12 Facts About Gretel Adorno

Gretel Adorno had one sister, Liselotte; they would both go on to receive doctorates.

Gretel Adorno obtained her doctoral degree in chemistry from Friedrich Wilhelm University, Berlin, which she attended between 1921 and 1925, after the successful completion of her dissertation entitled "Uber die Einwirkung von Calciumhydrid auf Ketone" on 4 August 1925, under the supervision of Professor Dr Wilhelm Schlenk, according to Stacy Lynn von Boeckmann's account of Karplus' university records.

However, Gretel Adorno's colleague, Rolf Tiedemann, wrote in her obituary that she had studied under Professor Max Born; thus Born is often cited as her doctoral adviser, accordingly.

Amidst growing student protests in Frankfurt, Gretel Adorno died of a sudden heart-attack in August 1969.

Gretel Adorno often assisted him by critiquing drafts of his work, including his large project, Passagenarbeit.

Gretel Adorno wrote personally to Benjamin in 1934 regarding her "great reservations" towards Brecht's "often palpable lack of clarity," advising Benjamin to be cautious in that intellectual friendship.

Gretel Adorno assisted her husband Adorno and his intellectual partner Max Horkheimer in developing the manuscript for Dialectic of Enlightenment.

Gretel Adorno remarkably was able to take down what Martin Jay describes as a "highly abstract conversation developing at breakneck speed".

From 1937, the year that Gretel married Adorno, she assisted on almost all initial drafts of Adorno's works, which were dictated to her and taken down in shorthand.

Gretel Adorno was involved in all of her husband's intellectual endeavours.

Whilst the couple were living in the United States during World War II, Adorno for the most part refused to write in English, which meant that Gretel was required to translate his works into English.

For much of her life, Gretel Adorno suffered from acute chronic health issues that doctors were unable to accurately diagnose; they are frequently mentioned in both her letters to Benjamin, and Adorno's letters to his parents.