Rhein-Main Universitäten (RMU)

The Archive of the Institute for Social Research (IfS) comprises more than 100 linear meters of files documenting the Institute's research activities from its founding to the present day: comprehensive materials on research projects, correspondence files containing letters of Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895–1973), among others, documents on courses, publications, conferences, and congresses, as well as on the reestablishment of the institute after World War II in 1951. In September 2011, the IfS signed a cooperation agreement with the University Library's Archive Center. Since then, the archival holdings have been gradually cataloged in the archive database of the Hessian State Archives HADIS (“Hessisches Archiv-Dokumentations- und Informations-System”). Digital finding aids are being created, enabling users to conduct independent research via the Internet. The cataloguing is accompanied by conservation measures.

The archive center and institute archive complement each other: while the latter documents the content of the IfS's work and thus an important part of the history of science in the Federal Republic of Germany, the archive center houses the bequests and pre-death legacies of some of the most famous scholars of the institute and its milieu, including Max Horkheimer, Leo Löwenthal (1900–1993), Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979), Jürgen Habermas (*1929), and Ludwig von Friedeburg (1924–2010). The long-term goal of the cooperation is to create an archive center for critical theory.