. In the version below, these notes appear as footnotes. […] The last paragraph of the text shows that it was evidently conceived as a memorandum to be presented to American government agencies. At the same time, however, it is aimed at other emigrants, as emigrants had been assigned a crucial role in the cultural reorganization of Europe following the war: they are supposed to confer with scientists and artists from the victorious nations to determine how the best traditions from European spiritual or intellectual life might be preserved under the conditions of a profound crisis of Western Civilization. A much greater part of the text is devoted to the justification for such a conference than to plans for one, or, for that matter, plans for the academy itself. The text departs from the thesis that National Socialism is neither just the idea or the crime of a criminal clique nor the expression of “the soul of the German people,” but rather a symptom of a crisis of civilization. This thesis relates directly to the beginning of the earlier text, “Deutschlands Erneuerung nach dem Krieg und die Funktion der Kultur” [“The Chances of Democracy in Germany”], and indirectly to the theory of civilization in Dialectic of Enlightenment. Here, Horkheimer also turns against those attempts to overcome this crisis of civilization with positivist and pseudo-humanist means which are themselves only expressions of the same—one of the central themes of Eclipse of Reason. The “Program for an Inter-European Academy” is an attempt to derive practical consequences from the critique of reason developed in these various writings. An afterimage of these considerations can still be seen in Horkheimer’s later intensive efforts in political pedagogy, such as organizing seminars and trips for German educators to receive training in the USA.21
Had this war ended with Hitler’s victory, European civilization would have come to an end. Such an outcome was so close that some of the cleverest people in this world thought of it as the most logical course of events. If America had hesitated a little longer to shift its industrial reserves to rearmament, or were it not for some blunder of Hitler’s, such as his inexplicable neglect to attack England in the Fall of 1940, today his will would be the rule almost over the whole earth. No doubt, after a short while his empire would have fallen asunder like those of other conquering despots whose violent systems of unified rule could not put a stop to the process of decomposition of which their own rise had been a symptom. The question is whether Hitler’s defeat as it comes now, i.e. before he could establish his New Order, will do away with the causes of his ascent. This appears doubtful for many reasons. The most dangerous symptoms were the early reactions to his rise. By no means was the condemnation of Nazism at the beginning unanimous. Hitler’s ideas were understood by a great part of modern youth and intellectuals, certainly not in Germany alone but somehow all over the world. This indicates that he expressed a trend in modern history much deeper and stronger than Allied public opinion is inclined to admit right now. In Fascism, we may say, the illness of this civilization has become manifest; Hitler seems to be a symptom rather than a cause.
It is true that Nazism after all did not break out in the whole world but just in Germany. Under Nazi leadership the German nation has committed an endless series of inconceivably horrible deeds, the most fiendish acts of organized murder and destruction ever accomplished by any people since the beginning of history. Surpassing in reality all the imaginary crimes, the planning of which they attributed slanderously to others, from the sadistic lust for killing the innocent to conspiring simultaneously for both world power and world anarchy, the Germans have transformed Europe into a torture chamber and a madhouse. In the face of all this, at a time when the Allied armies are struggling to put an end to the reign of terror, it is certainly ill-advised to try, as some do, to limit the responsibility to the Nazi clique and to some other particularly exposed social or military groups. The idea that the German nation was driven by means of sheer force to start out conquering the world would be utterly naive. To be sure, there were many German individuals and even groups who did what they could to stop or at least moderate the ferocity of their government, a great part of them sacrificing their lives. The majority of the population, however, did not reject the Nazi regime. Their occasional distrust was not so much directed against the fundamentals of its policies but against the risks the policies involved. They would rather have the Nazis as a little inconvenience compensated by the illusionary or real benefits resulting from their crimes than a decent government together with the illusionary and real disadvantages resulting from its decency. They knew quite well what they did, even if they did not want to know it.
All this concerns the moral or maybe legal aspect. However, it does certainly not exclude the possibility that the causes for the German outbreak are much more general than the thesis of the specific perversity of the German soul would have it. The adherents to this thesis blind themselves to such a broader and more tragic eventuality. Honestly indignant of the record of German militarism they point to anti-humanitarian, anti-religious, chauvinistic trends in earlier German literature, trying to prove that the crimes of the German political leaders are only the logical outcome of German thought, and that both are expressions of the eternal German mind. The great achievements of German art and literature, science and philosophy are regarded either as typical of only a thin cultural layer isolated from the overwhelming majority of the population, or as products of certain definitely limited ethnological sections of Germany, such as the South and West in contrast to the North and East.
