Exiled Frankfurt School members found American social anti-Semitism worse than German

Evidence

When I mentioned Neumann’s remark to Lowenthal, he said that many of the Institut’s members thought the Germans less anti-Semitic than the Americans they had come to know after emigrating to this country. The discrimination to which they referred was social, which was practically unknown in Weimar, rather than political. All the Institut members with whom I spoke stressed how completely assimilated they had felt in Germany before being forced to leave. This attitude towards the amount of anti-Semitism in Germany was echoed in the 1939 prospectus the Institut prepared on the general problem, in the Studies. Today the following statement, which was included in the prospectus, sounds more than a bit naive: “While frank disgust for the anti-Semitism of the government is revealed among the German masses, the promises of anti-Semitism are eagerly swallowed where fascist governments have never been attempted.” — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 2152

Categorization

• XREF: This recollection of German assimilation versus American social discrimination connects to the exile experience and studies in prejudice — Resonates with the Authoritarian Personality project the Institut later ran in America. — connects to: Nearly half of Americans held low opinions of Jews in 1938 — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 272; Americans blamed Jews for their own persecution at similar rates to today’s anti-Muslim sentiment; The Holocaust made American hypocrisy on racial prejudice publicly salient — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2083 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: Worth investigating how the Institut’s view of American social anti-Semitism shaped the Authoritarian Personality research methods.

Broader Connections

• Nearly half of Americans held low opinions of Jews in 1938 #corroborates (0.82) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 272
• The Holocaust made American hypocrisy on racial prejudice publicly salient #corroborates (0.78) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2083
• Americans blamed Jews for their own persecution at similar rates to today’s anti-Muslim sentiment #corroborates (0.75)