Adorno distanced himself from Eisler to avoid persecution

Evidence

Adorno, by contrast, resigned from his co-authorship of Composing for the Films, which was first published in the United States in 1947, on the grounds that he had no reason to become a martyr for a cause which was not his ownas he stated in 1969 in the afterword to his own German edition of the bookand because he and Eisler had been friends only as musicians and had avoided discussing politics. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1671

Categorization

  • XREF: Connects to the wider literature on Ă©migrĂ© intellectual self-preservation during McCarthyism, and to Adorno’s later positions on political engagement versus theory. — connects to: Adorno resigned film-book co-authorship to avoid martyrdom for Eisler’s cause — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1671; Adorno distanced himself from Eisler over his brother’s Communist ties — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 1445

Broader Connections