But the literature of the most civilized nations is not poorer than Germany in aggressive documents of the particular kind which are supposed to be specifically German. Even Nietzsche’s attack on Christianity and morals appears timid and sympathetic compared with some of the writings of Italian and French enlighteners. The immoralist and anti-Christian Machiavelli, whose doctrines certainly were as important for the history of European thought as those of any German writer, is only one example. Do not Hobbes’ political and moral writings rather than Kant’s pacifism express the Nazi concept of the relation between state and individual? It is true that Sade’s work, although its influence on some of the greatest French writers was decisive, has lived only an underground life in Catholic France, but the same cannot be said of Meslier’s Testament and Holbach’s Bon sens, certainly as widely read in France as Fichte in Germany. Carlyle could as easily be taken as a forerunner of Nazism as Lagarde, Langbehn, or H. St. Chamberlain.22
And if these writings, typical of earlier centuries, should not be proof enough, one may point to Pareto’s treatise, the great hit of modern sociology which combines the cynicism of those earlier authors with the pedantic pseudo-exactitude of Neo-positivism. All this does not mean that the immoralist thinkers played indeed the faintest role which today is ascribed to Nietzsche. On the contrary, the bluntness of these philosophers may be much closer to the truth than the hymns to morality which fill the books of the average philosopher. It should only be clear that the antagonism between reality and official ideology, which is denounced in the revolt of those unconforming minds, is certainly not limited to German tradition.
There are other and more realistic, non-literary indications that the cultural crisis expressed by the German outbreak concerns other nations as well. Studying the way some modern nations behaved when the use they made of power was not checked by opposite (or their own) material interests or by stronger military forces, we find that Nazi barbarism has a long and uninterrupted prehistory. From Cortes’ rule of conquered Mexico to Leopold II’s administration of the Congo the native’s experiences with the invader might not have been so very different from that of the inhabitants of occupied countries with their German oppressors. Even the advocates of concentration camps for interning fellow countrymen could find some support in institutions such as French Guyana.23 The record of official politics after the Armistice of 1940—including the extradition of French patriots from the first World War—to German revenge can hardly be explained without the supposition of strong penchants toward Nazi concepts of morality in wide strata of the French population. Petain was not a Quisling, but a Hindenburg enjoying tremendous popularity. Much more than to Vichy’s infamous policies, the later vanishing of his popularity was due to Hitler’s intensified looting caused by the crisis of the war. The collaborationist tendencies in France were the natural continuation of the pro-Fascist feelings which themselves had already formed the basis for the military defeat.24
Without the assumption of an affinity of pre-war France to certain cultural aspects of what was happening on the other side of the Rhine, the inglorious days of the retreat cannot possibly be explained. The history of the Franco-German relations after 1918 speaks a clear enough language. During the days of the non-chauvinistic Weimar Republic, when Germany had the most democratic constitution imaginable, and up to 1934, France maintained the world’s most powerful army and fostered an impregnable ring of alliance all around her traditional enemy. However, with the ultra-nationalist Hitler as the German ruler, France, despite all warnings, abandoned her age-old tradition of diplomatic thinking and, furthermore, permitted her military armor to rust. If, in nations as in individuals, actions are a more precise index for their state of mind than words, the meaning of French policies in the years before the war is clear. Rather than Wirth or Breuning, France would listen to Hitler, rather than to the liberal Republic to the Third Reich. Similar, astonishing phenomena took place in other countries. There are heroic nations in which the Nazis and their collaborationist friends found very little support among state and business officials, not to speak of the masses. In other countries, however, totalitarian demagogues and uniformed gangs swept the country at a time when the German armies stood far from the borderlines.
The discomforting conclusion to be drawn from these symptoms is that European civilization itself is in a state of crisis. Whatever, in the various instances, may have been the economic and political factors which set loose the forces of evil, there is no doubt that the elements of resistance inherent in civilization have proved to be much weaker than anyone would have expected at the beginning of this century. At the height of technological and scientific progress, Europe, the cradle of this progress, has become the scene of barbarian acts unheard of in its entire history. Can we expect that after Germany is crushed, further technical and scientific progress will by itself consolidate that human civilization which it has so far helped to undermine? Assuming that the Allies take all the economic and political measures which may now prevent conflagrations and further a peaceful development in Europe, can such institutions really cure the illness of which the European history of the last decades bears so many marks? When in a period, which in various respects showed a similarity to the present one, the internal quarrels of classical Greece vanished in the ascent and conflicts of the Macedonian and Roman empires, something most valuable vanished with them. Despite the gifts both Hellenism and Roman imperialism bestowed upon humanity, those larger concentrations of power did not provide the conditions needed to produce universally cultured personalities, the sense of the true and the beautiful, and a higher ideal of happiness than the one connected with power, command, and success. It is true that Greece had paid with internal anarchy and weakness for adherence to humanistic ideologies, whereas Rome would sacrifice everything for national freedom and efficiency; but Rome was finally defeated by powers whose faith in such practical values was even stronger than her own. Her civilization came to an end. The soul of Greek humanism, together with a heritage of older mediterranean civilization, had to be reborn with Christianity and to develop in a dark and painful millennium.
