Letters to his Parents E-Book

Theodor W. Adorno

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 801

Beschreibung

'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

Leseprobe

Letters to his Parents

THEODOR W. ADORNO

Letters to his Parents1939–1951

Edited by Christoph Gödde and Henri Lonitz

Translated by Wieland Hoban

polity

First published in German as Theodor W. Adorno: Briefe an die Eltern 1939–1951 and copyright © Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2003.

This English translation © Polity Press 2006

Polity Press

65 Bridge Street

Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

350 Main Street

Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-07456-9502-0

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.polity.co.uk

Contents

Editors’ Foreword

Letters

1939

1940

1941

1942

1943

1944

1945

1946

1947

1948

1949

1950

1951

Index

Editors’ Foreword

When Adorno saw his parents again in June 1939 in Havana, they had only been in Cuba for a few weeks. Oscar and Maria Wiesengrund had managed to escape from Nazi Germany at the last minute. At the end of 1939 they moved first to Florida, then to New York, where they lived from August 1940 until the end of their lives. It is only with his move to California at the end of 1941 that Adorno’s letters resume once more, coming almost consistently once every two weeks, reporting on work and living conditions as well as 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.

The Letters to his Parents – surely the most open and direct ones 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, extremely personal side. They end with the first reports from the ravaged Frankfurt to his mother, who remained in New York – and from Amorbach, his childhood paradise.

The occasional harsh comments about the family of his uncle Louis – the brood – can be attributed to a strong spleen on Adorno’s part, which was well known and indeed criticized in the Wiesengrund family, and which he only seems to have been able to control in the immediate presence of his relatives.

Unfortunately, of the equally numerous letters sent by his parents during their emigration in Cuba and America, only two from his father, from 1945 and 1946, were found among Adorno’s belongings; of his mother’s letters, those written from March 1948 onwards have survived. Excerpts from these have been cited where it assists the reader in understanding Adorno’s letters.

The letters written by Theodor and Gretel Adorno are reproduced with diplomatic faithfulness; words written unclearly are marked with a question mark in square brackets. This also applies to any additions or alterations made by the editors.

The notes serve to explain events and names found in the letters. The editors have sought to supply information also about those friends and acquaintances, both from Frankfurt and then America, whose names never became well known. Unfortunately this was not always possible; in some cases the notes could not ultimately be as comprehensive as intended, or the editors were even forced to give up entirely.

The following collected editions are referred to in abbreviated form:

Theodor W. Adorno, Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Rolf Tiedemann in collaboration with Gretel Adorno, Susan Buck-Morss and Klaus Schultz, vols. 1–20 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970–86): GS [1–20].

Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Alfred Schmidt and Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, vols. 1–19 (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1988–96): Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften [1–19].

Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 17: Briefwechsel 1941–1948, ed. Gunzelin Schmid Noerr (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1995): Horkheimer, Briefwechsel 1941–48.

The editors would like to thank the following persons for assisting them in their research: Wolfram von Boxberg (Meckenheim), Volker Harms-Ziegler (Institut für Stadtgeschichte, Frankfurt am Main), Joachim Heimannsberg (Munich), Rüdiger Koschnitzki (Deutsches Filminstitut), Ingrid Kummels and Gundram Kunz (Amorbach), Fritz-Bernd Leopold (Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach am Neckar), Michael Maaser (Universitätsarchiv der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main), Susanne Neis (Stadtarchiv Neunkirchen), Frau Neugebauer (Amorbach), Reinhard Pabst (Bad Camberg), Elisabeth Reinhuber-Adorno (Oberursel), Klaus Rhein-furth (Institut für Stadtgeschichte, Frankfurt am Main), Manfred Schäfer (Amorbach), Joachim Seng (Hofmannsthal-Archiv, Freies Deutsches Hochstift, Frankfurt am Main) and Jochen Stollberg (Stadtund Universitätsbibliothek, Frankfurt am Main).

Oscar and Maria Wiesengrund, c. 1939

Theodor W. Adorno, c. 1939

1939

1  NEW YORK, 12.5.1939

12 May 1939

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. Our anxiety will not cease until we know that you have arrived safely, and we are putting off everything else until the moment we receive your telegram. I only wish to add that it is my firm intention to visit you as soon as possible. I cannot name a date at present, as this depends not on my wishes, but partly on the radio project.1 But I shall not wait a day longer than absolutely necessary.

We received your letter from Antwerp,2 to our greatest joy, and are relieved to know that everything has gone smoothly so far. I hope with all my heart that you will now truly have a peaceful time, and that you will experience your emigration, now that it has become inevitable, somewhat in the manner of an extended Amorbach.

We will discuss the matter of how to get you over here as soon as I am with you.

Otherwise, I would only like to give you two pieces of advice today: 1.) do not eat any uncooked pork, as the risk of trichinosis is very high throughout America, 2.) take great care from the start to protect yourselves against the sun, which must be considerable now in Cuba, 3.) be very careful in your dealings with other emigrants. Frenkel’s business partner3 will soon be looking after you, and the brother of Frau Dr Herbert Graf4 will also be turning up in Cuba soon; going on what his sister told me, he should be pleasant company. Furthermore, Carry Sinn5 will recommend some American families, whom I would at least prefer to someone like the Wendriners.6 But I hope that the whole Cuban expedition will be no more than a brief transitional episode. I need hardly tell you how happy we shall both be when we know that you are nearby and have escaped the horror. Or rather: I hardly dare say so, out of superstition, until your telegram is brought here. Gretel and I are already envisioning how it will be when I tell you all the stories about the hippos, giraffes and hyenas that have meanwhile dissolved into a mirage in the American desert.

A Frankfurt acquaintance of ours by the name of Ganz,7 who had to spend a few months in Cuba before his immigration here, told us a few things we would like to pass on to you, as they will perhaps be useful. I would particularly like to draw your attention to the possibility of Viennese food, as I do not know whether our tummies8 are up to Cuban food. During the summer months, however, one can perhaps recommend North American food, which is relatively rich in vegetables.

Heartiest kisses from your now audibly whinnying horses

Hottilein and Rossilein9

Warmest regards to Julie.10

Hotel Abos Mundos (roof garden)

Obispro good, c. $ 60 per month, good food, but not cheap.

The addresses of the German guesthouses can be obtained from the Joint Relief Committee.

Restaurant Orbe Chinese, good, c. 35–40 cts.

Very much worth seeing: Tropical Garden

Nice: Playa (bus number 32).

Elegant restaurant, very good food: Petit Miami.

Nice: Veradero blue beach, c. 31½2 hours by bus from Prado.

