Felix Weil chose Grünberg over politically tainted communist candidates for the Frankfurt directorship.

Evidence

Grünberg had suggested to Otto Glöckel in 1919 the creation in Vienna of a study and research institute on the model of the Paris Musée Social', with Karl Kautsky to be appointed as its director. But the Austrian Social Democrats felt that their position was too weak to carry the project through. When Felix Weil offered him the post of director of the Frankfurt Institute, Grünberg saw a chance to carry out his plans after all, under his own directorship, while escaping the excessive burden of official and unofficial duties which he had in Vienna. … Weil could hardly have found anyone more suited to his purposes. Even if Korsch or Lukács had been prepared to take on the directorship of the Frankfurt Institute, they could not have been considered, since they were politically active communists and would have provoked open protests from the whole university. … Oppenheimer had originally been a medical doctor, then an economic scientist, and since 1919 he had been full Professor of Sociology and Economic Theory at Frankfurt. His was the first chair of sociology in Germany, and had been funded by the Frankfurt Consul Dr Karl Kotzenburg especially for Oppenheimer, who was a friend of his. As a universal means of liberating society from exploitation, Oppenheimer favoured the conquest of the land barrier’, i.e. the abolition of large-scale private landholdings, which he held to be the cause of the migration to the cities that produced a surplus of urban workers. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 40

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Alfred Schmidt’s institutional history of the Institute; also to the earlier chapters covering the Institute’s founding debates and Weil’s patronage role. — connects to: Felix Weil controlled the Frankfurt Institute’s ideological direction through his power over director appointments. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 72; Felix Weil financed left-wing causes without ever joining the Communist Party — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 43
• DEFINE: Oppenheimer’s ‘land barrier’ theory — abolition of large private landholdings to stop rural exodus — is a defined socio-economic concept worth keeping at reference level.

Broader Connections

• Felix Weil controlled the Frankfurt Institute’s ideological direction through his power over director appointments. #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 72
• Felix Weil financed left-wing causes without ever joining the Communist Party #qualifies (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 43