The analogy is certainly crude enough, but the warning it includes should not remain unheard. There is a historical dilemma. On the one hand, the fever which has broken out in Germany indicates an illness of European and perhaps Western civilization in general. On the other hand, as a practical and radical cure, the extinction of Germany and the policing of Europe for an indefinite period, is not enough to prevent this civilization from collapsing. Even though the last European wars may soon appear insignificant in the face of antagonisms of the new concentrations of world power, the decline of European culture will not prove insignificant. The values which are going down with it will have to be resurrected, possibly on a higher level and in a more adequate form, but certainly in a most painful and interminable historical process.25 It is an open question how long the democratic and humanistic tendencies in America will be able to go on, after the origins are wiped off the face of the earth. Once Europe will be hopelessly provincial and under economic and political control of outside powers, her philosophy of civilization will deteriorate into a mere object of doubtful historical studies and pseudo-aesthetic souvenirs. The result of this process which could be witnessed during the last decades will become definitive. Truth will be looked at as a metaphysical metaphor for a subsidiary branch of industrial and administrative affairs; religion, on the side of the church will appear as her specific functions, as an agency of social control, on the side of the member as a prima facie evidence that he complies with the powers to be; art will be the name for the products of the entertainment industry which together with the sports organizations regulate leisure time. This will become of the values which once defined not only culture, but the European concept of the human being—the idea of which lies at the basis of American as well as European civilization.
Some of the most enlightened authors of our days keep telling us that there is a clear way out of the whole difficulty. We must simply adopt the new faith in economic democracy. Instead of believing in such lofty abstractions as the old cultural ideals, we must put our hope in rising standards of welfare for the common man. This does not mean that he should just receive his security as a gift from others or as a tribute. The faith we are offered aspires to a society in which the relation of the individual’s happiness to his own effort is transparent, and the results of human activities cease to appear to them as the uncontrollable forces of destiny, as the unforeseeable will of the Gods, or the no less capricious ups and downs of the business cycle. While so far the average individual’s place in society has been relatively stable, particularly if the place was on the bottom of the social pyramid, his life in the new order of things shall depend on his own productive effort; and what is more, not only his own life but the life of his community. Each action and each day of work assumes a new significance insofar as every individual effort, which in our society with its opaque economic laws may create a frustration of others and even of its own originator, becomes now a doubtless contribution to the welfare of all members of society. The fight for this society and the devotion to it, once it is accomplished, provides, according to these authors, the new set of values which can take the place of the lofty ideas decaying with the present form of social life.
However justified the economic and social criticism inherent in such prophecies, how well founded their prognoses may be, it is only too obvious that their doctrine itself is a symptom of the very decay they denounce. Their propaganda is entirely based on the humanistic philosophy which their political and even epistemological theory contradicts. It refers ultimately to the ideas of truth, of humanity, of the dignity of man, of that which is “highest,” and even to the idea of value itself.26 In the name of all this they urge people to listen to the calls of history, and if necessary, to give their lives for it. They use the old ideals as a suggestive means in preaching a new social set-up. The theoretical absurdity of their doctrines consists in their refusal to admit any possible objective meaning of these ideals in the means of which they demand the sacrifice; most of them even adhere to a positivistic ideology which contests that it makes any sense to speak of an objective meaning or of meaning altogether. They simply define or rather decree that it is the highest aspiration of the individual to devote himself to the well-being of the masses or to a society without unemployment. That these tendencies lack self-consciousness about their own meaning—in relation to their own ideas, as well as to reality—means they perpetuate the blindness they were concerned with correcting.27 Stating that it is bad that there are people who live without so-called useful work they rage against the parasites, whether these are wealthy stockholders or only narcissistic poets who are scolded for their lack of alliance with the masses or for their reluctance to express their ideas in the newspaper or proclamation style. Any intellectual attitude which could differentiate such verdict from sheer arbitrariness, any philosophical speculation is outlawed.