Non-German guesthouse in Havana: Paseo de Mart 104

Hotel Trocha, very good, pretty garden.

Original: typewritten letter signed by Theodor W. and Gretel Adorno.

1 The project, which concerned ‘The Essential Value of Radio to All Types of Listeners’ (mostly referred to as the Princeton Radio Research Project), was under the direction of Paul F. Lazarsfeld, who taught at Princeton, and was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. In autumn 1937, Max Horkheimer had suggested Adorno as musical advisor, thus making it financially possible for Adorno to emigrate to the USA.

2 This letter, written during the forced exit from Germany, before boarding the ship bound for Cuba, has not survived; only three letters from Adorno’s parents have been preserved from the period between 1939 and 1948. Maria Wiesengrund’s letters to her son from March 1948 onwards have mostly survived.

3 It was impossible to gain further information about either Leo Frenkel, who seems to have lived in New York as an insurance salesman and was on friendly terms with Oscar Wiesengrund, or his business partner.

4 The brother-in-law of the Vienna-born director and music writer Herbert Graf (1903–73), who was head of the Städtische Oper in Frankfurt from 1929 to 1932 and worked as director at the Metropolitan Opera in New York from 1936 onwards, could not be traced.

5 Née Frenkel; her name is also spelt ‘Carrie’ elsewhere.

6 A married couple created by Kurt Tucholsky, who devoted a number of satirical tales to them in the 1920s.

7 Difficult to trace; possibly the actor and writer Rudolf Hermann Graf (1901–1965).

8 Translator’s note: in English in the original (henceforth: EO).

9 The pet names of Theodor and Gretel Adorno. Translator’s note: both names are generic (albeit doubly diminutive, and thus especially ‘cutesy’) names for horses, rather like ‘Fido’ or ‘Rex’ for dogs. They have therefore been left untranslated.

10 This is Julie Rautenberg (1882–1960), a senior employee of Oscar Wiesengrund and signing clerk of the wine shop ‘Bernhard Wiesengrund’, who emigrated with them. Julie Rautenberg was a relative of the Frenkels.

2  NEW YORK, 21.5.1939

New York, 21 May 1939. My dears, faithful Wondrous Hippo Cow,1 here a few words of welcome – may you continue to live with the same contentment, the same security, and the same stubborn superiority as the hippo cow overleaf. I shall be visiting you in the first days of June; the precise date will depend on my work, I will inform you in good time, only tell me how I can best avoid delay in this quarantine, i.e. as a visitor with American first papers.2 I am happy that everything has gone smoothly now. Meanwhile had great success at Columbia University.3

Heartiest kisses – fond regards to you both Your old Archibald

Fond regards Giraffe Gazelle wearing negligee

Original: photo postcard: Rose the Hippopotamus, Central Park Zoo, N.Y.C.; stamp: NEW YORK, MAY 2, 1939 (see fig. 1). Manuscript.

1 Translator’s note: the original pet name is Wundernilstute. It should be noted that, while in English the male and female hippopotamus are termed ‘bull’ and ‘cow’ respectively, they are referred to in German as Hengst and Stute, i.e. ‘stallion’ and ‘mare’. In the light of the Adorno family’s clear penchant for horses, this can be seen as connected to the various other horse-related pet names that appear in the correspondence.

2 This refers to the ‘Declaration of Intention’ to become a citizen of the United States of North America, i.e. the application for naturalization.

3 Adorno had given a lecture entitled ‘Husserl and the Problem of Idealism’ (see Theodor W. Adorno, GS 20.1, pp. 119–34).

3  NEW YORK, 11.6.1939

11 June 1939

My dears Wondrous Hippo Cow,

dear Willibald:

a thousand thanks for the delightful red waistcoat, which fits me perfectly; Giraffe Gazelle is very happy with her new saddlecloth – dear Archibald rolled up here in good health and spirits, albeit a little tired at present. New York had just put on a gentle cooling shower to welcome him. – I am glad you are so well, and that you have some peace and are comfortable there. I would so love to get dear Marinumba a few light clothes here, but I need to have her measurements first. Perhaps it would even be possible to find out the exact American size (I am size 16, for example) in a shop there. I have not yet seen any wild silk here at all, people wear artificial silk (rayon) or cotton (even for evening dresses). What sort of colours were you thinking of: grey, blue and black with white?

Do send us more news soon, with kisses from your

Gretel-horse

My dears, having arrived in good shape after a somewhat adventurous ride, I still see the terribly brave and yet terribly sad face of the Hippo Cow on the pier before me – and I felt no different, but was merely less heroic! And yet I am so happy about those 6 days. More soon, for today just fond and hearty greetings from your Archibald.

Original: handwritten letter.

4  NEW YORK, 8.7.1939

8 July 1939

My dears:

we are anxious at not having had any reply to our lengthy letter of 21 June,1 nor any confirmation that you received the book packets we sent you around the same time. We hope you are well, and that the Cuban postal service has simply treated itself to a feast – although I can scarcely imagine that those robber-chieftains had much fun with Stifter’s studies and Beethoven’s sonatas, to say nothing of my own utterances.

There is an altogether inhuman heat here, and I do not know whether I should fear that it might be even hotter where you are, or console myself with the assumption that it cannot get any hotter. At any rate, we decided yesterday to go on holiday after all, to Bar Harbor once again at the end of the month, for 4 or 5 weeks. Max and Maidon2 originally wanted to come too. But Dée’s condition is such that Fritz was unable to decide on the westward journey she had so dearly wished for, and he will also go to Maine, which means that Max and Maidon cannot leave Fritz and Dée3 and come with us. But we shall certainly meet. Lazarsfeld4 proved most friendly and accommodating with regard to the holiday. We have been invited, either on the way there or the way back, to go to Maine to visit Professor Lynd,5 the world-famous author of Middle Town, whom you have probably also heard of, on his property in New Hampshire. I have known him for a long time and am on good terms with him; he has meanwhile read a substantial amount of my work and is, as Lazarsfeld told me yesterday, most impressed by it. I tell you this not for the sake of prestige, as the worth of my efforts is not to be measured by the opinions of some celebrities, but only to show you that, for all the accusations of Jewish-Hegelian dialectics6 directed at me, I am clearly coping well with Americans of even the most Aryan blood.

Aside from this, I am in such an exhausted and overworked state as I have perhaps never before experienced. The holidays are truly not a luxury. I cannot refrain from telling you in brief all the things I have done since my return from Cuba:

1) a 20-page essay7 for the journal that brings my jazz theory up to date with the current American discourse, in the form of an examination of two newly published books.

