Frankfurt School, group of researchers associated with theInstitute for Social Research inFrankfurt am Main,Germany, who applied Marxism to a radical interdisciplinary social theory. The Institute for Social Research (Institut für Sozialforschung) was founded by Carl Grünberg in 1923 as an adjunct of the University of Frankfurt; it was the first Marxist-oriented research centreaffiliated with a major German university.Max Horkheimer took over as director in 1930 and recruited many talented theorists, includingT.W. Adorno,Erich Fromm,Herbert Marcuse, andWalter Benjamin.

The members of the Frankfurt School tried to develop a theory of society that was based onMarxism and Hegelian philosophy but which also utilized the insights ofpsychoanalysis, sociology,existential philosophy, and otherdisciplines. They used basic Marxist concepts to analyze the social relations within capitalist economic systems. This approach, which became known as “critical theory,” yielded influentialcritiques of large corporations and monopolies, the role of technology, the industrialization ofculture, and the decline of the individual within capitalist society. Fascism andauthoritarianism were also prominent subjects of study. Much of this research was published in the institute’s journal,Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (1932–41; “Journal for Social Research”).

Most of the institute’s scholars were forced to leave Germany afterAdolf Hitler’s accession to power (1933), and many found refuge in theUnited States. The Institute for Social Research thus became affiliated withColumbia University until 1949, when it returned to Frankfurt. In the 1950s the critical theorists of the Frankfurt School diverged in severalintellectual directions. Most of them disavowed orthodox Marxism, though they remained deeply critical ofcapitalism. Marcuse’scritique of what he perceived as capitalism’s increasing control of all aspects of social life enjoyed unexpected influence in the 1960s among the younger generation.Jürgen Habermas emerged as the most prominent member of the Frankfurt School in the postwar decades, however. He tried to open critical theory to developments inanalytic philosophy and linguistic analysis, structuralism, andhermeneutics.