Horkheimer dismissed the Nazi-versus-German distinction as a lapse into totalitarian cynicism

Evidence

Horkheimer had some months before taken the view that the distinction being drawnmainly by left-wing German émigrésbetween Nazi Germans and Germans in general was a symptom of the unrestricted transition `from the class phase to the racket phase of society’. … The meaning of this slogan is simply that the people are all nothing but herds of cattle, whose nature is to follow any leader; or, to put it in a more modern way, who can be made to do anything one wants as a result of officials’ familiarity with psychological methods … Who can hold the Germans responsible for the Nazis? We know perfectly well that they would have gone over to Stalin or General Motors with exactly the same enthusiasm! — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1630

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Horkheimer’s ‘racket phase of society’ concept: a stage where the masses are mere manipulable herds and leaders are interchangeable.
• XREF: Connects to Horkheimer and Adorno’s ‘Dialectic of Enlightenment’ mass-manipulation thesis and to their critique of the culture industry elsewhere in this work. — connects to: Horkheimer rejected non-class-based accounts of ideas as perpetuating suppression — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 220

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer rejected non-class-based accounts of ideas as perpetuating suppression #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 220