2) a long, 40-page memorandum8 for the radio project on pop songs and monopolistic propaganda with suggestions for research I have worked out, and which are now to be carried out – by Lazarsfeld’s very pleasant wife, among others.

3) two further reviews9 for the journal, among them one whose length is equivalent to around 8 columns in the FZ features section.

4) completely revised, i.e. rewrote, a long essay by Max10 on the Jewish question together with him and Gretel. We spent the last week working literally day and night on this most interesting piece of work, at such a pace that Max broke down immediately after its conclusion and went to bed with a fever.

5) briefed all the employees for the radio project, who are now fully available for the music study,11 about their new tasks.

6) carried out the ‘drive’12 for the research project on anti-Semitism13 with Max.

If that’s not American! I hope to send you some of my English output soon. I daresay you will understand that I am a little drowsy after all this. The peaceful calm of the noise of Havana lies behind me like a lost paradise.

On Wednesday evening we had an official institute do at our place, which went extremely well, with Rudi and Josie.14 Yesterday evening we were invited to Max and Maidon’s place together with the Frenkels, as well as Fritz and Dée, and it was very pleasant. Only I think that dear Leo was a little taken aback at the names we use for each other. For we have now adopted the names of Indian chiefs: Max is called ‘Soft head’, Gretel, in keeping with an older tradition: ‘Three Lambvultures’, and I am simply ‘Big Ox’. As you see, I shall soon have lost my wits, and if I carry on like this I will surely soon be given the professorship in Oxford for which I was previously too highbrow.15 Gsh.

Do write soon, and in particular also tell me – as is fitting in a letter to a dialectical materialist – whether you are really getting enough to eat from Miss Laidlaw,16 which I doubt somewhat, as I ate like a pig for a few days after my return here, and whether you are coping with the climate.

Heartiest kisses from your old and somewhat America-weary child,17 also from Mrs Hippo King Archibald, the dear Giraffe Gazelle with the little horns.

Your faithful Teddie.

Original: typewritten letter.

1 As the next letter reveals, it never reached Adorno’s parents.

2 Max (1895–1973) and Maidon (1887–1969) Horkheimer.

3 Friedrich Pollock (1894–1970) and his first wife Andrée.

4 The Vienna-born sociologist Paul Felix Lazarsfeld (1901–1976) had gone to America in 1933, and decided to remain there in 1935. From 1937 to 1939 he was director of the Office of Radio Research, which was initially resident at Princeton and moved to Columbia University in New York in 1939. Adorno had been an employee of this research institution – also known as the Princeton Radio Research Project – since 1938. In 1936, Lazarsfeld had married his second wife, also born in Vienna, the social scientist Herta Herzog (1910–1999).

5 The sociologists Robert S. Lynd (1892–1970) and his wife Helen Merrell Lynd (1896–1982) had published the study Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture in 1929, and in 1937 the follow-up Middletown in Transition: A Study in Cultural Conflicts. Robert S. Lynd taught at Columbia University in New York.

6 See also Horkheimer’s essay ‘Die Juden und Europa’ [The Jews and Europe], which begins: ‘The “Jewish-Hegelian jargon”, which once began in London and made its way into the German Left, and which even then had to be translated into the full-bodied rhetoric of trade unionists, is now considered well and truly worn out’ (Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften 4, p. 308).

7 Adorno’s review of Wilder Hobson’s American Jazz Music (New York, 1939) and Winthrop Sargeant’s Jazz, Hot & Hybrid (New York, 1938) appeared only in 1941, in the ninth volume of the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (henceforth: Zfs); see GS 19, pp. 382–99.

8 There is a memorandum headed ‘Plugging, Likes and Dislikes in the Field of Light Popular Music’ among Adorno’s belongings in the Theodor W. Adorno Archiv (Ts 51499–51537).

9 The three unpublished reviews, all from 1939, deal with the collective introduction to philosophy Knowledge and Society (New York, 1938), Maximilian Beck’s Psychologie. Wesen und Wirklichkeit der Seele [Psychology: Essence and Reality of the Soul] (Leiden, 1939), and Richard Laurin Hawkins’s Positivism in the United States 1853–61 (Cambridge, MA, 1938) respectively. It is not clear which two are meant here. See GS 20.1, pp. 238–43.

10 See Max Horkheimer, ‘Die Juden und Europa’, in Zfs 8 (1939–40), pp. 115–36; now in Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften 4, pp. 308–31.

11 music study: EO.

12 ‘drive’: EO.

13 This was originally published in English in 1941, in vol. 4 of the Zfs, which at that time bore the name Studies in Philosophy and Social Science. For the German translation see Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften 4, pp. 373–418.

14 The violinist and leader of the Kolisch String Quartet, Rudolf Kolisch (1896–1978), who had been Adorno’s friend since 1925, and his first wife, the pianist Josefa Rosanska (1904–1986).

15 highbrow: EO.

16 The landlady of the Havana guesthouse in which Oscar and Maria Wiesengrund resided, Miss Estella Laidlaw.

17 An allusion to Ferdinand Kürberger’s novel Der Amerikamüde [The America-weary One], first published in 1855.

5  NEW YORK, 15.7.1939

15 July 1939

My dears:

a thousand thanks for your telegram, letter and card. The telegram came just as Gretel was copying my letter from the shorthand. To answer the question from the card: the exact words of the Jack Smith1 record should be: ‘are you sorry, really sorry?’ I hope this is sufficient to win the bet.

As you did not receive my dramatic travel report: during the night of my crossing to Miami, my cabin neighbours sought to infiltrate my room through the connecting door, and even continued their attempts after I had begun to protest vigorously, until I finally called the nightsteward to my aid. It is unclear whether they were simply drunk or entertained the vain hope of robbing me; to be truthful, however, I suspect the former. Then I almost missed my train, as the Americans kept me on board for hours: for they had lost my papers, and therefore sent me to the back of the queue. It was only because I smelled a rat, and, generally hostile towards authority, did not ‘comply’ (as Annachen2 would say), that I managed to catch my train after all. On the return journey I was freezing like a dog, especially while passing through Florida, as the train was so thoroughly air-conditioned that my tropical clothing offered entirely inadequate protection against Western civilization. My subsequent cold took me a fortnight to recover from.

You should never worry if our letters fail to arrive. If anything were the matter, we would wire you immediately; and, on the other hand, one should constantly expect surprises from the Cuban postal service.

And dear WK3 should not be anxious about Regius4 – he has now long been in safety.

It is now fairly certain that we shall go on holiday at the end of July, once again to the Hotel de Gregoire, Bar Harbor, Maine.

We had arranged with the Wondrous Hippo Cow to get her a few clothes here, and now she writes that she does not want any. But why not? What are her measurements?