The political propagandists of modern progress completely forget that the dreams and hopes of the masses to which they want the intellectual to adapt himself, are the true products of the social order they denounce, that same order which bred Fascism, the very illness they want to overcome. Their own writings augment the general susceptibility to all kinds of panaceas: for they denounce truth as an aim in itself, they accuse each thought not in line with the schemas of mass culture as a betrayal of the masses themselves. The secret despair involved in positivistic doctrine is also betrayed by their affected optimism and hopefulness. The permanent insistence on confidence in life and history equals the admission that there exists no rational reason, no real insight, which could not motivate the line of action they advertise. Instead they point to the powerful representatives of the new social order, to the great chance that it will conquer the earth, and extend far into the future. They make of it a religion of success, a conformism to the powers of tomorrow, and despite their opposition of the pseudo-religions of today, their new faith becomes itself a kind of substitute for thinking, a paranoid system in which any genuine idea on man and life is a priori repudiated and substituted by the cliches of official philosophies.
Should the collectivistic man, who is so ardently proclaimed, really become universal, he will be very different from what his advocates envisage. The humanistic frame of reference, which they still use, though more or less carelessly and with contempt for sentimentalists, will be completely erased as an outmoded ideology.28 The new social forms will be developed in the East of Europe under conditions and on a level corresponding to the integration of vast parts of Asia. The European heritage with its fundamental categories, such as that of the eternal value of each individual, his rights and aspirations, betrayed by the Europeans themselves, including the most progressive intellectuals,29 will be radically deserted and may come to life again only in the distant future when the function of the new centralized society will be completed. This function includes the transformation of the Asiatic world, the development of its productive forces, the absorption and streamlining and breaking in of its manpower to the new economic discipline. It is this historical mission which the new society can fulfill; however, it would be utterly vain to expect the nations which are carrying out this mission to keep the the European humanistic tradition from dying out, or to simultaneously carry it out and drive it further. They will break it down, transshape it into historical data which can be memorized, used in pedagogy, and integrated into the context of scientifically produced synthetic ideologies for the purpose of mass guidance. In this process the meaning of this tradition will be completely reversed, truths will become a mere instrument. Cognizance will be resolved into information. Humanity will look down upon the greatest European thinkers as the heralds of a decayed society who have to be purged of metaphysics and other superstitions in order to be palatable, and, at the same time, it will embrace the most pedantic mythologies.
Not the people who are entering the historical scene as the new leader nations, are to be blamed for this cultural waste, but the Western intellectuals who, in the face of this overwhelming process, constitute themselves as its propagandists. They are right insofar as they point to the grave guilt of the old individualistic society, to its blindness and injustice; but they are utterly wrong and even make themselves accomplices of that blindness and injustice, insofar as they adapt their own work to the standards of that same mass- and propaganda culture, by which European thought is in the stage of being liquidated. It is true, as they say, that once humanities, philosophy and art, were the privilege of a thin layer of society, but it is no less true that the lowering of cultural standards by modern intellectuals today cheats the masses out of the possibility of experiencing the humanities, philosophy and art at the very moment when the masses for economic reasons are matured.30
For it is a lie that people today could not possibly understand the intellectuals if they were to push their thinking as far ahead as humanly possible, just as the great thinkers and artists did in the past. It is a lie that the intellectual level of modern workers is necessarily so much inferior to the capacities of theater goers in the Elizabethan age that they have to accept the works of Ash as religious thought and Schostakowitch’s symphonies as revolutionary music. Such level is itself a result of modern stupefying cultural practices and has by no means to be fatalistically accepted. Neither can the old European spiritual values be handed down by the mere exhibition of the old works in museums and over radio and through their digests in movies and magazines. They live on only insofar as the intentions which created them are simultaneously continued in modern minds. Nothing but actual theoretical interest, the existence of pure and independent thought in the individual and the masses can prevent the basic concepts of this culture from becoming meaningless and mummified, or simple slogans—in other words: “cultural goods.” Here the new faith, even though its contents may be correct, is no help.
