Professing Marxism in Weimar academia publicly meant professing Social Democracy

Evidence

A leading article under the headline Against Class Struggle' appeared in 1934 in the right-wing liberal newspaper Frankfurter Nachrichten, stating: We can confidently leave Marxism, as a theory, to decay naturallyafter all, we don’t fight against Thomism either.’ Only the actual practice of class struggle, it held, was to be condemned. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 124 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

At the end of the 1920s, Marxism and communism were no less respectable in Frankfurt than they had been in the years immediately after the November Revolution. They were particularly important to young people from the better-off sections of the population. Leading associates of the newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung still ranged from left-wing liberals to socialists, and well-known city figures such as Richard Merton were complaining about foreign infiltration' by socialists’ and Reds'. — <cite>Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 131</cite> (#corroborates`, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Weimar-era liberal opinion tolerated Marxism as theory while condemning its practice — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 124; Interwar German authorities tolerated Marxist scholarship when presented as academic theory; Marxism and communism retained respectability among the affluent young in late-1920s Frankfurt — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 131 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Weimar-era liberal opinion tolerated Marxism as theory while condemning its practice #qualifies (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 124
• Interwar German authorities tolerated Marxist scholarship when presented as academic theory #corroborates (0.80)
• Marxism and communism retained respectability among the affluent young in late-1920s Frankfurt #corroborates (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 131
• Academic translation of Marxism blunts its revolutionary force into generalized abstraction #complicates (0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 198