Herbert Marcuse

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Lore & Background

Herbert Marcuse was born July 19, 1898, in Berlin, to Carl Marcuse and Gertrud Kreslawsky, a German upper-middle-class Jewish family. He studied at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin and the University of Freiburg, where he received his PhD under Martin Heidegger in 1922. Drafted into the German Army in 1916, he worked in horse stables in Berlin during World War I and later became a member of a Soldiers' Council that participated in the abortive socialist Spartacist uprising. After the war, he returned to Freiburg in 1928 to write a habilitation under Heidegger, titled *Hegel's Ontology and the Theory of Historicity* (1932). In 1933, he left Nazi Germany for Geneva, working for the University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, and emigrated to the United States in June 1934, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1940. During World War II, Marcuse worked for the U.S. Office of War Information on anti-Nazi propaganda, then transferred in 1943 to the Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services, where he became 'the leading analyst on Germany.' After the war, he taught at Brandeis University from 1954 to 1965 and at the University of California, San Diego from 1965 to 1970. His major works include *Eros and Civilization* (1955), which synthesized Marx and Freud, and *One-Dimensional Man* (1964), written during his time at Brandeis. He also wrote *Soviet Marxism: A Critical Analysis* (1958) and the essay 'Repressive Tolerance' (1965). Marcuse married three times: first to mathematician Sophie Wertheim in 1924, then to Inge Neumann, widow of his friend Franz Neumann.

Reader's Guide

Herbert Marcuse's significance lies in his role as a leading theorist of the New Left and his influence on radical intellectuals and political activists in the 1960s and 1970s. His Marxist scholarship, particularly in *Eros and Civilization* and *One-Dimensional Man*, critiqued capitalism, modern technology, and Soviet Communism as new forms of social control. Marcuse rejected the theory of class struggle and the Marxist concern with labor, claiming that 'since all questions of material existence have been solved, moral commands and prohibitions are no longer relevant,' and emphasized the realization of man's erotic nature as true liberation. His critiques resonated with the student movement in the 1960s because of his willingness to speak at student protests. He was given the title 'Philosopher of the New Left' and soon became known in the media as 'Father of the New Left,' though he brushed this aside, saying: 'It would have been better to call me not the father, but the grandfather, of the New Left.' His work strongly influenced intellectual discourse on popular culture and scholarly popular culture studies, and he understood the importance of rock and roll as a symbol for New Left activism. He had many speaking engagements in the US and Western Bloc in the late 1960s and 1970s, and became a close friend and inspirer of the French philosopher André Gorz.

Did You Know?

• Marcuse served in the German Army during World War I but only worked in horse stables in Berlin and never left Germany.
• He was assigned as an anti-sniper during the instability after WW1, searching for and shooting right-wing snipers targeting left-wing demonstrators.
• During World War II, Marcuse worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA, and became 'the leading analyst on Germany.'
• Marcuse brushed off the media label 'Father of the New Left,' saying he preferred to be called 'the grandfather of the New Left.'
• He married three times: first to mathematician Sophie Wertheim, then to Inge Neumann (widow of his friend Franz Neumann), and later a third time.