It is impossible to say how post-war Europe ten years after the cessation of hostilities will be organized. Its most sincere friends today seem to accept at least one desirable political result of this war: the final realization of the United States of Europe. They recognize that many grave obstacles are to be conquered before such an aim can be considered realistically. It could even happen that once all difficulties are overcome the reason for which this political program was conceived, namely to enable Europe to make its specific contribution to the self-realization of humanity as a whole, would be destroyed. European culture might deteriorate so rapidly that it would soon appear adequate if the European countries gave up their illusionary political dependence to those more forceful concentrations of power to which they already lost their economic and cultural sovereignty. There are various possible steps to prevent that deterioration and to prepare a united Europe whose contribution to the family of nations will be worthwhile. One of these measures would be the effort to preserve its humanistic tradition in the crisis which its political life undergoes in the present era.31 When, in centuries to come, humanity, in another renaissance, will try to return to the sources, similar to the Italians who, during the quattrocento started to reestablish the texts of the ancients and to dig out their statues, it will recover only a small and distorted part of what could be protected today from complete deterioration. No doubt the preservation of European cultural values has to be subordinated to the task of wiping out National Socialism from the earth. There is no more acute cultural interest than to make any relapse into this kind of despotism physically impossible. Since, however, Germany’s contribution to European culture was as paramount as its part in Europe’s economic and political troubles, it seems to be difficult to combine the purpose of the preservation of European culture with the immediate requirements of international safety. This is particularly true because it was just the teaching of the humanities which, despite notable exceptions, had become a center of Chauvinism in modern pre-war Germany: philosophy, philology, history, and political science. It was the history class in school and German philology at the university which mainly prepared the mind of the German youth for National Socialism.32 How can such branches of teaching be preserved without furthering the illness from which the world is now suffering?
There is no cause for great optimism that it can be done at all, and yet the problem cannot be taken too seriously. As matters stand now, the various agencies of the united governments are concerned with the problem of how the boundaries will be drawn after the war, what will be the sphere of economic influence, how the currency will be manipulated, etc. They call international conferences in order to deal with the distribution of food, or the establishments of an international bank. These questions are indeed fundamental. But could it not happen that the aims which these primary measures are to serve—in the last instance a durable peace, the enhancement of civilization, the salvation of humanity—are either completely missed or at least hampered if the seemingly abstract idealistic purpose of the survival of European culture is excluded from the planning or even dismissed entirely as a cura posteriori? Would it not also make economic and political deliberations for the future peace easier if those, whose business they are, would know that the cultural issues receive proper consideration at the same time? Is it not necessary to integrate cultural measures into the general program for peace? The churches have, to a certain extent, realized such necessities and there is a good chance that even German religious thought will find new possibilities of existence. But the situation is different in the fine arts, in theater, in literature, in philosophy, in classical and modern philology, in social science, in history, in pedagogy, in psychology, in anthropology, and in many other branches of teaching. There is little doubt that, from lack of money or for other reasons, these endeavors will become second-rate copies of American or Russian usages much to the damage of the true interests of both of these countries. The really independent and unconforming varieties of humanistic thought might not even have the same chance to survive as had the last specimens of endangered animal species which, at least in this country, find a haven in natural parks and other areas of refuge.
The first step for the drafting of a program would be a conference of scholars, artists, and writers, both American and European. The members of this conference should consider the various measures which can be taken for the preservation of European cultural tradition. In this context they should discuss in particular the plan of an inter-European Academy with a far greater field of activities than any academy so far established in the world. This Academy would not be a mere society of scholars, but also a teaching institution, an international university. Here the young man destined for a leading role in European economic and cultural life would have the opportunity to study during a few terms and become acquainted with each other in an international and democratic atmosphere. A plan could be worked out with a view toward granting scholarships to students of the impoverished European countries.
Since it will be partly economically impossible, partly detrimental to the interests of a lasting peace, that most of the aforementioned branches of culture are taught and developed in Germany, the Academy might become the only authorized academic institution where the German trends of these branches may still flourish. Even though the situation in France will be completely different, it might be of tremendous importance that French theater, literature, painting, philosophy find a place where they can not only develop in relative independence from political and social post-war incidents in their own homeland, but exercise that great educational influence on European intelligence in general and the cream of European youth in particular which they once possessed and, to the great damage of the world, lost in the pre-war period. Since for centuries peace in Europe has depended on French-German relationships, the intellectual center of gravity will naturally be the understanding and cooperation between its French and German sections, but the relationships between their cultures might become at least as important.33 It will have to be decided whether and in how far the teaching staff should be permanent or rotating. Some of the European teachers might stay much longer than those Americans who might want to spend only a sufficient time there to take part in European post-war education and to maintain contact with European developments.
The branches mentioned are not the only ones which might be taught. The idea is not so much to create a haven for the teaching of humanities in contrast to science, which would be left to the national universities. Rather, the Academy should perpetuate the idea of learning in the sense of wisdom as opposed to knowledge in the sense of an instrument to earn one’s livelihood. The concept of learning in the first sense can be linked specifically to those European academic traditions which are now in danger of being discontinued without any hope of resurrection. The distinction between humanities and arts on the one hand and science on the other is much more problematic than the distinction between a truly academic education and vocational training. For instance, theoretical physics, although belonging to the realm of science, might have a place in the academy’s curriculum while many branches of both psychology and sociology must definitely be coordinated to the industrial, medical, and administrative requirements of the various countries.