We are now taking things at a much slower pace until the holidays – having a semi-holiday, so to speak – and I have already recovered somewhat; unfortunately, however, my poor Giraffe Gazelle has had another migraine.

Aside from these matters, I can think of nothing special to report: I shall send our dear Hippo Cow a few songs. It has cooled off slightly here, and it is very pleasant in our apartment. Fond regards to you both, and to Julie; we had Bea5 over here a few days ago, together with the Pollocks and a big-shot Jew who is in charge of the Alaska project6 (which, by the way, is very interesting and sensible).

Please give my best to Miss Laidlaw, and tell her, as the old Pachulke7 joke goes: ‘carry on like that, and you’ll go far in life’.

Kisses from

your old child

Teddie.

The money will be wired to the old whore on Monday by Tratte: no simple matter.

Enclosed: 1 Archibald with trap wide open.

Original: typewritten letter with handwritten postscript.

1 The singer and film actor ‘Whispering’ Jack Smith, born in 1919 in Seattle.

2 A maidservant of the Wiesengrunds in Frankfurt.

3 Translator’s note: This is the abbreviation for Wildschweinkönig (Wild Boar King), the pet name for Oscar Wiesengrund.

4 This refers to the collection of aphorisms entitled Dämmerung. Notizen in Deutschland [Twilight: Notes in Germany] published by Max Horkheimer in 1934 under the pseudonym Heinrich Regius.

5 Presumably the wife of the architect Ferdinand Kramer (see letter 13 and the corresponding note).

6 The name could not be ascertained; Alaska, together with the Virgin Islands, was one of the places vaguely mentioned as a new location for Jews forced to flee from Germany. The Roosevelt administration’s intention was presumably to reduce the strain on the USA resulting from Jewish immigrants.

7 Pachulke (in Polish: pacholek) refers to a peasant, farm hand, or generally rough type. The figure Pachulke came from a Berlin joke.

6    NEW YORK, 25.7.1939

429 WEST 117th STREET

NEW YORK, N.Y.

25 July 1939

My dears!

A thousand thanks for your letter. I am sending you these words today by air mail, so that you might still receive a line or two from New York, and above all to convey to WK the very heartiest of birthday greetings.1 May the first in exile at once be the first in a long line of agreeable ones – on holiday, so to speak. And may you both continue to cope with fate as bravely, naturally and free of bitterness as you have until now. Beyond this, my hope for us all today is simply that we can soon see each other again, and in calmer circumstances than those days in June, as rewarding as they were.

We have little to report. Work is progressing slowly – in recent weeks mainly the project once more, now that the long essay by Max and various smaller matters have been completed. But I am still only working at half-speed, so to speak, and will interrupt my work completely and absolutely in August. Gretel has had a whole series of migraine attacks, I am afraid, with ever-increasing frequency; though she is feeling better today, a holiday is very much overdue, and for this reason I am dictating at the institute today. We are labouring under a truly infernal heat here, with 60 per cent air humidity – I swear, it is scarcely bearable. We are leaving on Sunday, and will spend the whole of August at the Hotel de Gregoire, Bar Harbor, Maine. It is quite possible that Max and Maidon will visit us there, and the Pollocks are also considering Maine, though in the case of Frau Pollock there are some doubts on account of the sea climate.

Regarding Alaska, my dear WK, you are as mistaken as all of us here were until recently. Alaska is an entire continent. The northern parts are arctic, while the climate in the southern and south-western regions – due to what is known as the Japan Current – is considerably milder than most of the American Midwest, or indeed Chicago. The temperature does not drop more than a few degrees below zero, and in the summer it is apparently as warm and agreeable as southern Norway, for example. If I am not much mistaken, Alaska – which is after all part of the USA, and economically still entirely untapped – genuinely looks to become the main refuge for exiled Jews. Our source on the matter,2 incidentally, is a charming man who has proven especially friendly towards us, and is involved in the project together with Max Warburg (Anita’s father).3 Economically speaking, the aim of the project is to develop a lumber industry that would make American newspaper production largely independent of raw materials from Germany, Canada and Scandinavia. The whole of Alaska is inhabited by no more than 60,000 people – 30,000 of them white, the rest a mixture of Eskimos, Japanese, Chinese and negroes. The southern, fertile parts of Alaska are very easy to reach from Seattle. On the whole, the project seems to me incomparably more solid and healthy than the Guyana project, for example, to say nothing of Shanghai.4

The things one hears about that are truly horrendous.

As far as Kreisler5 is concerned, I agree entirely. He has long since gone to the dogs and lost all sense of good measure. This whole sort of music-making should be liquidated, and one often wonders whether the current German barbarism contributing to that liquidation is not perhaps involuntarily serving a most just purpose.

I was deeply touched by the correspondence between Hofmannsthal and George, which I shall review in detail for the journal.6 In the next two weeks you will be receiving two manuscripts in English: Radio Voice,7 the completed second part of my theoretical book about the radio project, and the extensive project of a scientific study of anti-Semitism; Max had the idea to begin with, and then the two of us wrote it together with Gretel and my old American secretary. I would ask that you return both manuscripts to me once you have read them: the anti-Semitism project should be treated absolutely confidentially – that means that no one other than you, my mother and Julie should under any circumstances lay eyes upon it. I am most eager to know what you both make of it. The matter of carrying out the anti-Semitism project, that is to say of carrying out the investigations planned for it, will preoccupy us in the next few months to the same extent as the practical basis of the study. We are absolutely convinced, however, that the only meaningful way to counteract the persecution of Jews is to get to the heart of the matter, rather than simply reeling off the customary phrases. Admittedly such attempts will not always meet with approval – least of all from those in whose interests it is being undertaken.

Please forgive the remarkable stupidity of this letter, but I am melting away in this heat, and am no more than a shadow, albeit a well-nourished one.

Heartiest kisses

from

your old

Teddie

P.S. Please convey my warmest greetings to Miss Laidlaw, and a particular expression of sympathy to the new cook. Does Ophelia still cry out ‘aï’, and can Julie still imitate her so wonderfully?

Original: typewritten letter with printed letterhead.

1 Oscar Wiesengrund’s birthday was 30 July.

2 Unknown.

3 The Hamburg banker Max Warburg (1867–1946), who was chairman of the supervisory board of I.G. Farben for some time, had insisted until his emigration to the USA in 1938 that the German Jews should continue to defend their economic positions under the Nazi regime. From 1929 onwards he had supported Jewish aid organizations. No further information was found on his involvement in the Alaska plan. Anita Warburg (b. 1908) studied violin in Berlin after completing school in Salem, and later began to work as a sculptress. She moved to London in 1935, and worked in an aid organization for Jewish refugees. In 1940 she married the Swiss journalist Max Wolf; they both emigrated to the USA.

