Letters to his Parents (eBook)

1939-1951

Theodor W. Adorno (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2014
John Wiley & Sons (Verlag)
978-0-7456-9502-0 (ISBN)

Infos

'My dears: this is but a brief note to welcome you to the new world, where you are now no longer all too far away from us. ' So begins Adorno's letter to his parents in May 1939, welcoming them to Cuba where they had just arrived after fleeing from Nazi Germany at the last minute. At the end of 1939 his parents moved again to Florida and then to New York, where they lived from August 1940 until the end of their lives. It is only with Adorno's move to California at the end of 1941 that his letters to his parents start arriving once more, reporting on work and living conditions as well as on friends, acquaintances and the Hollywood stars of his time. One finds reports of his collaborations with Max Horkheimer, Thomas Mann and Hanns Eisler alongside accounts of parties, clowning around with Charlie Chaplin, and ill-fated love affairs. But the letters also show his constant longing for Europe: Adorno already began to think about his return as soon as the USA entered the war.
Adorno's letters to his parents - surely the most open and direct letters he ever wrote - not only afford the reader a glimpse of the experiences that gave rise to the famous Minima Moralia, but also show Adorno from a previously unknown, very personal side. They end with the first reports from the ravaged Frankfurt to his mother - who remained in New York - and from Amorbach, Adorno's childhood paradise

Theodor W. Adorno, The Frankfurt School

Inhalt

Letters

1939

1940

1941

1942

1943

1944

1945

1946

1947

1948

1949

1950

1951

Editors' Afterword

Index

Rezensionen

"Adorno's childhood always served him as a recollected utopia
of protected bliss. The publication of his extensive correspondence
with his parents well after that paradise was lost demonstrates its
enduring power in his adult emotional life. Poignant, loving,
anxious, at turns intellectually serious and childishly goofy,
these letters not only testify to the strength of his
family's bonds, but also provide invaluable evidence of the
struggles of German exiles in their new homeland. Scrupulously
translated and exhaustively annotated, Adorno's Letters to
his Parents is a document of unique importance for anyone
interested in the history of the Frankfurt School and for the
migration as a whole."

Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley

Textauszug

1940

21  NEW YORK, 13.1.1940

13 January 1940

New York City

My dears,

we were overjoyed to hear from Leo Frenkel, who called us last night, that you have landed – and immigrated! – successfully. We send you our warmest welcome to this land that may be ugly, and inhabited by drugstores, hot dogs and cars, but is at least safe to some extent at the moment! Two Tazzelwürmer1 have dashed ahead of this welcome; we hope you received them!

We were greatly saddened to hear that Julie is having difficulties, but with the Frenkels’ capital power it should be easy enough to deal with them, so we shall expect to see her over here very soon, and are greatly looking forward to it.

You will now be setting off on your explorations – we hope you will already find what you are looking for in Sarasota. Incidentally, I have been invited for next Wednesday evening by a Southerner2 (from Georgia) from a ‘posh’ but impoverished family (one of my assistants from the project), who I am sure will advise me well, and who might even be able to name a family that would be prepared to accommodate you. For this would be best, especially if Julie is really to be with you no longer. The prices you were told are surely exaggerated; outside of Miami, Palm Beach and Daytona Beach, it should hardly be much more expensive than in H – Dixieland is too broke for that!

Your idea of spending part of your time in Cuba strikes me as a very good one – and also feasible. Everything will be different once you have your American First papers. I shall seek out precise legal information.

As for myself, I have given birth to a substantial baby: I finished the big piece on George and Hofmannsthal yesterday. By the way, were George’s parents in Bingen rich, or were they petty bourgeois and it was only the brother who made something of himself financially? It would be quite important for me to know. – The Hippo Cow poem3 was tremendously fine; it was only my preoccupation with George that prevented me from paying tribute to its metric beauty immediately.

Gretel was greatly pleased by your invitation to come to the South; but we are both overwhelmed by work at the moment, especially as Max is once again not getting along with his new secretary!! But we do hope to see you soon – and we are all living in one, albeit large country. Heartiest kisses

from the child Teddie

Not a word from Else,4 whereas Felix Weil5 and his wife, who were on the same ship, wrote immediately!

Original: handwritten letter.

1 Translator’s note: according to legend, there is an Alpine dragon known as the Tazzelwurm; it is unclear, however, exactly what could have been meant here.

2 Southerner: EO; presumably George Simpson.

3 This has not survived.

4 Else Herzberger.

5 The economist Felix Weil (1898–1975), a co-founder of the Institute of Social Research, and his second wife, Margot Weil.