Teaching itself will be only one of the Academy’s activities. The premium of its members may form an enlightened body whose detailed opinions in European affairs might be a welcome help to the political and military agencies of the victor nations. The Academy should be used in a much broader and more responsible way than were such transient institutions as the old Bureau Internationale pour la cooperation intellectuelle.34 Apart from the broader political aspects, there are certain specific matters in which the Academy should be particularly competent: for instance, the writing of textbooks for schools of all kinds, from elementary schools to institutions for adult education. No school textbook should be permitted in Germany which does not have the approval of the Academy.35 In view of its eventual unity and the survival of the great European traditions in the world, the Academy might thus become one of the most wholesome forces in the reeducation of Europe.
The outline of all these tasks will be up to the conference. It would be a well-advised step if the American Government would take the initiative in convoking representatives of all branches and nationalities concerned as far as they live in this country. Although it is understood that the composition of the conference would be contingent, it could do the preliminary work. The sooner a nucleus of the Academy can be created, the sooner it can start to function and prevent irreplaceable loss and damage. The conference, it is true, would have to start its work with the insight that its own participants, i.e., those intellectuals who, when there was still time, recognized what would happen to their countries and escaped from the hell of Europe, had been a part and had won their positions and reputations in that same intellectual atmosphere which finally turned into sheer horror or at least could not prevent Europe from being submerged into the greatest of her catastrophes. Only if they realize this situation very deeply, they might be able to refrain from a ridiculous and totally unwarranted self-confidence as well as from a complete surrender to the spiritual trends in their new countries, and thus help humanity to prevent the European catastrophe from marking the end of Western Civilization.
Appendix: Johannes Urzidil: International Universities as Peace-Keepers (9/8/1944).
The most important task after the war is now generally considered to be the psychological re-education of those national peoples of Europe infiltrated by fascist principles and forms of existence, above all the Germans and the Italians. Technically, this great design ought to be carried out by an army of democratic educators. These democratic educators, whether Americans or—better still—Americanized Europeans, must in the first place know precisely which elements and ideas of the peoples of Europe are positive, readily available, capable of being exploited for democracy, and which might serve as a basis for future construction. Developing these traditional values, present, though buried at the moment, in all the peoples of Europe, must constitute the most essential enterprise of the future, democratic educators of Europe.
The organization of this future educational system for Europe cannot, however, depend solely on traveling lecturers, itinerant teachers, and national regulatory bodies in charge of the curricula and instructional methods country by country. Instead, it must be based on a large number of well-organized and systematically placed cells of teachers who can not only provide students with instruction but also with tangible advantages for their lives. These two criteria—the democratic instructional method and the advantages which are to be gained through its implementation—must be clearly elaborated and evident to all. For no one will desire to learn something if they cannot expect any profit from it afterwards.
Thus, it would be of the greatest benefit if Europe were to be covered with a network of “International Universities” under provisions appended to future peace treaties; the task of these International Universities would be to establish intellectual associations and mediate between the accomplishments and cultural values of the various national peoples. Instead of teaching specialist sciences as such—e.g., mathematics, philosophy, medicine, physics—these International Universities should be devoted to comparative sciences and to culture, in the spirit of democracy and Western humanity, as the superstructure built upon specialist foundations. Professor Philipp Lenard, for example, the Nobel Prize winner, has written a “German Physics.” The task of the International Universities would be, among other things, to teach comparative physics, to show where the most important findings in the discipline of physics stem from, and show how the global synthesis of physical knowledge arises from these discoveries. The same global-scientific principle of instruction would have to extend to all of the other disciplines as well. These International Universities would also be tasked with promoting the broadest possible multilingualism among their students. Aside from their mother-tongue, every student would have to acquire a basic knowledge of at least three languages.
Access to this kind of university with an international teaching staff should not be restricted by nationality; indeed, community between students of different nationalities should be promoted to the greatest possible extent, though it should naturally be guaranteed that at least two-thirds of the students enrolled in any one International University in Germany are German.
International Universities should be universities of the people [Volksuniversitäten], institutions supported by international funding without fees for attendance. Graduates of the European university system should not receive academic degrees except for those obtained through an International University. Only with such a diploma will students be able to practice their specialization, especially that of teaching—and it is precisely because of this that students who graduate from the International University will have an advantage. In this manner, a kind of international intelligentsia could arise in Europe: conscious of the internal connections of world culture and authorized to assume positions of leadership and responsibility. Because of the breadth of its knowledge and its facility for languages, this intelligentsia could initiate a flux of national spirits.
