Open anti-Semitic remarks persisted among Frankfurt faculty in the 1950s

Evidence

At a commission meeting in May 1956 at which the `restitution case’ of Adorno was discussed, along with his claim to a full professorship on the basis of the Third Amendment of the Law on Compensation for National Socialist Injustice, some of those taking part expressed reservations. Hellmut Ritter, Professor of Oriental Studies, mentioned rigging. All anyone needed to make a career in Frankfurt, he said, was to have Mr Horkheimer’s protection and to be a Jew. Ritter later apologized to Horkheimer in writing, and to Adorno as well at the insistence of the dean, who was outraged. But these were neither the first nor the last remarks of this sort that Ritter made, nor was he the only member of staff at the university to make such remarks. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1999

Categorization

• XREF: Confirms ch59’s claim about postwar conditions teaching middle-level Nazi sympathizing as the safest position — senior faculty anti-Semitism persisted openly. — connects to: Postwar Frankfurt University saw hostile encounters between returnees and émigrés — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1744; Postwar German universities retained formal, anti-democratic ceremonial customs — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1908; Early 1950s German public ranked Jewish claims to aid last among suffering groups — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1905 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Postwar Frankfurt University saw hostile encounters between returnees and émigrés #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1744
• Postwar German universities retained formal, anti-democratic ceremonial customs #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1908