Readers misattributed Horkheimer and Adorno’s own essays to Benjamin at his memorial.

Evidence

The memorial volume published in the middle of 1942 ultimately included, in addition to Benjamin’s theses (parts of which had already appeared in his essay on Eduard Fuchs), an article by Adorno written in 1939-40 on George and Hofmannsthal', and two articles by Horkheimer: The Authoritarian State’ and Reason and Self-Preservation'. The two sentences signed by Horkheimer and Adorno which introduced the essays turned out to be misleading: We dedicate these articles to the memory of Walter Benjamin. The theses on the philosophy of history, which take pride of place, are Benjamin’s final work.’ Everyone to whom Horkheimer gave the volume thought that the articles on Reason and Self-Preservation' and on George and Hofmannsthal’ were the best things Benjamin had ever writtenbetter than the `Theses on the Philosophy of History’. This may be seen as an indication of the extent to which both Horkheimer and Adorno had assimilated the theological basis for the critique of progress and of conservative positions which lay behind the categories of release, uselessness and self-abandonment. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1301

Categorization

• SEED: A curious case study in misattribution: the memorial introduction was structured so ambiguously that readers credited Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s own essays to Benjamin — usable as an essay on how institutional publications shape authorial identity.
• XREF: connects to: Historians have misattributed a biographer’s insertion to Louverture himself.

Broader Connections

• Historians have misattributed a biographer’s insertion to Louverture himself. #exemplifies (0.78)