4 After the foundation in January 1939 of the Reichszentrale für jüdische Auswanderung [National Centre for Jewish Emigration], which Heydrich directed, the idea of creating Jewish settlements outside of Europe and Palestine was popular for a while. Shanghai was an option because of its loose regulations on visas and passports. And Dutch Guyana had been recommended by the Dutch fascist Anton A. Mussert (1894–1946). ‘Thus, for example, Mussert thought that the Jewish question should be resolved “properly”, as “the Dutch despised vandalism and injustice”. He developed a Guyana plan as an alternative to the Madagascar plan. Surinam, as well as British and French Guyana, would be handed over by their respective mother countries (the Netherlands, England and France) for the foundation of a national Jewish homeland. In this arrangement, England and France would not be allocated any other regions as compensation, as they still had enough other colonies left over’ (Hans Jansen, Der Madagaskar-Plan. Die beabsichtigte Deportation der Europäischen Juden nach Madagaskar [Munich, 1997], p. 257).

5 The Vienna-born violinist Fritz Kreisler (1875–1962), who also composed and had received tuition from Anton Bruckner as a boy, was one of the most famous virtuosos of the first half of the twentieth century. Kreisler, who had lived in Berlin between 1925 and 1932, emigrated to France in 1933 and became a French citizen; in 1939 he left France for America.

6 The correspondence, published in Berlin in 1938, induced Adorno to write a substantial essay that first appeared in 1942, in the mimeographed volume Walter Benjamin zum Gedächtnis [In Memoriam Walter Benjamin], published by the Institute of Social Research; see GS 10.1, pp. 195–237.

7 A chapter of the unfinished book Current of Music, which is to appear in the series Nachgelassene Schriften [Posthumous Works].

7  BAR HARBOR, 1.8.1939

Bar Harbor, 1 August 1939.

My dears, after travelling and arriving well, being received as old friends, and settling in superbly, we are finding it more beautiful than ever here, and are recovering with all our energy, utterly abstaining from work. Today we spent the whole day outside – aside from a long siesta – and are both already looking quite different. The last two weeks in N.Y. were unbearably hot and exhausting, and we have truly earned our rest. Gretel is wearing the red waistcoat with great zeal. Fondest regards to you both and to Julie from the old child Teddie

There is an old lady here who has been coming to B.H. for the last 60 years.

Fond regards from your Gretel

it is much busier here than it was last year, maybe this indicates a boom.

Original: photo postcard: Hotel de Gregoire, Bar Harbor, Maine. ‘ONLY HOTEL ON THE SHORE’; stamp: AUG 2, 1939. Manuscript.

8  BAR HARBOR, 7.8.1939

Bar Harbor

7 August 1939.

My dears, we are seriously concerned at not having heard from you for so long once again, despite writing to you fervently. Is everything all right? Leo F. also wrote to you at my request. We are increasingly recovering – quite literally – spending the whole day outside, with at least 10 hours of sleep and good seafood.1 Utter peace and quiet, and nothing, absolutely nothing new: that is the best news we have to report. Kisses from your old child Teddie

We have already had an adventure too: the tide came in more quickly than we expected, and we were beginning to become uneasy, but a friendly seaman saved us just in time for lunch.2 Warmest regards Gretel

Original: picture postcard: Cliff at Great Head Bar Harbor, Me.; stamp: AUG 8, 1939. Manuscript.

1 seafood: EO (‘sea food’).

2 lunch: EO.

9  BAR HARBOR, 14.8.1939

Bar Harbor, 14 August 1939.

My dears, a thousand thanks for your lengthy letter – we are happy that you are continuing to feel at ease, even in this heat, of which the temperatures here these last few days give us an idea. Regarding Busch-Serkin,1 I am entirely in agreement with you, my enormous Marinumba. Nothing new here, absolutely nothing – nor any visitors yet, and our recovery is progressing well and steadily. The radio project will continue for the time being; its longer-term status will only be decided on in December. The day before yesterday we managed to drive a horse-cart ourselves for 2 hours, with a real live horse, albeit an old one. It is indescribably beautiful, peaceful and lonely here, and I am sure you would also like it. Hugs from Hippo King Archibald and his beloved Giraffe Gazelle with the little horns.

Original: picture postcard: Thunder Cave. Bar Harbor, Maine; stamp: AUG 15, 1939. Manuscript.

1 The Austrian-born pianist Rudolf Serkin (1903–91) had played with the violinist Adolf Busch (1891–1952) since his youth, until the Nazis forbade him to perform with Serkin, a Jew. Busch subsequently left Germany for good. Busch and Serkin, who had married Busch’s daughter in 1935, moved to the USA in 1939.

10  BAR HARBOR, 17.8.1939

Bar Harbor, 17 August 1939.

My dears, at the same time as WK’s sweet card came, we also received the news that poor Dée Pollock had passed away; she suffered no pain. Do write him a few lines c/o International Institute of Social Research, 429 West 117th Street, New York City. Perhaps Max and Maidon will now come here after all. We made up for your tornado with a nocturnal storm between 10 and 5:30 – without interruption. But, although the infernal racket prevented us from sleeping, we are so refreshed that it made no difference to us. Hugs from Archibald and Giraffe Gazelle.

Original: picture postcard: Anemone Cave Bar Harbor, Maine; stamp: AUG 18, 1939. Manuscript.

11  BAR HARBOR, 23.8.1939

23 August 39

My dears, a thousand thanks for the letter: these are the oft-mentioned Porcupines, which really do look like their namesakes. – I am very curious as to whether Leo followed my advice in time – it would not be good any more now, of course. Frau Täubler1 is nice enough, and a possible contact for you, but careful: a real gossip (friend of Lotte Lenja2 and Pussy Heimann).3 Telegram today: Max, Maidon and Fritz are coming here on Sunday. We should be back in N.Y. on the 4th. With the splendid weather and our complete idleness, we are continuing to enjoy an excellent recovery. Gretel wrote to Frau Seele immediately about Jenny.4 Simply carry on as you have been doing, and you could get far in life. Fond regards, many kisses from your big ox. Archibald is looking well, and is making incredible progress at 66, which we play every evening, competition for your rummy. Fond regards, Giraffe Gazelle

Original: picture postcard: The Porcupine Islands, Bar Harbor, Maine; stamp: AUG 24, 1939. Manuscript.

