The Nazi era and Cold War severed younger Germans from utopian social criticism.

Evidence

There could be no clearer evidence than this statement, not only of how alien the tradition of utopianism and social criticism in German thought had become as a result of the Nazi regime, but also of how alien it had remained during the restoration and cold war period to those who had grown up after 1933. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2322

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the broader Habermas/Benhabib theme of tradition discontinuity and the Frankfurt School’s self-understanding as carrying a broken tradition forward. — connects to: Nazi rule and restoration alienated postwar Germans from utopian-social criticism; Work-immanent criticism served as political retreat under Nazism and after 1945 — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2224; Weimar-era normative upheaval stripped Germans of cultural buffers against existential terror. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 512 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Nazi rule and restoration alienated postwar Germans from utopian-social criticism #corroborates (0.95)
• Work-immanent criticism served as political retreat under Nazism and after 1945 #corroborates (0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2224