Frankfurt’s intellectual left of the early 1930s formed a substantial, cooperating bloc

Evidence

The intellectual left consisted of the Sociology Department, headed by Karl Mannheim, the Institute of Social Research, headed by Horkheimer, and the group around Paul Tillich. In a speech of acceptance of the City of Frankfurt’s Adorno Prize years later, Norbert Elias, who in his time had come to Frankfurt as Mannheim’s assistant, emphasized that there was virtually no contact between the Institute of Social Research and the Sociology Department, although the sociologists were housed in the ground floor of the same building as the Institute. But Mannheim, Horkheimer and Adorno all belonged to the `circle’ and were always ready to co-operate with the group around Tillich. A glance at the lecture timetables of the period gives the impression that the intellectual left then formed a weighty and relatively solid contingent, and that Horkheimer did not stand alone with his programme for interdisciplinary social theory. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 458

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the wider history of German interwar sociology and the theory-practice debates around Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge; useful as institutional context for the Frankfurt School’s interdisciplinary ambitions. — connects to: Frankfurt University was a uniquely rich intellectual crossroads at its peak — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 453; The Frankfurt philosophy faculty pioneered systematic ideology critique around 1930. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 457; Frankfurt University in 1928-32 was uniquely modern, liberal, and well-equipped. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 129 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Frankfurt University in 1928-32 was uniquely modern, liberal, and well-equipped. #corroborates (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 129
• The Frankfurt School viewed anti-Semitism as a tool sustaining flawed democratic capitalism #expands (0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1789