Adorno and Marcuse broke partly over secondhand misreadings of Marcuse’s positions

Evidence

Was it surprising that Adorno, who had not read `Repressive Tolerance’ but had heard at third or fourth hand of statements made by Marcuse in confidence, should tell Horkheimer that they must take the earliest opportunity to have a serious word with Marcuse? Marcuse, Adorno wrote, seemed to be taking up a quite ruthless position, not even shrinking from the idea that all dissent should be banned, and thus saying things that were horrifying to Horkheimer and himself. Was Horkheimer not bound to feel that his policy of stalling Marcuse had been justified? Marcuse had repeatedly expressed a desire to teach in Frankfurt, and as late as 1965 had taken the opportunity provided by an offer from the Philosophy Faculty at the Free University of Berlin to tell Horkheimer it would be absurd for him to return to Germany and not come to Frankfurt. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2596

Categorization

• QUESTION: The Adorno-Marcuse break hinged on hearsay rather than direct reading of Repressive Tolerance; worth verifying against letters.
• XREF: connects to: By 1947 Marcuse and the Fragments authors no longer shared one Critical Theory concept — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1678; Adorno rejected Marcuse’s guarantee of positive essence beneath negativity. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2153; Marcuse’s violent-sounding language needlessly misrepresented nonviolent civil disobedience — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2596 (+2 more)