The Conspiracy
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36 Appeared in 1938; see Paul Claudel, Œuvres en prose, pp. 339–354; the passages cited by Benjamin can be found on pp. 351, 354 and 352.
37 This was a collective answer to an interview with Claudel, which appeared in Comœdia on 24 June and in which he stated that the literature of the Dadaists and Surrealists amounted to homosexuality. The flyer, printed on blood-red paper, was placed under guests’ plates at the banquet in honour of Saint-Pol Roux in the Closerie des Lilas on 2 July 1925.
38 The text is Peri lithon dynameon by Michael Psellos (c. 1018–c. 1097), which F. de Mély included in the second volume of his three-volume work Les Lapidaires grecs (Paris, 1898).
39 See Matthew, 13:31–32.
40 In his letter of 17 December, Horkheimer wrote: ‘Your assumption that I have relatives in Germany is correct. Not only am I called upon to help by countless relatives and acquaintances, but both of my parents are still alive too. My father is 80, my mother 70 years old. As I am an only child, this situation means that I have quite a lot to cope with. Up until the latest events, the old folk had kept themselves quite well and had not requested that I arrange their migration. Of course, that has now changed too.’ – Moritz Horkheimer (1858–1946) and Babette Horkheimer (1869–1946) managed to flee to Switzerland at the beginning of July 1939.
41 The photographer and traveller Germaine Krull (1897–1985) grew up in Paris and was a friend of Horkheimer from 1912. In subsequent years Benjamin stayed in close contact with her; the letters he wrote her are untraceable.
42 These remained unpublished during Benjamin’s lifetime. See Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften III, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1989, pp. 564–79.
43 In using this anagram Benjamin, who had wanted to sign as ‘Hans Fellner’, was complying with a request from Horkheimer: ‘We will accommodate your wish that the literary notice appear pseudonymously. My main reason for regretting this is that the publication of this notice in so loose a form is only really justified if its origination with a close associate of the Institute is apparent.’ (Horkheimer to Benjamin, 17 December 1938.)
44 ‘It is very kind of you to wish to assign us History of the German Book Trade. For now let me accept the gift with gratitude in the name of the Institute and I am expressly happy to agree that it retains its location with you for the time being. I hope very much that, one way or another, some day you will reside in the same city in which the Institute has its seat. Where that might be is as yet undetermined.’ (Ibid.)