22  NEW YORK, 27.1.1940

New York                                                                                               27 January 1940

My dears, it worries me a little that I have not heard from you. I gather it is freezing cold down south – here, we hardly dare step outside the hut. Are you dressed warmly enough? All well here. The new big essay is completely finished and checked, and I greatly enjoyed working on it. The Wagner text1 now published, I will send you the latest issue as soon as it arrives here. We met up twice with Albert Hahn,2 very pleasant and interesting. Anita Lothar3 apparently getting divorced; Pussy’s husband4 locked up. Do write soon and at length. A thousand kisses from the two horses Hottilein and Rossilein

Original: photo postcard: The American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA; ‘BALUCITHERIUM. The largest known land mammal. This gigantic beast was really a huge, hornless rhinoceros which lived in the Oligocene Period in Central Mongolia. Its fossilized remains were found there and also in Baluchistan. Its total length from nose to tip of tail was 34 feet. Its height at shoulder was 17 feet 9 inches’; stamp: indecipherable. Manuscript.

1 Five chapters of Adorno’s book In Search of Wagner were printed in the first 1939 issue of the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (pp. 1–48) under the title ‘Fragmente über Wagner’.

2 Between 1919 and 1933, the banker and economist Albert Ludwig Hahn (1889–1968) was on the executive board of the Deutsche Effectenund Wechsel-Bank AG vormals L. A. Hahn, founded in Frankfurt by his great-grandfather Löb Amschel Hahn (1796–1856). Besides his work in the management of the bank, he also held an honorary professorship at Frankfurt University from 1928 to 1933, teaching monetary and credit systems. In 1936 he emigrated first of all to Switzerland and then to the USA, where he taught at the New School for Economic Research in New York.

3 Anita Lothar, the daughter of Milton Seligmann, married Hans Lothar in 1931. She studied philosophy, sociology and psychology in Frankfurt between 1924 and 1931. Before 1933, she had agreed with Adorno to write a dissertation on the philosophical interpretation of texts by Robert Walser.

4 Unknown.

23  NEW YORK, 2.2.1940

New York, 2 February 1940

My dears – we are happily together, and your ears must be ringing as loudly as the Alpine Symphony. Julie came as a veritable Christmas angel – a thousand thanks, the shoes are magnificent, the touchingly knitted Hippo Cow jumper suits and fits the horse perfectly, and we shall confiscate the cigars ourselves in order to offer them to our guests of honour, which Maidon would do otherwise, as Max and Fritz do not smoke themselves. You spoil us more than we deserve. Thank God you got it right there! More soon! Heartiest kisses from your Junior Hippo Archibald.

My dears – It is charming here in the horses’ nest & we have had a proper cuddle and feasted very well! The gifts went down very well

1000 greetings and kisses Yours Julie

We were very happy to hear from you at such length. The jumper fits like a glove and the shape is delightful. A thousand thanks always

Your old Gretel-horse

Original: handwritten letter with additional note by Julie Rautenberg.

24  NEW YORK, 7.2.1940

New York, 7 February 1940

My dears:

we were overjoyed to hear from Julie that you are put up well and are as content as one can expect when one moves from the lands of the noble savages to the ignoble lands of civilization – and what a civilization! We were somewhat nervous about receiving your first messages, firstly because of hideous Miami, and secondly because you are living with emigrant German country Jews. But as you are evidently far enough outside to avoid seeing much of Miami and its horrors, and the Levis are such Columbuses that there is little risk of having any contact with them, we have accustomed ourselves to the idea. Apropos of Columbus: the Spanish historian Madariaga has just brought out a book1 which shows in detail that Columbus was a Jew. The book has caused a great sensation here, and one should mention it as often as possible in America for reasons of apologia.

Two things were particularly reassuring for us: firstly, that you are getting decent German food, for that of the splendid Emeranja Sevilla would not have been the right thing in the long run; and secondly, that you are living on the ground floor, so that the Hippo Cow can get out often enough. She should make good use of it – the cold spell is over, and the climatic conditions down there should be extremely pleasant during the next months. But the Hippo should be extremely careful, especially when going out alone. For America is not a land of walkers, but of drivers; on foot, one is hopelessly in the minority, and one has to look both ways at least three times whenever crossing the street. Furthermore, I would avoid leaving larger sums of money in the house at all costs; either give them to the Jewish women’s committee or a bank to look after, for there was an article in the Times today stating that the safety standards in Miami are particularly unsatisfactory. Speaking of which, would you like us to save the New York Times for you and send it every week, as you used to do with the FZ, or are you...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.10.2014
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Allgemeine Soziologie
• Schlagworte: acquaintances • adornos • August • Brief • California • Conditions • Cuba • End • Florida • Friends • Germany • Gesellschaftstheorie • Last • Letter • Letters • Lives • longer • May • Minute • Move • Nazi • New • Note • Parents • Social Theory • Sociology • Soziologie • Stars • Time • US • Work • World • York
• ISBN-10: 0-7456-9502-7 / 0745695027
• ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-9502-0 / 9780745695020