Erich Fromm und das Institut für Sozialforschung

Die folgenden Ausführungen haben ihren Ausgangspunkt in der Frage, wie und warum Fromm aus dem Institut für Sozialforschung (IfS) ausgeschieden ist. Vorweg lässt sich sagen, dass es sich um inhaltliche und persönliche Differenzen handelte, die sein Ausscheiden bedingt haben. Hatte zunächst Horkheimer in Fromm einen kompetenten Gesprächspartner in Fragen der Gesellschaftstheorie gefunden und dessen Ansatz einer sozialcharakterologisch begründeten "Analytischen Sozialpsychologie" unterstützt, so kehrte sich Horkheimer später von Fromms psychoanalytischem Ansatz ab. In diesem bei Horkheimer eingetretenen Wandlungsprozess spielte wohl Adorno eine maßgebliche Rolle. Fromm selbst schreibt: "I remember that Horkheimer was also on very friendly terms with Horney in the first years of his stay in New York, and did not then defend orthodox Freudianism. It was only later that he made this change and it is too personal a problem to speculate why he did so. I assume partly this had to do with the influence of Adorno, whom from the very beginning of his appearance in New York I criticized very sharply" (E. Fromm, 1971, S. 9). Fromm, der mit Horney wissenschaftlich und freundschaftlich verbunden war, konnte sich offenbar nicht länger der Zustimmung Horkheimers zu seiner Freud-Revision gewiss sein. Herbert Marcuse merkte zum Ausscheiden Fromms in einem Gespräch mit Jürgen Habermas an: "Der wirkliche Grund für Fromms Entfernung vom Institut war seine Entmannung der Freudschen Theorie, besonders die Revision des Freudschen Begriffs der Triebstruktur. Ob persönliche Dinge mitgespielt haben, darüber kann ich nur Vermutungen anstellen, ich weiß es nicht" (H. Marcuse, J. Habermas u. a., 1978, S. 13).In this contribution we are offered an analysis of Erich Fromm´s relation to the Institut für Sozialforschung. In his capacity as director of the Department of Social Psychology, Fromm played a leading role in the empirical investigatory work carried out at the Institute, apart from being Horkheimer´s principal interlocutor in questions connected with the psychoanalytic extension of Historical Materialism. Working within the framework of Horkheimer´s envisaged goal of an historicalphilosophical theory of the development of the contemporary era that was to draw on the various disciplines, Fromm made his own specific contribution that came to be known by the name of analytic social psychology. Fromm´s departure from the Institute marked the terminal point of a whole developmental pathway, and was prompted by differences on substantial points as well as by personal differences. In particular, it was Fromm´s revision of psychoanalysis that aroused Horkheimer and Adorno´s critical ire. To the extent that Adorno´s influence grew within the Institute, Fromm´s own suffered as a result. After Adorno´s appointment to full membership of the Institute in 1938, Fromm found himself increasingly reduced to a marginal position; and after a short while he accepted the consequences and left. Fromm´s departure from the Institute led to a lifelong rift between him and the other members of the Institute, the consequence being that Fromm´s contribution to the early versions of the Critical Theory - which he had made as head of the Department of Social Psychology and as director of research - was later deliberately passé sous silence