Dec 22, 2025
The Frankfurt School's collaborations with erstwhile Nazi researchers were, in the words of Fabian Link, "based on shared political sentiments, such as anti-totalitarianism.'" Both parties were invested in Westbindung: the alliance with the US-led West against the communist East. Whereas leading Frankfurt scholars like Adorno and Horkheimer embraced the Western anti-totalitarian ideology that identified fascism and communism, the scholars who had pursued their careers under the Nazis "exchanged their anti-Bolshevist views for anti-totalitarian attitudes, opposing the Soviet communist state and welcoming Western democracy." There was plenty of anticommunist common ground.
Gabriel Rockhill, Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism?
