US naturalization forced Adorno to leave Germany or forfeit his citizenship

Evidence

Adorno, who himself was under an additional workload as a result of his collaboration on the Darmstadt community studies, although he had a lower teaching load than Horkheimer, took over much of Horkheimer’s work and devoted himself to the Institute intensively. But in 1952 the three years he was allowed, as a naturalized American citizen, to spend continuously in his country of birth ran out. If he did not either travel to a third country or return to live in the United States for a time, he would lose his United States citizenship. Horkheimer, as rector of Frankfurt University, had managed to have an `individual law’ passed allowing him to remain in his country of birth continuously for five years. For Adorno, as an ordinary citizen, no such exception was made. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1946

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the legal-constraint-resource theme of Milgrom’s law-merchant work and the diamond bourse: institutions and legal rules shape who can operate where.