Fascism’s historical power survived defeat by transferring to the victors’ order.

Evidence

By corollary, however, your thesis on the historical power of fascism is also true, except that this power has changed places, just as Europe became bourgeois after the fall of Napoleon … the young, enterprising bankrupt has sold his business to a stronger company. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 408

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Adorno’s image of fascism selling its business to a stronger company — the thesis that fascism loses the war and wins the peace is dense enough to structure the whole postwar arc of the book.
• APHORISMS: A compact piece of political wisdom: total defeat can preserve an ideology by relocating it into the victor’s institutions.