Adorno and Postwar German Society
From his return to Europe in 1949 to his death in 1969, Adorno was one of the most prominent public voices in West-Germany. As a professor and institute director, a frequently heard expert on radio, a prolific cultural critic, and even a sort of public counselor, he helped shape the self-image of German post-war society. The very term “post-war society” is partly an achievement: Adorno approached Germany sociologically, as a configuration of organizations and groups, as opposed to a community of blood, race, and fate, and he sought to encourage an earnest post-war and post-genocide reckoning with the crimes committed under National Socialism, against widespread tendencies of evasiveness and disavowal. More insistently and effectively than most, Adorno reminded Germans that they lived “after Auschwitz.”
