Horkheimer governed the Institute by giving each staff member contradictory private information

Evidence

Together with the fixation which the individual members of staff had on Horkheimer, who encouraged these fixations by giving each of them individually the impression that he had a special relationship with him, and by giving inconsistent and sometimes even intentionally contradictory information to each of them, this was a classic example of the maxim `divide and rule’ being applied. Under conditions such as these, there was no way for a crisis to be resolved rationally on a common basis. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1090