The City of Frankfurt and its University 695
Against the Stream: The City of
Frankfurt and its University
As the best student of his year at the Kaiser Wilhelm Gymnasium,
Adorno skipped a year in the summer of 1920 and entered the upper
sixth form. He took the leaving examination before Easter 1921 and
was awarded the certificate with the comment ‘primus omnium’, con-
firming his fitness to begin his university studies. Decisions about his
future course of study had long since been taken. As early as 18 April,
he registered at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt
to study philosophy, psychology and sociology. In his first term that
summer, he enrolled in a four-hour-per-week seminar on epistemology,
given by Hans Cornelius. He also went to the latter’s introductory course
in philosophy and attended a lecture course in psychology given by
Adhémar Gelb. The following term, he took the opportunity of study-
ing with the young sociology lecturer Gottfried Salomon-Delatour. There
his subjects were not only the recent writings of Max Weber and Ernst
Troeltsch, but also the ideas and times of the Russian revolutionaries of
the nineteenth century and the workers’ movement in France. Over and
above that, he attended the lectures of Rudolf Kautzsch, who enjoyed
an excellent reputation as an art historian, as well as being the current
rector of the university. Kautzsch had a close working relationship with
Georg Swarzenski, the director of the Städel Gallery and the man
who had played a key role in establishing the reputation of its painting
collection. Over a number of terms, Adorno also went to lectures in the
Music Department, mainly those of Moritz Bauer, who treated such
topics as the history of Passion music, the history of the Lied, and the
aesthetics of music.
The few years in which Adorno studied in Frankfurt – seven semesters
in all – were years of major crisis for the recently founded university.
The city’s wealth had melted away with inflation, and cuts had to be
made in the funds available for the university. At the same time, dona-
tions from affluent citizens were drying up, an important factor for a
university which had been founded and developed largely through the
patronage of private benefactors.