Kracauer reached Marxism only after exhausting religious commitment within socialism

Evidence

Right into the 1920s, Kracauer accused the socialist movement of not being able to add religious commitment to economic commitment. It was only in the mid-1920s that he began to see Marxist theory as the current location of truthto the extent that it stood for the conviction that making the material and the profane into what was fundamental could only be avoided if the material and profane were, to begin with, seriously taken to be fundamental. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 275

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Frankfurt School’s broader turn from messianic/religious to materialist critique, parallel to Benjamin’s theological-materialist tension discussed elsewhere in the book. — connects to: Kracauer embraced Marxism only when it took the profane seriously