1  Unknown.

2  The actress and singer Lotte Lenya (real name: Karoline Charlotte Blamauer; 1898–1981), who was originally from Vienna and lived and worked in Berlin from 1921 onwards. Lenya, who had played the role of Pirate Jenny in The Threepenny Opera to great success in 1928, emigrated to the USA in 1933.

3  Referred to in later letters as ‘Heymann’; unknown.

4  Jenny Leonore Wiesengrund (1874–1963), who lived in Hamburg with her husband Arnold Villinger; no Frau Seele is known. Translator’s note: it is unclear whether ‘die Seele’ refers to a woman named Seele or rather simply ‘the soul’ (in its application to a person), as the word Seele (soul) is a female noun. As the former seems slightly more probable, however, all further references to ‘die Seele’ in the original text will henceforth be translated as ‘Frau Seele’.

12  BAR HARBOR, 28.8.1939

28 August 39

My dears, I enclose a letter that Sadie wrote to Gretel, and from which you can recognize that our lovely brown-skinned lady is on a higher cultural level than all the German Annachens and their wider surroundings.

Max, Maidon and Fritz are here with two cars, and we drive around all day. Now we are showing them our island at the lowest tide. We are very glad to be able to follow the events in Europe1 – which are enervating enough – here together, which I should add is no easy thing, as secluded as it is here. We still do not believe that there will be war, although the show is certainly costing enough this time. We had predicted Russia. We are determined to remain in America, even if war breaks out. Chamberlain – or J’aime Berlin, as the French say – was certainly in no hurry to go to war for us when Hitler threw us down the stairs. – I would advise WK both warmly and urgently to resist any fits of imperious emotion and remain calm in H. Do not guard German prisoners, but rather the Wondrous Hippo Cow, and water her with Cervera (?) tropical!2 We are well rested and will stay here 2 days longer, arriving in N.Y. on 6 Sept. Kisses from the horses the big ox

The dear horse barked in its sleep like a dog the other day. Kisses from your Gretel Horse

Fri. at 1:30 P.m.

My Dear Mrs. Adorno:–

Your letter and was very glad to hear from you and the Dr. So far my vacation has been ‘Lousy’. I’ve had company every night up untill Wed. night. and now I am as tired as I can be.

I haven’t been out of N.Y.C. other than the 13th I went on a boat ride up the river, but I do expect to rest up from now on and maybe go to Philadelphia for Labor day week end.

I hope you both are very much rested and are feeling very fine by now.

When I closed the Apt. I was very satisfied with the painters work only they were so dirty.

I shall go in Mon. and start to getting things in order for your return.

Sorry not to have written you before I have the receipts for the chowders but couldn’t get one of Lobster Stew.

Hope you both continue to rest on.

My kindest regards to the Dr and Yourself.

I am as Ever.

Sadie

Original: handwritten letter on the same sheet as Sadie’s letter. Translator’s note: Sadie’s letter written in English (with spelling and grammatical mistakes).

1 On 23 August, Hitler’s Germany and the Soviet Union had signed a pact of mutual non-aggression, and in England the mobilization for war had begun with the conscription of reservists; the English–Polish pact of alliance was signed on 25 August.

2 Adorno unquestionably wrote ‘cervera’, but presumably meant cerveza, the Spanish word for beer.

13  NEW YORK, 8.9.1939

8 September 1939

My dears:

it seems that the great times1 have begun once more. I still cannot really believe it, and would not be the least bit surprised if, after the conquest of Poland, Hitler were to appoint a new Polish government and form an alliance with it, Mussolini held a peace conference, and the Louischers2 allied themselves with the Siegfrieds in the Maginot Line, with the pope swinging his gas-mask above it all as a censer. I know that this notion mocks all reason among all reasonable people, but hardly any more than this war itself, which ultimately nobody believes in, and which the newspapers and radios incessantly tell us is ‘a reality’, mocks true reason. We are now left with our theory as the disgraced Hebrews, but those Hebrews who turned out to be right, all the Walter Rosenthals3 who view Hitler as a madman and hail the peace front against him as a blessing, are nonetheless wrong in a more profound sense. If it really is true, then the world spirit has had an occupational accident, and the world of appearances has gained control over the intrinsic order – or rather disorder – of the present historical phase in a truly demonic fashion.

Nonetheless, it goes without saying that, for all our disillusionment at the saviours of democracy, who have now also been joined by the Polish pogrom instigators, destroying Hitler would spare the world the worst, leaving only the second-worst, and we hope with every bone in our bodies that he will be defeated. Why he began the war is beyond all rational explanation; after the pact with Russia, he could have had everything he wanted peacefully, and his victory is by no means out of the question, but still rather improbable – especially as America will be unable to keep out of it if it goes on for a long time, which one should absolutely reckon with. The Blitzkrieg method will not work in the West; England’s resources are inexhaustible, and England and France should be able to force at least the right of passage from the Italians, assuming they do not break through the Siegfried Line4 before then. You can see how this madness works; even partly reasonable persons such as myself are transformed by an irresistible force into alehouse politicians, simply because true thinking proves powerless in the face of the absurd senselessness of this war. One cannot imagine the suffering and horror it will cause.

Your situation, at any rate, has been transformed in the most peculiar fashion: you are now no longer the emigrants, but rather the most envied people among your whole circle in Germany. Even Annachen will have some thoughts drummed into her head, assuming she has not already died an Aryan death by then.

As I imagine that your thirst for news is as great as our own, and as I have no more faith in Cuban radio than I do in any other public institution there, I have compiled an exact list of all the American stations run by the two big broadcasting corporations that you can pick up with a decent radio in Cuba. NBC (National Broadcasting Company), whose trademark is the three consecutive notes of a second-inversion chord, is the largest, richest and most powerful of the companies, and has the quickest news service. CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) is not quite as big, and perhaps a little bit slower sometimes, but younger and less bureaucratic, with better commentators (Kaltenborn).5 But the most important thing for you will be to receive the United Press and Associated Press news, which are broadcast at regular times. They are normally broadcast by NBC, in connection with Esso petrol advertisements.

We returned one day earlier together with Max, Maidon and Fritz. We spent two whole days going on very pleasant drives, spending the night in Concord, New Hampshire. We are both fully rested, and Bar Harbor made an excellent impression on our visitors. The next few days I will be incredibly busy with the radio project, for which I have to prepare an extensive report.6 Aside from this, I have no news; but the present news is quite enough as it is.

I am very sorry about poor WK’s illness; I assume that the cause was not poisoned laurel, but rather poisoned [sic] ivy, something that is very common here, and very unpleasant, but completely harmless – and which, incidentally, depends on a particular allergic disposition. Certain individuals, e.g. Ferdi Kramer,7 are entirely immune to it. I wish you a swift recovery.

