Letters to his Parents (PDF)

'My dears: this is but a brief note to welcome you to the new
world, where you are now no longer all too far away from us.
' So begins Adorno's letter to his parents in May 1939,
welcoming them to Cuba where they had just arrived after fleeing
from Nazi Germany at the last minute. At the end of 1939 his
parents moved again to Florida and then to New York, where they
lived from August 1940 until the end of their lives. It is only
with Adorno's move to California at the end of 1941 that his
letters to his parents start arriving once more, reporting on work
and living conditions as well as on friends, acquaintances and the
Hollywood stars of his time. One finds reports of his
collaborations with Max Horkheimer, Thomas Mann and Hanns Eisler
alongside accounts of parties, clowning around with Charlie
Chaplin, and ill-fated love affairs. But the letters also show his
constant longing for Europe: Adorno already began to think about
his return as soon as the USA entered the war.

Adorno's letters to his parents - surely the most
open and direct letters he ever wrote - not only afford the
reader a glimpse of the experiences that gave rise to the famous
Minima Moralia, but also show Adorno from a previously unknown,
very personal side. They end with the first reports from the
ravaged Frankfurt to his mother - who remained in New York
- and from Amorbach, Adorno's childhood paradise