Adorno saw Hitler as executor of a pre-existing deculturing tendency

Evidence

The central thesis of Adorno’s lecture, for example, was that Hitler was only the executor of a tendency which appeared long before him, and which would certainly continue after him: the deculturing of the middle classes, the neutralization of culture in general and of the arts in particular, and their replacement by the culture industry. It is this lack of experience of the imagery of real art, partly substituted and parodied by the ready-made stereotypes of the amusement industry, which is at least one of the formative elements of that cynicism that has finally transformed the Germans, Beethoven's people, into Hitler's own people.' — <cite>Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1643</cite> (#expands`, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Adorno traced Nazism to the deculturing of the middle classes by the culture industry — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1643; Adorno viewed Hitler as a pawn of Western capitalist powers against Moscow. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 653

Broader Connections

• Adorno traced Nazism to the deculturing of the middle classes by the culture industry #expands (0.95) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1643