Write soon, and at length; our attitude that this war was primarily an act of revenge on your behalf would admittedly be unworthy of our theory, but after the failure of theory it can at least be excused as the most tangible idea. In any case, one cannot even seriously enjoy one’s lust for revenge. One had hoped for this war a thousand times, but, now that it has become real, all that remains is naked horror: as if a terrible black funnel had opened, and is now sucking everything in. The fact that humanity has come far enough to wage such a war, but not far enough for such a war to be unnecessary, is cause for nothing short of absolute despair.

Heartiest kisses from

your two horses

Hottilein and Rossilein

PS. We would naturally like to know if Hermann Levi8 and brother Samson9 still managed to get out in time. Franz Adorno10 and Franz Villinger11 have been conscripted, and equally Bolly, Bummel and Rüsselacko12 on the other side. A shame they cannot wage the war among themselves. Then England’s victory would at least be guaranteed – assuming one put Bummel in the right mood at the right moment. Redvers13 is in Massachusetts; he had invited us to come, but we could not delay our return any longer. I hope he cannot go back.

I will have your papers checked again; it is possible that a great deal can be earned if one reaches a quick decision. I shall wire you then, and ask that you wire back immediately.I am absolutely in favour of making the most of this opportunity, i.e. selling out at a certain point. The boom is so fantastic that it cannot last. One must not get out too late.

Original: typewritten letter with a partly handwritten postscript.

1 Allusion to Karl Kraus’s essay ‘In dieser großen Zeit’ [In These Great Times], from the issue of Die Fackel published on 5 December 1914.

2 This name originates from that of Adorno’s maternal uncle Louis Prosper Calvelli-Adorno (1866–1960), and at once refers to his uncle’s entire family; Adorno’s ‘Louis complex’, as his father once termed his stylized aversion, was well known in the Wiesengrund family. Translator’s note: Louische is a diminutive of ‘Louis’ in Frankfurt dialect.

3 A fictitious figure used as a parodistic projection by the members of the Institute of Social Research.

4 In the First World War, this was the defence system set up in February 1917, extending from Arras to La Fère (Aisne). In the Second World War, this name was also used for the West Wall, or the Siegfried line, a fortification that was the scene of important battles in 1944–5.

5 Hans von Kaltenborn (1878–1965) worked for CBS as a news commentator from 1928 onwards; his commentaries were not scripted.

6 ‘On a Social Critique of Radio Music’.

7 The Frankfurt architect Ferdinand Kramer (1898–1985), who worked with Ernst May, the town councillor and head of the planning department, designed, as director of the typography department, appropriate and reasonably priced interior furnishings, and later worked as a freelance architect; the Nazis banned him from his profession in 1937, and he emigrated to the USA in 1938 with his wife Beate. Kramer had close relations with the members of the institute. In 1952, Max Horkheimer made him director of the reconstruction of Frankfurt University; the university library in Frankfurt was also built according to his plans. In the USA, Kramer worked as an architect and industrial designer.

8 Connected to the Herzberger family by marriage.

9 Samson was the brother-in-law of Julie Rautenberg, whose will mentions two men by the names of Ernst and Ludwig Samson (probably father and son); it is unclear which of these is meant here.

10 Franz Calvelli-Adorno (1897–1984), who had studied law and was an excellent pianist and violinist, had lost his post as district court administrator in Frankfurt, which he had held since 1928, in 1933. He taught as a private music tutor in Dortmund in 1945, and played in the orchestra of the Jüdischer Kulturbund [Jewish Cultural Association] from 1934 to 1938. He was conscripted at the outbreak of war, and dismissed again in June 1940.

11 Franz Villinger (b. 1907) is the son of Jenny Villinger (1874–1963) and the doctor Arnold Villinger (1869–1962). The Villingers lived in Hamburg.

12 ‘Bummel’ was the nickname of Adorno’s English cousin Alexander Louis Wingfield (1908–69), and it may have been his brother Bernard Theodore Wingfield (1903–57) who was known as ‘Bolly’. Rüsselacko was probably a further relative of Adorno – this time on his mother’s side – namely Anton Calvelli-Adorno (1911–69), Louis Prosper Calvelli-Adorno’s son from his second marriage, i.e. Franz Calvelli-Adorno’s stepbrother. Anton Calvelli-Adorno served in the British Army.

13 Adorno had made the acquaintance of the economist Redvers Opie (1900–84) in Oxford.

14  NEW YORK, 13.9.1939

13 September 1939

My dears:

a thousand thanks for your letters and good wishes,1 and for the pictures. How charming of Estella to make those for us – please extend the warmest thanks to her from both of us. They are much better in the smaller format than they are enlarged, and we found the photograph by the car in particular delightful and lively.

We hope the Hippo Cow has meanwhile become a little calmer about the war. Even if one cannot expect the likes of ourselves to remain as cool as Daladier or Chamberlain, who still convey the impression that they are afraid of harming a hair on Herr Hitler’s head. Things have become somewhat more serious these last few days, but there is a peculiar feeling to this whole war that one cannot quite shake off. It reminds one of those sorts of dreams2 where the most terrible things occur, but without entirely becoming a reality. A dream in which the world is ending, for example, and one then strolls out of the cellar and onto the road.

I was most jealous to hear that the Hippo Cow is now thinking of Louis again. I had hoped that he would have sunk into oblivion once and for all after your emigration, to live on only in my songs; instead, I now see the shadow of his beard covering the Hippo Cow’s letter. I am the only one you should be worrying about, and in my case there is no immediate reason.

We wrote to Melly3 immediately from Bar Harbor about the 300 RM. However, I do not now under any circumstances wish to write to her about the division of the remaining sum. You probably do not know that Germany is now in a state of martial law, with every conceivable offence punishable by death, and I would find it irresponsible to put Melly at such risk. Foreign correspondence, let alone between Aryans and Jews, is probably suspect in itself, and if there is even talk of money, whatever camouflage we might use, the Gestapo will strike immediately. I have truly never been a scaremonger myself, but under no circumstances would I wish to bear the responsibility for endangering Melly’s life on account of a few hundred Marks, and would urge you also to refrain from doing so. Gretel and Max are of the same opinion.

As far as the proletarianization hinted at by WK is concerned, the current state of the stock market certainly does not give cause for any immediate fears. I have not had anything sold yet, and will certainly wait for your general opinion on the matter before I undertake anything. Everything is pointing to a war boom par excellence.