It is obvious that, were such an institution established at the top, education all the way down to the primary level would be—and, indeed, would have to be—adapted to the needs of the International University. For instance, the study of languages would have to be a focus of instruction beginning in middle school, and certain fundamentals of comparative knowledge would have to be established early on under the guidance of an international teaching force. Anyone pursuing their degree at an International University, which alone would guarantee the broadest range and the best quality of opportunities for future employment, influence, and income, should also stand to benefit from the widest variety of stipends and sources of funding. No one should be alarmed by the amount of funds that will need to be raised for this purpose. Each of the European nations will be tasked with raising a certain portion of the total itself; for the leading participants, it is in any event preferable that such large sums be used for institutions that prevent future wars than the alternative. Stinginess will be paid for a hundred times over in wars that are anything but productive. It is also clear, however, that the International Universities can never become the possession of states or nations but must always and in every respect remain strictly international—that is, supranational. Nothing has contributed more to the enmity between the peoples of Europe, their mutual ignorance and isolation from each other, than the nationalized university system and teachership. Eliminating the nationalist stigma of youth education can only be achieved once a certain level of competence is reached that is needed for accomplishment in the superstructure of crucial professions—particularly that of teaching—by graduates of the International University. For it is educators who, at every grade and every level, draw the good or the evil from the youth; in Germany in particular, it was the caste of educators, from Volksschul-teachers to Universitäts-professors, who first poisoned the youth with hyper-nationalism and fascism.
Education of the youth must begin with the education of their teachers. By the time graduates of the International Universities acquire experience teaching in elementary, secondary, higher, and specialized schools, the whole method of instruction, from the lowest classes of the youngest on up, will thereby have been internationalized, democratized, and humanized.
On Adorno’s theoretical approach to the memoranda for Washington, see—Adorno to his Parents, 5/2/1942: “My report for Washington related to the matter of ‘private morale in Germany.’ As this description left me as clueless as you probably are now, and I did not even have time to ask any questions, I simply decided to base the whole thing around the question of what powers keep the German masses on their feet despite all the suffering that is forced on them; and evidently that was exactly what had been desired. As the available material is very sparse (the American books on the internal German situation—I read almost all of them—all refer to information already manipulated by the Nazis, and the ‘inside Germany’ reports are rhapsodic and of questionable value), I relied instead on what I myself had observed in Germany up to 1937, and essentially provided a theoretical representation that I believe does more justice to reality than the sort of documentary reports which cannot get enough of going on about the Nazis’ encouragement of extramarital intercourse and the like. My basic argument was that, through a form of organized competitive mechanism, through their scrabbling for privileges and advantages, through affiliation with the Nazi system, and conversely also through the fear of not belonging to it, and finally through a more or less vague hope for a change in their fate in the case of successful expansion, people in Germany go along with the official line, while it is certainly not a case of ‘being convinced’ in the sense of believing in the ideology, but rather a complete absence of such things as conviction, unambiguity or unity of personality, behaviour and thought in the present Germany. Contrary to the misconception that the Germans are ‘drunk’ on Nazism, I presented the system and its followers as an eminently sober, practical and in truth extremely disillusioned business. I might add that the apparently irrational aspect of Nazism is in fact the unarticulated, but quite precise awareness of the outdated nature of certain existential conditions, or, to be more precise, of the contradiction between Germany’s industrial productivity and the current living conditions. What is disastrous is simply the fact that the awareness of this contradiction then manifests itself in categories of rule and oppression.” In: Theodor W. Adorno, Letters to his Parents 1939-1951. Edited by Christoph Gödde and Henri Lonitz; Translated by Wieland Hoban (Polity, 2006), 95-96.
Cf. Adorno to his Parents, 7/2/1942 re: progress on the ‘Chauvinism’ memorandum he was co-authoring with Marcuse at the time. In: Ibid., 101-102.
And—Adorno to his Parents, 12/21/1942: “We have meanwhile received a highly official letter of thanks from Washington for the studies I had suggested and subsequently carried out with Marcuse concerning the problem of German chauvinism, a sign that I was tactically on the right track with my idea, and it may prove of some significance for the future. Our Marcuse has meanwhile acquired a rather decent post in Washington, which is quite pleasant for everyone involved (he has long been an American). We shall also be seeing to our naturalization business soon, admittedly in the knowledge that there is very little hope of achieving it during the war. Come February, we will have been here for five years.” In: Letters to his Parents (2005), 118.
“Memorandum on the Elimination of German Chauvinism (August 1942).” In: MHA Na [702], S. [1]-[46]. Author’s transcription.
