The following reconstruction of the history of this chair follows the criteria set out and explained by Bertram Schefold in the appendix to his collection of documents on the history of the Frankfurt Faculty of Economics and Social Science (see Bertram Schefold, Wirtschafts-  und Sozialwissenschaftler in Frankfurt am Main, 2nd edition, Marburg: Metropolis-Verlag, 2004, p. 649ff.): 

  1. In 1953 Theodor W. Adorno, who benefited greatly from Max Horkheimer’s patronage, was appointed to an Extraordinary Chair in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. This post was later turned into an ordinary professorship. Like Horkheimer’s own chair, it covered the fields of both philosophy and sociology, and within the Faculty of Philosophy it was attached to the Institute for Social Research. Adorno held this chair until his death in 1969.

  2. Horst Baier held this chair as Temporary Professor from the winter semester of 1969-70 until the summer semester of 1971; during this period the chair was still attached to the Faculty of Philosophy. After the reorganisation of the university’s faculties (what had previously been known as faculties were reorganised and given the title of departments), the old Adorno chair became part of the newly established Department of Social Sciences in 1971. Baier held this chair, as a full Professor of Philosophy and Sociology, from the winter semester of 1971/72 until the winter semester of 1975-76.

  3. After 1976, when Baier took up the post of Professor of Sociology at the newly founded University of Konstanz, no successor was appointed to the old Adorno chair for a number of years. On 7 May 1982 Hansfried Kellner was appointed to this chair, which from the time of Kellner’s appointment until his retirement on 30 September 1999 was renamed Chair in Sociology with Focus on Theoretical Sociology.

  4. After Kellner’s retirement the old Adorno chair was held by temporary professors for a number of years, and was then readvertised with a new specification of its subject-matter: Chair in Sociology or Political Science, with Focus on the History and Systematics of the Formation of Social-Scientific Theories. On 16 December 2004, Klaus Lichtblau was appointed to this chair. In 2005, in the framework of the agreement drawn up between the President of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University and the Faculty of Social Sciences, this chair was renamed (by consensus) Chair in Sociology with Focus on the History and Systematology of the Formation of Social-Scientific Theories.

  5. Horkheimer’s dual chair in philosophy and sociology, which Jürgen Habermas had held as Horkheimer’s successor from 1964 to 1971, was, in contrast to the Adorno chair, assigned in 1971 to the newly established Faculty of Philosophy. After Habermas left to take up the post of Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study into the Living Conditions of the Scientific-Technical World, this chair was held between 1972 and 2001 by Adorno’s former student and colleague Alfred Schmidt. This chair was designated as a chair in philosophy and sociology, but after Schmidt’s retirement in 2001 no successor was appointed. Like Baier, Schmidt taught initially both in the Faculty of Philosophy and in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Later on, Schmidt concentrated on teaching in the Faculty of Philosophy and subsequently in the newly founded Institute for Philosophy, whereas Baier’s successors taught exclusively in the Faculty of Social Sciences (and continue to do so today).

  6. In the winter semester of 2007-08, we conducted a number of interviews in the framework of a teaching and research project on sociology in Frankfurt, which was carried out in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Some of our intevierwees said that at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 80s, the old Adorno chair in the Faculty of Social Sciences, which at that time was unoccupied, was informally offered to Habermas – or rather, that initial approaches were made by members of the Faculty of Social Sciences and that these approaches were broken off because they encountered strong resistance within the faculty. After Habermas had resigned as Director of the Starnberg institute, he took over the Chair in Philosophy from Rüdiger Bubner in 1983. This chair had been set up in the Faculty of Philosophy in 1971 as compensation for the “lost” Adorno chair, and had been held by Bubner from 1974 onwards. Habermas held this chair, which was redesignated as Chair in Philosophy with Focus on Social Philosophy at the time he took it over, from 1983 until 1994. After Habermas’ retirement, his former colleague Axel Honneth took over this chair in 1995. The chair was redesignated as Chair in Social Philosophy at that time, and Honneth continues to hold it.

The present holder of the “lost” Adorno chair is very grateful to Jürgen Habermas, Felicia Herrschaft, Jens Koolway, Bertram Schefold, and the Frankfurt University Archive for their assistance in clarifying the – at first glance very confusing, but closely intertwined – history of Horkheimer and Adorno’s dual chairs.