I am working strenuously on that report for the Rockefeller Foundation with a new and quite intelligent assistant.4 One of the other assistants seems, once again, to be a real mental case.

We celebrated my birthday in utter peace and quiet, only Gretel, Max and I, and thought of you. Meanwhile Rudi has re-formed the quartet, and Khuner5 is staying after all. I am dictating these lines in great haste between work. Write soon, and heartiest kisses

from the two horses

Hottilein and Rossilein

Original: typewritten letter.

1 On the occasion of Adorno’s thirty-sixth birthday on 11 September.

2 See also the aphorism ‘Eigentumsvorbehalt’ [Reservation of Proprietary Rights] from Minima Moralia.

3 This is Amalia Karplus (1878–1956), née Jacak, from Neuheusel in Czechoslovakia, the second wife of Gretel Adorno’s father, Albert Karplus (1863–1936).

4 George Simpson (1904–98), whose collaboration on the report ‘On a Social Critique of Radio Music’ Adorno explicitly mentions. This report was read to the members of the Princeton Radio Research Project on 26 October 1939.

5 The Moravian-born violinist Felix Khuner (1906–91) had been a member of the Kolisch Quartet since mid-1926. The other members of the re-formed Quartet were Jascha Vlissi and Stefan Auber.

15  NEW YORK, 1.10.1939

the most reverent congratulations1 to the venerable mother MARINUMBA VON BAUCHSCHLEIFER2 from her faithful children HIPPO KING ARCHIBALD and wife THE DEAR GIRAFFE GAZELLE WITH THE LITTLE HORNS known as GAZELLEHORNLETS

Original: telegram.

1 On the occasion of Maria Wiesengrund’s birthday, which Adorno customarily dated as 1 October, whereas the birth certificate records 30 September.

2 Translator’s note: this means ‘belly-dragger’, a reference to the hippopotamus.

16  NEW YORK, 14.10.1939

14 October 1939

My dears:

a thousand thanks for your kind letters. It is a great pity that Estella is not coming here; we were already greatly looking forward to hearing at length from her about you. We hope she is not having any more troubles with her little arm.

We had had especially good intentions with the money, as we thought that Leo, who after all sends money to Julie, would transfer the amount to you in the most convenient fashion. You are doing me a monstrous injustice by assuming ‘idleness’ on my part. I would only ask the following of you: 1) tell me in which form you would most like to have the money (after my visit to Cuba I am very much against a money order) and 2) always inform me well enough in advance to rule out any possibility whatsoever of such an exceptionally regrettable delay.

Melly: we have also heard nothing from her since August. – Leo’s last bank statement went out to you by recorded delivery. A document contained in the previous statement has meanwhile turned up. Incidentally, I agree with you that one should not sell anything at present, and I have informed Leo accordingly.

I daresay that after the preliminary vote there can no longer be any doubt about the lifting of the arms embargo. America almost certainly has much stronger ties to the Allies than you know over there. We avoid speaking German in public, and at the institute also on the telephone.

Various old friends have turned up: Redvers is business advisor for the English embassy in Washington, the only one. You can imagine what that means. I am glad he escaped the disaster. We spent a lovely day together. He told me, incidentally, that suitable positions had been found for all Oxford dons, so that hardly any of them had to go to the front, which is most reassuring. Then Paul and Gabi1 came here on a visitor’s visa. They left before the war broke out, and are now preparing for a longer stay here, though emigration is naturally unthinkable. We often see each other; they have been over here for lunch, and I took Gabi out one evening, as our old tradition has it – but to Harlem, to some of the darkest negro bars.

On 1 November I shall be speaking in front of a number of representatives of the Rockefeller Foundation about my music study in connection with the project, so keep your fingers crossed. You will receive a copy of the lecture2 as soon as I have given it. I would, incidentally, be grateful if you could return Radio Voice once you have read it; I am short on copies. But you can keep the anti-Semitism project – which is now lying dormant – and my Columbia lecture, which you should have received by now.

I am in bed with flu and am dictating. I had a fairly high fever (39), but I am feeling much better now, though I still have a slight temperature – not a cold, but rather an infection. There was a veritably infernal heat here at the start of the week. I hear that the fairest months are now beginning where you are; but if they are similar to here, then it will not be a particularly enjoyable experience.

Write soon to your poor child.

We send you all fond, warm regards, and do be good and learn your Spanish: compared to such a language as the American, where it is possible to write in an obituary: ‘he was a very swell guy’, that Romance and Catholic language must already be like a promise of happiness.

Hugs and kisses from

Hottilein and Rossilein

Teddie

Original: typewritten letter.

1 Gabrielle Oppenheim-Errera, born in Brussels, and her husband Paul Oppenheim (1885–1977), who lived in Frankfurt until 1933. Paul Oppenheim had studied chemistry in Giessen, and had a leading position in the company N. M. Oppenheimer Nachfolger in Frankfurt from 1908 to 1926 before working for I. G. Farben. From 1927 onwards he was also an outside lecturer. The Oppenheims emigrated initially to Brussels in 1933 and then to the USA in 1939.

2 A copy of the typescript of this untitled lecture, which was largely identical to the essay ‘On a Social Critique of Radio Music’, however, has survived among Adorno’s possessions; see Theodor W. Adorno Archiv, Ts 49667–49690.

17  NEW YORK, 17.10.1939

17 October, 1939

We just paid a visit to Mrs. Adorno1 and we all send you her devotest regards. Love

Teddie

Gabrielle Oppenheim Errera

Gretel      Paul Oppenheim

Original: art picture postcard: Paola Adorno. By Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641). The Frick Collection, New York; stamp: OCT 17, 1939 (see fig. 2). Manuscript. Translator’s note: the original is in English.

1 In her letter of 6 September 1948, Maria Wiesengrund writes that she had seen this painting in Genoa, in the Palazzo Adorno, and refers to the Genoese Adornos as the direct ancestors of her father.

18  NEW YORK, 6.12.1939

New York, 6 December 39

My faithful old Wondrous Hippo Cow, you are doing me a frightful injustice – you probably cannot imagine how busy I am with the radio project, and I am now recovering from a very serious bout of flu with a very high fever, which confined me to my bed for 10 days, all because I did not take the time to convalesce properly after the last one. I was out with Gabi for one single evening, and I should add that it was purely out of obligation. So do not be rough with your child, for he cannot bear it. The only way to make him write more – and I shall truly do my best to write more now – is to treat him well. Franchement: if I am silent, then it is almost always because I have been scared off by an unpleasant or unfriendly undertone. You understand me, and certainly know how to remedy the situation. For there is nothing I wish for more than to receive letters from you, and am happy to reply to them. But: when will you write me an