“Notes on Post-War Reconstruction in Europe.” In: MHA Na [702], S. [47]-[52]. Author’s transcription.
“The Chances of Democracy in Germany [1947?].” In: MHA Na [640], S. [1]-[29]. Author’s transcription. Previously published in German translation (by Hans Günter Holl) under the title “[Deutschlands Erneuerung nach dem Krieg und die Funktion der Kultur] [1943?].” In: Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften. Band 12. Edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noerr (1985), 184-194.
“Max Horkheimer: Programm einer Intereuropäischen Akademie, 1944/45 (?).” In: MHA Na [654], S. [1]-[73]. Author’s transcription. Previously published in German translation (by Hans Günter Holl) under the title “Programm einer intereuropäischen Akademie [1944/45?].” In: MHGS, Bd. 12 (1985), 195-213.
“Zeitungsausschnitt 1944, 1 Blatt.” [“Internationale Universitäten als Friedens-Sicherung. Ein Vorschlag von Johannes Urzidil.” AUFBAU. Friday, September 8, 1944.] In: MHA Na [654], S. [74]. Author’s translation.
[Fn. 1:] See Education in Germany, by Alma M. Lindegreen. U.S. Dept. of the Interior. Office of Education. Bulletin 1938, No. 15.
[Fn. 2:] Cf. George F. Kellner, The Educational Philosophy of National Socialism, Yale University Press, 1941, pp. 205 ff., and Robert A. Brady, The Spirit and Structure of German Fascism, New York, Viking Press, 1937, pp. 104 ff.
[Fn. 3:] John W. Taylor, in International Zeitschrift für Erziehung, Vol. 1938, p. 236.
[Fn. 4:] Loc. cit., p. 327.
[Fn. 5:] Kellner, op. cit., p. 209.
[Fn. 6.:] Education in Germany, op. cit., p. 16.
[Fn. 7:] The general trend toward such a goal is reflected in the American movement from the “child-centered” to the “community-centered” school. See Educational Yearbook of the International Institute of Teachers College. Columbia University, New York, 1941, p. 224.
[Fn. 8.:] Clifford Kirkpatrick, Nazi Germany: Its Women and Family Life. Indianapolis, 1938, pp. 266 ff.
[Fn. 9:] Thus the Schwarze Korps printed a violent attack on Rudolf Herzog, denouncing him as Kitsch. It actually aimed at the old German nationalists (Deutschnationale) whose ideology was bluntly propagated by Herzog.
[Ed.:] Cf. Marcuse’s contribution to CANS, on the German Youth Movement.
[Ed.:] Cf. Horkheimer’s contribution to CANS, on Anti-Christianity.
In: MHGS, Bd. 12 (1985), 184-185. Author’s translation.
Adorno to Horkheimer, 8/25/1944. In: Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer. Briefwechsel 1927-1969. Band II: 1938-1944. Edited by Christoph Gödde and Henri Lonitz (Suhrkamp, 2004), 321-323. English in original.
In: MHGS, Bd. 12 (1985), 195-196. Author’s translation.
Adorno’s insert: “Hamsun, Strindberg, d’Annunzio.”
Adorno’s insert: “N.B. South Africa.”
Adorno’s insert: “The experience of the German refugees in France both before and during this war proves that the Nazi climate had deeply affected the supposed guardians of Western Civilization.”
Adorno’s comment: “Careful. Sounds too culturally conservative. Say that values can only be preserved if you don’t preserve them but push them forward instead.”
Adorno comments that this argument is too weak, and it seems un-dialectical to argue that a doctrine presupposes something just because it negates it.
Adorno’s insert.
Adorno’s comment: “Indicate that the new masses themselves need European culture. Both those of the USA and USSR.”
Adorno’s comment: “Caution.”
Adorno’s comment: “Indicate the problem of the actualization of such values.”
Adorno’s insert: “N.B.: If the cultural enterprise as it is currently practiced unconsciously tilts over into a kind of nature preserve, perhaps a consciously established nature preserve will help to keep it alive.”
Adorno’s objection: “?? it was much more the technical disciplines.”
Adorno’s comment: “N.B.: Reference to English contribution: linguistic culture of the most important language. Oxford tradition. Standing of Swiss, Czech.”
[Editor’s note:] Predecessor to UNESCO, the “International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation,” which served as an advisory committee for the League of Nations from its founding in 1922 (chaired by Henri Bergson 1922-1925) through its dissolution in 1946, at which point its remaining resources were transferred to UNESCO. See the archive on the ICIC made available through the U.N. Link: https://intellectualcooperation.org/
Adorno’s comment: “The idea of humane control goes far beyond this.”